Category: Uncategorized

Today we have another guest sitting in the blog chair. This time we hear from Anna Konig Labedz. Anna is a friend and ex-colleague of Mrs Henderson’s who now lives in the USA, in St Louis, Missouri. Anna grew up near Pangbourne and attended Theale Green School before upping sticks and leaving these shores to seek her fortune.

Mr. H. recently invited me to write a guest blog post from my vantage point across the pond. So here we go. Greetings from the Show-Me State.

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Politicians and stupidity both irritate and annoy me, so I shall be leaving out any commentary on that. Each US State has its own governing body, and within each state are various county governments. Within each county are municipal governments. My point being, the rules for one State (or county, or city) may be different from those of its neighbor. Like most relationships, it’s complicated.

For our local area in the state of Missouri, public gatherings were limited to 250 people starting March 13, 2020, and the restrictions became increasingly tighter after that, with “stay at home orders” finally issued on March 23. I’m glad I got my hair cut on March 22. During this time only essential businesses have been open – grocery stores, pharmacies, DIY centers (because people need to paint), and the like. Restaurants have been closed, but many have initiated “curbside pickup” as a means to serve their community and stay afloat.

Being over 60, the Mister and myself were classified as “older” and so we started ordering groceries for delivery to the door. Most grocery stores have now implemented “senior” shopping hours, and are limiting the number of people that can enter at any one time. Face masks are also required. A quick rummage through the fabric scraps and an online pattern resulted in our own PPE. And now desparately in need of a hair cut.

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This week, restrictions are being lifted on public gatherings, but social distancing is still required. Personally, it’s going to be a while before I feel comfortable sitting in a restaurant, even with tables 6 feet apart.

Yesterday was Mother’s Day in the States. Our daughter Facetimed us from California so we could see her face and that of our granddog. It was lovely to enjoy breakfast together while socially distancing 1800 miles apart.

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Of course, I made a phone call home, 4,000 miles across the pond, to my own mother. Combine a poor connection with her hearing issues and the call goes something like this:

A: Hello, Mum, it’s Anna-Marie. (echo, it’s Anna-Marie)

M: Oh Hello, Anna, how (cuts off)?

A: Doing well, thanks, and you? (…echo – and you?).

A: Happy Mothers Day (echoed back) …

(line dead for 5 seconds, then a chuckle from Mum)

A: Sorry, Mum, what did you say, you cut off? (echoed back)

M: (line dead, then) “…Mother’s Day” It went downhill from there.

My trainer and I try to get out for a walk most days, either at local parks or in our own neighborhood, where we’ve seen many signs of encouragement and creatively chalked driveways. Many signs are for the graduating high school kids who are missing out on all the fun of their senior year… no prom, no special ceremony, no senior lock-in, no cap and gown. EvilCovid19 has been cruel to the Class of 2020. Looks like their younger siblings have gone to playing school outside with their dolls, just like in the good old days.

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We don’t have a dog of our own, but I feel like we are in training… the Mister likes to take me on long walks and I’m good with basic commands like “distance,” “cross over,” and “wait.” It’s good to see families out walking together more often now.

I’ve spent a fair bit of time in the garden. Mowing, deadheading, weeding, and planting. My garden doesn’t even come close to an English garden, but there’s quite a bit of stuff blooming anyway. I have a small raised bed that the Mister made last year and it’s filled with tomato plants, parsley, cukes and a short row of beets and “mixed greens”. Clearly no social distancing being implemented in the raised bed.

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Looks like it’s time for my walk. Much love from across the Pond. xx

Today Mrs Henderson (or Mrs Chutney as she is sometimes known) made her award winning Plum Chutney.

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The ingredients were gathered and duly prepared to produce the pre-chutneyed picture of loveliness.

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Now we see the progress of the chutney as the ingredients begin to reduce.

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The history of this particular chutney is interesting. Previously Mrs Chutney used to make tomato chutney, however a chance visit to All Saints Church in Dunsden (probably en route to or from the Lodden Brewery) changed everything. In the churchyard was a plum tree with loads of fallen fruit that clearly was going to go to waste. The plums were duly scrumpted for chutneying. Lest you think us thieves, a donation was made in the church. We have often returned to gather the plums.

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The church had a famous sidesman and lay assistant to the Vicar from 1911-13 in Wilfred Owen, the WWI war poet. His parents and sister are buried in the churchyard. We visited the church on the anniversay of his death in November 2018.

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Back to the chutney as it reduces down from solid fruit to a tangy pulp.

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We have always been big chutney fans. Obviously apart from Mrs Chutney’s chutney two of our favourites are a Black Garlic chutney from Hawkshead in the Lake District and Adnams Beer Chutney from Southwold. We discovered the latter after a not very enjoyable walk along the coast from Southwold to the harbour in near horizontal freezing rain. We eventually made it to the Harbour Inn.

In addition to an excellent pint of Broadside we had the most enormous and wonderful cheese and Adnams chutney sandwich.

Now the chutney is ready for bottling up. The relatively recent purchase of a bottling funnel has revolutionised this final stage of the process; no more jars with sticky sides.

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Then the final touches.

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All that remains to do is wait for the chutney to mature and meanwhile savour the exquisite aroma that will pervade the house for the next few days.

I bet you never knew that there was a style of music called Chutney Music, neither did I and having found its most famous song, I’m not surprised.

What’s your favourite chutney?

Sitting in the garden yesterday hopeful of a flypast as part of the VE day celebrations, Mrs Henderson said that her favourite plane is the Spitfire.

I hadn’t really considered what my favourite plane is. The Flying Fortress, Vulcan, and Concorde are really impressive planes. Although Concorde made a dreadful noise I do miss it. I remember when I lived in Reading and phoned Mrs Henderson in Woodcote, if Concorde went over I could tell her that it was on the way and it would be with her in seconds.

On reflection I think I agree with Mrs Henderson about the Spitfire. I certainly have a nostalgia for it; the wonderful sound of the engine. Obviously they are iconic planes and a symbol of our victory over the Germans in the Battle of Britain. My father always talked about Spitfires with great fondness. He worked at Biggin Hill during the war so that might explain it. I remember him taking me to see one fly and also pointing them out at the RAF museum in Hendon and at the Science Museum in Kensington.

He also gave me a Spitfire airfix model – the first one I ever got. I’m sure many of you remember Airfix models. It had to be Airfix. Never Revell. Mrs Henderson and I chatted nostalgically about these yesterday afternoon while I was trimming up the box hedge in the back garden. Personally I never really took enough care over them; I wouldn’t file down the rough edges where the parts had been pushed out of the mould. The glue was really stringy and went everywhere and wouldn’t stop coming out of the tube even as you tried to put the lid on really quickly. Then the glue went on the outside of the bits not just along the joins. I was rubbish at the painting. The transfers had to be soaked off the paper and then slid everywhere. I might order one from Amazon right now. I have just looked – Airfix now also do quick build kits with pre-coloured plastic parts that clip together rather like lego. Talk about cheating.

Sitting in the garden today we saw a vapour trail for the first time in ages. Plane travel will be very different for a few years to come.

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Today we repainted the feature wall in the lounge. We think the new colour, slightly less pink, is a great success. All good.

A lot of possible music to choose from in this plane themed blog. Anything by Jefferson Airplane or The B52s. Enola Gay, Leaving on a Jet Plane, or Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines. In the end I went with our first thought. Great song.

What’s your favourite plane?

Sorry, it’s been so long. How have you coped?…

To be absolutely honest, I was bored of writing what had become an increasingly repetative account of my days. It wasn’t/isn’t that the days were boring in themselves or that I was unhappy with my life. If I’m honest, I quite like aspects of this lifestyle.

Just getting on with the work and, unsurprisingly, doing the garden and exercising. These have become the new norm like getting up at 6.30 am; getting a cup of tea; getting washed and dressed for work; going to work; teaching; doing rehearsals and concerts; coming home and repeat. This was not a bad life either. So here we are – plus ça change.

I still get angry at people and politicians.

So, what is new?

Everyone seemed to be having haircuts. Keith went very early; Mr Darkins followed suit and then in the space of only a few days Tim, Edward and Baz took the clippers to their hair. My hair was getting quite long and I was feeling a bit left out and quite fancied having a go myself. Mrs Henderson decided that 9mm was too short so longer combs were ordered and she cut my hair. I started but it quickly became obvious that it was going to be quicker and better if someone else did it.

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I was really pleased with the final cut, an excellent job or “Good jarb” as we now say in our house in honour of the American lady who does Mrs Henderson’s aerobics. I will never pay for another haircut, that’s for sure.

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Later in the week the paint arrived and so the decorating of the living room could begin. I am pleased to report that on the whole it was a great success. First there was the emptying of the room. I don’t know about you but we have so much stuff! With the smaller pieces of furniture it took nearly three hours to remove said stuff and stow it about the rest of the house. Net result, the whole house looked like a cross between an antiques emporium and a junk shop! This is why decorating has to be done at speed – we can’t bear the upheaval. It is not an activity we savour, in fact we don’t really like it at all.

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By Friday the ceiling had been painted; on Saturday two coats of Jasmine White were painted on all but the feature wall. Sunday morning saw the feature wall – Soft Stone – painted. By Sunday afternoon everything had been returned to its rightful place, except a couple of ornamental wooden acorns (made of oak, I presume) that didn’t make the cut.

So why not a complete success? Well, Mrs Henderson isn’t sure she likes Soft Stone! I am ambivalent on this matter as I have no aesthetic judgment in relation to the subtle nuances of colour. Nevermind, another colour has been ordered and I am pleased to announce that this arrived lunchtime today. Guess what we’re doing tomorrow?

Also, I had a bad back after all the stretching and contortions required to paint at height on a ladder. I have also lost my right hand thumb print, making access to phone and iPad trickier. First world problems, eh?

We enjoyed binge watching Fleabag (second time for me) and AfterLife. Both excellent – I would recommend you watch if you haven’t, though don’t watch with young children or your parents.

Here are some lovely flowers. I am particularly pleased with the climbing rose that has done so well having been grown from a cutting taken two years ago.

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Plenty of music of course. Here’s a few listening suggestions.

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CD of the day that I am listening to while I write this blog is Phantom Thread. Great music by Jonny Greenwood (thank you Ben for reminding me all those months ago) and also a very good film (8/10). It’s on Netflix if you’re interested and have Netflix.

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Until next time…

First things first.

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Happy Birthday Baz and Dougie too.

A welcome change in the weather. We needed this.

So indoor work today in the Repair Shop.

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How am I doing Edward?

An opportunity to see the outside world briefly when we drove down to Goring to pickup the paint that we have been needing since before Easter. Pleased that I had remembered how to drive and didn’t need shouting at.

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There’ll be no putting off the decorating now. By this time next week the living room will be done.

Album of the day. This drivel chosen Mrs Henderson.

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Actually we didn’t go to Bournemouth yesterday but we did have tickets to see Elbow. Luckily we didn’t book a hotel for the night and the concert has been rearranged for September. We had a relaxing day yesterday with no school work.

We had a stroke of luck in the morning when Mrs Henderson noticed an old piece of trellis in our next door neighbour’s skip.

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You will notice their cat in the background. We call him “Tightskin “ because when he was in his prime he was too fat for his skin! Anyway, we had a bit of fence that could do with a trellis.

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Obviously we asked permission and Hey Presto.

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A bit of gardening of course. Here’s an update. Ajuga looking lovely and alliums on the way.

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Last night we watched a fantastic performance of Macbeth on the iPlayer. It was by the RSC with Christopher Ecclestone as Macbeth and Niamh Cusack as his batshit crazy wife. The production, one that we failed to get tickets for, was brilliantly acted, directed, and produced at a terrific pace. The witches were a stroke of imaginative genius. For me to stay awake on a Saturday evening in front of the box is testament to its greatness. I give it 10/10 and recommend you watch it, there’s bugger all else worth watching. It’s still on the iPlayer.

We have both been exercising. On Sunday I spent most of the day engaged with school work. Mrs Henderson managed to do some reading in the garden with the cat.

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Album of the day.

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Exciting day today. Awoke with a great sense of anticipation. Our 23rd anniversary of our meeting and a fun packed day of celebration planned. Because…

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Lovely weather was forecast, so an early start to make a day of it and get some time on the beach. We were very surprised at how empty the roads were.

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But we weren’t complaining because we made it down to Bournemouth in record time and had no trouble parking right on the front. We had the beach to ourselves.

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We were hoping to get fish and chips and maybe an ice cream but nothing was open. After a nice bracing walk we made our way to the venue.

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Deserted.

Shut up.

Then the penny dropped.

Or perhaps the day was not at all like this? 🤔

Happy Birthday Mike.

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This has to be the album of the day then.

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Thank you Dr Tim for yesterday’s blog. It certainly took the pressure off and was a really good read. I am still re-reading and loving the Boris Johnson name list tirade and I am now following Stewart Lee in the Guardian. I also loved the really artistic pictures and we are really jealous of the beautiful countryside that you can visit.

Back to me again..

We have really enjoyed listening to one particular blackbird who has been singing his heart out from atop a neighbours television aerial. So an obvious tune for the song of the day.

We have been considering the things that we do and don’t need these days. We don’t need cash, credit cards, cars, petrol, SatNav, maps, suits, ties, shoes, coats, umbrellas, hats, keys, passports, shopping bags, lunchboxes, school bags, handbags, glad rags and the list goes on.

Things we do need that we have – work to do, books, music, some good things to watch on TV, the internet, wine, beer, whisky.

Things that we need that we want – a haircut, draught ale, fish and chips from a chip shop, takeaway from the Indian, to get out of this house for a long walk, the beach, Corfe Castle, the company of more people.

Enough of that. We both worked in the dining office this morning and Mrs Henderson also tried phoning some students.

Great to see Garry who kindly lent me more weights for my exercises.

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It’s been a busy day for the cats.

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Oscar has an exercise regime that involves going out of one of the bedroom windows onto the roof, down into the back garden, in through the cat flap, up the stairs. He normally does about 4 reps. It’s exhausting for him. All Baby can do is watch.

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Apparently a lot of people are putting up rainbow pictures in their windows. I have only seen one neighbour who has done this. Sitting in the garden I realised that I have a rainbow of colours in the central flowerbed.

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Mrs Henderson made bread. Can’t wait for a crust with butter.

Album of the day. They were fantastic live. Surprisingly one of the best concerts that we have seen together.

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Nearly time to remove the gloves…

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Today’s Isolation Blog is being curated by Dr Tim Higgs, Caroline’s son.

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Over to you Tim…

Today’s edition is a day in the life of Steve/Hippo-like-being’s stepson, Tim.
Here’s a track to get things going as per the format, it’s both heavy and happy.

Today started as most do under the new norm: Me groggily travelling to the office (sofa) on time after leaving myself a bit of a hasty commute consisting of roughly 2 minutes to leave bed, don clothes and navigate the stairs with even less than my usual lack of grace. I do the morning dial-in to catch up with the colleagues, and tell them things like “I’m fine, struggling to find yeast” or “All fine here, I saw a pheasant yesterday” such is the thrilling pace of life in 2020.

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Things get a little more photogenic around lunch time, when the scene morphs from a bleary eyed me sat on a sofa sipping tea gazing at a laptop screen, to both me and Katherine sat in our garden with a sandwich, often a toasted one at that. Decadent. 

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We are lucky, in that our garden is actually a fairly big garden full of apple trees and other flora (minimal fauna since I killed the rat), since its shared with the 7 other flats. But they don’t use their shares, so it’s more of a huge private garden with potential spectators. Hence my tanlines, as I can’t sunbathe naked like everyone else. They (the flora) are looking rather lovely at the moment so I can maintain the tried and tested format of sharing garden photos in the middle of the post, just be sure to have an untuned radio playing next to you to replicate the noise of the M3 in the background, and maybe sit in the middle of the road so your neighbours can watch you for the authentic experience. 

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Then I resume the bleary eyed sitting on a sofa sipping tea gazing at a laptop screen until it is time to leave the office. Neither of us received the text of doom from the man Stewart Lee likes to refer to as Boris Piccaninny Watermelon Letterbox Cake Bumboys Vampires Haircut Wall-Spaffer Spunk-Burster Fuck-Business Fuck-the-Families Get-Off-My-Fucking-Laptop Girly-Swot Big-Girl’s-Blouse Chicken-frit Hulk-Smash Noseringed-Crusties Death-Humbug Technology-Lessons Surrender-Bullshit French-Turds Dog-Whistle Get-Stuffed FactcheckUK@CCHQ 88%-lies Get-Brexit-Done Bung-a-Bob-for-Big-Ben’s-Bongs Cocaine-Event Spiritual-Worth Three-Men-and-a-Dog Whatever-It-Takes I-Shook-Hands-With-Everyone Herd-Immunity Johnson. That means that I will have to deviate from the format somewhat, sorry if that’s a bit of a wilder ride than you were expecting. This is the point of the day where I go for the Daily Exercise.
Option A: The walk, with Katherine+1, where we have been ending our working days with a sub-but-sometimes-slightly-over-2 hour walk, and have explored almost every footpath that seems worth trying now. Fortunately we’re able to pack quite a range of environments into a given walk as shown below in the shots from yesterdays sub-2 hour escape (bonus points for those who manage to spot the stealthy wagtail). Her walking is pretty amazing considering the size of the human she’s carrying inside her and we very much are enjoying this while it lasts!

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Option B: Wearing silly clothes, jumping on a Victorian contraption and eating flies at speed, which I believe is also known as cycling. Being a great lover of the outdoors, I have a couple of evening-friendly routes I like to do regularly so I can stare at my cycle computer and try and make sure I’m an absolute mess when I come home having tried to better my previous self while covering the western end of the south downs in my sweat. 

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Either option (I roughly alternate between the two) is often followed by pouring one of these, a beer from SHawfort ARTisan brewing co (SHART) whose staff of 1 lives in my flat and wears my clothes and stuff. Pictured below is my latest batch, a best bitter I would describe as a “fakespears” as my aim was to brew something similar to my favourite bitter, and I think I managed that but might tone down the dark crystal malts next time. No fish guts or bits of pig in this though, unlike that stuff CAMRA try and tell you is “real”.

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I also put on the album of the day for making dinner to when it’s my turn, which for the past few days has been this beautiful, slightly poppy, uplifting yet melancholic release from Leprous, featuring the stunning vocal talent that is Einar Solberg. It’s not even very heavy!

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Then come the evening’s activities which have no fixed format but can include things like crosswords, board games, video calls, TV, or using the PS4 I bought just before lockdown which is one of the best decisions I have ever made. Then I sleep ready to restart the cycle.
Thanks for making it this far, your work is done now. who knows what Steve/Hippo-like-being has in store for you tomorrow?
Bye!

A very busy day today.

Began the day with school work accompanied by this.

Mrs H was listening to very different music, first to accompany her aerobics and then the decorating music was out.

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Including this rather good track.

Real painting, Keith.

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After lunch a Union meeting and then outside into the garden for some grass cutting (5th cut of the year) and watering. It is so dry now. The trees are coming into flower now or in the case of the acer, beautiful colour leaves.

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Then more calls; Gill, Mrs H’s Girls’ Night In group. Quiz coming up this evening. Let’s see if we can win tonight.

Album of the day.

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