Reflections On Surviving Another Year
As I sit here typing at the computer and watching Graham Norton, I can take comfort in surviving another year. Nothing remotely serious happened, although I was badly effected by the incredible heat of the summer, which was made more unbearable by Gerry’s terrible roof.
So the roof and my bathroom are now fixed and 2015 will be the Year of the Kitchen. I’ve already press-ganged a Project Manager and someone to install it, who although he is not reliable, I know will deliver at some point. I also don’t have any communication problems with my schizophrenic other half. I remember Nobby and myself having a discussion about whether all great programmers have two personalities; one to do the programming and one to do the testing. We felt on balance they do!
C and I had some good New Years and some bad ones. I always remember this good one for selfish reasons, but the Millennium was great in Deya. In fact some of the other good ones were totally unplanned and a party or good time just happened. Just as the bad ones did! The worst one was probably, when C died just before Christmas and my advice to anybody in that situation, is to think carefully how you handle that difficult time. Everybody is different and we all respond to the same situation in different ways. So we must make a selfish decision. Something that like me after forty years of living with someone in a great deal of harmony, was not easy.
I did go away to Venice that we loved a couple of months after C died, just to prove I could travel abroad alone. I would advise people to do that! You certainly learn a lot about yourself, when you’re alone in a foreign country.
C had the language skills, the knowledge of food and wine, and I had the camera and I like to think she trusted my practical skills.
A couple is a sentient being with two brains and four of most things, like hands and eyes. Think how many small simple jobs need three hands for a start.
Gluten-Free Wednesday
The reason I went to Haverstock Hill was not to see the dreadful eyesores, but as it was Wednesday, it was to have gluten-free fish and chips at Oliver’s.
It was a very worthwhile trip and with the exception of some fish and chips at Rick Stein’s in Padstow, which cost probably a lot more, it was the best I’ve eaten. In some ways that is an unfair comparison, as in Cornwall I was with C. And then for many years before I was diagnosed as a coeliac, I never ate battered fish. Something was probably telling me, it was poisoning my gut.
But the plaice and chips today was superb. C hated chips, but she’d have loved these. There can be no better accolade!
Eyesores On Haverstock Hill
Hampstead is a very posh part of London, but walk down Haverstock Hill and you see some of the worst buildings in London.
The church is having the cheek to object to the hospital building a new research centre.
A better solution would be to demolish both the Royal Free Hospital and St. Stephen’s church and use the enlarged site to build something that fitted better into the area. Like a prison or a factory making garden gnomes.
Seriously though, the hospital was built in 1974 and it can’t be many years until, it will need either severe refurbishment or replacing.
This would surely give a chance to improve the whole area.
The church is the sort of building, that gives the heritage industry a bad name. Wikipedia says this about its restoration.
A lease on it was awarded to the St Stephen’s Restoration and Preservation Trust in 1999 and, after this body raised over £4 million from English Heritage, the Heritage Lottery Fund, local businesses and individual donors, it has restored it to a usable condition in three phases.
I’m sure all of those who play the lottery loved that their money went towards restoring an eyesore like this. I don’t play the lottery as it is a tax on the poor. I do object though that English Heritage put money in, as that could be part of my taxes. If individuals want to waste their own money on a building that would serve best as good hardcore, that is their own affair.
The Anonymous Widower 