Christmas 2011

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

December 2011

Bonjour tout le monde!

Whilst Christmas is fast approaching on the inside lane like some demented Jeremy Clarkson on speed, and I am caught bemusedly trying to hide under the blanket of procrastination from the glare of the impending tawdry tinsel-fest, I fear it is time to admit defeat and allow myself to become caught up in the slipstream of Mammon-worshipping. You’ve no idea how hard this can be ... “You mean I have to ... (gulp) ... spend lots of money .... nooooo!” “Aarrgghh! ... we haven’t any wrapping paper .... do we even have Christmas cards?” “What should we .... ? who do we ... ? where is .... ? (panic!) ... sob!” “Oh, an OCD-er’s lot is not a happy one ... happy one.”

A small cat has inveigled its way into our lives this year, and resolutely refuses to leave, despite being lost somewhere in deepest, darkest France (sigh) ... well ... a motorway service station somewhere in the vicinity of Paris. Could be the good food and drink (hic!) ... would you leave? But, more on this story later .....

Well, this was supposed to be the year of the great house insulation-happening, which unfortunately didn’t! I think the builder lost the will to live ... either that, or he went bust whilst waiting for us to make up our minds! You may think that house insulation is relatively straightforward ... but this is the Cotswolds .... and nothing gets past the planning police ... “you want to do what??” Only a trusty architect (grovel) could persuade them that insulation and extra rendering on a wall that was actually rendered anyway, wouldn’t ‘substantially alter the appearance of the building‘ and wouldn’t therefore need planning permission ... (sigh). Climate change .... what climate change?

Eventually we plumped for a builder who’d had a fair amount of experience of doing external insulation work on behalf of ‘The Green Shop’ at Bisley, and who came recommended by the owner ... we even went to see work-in-progress at his house deep in the Cotswolds. Next came the long-drawn-out agonizing that is probably familiar to anyone with an old house who doesn’t want to compromise whatever character hasn’t been knocked out of it by previous owners, and yet still hold to their deeply green principles of wanting to use materials with the lowest possible carbon foot-print ... To wood or not to wood, that is the question : whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to accept the pragmatic compromise of phenolic foam, or to use twice the width of wood-fibre .... Oh, were you expecting it to scan? We became very ‘au fait’ with different U-values ... non-U-values (?) .... toxic silicone additives ... less polluting silicate additives ... lime ... lime-concrete mixes .... insulating render ... even Google’s translation of German technical sheets .... very .. um .. interesting (!) All compromises made ... consciences squared ... blanket of procrastination tossed aside ... but ... where was Dominic? His ‘phone remained unanswered. Even Jools, our carpenter, failed to get hold of him. Is he under the patio? No. Is he in the cement-mixer? No. Could aliens have abducted him? Possibly. To this day, dear reader, no one has been able to determine his whereabouts. Surely this must be a case for Mulder and Scully.

The fruit bats among us have been in fruit heaven this year. Our local ‘fruit group’, which supposedly comes under the umbrella of ‘Transition Cirencester’ (!), a misnomer if ever there was one, raised itself languidly from its couch of slumber (yawn) in mid-August with the realization that .... it was almost that time of year .... the eyeballs in the sky! ... erm ... what??? (clue : ‘The Perishers’). So many apples were massing on the outskirts of Cirencester that we realized that we had a huge fight on our hands. And it wasn’t just apples, they had reinforcements this year ... pears, plums, and damsons. The weather was against us .. we were hot, sweaty and tired ... and then there was the heavy bombardment whenever we managed to close in. Many brave souls were driven to the brink of insanity (not to mention insensibility) by the constant ... thud .. thud ... thud ... of the falling apples. But after three separate forays, we finally overcame them, and they were crushed at last (groan) ... Oh, fresh, unpasteurized apple and pear juice (swoon) ... mmmm! ... there is really nothing to compare ... the flavour is ‘awesome’ as Rupe would say ... we were in fruity heaven! Strange how quickly the juice seemed to evaporate. And now the house is crammed with pots and pots of chutneys of various kinds, just awaiting next year’s ‘Bala Bazaar‘ (our annual Albion Street fair which supports an orphanage / school / farm in Kenya). We also have an apple ring mountain, and apple / cinnamon ‘leather’ has become the snack of choice .... only another six sacks of apples to go ... apple purée ice-cream anyone? Next year - damson vodka! Appled out ... moi? Apples to the left of me ... apples to the right of me ... into the valley of apples .... “noooo!” ..... “help!“... Apple retribution.

And what of our hippy daughter? Tamsin arrived home in February in order to ‘do up’ her van to some sort of standard that would be acceptable to the MOT people ... though it wouldn’t do to look too closely underneath all that grease ... um ... is that a hole? Luckily it passed. It now languishes at a garage somewhere in Scotland, while Tamsin is ‘finding herself’ somewhere in Portugal. Or is it Spain? As ever, with Tamsin, things are never straightforward. Dana, her friend from her days at Dartington, had actually managed to receive some Arts Council funding to dance around Ireland, providing that she obtained matching funding ... yes, we were amazed, as well! The van was required for transport, as Dana has even less money than Tamsin (quite an achievement), and since this appeared to fit in with Tamsin’s plans, then the van was duly loaned to Dana. The poor van was barely out of its hospital bed, when it was dragged up north, kicking and screaming .. “.. erm ... the engine sounds a bit funny .. ”, coughing and wheezing its way all the way up to the Findhorn Community in Aberdeenshire, where it finally petulantly refused to go on and demanded its medication. An ambulance could not be dispatched until we’d proved that the van was a centimetre or two (true!) under the limit for free towing to a hospital of one’s choice. Arguments raged ... someone from the Environmental Transport Association (ETA) was dispatched to check measurements, and finally, the van was towed to somewhere more congenial, close to where Dana lives, where it has remained ever since. Some tinkering with its innards has taken place, but age was diagnosed - Ireland would have proved too much for its constitution. It was abandoned for another! Now it really needs a little TLC .... and a few gold coins ... (sigh). Seems appropriate here to quote a translation of Martin Luther - “Here I stand; I can do no other.”.

Tamsin’s other responsibility was Melia, the kitten, who was smuggled into the country under a blanket, despite the van being searched for illegal immigrants at the same time (they also missed the stash!). She then proceeded to lose the cat at various people’s houses / service stations all the way from London to Devon, and on one occasion, because of a lack of communication with mobile ‘phones (?), Melia was almost given to a lost animal sanctuary. But, despite all her best efforts ... the cat came back ...

.... to be introduced to her initially cat-indifferent parents; more specifically her mother in panic mode ... aarrgghh! Will the sofas survive the vicious claw-onslaught? Will Bob be permanently in sneeze-mode? Will the bath fill up with cat-poo (only initially, as it turned out)? Over the next few weeks, Melia’s feisty character played upon the tiny suppressed cat-loving part of us, and despite living in a permanent state of anxiety for most of the next two or three months (moi, that is), we grew into a grudging acceptance of a love-hate relationship with the fluffy bundle. There was no escape ... many was the time when, stumbling zombie-like down the stairs in the morning in search of ... “coffee ... must have coffee” ... a tortoise-shell blur hurtled past ... (curses! expletives!) ... deftly avoiding our stumbling feet, in order to be the first at the coffee-pot (!) Or .. for a change .. the tumbling sound of a lightning cat ... pitter-patter, pitter-patter down the stairs ... whirring round and round the ankles (more curses, more expletives) ... tummy tickle? A rustling sound, coming from the kitchen .. louder and louder .. accompanied by a playful ‘chirrup’ (!) (you thought cats went ‘mieow’ didn’t you?) ... “aarrgghh! no! Melia’s in the paper-basket, shredding ...” Interestingly, Melia was totally obsessed by the sound of paper. Weeks after she left, we were finding little (or not so little) piles of shredded paper all over the junk-room, where the hand of man fears to tread (!). Tamsin said later that Melia always seemed to be enjoying herself in there ... Who needs a paper-shredder? OK, so she’s a little indiscriminate ... but definitely more fun!

Indiscriminately shredding the sofa and the plastic greenhouse outside was also her idea of fun. She would give you ‘the look’, paws raised in anticipation, desperate to get stuck in ... will they? ... won’t they? ... “Melia ... no!” It’s now or never. Furious fast scratching and shredding ... a blur of legs, feet and claws ... (oh, cat bliss!) .... before ... it’s all over before it really begins (cat sigh). Accompanied by much cursing (us, not the cat), we would finally disentangle her from her intimate encounter with the object of her desire. Later .... (sharp intake of breath) ... was that an orange, black and white blur hurtling past at head height? “Oh, **** (expletive deleted)! Melia!”. The cat was swinging past sans trapeze, but with perfect poise and delicate precision, executing death-defying leaps from window sill to overcrowded mantelpiece to bookcase ... but not a birthday card wavered ... not a feather quivered ... not a pot was dislodged .... Will the adrenalin levels ever return to normal .. calm down dear! calm down! ... deep breaths ... in ... out ... in ... out ..... “Argh! no! the video!” ... heart palpitations .. thud .. thud ... thud ... Ah .. a period of calm ... relax ... relax ... Melia’s favourite position was lying on the scanner (flat and warm) whilst Bob was typing away on the computer ... and occasionally a little paw would delicately reach out for the keyboard. But then again, her delicacy in behaviour was endearing and amusing ... we were astounded to see her wander in from the outside world just to use her litter tray, and then wander outside again. So, what was wrong with the garden?

Tamsin initially ensconced herself at a farm in the middle of nowhere (well, ten miles outside of Cirencester), where there were a handy crop of mechanics to give helpful advice to a game young woman, who was keen and broke enough to do most of the work on the van herself. From here she devoted two days a week to volunteering at ‘Herbs for Healing’, in return for learning more about the medicinal uses of herbs, which is what she’s passionate about. Cycling to and fro meant that she had an intimate knowledge of where all the best clumps of this and that were growing. We had many a mother and daughter ‘bonding session‘ whilst searching for herbs in the byways of the Cotswolds. Wild garlic and dead-nettle soup ... mmm ... It really brings it home to you how much knowledge has been lost simply by no longer walking or cycling in the countryside; we no longer notice the sheer abundance all around us. There is a disconnect between the natural world and our modern lives, where all is cargo cult; we no longer know nor care where everything comes from, so long as it’s there when we want it. Tamsin’s views on this chime with my own, and this does bode well for the future of the mother / daughter relationship ... so long as she’s not ‘lost‘ off-grid somewhere in deepest Portugal ... or is it Spain? Can’t even send an old-fashioned snail-mail ...

When Tamsin disappeared out of our lives sometime in May, she decided that she didn’t need possessions, i.e., she didn’t need to be encumbered by possessions, which is subtly different. What this actually means is that we have some of her possessions and Heidi, her ex-boyfriend’s mother has most of the rest .. in Germany. Other little bits are ... shall we say ... scattered hither and thither. As far as we know, she’s removed everything from the squatted smallholding in Holland (phew). I suppose this suits her wandering lifestyle, as she can then travel light from possession to possession, so long as she doesn’t wander outside of Europe! She left us bearing a very large rucksack, trumpet tied to one side, ukulele to the other, slide trombone in a box in one hand and Melia-in-a-box in the other ... for some reason this reminded me of Ken Dodd ...

On the ferry, the cat, newly spayed and chipped and legal had to be taken for walks around the deck on a lead ... this she didn’t like ... probably made her queasy. After a a couple of months in Germany helping to do up her boyfriend’s bus, Tamsin and Ilakh decided to go to the Rainbow Gathering in Portugal in August. It was on this journey that Melia went missing on the outskirts of Paris .... (sigh) ... hitching with a cat ... a confused cat ... where’s home? .. and the temptation of the local cats proved too much. She’s now registered as missing on several French websites, but she’s probably keeping herself to herself and enjoying the local wine and cheese like the rest of us do ...

Rupert has taken the first step to leaving home ... he’s finally become a student! After many years of gaining places at various music colleges to do opera singing and turning them all down, he’s finally enrolled at BIMM (Brighton Institute of Modern Music) ... but in Bristol (don’t ask) .. to improve his skills as a drummer. He seems to be enjoying the challenge. For electoral role purposes, he does appear to live with us, though if anyone challenged us on that, we’d have a hard time proving it ... though ... the pile of dirty mugs brought home after band-practice .. the empty food-box .. the steaming, ever-increasing pile of dead T-shirts (and other ... unmentionables) in the corner of the bathroom ... could be an indication that he’s in residence ... either that, or we’re infested with whatever is the opposite of a ‘borrower’ ( ... erm .. a ‘student’ perhaps?). Mundane challenges, such as working out how to fit in enough sleeping time, or girl-friend chatting on the ‘phone time, seem to be eluding him ... just as well he’s mastered the art of power-napping .. well .. almost .... zzzz .. zz ..”Rupert!” .. zz ... “yes, what?” ...

Earlier in the year, in February, it seemed that Rupert and his cousin, Karen, were taking part in the drama equivalent of the ‘battle of the bands‘ competition. Rupert decided that he’d take part in one last opera before student-hood kicked in. So we all trooped off to Cheltenham, to a wonderful old Victorian theatre (not Regency this time), for the opera ‘Carmen’, where the singing was amazing. I never used to like opera, but I can see how the drama and over-the-top spectacle and excitement just draw you in. Rupert played a smuggler, who didn’t have much to sing, solo-wise, but did have, what Rupert does very well, lots of over-the-top acting and dancing! And he was on the stage almost the whole time. A couple of weeks later, accompanied by our long-lost sheep, Tamsin, we all trooped off to Lechlade, where Karen was playing in an old fifties comedy called ‘The White Sheep of the Family’. This was classic fifties stuff, rather amusing, and since there were only about six people in the whole play, everyone had masses of lines to learn, were on stage almost all of the time, and had to get the timing right. Karen played a maid in a family of middle-class professional thieves, and the comedy revolved around what to do about the ‘new girlfriend‘ whom everyone thought was straight, but who turned out to be not as she at first appeared. So .. much mutual back-slapping and congratulations .. and rightly so ... such splendid performances!

And now ... the Dealer Russian Tour! This was the highlight of Rupe’s year. ‘Dealer’ is a local band who had a huge following locally during the ‘80s, who re-formed a couple of years ago (incorporating Rupert) for a ‘farewell’ gig, and enjoyed the experience so much that eventually their ‘manager’ (band member + wife) did a bit of wheeling and dealing and wangled a Russian Tour! Apparently, during their ‘heyday’, Dealer appeared on the same bill as some famous ‘80s band, and thus the Russian gigs were born of a misconception! It all looked good on a map ... another day ... another city ... but Russia is big .. very big. Not only did they have to pay to get themselves to St. Petersburg, but the whole tour was chaos from day 2. The Russian so-called ‘tour manager‘ had no idea how to organize a tour, having booked overnight trains for all the wrong dates, one day out every time (doh!), but luckily, everyone else at a local level was very kind and helpful to them, even when communication was through an interpreter who was always drunk! Trying to find a common language was born of necessity, for even with (or possibly because of) the inebriated interpreter, never had Rupe’s schoolboy German ever been so necessary. Organizing a bed for the night ... or overnight transport ... ferrying their gear to the railway station ... organizing van hire in lieu of mis-booked trains ... being driven hundreds of kilometres through the night (“aarrgghh! noooo! .. was that a pot-hole or a tank-trap?”) for gigs the following day ... ‘phoning ahead to the next gig venue to find someone to meet them and organize a place to relax / sleep before the next gig ... thank goodness for the many kind and helpful Russians with some knowledge of English and organizational skills ... otherwise .... I think you’re beginning to get the picture of potential and actual chaos beyond the realms of imagined chaos! It sort of puts you in mind of the Beatles’ Hamburg gigs before they were famous .... or maybe this is just normal for all band tours (sigh).

Everyone’s stress levels being at an all time high ... very little sleep .. very little decent food ... too much vodka ... too many ciggies ... meant that tempers were beginning to fray, and band members were beginning to find out a lot about themselves and what levels of deprivation would cause them to unravel. For the middle aged, unravelling happened soon after leaving the comfort zone. Before long .. arguments were raging ... more vodka was being imbibed ... a falling out ... followed by a falling down the stairs ... curses ... followed by .. hospital and a cancelled gig .. oops! Rupert, by being younger and seeming not to inhabit a comfort zone (“what’s one of those?”) fared rather better, in that, he’s used to little or no sleep, eating scavenged food, sleeping in dodgy places, and keeping his head down when trouble is brewing. Not a lot phases him! As with Tamsin. (Hmmm ... perhaps this was their way of rebelling against the intense ball of anxiety that is their mama ...).

Despite everything, they all made lots of friends ... Rupe spends ages on Facebook keeping up with Russian friends, who all hope that Dealer will do another tour to their city. It seems that they were in much demand amongst young women, as Russian men are somewhat prone to misogyny. They were also much appreciated in cities other than Moscow and St. Petersburg. These two cities get a lot of western bands visiting and have a lot of money, but in more provincial cities there is much deprivation, very rarely do western bands visit, and therefore music fans really appreciate any band who’s made the effort. Because they didn’t stay in hotels, they usually stayed in ordinary Russians’ homes. A strange observation from the days of the Soviet Union .. everyone lives in ghastly crumbling apartment blocks smelling of the proverbial cabbage and wee, the lifts don’t work, the common areas filthy, rubbish-filled and rat-infested. But inside ... they’re all mini palaces! Stuffed to the gills with the latest technology ... bright lights .. glittering everything .. the contrast couldn’t have been greater. Russians have really bought into this capitalism thing - even those with little money. I guess that this is an area of their lives that they have some control over .. forget the lawless dark world outside the door.

There is a being who lurks in the conservatory, an intense face lit by the blue glow of a bank of computer screens (actually two, but this sounds better), surrounded by piles of teetering books, papers, and piles of vanquished apples (see above), and occasionally muttering curses, expletives, and incantations into his long grey beard. “Could this be? ... why yes ... I do believe it’s ... it’s .... oh, you know ... the name’s on the tip of my tongue .... it’s .. um .. thingy!” Mumbling incomprehensible phrases, eyes ablaze with passion (or is this madness?), we have reason to believe that the plan for heat-pumps to take over the world has almost succeeded, i.e., it’s the end of the Ph.D as we know it, Jim. Well .. almost ...

He did take time out to snip sheep’s toenails (?) ... aha! .. got you! ... just when you thought there’s been no mention of sheep! How could a sheep-obsessed being not write about sheep? It would be too much to bear ... (sob). Yes, we visited an old quarry where a beautifully soft and fluffy herd of Hebridean sheep were being employed in land management on behalf of the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust, somewhere in the depths of the Forest of Dean. And in return ... they got their nails trimmed by a bunch of amateur incompetents! I think that they need a union .... “One out, all out, brothers! .. erm ... sisters!” ... “Oh, you can’t catch us we’re part of the union ...”, etc. ... (no, we certainly couldn’t) ... “We demand better pedicures!”

A lot of my time seems to be taken up with SW Green Party stuff at the moment (being Treasurer) - it's not hard work, but it's constant. Our fund-raiser, Sharon, keeps coming up with ingenious ways of making money, and at the moment, we're selling cook-books of everyone's favourite recipes ... for some reason, Sharon seems to have included rather more pictures of me than I feel our one ice-cream recipe merits! So, there's a lot of money passing through the account at the moment (much gold-obsessed rubbing of hands, cackling, and dancing round fires ... “Keep the noise down, Rumplestiltskin!”), and I'm trying to keep tabs on it all ... especially as the end of year accounts are looming (gulp). I've only got one more year at this Treasurer lark, as we're only allowed to do any one job on the Committee for up to five years, presumably to prevent burn-out and to bring in 'new brooms' and give someone else a chance (“what! .. you mean some other idiot might want to do this job?”). You never know though, someone may vote me off the Committee at the A.G.M. before my five years are up ...

And yes, I’m still going into the Museum one day a week to volunteer. Of course, I think I’m being useful ... but they’re probably all thinking ... “oh, it’s that old duffer again ... hasn’t she got a home to go to?”.

Random fact : I’m now orange ... I’ll leave you all to work that one out .... (?)

Time now to wish you all a jolly Christmas (ho! ho! ho!) and a happy New Year.

Lots and lots of love from Bob, Joy, Rupert and Tamsin (most of us in some way and at some point ‘in absentia’).

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