6th March 2014

It has been a whole month since I last entered the family blog, but this isn’t the first time I’ve sat at my laptop tapping away at the keyboard. Sarah has been very busy with her essays, and it seems barely a few days go by without one landing in my inbox for me to read and comment on. They’ve been arriving so often that I’m even starting to understand some of what I’m reading!

On the 8th of February, we had an eventful Curry Night. For various reasons, we hadn’t all gathered as a family over the past few Fridays, and all but Sarah were due to join this time. Jamie was the first to call off, as he was getting ready for an upcoming snowboarding holiday and had gone to the Snowdome in Milton Keynes. Soon after, Suraj phoned in to let us know his car had broken down in Wellingborough on the way over. Charlotte, who had already arrived, coordinated with the AA to get him sorted. The torrential rain we’ve been experiencing had seeped into his car’s management system and upset it.

As a consequence, there were plenty of seconds of curry to go around. Afterwards, Sue and I went to see  ‘Rush’ at Harborough Theatre Cinema, an excellent film about James Hunt and Niki Lauda’s legendary 1974 Formula One rivalry. What an epic season that was, and what two amazing characters. They don’t make races like that anymore.

During the rest of the week, I spent some time (in between showers) at the allotments, either pulling up leeks or turning the soil over in preparation for the coming dry season. The ground is very wet and claggy. I’ve given up going off-road on my bike, as I end up too caked in sludge, and hosing the bike down in the rain is a hassle. Instead, I’m now braving the rural traffic of Leicestershire.

On the 13th of February, Sarah was whisked off to Dublin to celebrate Valentine’s Day with Lee. It reminded me of when I did the same with Sue, though we went to a slightly more romantic Paris. They had a lovely time visiting the Guinness factory and the Maze Prison.

That Friday, we invited Jim and Brigitte for Curry Night. They had just moved house from Desborough back to Harborough that day, so we thought it would be helpful to feed them. Fortunately for Jim, who can’t handle spicy food, I prepared a couple of Chinese dishes as well. It was a nice change having friends join the family for a meal, and for once, there was very little left over for Sue and me to finish the following day.

The Rugby Six Nations is now on, and rather than watching at The Angel Hotel, I had decided to canter over to the Rugby Club and use my membership. Unfortunately, the weather has been defeating the playing of any home matches for the last month (water-logged pitches), but it has been great meeting friends I haven’t seen for a while and watching a couple of brilliant games on TV.

On the 19th, Sue and I drove to Birmingham to see the city for a couple of days. We had booked into the Britannia Hotel on New Street. Last year we watched Tony Robinson on TV do a walk along the canals in Brummy, impressed with the sights, we resolved to do the same. I had plotted a circular route from the hotel into my GPS along part of the canal system. Partway round, we stopped for a very pleasant lunch at the Malt House. Much of the canal has been modernised, and you can read about its history on the many information boards that we came across. It was a lovely walk and we have resolved to come again and tread another route. On the way back, we visited the rather extensive Birmingham Museum, but we didn’t do it justice as it is rather huge, and it was near closing time. Later, as we passed the rather impressive Council buildings, I noticed a very large and shiny chauffeur-driven Bentley leaving. Glancing to the back seat, I spotted the Lord Mayor resplendent with the gold chain of office, grinning and waving to me. As I waved back, I am sure he mouthed the following, “We heard you were coming, but I have just had a message from the missus to say my dinner is getting cold. Give us a call and we will see you next time.”

At the hotel, we enjoyed an excellent evening meal with a complimentary bottle of rosé before walking to the ‘Electric Cinema’, the oldest working cinema in the country. They sell their own brewed ale, aptly named “The Electric,” in the foyer. After a quick sample, we settled in to watch

 

‘Her’, a quirky sci-fi romance that was both entertaining and memorable for its unlikely storyline. I’d highly recommend a visit to the ‘Electric Cinema’ for anyone’s must-do list in Brum, not just for the ale but for the unique atmosphere and experience. Oh, and they do serve beer at your seat during the performance!

The following morning, after an exceptionally full English breakfast, we had a stroll around the shops in the Bullring (Sue bought some cherries) before checking out of the hotel and driving back to Harborough. We thought Birmingham was such a lovely city, well worth getting to know better.

Doreen, our next-door neighbour, moved house while we were away. She’s only moved up Lubenham Hill, but on the afternoon of our return, we popped over to see her. Earlier in the week, I had taken apart her computer system for her and promised to set it up again in her new home. While I got things sorted, Sue had a tour of the house. Over the past couple of weeks, Doreen has been storing various items in our dining room, and we were hoping she’d collect them, but as she had only unpacked a couple of boxes so far and didn’t have the room, we promised to hang on to them a bit longer. We even came away with a nest of coffee tables that were now surplus to her requirements, which we promptly rehomed with Nan.

The following Friday, the Rothwells spent the day at ‘The Space Museum’ in Leicester. The boys were full of excitement when they called in to see us on their way back. Charlotte decided to stay rather than return to Rothwell with the rest of the family. Nan and I had taken her and the boys to ‘The Bull’ at Arthingworth for lunch the previous day, where we noticed there was a Psychic Evening on the following night. Sue was keen to go with Charlotte, and after some difficulty securing tickets, they attended later that evening. Luckily, the Tigers were playing on BT Sport that night, so Jim Hankers came over to keep me company, and we watched the game on the big screen in the lounge.

The Psychic Evening sounded entertaining, though neither of them got a reading, as, apparently, Psychic Sally said  they were “too tight.” Whatever could she mean?

The following day, Sue, Charlotte, and I joined a Council-led walk near Hungarton. It was only about 6.5 miles over easy countryside, but with most of the land being saturated, we were glad it wasn’t any further. Lunch was at ‘The Black Boy’, and it turned out to be very informative. Colin, the walk leader, sat with us and explained the origin of the phrase “painting the town red.” It dates back to an incident in 1837 when the Third Marquis of Waterford, living at nearby Quenby Hall, celebrated a successful hunt by daubing red paint on the buildings along Melton Mowbray’s High Street. Colin also shared that Quenby Hall was where Stilton cheese was first made, though it got its name from the village of Stilton on the old A1, where it was sold to passing carriage passengers. Fascinating!

I spent an afternoon at the Rugby Club watching the internationals on TV. Later that evening, Sue and I went to a Comedy Evening at Harborough Theatre. Of the four comedians, only the headliner was genuinely funny; the other three acts seemed either too nervous or thin on material. Nevertheless, we were up for a laugh, and though we had to wait for it, it was a nice way to round off a busy day.

On Wednesday of the following week, I took Nan for a blood test in preparation for her diabetes review, and the following day, an engineer came to repair our central heating boiler. It had started to make a strange noise that first appeared before Christmas. Of course, it made no noise when ‘Mr Fixit’ arrived! Luckily, I had taught the engineer when he was a youngster, so he repaid my kindness by ordering a new part and promising to come back and fit it as quickly as possible. And I thought the only perks were chalk and sellotape!

Annoyingly, the following morning, I got a puncture on my bike! For the first time in weeks, I braved the quicksand-like mud and ventured off-road on my morning skirmish through the Leicestershire countryside. I had stopped at the viewpoint above Foxton Inclined Plane to scan the horizon, wondering why I  on a rare rainless morning, I hadn’t come across more than an old couple taking a rather ancient dog for a walk during that time, when I noticed my flat tyre and instantly felt deflated. At that instant, my mobile came to life. Wondering whether it was the psychic from the previous week, I was bemused to read a text from Sarah: “Sent you an essay, can you check it a.s.a.p.” A phone call to Sue, followed by a dismantled bike in the back of her car and a much quicker journey home than planned, soon saw me sitting in front of my laptop reading another essay, criminal!!!

My tablet also died this week. It switches on, but the boot file refuses to load; I guess, like me, it got too old. I checked the Net for a solution and found it under ‘Unbricking your Cube 30gt’. It looked fairly straightforward: take the back off, connect to your PC, short out two terminals, load a couple of files back onto it, and put it back together. Not too difficult, I thought, and the alternative solution is to buy a new one.

During Curry Night, I explained my problem to Suraj, and he took it away to see if the described procedure would fix it. He also took away my external hard drive, as it too has become corrupted, and I no longer have access to our really old holiday photos. There was a time I would have found attempting to fix these two bits of kit exciting, but that was then, and this is now. Fingers crossed, Suraj can manage to repair them and go some small way towards saving the planet from being buried under another pile of defunct technology.

That Saturday was a Vice-President’s Luncheon at the Rugby Club. I organised a table for ten. The food was good, the wine and ale plentiful, the conversation predictable, and the match, Harborough v Lutterworth, disappointingly ended with a very late defeat for the good guys of Harborough.

On Sunday, Jamie jetted off to Andorra with eight friends for a spot of snowboarding. He flew from Birmingham at 7 am, travelling there with a friend whose dad happened to be a taxi driver. The night before, he brought around his pet gerbil for us to look after. Surprisingly, though he’s very fond of it, he’s never given it a name. He wasn’t very pleased when we informed him that on Monday, we’d also be going away and that Nan would be taking over the gerbil-sitting. I’m not sure Nan was thrilled with the idea either.

The gerbil, unfortunately, got car sick on the short drive to Huntingdon Gardens; he didn’t look at all well. When I carried his cage into the flats, I could see he had buried his head into the sawdust with his little back legs sticking up in the air. At first, I thought he was dead, but thankfully, after a while, he recovered.

On Monday, Sue and I headed to Lancashire in my trusty Fiesta for three days of adventure. We stayed at the Britannia Hotel in Standish, near Wigan. With the sun shining, we decided to tackle a walk around Rivington Reservoir, following a route I had carefully plotted on my trusty GPS. The path was steep in places but easy on the feet, and the clear weather rewarded us with magnificent views all around.

We returned to the hotel just before dark and enjoyed an early evening meal, accompanied by a complimentary bottle of rosé. Afterwards, we retired to the bar, where we spent the evening playing darts. Surprisingly, we found ourselves getting progressively better as the night wore on and the glasses emptied, though true consistency remained elusive!

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a breakfast that could have fed a battalion, Sue and I set off for Wigan. Ever the thrifty strategists, we left the car in the B&Q car park and took a gentle stroll to the so-called Wigan Pier. Armed with my trusty GPS, we ambled along the canal, past some rather pretty water meadows and, inevitably, through a stretch of industrial wasteland that even Wordsworth would have struggled to romanticise.

When we finally arrived at the famous pier, spoiler alert: it doesn’t actually exist, we carried on into the town centre. To our delight, we stumbled across a French market, its stalls looking oddly at home nestled against Wigan’s Elizabethan buildings, which have been beautifully restored to their former glory.

We lingered a while, browsing stalls piled high with tempting treats, most of which looked far too inviting for someone who’d already demolished half a farmyard at breakfast. But the true mission of the day was to hunt down Wigan’s legendary ‘Uncle Joe’s Mint Balls’. After much asking, wandering, and a couple of wrong turns, we eventually tracked down the factory, only to discover that they made the sweets there but didn’t actually sell them. Thankfully, a nearby shop came to the rescue, and in a blaze of glory, we cleared the shelf… all four packets. A modest haul perhaps, but enough to feel we’d won the Mint Ball Lottery.

 

 

 

 

That evening, we dined at a pub in Standish called The Charnley before heading back into Wigan to watch The Book Thief at the Empire Cinema, conveniently perched beside Wigan Athletic’s football ground. The film turned out to be the finest piece of cinema I’ve seen in years; the storyline was gripping, the acting flawless, the scenery evocative, and the characters utterly convincing. When it eventually makes its way to the Harborough Cinema Club, I’ll happily watch it all over again.

The only drawback, if I’m being picky, is that the original novel was written by an Australian. As such, I shan’t be troubling myself with the book; one must draw the line somewhere.

The following day, after breakfast, we attempted a walk behind the hotel and around a nearby lake, but the ground was so sodden that we gave up after about half an hour; sometimes discretion really is the better part of valour.

We checked out and drove over to Uncle Stanley’s home in Salford, a journey of roughly half an hour. At 93, he was in rather poor health, partially deaf and blind, and with a raspy chest that made breathing a struggle. We suspected he’d overexerted himself tidying up for our visit, so Sue brewed him a reassuring cup of tea while we listened to his news. I helped by inputting our phone numbers into a mobile he’d bought, though I rather suspect it’s beyond him to use it. After some gentle persuasion, he agreed to let me contact Social Services to arrange support. By the time we left around 2 pm, it was clear he was exhausted and ready for a well-earned nap.

The drive back to Harborough was uneventful. That evening, while I was watching England v Denmark on TV, the house alarm sounded, apparently its way of announcing a dead power supply. At least we were home, sparing the neighbours any unnecessary excitement. The following morning, I tracked down a suitable replacement from one of the many spare power supplies everyone seems to have lying around and swapped it in.

I spent the rest of the morning speaking with Salford Social Services about the support Stanley could receive, before ringing him to explain the installation of a Care in the Home system. He’ll have a fob, and if he needs help, he can press it; someone will come, and we’ll be notified. It took some persuasion, but he’s agreed. I haven’t mentioned the other services Social Services are exploring on his behalf, Meals on Wheels, housing support, and so on, as he tends to refuse anything offered. Once the Home Care system is in place, we’ll tackle those next.

Whenever I switch on any of my techy devices, PC, laptop, tablet, or Windows phone, conveniently, my synced calendar cheerfully reminds me of upcoming events. It’s a brilliant little tool that I’ve come to rely on, especially as the years pass and the outside world seems less and less relevant (I’ve seen it all before). Today, I noticed a reminder from last week that it was, indeed, my birthday. Other clues were harder to miss: a new car satnav from the children, garden tool-shaped chocolates from Sue, cards on the mantelpiece, and a rather pricey map card I’d treated myself to for my GPS. Oh, and the fact that Sue and I had celebrated in yet another “exotic” location, last year in Rio, this year in Wigan.

Birthdays, I’ve had enough of my own, thank you very much, and now much prefer other people’s. The late mention of this monumental event in the family blog is probably telling, and reflects my general preference to forget it ever happened!