Techno, heck, no

Cold but sunny seems to be the way forward. I wear a sunhat usually, but when it turns chilly, I replace that with a beanie hat to cover my ears. Cold ears are bad enough, but if cold wind blows into the lugs, I turn into a raging Hulk. But the trouble with a beanie hat is, there is no brim. So, while I welcome the Sun, I’m aware of squinting at it as I wander about, especially as it’s also lower in the sky at this time of year. So what I need is a hat that keeps my ears warm and also has a brim. So I’m hoping someone gets me a deerstalker for Christmas.

Our friend Sue joined Liesel and and me and we walked along the river to Didsbury. It was crunchy under foot, but a very pleasant walk.

Sue and Liesel joined the regular WI group in the Metroplolitan while I sat all alone, on my own, at a separate table, with my solitary cup of coffee while solving a puzzle on the phone. I could have walked the six feet over to the bar to order another cup of coffee, but no. I scanned the QR code on the table, downloaded the app, and ordered a coffee online. And a couple of minutes later, a nice young lady brought it over for me. Isn’t technology great?

Isn’t technology awful? We have a smart TV and the sound quality isn’t that good. So Liesel purchased a soundbar to go with it. Both items are made by Samsung so it should be easy to connect the two, right? Wrong. Even though it’s quite new, our TV set isn’t modern enough to have Bluetooth. Bluetooth is apparently the best way to connect to the soundbar. It didn’t come with a cable, of course. And trying to discern what sort of cable we need has proved very difficult. I can see why some people transition into technophobes.

But we did have a good time at William’s 6th birthday party. Lots of food, balloons, presents, family and, best of all, cake.

In other exciting news, Martha and her class dressed up as stone age men and women for a day.

I accompanied Liesel to Altrincham for her hospital appointment. And we paid a visit to Hobbycraft. I think we were inside for twenty minutes at the most. But in that time, the nasty, sub-karaoke versions of Christmas songs drove me nuts. I’m so glad I never had to work in a place like that.

I think a lot of people have a background project on the go, known as ‘sorting out the photos’. Well, when I started that a few years ago, I noticed some omissions. I wondered whether the missing pictures had been erroneously included with the boxes of stuff we left with Jenny when we moved house over five years ago. This week, I spent time looking through some boxes. Sadly, I didn’t find the photos I was looking for. Happily, I did find the portrait made by 3½-year old Jenny of her then brand new baby sister, Helen.

The cold continues and the pond in Painswick Park was frozen over. I think the geese and the moorhens were taken by surprise, or maybe they just enjoyed skating.

But look, the sky is a beautiful blue, the Sun was bright, and I still didn’t have a brim on my hat.

While I was walking around Wythenshawe amongst a group of nine, Liesel was walking with her WI group from Sale Water Park to and around Chorlton Water Park and back again.

Staying with the WI, they enjoyed a Bunco session. I was unfamiliar with the game, so I looked it up, and decided it was a game of pure chance. I even had an argument with Chat-GPT about what strategies could possibly be used. It claims you can roll the dice more or less vigorously depending on what numbers you want. I don’t think it’s as intelligent as it claims. But it was all good fun, a nice social occasion, and that’s all that matters, really.

Liesel has decided to go home to Anchorage for a few weeks to help her Mom navigate the stressful process of moving house. Mom is moving to a smaller place, an apartment nearer the city centre. I think we’ll all be glad to see the back of the steep drive at the old house. Recently, both a car and a Mom have slid down the icy drive. I’m not joining Liesel on this occasion, for a number of reasons, none of which is that I want to watch more classic Doctor Who on TV. Honest.

Martha and William have swimming lessons every Saturday morning and we have been to watch them on a few occasions. Not this week though. Instead, we picked them up straight afterwards, drove to Didsbury, took a tram into Manchester and walked to The Stoller Hall for a concert. To keep William occupied on the tram ride, I let him play with my phone.

Yes, he enjoyed the ‘Fun’ options within the camera app, with some ridiculous filters. But he did lose interest in my phone when he found out that it doesn’t have any games on it, just a few puzzles.

We’d come to see Peter and the Wolf performed by students from Chetham’s School of Music. The narrator was Carla Henry who did a great job for the best part of an hour, considering probably half of the audience was young children. We weren’t allowed to take pictures but I did sneak one of the orchestra. Before they turned up.

Last time I heard Peter and the Wolf  performed live was when Sarah and I took young Jenny and Helen to London’s South Bank. The narrator on that occasion was Johnny Morris, yes, him from Animal Magic and Tales from the Riverbank.

After the show, we wrapped up in our coats and hats and gloves again and visited the world famous Christmas Market in Manchester. As did everybody else. The place was heaving. Martha and William homed in on the stall selling sweeties.

We found this bee from the old Bee in the City trail, right beside the cathedral.

I’m sure there was a lot of fun stuff on sale, but my main focus was on not losing too many of our grandchildren. But they were very good, holding our hands when required.

We spent some time in Waterstones, where we also had a coffee and a babyccino. When we left the shop, it was just beginning to snow, which William and Martha loved, catching snowflakes on their tongues.

The children were tired, well we all were, so we took them to Gusto for our evening meal before returning them to their parents. And so the week ended as cold as it begun.

Speaking of Cold, that was the time of this week’s radio show. I also spoke to singer songwriter Chris Tavener earlier in the week and this chat was the main part of the show this week. If you missed it on Wythenshawe Radio WFM 97.2 and DAB, you can listen here on Mixcloud. In fact, the Mixcloud edit is longer than the original broadcast, so if you did hear it broadcast live, you should listen again for all the extra songs!

Earlier in the week, while doing something important on the computer, I was distracted by Excel. I wanted to see which musical artists I have played most often on the radio show over the last three and a bit years. I knew who would come out on top. But to produce the top ten or twenty from a spreadsheet listing all 5000+ track that I’ve played wasn’t straightforward. I spent far too long coaxing Excel to achieve this, learning new functions that will all be useful, I’m sure. Actually, they probably won’t. Anyway, here are the top 100 most played artists in order. Yes, 100, since I went to all that trouble!

1. David Bowie
2. Beatles
3. Mary Hopkin
4. Jessica Lee Morgan
5. Bee Gees
6. Paul McCartney
7. Tasmin Archer
8. Nina Simone
9. Dolly Parton
10. Elton John
11. Eddi Reader
12. Kirsty MacColl
13. Neil Diamond
14. Elbow
15. Bic Runga
16. Queen
17. Martha Tilston
18. Ella Fitzgerald
19. Abba
20. Pink Floyd
21. Prince
22. Carpenters
23. Elvis Presley
24. Jim Reeves
25. Frank Sinatra
26. Denise Johnson
27. Simon and Garfunkel
28. John Lennon
29. Erin McKeown
30. Rolling Stones
31. Kate Bush
32. Hollies
33. Blur
34. Kinks
35. Alice Cooper
36. Oasis
37. O’Hooley and Tidow
38. Who
39. Dusty Springfield
40. Rosanne Cash
41. Madonna
42. Duran Duran
43. Van Morrison
44. Joni Mitchell
45. Sam Brown
46. Julia Violinista
47. Frankie Archer
48. Johnny Cash
49. Paul Simon
50. Snow Patrol
51. Beach Boys
52. Doves
53. Seth Lakeman
54. REM
55. Lulu
56. Sheryl Crow
57. Sinead O’Connor
58. Killers
59. Inspiral Carpets
60. Cara Dillon
61. Catatonia
62. Bjork
63. Unthanks
64. Monkees
65. Fleetwood Mac
66. 10cc
67. T Rex
68. Taylor Swift
69. Paul McCartney and Wings
70. Gordon Lightfoot
71. James Taylor
72. Nana Mouskouri
73. ELO
74. Crowded House
75. Stevie Wonder
76. Tom Hingley
77. Spizzenergi
78. George Harrison
79. Lou Reed
80. Steely Dan
81. Duffy
82. Billy Joel
83. Ladysmith Black Mambazo
84. Bob Marley and the Wailers
85. Louis Armstrong
86. Amy Winehouse
87. Mick Ronson
88. Iona Fyfe
89. Tom Robinson
90. Clash
91. Harry Nilsson
92. Petula Clark
93. Andy Stewart
94. Lily Allen
95. Slim Dusty
96. Terra Naomi
97. Glen Campbell
98. Lee Ann Womack
99. Nat King Cole
100. Tori Amos
101. Minnie Riperton
102. Kylie Minogue
103. Tom Jones
104. Elvis Costello
105. Cat Stevens
106. Deep Blue

And I have seen 36 of those acts live on stage over the years, wow!