Band Aid

Tap, tap, tap. The familiar rap of Mr Singh’s stick on my kitchen window filters through to the bedroom.


TAP, TAP, TAP, the sense of urgence increasing rousing me from my post work napette. Jeans and Tshirt on, I bleary make my way to the back door.

“Warawak!” he exclaims as he waves his hand.

I look in bewildered amusement at the grass in Mr Singh’s garden.

“Yes it’s looking much better” I offer.

For a week or so now we have been thinking about our respective lawn care methods.

I take the once or twice a week mowing approach, spending ten minutes on the job of cutting and tidying. My Indian neighbor expects the whole plot to have withered and turned to a hard pan as it is the dry season. Thus he takes the twice a year route. The European summer though has once again taken him completely by surprise. The quite unseasonal rain has allowed his grass to grow to a stature that might be referred to as, ‘as high as an elephants eye ‘.

A few days ago he lost both himself and my mower in the jungle that had arisen. He eventually emerged with a sense, if not of triumph over adversity, at least of satisfaction. The sort of satisfaction another fellow might get after arriving at Brighton several hours late but sure in the knowledge that when you know where you are going, a map is superfluous to requirement.

“Warawak”.

The hand waving grows more insistent and draws my attention away from the thick green soup. Then I realize that what he is actually doing is actually waving his hand. It is a primary focus rather than a gesture to divert the attention.

Mr Singh has cut his thumb while gardening.

I proffer a plaster.

“Warawak”?

“Run it under the tap for a little, dry it off, then use the plaster to cover the cut”.

He has the look of a small boy.
He bumbles off to his own kithchen.

Tum tee tum tee tum tee tum tum tee diddly tum…..

I don’t think it is in any sense an exaggeration to say that I have been listening to The Archers all my life. It was a staple of my mothers radio diet back in the days of the home service and the light program and I grew up with Barwick Green once a week when Two Way Family Favourites, The Clitheroe Kid, punctuated Sunday along with Tom Forrest’s introductory monologue leading in to a weekly reprise of episodes from the past seven days. I have no idea if my mother listened at 6:45 p.m. back in those days. I suspect I was in bed at that time before my school years. I don’t really remember the stories of the early sixties of course, more the voices and the comfort of friends. Sounds I grew up with and found familiarity in. A touchstone. Through six of my seven ages I have continued to listen, mostly on my own account and I hope to do so for some years to come.
Through the miracle of manufactured memory I can sometimes get mixed up among the fiction and the facts that I choose of my own as well.
My school years were spent in a small village at the foot of the Southern Cotswolds. As the four siblings of the principle family grew I often found a mirror to their progress in my own. Indeed in years since then as well.
A fictional soap based in a radio studio somewhere in the Midlands has a very real landscape set out in my minds eye and I have a memory and an encyclopedic album full of mental images.
And I continue to enjoy ‘The Archers’ today.

Like others I have talked to I have often felt challenged when real life has presented me with actors who cannot possibly be the people in my minds eye, and indeed landscapes that don’t remotely match the maps I hold.
Thus it was with both trepidation and eager anticipation that I attended an academic conference yesterday.

I needn’t have worried though. I was firmly among friends.

Stardust

While living in London there have been times when I have been tempted by an early bed and an easy evening. But there is a pulse that runs through the city. If you listen carefully you will not miss it. And if, as it must be, you are called, then you fail the call it at your peril.
“If not now then when?”
This should be etched on every key and sinew if you want to live here. This evening I have had the priceless gift of the intimacy of strangers.
Earlier today a man who went by the name of David Bowie passed. As the day progressed I was surprised by the swell of feeling both abroad and in myself.
Throughout the course there have been snippets and sound bites. By this evening moving and well crafted tributes were being given voice.
I noted on the BBC that two sites of vigil were emerging locally. First Brixton, where a large crowd gathered adjacent to a popular mural.
Second a smaller affair comprising notes, flowers, and candles. Presented between two doors against a wall in Heddon Street.
Now I don't usually do this sort of thing but... It was to the second that I took my modest candle, and head bowed commendation to The Great Moo Moo. Probably no more than thirty people at the start. We stood for a few minutes of respect and then magic happened.
Some genius started playing Major Tom through the public address system on the street. As the long familiar tune was renewed, hearts and chorus swelled among us and suddenly there were no strangers. We were among friends.
For the next two hours we danced, sang, and relived.
Then someone came out with a guitar and lifted it to another level.
Every lullaby a diamond work of genius.
Good night Starman.

The 'art Of Darkness

For a couple of months I have been looking forward to a dark sky. Yesterday evening the Great Moo Moo looked down upon me and smiled in fond indulgence and gentle amusement. Dear reader, I was dabbling in the dark art of Astrophotography.
Now before we go further let me recommend this to you. Some time soon, find a dark place and a clear sky. Admire the universe. Take a photograph for your friends abed. Simple.
Oh and forgive me if it drives you mad.

Over years I have built up a collection of kit that assists in just such an endeavour and, despite a desperate chest infection I was determined to marry some of the old and the new (noted below) and cast my lot. The weather was pretty good. No wind. Not even too cold. The moon absent and unable to interfere.
Just as you were probably thinking about cocoa and an improving book, I stole away to a layby in the Essex countryside and, with the cover of a dark sky, set about my erection.

Tripod locked tight, leveled and on a firm base. Telescope, focal reducer, T adapter, camera, shutter release. All assembled. Adjust the mount, make sure everything is tightened down. Swing round to a long distant village and check the focus. Final adjustment of the finder alignment. Look around for three bright stars. Sirius, Procyon, Betelgeuse in the bag. And ping….its a match. The little gadget in my hand is pleased with where we are and what it has seen so far and is eager for adventures. The lights of the car go down and the universe goes up around us.

So begins the happy hours of a dark sky. I am cast about on the inky seas of memory and experience. Awed as we must surely be against such majesty. My gaze wanders through seasonal friends and favourites.
A hunter, the bull, seven sisters, Neptune, a hero, a princess. Spiral swirls and rich fat globs of stars in iridescent colour.
These spring to the eye and run around my imagination casting me back and forward through our local backwater then off through the milky way and to shores beyond.

Along the way I have see the back of my camera light up with minatures. Nebulae, clusters, a planet, asterisms, and galaxies have lined up two by two and are in the box. I can’t wait to see what I have seen!

And there’s the rub of course. Eventually I grew cold enough to consider it done. Packed up my kit, emptied the last drop from the flask, and drove home. Content and warm again in the drive. The chip of dreams ready to slip in to the side of my computer.
The pictures were every bit as perfect as I could’ve wished. I got the timings right. I nailed the framing. They were great. Except…. and here I learn the lesson for next time…. they were all slightly out of focus!

Hey ho. It was a grand night out. Lets hope it’s clear dark again tonight!

Finally a big thank you to:-

The Widescreen Centre for an amazing telescope, a rather cool offering from Celestron, and Canon for making great cameras that work even when you make them do stuff other than snaps.

A Gift Hose

The aspirations of the hoover that came with my rented accommodation have left something to be desired for some time now. It sucks, but not in a good way.

By serendipitous fortune, just before Christmas, the good folk at Tesco reminded me that I had been collecting reward points to the value of a tidy sum. I considered, for about a millisecond, treating friends and relations to generous fare and presents. At the end of this protracted period I spotted that they would double the value of my contribution if I decided to exchange my clubcard point hoard for household electrical goods.

Dear Reader. The sum proffered left me only a few pounds short of the price of the Victorinox of vacuum cleaners, the Dyson BeastMaster. So I scurried along to the online store and booked my next day pick up.
The next day, arriving full of boyish glee, I was slightly saddened to see that the package retrieved from the unloading bay to the service desk looked like it might’ve been dropped by parachute from a passing Hercules transport.
To put it simply my crest fell. And the charming young lady could see the extent to which it had drooped. The excitement of unpacking was definitely going to be lessened by the gaping hole in two sides of the box. She did offer to take it away and start again but I was already half way through cleaning. The plastic object of desire was due home within the hour as far as I was concerned.

I agreed that if it was unscathed, all the parts were in the box, and I could plug it in and test it, I would take it away.
It was fine.
After a few minutes tidying up the dust around the shop online terminal I was happy.

In the meantime, the charming young lady serving me had been on the telephone to dispatches. She handed a very apologetic manager on the other end of the line over to me and he gave me a substantial discount. A discount that just offset the amount extra in cash that I had had to find. When he was off the phone she was further kind enough to give me a further recompense of a decent Christmas gift card from the store. All for being a decent customer.
They paid me to take it away.