h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Morning Cass

A fair few of our usual holiday haunts have been washed out this week

We stayed pretty local but manged to fit everything in, moors, hills, coast and river and some gardening. We also watched a fair amount of tv and read holiday books, cooked up a storm, we ate well this week.

How has you weekend been?

Peanut

Morning Peanut

Yes. The rain has shaped a great deal of what one can do and feel like doing. Friday we did get some dry time and I was able to do a bit more planting on my allotment. But Friday evening was a drama. I got a distraught phone call from daughter-in-law asking me to phone back because THE car was in crisis. By the time I managed that (not great with phones) I got our son who explained that there was lots of steam, red lights etc. But as it happened they were on their way to meet up with friends close by, and, as it was really not much more than rolling downhill for less than half-a-mile, he drove the car here.

After I had put some water in the reservoir the engine seemed to be turning over OK, but the battery light stayed on. Of course you can not see anything under bonnets these days and it was dark by then, but I felt for the drive-belt. Non existent. So they left the car here and I drove them to meet their friends in the pub, with them accepting to go back to their bus-travel.

Saturday morning I drove to Halfords and bought a drive belt for c£3.69 and in the afternoon I managed to fit it. I left the engine running sweetly for 15 minutes and everything seemed to work OK. I then got out some of the stuff I had in store that might be of use- engine oil, anti-freeze, brake fluid, and a petrol can.

By this time it was raining once again and I ended up getting into the first Foyle's War on ITV 3.. Like many series I only caught up with this originally after a few episodes. I recorded the second episode to watch later- which I did.

But the main event this week-end is that the children are coming to Sunday lunch, which is always my meal. So I had better get a move on. As our son and his wife are vegetarians when we are all together as a family it means cooking two main dishes. And because of a combination of the rain and then Mrs Cass wanting to play tennis (in fact two courts were unplayable with puddles, and the other one was being used) I did not get to the allotment to pick the peas and pick-up the beetroot that I plan to use.

I had better get a move on. I hope your week-end is going well.

Cass

Hi Peanut

Funny things happening on my personal space.. My Alabaster will not work.. But there are no Smilies. So i thought I would try this one again. Hope your week has begun well. ..

Cass

Hi Cass

I don't seem to be having any problems in goo but the front page in pliny was doing odd things earlier

Had to sign on today, depressing and the weather has been filthy. But this was out weighed by an email with a picture of a new h2g2 baby, which made me very happy. I grabbed a book on the way home, an easy read, murder mystery, demolished it in a couple of hours on the sofa this afternoon with the cat curled up on my lap and I am now going to bed to watch Lewis. Both activities I find soothing as well as enjoyable

How's you, did you all enjoy Sunday lunch?

Peanut

Cass

I take it back, I have got a few error messages in goo

Peanut

Hi Peanut

Some similarities pm.. Mrs Cass wanted to go TV hunting late am, when I had hoped to get to the allotment. But it was already probably too wet. Certainly was by the time we got home, had lunch and washed up.. My "easy reading" was a biography of William Reich that Mrs Cass gave me about 14 years ago- It finally seemed the right moment. Then I felt like going to bed, only in the end to get caught up in old Poirot and Lewis programmes that I had seen before..Now I am off to bed. Not terribly productive day, but Sunday cooking and having the children and partners made yesterday quite hectic. I needed/need at least two good night's sleep...Good night.

Cass

Morning Cass

I hope you have had (are still having )a good nights sleep

It is a gorgeous morning here, it has put a spring in my step along with the second cup of

Peanut

Morning Peanut

I just lost my post exploring the new smiley possibilities of this other format.. An almost bright new day here and I am feeling the benefit of quiet times yesterday- TV, Wilhelm Reich, and re-stringing my guitar.. Good news if you have nice sunshine. Shape of things to come.

Have a good day.

Cass

Hi Cass

After yesterdays sunshine, todays rain feels like a right kicker, and because I got up late I have to keep shaking this feeling that I am all behind, but with what I don't know, it wasn't like I had a particular schedule today

I think I am going to make soup

Peanut

Hi Peanut


I wonder whether we are both feeling a bit "post-prandial" after a period of unusually intense family activity. In my case I was definitely energised by the whole car project, clamping repair, etc , re our son, and re our daughter the whole question of a new phase in her relationship with her boyfriend. I suppose Sunday was a climax of sorts. But at one moment our daughter was in tears with worries about her health: and at another moment I was consoling with our daughter-in-law over the loss of her mother only a few weeks ago, her dad having died a few years back. She referred to chats with her sister back in Croatia and the fact that the family is getting smaller and no-one is having babies.

She will be 44 on our 44th Wedding Anniversary in a couple of days and has to face up to the increasing probability of being denied the experience of motherhood. Which then brings up the fact that our daughter will be 35 next week, and it is all very well to start looking for houses to buy and to live together on a trial basis- as if they had all the time in the world. Her boyfriend has known her for 15-16 years! Though they have only being “going out” for a few.

Frustrations of parenthood. Ours but to encourage and be positive. They know each other because they have been founder members of a music Wind Ensemble, he being the piano accompanist, and one of the benefits of the relationship is that they have got us into the Proms either side of our summer trip to France. We are all going this evening- plus I am not sure. They happily book for all kinds of friends and family. So a quick couple of hours on the allotment during a dry spell before getting ready to leave for the Royal Albert Hall c5.35.

Enjoy your soup making.

Cass

Hi Cass

Soup tastes good.

Did you enjoy your time on the allotment and your evening?

I don't feel that I have given your last post the attention I'd like and this evening I am preoccupied with looking after a rather stoned cat, post op pain killers, he hasn't been snorting catnip or anything

Hi Peanut

I have to say that we think of soup in the late Autumn/Winter and sometimes under canvas at 1,600m in the Alps in late July/early August when it can get down near freezing at night.

The allotment was quite enjoyable in a rather resolute sort of way. I was planting my main crop carrots more in hope than expectation. But at least it is now done. Rather more sadly I had to take up all of my tomatoes because of the blight yet again! The only consolation is that at least they are not fully grown and laden with lots of fruit like last year. It seems that cold and wet really create ideal conditions and our site seems to get blighted quite regularly now that we have these cold snaps in late Spring and Summer.

So the cat has gone under the surgeon’s knife. How many of its nine lives has it used up so far? I hope it recovers well.

The evening trip into London actually went very well though Mrs Cass was 15-20 minutes late it her preparations. Our daughter had warned us on the basis of her trip from our house to RAH on Sunday, but the traffic was not bad. It only takes 40-45 minutes from here right to the free parking in Hyde Park a hundred yards away from the RAH, and for quiet pensioners it is quite novel to get back into "happening" London and see more young people going about their business, or in this case going home. I suppose Mrs Cass did not notice the shorts and short skirts and high heels as much as I did. Comfort and convenience are not quite the priorities for young people that they are when you are older. It seemed too cold for the one and too impractical and challenging for necessary commuting walking for the other.

The concert was quite enjoyable. It is always interesting to see who else is in the “party". On this occasion it was our daughter and boyfriend, and his parents and sister, whom we have begun to get to know over the years. It was only on the way home, however, that I recalled having heard the night before on the Proms broadcast that either the conductor or the soloist was having to be changed at the last minute. For it had really sounded rather like it. It is of course always nice to hear live music being performed by top musicians but I did feel that they were almost just playing the notes from the score without having really got to the next level of deeper meaning. This was especially the case with the Prokofief Sixth Symphony which took up the second half. I guessed that it was written in the Stalinist Era and it sounded like the music that composers produced for totalitarian regimes, especially as they did not seem to get to the more artistic level that the Communist authorities might not have been able to reach.

The first piece was a premiere of an interesting piece written by a young Japanese composer. I was able to get into it by recalling my adolescent fascination with swimming underwater when I could do lengths of swimming pools. Time is slowed down.

The second was the Rachmaninov Piano Concerto and I tried to “get into” this performance, though what my wife told me afterwards was that our daughter and boyfriend both pianists hated the poor coordination of piano and orchestra. I tried to make allowances, wondering whether modern performers can really appreciate the deep soulfulness of Russia of the age of Rachmaninov- a Russia famous for intense passion.

The second movement of the Concerto is something that I try not to listen to too often. But it is one of the things that, in some dark moments, persuade me that life is worth living just for the exquisite mixed joy and pain of such music. On this occasion, however, I could feel that perhaps the word really had moved on from the Dark Days that hung over and overshadowed my childhood, and perhaps my life so far. Time to move on.

Cass

Hello Cass

Your comment about your carrots made me laugh, I think we have planted many things this year more in hope than expectation


I don't much enjoy cooking on the whole so soup, casseroles and stews are an all year round event for me as it makes sense to cook by the vat load.

You have mentioned that piece of music before, are you still feeling that, that you can 'move on'.



Peanut

Peanut

Yes some more 'more in hope than expectation' planting recently.. But in fact yesterday was a combination of harvesting, tidying up and cutting the tops off of blighted potatoes.. Site inspection this morning.. It did mean that I came home with bags of stuff-green stuff to wash, beetroot to cook, blackcurrants to make a last half-jar of jam, and rhubbarb- the last awaiting treatment.

It all helped to contribute to another row with Mrs Cass..I suppose that was triggered to some extent by the receipt of a DVLA fine of £272 after that clamping. One of the key considerations in my not putting the car back on the driveway and off the road had been the fact that this was thursday and Mrs Cass was planning to do a plant sale in the front of the house from Friday. Most of our front garden is surrounded by a high hedge and, though we disagreed on this as on a great deal, I felt that being visible is the first principle of selling and the clean and clear driveway was ideal.

This is all relevant to your question about "moving on".

At the concert I mentioned our imminent 44th wedding anniversary to our daughter's boyfriend's parents, at which his Mother remarked that it is a "life sentence". It was probably just a common flippant comment, but as you may well have understood it feels rather like it.. My sister commented to our-sister-in-law when she had spent a couple of nights with us at the time of our son's wedding that being in our house felt like walking on eggshells.. It gets no easier with the years- in fact quite the reverse.


Still this time next week I will be driving us all the way to Burgundy again- for 4 weeks. But to be fair we actually have a bit more social life there and we are taking our daughter's electric piano to leave in the house, because in late October we are hosting a family party for the 90th birthday of both of my parents-in-law , to which our son and daughter, and perhaps me too, will be making musical offerings.

Have a good day.

Cass

Hello Cass

well now, it is me walking on eggshells, I can see how that row came about, still the word 'another' in that sentence is one that caught my eye, if I was talking to you I'd ask something about that, or just listen, or yabber about the weather

blimey it is hot out there

in the absence of those cues, I'm unsure what to take from your last post, so I will just say that and wait for you to get back to me

fancy a ginger beer?

Peanut

Hi Peanut

What a strange coincidence that you mention Ginger Beer. We discovered Tesco extra spicy Ginger Beer a couple of weeks ago. In fact it had been on our garage food-shelves for some time (we are great hoarders) and Mrs Cass thought of it when the children were here last- all these drivers etc. They did not drink it, but we both did variously when we had worked up a gardening thirst. Mrs Cass tends not to think of consuming food and drink on a reasonable basis and it is nice to find something that she really enjoys. So last week I bought four large bottles in Tesco- special offer on two at a time. And it looks like we might take a stock to France on Sunday- if we have room.

As for "another" I am reminded very often that my Mother's regular mantra was "They say that stupid husbands make nagging wives"..

But I think that another factor in my anger on Saturday was watching Cliff Richard and "Summer Holiday". It was to some extent the world of my teens and the kind of hopes that my generation had for the future, and indeed some of the dance scenes in the section travelling through France reminded me very much of Mrs Cass who I first met in 1960 when she was 14 and I was 16, though it was when we met four years later that "things happened".

So part of "moving on" I realized a few years ago was actually cutting back to Healthy Rootstock which can often revivify an old plant. So I wrote a song that begins:

"I'm cutting back to the root
To a time before I had flower and fruit
When life was a search for upward thrust
Towards the light
Out of the dust".

And in fact "Summer Holiday" put me back in contact with the whole musical tradition in which I had grown up before "Merseybeat" and "Beatlemania".. But most of those Sixties groups had been schooled through the same BBC Light Programme musical background. e.g. The Rod Stewart CD's of the old classics.

As for us, I was just reflecting, while painting the tiles on the roof of the front garden shed, that probably no one else would tolerate living with me, and no one else would tolerate living with Mrs Cass. But at least now that I have finished the immediate battles on my allotment [which Mrs Cass never sees- Out of sight out of mind] I can get around to doing some of these DIY things around the house.

PS Enjoy the heat-- and don't get sunburned again.

Cass

Morning Cass

Just through, got teenagers to rouse

I liked the song

back later

Peanut

Morning Peanut

Teenagers- plural... Sleepover time? Funny thing about this version (skin) is that, while I have Smilies, when I press Reply I get to see the penultimate rather than the ultimate post.. On this thread that usually means that I am "replying" to myself.

Anyway have a good day.

Cass

Cass,

My nieces are here

I've been single for years. So it is difficult for me to imagine being in a 44 year relationship, put a decimal point inbetween those two 4s and that is close enough to my longest relationship

I am kind of sorry that you feel angry, I think a certain amount of it is healthy, sometimes though I feel that also you are disappointed, bitterly disappointed (?) on occasion, hmm, don't know if that is right, it was just that bitterly disppointed popped into my head as I typed. So I am not going to edit and risk leaving it in

Spiller and I tried making ginger beer, tasted good when we first brewed it up, but after brewing it was . So we decided that we give it another shot sometime or just make non-alcoholic ginger beer and if we wanted alcohol with it we would add rum. I'm growing my own ginger, quite sucessfully, seems to thrive on the window sill

How's your day been, anything more ticked of your (*cough* Mrs Cass's) DIY list

Peanut

Hi Peanut,

A visit of nieces sound very nice given the excuse that it gives you to show them the beauties of Somerset.. and we have exchanged before on the positive value of good family relations.

As for relationships I suppose ours is actually 47 years because when Mrs Cass and I had met again more significantly in 1965 she returned home to Burgundy and her three years of University with us having basically already having agreed to marry. Perhaps that three years of almost daily letters punctuated by snatched weeks of being able to be together shaped our relationship. In some ways we "lived the dream" to all in sundry, and we have been too stubborn and pig-headed to admit defeat- so far.

As for "bitterly disappointed" life has often been like that for me. But rather contrarily now that things look really bad- as I always thought that they were heading- I actually feel quite optimistic because I have made such a point of studying "darkest hours" and working in the Front Line with people desperate to climb up out of Hell and/or Purgatory. I saw a fragment of Ruby Wax the other day referring to Winston Churchill's "black dog days"- I know the feeling. But he too consoled himself with focusing on realisable targets like DIY and art.

So yesterday I did quite a lot of painting of various store cupboards etc that we have in our front garden, that has looked a mess. Moving "our son's car" was a start and then I had weeded the paving slabs a couple of weeks ago. Yesterday's painting of wood and tiles meant that today I could actually put things together and achieve some order and shape out of the mess. Mrs Cass noticed when we finally went out this afternoon.

Actually yesterday was quite a good day, because on Monday Mrs Cass' steam-mop blew up after about 7 weeks of usage. I had some ideas about it and, as she bought it through Amazon, we were impressed that the supplier immediately replied that he/she would send a replacement and please would we "dispose" of the old one. So yesterday morning I got up early, went to my workshop and repaired the old one. Seems to work fine, and a brand new one arrived today.

Today we went out to complete the purchase of Mrs Cass's new 22" HV/DVD combi. We bought her one last autumn (19"), but she was not pleased with the sound, and moreover I suggested that such a machine would be much more practical than the huge assemblage that we take camping. So the small one is destined for Burgundy.

But Mrs Cass does not do things simply. We went to look a couple of weeks ago, and she chose some in Curry's. But her NUT membership allows her to buy Gift Tokens at a discount. Curry's 7%. So she ordered £200 worth. We took them to the shop where she was not sure whether to buy the cheaper or the better one that we had seen.

I favoured the better one. But it was not there! We asked a salesman who showed us that indeed it had been moved, and was now reduced by £50. So Mrs Cass was quite pleased- and is currently unpacking it.

She even accompanied me to B&Q where I had a couple of things to buy, and I drove her in a sweeping circle to pick up the special hair-dye that she only finds in one Chemists who are happy to order it for her.

On the other hand- Instead of now relaxing with a nice cup of tea, as I made a pot as soon as we arrived home, she is now damning in her impatience to get her TV set up. So I had better go..

Enjoy yourself.

Cass