Christmas 2003

41 Albion Street, Stratton,
Cirencester, Gloucs. GL7 2HT

Hello, Folks of World,

The time of the vampire sheep-bats be upon us! Heart thudding wildly out of control! Quick! Into the house! Aaaarrrggghhh! Flap! flap! FLAP! ......baaaaa! baaaaa! BAAAAA!!!! Nooooooooo!!!! Now, now, Joy, (pat! pat!) you’ve been listening to too many episodes of Dracula again! Another bulb of garlic should do it ....... down the hatch! (cough!) ......but I digress .........’The Prologue’...........

This time I think we’ll start off by telling you all about our exciting, adventurous Summer Holiday.....
er ...... right, that’s got that out of the way then ............Spring, Autumn and Winter, yes, but more of those later. Summer, all 37°C of it (air conditioning!!! .....what be that then? .....we don’t hold with these new-fangled inventions!), was spent heaving drawers of stuff around, otherwise known as re-organization, after my boss was forced out of her prestigious office by the re-instatement, after six years’ absence, of another layer of bureaucracy known as ‘The Mineralogy Curator’ (bow! scrape! grovel! grovel!).

If the Chinese calendar had parts of the house instead of animals, then this would probably be the year of the SHOWER. Next year is designated to become the year of ‘the rest of the shower-room’ (we don’t hold our breath around here!). It was a fatal mistake going anywhere near the Jackfield Tile Museum (remember that trip to Ironbridge last year, folks) and learning that they still hand-produced tiles to the original designs of a particular period ...... hmmm! Filing this away as ‘useful information’ it lay dormant for a while (zzzzzz!!! It doesn’t take much ......!). But this year....drip! drip! drip!.....followed a few weeks later by ..... trickle! trickle! ..... and after a few months by ....whoosh! .....oh! aaarrgghh! the mould appears to have taken up permanent residence in the 100% humidity that passes for our shower cubical ..... perhaps we should do something!!!! Much later........ I think we may have to spend MONEY!! Gulp! Thoughts tickling the neural pathways in the brain .....I guess it isn’t worth just having it unblocked .........it might be useful getting new shower bits ......oh, dear! I can’t really find anything I like except this .......ah! it seems to be the most expensive ......I know! Let’s design an Art Deco style bathroom - we can get the tiles from....(you’re ahead of me!). And that, children, is where it all began. Six months later, having passed showerless through the hottest summer on record (sweat! sweat! pong!), Bob’s shower is magnificent! Ah! Bliss!!!

I have actually finished decorating the conservatory - it only took a year since they finished building it! I know you’re supposed to leave the plaster to dry and finish exfoliating (er...efflorescing(?) um ... sweating(?), oh, y’know!), but .......(!) Oh, decisions! decisions! Much wringing of hands, much beating of head against brick wall, tears, tantrums, artistic rage ..... O woe! woe! and thrice woe!..... Oh, do calm down Joy! Is this just the correct shade of mauvey-pinky-russet? (whatever that looks like - thank you Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy!). Ha! You think this is all a joke, don’t you? It’s just taken two days to decide between two different shades of lavender / purple towels for the bathroom that is to come! Obviously, I must be intelligent, as I find it hard to make a decision!??! (Naturally, I’m normally very modest about this, but it was confirmed on the Radio 4 News Quiz so it has to be true!).

We ordered roof blinds from the same company that designed the conservatory since they had the measurements already, and they surely wouldn’t be incompetent twice, having already paid us a little compensation for messing us about previously ..........what’s that saying about lightning never striking twice? (says she sarcastically!). They’ll be desperately trying to prove that they’re not as incompetent as we’d come to believe, won’t they? You might think so, I couldn’t possibly comment! After some four months of waiting (well, actually, we’d just about forgotten), a ‘phone call arrived out of the blue, asking if they could come tomorrow(ish). So this bloke turns up to fit the blinds, and at this point it was discovered that the ‘send three and fourpence, we’re going to a dance’ syndrome had kicked in again. “No-one said anything about extra big brackets to me, guv” (scratch! scratch!), whereupon he left......... A couple of months and another ‘phone call later, they apologize for the delay, and eventually admitted (after much cajoling) that they couldn’t fit the blinds, as they had been .... er ..... stolen! (no, we didn’t believe this story, either!). The contract fitter apparently hated the company so much that he decided not to do any more work for them and refused to return everyone’s blinds!! (We just had to laugh!). So, they set to and made us another lot, finally fitting them in August - only eight months after we ordered them ............oh dear! we appear to have forgotten to pay the bill!!!

And what of our little treasures .......we have treasures?? ........ oh! you mean the two money-pits! One such pit opened up even further last summer (appropriately enough during the drought!) when Rupert decided he needed money to attend a summer school in Nice. Rupert appeared to have been invited as compensation for having been merely placed on the waiting list for Guildhall School of Music (not that he had any real intention of attending - he just wanted to see how far he could go with opera singing - he doesn’t think he has the discipline to be an actual opera singer - ho! hum!). What with course fees, air-fare, general living expenses and somehow being conned into clearing off his overdraft (sneaky, that one! we received a plaintive ‘phone call two days into the course saying that he was rapidly running out of cash and could we wire some over to him, pronto, “oh! and you’ll have to pay off my overdraft first, or I won’t see any of it” - oh! gee!, thanks Rupert!!!), it would’ve been cheaper to have the teacher come here!! Anyway, he met lots of ‘amazing’ people - mostly girls (hmmm!) - from all over Europe, all of whom could sing the skin off of a rice pudding at 50 metres, and actually came to the realization that he IS quite good at singing, despite his beliefs to the contrary. However, he is still trying to make it big in rock music and thus his main pre-occupation is his three bands with whom he rehearses fanatically all week .......we’re lucky if we spot him creeping out to work at some ghastly hour of the morning (i.e., before 7 a.m.!) once or twice per week! Evidence for his presence does manifest itself by the clean pots in the dishwasher (or this could be sneaky elves!), and a few pathetic little socks (not to mention the huge steaming piles of black tee-shirts), creeping down the stairs, begging to be washed!!!

We haven’t seen much of our other, smaller, treasure, as she besporteth herself in the Groves of Academe - or what passes for musical education at Dartington College. That particular money-pit just gets imperceptibly bigger over time : “Dad, please!, please!, please!!!, could you order me a ..... (insert here yet another piece of expensive, absolutely necessary, can’t possibly manage without it, piece of musical software) .... off of the internet? Oh! and don’t forget to get it posted directly to me as I need it for this composition due in yesterday!”. It remains a complete mystery as to what exactly Tamsin gets up to at Dartington, though one gets a taste of what goes on there from the end-of-year concert. Because they don’t have exams, this concert is the final year students performing their compositions : drama, music or a mix of both (but unlike anything you’ve ever experienced - this being a ‘Dartington thing’!). Unfortunately, we missed most of it and only managed to attend the gamelan concert that Tamsin was playing in, but being sufficiently inspired we promised to go to the whole three days’ worth next year. It was highly experimental, cutting-edge stuff : one piece composed by a student for the gamelan (a traditional Balinese xylophone orchestra) involved designing and making a wah-wah pedal that looked traditional, but gave the most amazing sound ......... people are very inventive at Dartington, and are encouraged to ‘think outside of the box’, so one gets this huge mix of ‘anything goes’, from the extra-ordinarily brilliant down to the mediocre, but certainly nothing like you’ll ever here anywhere else!!! But, one does wonder, will Tamsin actually be employable afterwards? Actually, thinking laterally is a good life skill, so you never know!

Bob and I seem to be developing a tradition (after only two years?!!) of holidaying at a Landmark Trust property at the end of January, (a) because it’s cheaper then, (b) to celebrate our birthdays, and (c) it’s sufficiently way past Christmas to feel ..... well ..... gloom! doom! depression! .... God, isn’t winter boring? .....lose will to live ...... fall on sword ..... stab! aarrgghh! ...... thump! .... and other such over-dramatized sayings! But, on with the story, folks! We stayed at ‘The Swiss Cottage’ on the Endsleigh estate near Tavistock in Devon. The heating left a lot to be desired, and we couldn’t light a fire, presumably on the grounds that it was made of wood and had a thatched roof, and they weren’t about to take any chances on what us oiks might get up to (drunken orgies, if our interpretation of the comments in the logbook are correct!), especially as the house had managed to survive since the 1820s (well, sort of!)!!! But the view over the Tamar to Cornwall was stunning - there’s something magical about watching the mist rise over the river on a cold and frosty morning (what’s this! ..... Joy getting out of bed in the MORNING on a WEEKEND!! ...... arrgghh! ..... thump! ..... Bob falls in dead faint on floor! Yes, I know it’s truly shocking, but now and again, is known to happen! Apparently, Endsleigh was the Devon home of the Dukes of Bedford, until the end of the 1950s, when they had to sell the estate because of death duties. We weren’t allowed to go into the big house, as it’s now a sort of private hotel that appears to be closed in the winter. The whole estate makes its money from the shootin’ and fishin’, and we were told to avoid wandering over the estate on the Saturday because of the pheasant shooting. Having read the logbook, we decided to heed this advice : it appears that one unfortunate couple had decided to walk to a particularly interesting pub in the area at Horsebridge, when all of a sudden ......thud! ....thud! .....thump!..... crash! ......it was raining dead pheasants! This was followed by much cursing as several irate posh gents with guns appeared out of the trees, pointing their weapons straight at the couple .....gulp! After explanations, they were frogmarched out of the area, feeling somewhat contrite : no-one had told them about the day’s shoot.

The Swiss Cottage itself is a very interesting place, having been built high on a bluff over the Tamar as a place to dine after a morning’s shoot for the Duke of Bedford and his guests. In the house resided a family (the Keeper of the Duke’s Crockery), who lived on the ground floor and the top floor, with the middle floor reserved for The Duke’s Crockery and for the Duke & guests to dine therein. Consequently, this floor had windows in all directions, French windows out to a balcony that also had stairs coming up from the ground, so that the guests never had to encounter the servants, except presumably in the serving of lunch! The Duke even had his own outside loo, apparently, though this had not been re-instated when the building was restored!!!

Having returned from a trip to Tavistock, where there is THE most amazing cheese shop (mmmmm! yum! yum!), we found it really difficult to return to the cottage : dozens of pheasants were clogging up the roads just nonchalantly wandering around, hardly bothering to move out of the way of vehicles, with that slightly menacing air redolent of street corner gangs. It was all part of the game, the pheasants before the shoot were nowhere to be seen, but afterwards were as bold as brass - they knew they were safe ‘till the next time!! The next day we were woken up by the pitter patter of little feet across the roof and a familiar cry : yup! it was them pesky pheasants ag’in! We went for a walk around the estate, with the feeling of several pairs of eyes watching our every move, occasionally encountering (yup! you’ve guessed!) ... a pheasant. I came to the conclusion that either those pheasants bred like crazy, or the people on these shoots were lousy shots! Following what definitely looked like a path down to the river, we set off towards ‘the big house’. A little while later, stumbling through the undergrowth, covered in cuts and bruises from the ubiquitous brambles, carefully climbing over odd bits of barbed wire, we reached the conclusion that this was ‘the old path’, long abandoned as being ‘too dangerous’, that we’d read about in the logbook - we had been WARNED!! Ooops!! Eventually, after about an hour, the undergrowth gave up trying to trip us up and finally we were disgorged into the flood plain of the river - phew! (The real path was longer, but took half the time - ho! hum!).

The gardens around ‘the big house’ have been mostly restored and are open to the public : there is a maze of lots of little paths with steps, providing different views over the river and the grounds, lots of little contrived streams and a lake with a footbridge, quite pretty even in winter. My favourite place was a grotto (suitably cold and dripping with water!), with stained glass windows that looked like spiders’ webs, and whose walls were decorated inside with shells from around the world (some quite large!), and fossils, minerals and ores from the mines owned locally in Devon by the Dukes of Bedford. This was a popular type of folly of the time (early 1800’s) when there was a huge interest in ‘natural history’, and it also showed off to their guests the source of their wealth. There was another little house in the grounds with beautiful gothic stained glass windows and doors, which was used for cheese-making. We had a key to it but couldn’t get in because of the damp, so we had to content ourselves by squinting through the key-hole (and to think, I was caned for this at school!!). Inside we could just about make out the gorgeous decoration and beautiful tiles on the walls and floor, so incongruous for a supposedly humble building. It is believed that (as with Marie Antoinette) its use was for ‘playing at farming’ for the aristocracy, when this was the fashion, so it probably wasn’t too heavily used!

Having chatted about Landmark properties down t’pub with some of Bob’s ex work-mates from Blackwells, a group of six of us decided to have a get together in March, before prices got to be too exorbitant. So it was that one cold but bright Friday our little red car, feeling insecure away from home, headed for the security blanket of the M6 rush(!) hour(!) around Birmingham, despite our protestations that everyone might like to eat before 10 p.m.! I think we may’ve mentioned this in a previous missive, but we appear to have a penchant for arriving in the dark, getting lost up some dirt track heading off into the forest ......hoot! ...hoot! .....howl! .....howl! ......hark! .... the sounds of hungry revelers starting on the booze ahead of time - the rat-bags!!! Thank goodness they haven’t re-introduced wolves, yet!

Ingestre Pavilion, near Stafford, has a typical symmetrical classical facade with magnificent columns and rounded, beautifully carved arches, taller than two storeys, which are lit at night to show these features to their best advantage. It is approached at present from the side via a forest ride, but opening out in front is a grand vista designed by Capability Brown through plantations that lead eventually down to the River Trent. It was apparently used in the 18th century (apart from a typical classical feature to ‘delight the eye’ at the end of a walk or ride during a day’s ‘turn’ around the estate with guests) as an informal retreat, away from the formality of the main house typical of aristocratic 18th century life. So we were living in ‘a den of iniquity’ - lots of card games and gambling, drinking, smoking, dancing, and sex!! But since only the front rooms were left when the Landmark Trust came by it, and having no descriptions of the interior, they had to do a best guess when it came to restoration. There is a magnificent octagonal drawing room, two storeys high, with a balcony running along three sides on the upper level, and a tempting chandelier just out of reach! On the upper level were empty statue niches just about accessible from the balcony ........... “Go on, Sue, you’d look just the part semi-naked draped in a sheet in one of those niches!” ..........much loud laughter .......chinking of glasses .......whisps of smoke........ clatter of coins ........ didn’t quite get around to the dancing, though ...........(!?!) What about ....sshhhhhh!!!

Apart from the below freezing temperature of our bedroom (we lost the toss!), what I remember most about that weekend was throbbing feet!!! One of our number, Hilde, is a hardened walker ........”Seven miles .....pah! you won’t even notice!” ........”but .....but .......!“. It’s a macho thing - noticing the magnificent scenery is for wimps. The first day was just about copable with - the day started off freezing cold but bright and eventually became very warm by the afternoon, and of course, there was the pub lunch to look forward to ........! The scenery was very varied - over the fields to Tixall, down to the canal and the River Trent in quick succession, through the Shugborough estate (lots of classical follies and bridges, magnificent pile), pub in Milford, coffee break down by the canal, easy route back via forest road to Pavilion ........creak! ......twinge! .........throb! ... throb! .......lack of communication between brain and odd assortment of hips, knees and feet .......”That’s it! I’m not doing this tomorrow under ANY circumstances!!”........... The following day found us in Cannock Chase ...... grinding teeth .......lured on by a promise of a pint of Guinness. It was a hot day, the scenery was mile after mile of the same type of tree, and my blisters were doing a good impression of John Hurt’s chest in ‘Alien’, when suddenly the cry went up ......“Pub!” .......”Oh! bugger! it’s closed!” ..... sounds of sinking hearts .......”But, there IS an ice-cream van!!?” SIGH! Suddenly ....... great excitement! ......the whole place reverberates to the screeching of tyres, as a couple of police cars head off in the direction where just five minutes before we’d noticed some strange bloke being dragged off into the undergrowth by his dog. Weird, yes, but this was Cannock Chase. Had someone been murdered? Were they looking for a body? Drugs? The feverish mind works overtime. Probably some drunk - the pub had just closed. Sounds of bitter laughter echo around the car park! Tramping back over a different part of the Chase, there appeared to be a strange-looking long thin hill - a nuclear silo? Never mind her, delerium has set in - it’s the superheated feet, you know, causing the brain to become unbalanced!!??

The next morning, after having done the obligatory idiotic leaving photo, we all went our separate ways. One can’t leave Staffordshire without visiting The Potteries, or to be more precise, the Wedgewood Visitor Centre. Having learnt all about Josiah Wedgewood and his innovative (non) glazing techniques, the problems of road (or lack of same) transportation for his pottery, the building of the canal to the Burslem (Etruria) factory, done two centuries of Wedgewood history, AND walked around the factory trying to avoid colliding with other zombies bearing glazed (well, this IS a pottery!! groan!) expressions and plugged into a different audio world, we suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to undertake some retail therapy as an antidote to all this Culture. This was harder than expected, as, having been exposed to the delights of what they used to make, and other companies that they have taken over, very little could I find that I would give house room to (and that I felt able to afford!). They do collaborate with and employ artists and potters for individual projects as they always have, whose pieces are as innovative and creative as ever, but the day to day stuff .........oh dear!

Our other expedition in October, down to Devon again (there’s an awful lot of Landmarks in Devon - doesn’t quite have the same ring as Coffee in Brazil - dear oh me, Joy, this is getting as dismal as Bob’s jokes!!), came just as the dry weather settled into its unsettled state?!! The Whiteford Temple was somewhere in the depths of the back of beyond just over the other side of the Tamar in darkest Duchy of Cornwall territory (well, almost Devon!). One dark night, through a field gate, bumping over yet another rock-strewn path across a field full of curious cows, suffering from upside down map syndrome (oh, so THAT’S why I thought we were in Devon!), what we thought was our destination hove into view, surrounded by yet another field gate to keep us away from the cows. Having fumbled around for an eternity looking for the correct rock near the dustbin in a cupboard in the dry stone wall, where it was rumoured, the key to the house may be, we began to realize that at least an ‘X-Files’ torch and a working knowledge of ‘Lord of the Rings’ may be a necessary pre-requisite for entry through into the world on the other side of the door. Fighting our way through the corridor known as the kitchen, we emerged ‘Tardis-like’ into the largest, grandest bed-sit in the West Country! It consists of one huge two-storey high room with grand fireplace and three huge arched windows all along one side, with two tiny little rooms either side of this, now used as the kitchen and the bathroom. Reading the logbook, two previous occupants stated that they’d been troubled by crockery-throwing poltergeists, so I stuffed the trusty earplugs in and settled under the duvet determined not to be kept awake by smashing crockery!

The next morning, struggling to heave back the huge heavy curtains, we were finally rewarded by the most magnificent view across rolling hills towards the Tamar (the bit where the mist was sitting!). This inspired us to go for a WALK!! (yes, I know about the complaining knees, hips, etc., but like child-birth you always forget the pain!). The only map in the place was one pieced together from old bits of OS maps, but it was well-used, and no-one in the log-book appeared to have gone missing down an old mine-shaft (but would we know?), so with the naivity of the inexperienced, we set off in the direction of Horsebridge, hoping to sample the beer brewed on the premises that everybody’d raved about. The day was bright, but a little nippy, and determined to go the shortest route, we set off across the fields. It wasn’t long before we encountered a field full of sheep, and because we knew we weren’t on a designated footpath, we were reluctant to go across (naively thinking we might scare them), so we struggled over rickety fences and scrambled over dry stone walls, all the while listening out for the words that strike fear into the hearts of all who hear them - “Get off my land!”. As we passed through ex mining villages, past ruined engine houses now hidden by vegetation and ex mills converted into ‘desirable country residences’, it seems almost incomprehensible that these same sleepy little villages were once so full of vitality, and are now just part of the commuter belt for Plymouth. Luckett must have been the ‘Centre of the Universe’ at one point, as there is a huge village car-park! After being held up by disputes over the existence or otherwise of what appeared to be mobile footpaths we finally hit the border-post at Horsebridge. But .........”Aarrgghh! Too late!” .....sob! .......sob! Unfortunately it was NOT the weekend! The pub was firmly shut! Having read two logbooks extoling the virtues of the pub at Horsebridge, we determined to stay at yet another Landmark also within walking distance - this could prove to be the most expensive pint ever! (the food’s good too! sniff!).

At a low ebb on the return hike, feeling a tad hungry, an incident occured which gave us cause for a superior smile (being pedestrians) - a traffic jam! We rounded a bend and spotted two harrassed-looking blokes throwing logs off of a lorry into this garden, and we vaguely wondered why the rush. And then we realized - it was the countryside rush-hour! Just as we squeezed past, a car drew up behind, a couple of young ladies on horseback came from the opposite direction, and after we’d walked a few yards further, a Range Rover (obviously picking up kids from school) swung out of a T-junction, unable to see over the high hedge, and screeched to a halt behind the young ladies on horseback - it was pandemonium! We didn’t hang around to see the outcome of this - pity, it might’ve been fun! This was the largest number of people we’d seen all day! Hurrying towards the field full of menacing-looking sheep that we’d avoided earlier, with only a slight hesitation ....”er! .....they’re all looking at us!” (and no deviation), I dropped down into the field. ...... half an inch, half an inch, half an inch onward, into the valley of sheep crept the two innocents .......from all corners of the field they came ... the thundering of hooves ..... sheep to the right of us ...sheep to the left of us ....sheep to the front of us .....baa! ...baa! ....BAAAA! ........BAAAAAA!!! .....BAAAAAAAA!!!!! ...ever louder came their cries..... “’Ere, where’s our food then?” (rough translation). I didn’t feel we were quite ready for the headline “Walkers trampled to death by Tennyson-obsessed, hunger-crazed sheep!” ......um! ........

Woke up in the morning to a big puddle INSIDE the room (no, not the sheep!) from the gale the night before (the down side to sitting high on a bluff (again!). Apparently, the Temple was expensively built for some landowner’s son’s 21st birthday party (another folly!), having made loads of money serving in India with Clive, and wondering what to do with it all! The family eventually fell upon hard times, sold the main house to the Duchy, who promptly let it fall into even greater disrepair, whereupon they decided to pull it down around the time of the First World War, but the stables and this folly remain.

As it was a dismal sort of a day, we decided to visit Morwhelham Quay, which is a re-construction of the heyday of the Victorian port as it was when copper, tin and arsenic ores were exported from the Duke of Bedford’s mines from all around the area. Most people appeared to be roasting their bums in the typical Victorian pub with the roaring fire, and they were just the staff! Oh! the carrot cake was to DIE for! ....mmmmmm!!!! We did the whole thing ... going underground to the George and Charlotte Mine (we have specimens from there in the museum where I work - oh, never mind, I thought that was interesting!), tramping around a typical sailing ship that transported the ores to S. Wales to be smelted (lucky Devon - no coal), visiting the assayer’s office, and the sheds where the women and girls broke up the rocks and sorted the ore (the boys and men being underground), and the school where the kids went until they were old enough to work - usually aged 7 or 8 - poor souls. We tried on Victorian clothes, and what really struck me was the weight of them (thick woollen fabrics), the quite garish clashing colours and patterns worn together and - worst of all - the sight of how big my bum looked in a bustle!! Blokes had it much easier! An interesting day, but strangely reminiscent of certain aspects of my childhood either directly experienced or passed on in stories from grandparents - I guess I’m just not that sufficiently far removed from it ....crumble! ......crumble!....

Another day spent tramping around the countryside, trying to avoid falling into old wolfram and tin mine shafts on Kit Hill, but amazing views, if one can spend long enough up there to work out where everything is before frostbite sets in ......! .....brr! ...brrr! ........shiver! .....shiver! ....Help!......I .....can’t .....move! ........ I’m .... sure..... I ....had ..... toes ..... and .....fingers! .....Lead .....me...... to......chatter! ...chatter! ... the..... nearest .......fire! .......Warmth! .....I need warmth! Aaaaahhhhh!!!

As the brain cell returns briefly to the fold, we wish everyone a happy Christmas and New Year (probably more of the latter on the grounds of pleading insanity and / or a nasty cold .....atishoo! ....atishoo! ....clunk! ....falls off perch!).

Lots of love from Joy, Bob, Rupert and Tamsin.

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P.S. Message coming through from sheep : “Who’s Tennyson-obsessed? We read Wordsworth! Nice yummy daffodils! And the sheep-bats read Bram Stoker, of course...”