May 31st 2014

 

A trip to the Mayfly pub on the River Test was on the cards today. In the midst of the packing and discussions for moving home there has to be moments of calm and serenity. This Hampshire hostelry does calm and serene with abandon. Not only does it provide wonderful food one can sit adjacent to one of the best chalk streams in Britain, watch the wildlife and let our cares and worries flow away with the river. Given that when Julie moves we'll be about two hours from this pub today may be our last visit here for a long time. But 2 hours is nothing for me to visit somewhere lovely and that is exactly what life is about; not staying at home staring at four walls. 

 

Do I look relaxed?

May 30th 2014

 

Meet Jim Farthing. Say goodbye to Jim Farthing. This is Jim this lunchtime in the Highbury Vaults in Bristol being sent on his merry way to London. Jim started his career in NHU Radio in November 2012 when on his first day he joined us saying goodbye to Richard French his predecessor over a Highbury Vaults legendary chille con carne. The bar here is astonishing as it is crammed with stuff, mementos, post cards, toys, in fact anything people bring to this student pub. It serves good beer too and in the summer is awash with revellers in its wonderful but battered back .yard-cum-garden. Jim finished with us today and as a memento of his time with us we signed a Tweet of the Day book for him. He's off to be a Production Coordinator in BBC Comedy in Grafton House in London and will be a huge miss in our team. His great can do attitude and thinking ahead way of working has got us out of some pickles I can tell you. Good luck Jim, you'll go far. Jim is the future, and I love being with young people.

 

How I got to this stage in life when I start saying things like this is anyone's guess, but there is no getting over the fact I'm middle aged now. What I don't want to do however is be middle aged in outlook; I haven't been so far in my life. But it is interesting I feel this notion of no longer being young. One can not pinpoint a single event or a day but one day about 4 or 5 years ago I looked at myself in the mirror and didn't recognise myself. I was my father. Being around young people however is very healthy, they look forward all the time and I think today's children are very accomplished. To illustrate this as I drove in today the Radio 2 500 words competition was being announced on air. Susannah Ames "All the Time in the World" won the 10-13year Gold prize. A prize well deserved as this story almost made me stop the car and think about what she'd written, in 20 minutes flat. Just brilliant and available on line here :

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/QWZ9RRXYpCFkkDjp5BkVp/all-the-time-in-the-world

 

 

May 29th 2014

 

 

Well here's a thing. As I walked out of work tonight I spied this BT van parked on double yellow lines blocking half the exit. That was bad enough but the collection of parking tickets on the dashboard was astonishing. All the more remarkable as at lunchtime I spied another BT van with a similar number of parking fines waiting to be paid on its dashboard. Now call me old fashioned but I pay a hefty amount every month to have a phone and broadband with BT, but I'm not that happy to see all of this going to pay one van load of tickets. How many more vans across the country have this many fines outstanding? It must run into thousands of pounds. There's something wrong here, methinks the driver parks where he likes and just gets the company to pay. So not only could I not see the traffic because of his parking on the corner, I'm paying his (or her) fines too. Not a good end to my day.

May 28th 2014

 

The number three is my all time lucky number, has been since childhood. And so it was this evening that as I got back into the car after a quick stop at the corner shop I spied my car registering 33,333 miles. Not bad for a car not yet 2 years old. It struck me however that I had not noticed this significant figure at the time I drove into the car park but it was the first thing I noticed as I got back in to drive off. Significant? Well maybe not, but it is always good to have modicum of mystery in ones life.

May 27th 2014

 

I love history and would give anything to be a time-traveller. At school I got into deep trouble for shouting at my year head for his inability to see why my sitting Biology, Geography and History at O level was a good thing. In my mind the three go together, in his mind History and languages worked, or Geography and History, but History and Biology (which I was top in class at) never worked, and certainly not that trio of subjects, it just wasn't allowed and I so after my row and punishment I had to drop History. It still annoys me today that that blinkered buffoon prevented me learning about history and at the age of 14 it was probably the first time I came across stereotyping of an individual by another blinkered view. I railed against it then and I still rail against our lack of understanding of the individual now. 

 

But that aside, the images here are of the first record of my parents house from the 14th March 1831. My father requested the bank send him the property deeds for the house they have lived in since 1987. It is absorbing reading back through time, who owned the house and when. Most of it we knew but for me handling this vellum document, hand written in beautiful copper plate writing gave me such a thrill. Who sat down with a solicitor in the Reign of William 4th to write this? I know who sold the land, a Farmer Cummings, I know who bought the land, a Mr Browell Esq but I don't know who wrote this document. And that's why I love history, a man (I'm assuming a man as few women were copywriters then) born lets say in 1800 wrote these legal document words by hand, words which I now read in 2014, 214 years later. A direct connection. What did he think while walking to work that March morning? Was he a family man? did he live well? 

 

We talked about something similar over the weekend as my mother's grandmother Eulalia Andersen was Norwegian and born around 1850. My mother can just remember her as she died when my mother was still a child, but she can vividly remember this lady who spoke little English sitting quietly in the house. However Eulalia's mother was born at the same time and lived in the same village, Skien in Norway, as the writer Henrik Ibsen. Did they go to school together I wonder? But what fascinates me more is that we were talking back through time, on a May day in 2014, my mother connects me with Eulalia's mother as they /we have all spoken to someone across history, my mother and I, my mother and Eulalia, and Eulalia to her mother, therefore in an indirect way I have spoken to someone who has spoken to someone who has spoken to someone in 1850 or earlier. 200 years seems a very long time but when it's thought of like this it is a very short span of time. Gives me goosebumps of excitement thinking about it and the man who wrote my parents first property deeds. I wonder if I can ever find out who he was.

May 26th 2014

 

Certain images for me convey an emotion, or an event or as with this image above just a quiet afternoon relaxing in the garden. Being the May Bank Holiday I had this Monday off and we were still in the North East. As long as I can remember my parents, if the weather is fine, have sat in the garden after lunch reading the days news. I stopped buying newspapers many years ago, but I think my parents generation particularly, being brought up during World War Two, love to read about the days events. I'm not a fan of television news which focusses on the banal or any war zone no-one has heard of, so I get my news from either the radio or the Internet these days. However my parents have no Internet in the house and I have to say their house is all the more peaceful for it as the gentle rustle of paper heralds another page turner. I have a lovely photograph taken a few years ago of my parents reading the papers in the garden, I sat where Julie is in this photograph and watched their silent contented perusal of the news for an hour. It is on my mantelpiece and I often look at it thinking I'm so glad I took that image as it brings a little bit of home down south with me.

 

As an aside, the image below was taken after I joined them in the garden. The nest box is just a few feet from where we sat and watching the busy blue tit feeding the young was almost as relaxing as watching my parents reading the paper. Half an hour later we began our journey back south finally reaching home in Somerset at 10pm. A good weekend.

May 25th 2014

As the anonymous poem ends; "But the child who is born on the Sabbath Day, is bonny and blithe and good and gay".

Well we may not have been born on the Sabbath Day but we were good and gay down the seaside this morning. Vague plans were made to venture into Northumberland this morning, plans mothballed by the announcement by my parents that they were kindly taking us for lunch in the village, the Black Horse to be exact owned and run by Zulu, earstwhile lead singer of the Toy Dolls. There is only so much one can do then before a 1pm feast awaits. Down to the beach at Roker near Sunderland we ventured for a coffee and a sit in the sun. This part of the North East coast despite being hemmed in by the rivers Tyne to the north and the Wear to the south is unspoilt and is where as a child I spent many a happy hour. It has hardly changed, except the sea is a lot cleaner now that those two mighty rivers of the Industrial Revolution are now so clean they attract salmon and otters into the city centre.  At a point called the 'Cat and Dog's steps there is a cafe, actually a storage container offering teas, coffees and bovril with a bacon sandwich thrown in. Seating is along the promenade and so as we walked there I text'd my long time friend Andrew who lives nearby who came and joined us for a sit in the sun. A very pleasant way to spend an hour before lunch, watching the North Sea tide rise and fall.  

May 24th 2014

 

After a 5.45am set off from Somerset, it only seemed right that as it was just after 10am we need to stop for a coffee on route to the North East. Everything stops for coffee in our world. Julie had been kindly given a commission to paint a pet portrait of a dog called Tess who lived in Northumberland, something I wrote about on May 16th. What we only found out this week was that Tess had recently died, so it was a memorial portrait. I digress. Making good time on the 318 mile journey I took a detour at Thirsk and headed to Julie's favourite tea rooms, at the Black Swan at Helmsley. We go to a lot of tea rooms but there is hardly a week that goes by when I'm not being asked if we can go back to Helmsley again. I love it there too, as it has managed to mix the formal with the informal well. Possibly the only tea room I've been to recently where the young man arrived with my loose leaf tea and said "this is freshly made, I recommend waiting 3 minutes for the full flavour to come out before pouring". He was right, it was a refreshing brew - their own Black Swan blend and went down a treat with my bacon roll (or bun as we Geordies calls it) eaten with a knife and fork. We like it here.

 

And the pet portrait? Delivered safely later in the afternoon to Bob from Rothbury, who absolutely loved it. Well done pet, you're a canny artist.

 

May 23rd 2014

 

 

I don't often park my car in the works car park but today as I reversed into NHU2 the cherry tree which overhangs the space flopped into my view which made me realise that as this blog is a record of a year I'd not recorded the car parking space. It is the small minutiae of life which we all forget as time moves on. One day I'll no longer be parking here or nor will this be my place of work, there shall only be the memories. But now that sometime future memory is being enhanced by a couple of photos which in the slippers and pipe days (probably next week) will remind me of driving into work in heavy rain on the day UKIP did cause the earthquake mentioned yesterday.

May 22nd 2014

 

Today is election day 2014. Voting is open for the European MEP elections and in a third of the country for local council elections. Predictions are that UKIP an embryonic party with a main agenda on leaving the European Parliament and controlling immigration are poised to make a bit of a rumpus within the political establishment or as UKIP's leader Nigel Farage said in April "We [UKIP] have got a chance, four-and-a-half weeks from now, of causing such a shock in the British political system that it will be nothing short of an earthquake. If UKIP win these elections, a referendum and an opportunity for us to get back control of our country will be one massive, massive step closer." And so we are here, four and a half weeks later, voting day and it was hard not to be thinking about this. At a café at lunchtime I picked up a magazine to read which was all about the election today and the General Election in 2015. Walking home I spied this dramatic view as a rainstorm left Bristol to be replaced by sunshine. Finally I nipped to the village pub to vote, where I was asked by a woman, in all seriousness, standing outside having a cigarette with a small child, "what's going on in there then, do I need a card or summin?". Hummmmm maybe we do need to feel the earthquake of change........

May 21st 2014

Junction 19 of the M5 is possibly not the most glamorous place for a posting about wildlife and nature but this was the view out of my window as I queued at traffic lights on the slip road. Even in the slipstream of a motoring world, nature does its darnedest to take over and recolonise. Amongst the rubbish hurled from a passing vehicle, teasel and a form of crucifer I still have not identified were glowing in the morning sunshine. Beyond a patch of nettles quietly grows alongside a viburnum which are happily utilising this untrod oasis. Thousands of people a day travel along the British motorway network yet alongside the litter, pollution and noise huge swathes of land are no-go areas for humans. This is what nature craves, an environment free of disturbance and explains why many plants and invertebrates are now prolific along our roadside verges. Unofficial motorway nature reserves are not everyone's cup of tea but we should remember nature will find a way to make a home no matter what we throw at it in our relentless pursuit of progress (if progress is the right word).

May 20th 2014

Being in tune to the unexpected allows the day to be dictated in a way I'd never imagined. Today I received some lovely images emailed from Canada via my second, maybe 3rd cousin (we're confused) Judy. We chat all the time on-line and I love receiving images of their family get-to-gethers and especially during the winter the 20 foot high snowdrifts that may prevent traffic moving (2 mm seems to bring Britain to a halt). Last weekend was a bank holiday weekend over in Canada and so the family as I should call them had been up at their lodge by the lake (hope I have that right Judy) for a bit of pre season relaxation and I guess get the place ship shape for their summer visits, which seem to involve a lot of socialising. Up at the lodge they get one of my favourite birds the blue jay, today however the Canadian wildlife of choice was a Chipmunk in an IKEA bag it seems and 2 Canada geese, flying over a lake in Canada. One thing the Internet has really revolutionised is that we may be 3000 miles apart, but being able to on-line chat regularly, we could be in the next room. And that's good, very good in my book.

May 19th 2014

 

I have to be honest here that this is a time travelling rose. The image for this was attempted tonight but it was too dark and wet to get a decent photograph after I got in from work. Therefore the image was taken on the 20th of May and I delayed the posting. Why? Well this is my little slice of Northumberland in Somerset, the Alnwick Rose. This rose was developed by David Austen roses back in the 1990's when the newly formed Alnwick Garden was being developed, a rose which was launched into the public arena in 2001 at the Chelsea Flower Show. I love this rose, the only one I have in the garden, for two reasons. Firstly it reminds me of Northumberland for obvious reasons and secondly it reminds me of childhood. In the garden of the house I grew up in there was a bourbon rose of such delicate scent it filled the garden with sweet perfume every summer. The Alnwick Rose while not quite as scented is a wonderful mix of rose perfume and raspberries. Just lovely on a summers evening after walking past and inhaling that delicate aroma.

May 18th 2014

View from the house through a crystal ball

The word Swansong is quoted often as a metaphorical phrase for a final gesture, effort, or performance given just before death or retirement.  It refers possibly to the ancient belief that swans sing a beautiful song in the moment just before death, having been generally silent during most of their lifetime. And so it felt after waking this morning that today was a swansong day for my time in Wiltshire. The sun shone and the landscape around here looked pristine. Hawthorn trees groaned under a blizzard of pure white blossom, matched by miles of white umbeliffers along the lanes, almost as if someone had taken an icing sugar duster and flown over the landscape overnight. It looked beautiful against the blue skies and green fields of this little piece of southern England. And so with a heavy heart we drove to one of our favourite coffee shops for a pick me up. Life is driven by responsibilities thrust upon us by others. We are only free of these at the point of birth and then at the time of death. In between we muddle through, the need for money driving the need for work, this brings about control from others who govern our time on earth, thus with life slipping by in ever quickening pulses until when we're too old to summon up the energy but are granted the time to do so, leisure becomes sedate as the reapers clock tickes ever louder. I worked this out in my teenage years and have avoided stress and responsibility as much as possible since then. No children, no marriage, a job that allowed me to enjoy the countryside as much as possible and as a consequence I was happy. In the last five years I changed my career and my circumstances have changed and although I love what I do my happiness levels have dropped as I scratch off the next day in a finite number of days on this Planet. Soon we will no longer live in unspoilt countryside and will be in semi rural splendour 78 miles away. The reason being my need to work, therefore need to be living close to work as I'm feeling too old now to commute long distances. If only I could embrace danger again and unshackle myself from this tyrany we call modern society, today's swansong may actually be a rebirth of the phoenix rising. My heart tells me to embrace this danger but my head is a pragmatist. Ces't la vie.  

Summer dusting in a Wiltshire landscape

Light and shadows in a Wiltshire bluebell woodland

Cycles against a gate by a quiet lane

What sunday's are for, tea, cake and reading the papers.

May 17th 2014

Outside the back door in the Wiltshire home is a small stone trough, not 12 inches square and yet for as long as can be remembered a frog happily sits in there all summer. It goes to show that even the smallest pond can encourage wildlife in. I took this photograph in the lull between social engagements. As Julie has sold her house in Wiltshire we are in this limbo land of living there but feeling it's not ours, or her's.  Potentially we'll be moving out in early June and so at the moment we're enjoying the garden which Julie has made beautiful. We'd been to luncheon with clients of Julie which lasted over three hours. These clients have become more like friends and looked after her when she was at a low ebb after her partner died. So as Julie is moving on, they wanted to take her for lunch to say thank you for the years of sterling gardening work she'd done for them. In the evening friends came for a 4 hour supper to say goodbye to the house too, as they're off to Switzerland for 3 weeks. All this mammoth socialising in not good for a chap and so I nipped out for half an hour to look at the frog. Nature brings a sense of calm normality to my life, and long may it do so.

May 16th 2014

This was a nice surprise when I got in tonight, a framed dog. Julie had a commission to draw a Heinz variety terrier called Tess. Tess lives up in Rothbury in Northumberland and through Margaret a friend of mine living up there, her neighbour asked Julie to create the little chap in pastels. Sadly the photograph Julie received was about 2 inches across and so not a lot to work with but I think he looks super. I'm not the judge though as that's his owners prerogative. But he's returned from the framers now, all wrapped up in his Clingfilm protection and next weekend we'll be off to the North East to deliver Tess back home. I hope his owner likes him, we do but letting go of a painting is almost like letting a child go on a traveling holiday, we'll sure miss him, although as  Julie is developing this side of her many talents rapidly I'm sure there'll be another dog along soon.

May 15th 2014

 

Summer has arrived at last in England at least. High pressure is taking control of weather systems and finally the endless low pressure systems rolling into the UK are being pushed back. This is a lovely time of year, that moment in May when it seems the heat is enough to not worry whether to throw open the windows and feel the summer breeze caress the inside of the house. So as the temperature hit the 22oC mark (on the car at least) upon my arrival at home tonight it felt right to unleash a bucks fizz and celebrate the summer sun. Fortunate then that in the fridge was a half bottle of prosecco and a carton of fresh orange juice. Well it would be wrong of me to deny the arrival of summer, wouldn't it?

May 14th 2014

Opportunistic photography is the name of the game, and as we all have camera's in our mobile phones, what was until relatively recently a moment of inspiration can now be preserved for ever. Can the image ever recreate the moment?  Stationary at some traffic lights in North Somerset this pick-up Land Rover pulled alongside. As I sat there the two (there may have been three) collies in the back looked out eagerly at the scene around them. Two different species, a commuting hominid and an intelligent canine, both trapped in a tin box looking at each other as the traffic built up around them. Soon the lights changed green and we were both off on our separate journeys.  However unlike this hominid who would soon swap a tin box in motion for an office with a computer, my voyeuristic collies would I expect be unleashed soon on a wary sheep or two. I know which car I'd rather be riding in on this glorious of May days as the sun shone down most pleasantly.

May 13th 2014

Taking time to look at the familiar in a different way today over the period of daylight. I woke to some stunning cloud formations out the back of the house. I get a lot of interesting clouds as the Bristol Channel is hemmed in by Exmoor to the south and the Brecon Beacons to the north and obviously to the east it hits the Somerset coast. Air from the Atlantic mixes with continental air and also strange air masses develop over the cold water.  Often clouds change shape and form in real time as with the cloud formation above which was changing while I was in preparation for the photograph. The passing grey heron helped too.

Later in the day I could see with the naked eye 'Sugarloaf' mountain just north of Abergavenny. As the crow flies this is about 40 miles so it amazed me how clear the air must be to allow me to see this so clearly, even more clearly when I took a telephoto image of the mountain. Seems almost touchable.

As the evening progressed the clouds evaporated and a stunning light developed over this part of Somerset. Modern society does not really do sitting still and watching absolutely nothing for a long period of time, but I think it's important and rechanrges the mind seeing the familiar in a less familiar way.

May 12th 2014

Dramatic images inspire me, anything with a high contrast showing a visual representation of an event. After the weekends gales this morning broke fine and sunny providing a joyous walk into work after my commute. Early May is a special time of the year and so it was as I walked into work my shadow was dramatically picked out on the floor of the stairwell, so much so that I stopped in my tracks and took a quick image. Sometimes then it is the simplest of motives that spark the imagination for the daily thought. Although still sunny if I took this image now in the late afternoon it would not be possible, tomorrow may be dull. The intensity of the light, the angle of the sun at 8am, the composition of the image and framing of the door were just perfect.  A day to shout from the rooftop how good it is to be alive.

May 11th 2014

Sunlight streaking onto an ancient fireplace at The White Hart, Littleton On Severn provides today's inspiration and thought for the blog. I'm tired today as I was woken with a start at 3am by the gales which battered the Bristol Channel over the weekend. Thinking the fence panels had come down I lept out of bed and having sourced through the darkness there was no damage looked at the trees in the garden swaying dramatically as 35mph winds, gusting 60mph, screamed in from the sea. I get a lot of wind here as the house faces fields which in a distance of around 1 mile become the sea, a sea which itself reaches its fingers into the Atlantic;  but having such force in the wind in springtime is very unusual. It really did feel like November out there at 3am. My broken sleep eventually gave way to slumber and a quiet morning before then heading off to see friends in the afternoon. On our return home in the car at 6pm we felt a little peckish. With strong winds still rocking the trees, clouds scudding briskly across the sky, interspersed with sunshine and showers, I remembered this ancient and cosy inn, The White Hart nearby. Probably 6 years since I last darkened its threshold and so it was with a joyous heart to see it had not changed and best of all open at 6.15pm on a Sunday. Marvellous. Sitting at our table hard by an inglenook fireplace all of a sudden the sun streaked in and lit the hearth. Just time for a quick photograph with my mobile and then it was gone, plunging the void back into darkness for the rest of our time there. A reminder that as with many things in life, the right place at the right time counts for a lot.

May 10th 2014

A slight feeling of Groundhog-Day today as we sped through the Somerset countryside. For the last few years many, indeed the majority of my weekends, have been spent in Wiltshire often involving spending Saturday mornings in a cafe or waiting for Julie at an equestrian centre. However this is coming to an end as Julie has sold her house and in the short term at least we'll be based in Somerset, North Somerset to be precise. And it feels good. Many a discussion lies strewn on the battlefield of decision making; could I commute the 110 miles a day to Wiltshire, could Julie move to Somerset and give up her gardening work? These endless phonecalls and chats have gone on for a long time, now though with her house (hopefully) sold the decision to come west has been made. Today then was the first weekend really that we travelled about Somerset with a renewed purpose and vigour; Julie to put down roots here for the first time and for me to re-establish my lapsed roots. These two images then typified the day, doing things we would do in Wiltshire, but now 50 miles further west - coffee in the Eco-Bites cafe as part of the Avalon Marshes Craft Centre and my sitting in a car in Burtle while Julie asked the owner of this riding establishment about lessons and what they offered. After all the lengthy discussions, it feels good to be moving forward now, a positive chapter in the footsteps of life we are both taking.



May 9th 2014

As Sherlock Holmes himself may deduce, elementary my dear Watson "this is the case of the Stentor Student II violin I believe". Indeed it is and newly arrived into my possession. Back in the midst of the last years of the old century (which I still find amazing to say - that I was born in the last century), I played the fiddle. I don't profess to any great skill in this potential instrument of audio torture, in the wrong hands, but in the right hands this small wooden varnished box can produce a melody so fine it can be as if honey is cascading over a chocolate fountain. I played for two or 3 years but as often happens a lapse of a few weeks when my teacher Gill could not run her class for personal reasons, became a few months absence, I moved house and then and before I knew it years had passed since I last rosin'd a bow. Another reason I moved away from playing was that my teacher (quite rightly) wanted her pupils to perform in front of an audience. I'm not that keen on making a spectacle of myself that way and allowed stage fright to get to the better of me. However I loved playing the fiddle, and being on Orkney in April, a land with many fine musicians, it brought it home to me all the things I have let lapse in my life as work and homeownership have gotten in the way. Which brings me right up to date and why this beauty is now resident at home waiting for me to pick up the bow once again and set too on my musical journey. And so if you are driving down the M5 this summer and see cats, dogs, mothers and children flinging themselves onto the gallows, you know I'm practising my fiddle in the garden.

May 8th 2014

At 230 days the countdown to Christmas has begun, that is what this image said to me today. I walk past this holly shrub most days on my way into and out from work. Today I noticed there are both flowers on it, as I'd expect at this time of year, but also some remnant berries (technically called drupes and confirms it is a female holly) from the annual reproduction cycle nature adheres to. Of course it seems strange to be thinking about Christmas in early May but in nature terms this is the season of bounty and reproduction and the point in the cycle when as we sit down after our holly berried post Christmas turkey to watch the Queen's speech the berries we gaze upon are being created. It follows a link to the interconnectedness of all life - we love holly with berries at Christmas but without male holly trees nearby, plus the pollinators such as bees which in May assisted in the fertilisation of these flowers, the berries would not ripen for the Festive Season. So the message is clear, if you wish to have holly berried garlands on the 25th of December, we need to think long term and make sure we have a healthy environment crammed full with pollinators who themselves will be long dead but their dormant offspring will be waiting in the wings for next spring, and so the Wheel of Life, of which we humans are part of, revolves imperceptibly.

May 7th 2014

Sometimes as I'm walking about in my aimless way something takes my attention. Tonight it was this street sign that had been subject to a bit of witty and clever graffiti. I've mentioned before I don't advocate graffiti at all, but when I stumble across it and it's clever it has a certain charm. 'Brighton Mews - But Brizzol Roars' is one such time that it is [almost] acceptable. And I wasn't alone, while taking this photo a young woman in kaleidoscope coloured dungarees stopped beside me to see what I was doing 'Ohh that's clever' she said 'not a Banksy is it?' before wandering off singing softly to herself. No it's not a Banksy, I'm sure of it, I think, but I wonder how long that will remain there in the hinterland of that most wonderful and witty celebrity graffiti artist.

May 6th 2014

 

The wanderer returns. I last entered this building on March 27th and so it was with some sense of trepidation and a slight pang of 'well my mini-career break really is over' that I walked into the building today at 7.45am. It's a strange though obvious feeling to know that while I was away everything has just carried on as before. The BBC in Bristol is celebrating 80 years on this site and 2 flags have been erected in my absence. My colleagues have kindly written that it was 17 days until I returned (what happened to days 16-0 I wonder) and the post card I sent from Orkney is pinned up on the notice board. Almost a parallel existence, I've been hither and yon yet the stuff of life which encircles me and reaches its fingers from me to wherever remains in place. That is a lesson I learnt many years ago, my life encircles me not the other way around and so when I move on, life just carries on without me. That happened visiting a house I lived in years before, everything had changed and it was no longer my house, except in my memory, and that taught me to never look back too much, keep moving forward and looking ahead as that way time slows down. The future is a long way off, the past a recent memory.

 

Seeing the postcard was an interesting moment. I remember writing this in a café in Kirkwall and posting it in Dounby where I stayed. It, like me, has travelled the 600 miles to Bristol but not in my hands so as I read it again it was like welcoming an old friend.

 

One wonderful surprise however was this book below. I spend a lot of time in tea shops and cafe's and an ex colleague of mine had left this as a Birthday present, sadly missing me by a day when she delivered it at the end of March. It was a lovely extension to my 50th Birthday to open a present 36 days later as I sat down to read through my 881 e-mails which had arrived in my absence. I may have to visit every one of the 140 tea shops in this book.  And in case you are wondering, of the 881 emails, 7 needed a reply or action, the rest? Well I've been away haven't I so the moment has passed - a salutary lesson I feel.