41
Albion Street,
Stratton,
Cirencester,
Gloucs.
GL7
2HT
Nov.
/ Dec. 2016
Greetings, o fellow beings!
As the strangulating
briars of summer give way unto the bare whiplash twigs of autumn, and the icy
tinkling of sheep in the fields transmogrifies into sleigh bells, then it may
be that you’ve eaten too many strange mushrooms! After all, what is reality? Merely a construct of the inner life of your
brain, plus updates from external stimuli.
So .. does Christmas actually exist if none of us think about it? We have the power to escape the tyranny of
capitalism (cackle)! ‘Quick! … Shovel in
a few more mushrooms, someone … !’
Soggy December passed into
boggy January. We began to realise that
our woodland down by the river was actually a temperate rain forest, as the
mist hung around in an almost permanent shroud; tree vines dripped, ground
vines tripped, feet skidded, puddles sucked, birds coughed, and the rain-sodden
immobilised sheep postponed revolution yet again. Y Ddôl was slowly sinking .. blub .. blub ..
blub .. an interesting (!) ‘Alien’ orange fungus burst through a panel wall, a
black evil-looking Aspergillus fungus inched slowly across the wall under the
kitchen sink, and daylight appeared where it ought not to. Wearing a post-coffee-and-toast warm glow and
a goose-pimply naked pinkness beneath the dressing gown, Joy approached the
bathroom with not a little trepidation. ‘Surely
the radiator is warm now …’, mused she, a not unreasonable expectation, given
that the Rayburn had just burnt its way through a small deciduous forest in the
space of two hours. The signs did not
bode well. Wind whistled. Dust motes swirled. The spiders, ever hopeful, shored up their
wind-blasted webs. Even the resident
snails huddled together for warmth. The
bathroom radiator cowered, knowing that the game was up. Something ‘Had To Be Done’!
Strangely, Y Ddôl made it
through to the Spring, despite the N.E. corner post ‘settling’ and shedding a
pile of roof slates into the field. Having
planned to repair and insulate the roof and walls, as well as install a French
drain, it was suggested that we summon forth a structural engineer. A structural engineer was duly summoned. ‘T’was
a sunny day, all the cows were in the field ..’ (to misquote Paul
Simon). As he walked up the track through
the field, his spirits soared; the trees rustled in the wind, the sun warmed
the April air, the view to the mountains and the little steam railway idyllic …
Y Ddôl looked at its romantic best. What
could possibly go wrong? An hour later …
after much photography and note-taking … much sucking in of air through tightly
clamped teeth. ‘Ooh, weeeell, nice-looking
carpenter’s marks you have here … beautiful hand-carved wooden posts and beams
… only trouble is, they’re not strong enough to support the roof’. Bombshell.
‘You could flatten it … or you could wrap a new house around it!’ Stunned silence.
It wasn’t until four months
later, with the summer all but disappeared, and after much delay caused by
trying to coax the odd structural calculation out of the strangely recalcitrant
structural engineer (.. out on a job .. away on holiday … ready next week … mañana
…), that work finally started (sigh) …
Meanwhile, back in that
post-Winter euphoria induced by an actual rainless day and an unaccustomed
bright light in the sky, like a butterfly spreading its wings to dry, the
builders awoke out of hibernation desperate to play with their man-toys. It was April, and the digging of the French
drain could finally commence! This
seemed to involve driving the digger all over the farmer’s field, and having a
fun time. Too much fun, in fact, as, in their
haste to get to the other fun bit of the job, i.e., using the digger for its
intended purpose, someone failed to notice the loss of a crucial ‘bit’ in the
dismantling of the water pipe. Like the
beating of the butterfly’s wings, this had unintended consequences – serendipitous
as well as inconvenient.
The next morning, as she slumped
over her coffee / toast combo, a hissing sound rose up into Joy’s consciousness
to disturb the still-sleepy brain cell. Earwax? Tinnitus?
Angry snake? But the coffee
comfort blanket proved too enticing … ‘mmm … smell those beans …’ and the
hissing became enveloped in the haze of the subconscious. Until .. ‘Curses, Mutley!’ and a disturbed
visage appeared around the bathroom door.
The haze of the subconscious parted sufficiently to enable the newly conscious
senses to detect a worrying development.
The hissing appeared louder. We
stared at the bathroom tap willing a drop to emerge. Nothing.
‘Argh!’ ‘No water!’ ‘We’re doomed!’ ‘Doomed!’
‘We’re all gonna die!’ and other exaggerated claims. With both of us having the same thought, we
rushed (!) for the front door and headed for the outside water tap, where the
source of the hissing quickly told its story.
We were losing all of our water from the upper tank! Quick to turn it off, we turned our attention
to pumping more water up the hill from the holding tank in the forest. It was a sunny day .. the sun was on the
solar panels .. no problem! 40 minutes
later a crestfallen Bob walked back down the hill, having discovered that the
water level in the upper tank hadn’t changed.
Curses, indeed! Could it be that
the water pump in the holding tank down in the forest was silted up? It is at this point, dear reader, when you
realise what ‘living off-grid’ actually means, and how vulnerable you can be
depending on your level of technological know-how, and your willingness to get
stuck in!
Half an hour later, we were
playing water games down in the sun-dappled glade in the forest. The holding tank is constantly being fed from
a stream, and tends to fill up with silt and tiny stones. Sitting within this covered tank is a water
pump, which mostly filters out the tiny stones, though it doesn’t stand a
chance against the silt, since the person who installed the system failed to
buy a deep enough tank to allow the pump to sit above the silt level (sigh). This silt / water mix then gets pumped up the
hill periodically, before gravity feeds it through a filter to the house. Since nobody likes drinking gritty tea, the
trick is to remember to clean out this tank before too much accumulates in the
upper tank. April is the designated ‘messing about with water’
month - being the first month after the Winter storms when there’s a fair
chance that you won’t die of hypothermia, yet also early enough to avoid
strangulation by vine. So .. after squidging
our way though the mud and the years of accumulated leaf litter, and gingerly
easing our way past vines that snagged and twigs that thwacked, the
aforementioned sun-dappled glade hove into view. There was the forlorn-looking leaf-covered
tank together with The Blue Pipe mentioned in the instructions. We stared at it. It stared back. Someone had to make a move. Armed with buckets and spanners, we heaved
off the lid and looked into its murky depths.
The stream constantly trickled in through a pipe, and the overflow
splooshed over our wellies. How were we
to empty the tank and clean the pump? Our
eyes turned towards The Blue Pipe. Who
was going to volunteer first? Bob had
past form in syphoning, so he gave it his all.
He sucked and sucked … his face turned bright red … but nothing. He sucked some more … cough! cough! wheeze!
.. and … still nothing. Oh, dear. Joy squatted on the ground, as far below the
bottom of the tank as the pipe would stretch .. she would not be beaten! Suck! suck! suck! .. sploosh!! … cough! cough! splutter! .. ‘yeugh!’ … gritty tea
has nothing on a mouth full of silty sludge!
And it only worked for a minute or so … curses! Beaten by The Blue Pipe! But all was not lost, for we had … A Cunning
Plan. Bailing ferociously, we emptied
the tank faster than the stream could fill it until we got to the sludgy layer. This was great fun! As the mud-levels on the welly boots rose, we
sank even further into the Great Grimpen Mire, accompanied by shrieks of mock
indignation and the odd fit of giggles.
And now for The Blue Pipe. Suck!
suck! suck! .. whoosh! sploosh!! …. cough! cough! splutter! hack! wheeze! .. ‘yeugh!! …
and double yeugh!!’ spluttered she, spitting mud. ‘Yay! .. it’s working!’. With the mud syphoned off, Bob clambered in
and eyed the pump and its associated pipework nervously. What if he made matters worse (gulp!). After cleaning out the silt and small stones,
it became rather obvious why the pump was potentially prone to problems. If it was set upright on the bottom of the
tank, then stress was placed on the pipes, the nut didn’t tighten properly, and
water leaked out of the pipe. If the
pump wasn’t quite upright, then the filter more easily let in small stones, also
stressed out the pipe, though differently, and water again leaked out of the
pipe (sigh).
Whilst Bob was doing manly
things with spanners (!), Joy was dispatched up the hill, over the stile, into
the field, up to the house to turn on the pump.
Lacking a mobile ‘phone signal, there was no choice but to slog back
down the field to find out whether the pump was working. The hot (!) April sun beat down. The ill-fitting claggy wellies made walking
difficult .. tramp .. tramp .. tramp .. one .. two .. one .. two .. the flies
circled .. the kites screeched above … would she make it to the safety of the
forest? ‘OK .. could you turn off the
pump now, please?’ After slogging back
and forth several times to check on the state of the pump, it was back up the
hill, over the stile, across the field, past the house, up the hill
masquerading as a garden, to the upper tank to see whether the water level was
rising. It was all too much. Flopped out under a gigantic bushy weed, and
risking becoming food for ticks, Joy was beyond caring. 15 minutes later .. yay! The water level in the tank had risen! The pump was working! One small triumph for Bob and Joy in their
fight against recalcitrant technology!
Once more down the hill .. come on Joy, you can do it … (yawn) …
You’re probably wondering,
after all this inconvenience, where the serendipity came into it. After all, there was still the original
problem of getting water into the house from the upper tank. Well, dear readers, remember that lost ‘bit’
from several paragraphs back .. ? Those
of you who haven’t yet fallen into a torpor will have worked out that because
the water from the upper tank is gravity fed down to the house, then if we have
a leak, any water pumped up the hill to the upper tank will drain away almost
as fast as the pump will pump. AND we
can only pump on sunny days, being reliant on solar panels. So the water remained switched off. Hey, ho!
‘Bob and Joy went up the hill to
fetch a pail of water ..’ Our only
hope was … The Carpenter Who Lived On The Mountain. Now he has a workshop (Ye Olde Youth Hostel)
up in Ystumtuen, which is an Aladdin’s Cave – any number of useful ‘bits’ may
be found within. We were not
disappointed. Brian valiantly trudged
down the mountain, armed with the correct plumbing tools, to fit the
‘bit’. Like hogs around a water-hole, we
hovered expectantly. As did the gathering
vultures .. er .. kites. Brian wielded
spanners in a knowledgeable and purposeful way, not only making repairs, but
actually re-jigging the pipe-work until the filter was no longer stressed, and
the whole system worked far better than ever before! Serendipity indeed! The Moment Of Truth arrived. Water gushed .. though this time into the
house (phew)! At last, we were saved! The kites cursed before deciding that, since
it was 3 o’clock, it was time to queue instead for a field-vole takeaway at the
nearest feeding station over the mountain …
Now the slog down the hill
into the forest is tiring, but this is just a stroll compared with the hike of climbing
the track up the mountain to Ystumtuen. A
trip up to Ystumtuen requires rest stops every few metres, under the pretext of
admiring the view and looking out for the little steam train on the other side
of the valley, and then needing to camp for the night once you hit the sheep
level (the snow line?). Emerging from
the almost vertical (but maintained) track is sudden and stark : gnarled
twisted and stunted wind-blown bushes hug the ground (no more sheltering pines),
the stony track becomes a claggy quagmire (now being the farmer’s
responsibility!), sheep pop up and scatter and clatter over rocks in every
direction, and the reason for the ground-hugging trees becomes apparent. The wind whines. Woolly dust swirls. Grit scours.
The brain rattles and teeth chatter.
The sheep are rough and weathered. … ‘four legs good, two legs bad’
(dammit … those sheep are worryingly good at telepathy ..). Feeling battered, cold ears throbbing and
eyes watering, a few hundred metres later, past the enormous farmhouse, we
emerge into the relative bird-song peace of the little hamlet of
Ystumtuen. As you reach the ‘centre’ of
the hamlet, with red post-box and telephone, and well-used notice-board, and
after having admired the enormous chapel, you come to the ex-school, cum ex-YHA,
cum Brian’s workshop, a Victorian terrace, and three or four modern(ish) houses
and bungalows. It is at this point that
a head pops out of a workshop, introduces himself, and asks you into his
caravan for a cup of tea! This is
‘Surfer John’, as he was known in Lagos, Portugal, when he was part of the
travelling community, making money by busking for the tourists, but who is now a
vintage car restorer. He’s parked up on
his parents’ land, though still lives in his caravan. His parents are musicians and hold regular
weekly jamming sessions for folk musicians every Thursday. Coincidentally, John was in Lagos at the same
time as Tamsin, though it’s not certain whether they ever met each other during
their musical forays.
A tale is often told of the
time when a young man (probably drunk) decided to drive up the mountain track
to Ystumtuen from Cwm Rheidol hoping to avoid the long drive back along the
valley almost to Aberystwyth (6 miles), and then returning along the parallel
main road (another 6 miles) on the other side of the mountain, in order to cut
12 miles from the journey. It can be
done, but not without a four-wheel-drive vehicle. Unfortunately, he became stuck about
two-thirds of the way up where the track becomes ever more steep. It was dark.
He daren’t reverse. And he
couldn’t go forward. It was late. So .. nothing could be done but to spend an
uncomfortable night in the car. In the
morning, he wandered into Ystumtuen to find help. John obviously popped his head out from the
caravan, and invited him in for a cup of tea!
Suitably revived, the young man told his story. He had obviously found his guardian
angel. Since John had been on the road in
Europe for many a year in a large mobile home, there’s a fair chance that he
has done his fair share of reversing down narrow alleyways in mediaeval villages. However, this track is much further up the
scale of scariness, even when attempting to go forward, let alone trying to
reverse - there being no barrier, and a steep drop into the pine forest! But he still agreed to give it a go. And lo and behold, John actually managed to
manoeuver the young man’s car all the way to the bottom without incident
(phew). Very impressive!
And now, o gentle readers,
prepare your mind for this most disturbing of tales. Perhaps you may recall those telepathic desperately-hoping-to-be
revolutionary sheep up on the mountain?
Now and again, an occasional ‘baa’ gently wafts down on the breeze into
the valley, insinuating itself like a friendly woolly virus into the
consciousness, raising the spirits, and messing with our minds … ‘you will love
us ..’ .. ‘we are harmless ..’ .. ‘buy more wool ..’ Oh, those sheep learn fast. Not content with their gambolling (!) habits,
they’ve now moved on to advertising psychology.
As we were re-organising the log store one more time, we became aware of
a growing insistency in the ‘baa-ing’.
We turned to each other, somewhat puzzled. ‘Who turned up the volume control?’ we
telepathically communicated in that long-term partnership sort of way. Strangely, the sound appeared to be coming
from the forest. The mind was dredged
for similar experiences … a rock concert for sheep? … Christmas panto? …
strange forest-dwelling sheep? Suddenly
all hell broke loose .. sheep were on the rampage everywhere! The revolution had begun! Lulling the world (well, Ystumtuen) into a
false sense of security, suddenly and without warning, the sheep had swooped
down the mountain. Small bands of sheep
were rushing along the forest tracks, through the trees, and along the long-distance
footpath, followed closely by a tractor (in the forest??). Desperate times. Before too long, the farmer sensibly gave up
trying to recapture the revolutionaries.
All went quiet .. until … ‘OMG … we’re surrounded!’ The ‘baas’ became deafening. Not only were there sheep in the woods, but
now they were in the field as well. The
farmer had retreated. We were
trapped. Would they soon be coming for
us (gulp)? Sheep roamed the field
threateningly. Fights broke out with the
cows. Who were these interlopers? The cows started chasing the sheep. The sheep regrouped. An uneasy truce developed. Skirmishes continued for the rest of the
afternoon and into the evening. Suddenly
a rumbling noise disturbed the uneasy quiet ... and the cavalry appeared over
the hill, sweeping all before … that is, the farmer had arrived on something a
little more manageable than a tractor!
The Siege of Mafeking .. erm .. Y Ddôl .. was over. Break out the Guinness! The plot had been foiled … for now …
Meanwhile, as we willed the
balmy remains of Summer to hang on in there for the rest of Autumn, Y Ddôl
became uninhabitable. Brian very kindly
allowed us to stay at his house in Aberystwyth, which he and his wife, Heather,
had converted into flats. This allowed
us a chance to see what had been uncovered so far, and what was planned for the
coming weeks. It was such a shame that
the hand-hewn rafters and lime-work in the roof had to go. There wasn’t any choice, the roof had to be
replaced, not just repaired. We were
caught between Building Regulations, Structural Engineers and our desire to
keep warm! Whilst explaining the quirky
off-grid workings of the water pump and electrical systems to Brian, the pump
decided that now was a good time to assert its power over us again (evil
cackle!), and refused to pump.
Curses! ‘Hi ho! Hi ho! T’is off to work we go …’. Armed with a variety of spanners, Brian
and Bob tramped down to the tank in the forest.
A feeling of déjà vu crept over us.
Only this time, Brian had a secret weapon … a working mobile ‘phone! Instead of endless tramping up and down
gradients for which the likes of which us Fenlanders were not designed, Brian
had the novel idea of ‘phoning the house ‘phone every time the pump needed to
be switched on / off. Obvious, eh? Unfortunately, we have come to realise that
only Orange / EE will work in West Wales, and Bob’s ‘phone is with … O2. We always wondered why, whenever anyone came
to the house to install broadband / sweep the chimney / sort out the solar
panel, they always seemed to be able to make or receive calls with no
difficulty … (doh!). Brian then
discovered that part of the reason why the water was so fond of gushing out of
the pipe before ever managing the long journey to the upper tank, was because
of the lack of … (yes, you’ve guessed it) … the correct ‘bit’ (several ‘bits’ in
fact!). How is this even possible? Do people not notice when ‘bits’ fall out
when loosening nuts on pipes (rant! rant!)? Another serendipitous finding : for all these
‘bits’ (which we would never have known existed), have now been replaced by
Brian, and the water pump is now behaving itself (fingers crossed)!
The poor wee house is now
looking very forlorn, surrounded by a ring of mud, and covered in tarpaulins,
which hasn’t gone unnoticed on the Vale of Rheidol railway FaceBook page, which
shows the house in its current state and described as ‘undergoing extensive
renovations’ and states that it is known locally as ‘The Gingerbread House’ …
really?? However, it will arise phoenix-like
from the mud … we have faith! It now
looks far more solid (and is!), with its underpinning (no foundations), masses of
extra oak trusses (for strength), some new hempcrete infill panels (insulation),
and cork / lime insulation on the daub panels that weren’t previously sprouting
interesting fungi! Brian sends us
pictures every week of progress, and we tend to nag about minor missed details
by e-mail or ‘phone, which means that we (mostly) seem to communicate and solve
problems as we go along. So far, so
good. Next … the roof .. (gulp).
Back in February, Tamsin,
Manué, and Yuval, her Israeli travelling companion, decided to quit Guadeloupe
in search of Utopia elsewhere, since vegan, spiritually-minded, permaculture
communities appeared to be a bit elusive on this French old-colonial rich
expats’ paradise. It was also not cheap,
since almost everything was imported from France, and there were … no
charity shops!!
Charity shops appear to be a peculiarly British phenomenon, and seem to
pop up wherever there are expat British surviving on next to nothing. So how does an anti-capitalist, anti-establishment,
seeker after alternative life-styles survive?
Soon they were winging (!) their way to Brazil on the cheapest possible
flight/s via what appeared to be every island country in the Caribbean until
they finally landed, after an exhausting couple of days of travelling,
somewhere in the north of Brazil. They
arrived at Piracanga eco-village amidst total chaos and confusion. Someone had just died, and the community
couldn’t cope with the extra visitors at that moment. Not an auspicious start. Superficially, this was everyone’s idea of
paradise : a completely unspoilt and remote tropical rain forest landscape …
palm trees waving in the breeze .. miles of sandy beaches .. almost permanent
sunshine with the daily rain timed to the hour .. lovely people … there was
even a little school .. what could have been more idyllic? The next day they settled in, sharing a large
house with someone and paying them a small rent. Manué was even going to start school. It is at this point, o gentle reader, that
you may have detected a certain sense of unease … like a row of ants marching
across your carpet bearing biscuit crumbs.
Daily annoyances with the
natural world .. (mosquitos ( .. itch! itch! scratch! scratch!) .. cockroaches
( .. ‘arrgh! .. who left the lid off the flour bin?’) versus (friendly) geckos
(flick! slurp!) … the odd buzzing and stinging thing (buzz! buzz! .. yeowch!)
.. ) began to be mirrored by the quirks of Piracanga life. Housing was in very short supply, so every
couple of months or so, the villagers played the equivalent of ‘musical
chairs’, which seemed to involve shuffling around into differently sized houses
depending on the number of various course attendees. There were job opportunities within the
village, but the pay was never sufficient to cover the rent. This meant that folks without a private
income either had to commute to Itacaré to earn money, or fly back to Europe
for six months every year to earn enough money to live there for the other six
months! And to cap it all, they were
buying in most of their food, since no-one appeared to have any time to
practice permaculture! Oh the irony of
the unsustainable sustainable eco-village!
Tamsin and Yuval seemed prepared to accept these little difficulties if
the community was welcoming. However,
Yuval discovered that he couldn’t cope with the ‘No Smoking’ rule, and so moved
out to the hostel in Itacaré, a city a few miles down the road. A little while later, Tamsin’s house-share
left the village, the ‘musical chairs’ thing swung into operation, and Tamsin
was the odd one out. More chaos ensued.
The kind people thought that they had found her a place in another community
nearby. However, just as her transport
arrived, word came that the girlfriend of the ‘leader’ of this community didn’t
want ‘a single woman’ living there … presumably Tamsin was viewed as a
potential threat / rival in the sexual politics of communities (sigh). So … it was back to the hostel in Itacaré to
join Yuval.
Another community beckoned
… There are many such in Brazil it would
seem, seduced by the climate and the cheap land. This was about an hour’s bus journey from
Itacaré. This one revolved around making
chocolate … even having a mini-factory, so was definitely organised. However, they weren’t well-integrated with
the locals, resentment had built up, and there had been a robbery at
gunpoint. This had scared some folks,
who had then moved out of the community to a beach community nearby, and it was
here that Tamsin, Yuval and Manué ended up for the next few months, living the
life of a beach bum … only in an apartment (!)
Eventually, remembering (a) that their tourist visas had run out, and
(b) having an urge to visit family for different reasons, they left Brazil. An interesting little factoid about Brazil ..
if your tourist visa runs out, they don’t rush to deport you, they just fine
you a small amount for each day over your visa expiry date up to a maximum (not
exactly a fortune) … and .. they don’t
collect it until you return to Brazil … how trusting! Or maybe they’re just too laid back to care
…
Tamsin timed her visit this
year to coincide with Bob’s Mum’s 100th birthday in November,
staying for a whole month this time, which meant that we actually managed to
get to know Manué a little bit. This
time we had quite a lot of advance warning, since apparently we were paying for
her flight home! It would seem that
during her time in Brazil, she and Manué have progressed from ‘cooked’ vegan to
a ‘raw food’ vegan diet. This was a step
beyond even our catholic tastes and willingness to compromise (especially in a
cold climate!), and so she was definitely on her own when it came to food prep. Once we’d agreed to disagree on the whole
food philosophy thing, our lives started to twine around each other like lianas
on trees in a tropical rain forest … though luckily, they both left before we
succumbed to strangulation! Manué turned
out to be as sharp as a pin, with amazing spatial awareness .. you could leave
him anywhere, and he’d find his way home (no wicked stepmother would get away
with leaving him in the forest to be
devoured by wolves .. he’d be back within the hour .. crumbs or no crumbs!). If anything went wrong, especially of his
doing, his favourite mantra was ‘That’s OK’, as a way of deflecting a
potentially angry situation situation into something calmer … diplomatic, but
annoying! On the whole, Manué is an
endearing little child, as all three-year-olds-going-on-four are prone to be …
a strange mixture of innocence, manipulation, fun, earnestness and frustration
… and this year speaking in proper sentences!
Translation services are sometimes required, but there’s definitely far more
English and less ‘baby’-mixed-with-Portuguese than last year. Unfortunately, just as Manué had learned
enough Portuguese to communicate with his little friends in Brazil, he arrived back
in Britain! Luckily, an invitation to a small
person’s birthday party / Guy Fawkes’ night with other Brazilian Portuguese speakers
here in Cirencester helped to ease the transition. Ah, the power of FaceBook! The poor boy is going to be really challenged
when going to their next destination … Spanish-speaking La Palma in the
Canaries!
Manué’s total obsession with
trains and specifically Thomas the Tank Engine has meant lots of trips to see
steam days on various ‘heritage’ railways, followed by many hours in the
evening scouring EBay for the best value in Brio train sets. (Well, it beats all those hours put in at outdoor
play-parks … (shiver!) … with nary a cup of tea in sight! Oh the sacrifice!) ‘… but
the room just filled up with mosquitos …’ (sorry, just heard the news about
Leonard Cohen) … er .. trains, that is.
Railway tracks rapidly spread out across the floorscape like
2-dimensional vines, desperate to find another ankle to twist. It wasn’t long before we became adept at the
game of ‘spot the bare patch of floor’, as we endeavoured to answer the door to
the post-person, before being roughly heaved out of the way by a barefoot Manué
on a mission to pee outside .. whatever the weather! Morning arrives … the sleepy brain cells all wrapped up in their
fluffy unconsciousness are oblivious to the carnage at foot level … just three
steps from stair to chair … you can do it, Joy … the coffee is in sight .. ‘aaarrgghh!!!
.. ****’!!!’ … (sniffle! .. hurt pride .. throbbing big toe ..). And this, dear reader, is how to reduce Joy
to a quivering wreck … all you need is a child plus accoutrements combined with
mornings! Luckily, Bob and Tamsin are morning
people! As Tamsin and Manué prepared to
leave, one set of toys was swapped for another set of toys … mostly trains …
though other items, not seen since the dawn of time (well, at least 20 years),
emerged from the attic to become the latest ‘must haves’. The parental home, it would seem, is destined
to always be a toy repository (sigh).
The travelling life means divesting yourself of stuff, and acquiring
other stuff … usually from other travellers .. and preferably for free. And so the endless swirl of stuff makes the
world go around … though probably not in the way that über-capitalists have in
mind!
Rupert’s duties as an uncle
became of paramount importance to us crumblies.
Luckily Rupert’s super-busy period corresponded with mild weather, so we
could at least cope with play-parks.
Living in the tropics, Manué had developed a minimalist and genderless
attitude to clothes, so whilst we (including Tamsin) were wearing coats, Manué
was wearing just one layer … could be a dress with leggings, or a sweatshirt
with trousers .. it was all the same to him!
You could see the gender stereotyping in action amongst the other
parents, which makes you realise how much we’re defined by clothes and
hairstyles (Manué has long(ish) dreadlocks).
Tamsin, Rupert and Jess finally persuaded Manué that clothes have their
uses when they took him ice-skating, where he went blue with the cold after
refusing to move whilst clinging to a penguin (!) He conceded to wearing two layers after that! Trampolining was more his thing … fewer
clothes required.
Having previously moved out
of the parental home without actually moving out (!), Rupert’s perfect life of
unchallenged existence became a little more challenging this year as Jess, his
girlfriend, moved back in with her parents.
Jess was sharing a two-bedroom bungalow with a couple of their friends, in
order to ease their rental situation. Unfortunately,
there were ‘issues’ between the two women that in the end exploded. The debris from this fall-out has been accumulating
ever since in the upper regions of the parental house … mostly as black T-shirts
and gym equipment (sigh). And what has
happened to Rupert’s endless supply of cooked meals? There are signs of life … alien substances
appear in the ‘fridge overnight, occasionally reproducing, before vanishing a
couple of nights later (dammit .. those Aspergillus moulds were only handed
their eviction notices last week ..).
Yes, you’ve guessed … when friends aren’t feeding him, regular food
parcels still arrive from Jess! This has
a lot to do with food left over from shooting parties and hunts, as her
stepfather is a game-keeper. Occasionally
though, there is actually a rare sighting of that pasty-faced creature of the
night (‘just off to bed, now … (yawn) … zzz ..’), as Rupert returns to his
native earth to recuperate, avoiding sunlight at all costs.
And so, Rupert’s life of
musical bliss carries on apace … practising, gigging, more practising,
teaching, recording, an occasional radio interview .. This year, he actually played at Glastonbury
– yay! This was due to a serendipitous
meeting with Miles Guerrini, leader of ‘The Curious Little Big Band’, who was
looking for a second drummer, as his No.1 drummer was otherwise engaged and
didn’t want to go to Glastonbury (what???).
The band is a dance and party entertainment band, so they played four
gigs over three days in the Rabbit Hole, the Bandstand, and the Avalon Café. The mud was so claggy that Rupert only managed
to see bands that were on the Park stage (next to his van), as he was too tired
(having been up most of the night on an adrenalin fizz) to slog through the
mud! Hmm … maybe that No.1 drummer
wasn’t so crazy after all!
Coincidentally, Miles is the brother of a friend of Tamsin, and in fact,
Tamsin worked for a while at Miles’s nursery school in Cirencester … all very
incestuous!
The gales of austerity have finally
blasted Oxford Brookes Architecture Department.
Last Easter, the Government suddenly abandoned its ‘Zero Carbon Standard
For Homes’, The Zero Carbon Hub had its funding withdrawn, and the money for
Bob’s 3-day-a-week job as Research Associate suddenly dried up … and Bob was
out on his ear … though probably on a very
loose bungee ready to be yanked back (boinng!) when (if?) Rajat, his boss,
actually lays his finger on another pot of gold (at the end of the
rainbow?). Meanwhile, just to stop him
twiddling his thumbs, he’s the Treasurer for Gloucestershire Friends of the
Earth. Twice a year, they run an indoor
fleamarket, which raises a fair bit of money for FoE, from stallholders fees,
entry fees and a café. This arrangement with
volunteer labour has been happily running for years … until … odd discomfiting
coincidences left everyone a bit spooked.
First … The Case of the Three Missing Signs (cue : melodramatic
music). Never in the decades-long
history of the fleamarket had signs ever been stolen (harrumph! .. my dear …
this is the Cotswolds!). Odd … but not
to worry … we have a fleamarket to run … though strange that visitor numbers are
down. Lunch time arrived … busy, busy
time. In walks someone who can only be
described as ‘a hard bloke’, complete with a couple of ‘minders’. After eliciting who was in charge, a one-sided
conversation ensued, along the lines of … ‘nice little enterprise you’ve got
here’ .. ‘.. ‘ow d’ya fancy a little partnership’ .. ‘you’re obviously rushed
off your feet ‘ere’ .. ‘we could run the whole thing, save you the hassle, and
share the profits 50:50 .. wha’ d’ya think?’
‘don’t take too long thinkin’ ‘bout it, or we could make life very
difficult for you .. such as runnin’
another fleamarket on the same day just across town ..’ . Threatening stuff. Everyone had their Light-bulb Moment … ah, it
was him wot nicked the signs. Who would
have thought that this tiny enterprise could be threatened by the local spiv /
wide boy? Having left his card, we found
out that he ran several other fairs / markets in other towns from Didcot to
Gloucester, and presumably felt the need to muscle in on the Cirencester scene. Weird … surely this sort of thing only
happens in dramas!
We spent late Spring / early
Summer sorting out the rapidly-moving Y Ddôl goal posts … costs versus
pragmatism … changes of roof design to accommodate Building Control rules and
structural engineering concerns … avoiding the attentions of the Building
Control Officer whilst insulating the walls (… no really, we’re just doing a few
repairs, guv .. honest! ..). Summer came
and mostly went. Vitamin D deprivation
set in, as Joy beavered away in a darkened room writing up reports on
interpretations of data from long-forgotten dusted-off studies, collected
originally when actually being paid to do so, and written on scraps of paper
that now needed a magnifying glass to read!
Between times, Joy’s arm (and leg!) became peppered with more holes than
a heroin addict, as drugs were injected and blood tests taken, radioactive
tracers ‘lit up’ (actually darkened) bones like a dark star, a few more DNA
molecules were accidentally zapped (oh, the irony!), and scans were taken. Occasionally, even a consultant would be seen
… a rare sight in today’s NHS! The fun (!)
bit is to be one step ahead of the consultant by paying for the reports and CDs
of scans, interpreting what the radiologist means and then attempting to deduce
the future course of action … almost a
necessity as you only get 10 minutes with the consultant every three months … ‘curses!
.. forgot to ask … too late .. (sigh)’ … and he’s very adept at easing himself
out of the door when time’s up! So far,
O Best Beloveds, the evil cancer cells are being sealed off (cackle!) by new
bone as we speak … (‘For the love of God, Montresor!’) …
Meanwhile, whilst waiting for
Y Ddôl to be habitable again, Joy is suffering from wood-store re-organisation
deprivation syndrome … which manifests itself in mooching around other people’s
log stores and dreaming of giant wood piles to come, beautifully set out in
categories, such as ‘fluffy’ quick-burn pine, right up to tough, seasoned oak
which burns long and slow and hot … aaah!
Next, it’ll be writing little labels …
So now, before repetitive
strain injury asserts itself (wince!), it’s time to wish you all a Merry
Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Lots of Love and Best Wishes
from Joy, Bob, Rupert, Tamsin and Manué
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