Friday November 30th 2018

Home for three nights. And our fourth visit over the last year to Hodson's House nestled beautifully in the Golden Valley in Herefordshire. The backstory here is in September 2018 we were booked for a well deserved break for a week. We'd booked this in February when we came for a long weekend  and paid in full, however I made a real hash of getting the right dates in the calendar.  The owner Jo contacted me on the Monday and asked 'you haven't arrived, is everything okay?" I was just fine, however I was at work and not on holiday. I'd booked my annual two weeks off on the wrong dates. We'd failed to turn up. Luckily we found a wonderful cottage for the week I had actually booked off, about 2 miles away over the hill. But Hodson's House is a real favourite of ours.

Jo the owner could have shrugged off my increasing incompetence but in a renewal of my faith in the kindness of humans she offered us a 'free' weekend in December or January as somewhat compensation. Tomorrow is the first weekend in December, and so here we are, we've actually remembered to turn up. Which is a start I suppose. The photos were taken around 4.30 half an hour after we'd arrived. Today it seems will be the best of the three days here weather wise. Making an early start the town of Hay-on-Wye provided lunch, tea, cake and scotch eggs. Time for a few snaps of the gathering gloom before night falls. Its so quiet here you can hear a pin drop.  We love it.

Thursday November 29th 2018

Brooding light, brooding trees, the symmetry of composition.  Today I visited Dyrham Park near Bath. I've known of this place for ever, yet despite driving past the entrance many times, this is the very first time I have visited. I was there for a meeting to do with the National Trust voluntary work I do. So it is fair to say I went to Dyrham Park, but didn't see much of it, other than the inside of offices in the old stable block. Luckily however I had arrived earlier than expected so in the intervening 25 minutes before Paula from Tyntesfield arrived, I had a wander. To be truthful I had a wander photographing the lines of trees emanating from the visitor reception area.

The light was a classic end of autumn light,  dull, overcast, dark, heavy cloud. As if the sun has popped its head over the horizon, thought better off it and dimmed the lights. It was quite blustery too. Yet when I arrived in the car park those bare brooding branches against a dark foaming sky really caught my attention. Dark skies, dark branches, whatever but black and white (and a few sepia) over compensated images. I did try a few colour images but they just didn't grab my attention. 

On purpose I made these darker than in reality, the image above being at f5.6 and 1/200 sec on ISO 200. I like taking images in manual mode while out and about as what enchants me is the contrasts, not the view.  That said it was an absolutely fascinating meeting which lasting nearly three hours meaning it was even darker when I got back to the car in near darkness. Good days these. 

Wednesday November 28th 2018

The end of a busy day, home at last and a boot full of recording equipment. I gave up my day job role of radio producing a couple of years ago due to a spot of ill health. Nothing serious, but I had a shock and it made me re-think what I do and for the most part, while my working life is busy, it is now office based and routine. But at the end of October, due to a transmission deadline and literally no available producers to make programmes I was asked if I'd make an Open Country for Radio 4 for delivery before Christmas. It's two and a half years since I last produced a programme on location. I said yes as the Department was desperate, but on the condition it could be local to me as I get stressed driving these days. That agreed, today arrived, the day of recording. I have to admit I'd got quite anxious in the run up to the recording. That has always been my problem, possibly due to not being a natural programme maker, having fallen into it accidentally at a later age - I was 45 when I made my first Living World (on orchards). I love sound recording, and I love being on location. But the process of getting there is for me like pushing against a closed door. I can make programmes but I'm not driven to do so. There's a huge difference there.

But that said and despite no proper sleep for three days worrying about had I got the right mix of people to interview, I felt quite alive and headed off to pick up the presenter at 08.30 am. First stop Thatchers cider in Sandford, then Winscome Millennium Green, drive over to Yatton and the Strawberry Cafe, Congresbury next for a piece on the wildlife group YACWAG and finally back to Sandford to look around the astonishing Cheddar Valley Heritage Museum. It was local, but there's a lot of driving in-between recordings. It was also a blustery day, a very blustery day and with driving rain at one point, but we, the presenter Chris Sperring and I got there at the end and I managed to get home for 5pm. Quite a short day recording wise. First thing was to check the recording has been saved and then download it to a drive. So the audio is now in two places, it's checked, time to relax.

Many has been the time I've finished recording at 4 or 5pm, said goodbye to the contributor and the presenter then I had a 3 hour drive home, having had a three hour drive there often on the same day. Media producing is a young person game, not that I don't enjoy a large part of it, but now I'm in my mid fifties, tempest fugit is no longer on my side of driving the length and breadth of the country, or having to re-juggle problems at the last minute. Coupled with the masses of planning beforehand of what and whom to record and logistic planning, all for what a producer who has recently resigned her job said to me, will be a 24 minute programme forgotten as soon as it airs. From the outside radio producing looks like a lovely easy way to make a living. It is a good, but for today's programme I have 7 days to get that 24 minutes on air, in my case those 7 days have to be squeezed around my day job I still have to keep on top of. Radio budgets are minute and so there is no time to stop and think about what we're making. Most producers now work 7 day weeks, as weekend have become thinking and script writing time. It's fast and furious. It isn't stressful in the big scheme of things, I'm not saving lives, or dealing with emergencies, but I think today confirmed this will definitely be the last programme I will produce on location. The end of an era. A decade in fact. I'll miss meeting interesting people, and having access to places not normally open to the public, but time to let the next generation have that enjoyment.

Tuesday November 27th 2018

Today has been a drawn day for me. Energy levels at their lowest. Stress levels at their highest. So it was a chance glance at the blackboard which made me remember, the shortest day, and the longest night are less than a month away. Julie did this a few weeks back and it has been on my radar for a comment. Tonight is the day. The arrival and passing of the 21st of December will seem my energy levels rise. I can't wait.

Monday November 26th 2018

The degree of separation is as small as six steps, or so it has been said. Six degrees of separation is the idea that all living things and everything else are six or fewer steps away from each other.  Tonight I was in the mood to be horizontal after dark. In the past I was often driven to just lie on the top of the bed - fully clothed before anyone asks. Sometimes I lie there just thinking, sometimes I may create shadows on the ceiling, or as tonight with an improving book to hand. (Between Stone And Sky by Whitney Brown if you wish to know). That work had been the planned subject for today. My topic of thought - a book unopened. Most reviews are of a book read. But as I write this, that book, the memoirs of an American woman who fell in love with dry-stone walling in Wales, remains unread still. And the reason is I spied from my angle of horizon a view which captivated me. Like an old master, this view of the bedside table provided a composition which had I planned it could not be so perfect.. The happen-chance collection of things, each unconnected to each other, but each connected somehow to the humble home. I loved the composition. Like an old master still life painting. It made me ponder on the image with a bear. Reminding me of casual glimpses of old masters in print I'm sure, still life with a teddy bear. I looked that up.

Ten minutes of inputting 'oil paintings and teddy bears' caused me to stumble across an artist, Sandra Busby. Until tonight the name Sandra Busby lay unrecognised in my life. I read her biography prominent on her website. And there, there was the bear. I quote. 

"Sandra’s first painting was a teddy bear still life. It was mainly about the light and the dark, and she went back every day to keep working on it. It took probably 40 hours, and was very valuable learning time. This then turned into a series of 8 bears and each one got a bit better than the last. It was lovely for Sandra to look at the improvement between the first and the last bear painting "

Deeper within the website, lies a series of podcasts. Episode 11 if you are inclined to listen recalls Sandra's progression in her 30's into a career in art, still life art, a seductive recreation of an everyday objectification in paint. Recent work has included a single whisky glass in the dark shadows of a distant light source. I was bewitched by her technique. The podcast continues with Sandra recalling how, as largely a self taught artist, she garnered inspiration for her first painting through the works of old masters, which ultimately led to her drive to paint a teddy bear in that style. Eight teddy bear paintings followed. 

I was back in my room. The degree of separation is as small as six steps so it is said. It possibly was tonight if you count my clicking through the internet. My unread book had not connected with me at all, yet, and yet that book of a woman inspired to a different direction in life, connected me to an artist I never knew. An artist who was inspired to follow a different path in life. And there I lay, separated from both in my room, yet in ten short minutes a new world opened up, which until then I'd been ignorant of. All from a single image of happenstance connection at the click of the camera shutter.

http://www.sandrabusbyart.com/

Sunday November 25th 2018

Tea. The real driving force behind the revolving of my world. The inspiration for my thoughts today is that humble brew. A simple coming together of water, freshly boiled and the blended residue of a prepared camellia leaf. Maybe a spot of milk, or lemon, and that’s about it. Yet the act of making a refreshing drink can bring to me a sense of well-being unrelated to the simple refreshment process. That thought came into my mind as I drove home from my shift at the National Trusts’ Tyntesfield estate (other National Trust properties are available). The night was gathering it’s cloak over the land, bare silhouette trees against a leaden sky, my mind drifting from the scene to the act of tea making. More accurately having tea made for me. As a journeyman volunteer I have the best of the paid employees to work alongside in the visitor welcome team. Christmas at the estate has arrived and with it the sense of goodwill to all men, women, persons. During the day as I bumbled about Anna, Bobbie and Chris made me a nice mug of tea, sometimes unasked for. A lifesaving act of kindness to my parched persona. A simple act. Thus Anna, Bobbie and Chris I salute you!

Saturday November 24th 2018

The Festive Season has arrived at Tyntesfield. Not that I planned to be here today but after a disastrous and pointless visit to ScrewFix in Clevedon, it was time for a hot chocolate, so Julie said. Its not often I visit Tyntesfield as a member of the public,  and it was nice to be just wandering around aimlessly. Partly as the grim and drizzly weather had kept the crowds away, on this the first day of 6 weeks of Christmas at Tyntesfield. Taking the opportunity of getting into the house while quiet, Julie and I were serenaded by actors singing the Twelve Days of Christmas in the hallway next to a superb decorated tree. This will be my third year volunteering over Christmas and it's such good fun. Hard work of course, but fun. Tomorrow I shall be there in my bib and tucker - can't imaging it'll be that quiet tomorrow. Nice trees though.

Friday November 23rd 2018

One of the greatest philosophical dilemmas facing the human race may have been accidentally solved by me this morning. Ever since Pliny the Elder published his opus maximus "Optimum est ad sinistram vel ius aemulantur tosti" - literally translated as - is toast best cut left or right, the great minds of our world have mused on this notion. After spending years thinking about toast, it drove Einstein in 1904 to develop the first faltering steps into his seminal Special Relativity theory in 1905  ( a theory of the structure of spacetime at the breakfast table). But Einstein's last words on his deathbed were "Ich bin toast".... his last thoughts on earth being a failure to answer Pliny's dilemma. The German polymath Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was initially a proponent of Schopenhauer (a lifetime spent on the maxim - butter or margarine with jam?) whose work into this inadvertently led to the outbreak of the Crimean War. However Nietzsche soon came to disavow Schopenhauer's pessimistic outlook on life and opted himself for Marmite with a green tea. Still the answer remained aloof to those philosophical colossus. 

Discussing this years ago with my backgammon and knitting coach Fitzrovia Clutterbuck we decided that the real question was cut with a knife or tear apart pre-mastication. We spent ours at the Penny Whistle Club in Mayfair toasting and tearing, until we were barred for a fragrant abuse of rule 42a "Members shall not leave crumbs on the whiff-whaff table". After that I lost all interest in this left and right frenzy of thought, until 6am today. Having popped out of the toaster, I accidentally cut one slice of wholemeal vertically. Of course, toast is best cut vertically and also horizontally. Pliny, Einstein, Nietzche and Clutterbuck and everyone else were all looking at this the wrong way. My Eureka moment was not whether left or right which is at stake, and therefore a dominance of dexterous hand in deed and thought, but the act of appeasement in the vertical horizontal plane thrust of a carving implement into and across a wheatgerm slice. It is so simple now I think of it. Religion has done this for years as a sign of the cross. Oh I'm so relieved. I'll sleep easy tonight in the knowledge the world is now a safer place such is the magnificence of my inspirational breakfast. Oh hang on? Butter or margarine with jam.........

Thursday November 22nd 2018

Another leaving do. This time Sarah Addezio, who from Monday will no longer be a BBC producer, but a Bristol University Communication Officer. I'll miss Sarah. To my loathing of Metropolitan life, Sarah is a Metropolitan through and through. London born and bread, we once had a most interesting discussion on how Bath, (where she now resides) feels like some provincial market town. Whereas for me Bath seems like some carbuncle on the face of the hill. An interesting example of how London, and London-Centrist dominate the media. I'd say everyone I've met over the years who began life in London, and then moved to Bristol, sees London as the centre of the world. It probably explains why the Radio 4 audience is 80% South East England and generally over 65 years of age. The rest of the country is just getting on with life. As I did with this chunk of panettone which Sarah brought in to say goodbye to the team. And a box of Ferrar Roche for me. Very nice.

Wednesday November 21st 2018

Shocking. Look at the state of this lapel microphone? It went over to Ireland in the summer to record a lady who wanted to learn to ride a bicycle. It returned looking like a bad case of spaghetti wrapped in black seaweed fighting with a gerbil. One of the many roles I have in the daily toil is looking after the recording kit.  My orderly mind quite likes having things neatly put away on shelves in boxes, properly labeled and ready for the off.  When I arrived in the department three years ago, this was one of my first jobs - for the kit cupboard looked like a nerdy teenagers bedroom who has lost the electronics plot. I'm sure for years the kit room door was just opened and whatever it in the hand of whoever, was simply hurled into the carpeted abyss. I took me three months to get to the other end of the room and it was only 10 feet long. Skip loads of obsolete electronic stuff was sent off for recycling, mini disc recorders - who used them ever? Some of it was so old it went to a London props company for set dressing period dramas. 

Today I received the above lapel mic and a box containing, and I quote - STUFF! That stuff turned out to be three Canon SLR cameras, two Canon G series compact cameras and a gimbal. Expensive stuff in my mind, but all unceremoniously hurled into a cardboard box. I spent my lunchtime regaining control of the lapel mic, gently snipping away layers of gaffa tape and cleaning the wire with a damp rag. I love doing this side of my work, sound and all that is. As I grappled with the enormity of the task, I chuckled thinking of the poor lady who while recording her faltering steps on a two wheeled cycle fell into a ditch twice. Apparently the recordings are fabulous, as she tumbled into the mire. I'll let the producer off then, for returning the kit looking like a bad case of spaghetti wrapped in black seaweed fighting with a gerbil.

Tuesday November 20th 2018

We have heating. Dancing and gnashing of teeth ensued after this discovery. Since July, the BBC's central heating system has been destined to a skip. That was fine during July and August when the days were long and the temperature benign. As the skip floweth over we rejoiced that come September the office would be toasty. Yet come October, a casual observer of Network Radio Bristol would have thought they had stumbled into a Nanook of the North convention for bewildered producers. Wrapped in swaddling layers, mufflers and finger-less gloves, we soldiered on manfully as limbs were lost to frostbite. Anyway around 11am this morning there was a gushing noise. Checking the waistband I concluded it wasn't me. Grinding followed swooshing and despite thoughts we'd entered a truly dreadful Caribbean Steel Band festival, suddenly it dawned upon us. Water was on the move. Pulsating through the Victorian pipes as if the hounds of hell were after it. I touched the fluted metal. Warm, like a new born spaniel on a winters day across an un-socked foot. I took off my hat, muffler and for the first time in 6 weeks, my coat...I could type without incumbency. Sad though that the BBC installed room heater will now be destined to no longer provide life support. Personally I liked the fact the room was cold. I liked the frostbite effect on the egg-whisking over heating fingers. But I have to say not wearing a muffler and seven layers indoors has its advantages.

Monday November 19th 2018

What an absolutely lovely day it has been today. Yet my image is one of a building. I wrote about this building on the 5th March 2014. Strictly speaking I wrote about a hole in the ground which was embryonic in it's desire for vertical dominance. Back then, the Texaco garage which was, or had stood here, been part of my life for years. Then in 2013 it was closed and demolished. Plans were a-foot. Plans came and went for flats, shops and a plethora of doomed applications. Time and again the hole was prodded by mechanical means, yet yielded no gain. The around a year back a sign went up - flats and a Marks and Spencer convenience store. Finally the phoenix rises. And I have to say now that the wrought iron balconies have been fitted this week,  it's a wonderful recreation of the Victorian terrace with a stark modernistic cube down the side. And I love it. Very clever contemporary architecture.

If you wish to read what I thought nearly five years ago, here's a link to that day in March 2014.

https://365-2-50.blogspot.com/2014/03/march-5th-2014.html

Sunday November 18th 2018

Words written, are history read. How do you take a different photograph of a group of people? Well with a camera would be an excellent starting point. However this footwear selfie narrates a story a journey, in many ways it says more than a full on face forward image would. The subject feet belong to long standing friends. Clockwise from the top, Ms Duncan, Myself, Mr Brett and finally Mr Rob. We are standing in the car park of the Nature in Art Museum, a few miles outside of Gloucester, for this was our meeting place for the day. A light luncheon has proceeded this moment, thereafter Ms Duncan had to canter off to feed her horse. So although this is an image of four people, moments later, four became three. The remaining trio headed into the fields around the Museum to observe nature. But at around 2.30 on this Sunday afternoon this moment occurred, when just four people out of the nearly 8 billion on the planet, stood together in November sunshine. 

I asked my friends to stand this way as I had in my mind the image I wished to create for the post. The briefest moment in each others lifetime, never to be repeated. A homage to a connected life connecting in a car park. Individually everything we do is known. The individual can not escape the memories of their own existence. Yet for the three other friends standing next to me, as I write this I have absolutely no idea what they are doing or where they are, or the memories they each have of childhood, life, love and so on. I know these friends well, but in reality I don't know them at all. And that's life. A physical moment transcends into a memory stored in the brain of the four of us, but each memory of how we got to this collective point will be different. 

The paradox is that even taking this image across that split second in time produces four different memories. For me it was thinking of a creative way to illustrate this record of my day which I am at present writing, a few hours later. For them? Well possibly questioning my sanity -  again! But I have no knowledge of their memory of this moment. And that is refreshing. Since their invention, photographs have provided only a split second snapshot of a coming together, not the memory in me of a day spent laughing and a later walk surrounded by hundreds of fieldfares in the weakening sun. For the casual observer in the days and years to come, it is simply an image of eight feet in a car park in sunlight taken by one of those standing there, but even that isn't known simply from the image. If I had not written this about my memory of the day, the moment and it's memory would be lost forever. Words written, are history read. Images taken are historic views.  

Saturday November 17th 2018

Today's image is of a wheelbarrow. I realise this is exciting stuff. In the world of Insta-Pintrest-Whats_Chat this sort of thing goes nuclear. Shared endlessly around the globe, and in doing so making the photographer a household name. Not entirely sure that's going to happen today. 

My morning. Monty Don has kindly recorded a couple of Tweet of the Day episodes for the Christmas season. You'll have to listen to know which birds he's chosen. I'm mixing these first thing on Monday and with Mr Don being well known in the gardening sphere, I had a notion to featurise his words by adding the sound of a) a spade digging and b) a wheelbarrow trundling along; sourced from the mighty BBC Sound Archives. I've got the barking dogs by the way for you Nigel and Nellie fans. I could hardly believe it, the only digging spade sounds like an executioner at the guillotine and there is no hint of a wheelbarrow trundling along happily anywhere. Initially I thought oh well,  it's not worth it, I'll just forget it. Then this morning after Julie had gone to a learn to knit session, I thought while it's quiet, I'll record my own wheelbarrow.  I'm a sound recordist, I have a gravel path,  I'll pop my portable recorder in a Rycote sausage and I'll be away. What could be simpler! 

I'd forgotten about the creation of human transport for one thing. The bane of every sound recordists' life in the modern world. Cars, planes, motorbikes, tractors, bicycles, pigeon shooting out the back, a DIY drill, horses, and even what sounded like an ice cream van. It's November!! The list of extraneous noise expanding by the minute. Stop and actually listen where you are right now. Everyday activity filters out anthropomorphic noise, but put on some headphones and start listening to what's going on and you soon realise acoustic noise trashes the peace of the natural environment. Anyway, after half an hour of wheeling, stopping, sitting, listening, wheeling, listening, light blasphemy, wheeling and so on, I managed to record about 4 passes with my trusty barrow. I just hope the listeners appreciate that to make a 90 second programme sound rich and wonderful, takes about 8 hours. That said, as I've been writing this while eating a meat feast pizza, best go and clean up the keyboard, kitchen and my shirt, before the knit and natter trainee returns.

Friday November 16th 2018

Screen grab off the Chris Evans Show Facebook Page

It's not often I cry, but this morning listening to the radio made me quite emotional. Since 1980, the BBC's Children in Need charity has been a fixture of a mid November Friday's. I well remember Sir Terry Wogan auctioning 'things money can't buy'. Chris Evans took over the breakfast show 12 years ago and developed the Radio 2 offering using his unique drive and contacts. I've been listening all week. The child with Chris is Max, a sufferer of brittle bones and he has just surprised Chris in the studio, as Chris thought Max was just on the phone to say hello, as he headed off to school. A heartfelt moment as Chris Evans burst into tears on air and couldn't say anything. As did I. 

There are times when the radio really does punch way above it's weight.  There was another moment driving into work when Chris narrated how Sir Tom Hunter a long time supporter to the charity had donated £1million for a pair of tickets to see Michael Buble at the Dine and Disco next year. It turns out this guaranteed £1million swung the deal and after rearranging Michael's entire year of concerts in 2019, including switching continents, it's on for the summer. 

By the end of this morning’s programme they had raised £9,232,830 for Children in Need 2018, which is expected to rise as other auction items remain open to bid for. In the 12 years Chris and his team have run the breakfast show they have raised £44 million for Children in Need. Chris is leaving the show at Christmas.  I loved Terry Wogan on the radio, but I have to say, Chris as a broadcaster is up there for me. Today was a warm start to the day, we need more upbeat in the cold cynical fragmenting world we seem to live in. I shall remember this morning, crying along with the story.

Thursday November 15th 2018

  

Harlequin Ladybirds. I was on the phone to my mother this lunchtime when I spied a plethora of Harmonia axyridis, most commonly known as the harlequin ladybird on the wall where I sat. This autumn there has been an explosion of harlequin sightings thought to be due to the hot summer we had, allowing for a 'good' breeding year. Given there are thought to be 100 different colour variations, this highly variable species first arrived in the UK in 2004, possibly blowing over from North America or deliberately introduced. It took until 2007 before I saw my first one, as it happens on the office window in the Natural History Unit. Since then there has been an explosion of what is known as the Asian ladybeetle in some parts of the world. I like the word ladybeetle. Classed as one of the more invasive species in the UK due to it's voracious appetite and rapid colonisation of England especially, harlequins are thought to be responsible for the steep decline in our native 2 spot ladybird. These images aren't great as my phone camera is not that fabulous, but I like this image of the 19 spot variety of the harlequin trying to hide behind some moss. I can see you !!

Wednesday November 14th 2018

The burning of the midnight oil tonight. Well not quite, as it was just 6.30 pm when I snapped this image as I left the building. That said I was one of the first to leave. Radio production is always hand to mouth, but we are in an exceptional busy period, so busy, there is literally no studio space left in December to mix programmes. That's three studios at full capacity for a month. It's not life and death of course, just making radio, or now endless podcasts for BBC Sounds. As a colleague said to me this week, we continuously bust a gut, no longer have weekends free to spend with our families, all to just make a radio programme that once it airs, is forgotten about. She's leaving at the end of the month to pastures new, as have a couple of other senior producers who have resigned, this year, taking with them decades of skill and experience. Sad, but they no longer relished the relentless toil. Not if that toil is instantly forgotten about. It's something I've always struggled with, what exactly is a radio programme? A TV programme for that matter, or news? Many people I contact asking for them to be recorded for a long running series on the radio, have no idea who or what I'm talking about, or what Radio 4 is. I remember ringing the press office of the Scottish Parliament when working for Farming Today. The press officer asked, "Radio 4, what's that, is it a UK service"? Says it all really. Keeps me grounded, as did the sound of redwing 'seep seeping' flying overhead as I took this image. Now that really is a lasting memory.

Tuesday November 13th 2018

Our language is disappearing. At work we are having a rationalisation of resource usage. I kid you not. Or, possibly better known, a good old clear out. For imminently many Workplace Health and Safety wraiths with drift across the threshold looking for tripping errors in the fine tuned running of the creative hub. Centre stage in this de-cluttering is seeing the removal of rakish towering books piled high in the 'Arts' office. Many come from publishers eager to promote a D list writer. Countless volumes of 'My Incredible Life Selling Saucepans in 50's Yorkshire' flop onto the virtual mat. Some however like this Collins English Dictionary are, or should I say were, a journeyman programme makers tools of reference.  

So let me ask you dear reader, when was the last time you used a dictionary? For myself, I can't remember.

I say this as caught up in the cathartic removal process, this leviathan (bought in 2003) now languishes as an underpinning to a rakish towering pile labelled 'for the charity shop'. I stared at it. A brute of a book, almost too heavy to lift, yet it's pages seem white, unsullied by workaday hands, pristine. During its 15 years residing dust thickened on a shelf, has anyone ever looked through its 1872 pages? In the dying embers of it's physical existence, I opened it randomly. As a youth I often used to do this. Taking my parents well used dictionary off the shelf, I'd casually open it, just to see what words were in there. Not to add to my learning to spell, though that might have improved things considerably in later life, but to simply look at words. Words I didn't know. Words how they looked on the page. Words how they sounded. I repeated this long forgotten joy today. Quickly opening the book, I scanned two pages pertaining to the letter M. Lost in the superlatives of the English language such as Mangle, Mangoldwurzle, and Mangetout was MANDAMOUS - a legal term, 'a superior court commanding an inferior tribunal, public official, corporation etc to carry out a public duty. It's derivation from the the latin mandare - literally to command.'

And there it was. The joy of finding a word I didn't know, MANDAMOUS... sounding like a gender unspecific parent rodent, Ma-n-Da-Mous. I shall use that in conversation soon. How much more educational than quickly going on-line to check the spelling of a word. This is why we should embrace the now dinosaur era of dictionaries. Yes they are archaic, yes you need to be able to spell the word to first find it, but as a lexicon of boundless quest into the language of words, they are in my mind....Mandala to my understanding of the World we live in... look it up, it's before your very eyes.

  

 

So let me ask you dear reader, when was the last time you used a dictionary? For myself, not 24 hours ago!

Monday November 12th 2018

There has been a lot of energy in the atmospheric weather today. Warm too, with a high of 14 degrees, which, coupled to a southerly airflow made the heat of the mid-day sun quite delicious. In between this burst of late summer, have been torrential rainstorms. Similar in venting their moisture to those thunderstorms of mid summer. Yet this is November. I'd been up since 3am and being unable to return to sleep due to worry about my now out of control workload, by mid afternoon did feel a little unwell, and couldn't concentrate. A heady mixture of spaced out consciousness and a desire to sleep and stomach cramps. Perfect. My morning had actually been very productive, recording two more Tweet of the Day episodes with Brian Briggs, former member of the band Stornoway, now a WWT Reserve Manager. But by mid afternoon, I'd ground to a halt. No point staying at work like this, best to pootle off an hour or so early and try and regain composure. Scant compensation for the many hours I work over my allotted span each week. 

It was strange driving home in daylight, and the journey was enlivened by a barrage of dramatic skies, blue skies, dark swirling skies, sunshine and sheeting rain falling from every angle. Arriving at home the maelstrom of images I'd witnessed gave rise to this posting. With the light failing, I quickly nipped into the garden, without realising my camera was on a manual setting. Snap, the above image appeared. Almost monochrome except for the solitary sodium light bravely battling the approaching night. I could have corrected all this, taken more photographs correcting the colouration above to show the blue-yellow sky and dramatic cloud structure. But do you know what? an accidental snap, illustrating something I'd not planned, just works for me today. Perfect.

Sunday November 11th 2018

I thought I knew which image I'd use today. For today is the 100th Anniversary of the First World War Armistice. Officially the war did not end, but a cease fire was put in place for the 11th hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month in Europe, which today the official time is actually 10.11 GMT. The Armistice was actually signed at 05.40 hrs on the 11th of November. The last British soldier to die was believed to be at 09.30 hrs, the last person to die from France at 10.50 hrs, and from Germany Henry Gunther died at 10.59 hrs. 60 seconds from peace and that life wiped out. Half the time it takes to sit in silence for 2 minutes today. Within the intervening 5 hours from that signing in the early hours and it's coming into into force, over 2000 soldiers on both sides died in what has been described as some of the most intense fighting of the entire conflict, as each side tried to gain the best political advantage before the 11th hour on the 11th Day. A scale of death which we can not imagine today, and 2000 + deaths which could have been avoided if the Armistice had come into force at the time of its signatory creation.

And I thought of this and more as I opened the curtains this morning and was greeted by a rainbow. I sat for a while, watching and thinking. Thinking of the mostly male soldiers (for it has emerged there were a few female soldiers in Eastern Europe especially), the many females on war service and civilians in Europe who would look up at a rainbow no more. I recorded an Armistice Tweet of the Day with Derek Niemann a few weeks ago, and he talked about the soldiers who listened to skylarks. Those who were birdwatchers simply enjoying the skylark song in that maelstrom of battle, yet for those who were not birdwatchers, they heard the bird as a symbol of death. For to hear that bright twinkling song, meant only one thing, a lull in the sheer noise of bombardment and an avian signal that the order was about to be made, to go over the top.

So I thought of the skylark song as I looked out of the window. In peacetime a joyous part of the natural world, yet 100 years ago for many in the trenches, the skylark song became a symbol of morte.  

Saturday November 10th 2018

My Saturday routine. Bacon and egg sandwich. Mug of tea. Wheeler Dealers on Quest. The current Mrs D still asleep upstairs. All is right in the Wessex Reiver's world. I can't remember when this weekly routine began,  but certainly for the last couple of years most Saturday morning's have begun this way. I do like Wheeler Dealers. I'm not mechanically minded but enjoy the spanner spinning Edd restoring old classics,  which I like. Today the star of the show is a Fiat Panda 4x4.. converted to proper off road mud plugging. Bring it on,  with a bacon and egg sandwich of course. 

Friday November 9th 2018

It's not quite Banksy. A couple of days ago I caught sight of this art installation at work. It is the only reference point I can think of for those words,  a hollow memory in the hallowed corridors. A certain charm I feel. The fire extinguisher,  a sign pertaining to honest toil. The wall,  a blank canvass. Anyway after taking that image I changed my mind and posted about something else. 

Today though, the future is bright the future is purple. So was Banksy in the building after all. 

Thursday November 7th 2018

A shadow of my former self today. No literally. Behold the silhouette of the boy Dawes against the office wall. For those of you who perchance to watch Points West on the televisual, the shadow-line herewith is as a result of the weather forecast floodlight. If you watch Fergie the weatherman beamed from the BBC into your living rooms, you will notice behind him a Victorian building. For it is this very edifice that I reside during my daily toil at the face of coal. Sharp at 6pm each evening the floodlights are switched on from the building opposite, and, if I'm still awake at my desk, bedazzle me. One day this may be the 'Second Coming' but tonight, as the silence of the light enveloped me, I decided to down tools and head forth into the rain. A flick of the light-switch as I passed the threshold revealed that darkness eluded the cell and today's thought struck me like a wet halibut around the mazzard. That's the thing writing each day, it becomes the norm and ideas gush forth like a couple of cats fighting with a jar of pickled onions. Yet even as I took this image, my view was in the past. My much learned friend Alan from school once tried to explain to me that two people standing talking are seeing and hearing each other in the past. Something to do with nano-seconds  over distance and the curvature of the time vortices. I nodded sagely, pretended to understand. But in that instant of taking this image, that conversation flicked through my mind. Like my daily blog, everything being read here, is in my past. And the future never exists. 

Wednesday November 7th 2018

We may be heading into the dark days before Christmas, but this week the autumn colours have been exceptional. Partly I feel as the dull wet weather has allowed the colours to zing in the landscape. Sunlight is wonderful for lifting the scene into a strong vibrant image, but dull and wet conditions can provide a stronger hue, that kaleidoscope of yellows, reds and oranges somewhat punching above its weight through the gloom. Sadly most of the heart enriching scenes I notice are while on the move in the car, no opportunities to take a photograph. But this afternoon, the ginko tree in the BBC carpark, lit up the scene like a November firecracker. Maybe more on this at the weekend, when I'll have time to pop out and snap the crackle in the countryside. Just hope the impending storm tomorrow doesn't dislodge all the leaves!

Tuesday November 6th 2018

Serving suggestion (to be ignored)

Well that's supper made for tomorrow. I'm no chef, but having lived on my own it was either cook or starve. Thus armed with the Sarah Brown cookbook, I set forth and taught myself. Most have been edible, some less than Michelin starred in quality.  But that said, I do like throwing myself into the kitchen and experimenting. I'm not interested in slavishly following recipes. My way of cooking is to open a bottle of beer, stare into the cupboards and then work out what to make. And so it happened tonight. Behold the now infamous Wessex Reiver burger. For those of you who want the recipe (you mad fools) here we go.

PREPARATION:

• Open bottle of Butcombe Beer. Drink. Open second bottle for cooking.
• Peer into fridge and remove onion, slightly overripe carrot, part used. And cheese
• Peer into rotunda and remove tin of chick peas, red lentils and bag of walnuts. 
• Peer info freezer and remove bag of frozen peas.
• Quantities of ingredients, sort of a handful.

MADNESS OF THE METHODOLOGY:

• Switch on food processor.
• Bung onion, carrot, walnuts, peas, chick peas and lentils into processor and pulse
• Remove all the contents and repair the food processor...repeat frequently
• Once contents is mashed, sorry, roughly chopped, lob it into a pan with some oil and cup full of beer.
• Cook in pan, turning frequently to avoid burning (I forgot to do that drinking the remaining beer while watching Fifth Gear on the TV)
• Season to taste - I used salt, black pepper and cumin. No idea how much.
• Eventually it'll sort of be cooked/gone black and then add the cheese, fine grated. Fold in the cheese into the mixture.
• Leave to cool in fridge (burger mixture, not the chef)
• Once solid and immovable (burger mixture, not the chef), place on a board and using a burger maker press out the burgers and place onto a well buttered tray (which I had to do after the burgers were in there as I forgot so a lot of fiddling happened)
• Cover with clingfilm (burgers, not the chef) and stand well back - drink more beer, and following this creative endeavour you will be too exhausted to do washing up, so leave until the morning. 

COOKING:

• Now this is where I may come unstuck. Oven, fry or grill? I have absolutely no idea, but think I'll do half an hour in a low oven, say 240oC and maybe grill to finish the cremation. Serve with a take-away.

Wish me luck, if this blog suddenly stops after this posting, you'll know why.

Monday November 5th 2018

Too much chocolate. This is what happens when you give a loved one too much chocolate. Dancing in the kitchen at 7pm on Guy Fawkes night. I had arrived home, expecting the usual loved greeting as the door is opened from me, the curtsey, and forelock tug. Supper ready and waiting for me at the table, and the lady of the house in attendance over her Lord and Master. Instead, I arrived to dancing to 70's and 80's classics streamed out of the i-pad filling the house with noise. Fergal Sharky, the Stranglers and many more boomed out of the postage stamped sized speaker on the tablet. The current Mrs D was in a whirling dervish trance of jitterbugging extreme. I was ignored. Behind you you will note an Emma Bridgewater bird mug. I even had to fill this with tea myself. Unheard of. This is to much. The fun and frolics and dancing in the evening must stop. Chocolate anyone!

Sunday November 4th 2018

It was a quiet day, it was a wet November day.  When scribing my first year long blog, volunteering at Tyntesfield wasn't even a twinkle in the minds eye. Then in November 2015, I unleashed once more the joy I have working for the Trust, and put myself forward to be a Visitor Services volunteer. Accepted, I began my now three years and counting journey, which today saw me in the atrium of that estate, somewhere I hadn't been into for ages and where it all began.This morning I was on membership duties with Amy (hiding behind the glass building a 'buy a gift of membership this Christmas' display. Amy described how we decorated the table as uncontrolled madness. Working with me Amy has not seen anything yet. But, the reason for being there to sign up members to the National Trust. We don't sell, we don't harangue, simple were there and if people wish to join up, excellent, and at £120 for a family of up to 10 children for a year, a bargain. Later I had a catch up with the Visitor Services manager Paula, as there is a rather interesting project on the horizon I'm keen to sink my teeth into, a legacy of the Visitor Services project I've been involved with for two years now. But that's for another day. Today was simply, meet and greet, keep warm and enjoying signing up my one and only new member, nice lady visiting from Honiton.

Saturday November 3rd 2018

Coffee and tip. Actually tip and hot chocolate. I love going to the tip, or as it is officially known, the centre of the universe. Long have I lobbed unwanted and broken items with reckless abandon into the assembled skips. Long have I watched the goings on of the tip attendees. Smart cars worth thousands of pounds rammed with junk, filling their interiors with detritus, smells and in the worst cases mud and muck. I love watching people pull up and open their boot, revealing that Pandora's Box like contents of the underworld. Sometimes the boot lid opens and there's a package no bigger than a cornflake package. Double wrapped in newspaper, it is ceremoniously taken to its finest resting place, carried with care be a be-gloved owner. All life is visible in the tip. Today though it was just garden waste for me, accumulated over two months as the autumn laid waste to this or that part of the summer border. 7 bags of feculent vegetation disposed of, it was a visit to Cleeve Nursery to follow. Cleeve has recently changed hands, Alan Down the doyens of the horticultural trades has retired. Changing times, but they still do a nice warming hot chocolate in the newly revamped cafe.

Friday November 2nd 2018

The welcome committee. What a rag-tag and bob-tail lot they are? That one at the back is even asleep. Julie is back today from her week long yoga and wellness course at Halsway Manor on the Quantocks in Somerset. It's the second such session she's attended this year and loves it. Basically a loosely structured walking, sitting, singing, dancing and relaxing, yoga based few days in stunning countryside. I may go next time as guests not part of the official programme are allowed, for a small fee. I am solicitous to know what goes on! So after a week of this, and a horse ride planned for Friday morning, Julie will return to the humble pile and to these rapscallions who have missed her this week. Not sure of their educational abilities however!

Thursday November 1st 2018

Final night of my week living alone again. Not really a week, more 4 nights. But its strange to be back on my own, coming into a cold dark house after work, feeding the fish, making my own supper. Watching a bit of George Gently on the TV, to practice my Geordie again. When I wrote my first year long blog, I lived on my own. As I had done so for 20 odd years. A trio of long distance relationships over that time meant I migrated hither and yon over the South West. But during the week, I was mostly alone with my thoughts. A scary prospect many would say. But now I'm used to slippers in front of the fire and a hot meal in the oven, it seems strange being in the house on my own. Not bad, not good, just odd. Not to worry, Mrs Dawes, better known as Dodge, will be returned to the folding of my besom brush and cohabiting peace will return. As long as I do the washing up and don't leave my socks in the hallway. As if?