Monday 30th September 2019

Well here it is. The final posting of this year long blog focusing on events and doings that have intrigued me during this twelvemonth. So how to end? Well I thought I'd look back to this date, the 30th of September, but on my birth year 1964. And as I work in the broadcasting industry, what was on the BBC during the 30th September 1964, to entertain the 6 month old Andrew?. Well here goes.

We begin the day with some Music and Movement in schools. I added this as I remember doing this 10 years later in my junior school

After that we can get all 60's groovy with some music for moderns on the Light Programme

And after an afternoon nap, I could brush up on my shorthand techniques before watching the news on the television - this was the golden age of broadcasters, pretty much everyone mentioned below was a household name. Kenneth Allsop was a hero of mine, much later in my life, as he lived under the shadow of Eggardon Hill in Dorset.

After I'd had my bath and been put to bed, my parents had an excellent choice of listening or viewing. On BBC 2 a programme about marriage - is it outdated? - we're still talking about how outdated marriage is 55 years later, yet, the churches are full of people being wed.

Or on the radio my parents could listen to the Third programme and an interview with the newly appointed director of the Tate Gallery, Edward Lucie-Smith. My father being an artist, this may have ticked his box of interest.

And finally, it's all too exciting, so off to bed with A Book at Bedtime which is still going strong, though this book eludes me. Apparently they were a series of books about a cat who assists the FBI in tracking down a pair of bank robbers. It was published in 1963.

So there you go - what a day I'd have had in 1964. Back in 2019, that's me done. I've enjoyed this second foray into a year long blog. Possibly not as much as in 2014 as I seem to be slowing down. Inevitable really. Will I return in 2024? I'm not sure, lets see.

The future is history for me. An odd phrase but I'm getting really excited about researching around the real person, Mariana Lawton and her lover Anne Lister, which is leading me into female landowners of the 18th and 19th Century. It's fascinating. I'll still be blogging, not here of course, but on my history blog, Mainly Woolgathering. https://mostlywoolgathering.blogspot.com/

Look forward to seeing you there maybe. Au Revoir.

Sunday 29th September 2019

I was having a quiet Sunday at home today. The forecast had been for heavy rain all day, well until 4pm. In reality it threw it down until around 9am, steadily improved so by lunchtime I ventured out in my shorts to do some gardening. The afternoon was blue skies, if a little windy. I like quiet days, they allow me to reflect. It was while reflecting I saw this image, itself a reflection of me at the penultimate posting to this blog. I'm looking older than I remember and this image is ghost like,  a passionate embrace of an image that can never be repeated in reality. Time passing as is the clock behind me, though actually it is in front of me as I look in. I'm outside. The door is closed, thus in this image a lot of what you can see is indoors, it's unclear. Quite a tricky view to gain strong clarity over, but for me at 5pm on a Sunday afternoon, it was a clear as daylight. Time to roll down the blinds on this diary-blog... one more entry, tomorrow. 

In the words of Jethro Tull,

Oh I had to leave today

Just when I thought I'd found you.

It was a new day yesterday

But it's an old day now.

Saturday 28th September 2019

After a splendid lunch at the Wagon and Horses pub, famously the template for Dicken's Pickwick Papers, we headed off into a large copse of trees. We're in Wiltshire and this is Julie's favourite stand of trees. Somewhere she's been coming to for decades. The light was a bit flat, the precursor of torrential rain forecast an hour later. It added to the depth of the image. It is quite a special place for Julie, hence the images being taken (there were many) as Julie wants to have a canvass print made of the trees. But for me her walking through the tall standards is an image to reflect on. Interestingly Julie wasn't sure what this place is called. According to the Ordnance Survey, it is called Knoll Down. Or as we know it, that clump of trees just off the A4.

Friday 27th September 2019

I've got my eye on this, but won't be able to get it home. This is the packing crate for a bit of kit that was delivered to work. It's substantial and I'd love to get it home and make use of it. More than likely it'll end up being land filled or some-such-thing. I have long been troubled with what people throw out. There's a skip at work which is full of good wood. Wood which is not important for it's current function but could be used by someone else. A colleague of mine had the same idea. We stood by the skip pulling out 10-12 foot long lengths of brand new machine finished timber. All destined for recycling. I know recycling has grown a pace in recent years but the building trade is a disgrace. 

I've mentioned in my year blog the M&S building which rose Phoenix like opposite here. When that was at full construction tilt, all manner of highly desirable things were in the skips - whole MDF sheets - 8 x 6 with one piece missing on a corner. Paving slabs, dug up and replaced but perfectly usable, sheets of metal, endless lengths of plastic piping, wheelbarrows, the list was endless. I go to recycling centres and see perfectly good wardrobes, and wooden furniture thrown into the skips.

This throw away society which many bemoan really has to end. Recycle yes, but reuse is much better for both the planet and our wallets. But, as it's cheaper to throw it away, landfill will continue to be filled with items like this huge wooden crate. No one thinks how long the trees took to grow before they were cut down, made into something else, and then discarded possibly only a few months later. What a waste!.

Thursday 26th September 2019

I had to look them up.

Who'd have thought there was so much mirth and merriment in apple varieties? I had half an hour or so to spare today so on the way home went for a brisk 30 minute walk through the Tyntesfield Orchard. This newly created heritage orchard is growing well, stuffed full of unusual apple varieties. All labelled for the casual visitor to peruse... two caught my eye as I walked about. 

Slack-ma-Girdle is apparently a late season (ready in November but will hang on the trees until January) sweet cider apple. Origin is lost in history but commonly found in old Devon, south Somerset or Dorset orchards. It has much in common with Northwood and Woodbine apples (whatever they are) but all produce a full-bodied rich cider with aroma described as woody. Yum, can't wait. But why it's name? - well allegedly Slack-ma-Girdle's unusual name is thought to reflect it effect on the digestive system when drink as a cider. Sounds most evacuant!

Sheep's nose however is much more tame a variety. It's origin is in the middle of the last century and name derived from its unusual shape – strongly ribbed with a prominent ‘crown’ like a sheep’s nose. The fruit then are large with a strong pinkish-red mottled flush and more importantly for me – good for pies because not over juicy. A boon for the winter months I'd say. A word of caution, this variety is not to be confused with the Irish heritage dual-purpose and cider variety Sheep’s Snout. Knowing which will make me sleep easy tonight.

So all in all a great half hour trekking through the new orchard, with the promise of cider and apple pies in the years to come. 

Wednesday 25th September 2019

I'm not sure whether it's the weather, it has turned very unsettled autumnal, or that I'm coming to the end of the year long slog-blog but I'm starting to struggle for both inspiration and subjects. Good job then there's less than a week to go. I'll miss the discipline of writing a little every day though. Must put some effort into quirky images before next Tuesday.

This morning I had to drop a microphone off what was 'crackling'  - I suggested it could be the cable, but the person reporting 'crackle' insisted it was the microphone. Hmmmm.  During the dead of night a surreptitious swap took place, a note was left on my desk and so off I toddled with the offending article to Paul (our sound engineer) for a bit of a fiddle. As we're having major building work done here, the route to the engineering workshop is long and complicated, mostly involving walking up and down temporary bridges. It was making me giddy. The images doesn't really show the multi-coloured plastic knobbly things, but for me, maybe due to lack of food or a bang on the head, it felt like I was walking through a bizarre art instillation, where I was part and parcel of the exhibit as I wobbled on the structure. Maybe I need help - I certainly need help for new and exciting images for this blog. 

Oh and there was nothing wrong with the microphone - it was the cable. But I knew that!

Tuesday 24th September 2019

On a whim as I walked past then retraced my steps, I had this for lunch today. I've no idea what it was, delicious though. It's basically beetroot, raspberry, chia pudding, granola and a Carmen Miranda style fruit based topping.  Preceeding this a tasty chilli bean and lentil wrap. And a glass of water. I have to admit I had very little idea what I was choosing but in subtle ways this afternoon I felt really healthy. Fanciful nonsense maybe, but everything was fresh and healthy.  I will return to Beets n Roots for my lunch, as a treat.

Monday 23rd September 2019

228 emails on my return from a week's leave. Which is actually not too bad. I have returned to more on the past. Once, over 2000. In that case I deleted them all, waited for the half dozen to get back in touch and made life easy for myself. Emails are a very useful tool, but lordy we do all use them far too much. Picking the phone up is often quicker, but leave no audit trail. And I still remember memo pads, how the world of work has changed over 25 years.

Sunday 22nd September 2019

This year long blog is simply my view of my world in a moment in my time. That time this Sunday morning is around 9.30am. It is raining hard outside after a hot sunny week. I'm relaxing on the sofa in the conservatory watching Ireland v Scotland in the rugby World Cup. It's a perfect relaxing Sunday morning. I switched my phone on and took the view above exactly as it was. Sums up this blog in many ways, slightly skewed and wonky, a sideways look at a single life within a world population close to 8 billion. It's a funny world indeed. Not least as Ireland lead Scotland 19-3 at half time.

As a postscript. This afternoon we undertook the tourist trail in Clevedon, 6 miles up the Bristol Channel.  Second hand books bought, coffee and a read in the number 5 cafe, then a walk along the pier. A grand day out.

Saturday 21st September 2019

An absolutely roasting day at Tyntesfield today. I was there for my final of 4 days on the GPS project and to be honest I was feeling tired after yesterday. The sun was up, it was very windy but that wind was hot. I spent 7 hours outside not moving too far from the spot. By mid afternoon I felt like a limp lettuce and needed a refreshing cup of tea. Relaxing on one of the picnic benches with my restorative brew this image of one of the Tramper mobility scooters caught my eye. In a moment of fanciful nonsense it reminded me of a ground beetle emerging into the sunlight. Maybe an oil beetle lumbering towards me? Not everyone will see this connection. Okay let's be honest, probably only me. It's the heat and the damn flies I feel, it still being 22 degrees at 5.30pm as the sun began to drop swiftly towards sunset. It's been a stunning week weatherwise to have booked as leave. Blue skies, and hot during the day. I've had Clio out for the week, over 300 miles in our developing classic. And so hot these firemen might be needed soon (remains from Tyntesfield's Fire and Wire project last year). A bargain at £2

Friday 20th September 2019

A day out in Dorset. Well just inside Dorset, a gnats crotchet from both Devon and Somerset. Forde Abbey to be precise. I’ve been here three times now. The first time we arrived in the middle of a huge thunderstorm and decided against going in. The second encounter we got there just before it closed for the day. Today, my footfall crossed the threshold in a purposeful way. It was worth the wait. I got soaked taking images of the fountain, on a hot day however the deluge was cooling. My main reason for visiting was the spiral garden, something I’m experimenting with at home, though my version is two circles. Fabulous place and definitely food for thought. Not least the dreadful traffic both ways. Though on the way home the accident on the A39 meant discovering a superb watering hole at Catcott. That bitter shandy never tasted so good after a hot day.

Thursday 19th September 2019

Another Tyntesfield day, and while queuing for lunch I spied this 'local to you' blackboard. It's fascinating how food and beverage has changed over the last few decades. I'm of the age where chicken in a (sometimes plastic) basket was an exotic addition to pub basics. Today it's almost impossible to find a menu which does not advertise chefs own hand spun thrice roasted sweet potato chips, or locally sourced back flipping line caught organic sea bream in a sea salt jus. That's all for the good, personally though a well cooked ham, egg and chips goes down a treat with me. As long as it's free range organic pork, and freedom eggs with locally sourced spuds.

Wednesday 18th September 2019

Be afraid, be very afraid. I was on another GPS project day at Tyntesfield. Some involved with this put the devices in a box and carry them to the start point. I however prefer to have them around my neck before I begin at least. At least I'll not become lost - hopefully. Things I do on my father's 88th Birthday.

Tuesday 17th September 2019

The tale of two lunches. I've picked a fantastic week to have as holiday (September often is). The sky is blue, not a cloud to be seen and warm but not hot. Just how I like it. I had to get a new rear tyre for Clio, so popped over to Cheddar. £55.02 paid for a new tyre (and complimentary comments on how tidy the car was especially with it's mileage), it was time for lunch. I popped to Cheddar Garden Centre for ham, egg and chips, my favourite lunch. I was order 35.  And a long chat with a chap at the next table, waiting for his wife to return from buying carp, or at least looking to buy £100 carp. For the pond, not for lunch. While he was talking about his house in Antigua and his many dices with near death, the phone rang, Julie. She was working at Stone Allerton a few miles away and suggested I popped over.  Having nothing else pressing to do, I popped over. 

I like that garden she works at and having been involved with resowing part of the lawn a year or so back, it looked wonderful. The owner said to me at the time, that he had someone patch sow a lawn at his house in Austria years before and it always looked like a patch. Never looked uniform. Well I do know about lawns, and using a hybrid mix seed I mixed myself, I have to say it's impossible to see where the old and new lawn begin or end. I'm happy. We were just about to leave when the grass cutter chap arrived, slightly perplexed to see me standing on the lawn, before he recognized Julie. So a busy gardening day, time for some lunch. Where else but Nanny Ida's in Wedmore. I had a chocolate sundae as pudding for my ham egg and chips an hour earlier. Such a lovely day sitting in a cafe garden in warm sunshine, and not being at work. I could get used to this.

Monday 16th September 2019

I'm back in Somerset and doing a week of GPS work at Tyntesfield. However on Facebook many many people had posted images of the Scarecrow Festival in East Boldon, as I wrote about on Saturday. In one image taken by Margaret Clarke, there I am standing behind mum in her wheelchair, on the left with my back to the camera. I'm often surprised how wide I am from the back. I'm not a tall person, short even compared to today's young-uns, but I am wide at the shoulder. Like a Troll someone once said. Which was nice. So there you go, proof I was in Grange Park on Saturday having driven up from Somerset. It's possibly why I felt tired today - I'd only got home at 10pm after the return journey and was at Tyntesfield by 10am. It's meant to be a holiday !

Sunday 15th September 2019

It was a chance conversation last night with my mum that prompted today's image. She said to me did I know her side of the family, family tree? Which I didn't, not completely. My fathers side is quite well known as my uncle, and latterly my fathers cousin has researched it for years. But my mums' side, which has always fascinated me is less well known. The ensuing few hours saw me trying to organise a family tree back from myself to my mothers grandfather Thomas Pollard who mum knows almost nothing about. Except he was a cooper (maker of wooden barrels) and a woodworker. Strange to think my mum knows little about someone she knew well, which is why family history is so fascinating. Gems relating to people of interest permeate through the days of history, yet some other people are absolutely forgotten about. 

I'll sort all this out soon, but the inclusion of some of dad's doodles made this task even better. I have very little of my fathers artwork, when I say very little I mean almost nothing. On the right hand side of a few notes on the family, he'd drawn a cottage and a couple of faces. I've seen these caricature faces for years, plucked from his mind, remembering people to place on paper, as a fact-fiction portrait. I've long asked dad to paint me a picture, I know it will never happen, but these doodles will do, (or is that these doodles with do-dle) for the moment.

Saturday 14th September 2019

I took these photographs about 11am today. Just over 6 hours earlier at 0445 I was just about to set off on the 313 mile journey from home in Somerset to the North East. I've long learned that leaving early on a Saturday means a good run up the motorways, so we arrived at my parents house at 9.45am. Just in time for a nice cup of tea. However it was when driving through East Boldon I remembered the 2nd East Boldon scarecrow festival was taking place. So after a quick cup of tea, Julie and I went for a walk around the village - the scarecrows were excellent. I had not seen the first festival two years ago, but looking at the images on social media, I'd say this years creations were 50% better. Especially the image below.  The image above however is of the Methodist Church which was such a large part of my younger days. I played badminton here. I helped with the Boy's Brigade (but never joined interestingly) and it's where my best friend was married. Today however it was scarecrows from the Wizard of Oz taking centre stage.

Later we all went down to Grange Park in the village to see the events taking place there. It was an excellent event, and wonderful that Julie and I could get mum and dad out there for a few hours. Though the journey in the wheelchair was entertaining, but that's for another day. Nice to be back home, even if it was only for 36 hours.

Friday 13th September 2019

A sure sign autumn is knocking on the door of summer. The emergence of the garden spider webs. Covered in dew. A wonderful way to begin the day, a little piece of  wildlife created overnight by an industrious arachnid.  Sadly it was the best part of the day. The rest of my 9 hours of paid toil became moments of stress, interspersed with panic. But at least I managed to get Clare's Copenhagen conference audio sorted. Time for my holiday to begin, listening to the Gardner's World item on the  Melplash Show in Dorset. Six first class awards for the interviewee dahlia's. I like autumn.

Thursday 12th September 2019

I've walked up and down these stairs for 26 years. They connect the various floors of the 'New Phase' building at work. I like them. I like their simplicity. I like their turn. And I like it that at the bottom I can have a brainstorm, or could start a club. One day I'll no longer walk these stairs, as Mark Jacobs will do from tonight, as it is his last day at the BBC. I had meant to go to his leaving do, but for reasons far too tedious, decided against it. The last conversation I had with Marc was at the top of these stairs just moments before the image was taken, when he asked me if I drank beer or wine, followed by a short conversation about Bristol Micro-Breweries.  I'll probably never see Marc again, a strange final conversation then after 26 years of knowing someone.

Wednesday 11th September 2019

Big excitement at work today - as a new external lift is being installed. What is less exciting is the machinery they're using seems to have constant beep beep buttons installed. All day long there is a caterwauling of beeps across the site. It's driving me and everyone else mad. They've been working on the site since June, and after a bit of a whoopsie (when the retaining wall collapsed and filled the hole with wet concrete) they're back on track. Can't wait to use the lift, as at the moment we have what seems like a 2 mile detour around the building just to get in. It's all go.

Tuesday 10th September 2019

It's quite sad when my life revolves around the cost of Treasury Tags. However M'Lud, Exhibit 1 above. 25 x Treasury Tags, from the Post Office, for 99p. I bought two packs, £1.98. This was after popping into W.H.Smiths first to find their (Exhibit 2) 20 x Treasury Tags are £2.49 for 20 or if I took their offer 2 packs for £4, a veritable bargain.  I didn't take up their offer and a walk of less than a minute found that I both saved money and had 10 additional pieces to play with. The other issue was that both came in plastic boxes but the W.H.Smith box was a heavy weight polypropylene type box way too big  - recyclable of course but really?    It made me realise why poor old W.H.Smiths is struggling as a stationers. Once the go-to stationers, especially on railway platforms, it's presence on the High Street feels jaded through endless offers and discounts. It's just too expensive in these days of on-line (and the often cheaper Post Office) - I looked on Amazon - 100 Treasury Tags, £2.24 - admittedly P&P was not included, but buy £20 worth of goods, free postage. It's one of the reasons why the High Street is suffering, that and do we have time to keep shopping around. Luckily I did today.

Monday 9th September 2019

I spend a lot of my days looking at this sort of this. The studio's booking system, more specifically, for today. Another one of these moments that can easily pass by and one day I'll no longer have access to this system and this will be a distant memory. We have three studios, Cub1A, Cub1B and Cub2. Cub 2 has a full sized mixing desk it's own large recording studio able to record dramas. Cub1A and Cub1B share a smaller recording studio used for voice overs or narration. We also have a self operating producer workshop where we can record and edit, and a number of rooms used as audio editing facilities for producers before going into the studio proper. So today we mixed Ramblings, Bog Child, a drama and Farming today, which goes out every weekday. Quite a quiet day, but that's the name of the game.

Sunday 8th September 2019

After a busy day at Tyntesfield, which included a medical emergency too (we get quite a few of those) it was nice to come home and loaf about on the sofa in the conservatory, looking at my clock. My clock, the vase of barley from Wiltshire picked a few years ago now, plus the stone carving I did about 10 years ago. I bought this clock for £20 at a street market in Bridport, around three years ago. It was in a bit of a mess, languishing under the table of the stall with other junk. I had to have it. The chime part is missing but after a bit of fiddling - actually it was more luck as I had no idea what I was going - I got it going. And remarkably it keeps almost perfect time - if I lean the casement slightly to one side that is. When I bought the clock I hadn't realised the pendulum was made of brass, yet following a whole morning of polishing it now gleams like the sun as it swings to and fro. Definitely a Dorset bargains and I'll never part with it, instead I'll lie back on the sofa and listen to the tick tick tick as the pendulum swings. Lovely.

Saturday 7th September 2019

On a hot September day, a flyer flopped onto the doormat - Christmas Parties. And so it begins. I love Christmas, though the crass and dreadful 3 months of commercialism and adverts really perplexes me. It is not what the Season is about. For me it's a time of calm contemplation in midwinter. This year too will be the first that, Scrooge like, I won't send out cards. Receiving the flyer prompted me into action. I already had bulbs bought, Julie too, so this year, today in fact, I'm beginning my Christmas floral joy. The pot in the front is the old stalwart, Paperwhite Narcissii, three planted today and three in about a fortnight. Scented blooms for the long cold days. The blue pot is an experiment, can I force tulips to flower by Christmas?  Again just three bulbs, lily flowering tulips, which Julie received as a free bonus after ordering a huge number of tulips for the spring. I like experimenting and the Georgians and Victorians put huge effort into forcing plants - pineapples on the Christmas table was always a Holy Grail. And finally the larger green pot at the back, 'Lily of the Valley'. I have a lovely blue pot stuffed with these, it needed re-potting. The original plants came from my late partners garden in Somerset, where they spread like weeds, and that's why they're special. Again Lily of the Valley have long been forced to provide flowers at Christmas.  

So, three different pots planted up 109 days before Christmas. Will I succeed? I'll not know until sometime in the future, and that's why gardening is always a positive process, we're always looking forward to something new. Something most of us forget and keep looking back, regretting lost memories, friends and time. Look forward and the world seems a much better place, or at least I hope so on the 25th of December.

Friday 6th September 2019

Three images today, the garden. The back 'hot' border and the birds. I return to the garden regularly as a topic. It may be small, but it's our little bit of England, to do with as we please. Certainly the wildlife loves it, with many red admirals in the garden at the moment. 

Thursday 5th September 2019

Every weekday I trundle up this escalator on the way to pay for my car parking. £10 of the realms finest money, handed over in a contactless way somewhere inside the workings of a computer server, possibly in India. Payment is instant, I'm free to go on my way.

As I near the end of this yearly blog, increasingly I am drawn to the everyday things I do, in an attempt to record my 55th year in full.  Important events are often recorded. Hum-drum nonentities of daily life rarely are. How many people know what they had for breakfast last week? Unless that is you were on holiday, or splashed out on a Saturday fry-up. Can you remember where you were at 2pm last Wednesday and what you said? I guess possibly the former, not the latter. I wonder then why we as humans avoid recording the banality of life. Is it genetic? Maybe social conditioning? Or it's just 'boring' as every teenager says!

For the record, last Saturday my breakfast was toast and marmalade at 6am in Somerset, followed by croissants with apricot jam at friends in Herefordshire, I remember this as it was a special day out with Miranda and Graeme.  I've no idea what happened on Wednesday - seemed unimportant at the time!!

Wednesday 4th September 2019

I know a little about Philosophy, it really is a little, scrapings of the mind of thought, but not in any in depth way. I do spend a lot of time thinking about things and more importantly questioning why things happen. It's my researcher, archivist mind - never believe what's said until it's proven. Be skeptical. Makes for rumbustious dinner parties. If I ever was invited to them. But then this book landed on my doormat - and it's fascinating. I began reading it today, I'm at page 13 of 746. Hmmmm I might be a while. I like the style of writing. Accessible in an intellectual way.  I shall enjoy this book, but for now though dear reader I 'll leave you with a quote from page one. Viz.

[the main message of John Paul Sartre] ... 

"Our knowledge will never be perfect, the world means nothing until we apply our interpretation to it, and we should dare to live our lives in freedom - like an artist facing a blank canvas... "

But then I thought - can a canvass ever be blank? - if it is painted white, it has colour. Colour influences the mind. As a machined fabric created to cover the frame, its texture is out of my control, manufactured to someone else's design and feel. It can never be just a blank canvas......that would be a void or vacuum. Hmmmm I might be a while!

Tuesday 3rd September 2019

I noticed today that my notes on the computer came into effect a year ago, September 3rd 2018. And that made me think on how we take things for granted, each day they're there, then all of a sudden they've gone. In a few months we'll all move over to window 10 operating system, and my screen which I see every morning as I log on will be no more. Therefore celebrating the screen shot on the first anniversary of its writing.

Monday 2nd September 2019

Letters are great. I love writing letters, the thought process from brain to nib flows in such a fluid way and revisions show re-reading before sending. I like those revisions with words inserted between lines, or crammed along the margin. Yet few people write back; e-technology is fine, gets the point across and is a good communication process. Yet letters have a permanency that emails or texts can never realise. Even printing off an email doesn't provide any personification of handwriting and personality. It's just fact on paper. Type face may be clearer to read, but a spider like scrawl is much more intellectually consuming, as is turning the paper to continue the narrative.  Today though I did received a lovely hand written letter from my ex boss's wife, replying to my condolence letter after his passing in July. I shall treasure this, whilst being intellectually impressed by Vera's lovely handwriting. I love writing letters, and receiving them is such a joy.

Sunday 1st September 2019

I'm in the last month of my day by day blog posting and it's been enjoyable. At the beginning of this process I had a feeling the latter part of 2018 and into 2019 would provide a catalyst. A catalyst for what was not clear on my horizon of change. But I knew there'd be something and it has done this with spades (not that Catalysts use spades). I never thought when I began this blog back in September 2018 that I'd meet Anne Lister. I used that phrase in it's more esoteric sense as I never met her, having died 124 years before I was born. But her appearance in my life in the spring of 2019, reignited a passion I'd foolishly allowed to become dormant, that of history, archives and researching interconnected associations and attempting to make sense of it all. 

Three decades ago when working for a public library I'd spend hours in the 'stack', a dark, underground treasure trove of history in print. Nothing better than moving the compactor shelving about to reveal dusty, yellowing books, periodicals and especially back copies of newspapers, often after members of the public came in with complex research needs. I absolutely loved it, even though more times than not I'd emerge cobweb filthy. Why I didn't become an archivist is something I'm not sure of myself, and I did work in archives of some form or another for 15 years right. 

Since 2000 natural history very much became a primary focus, not least due to working at the BBC's Natural History Unit, but interconnected research and focus of associations and primary source material still fascinates me. Thus, once the day to day blog ends at the end of the month, my revamped blog Mostly Woolgathering will return. I've just deleted all the old irrelevant postings and created a new design. It might change, but for the moment I'll also post this on there and it's a synopsis on my return to my 900's interest in the 630's - with a bit of 192, but especially in 941 and 942 - which only makes sense if you know your Dewey Decimal System!

Saturday 31st August 2019

Very good day out with friends in Hereford today. Motored the 88.5 miles from home to their abode, arriving in just the nick of time to partake in coussaints in the conservatory, with some extraordinary apricot jam. Then a walk up onto Moccas Hill with their new 7 month old springer x labrador, Maisie. Followed by a lovely light lunch in Hergest Gardens and a perambulation around there before a cream tea back at their homestead in the afternoon sunshine and a drive back home. 12 hours without during the day and what a splendid way to celebrate the end of summer. Good food, good friends and a 7 month old naughty puppy. Cream tea was good too! 

Friday 30th August 2019

What a strange day and it's not even 2pm yet. This morning I was at Tyntesfield, before the first sparrows had coughed up a seedpod. I was there to be interviewed about the GPS project I'm leading for a National Trust podcast. It was so so strange being infront of the microphone, and I was staggered they had a sound man as well as a producer, assistant producer (elsewhere) and the presenter. Old school recording that - where everyone had one role and concentrated on that. It was fun, though I guess the real aim of the podcast was interviewing James Aldred the famous tree climber. My dulcet tones will drift across the airwaves for a few seconds at most.

Drifting across the soundscape this lunchtime was a musical protest, organised by the Extinction Rebellion group. Taking their theme from the film Star Wars, their aim was to promote "The Film Industry Strikes Back" day of action in September to discuss climate change. I have to say as a protest goes, playing classical music did bring in the crowds and a lot of passers by on their lunch-break stopped and chatted to the protesters. More rumbustious protests should take note - gently does it brings in the mainstream, which is where the real change comes from. And they played very well, considering as I'd found out afterwards, this was an association of different Bristol musical groups, playing for the first time together.