Melanie Reid on Christmas
I always read her column in The Times Saturday magazine as I find her struggles inspiring. I suspect too, that I am not alone in taking courage from this brave woman, who is fighting back from something a lot worse than I have suffered.
I like the last bit of her piece yesterday.
The new year will bring my countdown to eventual discharge, so I must concentrate as hard as I can right now on myself. My wonderful support group of Times readers will understand, I’m sure, and be there for me in January. I wish you all a very happy Christmas and please, if you are swithering over whether to buy a mohair nose-warmer or rose-petal-stuffed underpants for the person who already has everything, then donate the money instead to The Times Spinal Charities Appeal. For if I’ve learnt one thing this year it is this: what matters this Christmas is love and health, not useless material stuff, nor whether your table decorations are fashionable.
In some ways Scrooge had Christmas right, but for the wrong reasons.
Lost Without a Clock
For the last forty years I’ve had a brass-bezelled ship’s clock in the kitchen. Tooday, it’s not there as I’ve packed it!
The clock was bought in Liverpool and was rumoured to have come of the Great Eastern.
I doubt it, but I’m lost!
A Right Pair of Posers
I found a decent sized copy of this picture, stuffed in a drawer.
Charlotte and Daisy
Charlotte is behind the driving seat and her daughter, Daisy, is beside her.
The picture was taken on the drive at Debach probably about 1987 or so. I remember that I’d driven all round the centre of Ipswich with the two dogs sitting like that, but then English setters can be terrible posers. When I got home, I rushed inside and got the camera. Luckily they didn’t move.
The First Thing I Moved In
Despite all my troubles, there is two things I won’t do; let my standards slip and lose my sense of humour and the surreal.
So the first thing I moved into the house is this photograph.
Pride of Place
Sometimes I wish I had my uncle’s talent with drawing, as I’d create a picture, that would do C and our son proud!
As I write this it’s three years to the day since she died. So perhaps today is the first day of my new life, even if I haven’t quite moved yet!
C always said she married me, because she knew life would not be boring. So it’s now up to me to live up to her view of me. If I should get boring, please tell me!
The Devil Would be Proud of Me!
I’ve just found a whole box of bibles in the loft. They went straight in the skip!
The only religious book I’ve kept is a Protestant Dictionary. It’s the funniest book you’ll ever read!
The Devil would be proud of me!
Radio Balls Pond Road
My new house is just round the corner from the infamous Balls Pond Road. When I found this picture, it brought back a lot of memories of thast iconic radio show, Round the Horne. They used to feature Radio Balls Pond Road.
The series was written by Barry Took and Marty Feldman. Barry actually went to the same school as I did, Minchenden Grammar School in Southgate.
The Tale of Boughton’s Nail
In the late 1950s or early 1960s my father embarked on a major reconstruction of his printing works in Station Road, Wood Green. We ripped out large quantities of rubbish and covered the walls in corrugated asbestos sheets to hide the damp. It worked very well, but what would modern Health and Safety have said. At one point in our destruction we came across a cm. thick plank of wood, which someone had attempted to fix to a six by four beam with a six inch nail. As he didn’t have the strength to drive the nail home, this bodger had attempted to bend it flat. He’d failed. It was and probably still is, the worst bit of carpentry I’ve ever seen. I can remember that my fsther said it was probably done by a man called Boughton, who.d worked for the family firm some years previously. So to me whenever I see some really awful handiwork, I think of the unfortunate Boughton. Incidentally, I’ve never met anyone with that surname and I don’t know how I’ll react.
But perhaps one of his descendants did this?
A Very Bad Door Stop
The doorstop is too small and whoever put it in cracked the tiles and did a lot of damage. It’s even more stupid as just round the corner in the Balls Pond Road is one of the best shops for door furniture in London.
I do have a thing about door stops, as I was mugged by one in Belarus.
I shall be visiting the hardware store!
Installing the Virgins
Men living alone have curious habits. But two things they need are decent broadband for the Internet and football on the television.
As the new house is in a cable area, one of the reasons, I visited yesterday was to get the cable connected.
By twelve and ahead of schedule, they were both working, after installation by a competent and charming young lad, who didn’t seem to make any mistakes, except leave a cable in his van and go back to retrieve it.
I also got a speed of 54 Mbps, when I’m only paying for 20!
So virgins aren’t as expensive as they used to be!
How Not to Paint
Mark didn’t like this, as he didn’t want me to think he was to blame, so I photographed it.
How Not to Paint
Things like this grate with me, so hopefully Mark will be able to put right some of the faults of the original builders. But really it’s not his job.
How Not to Put in Bolts
In the previous post, I indicated that the new house has featured steel beams. The stair-case is also in steel and painted the same dark chocolate colour.
But look at this picture.
Bolts in a Staircase
My father would have said that this was probably put together by a one-eyed Irishman in the dark, as some are round one way and others are the other. We may not blame others like we used to in the 1950s, but whoever put these in had no basic sense of design and order. I’d love to see the architect’s drawings, to see what they intended. Some bolts look to be a brass colour, so there might have been some instructions.
I will change them at some point, but whether I use brass, bronze, stainless steel or chrome, with or without cap nuts is a question that has to be decided.
Whatever I do though, I’ll put them in properly and in order.
The Anonymous Widower 