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AGAIN.
A chapter of accidents.
Last week Maureen went to stay with her sister in Alverstoke, Hants. Brother-in-law Mike was away on a walking holiday and my Leader went to keep Marg company for a few days. I gather everything went well enough, though the day after Mo's return home she let slip that she had undergone another fall on her outward journey and consequently was nursing a badly bruised right leg to go with the bruised/cracked/broken rib/s sustained when she tripped on a carpet in our dining room the previous week. No good me berating myself for not being there to save her on either occasion. I actually was with her last Friday when she fell in the street. Her falls are sudden and definite: Superman couldn't save her.
So on Saturday, instead of our planned trip to the Michaelmas Fair at Alverstoke, I took her, nursing a painful right foot, to Beacon Health Centre at St. Mary's, the sole working hospital on the Island since the last NHS shake up. The foot, an x-ray revealed, was not broken, it was sprained. We sighed our relief and I drove her back to Newport where M&S was holding a 50% off sale: not even a one-legged Leader could resist that.
I would, it was agreed, "pop next door to Morrisons" for a couple of items not stocked by M&S.
I was approaching a flight of stone steps leading down to Morrisons' car park when an empty plastic carrier bag from that establishment, carried up by the wind over the top step, inexplicably wrapped itself around my feet and brought me crashing to the pavement just short of the steps. My left hand and right elbow were cut, both knees and a somewhat overweight elderly midriff were bruised and I was badly shocked. I was also very lucky. I had not fallen down the steps and two extremely kind shoppers came to my assistance (one seemed to have nursing experience and the other escorted me back into M&S to find Maureen). Without them I would never have made it back onto my feet, let alone back to Mo, so my heartfelt thanks go to the pair of them. Lovely ladies.
I am grateful, too, for the kindness and consideration shown by the splendid folk at M&S, not least their newly trained first aider, Dee, whose first patient I was and who concluded the dressing of my wounds with the advice that I return to St. Mary's for a check up. (She rang us at home to ask after my progress the next day, too.)
So, bless her, my Leader, she of the sprained foot, drove me back from whence we had shortly before come and my wounds were re-dressed. It didn't take long. After all, we were season ticket holders.
A couple of days later I am feeling much better and do so hope Mo is. She needs some really good luck: about a month ago she was in the car with grandson Ellis when a tailgating white van man drove into the back of them. They were shaken but not physically injured. The car required a fairly extensive body job, was in a local (insurer - designated} garage for a fortnight and was brought back just in time for me to collect her on her return from Alverstoke. Also, before she left for the mainland she had some patterns to photocopy for one or other of her sewing circles. My hp photocopier fouled up attempting the job and, in a foolish move to temporarily replace it, we completely crashed the computer. Screen went black.
The computer lifeboat captain came, carried out all the standard procedures, got nowhere, gently cursed and got in touch with the computer recovery expert.
Dan the Man came. Daniel has been recovering stricken computers for eleven years. He is called in by Stainless whenever one of their computers founders. He carried out all the standard procedures, got nowhere, gently cursed and departed with the computer under his arm.
For a while I was without wife, car or computer. It was a quiet time.
Anyway, Dan the Man took but a few days to resurrect the computer.
"What was wrong with it?" I asked him.
"It was buggered," he replied.
I do love an expert who doesn't talk down at you with technical details.
And the photocopying? Oh, the newsagent down the road did that at a very reasonable price. Makes you wanta spit, don't it?
Some magical moments.
Fiddler.
Way back in the nineteen seventies, youngest daughter Roz and I went to see Fiddler on the Roof at the Mayflower Theatre, Southampton. It was a beautiful production (Tevye, played by a chap called Reg Dyer, was a mesmerising double of Topol) and when, early on, the chorus line did their cossack-style advance downstage – complete with lighted candles on their hats - a delighted, shining-eyed little Roz turned to share the moment with me; it was a magical experience.
So this year on the 14th of September, as a slightly advanced 51st wedding anniversary gift, Roz took Maureen and I to Southampton to see a matinee performance of Fiddler on the Roof, the Mayflower being the first venue of a UK tour directed and choreographed by Clive Revel Horwood (of Strictly Come Dancing) and starring Paul Michael Glaser (of Starsky and Hutch). We had an excellent lunch at the Vestry restaurant and bar before making our leisurely way across the road to the theatre where we were greeted with a notice informing us that Paul Michael Glaser was indisposed. The role of Tevye would be played by Eamonn O'Dwyer.
"That'll
be all right," I said."The stand-in always works twice as
hard."
He did, too.
In their penultimate performance in Southampton, Mr. O'Dwyer and his colleagues delivered a spellbinding blend of acting, singing, management of the set and, without a separate orchestra, onstage musical accompaniment (many playing several instruments).
The
Fiddler (Jennifer Douglas) not only played cool violin, she had a
cool head for heights.
At the end a cheering audience gave the players a standing ovation and this old chap had been transported back some thirty five years.
Thank you, lovely Roz.
Evensong.
To the best of my knowledge the roof is still on Portsmouth Cathedral despite an attendance by my Leader and I at Evensong on Sunday 1st September. We went because our friend from Cornwall, Anne, sings in The Saint Hugh Singers (a select group of choristers gathered from all over the country), which was guesting there. In the event, I think the imposing but slightly overgrown building needed as many defaulters like us as it could get. The congregation was sadly sparse. Pity, because the combined voices, guest and resident cathedral, were a delight to the ear.
We were so pleased to see Anne again, if only for a brief spell.
READING.
The perfect Potter replacement.
A short time after the second Harry Potter book was published, our daughter-in-law, Pauline, asked if we had read any J.K. Rowling. We had not. So we hastily rectified the oversight, became doting followers and happily joined the queue, with granddaughter Jessica, at our local Ottakers, renamed POttakers, every publication night thereafter. It was a magical time.
Now, daughter Roz's partner, Nick, has directed us to four of his favourite Discworld novels and...would you believe it?...we are well and truly hooked again. Both of us have read them all.
I find it hard to believe that Equal Rites, Wyrd Sisters, Witches Abroad and Lords and Ladies, published by Gollancz in 1987, 1988, 1991 and 1992 respectively (and many times since by Corgi), had never before come to our attention; the first of them was published ten years before Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone graced a shelf in any welcoming bookshop.
Have you read them? If you have, you will surely have read the lot. If you haven't, buy all four together. Nobody should read just one.
Oh, for the benefit of the uninitiated, they are the hilariously recounted adventures of witches Grandma Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Margrat Garlick and they are told (with a plethora of footnotes and fine humour) by the comedy genius that is Terry Pratchett.
Now my
Leader has purchased Sir Terry's Discworld novel Night Watch and says
I should be first to read it. Trouble is, by the time I've regaled
her with all the bits I thought were hilarious...
A-a-ah, she'll still read it anyway..
No time for tele talk, it's already October and lengthy periods without the computer have put many hours on my reading time; so not only have I read the four Discworld masterpieces, I dipped back into the Agatha Raisin yarns of the prolific, multi-named M.C. Beaton for another good read, A.R. and the Murderous Marriage. So it is fitting that a picture of Ms. Beaton conclude this post. Cheers, all.
A chapter of accidents.
Last week Maureen went to stay with her sister in Alverstoke, Hants. Brother-in-law Mike was away on a walking holiday and my Leader went to keep Marg company for a few days. I gather everything went well enough, though the day after Mo's return home she let slip that she had undergone another fall on her outward journey and consequently was nursing a badly bruised right leg to go with the bruised/cracked/broken rib/s sustained when she tripped on a carpet in our dining room the previous week. No good me berating myself for not being there to save her on either occasion. I actually was with her last Friday when she fell in the street. Her falls are sudden and definite: Superman couldn't save her.
So on Saturday, instead of our planned trip to the Michaelmas Fair at Alverstoke, I took her, nursing a painful right foot, to Beacon Health Centre at St. Mary's, the sole working hospital on the Island since the last NHS shake up. The foot, an x-ray revealed, was not broken, it was sprained. We sighed our relief and I drove her back to Newport where M&S was holding a 50% off sale: not even a one-legged Leader could resist that.
I would, it was agreed, "pop next door to Morrisons" for a couple of items not stocked by M&S.
I was approaching a flight of stone steps leading down to Morrisons' car park when an empty plastic carrier bag from that establishment, carried up by the wind over the top step, inexplicably wrapped itself around my feet and brought me crashing to the pavement just short of the steps. My left hand and right elbow were cut, both knees and a somewhat overweight elderly midriff were bruised and I was badly shocked. I was also very lucky. I had not fallen down the steps and two extremely kind shoppers came to my assistance (one seemed to have nursing experience and the other escorted me back into M&S to find Maureen). Without them I would never have made it back onto my feet, let alone back to Mo, so my heartfelt thanks go to the pair of them. Lovely ladies.
I am grateful, too, for the kindness and consideration shown by the splendid folk at M&S, not least their newly trained first aider, Dee, whose first patient I was and who concluded the dressing of my wounds with the advice that I return to St. Mary's for a check up. (She rang us at home to ask after my progress the next day, too.)
So, bless her, my Leader, she of the sprained foot, drove me back from whence we had shortly before come and my wounds were re-dressed. It didn't take long. After all, we were season ticket holders.
A couple of days later I am feeling much better and do so hope Mo is. She needs some really good luck: about a month ago she was in the car with grandson Ellis when a tailgating white van man drove into the back of them. They were shaken but not physically injured. The car required a fairly extensive body job, was in a local (insurer - designated} garage for a fortnight and was brought back just in time for me to collect her on her return from Alverstoke. Also, before she left for the mainland she had some patterns to photocopy for one or other of her sewing circles. My hp photocopier fouled up attempting the job and, in a foolish move to temporarily replace it, we completely crashed the computer. Screen went black.
The computer lifeboat captain came, carried out all the standard procedures, got nowhere, gently cursed and got in touch with the computer recovery expert.
Dan the Man came. Daniel has been recovering stricken computers for eleven years. He is called in by Stainless whenever one of their computers founders. He carried out all the standard procedures, got nowhere, gently cursed and departed with the computer under his arm.
For a while I was without wife, car or computer. It was a quiet time.
Anyway, Dan the Man took but a few days to resurrect the computer.
"What was wrong with it?" I asked him.
"It was buggered," he replied.
I do love an expert who doesn't talk down at you with technical details.
And the photocopying? Oh, the newsagent down the road did that at a very reasonable price. Makes you wanta spit, don't it?
Some magical moments.
Fiddler.
Way back in the nineteen seventies, youngest daughter Roz and I went to see Fiddler on the Roof at the Mayflower Theatre, Southampton. It was a beautiful production (Tevye, played by a chap called Reg Dyer, was a mesmerising double of Topol) and when, early on, the chorus line did their cossack-style advance downstage – complete with lighted candles on their hats - a delighted, shining-eyed little Roz turned to share the moment with me; it was a magical experience.
So this year on the 14th of September, as a slightly advanced 51st wedding anniversary gift, Roz took Maureen and I to Southampton to see a matinee performance of Fiddler on the Roof, the Mayflower being the first venue of a UK tour directed and choreographed by Clive Revel Horwood (of Strictly Come Dancing) and starring Paul Michael Glaser (of Starsky and Hutch). We had an excellent lunch at the Vestry restaurant and bar before making our leisurely way across the road to the theatre where we were greeted with a notice informing us that Paul Michael Glaser was indisposed. The role of Tevye would be played by Eamonn O'Dwyer.
He did, too.
In their penultimate performance in Southampton, Mr. O'Dwyer and his colleagues delivered a spellbinding blend of acting, singing, management of the set and, without a separate orchestra, onstage musical accompaniment (many playing several instruments).
At the end a cheering audience gave the players a standing ovation and this old chap had been transported back some thirty five years.
Thank you, lovely Roz.
Evensong.
To the best of my knowledge the roof is still on Portsmouth Cathedral despite an attendance by my Leader and I at Evensong on Sunday 1st September. We went because our friend from Cornwall, Anne, sings in The Saint Hugh Singers (a select group of choristers gathered from all over the country), which was guesting there. In the event, I think the imposing but slightly overgrown building needed as many defaulters like us as it could get. The congregation was sadly sparse. Pity, because the combined voices, guest and resident cathedral, were a delight to the ear.
We were so pleased to see Anne again, if only for a brief spell.
READING.
The perfect Potter replacement.
A short time after the second Harry Potter book was published, our daughter-in-law, Pauline, asked if we had read any J.K. Rowling. We had not. So we hastily rectified the oversight, became doting followers and happily joined the queue, with granddaughter Jessica, at our local Ottakers, renamed POttakers, every publication night thereafter. It was a magical time.
Now, daughter Roz's partner, Nick, has directed us to four of his favourite Discworld novels and...would you believe it?...we are well and truly hooked again. Both of us have read them all.
I find it hard to believe that Equal Rites, Wyrd Sisters, Witches Abroad and Lords and Ladies, published by Gollancz in 1987, 1988, 1991 and 1992 respectively (and many times since by Corgi), had never before come to our attention; the first of them was published ten years before Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone graced a shelf in any welcoming bookshop.
Have you read them? If you have, you will surely have read the lot. If you haven't, buy all four together. Nobody should read just one.
Oh, for the benefit of the uninitiated, they are the hilariously recounted adventures of witches Grandma Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Margrat Garlick and they are told (with a plethora of footnotes and fine humour) by the comedy genius that is Terry Pratchett.
A-a-ah, she'll still read it anyway..
No time for tele talk, it's already October and lengthy periods without the computer have put many hours on my reading time; so not only have I read the four Discworld masterpieces, I dipped back into the Agatha Raisin yarns of the prolific, multi-named M.C. Beaton for another good read, A.R. and the Murderous Marriage. So it is fitting that a picture of Ms. Beaton conclude this post. Cheers, all.
