Saturday 18 May 2013

 Oh yes, at the Goth weekend after we had had ice creams there was a very tall trim and beautiful lady who was wearing some sort of light brown plastic one-piece dress from her ankles up with a fairly low cut to the chest and plastic shoulder straps. I just had to get close to this lady to have a look at the dress as it turned out I got very close as I stood right in front of her whilst  several people were talking to her and taking photos. I am not sure a plastic dress like that is comfortable but she reminded me of the Borg Queen from Star Trek and she was just as pretty as well. I would have liked to have touched the material but I think that may be going too far although I could have asked. Sometimes I am shy and have a sense of decorum!
On 27th April I had a nice pre-birthday day out at Whitby with my family. The weather was nice and it was a bit cold but best of all after we had looked at our usual glacial weathering and the rocks in the glacial till and had walked down the beach into the centre Whitby when we noticed a lot of people wearing black and someone told us it was Whitby Goth Weekend .

So, all these people wearing black and some in a sort of military uniform carrying big brass guns were from the  Gotholithic period in the early 1980s. I loved the purple and blue hair that the very fine middle-aged ladies had and also some of them had daughters in tow who looked really stunning. My lads noticed them definitely! Unusually for us as a family we decided to have a cup of coffee in a very nice quaint picturesque Cafe which had quite a few Goths in there. At the coffee counter there were a couple of young ladies who looked like they would really like to talk to a couple of nice young man and my lads were with us so I invited them to go over and chat to them if they liked. They smiled but declined.

Upstairs there was a Goth mother and daughter pair and a guy and his wife, the guy being in a military uniform with a huge brass gun. Fiona ask them politely if she could take photos   and they were very obliging. In fact every one of the Goths we spoke to was super polite and didn't mind having photos  taken.  I'm  amazed at what can happen when you go out for a walk around Whitby to look at birds and rocks and then suddenly find this wonderful subculture laid out all around the streets. North Yorkshire is always surprising!

Nipping over to the East Pier I looked back at the cliffs and there had been a huge rockfall of a least 50 foot in width right from the top where all the detaic  rock sediments were from the period in the Jurassic where most of Yorkshire was just one huge delta with lots of sand and silt. It did me remind me rather uncomfortably that  walking at the bottom of those cliffs can involve a slight risk of thousands of tonnes of rock falling onto one's head. Believe you me it is worth it!

We had our usual fish and chips at Hadley's which was great and there were a couple Goths in there as well and looking out of the picture windows onto the street and all these amazing Goths around was quite something. What surprised me during this day is when we were at the cafe we all   hung out together for a change instead of moving on looking at stuff and that was really nice and something I want to do again. I feel the showing my children  something because it is interesting phase of my relationship with them  is coming to an end. Nobody was bored we were enjoying each other's company having a good laugh and talking about the Goth weekend and how amazing the people looked. A really nice day out and the best way I like to celebrate my birthday, because I don't like my birthday day, is  to do it before hand and have a nice time. Thank you family!
Now I have got my study room set up and soundproofed for music as well as recording stuff I woke up this morning with a feeling that the musical part of my life can go ahead at last. Or not, because I am writing and recordings songs to put out there to show to people that I can sing and write music and pretty shortly I will be putting out harmonica stuff as well to try to find a musician or musicians to work professionally with i.e. go out there and gig  and tour.

It is a  good at the moment because I am doing a day job working with Learning Disabled people and this fits my model of how any musician should conduct their affairs which is to pay your way doing a normal job and then have a go at being a musician as well. So, I am feeling pretty comfortable and this is the mental backdrop behind my walk today and feeling of contentment that I have.

Since about 10 PM last night it threw it down with rain and on my way up to Durham City for a walk around the town with Clifford and Fiona I was amazed at the amount of surface water . The tiny stream in the middle of Bowburn on the way to Durham had burst its banks and the road was completely flooded to a depth of about 18 inches which surprised me because we have not had that much rain and is an indication of how soaked the ground still is.

Walking around the banks of the River Wear was a delight and we went to look at the flood defences they are building and walked through a lovely part of the woods with many bluebells rising up the sides of the bank . Beautiful.

Because of the weather the city was really quiet, the clouds were very light glowing grey having discharged a lot of water and I could just see the condensation evaporating off the ground which will form haze and possibly mist  later. It is great getting into Earth Science books because it gives an explanation of what is going on around me.

Biscuit break was in Durham Cathedral Cloisters and was good fun particularly as we are sitting on the light side of the Cloisters facing West and I don't know why we didn't sit there in the first place years ago. Maybe us  Saunders-Priem's    like dark and gloomy places I don't know. Anyway, after hoofing it back to the car I went back on the A167 to avoid the flooding at Bowburn but there were pools on the road in several sections on the way back.

Miles is working like a Trojan at the moment meeting deadlines and getting really into his mathematics and I have been very impressed by his ability to get up at 6 AM and just crack on. Several times this week he has done 10 or 11 hours of maths a day. Good lad. I am supremely grateful to the Good Lord that I could get a job and show him that I can go out to work and it always worried me that he had never seen that side of me. I have always been keen to work at any job, I like to get up early in the morning and get out and  about.

Home-made pork meatballs, pasta , tomato sauce and garlic bread is progressing nicely as I write this and I have got a good evening lined up of writing lyrics   for two songs, melodies come really easy for me and then recording them for public listening next week. I am hoping to find a musician or musicians who want to go out and play professionally  but with original music not  covers because original music is the only way to make a half decent living. I don't think I'm going to be successful at this but the only talent I really have is  persistence, determination and trying. In fact Fiona finds me trying a lot of the time but I've realised    that is maybe why she loves me because I try for her and my family as well. A great day and I am about to watch Terminator 2 with my family and we have nominated Fiona an Honorary Boy for the duration so she can join us in watching it.

Saturday 11 May 2013

The day started out with a nice morning of singing practice, working my way through a load of songs and reading up the first volume of Shelby Foote's history trilogy of the American Civil War.

Miles was up early this morning and he is busy getting his final assignments done before the end of the month as well as preparing for his finals so he didn't come out for a walk around the Durham Woods and neither did Fiona because she felt pretty wasted. So, it was just Clifford and me which was great because he brings out the quiet in me and it was a very mellow and relaxing walk.

Durham University has built a new Law Department and we have seen the front of it but today we decided to walk around the back which was quite a hoot because it is like a series of horizontal game levels with lots of right angle turns and I did not know whether we could get round the back or whether it would just stop and we would have to turn around. Thankfully it was a walk-through to the University Library. I love town walks because there is an adventure everywhere!

Biscuit break was in Durham Cathedral Cloisters as usual but I heard the massed  warblings of a choir coming from the main cathedral and when we went in there the Durham Cathedral Choir and Orchestra were rehearsing Mendelssohn's Elijah for a performance tonight. It sounded pretty good but I found the solo alto very weak and if she had been a strong warbler I would have gone this evening. Altos need fat bottoms and if they don't have it you just can't hear them when they go into the lower register!

So, the food is on the fry , the bake and the boil is coming up, for the home-made pork balls, well they are cylinders because I use a metal cutter for them, garlic bread, tomato sauce and pasta. I love the time I spend with my family and tonight we will be watching "The Lovely Bones",  a film by Peter Jackson which I've seen twice before and is weird, moving but very disturbing as well.

A productive day and spending a couple of hours walking around Durham with my youngest son Clifford brings it home to me what a lovely lad he is and his character shines out with every step. He is a good grafter as well and that will stand him in good stead when he goes into the education system as a Mathematics Teacher in four years time. God bless him and all those educators past and present without which we would not have civilisation.

Wednesday 8 May 2013

Wow those peas. I've gone from to little mush to nearly to much . Really temperamental. Nice taste though at the end of it . Love the grunting and wolfing sounds as the family gooble them down. Not a pretty sight tea in our house and couple that with watching comedies  as we do at tea time like Fawlty Towers and there is something really Medieval about the whole thing ! Still, we let the local stray dogs in to clear up  so no problem. They certainly lick those plates clean and do a good job of the carpet . Much better than a dish washer or hoover  . We've gotta go natural folks so put the pooches  to good use !
Hooray, I have conquered my mush at last. Perfect mushy peas every time, but I do have to keep an eye on them. My harmonica pucker was put back in place a couple of weeks ago and now my slide is getting back to its slick lightning state. Can life be any better than this? Well yes because all of the above has got me writing melodies again and maybe I will stick some lyrics to it if I can think of anything. "Rock on, crock on , 57 could be my lucky number!" Bad start!

Saturday 4 May 2013

No Bahai stall today because it was too windy so I stayed in and got on with singing practice as well as a bit of harmonica blowing. I do not know why I bother but I have a strong feeling I will be needing it in the near future. Sounds mysterious? It does to me as well.

Miles has been working his head off because he has one month to do four assignments, his final ones and then into his finals, so to have a break he came out with Fiona, Clifford and I to have a walk around the River Wear in Durham. The rain and flooding over the last four months have really taken their toll on the banks and several paths  have been closed because the river has eroded them away. I'm not sure what they can do and   I would   close the path's for good and let the river have its wicked way because if they start putting in concrete culverts it will increase the speed of the river and created a lot of damage and silting downstream. Anyway it is a good one to watch over the next few months.

On the walk it felt like high Spring even though spring is only really starting. I saw one Jay looking down on it from 100 feet above as we were on a fairly high peninsular bank where we don't normally walk but it was really good. There was also an excellent view onto the South End of Durham Cathedral although I will have to check that I have got the right point of the compass because it can be a bit confusing looking at that building from various angles. Still, under the blue sky chopped up with puffy cumulus clouds it looked really good and God bless the Christians for putting up such great buildings.

Biscuit break was in the marketplace which was chock-full of people as well as a couple of folk buskers, a fiddle player and a drummer which was really good because they were not using amplification and it was much nicer without it. There is nothing better than natural acoustic sound.

When we got back Fiona and I had our usual crash and a cuddle listening to the ever interesting Leonard Cohen and now I am getting the tea together which is the same as last week and the happy routine of our family life carries on as always effective in delivering joy, intelligence but most importantly of all family unity. God bless my family and friends and I have a cracking evening set up of more warbling and rootling and tootling on my harmonica.but
A good read but completely irrelevant to my life now.I found the bit about Jo Frost interesting and I happened to watch one of her Super Nanny programmes where a young woman married to an ex-marine policeman was having trouble controlling her children when he was out doing his job. When he came back from a day's policing the children behaved  perfectly  with both parents because of his very disciplined and no-nonsense demeanour

I thought this was a simple case of the man conferring authority on to the mother. The policeman husband should have just told the kids that when he is out of the house if they do anything that bothers their mum it will bother him and there will be big trouble. I have done something similar but too a much lesser degree with my own lads from time to time. Interesting that Jo Frost did not recommend this because she concentrates on individual solutions to childcare problems when most of them happen because of lack of unity between the mum and dad.

I think the phrase I used with my lads was, and I must stress this was very occasionally, "Cross your mum and you cross me". I saw it as an empowerment gesture for my very fine wife.

A biological dilemma today. Two fine blackbirds have built their nest again this year in a really stupid place where the chicks can be got at easily by cats as well as the crows. Do I get a crow trap, a lovely device which uses the crows instinct to be social to catch three at a time and clear our area temporarily of crows or do I just leave them to their biological fate? My line so far is that if birds are that stupid to rear their young in such precarious places Natural Selection should put a brake on their obviously not very good genetic thinking and they don't rear young this year.

The black birds nest is about half a metre above the ground in some greenhouse shelving that Fiona has left outside about a metre from the back of our house and right next to the tap that she uses for watering. It is a great sheltered spot, South West facing but again it can take the brunt of the Westerly wind which lowers the temperature, results in the chicks being hungry, because they need more energy to grow and keep warm but the blackbirds feed them at a fairly fixed rate so the chicks will die. Sometimes I wish I never knew these things!

Friday 3 May 2013

With the family, for teatime viewing I have just watched "Pitch Perfect" a teen flick comedy about American University acappella groups. Because my eldest son Miles has very serious tastes in rock and jazz like Yes and the band Chicago from their earliest jazz rock days, the look of total horror on his face at having to to watch and listen to such lively and flippant music was a joy to behold! All part of your education kid!