As I walked down Downton Lane on my usual Hordle Cliff walk this morning the fog alert signalled that there would be nothing to see across The Solent through the grey skies and driving rain. Bubbles forming and floating on the roadside pools slowly burst and created concentric circles on the surface which was thrown up by passing cars.
A speckled snail hauled its humbug home up a soggy stem.
Reminding me of Renoir’s famous painting ‘Les Parapluies’, an optimistic family sheltered under umbrellas as they made their way to the beach from Shorefield. The children needed a walk. The straggler was quite interested in being photographed.
Today’s Royal Mail post brought an invitation from BT to discuss cheaper options for our contract. Naturally I phoned them. A delightful young woman soon came on the line and renegotiated our account. We will now have a slightly smaller bill for faster Broadband and unlimited weekend calls. The contract has been transferred to my name, which rather pleased Jackie. We will need a new home hub which I am assured I will be able to install.
Sixteen young commissioners, aged 10 to 19, from the Children’s Commission on Poverty have recently produced research findings suggesting that the need for parents to provide certain extras, like computers, are pricing some families out of educational opportunities.
At Wimbledon College in the 1950s there were no PCs to be acquired. Most of the extras in those days were for additional activities such as the Boxing Club. The school was not really geared for art, so it was an unusual, if not the first, request for me to sit the ‘O’ Level examination in 1958, and no books were available. Although I don’t remember, Matthew Hutchinson, who would have walked it, must have sat it too.
The examination was largely an assessment of your artwork, but there was one set book, ‘The Parish Churches of England’, by John Charles Cox and Charles Bradley Ford. The school failed to supply this essential volume, and my parents could not afford it. Mum ordered it from Wimbledon Library. As the weeks rolled by, we waited with bated breath for its arrival. It was in our hands after school the day before the exam. Using a twenty four hour clock this would have been the sixteenth hour, but it certainly felt like the eleventh.
Having the advantage of reducing the text a little, this small format architectural history of our traditional places of worship was lavishly illustrated with black and white photographs. It had to be read in order to answer exam questions that would face me the next day. There would be possibly four illustrations from the book which I would need to identify and to comment upon.
I skim-read the pages of the book. I stared at what seems like hundreds of pictures. I couldn’t memorise them all. I selected some I thought most likely examples of various periods or styles of architecture.
It was rather late by then. I was pretty tired from the reading, and Mum had completed her normal heavy duty day of caring for the family. Our adrenalin, however, kicked in.
Mnemonics!
That was the answer. A mnemonic is a device dreamed up to aid memory retention. There are various types of these, one of which is rhymes, an example of which is ‘Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November………’, enabling us to remember how many days there are in each month.
Fixing my eyes in turn on each of the images I thought most likely to turn up on my desk the next day, I recited an invented nonsense rhyme until it was burned in my brain. Mum then took the book in hand, and, opening the tagged pages at random, asked a question about the photos thereon. By running the relevant rhyme through my head I came up with an answer. At first these were not always correct. A certain amount of repetition, late into the night, was required.
Finally, reasonably satisfied, we repaired to our respective beds. I had chosen well. I recognised each of the illustrations in the exam and answered the questions to the satisfaction of the examiners. Phew!
For this evening’s dinner Jackie produced a tender beef and mushroom casserole with Boiled potatoes, cabbage, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts. Profiteroles were to follow. I drank Castillo san Lorenzo reserva rioja 2009, and Jackie didn’t.
Tag: BT
‘Your Own Back Yard’
I do hope my Hordle Cliff walk has not yet become boring for my readers. It is, you see, the safest route to take from the house. I trod it this pleasantly mild morning.
The cattle on the hillside seemed divided as to whether we were due more rain. Apparently they sit down when it is expected.
A solid bank of cloud over The Solent met the inland blue skies, forming a fascinating diagonal echoed by an evaporating jet stream.
Pondering on my ramble, I thought of Chris Weston. This other Chris had ably led a weekend tutorial on digital landscape photography. In September 2008 I was still using positive film to make colour slides, but knowing I would learn much from this man I accompanied Elizabeth on the weekend course. I was in fact the only person without a digital device.
The best place to seek out subjects, according to our tutor, is ‘your own back yard’, that is territory with which you are most familiar. He was fortunate in having Portland Bill on his home ground. He took us out on a splendid Dorset dawn, and let us wander. Elizabeth famously doesn’t do mornings, and had said the night before that she may not surface in time. As she staggered into the lounge where we were gathered, she received a round of applause.
Here are some of those early morning images:
Peering down through the rocks, many of which bore chiselled graffiti, produced interesting abstracts, and various artefacts such as rusty chains were enhanced by the early morning sun.
We also learned about the nature of light, the best for landscapes being early or late in the day. At midday the overhead brightness is too strong. We returned in the evening, when we took more pictures:
A couple sat among the rocks, as the clouds gathered against the setting sun.
The rock formation that is known as Durdle Door stretched out to sea.
This afternoon I decided to tackle BT. Again. This time in relation to the TV account. Since we moved home in April we have not watched much television. We have begun to do so a little, and have been having problems accessing BT iPlayer. Today a message came up on our screen informing us that there was a problem with the BT TV account, and giving a telephone number to ring. I called them. I was told that we should have activated the account when we moved. I said we had arranged for this when our account was transferred from our previous address. The adviser kept repeating that we had paid neither for activation nor the monthly charge since we left Minstead. I reiterated that our bills state, by a blue tick against the item, that they include TV from BT. Eventually I twigged what was going on. The BT representative was reading page 3, where the bill is broken down. I was looking at the total on page 1, which says ‘This bill is for:’ and lists Telephone, Broadband, and TV, all of which are ticked. No-one told us we should reactivate the TV separately when we arranged for the transfer between homes, nor that we were not being charged for the service. As I said, I didn’t examine the bills that intricately, given that the total was always more or less the same and listed the services opposite the total. Eventually the woman to whom I was speaking got the message and undertook to pass on my observations. I said I would do the same in the automated survey of customer satisfaction that would follow the call. I hope she had more luck than me because when answering the survey questions I was thanked for my participation and bade goodbye before I had finished. This was interesting in the light of the survey’s introduction statement that ‘we do listen to what you say’.
If I had any confidence in any other conglomerate offering a better service I would change our service provider immediately.
Danni came for a visit this afternoon and helped me produce one composite photograph and a couple of large individual prints for Frances of her muntjac deer. This involved investing in the Pages application for the iMac. Whilst this facility was being downloaded 
we wandered around the garden and disturbed a vole that was hiding behind the Heligan Path sign. Danni photographed it with her mobile phone.
Our niece left us briefly to dine with Andy and his mother and brother at The Royal Oak. Jackie and I enjoyed chilli con carne (recipe) and wild rice. She drank Hoegaarden and I drank Kingfisher. Then Danni and Andy returned to continue the conversations.
Sunshine And Showers
CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. REPEAT IF REQUIRED.
Knowing that we were to expect heavy rain all weekend, and that the first hour or two this morning would offer sunshine and showers, we drove out to Mudeford seeking what light there was.
This proved to be interesting. The sun came and went, offering dramatic cloudscapes over the sea;
over the beach huts;
over the harbour;
and over the small town.
Recent downpours had left pools for cars to drive though.
Moored boats bobbed on the choppy wavelets in the sheltered waters,
over which sped a powered vessel.
A number of little rowing boats had filled with water
or capsized.
One, overturned, provided a resting place for juvenile gulls.
We felt sympathy for holidaymakers wrapped in waterproofs, and even more for the intrepid stallholders setting up for the weekend’s Art and Craft Fair.
Almost oblivious of the industry going on around them, a jogger,
a pair of dog walkers,
and a loving couple, continued about their business.
A heap of bright red paddle boards awaited rental customers.
The usual fishing paraphernalia lined the quayside. This couple examined
crab pots;
ropes and lines;
fluttering flags;
and buoys reflecting sunlight
or themselves mirrored in pools,
as were visitors following the first young lady forming a queue for the ferry.
Around the side of the quay the couple I had just passed gazed out to sea.
The most dramatic light of the visit fell on a group beside the car park.
As we left Mudeford for a late breakfast at Friar’s Cliff’s Beach Hut Café, three sail boats set out to sea.
They had made it safely to Friar’s Cliff by the time we reached there.
On the cliff top at Steamer Point lie three very large circular concrete bases.
Their story is now explained on an engraved metal plate fixed to a rock.
This evening we dined on chicken tikka and boiled egg salad. Well, we had had a large, late, fried breakfast. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, and I drank more of the malbec.
Me, Irritated?
This morning we suffered from an excess of wind. I write not of flatulence, but of 35 miles 
(56 kilometres) per hour gusts tearing into our trees, tossing the tresses of the more slender ones like the weeping birch and the eucalyptus. For those of you in other parts of the world this may not seem very strong, but for us, especially after nurturing numerous window boxes and hanging baskets over the summer, it is a big deal.
I fought my way down my circular route to Hordle Cliff Beach, where the turbulent seas flinging spray over the shingle bank had me fearing once more for the beach huts.
Our already decrepit No Parking sign had been ripped from its board, and that of The Spinney had shed its phone number.
On this unseasonably warm day the sun shone and every cloud had a silver lining.
Roger was emerging from Hordle Manor Farm carrying a bale of hay, thus confirming our speculation that it had indeed been his family who had rescued Scooby when he wandered off and disappeared. He paused for the photograph and gave me a thumbs up sign.
Walking back through Shorefield, I fell in with another Londoner with whom I shared recollections of the Great Storm of 1987.
On my return Jackie was clearing the area around our patch of grass which she had mowed yesterday. I then removed the last of the cuttings we had left on the back drive, adding quite a bit to the log pile.
A very heavy thunderstorm having driven us inside we sat calmly over lunch. Listening to car horns in the street outside Jackie commented that strong winds make people irritated. The elements had not made me irritated. I repeat, with gritted teeth, I was not irritated. Not until we opened Jackie’s bill from BT.
BT then achieved what the heavens couldn’t. When their last shutdown left me without access to e-mails for four days, possibly for want of anything else positive to talk about, one of the advisers persuaded me to have on-line billing. I had already explained that Jackie was the account holder so I would have a bill of nil. If they wanted to implement that I had no objection. A day or so ago I received an on-line bill for £48.17 stating that it would be taken from my bank account on or after 14th October.
On our mat this afternoon appeared Jackie’s bill for the identical amount, the identical period, and the identical date of removal from her bank account. I was also told that from 1st December a surcharge of £1.59 will be added to paper bills. There is no such notification on Jackie’s invoice.
I phoned the telephone company and was greeted by the usual robot which had the usual problem understanding my choices from the varied options. One word the machine had difficulty in understanding was ‘other’. At the third attempt, the robot having a Scots accent, I tried rolling my r at the end of the word. That did the trick. Then, of course, I had to wait ten minutes listening to another voice, telling me that my call was important to them, before I reached a person. A gentleman with an Indian accent informed me that it was not possible to check my account because the system was down. Engineers were working on it. I should call again after four hours.
Me, irritated? You bet.
Later, Jackie drove us to Wroughton. I will report on that tomorrow.
‘It Shouted At Me To Be Painted’
I spent the morning grappling with BT once more. Everything worked fine early on, but I had been advised to change the temporary password. As they made the call it seemed reasonable to ask for the representative to help me do it. Then BT rang me and the rot set in. After more than an hour I was without access on my iMac. I was told they were not trained in Mac so I should contact my local technician. I pointed out that a colleague of my adviser had managed the process yesterday, but had used a different path. I was told they were not trained in Mac so I should contact my local technician. Apple Care is closed on Sundays.
We have signs of mole activity in the garden.
Before, on Barrie’s recommendation, making another trip to Woodgreen, Jackie hung her Wendy de Salis birds in their tree, the New Zealand hebe Koromiko.
We had intended to visit the Crafts Fair in Woodgreen Village Hall on our last trip, but ran out of time. Barrie’s comments about the murals in that building made it a necessity to return. Elizabeth drove us there and back.
Here is a reproduction of the leaflet we were given on arrival:
You may need to zoom it to read it clearly.
Where appropriate, I have included indications of today’s activity against the walls painted more than eighty years ago.
The Flower Show:
Cider Pressing:
Salisbury Infirmary:
Poachers on Castle Hill:
Village Team in Country Competition:
The Methodist Sunday School:
The Woodgreen Artists:
From here, we revisited Pete Gilbert’s studio, where Elizabeth popped in and bought a pastel painting.
North of Breamore we visited Ways Cottage at Woodfalls, where work by Kate Buttimer, Lucy Barclay, Ed Cheesman, and Nikki Sheppard was on display. Elizabeth was fascinated by Ed’s sculptural spotlights constructed from camera parts.
I was particularly struck by the pleasingly vibrant colours and striking compositions of Kate’s paintings, and mounted the stairs to see more of them on the next floor. Whilst thus engaged, I heard her on the landing in an animated discussion with a couple who also admired. Today’s title was an engaging phrase that had me joining in the conversation. 
The painting in question, on Kate’s left, was one of several that had already intrigued me. The artist can be found on Facebook as Kate Buttimer Artist, and at katebuttimer.wordpress.com
A photograph of our little discussion group, taken by Francesca Knitty Stout, has appeared on Kate’s Facebook page.
On our way home we stopped off at Waldrons at Brook where the work of 2002 Textile Artists was on display. I believe the number here must refer to the year, because there were only eight women exhibiting. Elizabeth bought four different sized small cloth purses with magnetic catches for Mum. They were just what she was looking for to contain notes and coins of different denominations for our nonagenarian parent who has failing eyesight and stiff fingers.
Early this evening Elizabeth dragged me from my computer and urged me to photograph what she considered to be one of Jackie’s works of art. The two women had almost completely cleared one side of the kitchen garden, leaving an ‘Altissimo’ climbing rose requiring a new supporting post. She found a suitably typical piece formed from two previously cobbled together different beams, and discovered that they fitted the metal holder whose previous occupant had rotted away.
This evening’s dinner was focussed on yesterday’s pork paprika, well matured and served with superbly crispy roast potatoes and toothsome runner beans. Bread and butter pudding with evap was to follow. Elizabeth and I finished the last two opened bottles of red and Jackie the white wine.
Jack Russell
Some time ago, my friend Harri sent me a photograph of an owlet in her garden. 
Yesterday, Chris sent me two shots of a sparrow hawk seen in his. I seem to be collecting donated photographs of birds of prey, better than any I could have taken myself.
Jackie’s sister Helen has a collection of models of owls which has developed in a similar manner. I do hope reading this doesn’t prompt her to send a photograph of one, otherwise I will have to put it in a post. This reminds me of Mary, an old friend who had a vast number of frogs made of all kinds of material. Her apparent love of these amphibians was apocryphal. It had begun with one gift. Someone else had seen that and donated another. The present-giving snowballed, and the creatures took over her flat.
Fortunately my brother’s missive arrived before I was rash enough to telephone BT to sort out an e-mail access problem. I am so frustrated by the lack of service that I cannot be bothered to give you the usual detailed saga. Suffice it to say that two advisers, and virtually a whole morning later the reception is no better, and that it was only the second one who thought to tell me that the problem was widespread and maintenance was being carried out.
Later Jackie, Elizabeth, and I began another blitz on the kitchen garden. Although there was a sharing of tasks when necessary, I was assigned to digging up concrete and stone, whilst the ladies cleared weeds and shrubbery. I was required to extract two rather more mature shrubs.
One piece of natural stone I could not lift was ideal, Jackie thought, for the path-edging she has been working on. 
This meant it had to be moved. We upended a wheelbarrow, prised the rock into it, transported it to the relevant site, tipped it out, and wobbled it into place.
It has gradually become apparent that, in many places, the removal of one layer of material from the site is not enough. Beneath a thin layer of soil more concrete will be found. A little Time Team type excavation is necessary in the search for such blocks. As I was unable to access the service of one of the family Jack Russells, Scooby or the late Oddie, Elizabeth 
stepped into the role, knelt down and scraped away at one particularly stubborn slab that 
turned out to be one of the biggest, turned on its side. Even after she had exposed it, I could not shift it with fork and spade. She therefore drove me off to Milford Supplies where we bought a grubber axe which eventually did the trick.
As often between stints in the garden, Jackie cooked our dinner. Tonight’s was a piquant pork paprika, served with savoury rice. Needless to say, it was delicious. Tiramisu was a suitable dessert. Elizabeth and I drank Blason de Bourgogne 2012, and Jackie continued with the white Cuvee St Jaine.
Getting Heated
Knowing I was once more going to have to grapple with BT this morning, I cheered my spirits by wandering round the garden and focussing on the cleared shrubbery alongside the dead-end path.
Japanese anemones, leycesteria, and a pink rose have come into view. The leycesteria had been choked by a hazelnut tree the nut of which a squirrel had probably buried in the wrong place and forgotten.
Because of the proliferation of sports in the myrtle I had been forced to be quite merciless in the pruning. It is therefore gratifying to see the shrub in bloom, and new shoots burgeoning. Jackie has planted a hardy fuchsia and a heuchera here, with a labelled vinca for eventual ground cover; and, a little further along, has covered the unsightly septic tank lid with various pots perched on a section of an IKEA wardrobe.
For the first two hours of the afternoon, my BT battle continued. The best report I can give is that, having satisfied the robot, I did not have to wait to speak to an adviser. I don’t think he is all that familiar with either Apple or Blackberry. However, the poor man did his best. When I had tried to access e-mails on the iMac I was shown a circular symbol with a wavy line inside it. This, I have learned, means e-mails cannot be accessed. I clicked on it and read that they were unobtainable because of the server being off-line. ‘Connection Doctor’ was one of the options I could select. I did, and was linked to a Yahoo site which wasn’t much use in providing a cure. That is why I had phoned BT. The auxiliary nurse to whom I was linked tried a number of avenues, but I don’t think he recognised the symbol I was describing. Eventually he guided me through opening a second account, which did, temporarily it transpired, receive e-mails.
He was even less successful with Blackberry, and I told him I would try to resolve that one myself. I had a bit of a rest, then felt brave enough to tackle the Blackberry. It was, after all, Blackberry whose message provided me on 11th of my first inkling that there was anything wrong. Instructions were given as to how to verify the account. The option of using the device was exactly the same as the BT adviser had tried. The other option was the on-line version. I tried that, but was told I was giving the wrong password. I tried the ‘forgotten password’ option, which meant they would send it to me by e-mail…………………… I think you know what comes next.
A call to O2 furnished me with the password, but I still couldn’t do anything with it. Never mind, I thought, Apple doesn’t really need anything with it, if it is suitably cooked. It was then that I found that the Apple had gone off the boil. I now had three accounts showing; two with the wavy lines, and one indicating that I had a new message. But when I clicked on that no message came up.
It was now time to telephone Apple Care. Paul, when he heard what was on my screen, and even more when he saw it, described it as a mess. Apple have an interesting way of helping whilst viewing your screen. Instead of taking your screen over, as do BT, they have a red arrow with which they indicate what they want you to click on.
‘What have they done?’ was what he needed to discover. But first he had to erase it all and start again. He then got me up and running, hopefully, this time, permanently.
The process employed by Apple’s Paul, puts me in mind of the tale of the unprepossessing pins, recounted by Bill Eales many years ago. As I recall, the unfortunate owner of these legs, on entering a classroom, was asked where he got them, and told to ‘rub ’em out and do ’em again’. Maybe it was apocryphal.
Whilst I was becoming gradually more heated in the cool of the sitting room, Jackie was attempting to keep cool in the heat of the bottom of the garden, the sun reflecting off the concrete, where she continued her transformation of that area.
We dined this evening at Daniels (sic) Fish and Chip restaurant in Highcliffe. The food was very fresh and crispy and the service excellent. We both had cod. Jackie supplemented hers with onion rings. My choice was calumari. She drank diet Pepsi and I drank tea.
One of the e-mails I did receive when we returned home was from BT, promising a month’s free broadband.
Recycling
This morning, the BT e-mail problem remained unresolved, so I went onto the website that I had received the text about yesterday. This was the update message:
‘We’d like to apologise for a technical problem that meant a minority of BT Mail customers weren’t able to access their email accounts in the past few days.
We’re in the process of restoring access to the affected email accounts and expect to have the service working again later today, so if you’re still unable to access your email account, please wait and try again later.
We’ll be contacting all customers who have been affected by this fault, but if you’d like to get in touch with us, you can use our online form, or email us atBTMessaging@bt.com.
Once again, we’re very sorry for any inconvenience this has caused, and we appreciate your patience as we work to resolve the problem.’
Were I able to speak to a real BT administrator about this, I would ask why the first paragraph, when the problem still exists, features the past tense. I would also like to know what constitutes a minority. Brian Clough, the celebrated football manager of the 1970s famously regarded himself as ‘in a minority of one’. Somehow, I imagine the minority into which BT have assigned me, is rather larger than that.
I suppose I should not be surprised that a twenty first century telephone company does not provide the facility of actual conversation with a management decision maker, or anyone who can explain what is going on. But to suggest that people who have, for days now, been frustrated by the inability to access their e-mails should send one to the above e-mail address seems crass and insensitive.
Once again I am left speculating that this whole problem has resulted from a divorce from Yahoo.
Just before lunch we took another trip to Efford Recycling Centre, ostensibly to dump more rubble and plastic.
We certainly brought back considerably more plastic from the Sales Area than we had deposited. Jackie was delighted to find a large garden table, ideal for potting up plants.
A notice informs us that 86% of last months rubbish was recycled. The Sales Area is probably a recycling achievement that doesn’t feature in these figures.
This afternoon, I returned to the path behind the shrubbery alongside the garden of the empty house. Discovery of the blackbird’s nest containing incubating eggs had caused me to abandon it for a while. I confined myself to digging out various unwanted tree roots, and cutting one of our own shrubs down to size, before extending the IKEA wardrobe fence a bit more.
Whilst I was engaged in this, Jackie was having a switch around. Having now completely cleared the skip pile, making use of a number of its contents and dumping the rest, she was free to turn it into a potting area.
The potting area had, until now, furnished by the butchers’ blocks, been situated under the pergola outside the library/utility room door. Jackie set up the Recycling Centre table, moved the butchers’ blocks in behind it; and supplied a couple of seats to create a new pergola seating area. Thus:
Someone’s garden table became Jackie’s potting centre; the now empty skip pile, some of the contents of which has become a fence, became its home; and the previous potting centre became a seating area.
Soon after 5 p.m. I logged on to the web link given in BT’s message. This carried a box saying the problem was solved, and if you were still unable to access e-mails you should clear your cache. A link for instructions on how to do that was provided. I did it. I still couldn’t reach my e-mails. So I reached for my phone. I rang the help line and waited twenty minutes for an adviser who discovered that my account had been locked because of my unsuccessful attempts to log on. After an hour of fiddling about with changing passwords and having them rejected, I was able to open my account. One of the rejected passwords, which had been accepted three days ago was said not to have the correct numbers of characters today. Clearing the cache meant I also lost my automatically recognised passwords for such as WordPress. I had to have three goes at that one before I could write this post. I still cannot access e-mails on either my Apple or my Blackberry. I think I am beginning to crumble. Aaaaaaarrrrrgggghhh.
With our spicy Bolognese sauce this evening we dined on penne pasta. Possibly Jackie wasn’t confident about my new expertise in spaghetti consumption. Penne’s easy. You can even dispense with the spoon, as you skewer the pasta by prodding the prongs of the fork through the tunnel in the middle. You can get two on the fork at a time. My lady drank Hoegaarden, and I had some more of the chianti.
Spaghetti, And How To Eat It
There is quite a lot of rubble and other kinds of rubbish scattered about the garden.
We have been bagging it up for transfer to the Efford Recycling Centre which is our municipal dump. We thought two trips would be sufficient. There was, however, a queue to enter the site, probably because it was Monday morning and people had been clearing their homes and gardens at the weekend. We will wait a day or two for the next visit. We have only visited this location once before, but have been, as we were today, impressed with the friendliness and dedication of the staff. This day it was ‘Andy Manager’, as his T-shirt informed us, who advised us where to put what. This is clearly not just any old job for these men. Andy demonstrated a passion for his work, as he explained what would happen to various items and why which material went where. There is apparently only one landfill site left locally at Ringwood and this would cause problems, ‘not in our lifetime, but for our children’s children’.
Naturally, Jackie just had to buy some more plant pots from the Sales Area.
Twenty four hours after I had been told by yesterday’s BT adviser that the problem with e-mail access would be resolved in that time, it wasn’t. I rang again. This time the robot on the other end of the line informed me that BT were well aware of the problem, so I didn’t need to wait in a queue to report it. Engineers were working to resolve it and the company was very sorry for the inconvenience caused.
We have a saying, relating to constant change, which is: ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. (This, translated into correct English, would read: ‘if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it’.) I would say to BT: ‘I wish you hadn’t changed it. Now it is broke, do fix it’.
This afternoon we continued clearing up rubbish, and in the process found a pit of broken tiles that we began to bag up. Whilst I was away, Jackie had transported most of the remaining IKEA wardrobe sections to the path adjoining the deserted garden that I had cleared a couple of months ago. This is to reinforce the non-existent boundary. We carried the rest across, and I began to prop them in place, at the same time lopping stubbornly invasive brambles.
Along with liberal bits of plastic and chunks of polystyrene, we have been somewhat mystified by the number of sea and escargot shells scattered among the soil in the garden. Jackie thought they should have been crushed but wasn’t sure what the purpose was. We also wondered whether our predecessors had a penchant for seafood.
I went on line and sought the answer, which was provided by doityourself.com. These shells, when crushed, are regarded as a useful mulch. The website advises that most seafood restaurants are happy to provide them for punters. ‘The best time’, we are advised, ‘to add this organic mulch is later spring or early summer when the soil is warm. As the shells decay they ‘will provide the soil (with) the minerals and calcium’ it needs. You will ‘save money in the long run on soil additives and amendments’.
‘Yes. Same as getting a bit of lime’, our head gardener sniffed scathingly. She thought, especially in their uncrushed state, that these shells might take some time to do their job.
Six years ago, when I was going through my hip replacement period, my GP, Dr O’Connor, bless her, told me I would never have a blood pressure problem. I do hope she is right, for it was severely tested this afternoon. With BT still not having resolved the e-mail problem, I received a call on my mobile phone from O2 who wanted to check that I had the most suitable contract for my needs. We got as far as the initial identification stage. When asked for the first line of my address and the postcode, I was informed that the first line was correct, but the postcode wasn’t. Believing that I was the best judge of where I lived, I terminated the conversation, and checked the address O2 had put on my last bill. The first line was correct, as were most of the others, but the postcode was that of our previous abode. Goodness knows how it reached me. Possibly full marks to the Post Office. I prevailed upon the unfortunate young woman who answered my call to change the company’s records.
Later, I ambled down to the Spar shop and back, to buy matches to light a bonfire soon afterwards.
Matthew is quite good at bonfires. In September 1983, he helped Jessica’s, sadly late, cousin Anthony with one in Aunt Elspeth’s garden in Rugby. I haven’t been able to locate the negative of this photograph, but the print, after more than thirty years, is still serviceable.
At 7.49 this evening I received a text from BT apologising for the e-mail problems, saying they were trying hard to fix it, and pointing me to a web-site for updates. Well, I suppose that’s something.
For dinner we enjoyed Jackie’s scrumptious spaghetti arrabiata. I thought I would try the other half of a bottle of Via di Cavallo chianti 2013 that I had opened a couple of days before my recent French trip. I immediately decided it would be more suitable in a sausage casserole, and opened another. And drank some. Jackie drank Hoegaarden.
During dinner, I received a lesson in the consumption of spaghetti. Jackie has patiently tolerated my efforts over the years, but today’s performance was too much for her. She guided me in the correct procedure. You take a spoon in your right hand (always assuming you are not left-handed), and a fork in your left. What you don’t do is twist as much spaghetti as possible around your fork, simply using the spoon as a guide, and try to suck up the slithering pasta before it slips back onto your plate. You don’t bite off the last bits and let them drop into the sauce, spotting your T-shirt with a tomato based preparation. What you do do, is take just two or three strands, twine them round your fork, and withdraw the tines, letting the coil perch on your spoon, from which you then consume it.
Embellishments
This morning was wasted trying to access e-mails. Just two days after BT changed their system, possibly indicating a parting from Yahoo, I could log on to BT but not to my e-mails. After wrestling with the problem for far too long, I eventually gave up and phoned their help line. This was clearly inundated with similar issues. Having forged my way through the machine response, I had to wait half an hour to reach a real live, and very helpful, individual, who took over my screen and grappled with it for another half hour before acknowledging that BT had suffered an ‘outage’ which they were working on. I should be able to access my e-mails within 24 hours. When the system was changed I had to provide a new password. Today I had to produce another. Don’t they realise old fogeys have memory problems?
In the last few days, whilst I have been gallivanting, Jackie has, among numerous other tasks in the garden, virtually cleared the skip pile and completely eradicated the extraneous foliage from the back fence;
embellished the area with hanging baskets; chopped up most of the branches into suitably sized pieces for the pyre; and transferred them to the site for burning. After I had posted yesterday’s entry, I completed this latter task.
I look forward to the new embellishments developing into the maturity of those Jackie planted earlier.
The Kiwi sculpture Michael and Heidi gave me for my birthday now perches alongside the patio.
This evening we dined at our neighbours The Royal Oak. I enjoyed my ham, eggs, chips and peas, as did Jackie her chicken wrapped in bacon and cheese. Her sweet was chocolate fudge cake and ice cream. My choice was apple crumble and custard. She drank Becks, while I drank Doom Bar.