It was a day struggling to avoid being overwhelmed by negativity when I wanted to do anything but what I needed to do and so it is at this moment, even more so, and I attempt to cheer myself up and get myself going with a proper cooked, albeit micro waved, breakfast, having first weighed myself to established that I had not gained as a consequences of the recent trips and self indulgences.
It is 8.50 am Wednesday July 29ths after an unusual night in that I retreated to bed early for me at 10.30pm and then proceeded to wake hour by hour often feeling that I had not been back to sleep but knowing that I had after checking the clock. I cannot remember such an up and down night or one so full of dreams. Yet as I begin to make a list in my head of things to write about I know it was a more positive day than I now feel, and which highlights my failing as a would be writer unable to detach the emotions of the moment from the subjects being written about.
I am not sympathetic to the artistic temperament at the moment, reinforced by watching the second episode about the lives of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood last night on BBC TV 2. In order to watch the programme live I watched in the day room using the camping chair for comfort. My displeasure is at their complete self absorption in becoming successful artists, and having pleasures without any regard for anything or anyone else, apparently. Dante Gabriel Rossetti is portrayed as a liar and a cheat and all as young men who on the surface espousing themselves as a brotherhood found it difficult not to follow their self interest even it meant doing so at the expense of the others. I cannot believe I am writing this in such a condemnatory way given my own behaviour and attitudes over the decades. I can believe that I am writing this in such a condemnatory way.
In the first programme of the series attention was devoted to their struggles to gain recognition from the Royal Academy which was a prerequisite to earning a good living from working full time as a visual artist painter in early Victorian times, just before the Great Exhibition of 1851. As with the majority of such programmes produced under the BBC umbrella there is great attention to historical detail but little reference to what was happening in the country let alone world at large. In the first programme the Brotherhood successfully attempted to gain the attention of John Ruskin who believed in progress as opposed to Sir Joshua Reynolds who had founded the English Royal Academy and was therefore justifiably regarded himself a as custodian of “good” art accepted by his generation. The first programme also concentrated on the search and finding the right model, the young woman to also became an visual painter and a poet, Elizabeth Siddal, the only rounded and truly likeable character although Mrs Ruskin comes a good second.
In the second programme the focus is on the creation of the suicide of Ophelia by the young John Millais which made him and her famous when exhibited at the Royal Academy and he was commissioned to undertake portraits of Ruskin and his wife, and where she had nearly died from laying for hours in water which had become icy cold. The episode shows Rossetti tricking Millais to give him £50 as a compensation payment to the father of Elizabeth so that she would continue to pose for the Brotherhood when the father had only requested £30, using the balance for himself. He then commences his love affair with Elizabeth in which she appears to have been as much the instigator as himself and which led to marriage. More on the Brotherhood another day as there is much to do.
I have just enjoyed a micro over cooked breakfast of two sausages, a piece of bacon, some baked beans, two hash browns and scrambled egg in a good size portion as part of a three for £4.50 offer at Tesco from the usual price of £6 and which I obtained free, well except for the 80 pence cost of the Mail on Saturday which included £10 of Tesco vouchers, £5 of which I was able to use.
It was a good shop as either because of the season, the ongoing costs of living in a hard hit community or more likely because of the impact of the new Asda, there were some excellent general reductions in the cost of fruit and vegetables with a large cartons of grapes at £1 and a variety of melons for the same price, plus a large fresh pineapple. There were two cucumbers for £1 and giant lettuce for 80pence. I bought three chickens for £10 and but paid nearly £4 for .75 of a kilo of gammon. I also resisted by Pepsi or Coca Cola and bought two cartons of orange juice which was not made up from concentrate but has a high sugar content. I have just enjoyed a glass after doing a little work at the back with the plants most of which survived the torrential rains of recent days
The decision to go shopping yesterday in the afternoon caused a little panic as I could not find the remote for the garage/rear door and had to use the standby which is temperamental at its best. I had commenced the trip to London via the back not to advertise my departure pulling the case and then walked the back lane until out of sight and this meant taking the remote with me which I thought I had stored away in the inside of my sleeveless jacket. Several searches of clothing had failed to reveal the remote when required and I was reconciled to having to try and obtain a replacement. Later in the evening I could not resist one more search and found it in the lining of the outdoor coat which had been used on the first day but not since, packed away in the case on the return journey. This was a relief and offset the disappointment when having tried the main aerial direct to the TV the sound was good, but only lasted seconds before going silent once more. This continued later but I will keep tot he plan of watching Test and listening to commentary on radio and internet adn then report the need for repair. To night I will watch Do you know you are , possible on the TV at the top of the house in the bedroom I have not used for over a year because of the additional stairs down to the toilet
I accomplished the clothes washing and drying but must do the ironing shortly. I had wondered about an early morning walk before the forecasted rains, but the sky has already darkened. Yesterday here was no inclination to go a walking but to start to sort out this room and accumulated work for the likely visit of the TV repairers. I did the ironing in two sessions.
The weather forecasters have admitted the promised barbecue summer is now swamped by torrential rains for the greater part of August. This may be a mixed blessing otherwise I would devote the three weeks that I am here to cricket watching and going out in the sun, but I would be fitter. The weather office explained later on the evening news programme that their statement that it was on for a barbecue summer meant there was a 65% chance. Unfortunately this meant 35% chance that it would not. He added that we had not reached August but he was not convincing given that August is usually wetter that July. I remember that the two long holidays in Scotland of three weeks and two rained almost every day. And not just the sudden and brief shower by that continuous rain with low lying clouds creating an emotional dampness and gloom as well as the physical wet. I watched someone retracing the Wainwright Coast to Coast hike through the Lakes, going in September because of the August rain only to find the rain extended into the ninth month.
The delivery of the red lever arch files took place yesterday together with the free cheap digital video camera which relies just on memory cards, but I will leave seeing if this will photo documents and my work cards after I have undertaken some key tasks..
I did work through the material from the trip but have left until later today or tomorrow the making up into a volume. I did this late afternoon after registering the Blog volumes created over the second half of the month. As with the visits to Yorkshire and Nottingham, two volumes and as total of six sets were completed and ready to be photographed. I achieve 100 additional sets during the month which is remarkable given that I was on travels for two weeks. This compares with only 20 the previous month. The explanation si that I allowed a mountain of individual card to accumulated and then created the volumes si that the average for the two months is around sixty to sixty five
I had a mackerel salad yesterday evening and again at lunchtime. have enjoyed one piece of fish with tined veg at lunch times. I also enjoyed one of the cartons of grapes on each day together with the expensive cherries although at £2 are favourable priced compared to those at Marks and Spencer’s and the £5 a pound being charged by stall holders in Oxford Street. In addition there was a tin of pudding yesterday and half a sweet melon today. I had a beef mince hot pot this evening to which I added the remainder of the vegetables used with one piece of fish yesterday.
I watched Cash in the attic while ironing, the programme in which families sell of precious and hopefully valuable items usually inherited, acquired as gifts or no longer considered significant and are therefore sold off, sometimes for a holiday, to contribute to family members leaving home or for some special event including charitable causes. There is usually a reminder that going to auction involves VAT, dealer’s commission and other charges which can reduce the total price gained by 30% thus making direct sale to a dealer not as poor an option as sometimes may appear to be the situation and which is the subject of separate programme Dickinson’s Deals. Cash in Attic has been going for a decade with Angela Rippon and Gloria Hunniford recent presenters. In this programme a family of parents, son, daughter and son in law wanted to raise £1500 for a holiday together in the Lake District before the daughter moved to New Zealand. Alas they only raised £500 as a number of items failed to reach within 10% of the valuation. A feature of the programme is that the outcome of the money raised is then shown, in this instance a holiday. What surprises me is that participants are not paid fees for appearing on the programme.
The sound on Deezer.com has become low so I switched to AOL radio and the Big band station. I particularly enjoyed
Buddy Bragman -It dont mean a thing if it has not got swing
Fletcher Henderson- Grand Terrace Swing
Artie Shaw- The Chant
Cootie Williams trumpet featured on San Juan Hill Duke Ellington, and
Will Bradley Three Ring Rag Out. There were lots of familiar tunes and names creating an afternoon of nostalgia.
The downpour did not arrive until later afternoon and was not as bad as recently or elsewhere. Shots of the cricket grounds where the 20 20 quarter finals were to be played revealed they had become lakes. The forecast is better tomorrow but there is a question mark about the Test starting on time. Now for the TV in the other room, avoiding that I was checked mated at chess after gaining over 40 wins at level four in succession. What was I saying about people so absorbed they become oblivious to the plight of the majority?
It is 8.50 am Wednesday July 29ths after an unusual night in that I retreated to bed early for me at 10.30pm and then proceeded to wake hour by hour often feeling that I had not been back to sleep but knowing that I had after checking the clock. I cannot remember such an up and down night or one so full of dreams. Yet as I begin to make a list in my head of things to write about I know it was a more positive day than I now feel, and which highlights my failing as a would be writer unable to detach the emotions of the moment from the subjects being written about.
I am not sympathetic to the artistic temperament at the moment, reinforced by watching the second episode about the lives of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood last night on BBC TV 2. In order to watch the programme live I watched in the day room using the camping chair for comfort. My displeasure is at their complete self absorption in becoming successful artists, and having pleasures without any regard for anything or anyone else, apparently. Dante Gabriel Rossetti is portrayed as a liar and a cheat and all as young men who on the surface espousing themselves as a brotherhood found it difficult not to follow their self interest even it meant doing so at the expense of the others. I cannot believe I am writing this in such a condemnatory way given my own behaviour and attitudes over the decades. I can believe that I am writing this in such a condemnatory way.
In the first programme of the series attention was devoted to their struggles to gain recognition from the Royal Academy which was a prerequisite to earning a good living from working full time as a visual artist painter in early Victorian times, just before the Great Exhibition of 1851. As with the majority of such programmes produced under the BBC umbrella there is great attention to historical detail but little reference to what was happening in the country let alone world at large. In the first programme the Brotherhood successfully attempted to gain the attention of John Ruskin who believed in progress as opposed to Sir Joshua Reynolds who had founded the English Royal Academy and was therefore justifiably regarded himself a as custodian of “good” art accepted by his generation. The first programme also concentrated on the search and finding the right model, the young woman to also became an visual painter and a poet, Elizabeth Siddal, the only rounded and truly likeable character although Mrs Ruskin comes a good second.
In the second programme the focus is on the creation of the suicide of Ophelia by the young John Millais which made him and her famous when exhibited at the Royal Academy and he was commissioned to undertake portraits of Ruskin and his wife, and where she had nearly died from laying for hours in water which had become icy cold. The episode shows Rossetti tricking Millais to give him £50 as a compensation payment to the father of Elizabeth so that she would continue to pose for the Brotherhood when the father had only requested £30, using the balance for himself. He then commences his love affair with Elizabeth in which she appears to have been as much the instigator as himself and which led to marriage. More on the Brotherhood another day as there is much to do.
I have just enjoyed a micro over cooked breakfast of two sausages, a piece of bacon, some baked beans, two hash browns and scrambled egg in a good size portion as part of a three for £4.50 offer at Tesco from the usual price of £6 and which I obtained free, well except for the 80 pence cost of the Mail on Saturday which included £10 of Tesco vouchers, £5 of which I was able to use.
It was a good shop as either because of the season, the ongoing costs of living in a hard hit community or more likely because of the impact of the new Asda, there were some excellent general reductions in the cost of fruit and vegetables with a large cartons of grapes at £1 and a variety of melons for the same price, plus a large fresh pineapple. There were two cucumbers for £1 and giant lettuce for 80pence. I bought three chickens for £10 and but paid nearly £4 for .75 of a kilo of gammon. I also resisted by Pepsi or Coca Cola and bought two cartons of orange juice which was not made up from concentrate but has a high sugar content. I have just enjoyed a glass after doing a little work at the back with the plants most of which survived the torrential rains of recent days
The decision to go shopping yesterday in the afternoon caused a little panic as I could not find the remote for the garage/rear door and had to use the standby which is temperamental at its best. I had commenced the trip to London via the back not to advertise my departure pulling the case and then walked the back lane until out of sight and this meant taking the remote with me which I thought I had stored away in the inside of my sleeveless jacket. Several searches of clothing had failed to reveal the remote when required and I was reconciled to having to try and obtain a replacement. Later in the evening I could not resist one more search and found it in the lining of the outdoor coat which had been used on the first day but not since, packed away in the case on the return journey. This was a relief and offset the disappointment when having tried the main aerial direct to the TV the sound was good, but only lasted seconds before going silent once more. This continued later but I will keep tot he plan of watching Test and listening to commentary on radio and internet adn then report the need for repair. To night I will watch Do you know you are , possible on the TV at the top of the house in the bedroom I have not used for over a year because of the additional stairs down to the toilet
I accomplished the clothes washing and drying but must do the ironing shortly. I had wondered about an early morning walk before the forecasted rains, but the sky has already darkened. Yesterday here was no inclination to go a walking but to start to sort out this room and accumulated work for the likely visit of the TV repairers. I did the ironing in two sessions.
The weather forecasters have admitted the promised barbecue summer is now swamped by torrential rains for the greater part of August. This may be a mixed blessing otherwise I would devote the three weeks that I am here to cricket watching and going out in the sun, but I would be fitter. The weather office explained later on the evening news programme that their statement that it was on for a barbecue summer meant there was a 65% chance. Unfortunately this meant 35% chance that it would not. He added that we had not reached August but he was not convincing given that August is usually wetter that July. I remember that the two long holidays in Scotland of three weeks and two rained almost every day. And not just the sudden and brief shower by that continuous rain with low lying clouds creating an emotional dampness and gloom as well as the physical wet. I watched someone retracing the Wainwright Coast to Coast hike through the Lakes, going in September because of the August rain only to find the rain extended into the ninth month.
The delivery of the red lever arch files took place yesterday together with the free cheap digital video camera which relies just on memory cards, but I will leave seeing if this will photo documents and my work cards after I have undertaken some key tasks..
I did work through the material from the trip but have left until later today or tomorrow the making up into a volume. I did this late afternoon after registering the Blog volumes created over the second half of the month. As with the visits to Yorkshire and Nottingham, two volumes and as total of six sets were completed and ready to be photographed. I achieve 100 additional sets during the month which is remarkable given that I was on travels for two weeks. This compares with only 20 the previous month. The explanation si that I allowed a mountain of individual card to accumulated and then created the volumes si that the average for the two months is around sixty to sixty five
I had a mackerel salad yesterday evening and again at lunchtime. have enjoyed one piece of fish with tined veg at lunch times. I also enjoyed one of the cartons of grapes on each day together with the expensive cherries although at £2 are favourable priced compared to those at Marks and Spencer’s and the £5 a pound being charged by stall holders in Oxford Street. In addition there was a tin of pudding yesterday and half a sweet melon today. I had a beef mince hot pot this evening to which I added the remainder of the vegetables used with one piece of fish yesterday.
I watched Cash in the attic while ironing, the programme in which families sell of precious and hopefully valuable items usually inherited, acquired as gifts or no longer considered significant and are therefore sold off, sometimes for a holiday, to contribute to family members leaving home or for some special event including charitable causes. There is usually a reminder that going to auction involves VAT, dealer’s commission and other charges which can reduce the total price gained by 30% thus making direct sale to a dealer not as poor an option as sometimes may appear to be the situation and which is the subject of separate programme Dickinson’s Deals. Cash in Attic has been going for a decade with Angela Rippon and Gloria Hunniford recent presenters. In this programme a family of parents, son, daughter and son in law wanted to raise £1500 for a holiday together in the Lake District before the daughter moved to New Zealand. Alas they only raised £500 as a number of items failed to reach within 10% of the valuation. A feature of the programme is that the outcome of the money raised is then shown, in this instance a holiday. What surprises me is that participants are not paid fees for appearing on the programme.
The sound on Deezer.com has become low so I switched to AOL radio and the Big band station. I particularly enjoyed
Buddy Bragman -It dont mean a thing if it has not got swing
Fletcher Henderson- Grand Terrace Swing
Artie Shaw- The Chant
Cootie Williams trumpet featured on San Juan Hill Duke Ellington, and
Will Bradley Three Ring Rag Out. There were lots of familiar tunes and names creating an afternoon of nostalgia.
The downpour did not arrive until later afternoon and was not as bad as recently or elsewhere. Shots of the cricket grounds where the 20 20 quarter finals were to be played revealed they had become lakes. The forecast is better tomorrow but there is a question mark about the Test starting on time. Now for the TV in the other room, avoiding that I was checked mated at chess after gaining over 40 wins at level four in succession. What was I saying about people so absorbed they become oblivious to the plight of the majority?
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