Mid-Month Musings - April is the cruelest month

Earlier, I wrote this post, then accidentally caught a button on the keyboard which instantaneously wiped the entire thing except for the letter 'n'.

Repeatedly banging my head against the table and swearing in a highly creative way passed a bit of time.

Big deep breath.  Here is version 2:

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It's always like precarious!

There is an app on my mobile phone called LiveTranscribe, which turns spoken words into written text on the screen. I'm not sure precisely what it's for but it probably helps deaf people or something of that sort.

The problem is that it turns itself on seemingly at random and starts busily transcribing whatever it 'hears'.  Here is a recent conversation between P and I:

Of course P and I didn't have this actual conversation. Neither of us can remember talking about pilots or nets, using the word 'precarious' or addressing each other as 'bro'. I'm not sure exactly how helpful Live Transcribe actually is to anyone, though possibly P and I have an indecipherable regional accent or our voices are pitched at an incomprehensible frequency. This would at least explain why no one ever listens to me.

I would really like to get the phrase 'It's always like precarious!' into everyday speech, particularly if the word 'bro' is added. So if anyone would care to put it into a comment below this post giving examples of possible usage, I'd be grateful.

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Dandelion and Burdock?

Who says I'm a terrible gardener? Look at this magnificent crop of dandelions:

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Singing At Chatsworth 

Rock Choirs from Rotherham, Sheffield, Worksop, Matlock and Chesterfield recently performed in the magnificent gardens of Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. 

        Sadly, our choirmaster, the lovely, eccentric, enthusiastic Tom, is leaving us this Easter and this was his final opportunity to conduct the choirs in his inimitable style. You can witness that style, hear the choirs singing and view our limited dancing 'skills', if you look on You Tube:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MakeinMu2oM

or just google 'Tom's Rock Choirs at Chatsworth, Derbyshire (30 March 2024)'. 

        We had a list of around nine songs which we had rehearsed using video recaps and tutorials, as well as in our weekly choir practice sessions, but Tom has a habit of suddenly throwing in a random song on the day. A week earlier, we'd been singing in a church in Matlock and expecting to sing 'Shallow' as an encore, but Tom announced we were singing 'Hallelujah' instead, which threw everyone into a tailspin. 

        This time, he suddenly announced we were going to sing 'Going Loco Down In Acapulco', a song that wasn't on our list and which we hadn't sung in ages - it inspired a round of horrified whispers and grimaces throughout the massed ranks of Rockies, and was particularly problematic for the representatives of the Rotherham Choir who were positioned on the stone steps at the back, because there is a lively set of accompanying dance steps to this particular song and there was a worry that someone might fall off one of the steps. I mean, many of us are well past our mid-life crises and firmly into broken-hip territory.

        It's always like precarious, bro [see what I did there?].

    

Despite Tom's [possibly mischievous] tendency to add random songs to our repertoire without warning, he will nevertheless be very sadly missed. Good luck for the future, Tom, wherever life may take you!

Tom standing between the wonderful Betty and Katherine on his final choir practice with us

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Chair-Yoga!

My friend T and I have recently started attending chair-yoga classes. Chair-yoga is a discipline wherein you bend chairs into extraordinary shapes for no discernible reason while listening to relaxing background music...

        Actually, it's a way of doing yoga if you are slightly hampered by stuff like a bad back [my friend T], the ageing process [all of us who attended], or simply being overweight and phenomenally unfit [me]. The postures are either seated or performed while standing behind the chair holding on. They are slow and gentle like 'proper yoga'. The stretches are surprisingly challenging, but there is no pressure to do more than you feel able to do. 

        T and I are both short and our chairs were on the tall side. Embarrassingly, our legs wouldn't touch the floor so we felt like two small children who'd been placed on adult chairs. Bro, it was always precarious! No one mocked us, however. 

Holly, the young instructor was brilliant, and we all found the hour-long session refreshing and relaxing.

        It was particularly good for me as I'd just been for an eye-test at which I was told I had the start of cataracts, so I was a bit stressed when I arrived. It isn't easy to chill out when you keep imagining having the lenses in your eyes pulled out and replaced by plastic ones while you're still awake!!!

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Nine Go To Buxton!

I was fortunate enough to be invited to spend the weekend with P and seven of his old university friends in an Airbnb in Derbyshire over the weekend. The place in which we stayed was just outside Buxton in a renovated coach-house belonging to the derelict Bennetston Hall, an impressive building which I believe was built originally by a prosperous local doctor in the nineteenth century. A friend who lives nearby tells me it has been covered in scaffolding for many years and has changed hands several times with various schemes to transform it into something worthwhile having so far come to very little. This is a pity because the building is attractive and imposing, though it is located beside a busy road in an area that is difficult to access without a car.

View of the side of Bennetston Hall from coach-house

The coach-house was comfortable and clean. We each had our own rooms, all with en suite facilities, and there was a shared kitchen and living room. TVs in every room plus a large TV in the living room, along with a huge dining table and a less impressive set of uncomfortable armchairs that gave the room the air of a 1970s Old People's Home. In fact, one of the guests, who I will refer to as The Maiden [her actual name means a...ahem...unmarried young woman], brought her own small coffee tables to try to make it more comfortable and convenient.

        The place was painted in that ubiquitous white that I've noticed before in Derbyshire holiday accommodation - I think it's meant to be inoffensive and to suit everyone by its neutrality, but I find it a tad spartan and cold-looking myself. Nevertheless, the place was excellent value, with ample parking and room for around ten guests, and both P and I slept remarkably well while there. As a teenager I used to stay up half the night scribbling stories or dancing in night-clubs, but since I broke through the menopause I now spend the small hours reading John Wyndham novels, playing dull games on my laptop and watching crap on You Tube. So it was refreshing to actually be asleep around midnight and awake before 9.00.

I have to admit that I felt like an interloper to some extent at the coach-house. I have got to know two of P's old university friends in recent years - I'll give them nicknames for the purposes of this post: The Ranger [because he likes hiking over the countryside alone] and The Maiden. Two others - The Prince [because his name means 'royal'] and The Princess [because she falls down a lot so reminds me of 'The Rolling Cat' in the You Tube Walter Santi videos, a cat whose real name is 'Princess' - yes, I realise this is a rather arcane and idiosyncratic train of thought...] - are people I've met a few times and like a lot. These four all attended our wedding, for instance. 

    However, the other three members of the group were people I hadn't met before: The Fair Fighter [because her name, which happens to be my first name too - Louise is my middle name - derives from words meaning 'fighter' and having connections to the Tuatha De Danann], The Sleuth [because she knows how to find things] and The Wanderer [because she supports Wolves]. I felt a little bit like I was gatecrashing a private party at times, despite the fact that everyone was friendly, funny, kind and charming. 

 Front to back: The Sleuth, The Princess, The Prince, The Fair Fighter, The Maiden, P, The Ranger, The Wanderer - about to enter  Treak Cliff  Cavern, Castleton

I managed to keep myself out of their hair on Sunday by spending the day in Buxton with my friend D, who lives in Stockport. While we walked round in the drizzle taking frequent rests in coffee shops, they all clambered round among the stalactites in one of Castleton's blue john mines and natural cave formations. 

        I managed to find Buxton station and meet D on time, but you know you're getting old when it not only takes you twenty minutes to work out how to pay for a day's parking using your phone - BUT ALSO you set off twenty minutes early in order to accommodate this anticipated delay...

        D knows Buxton much better than I - my visits there have been mostly to go directly to the Opera House and then for a meal in a nearby restaurant, before returning home. So it was great to have a proper look round the beautiful little town. My brother-in-law grew up there and has strong connections to the town, and the friend I mentioned earlier who lives locally [she is another D confusingly!] told me there is a large cave on the edge of Buxton called Poole's Cavern. Needless to say, we didn't visit that but it's somewhere to visit with P in the future. 

        My 'shower-resistant' coat with its large hood that doesn't actually fasten, so it just blows off my head at regular intervals unless I hold onto it constantly, was not enough to keep me from getting soaked in the endless drizzle [punctuated only by heavier downpours]. The weather did provide a good excuse for pottering about gift shops and stopping off for coffee and cake, however - including one memorable stop at a shop that sold coffee which came with chocolates, thereby combining two of my favourite things. After all, there's only so long you can jump through puddles in the Pavilion Gardens. I was still aching from the chair-yoga, remember.

Left to right: The Ranger, The Fair Fighter, The Princess, P, The Sleuth, The Maiden, The Wanderer, just outside the exit to Treak Cliff Cave, Castleton.

 

View from Treak Cliff Cave, Castleton

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Health & Safety Gone Mad!

Yesterday I bought a plastic plant for my bathroom, which has no windows so real plants wouldn't survive there for long. The plant is about six inches tall, with a lightweight plastic pot filled with a bit of foam to represent soil. It weighs 6.3 ounces.

My elderly mum was with me when I bought it. Later that afternoon, after she'd returned home and had time to mull it over for a couple of hours, she phoned me. Here is some of the conversation:

Mum:    You know that plant you bought? I've been thinking you                      ought to stick it down with something when you put it in                    your bathroom.

Me:        Why?

Mum:    Well, you said you were going to put it on top of the                            bathroom cabinet - it might easily fall on someone's head.

Me:        I don't think it would, but if it did it wouldn't hurt anyone.                  It's very flimsy and light.

Mum:     I was a nurse and I know how much damage can be                             caused  by plants falling on people.

Me:        Did that happen a lot in Geriatric Medicine?

Mum:     I'm just saying it's dangerous and you need to stick it down.

Me:        But, Mum, it was standing on a shelf in the shop and hadn't                fallen over or fallen off the shelf there. It seems perfectly                    stable.

Mum:     You might knock it off with a towel.

Me:        A towel? How? 

Mum:    You know how clumsy your husband is. He might flick his                   towel in the air and knock it down. 

Me:        He doesn't do flamenco dancing in the bathroom!

Mum:    Don't be clever. You know what I mean. I'm just saying you                aren't taking Health and Safety seriously. I'm worried it                      might fall on you in the bath.

Me:        It won't be over the bath.

Mum:    It could still happen. You never know. 

Me:        If it means you can sleep at night, I'll put a lump of blu-                      tack under it.

Mum:    Blu-tack's no use. You need to glue it down.

Me:        I'm not gluing it to the top of the cabinet, Mum.

Mum:    Well, I'm not happy about you putting it in the bathroom at                  all.

Me:       Well, then, you'll be pleased to know that I'm thinking of                    putting it on the bookcase at the top of stairs, now.

Mum:     Oh, my god! It'll fall off and land on my grandson when                      he's running up the stairs! It could kill him!

I didn't tell her I have three glass bottles on top of one bathroom cabinet and a glass bowl on top of the other.

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Local News...

Here is part of an advert P spotted recently in our local free paper:

That will be one hell of a big roof. And it'll need SO many Vellux windows to stop the good folk of South Yorkshire getting rickets due to Vitamin D deficiency...

If you spot any daft adverts, let me know in the comments below this post.

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Where did he come from?

Remember I mentioned my cataracts? I haven't noticed much of an effect on my vision, except...

        Well, I noticed yesterday that a ginger cockerpoo appears to have curled up on the bottom shelf of  my new bathroom towel-rack:

If you have made any similar errors, let me know!