Autobiographical – Page 36 – Mick and Liesel's Antics

Downpatrick Head

Maybe it was too much fresh air yesterday, maybe it was the beer I drank in the evening (not Guinness), but whatever it was, I am very grateful. For I won a radio competition to help Pink Floyd finish off their latest album, Dark Side of the Moon.

I went to the studio and was told to go into the recording booth with Roger Waters and Roger Dean. The three of us were to sing “That was the news”, one after the other, and this would become the refrain for one of the songs, Our Beauty. In fact, so that I knew what to do, Roger Waters played me the track from the CD.

Meanwhile, in the corner, sat a young girl reading the news. In the opposite corner sat (Jimmy S)a vile man blowing vile cigar smoke into the room.

As the news finished, I heard my own voice singing “That was the news”. Then everyone started laughing! The joke was on me: the radio station just wanted a post-news jingle and I’d unwittingly provided it.

Even within the drean, I then realised that (1) CDs weren’t around when Dark Side of the Moon was recorded (2) There is no such track as Our Beauty on it (3) Roger Dean wasn’t a member of Pink Floyd and (4) The Roger Waters I’d met was an imposter.

Dreams are strange phenomena: you make them up in your own mind and yet you can still be surprised by the things that happen or by what people say. They might come up with a perfectly reasonable answer to a question that you hadn’t thought about.

For example, there was the time I met Victoria Beckham.

“Oh, hello, Vicky”, I said.

“I hate being called Vicky”.

“Oh, sorry. What about Victoria?”

“Oh no, you don’t know me and I don’t know you.”

“Well, what should I call you, then?”

“What’s wrong with Mrs Beckham?”

That was me put in my place.

Today was our last full day in the west of Ireland and I think it’s fair to say: we’ll be back. We’ve enjoyed it immensely, but there is so much more to see. Even apart from that, we just enjoy being here, appreciate all that nature offers and love the friendliness of the people.

We went with Catherine to her favourite place, Downpatrick Head, on the north coast. In fact, this was the furthest north we’d visit on this trip.

It’s a cliff-top, windy place for a walk, and on a stormy day, the sea has been known to wash over the cliffs. Lots of birds, such as guillemots, are nesting on the cliffs and if I were a rock-climber, I’m sure I would want to climb the sea-stack.

The geology of the place is fascinating, some of the rock has cracked into squares, different from the hexagons at Giant’s Causeway. Who knows, maybe one day I will go back and do the Open University Geology course, which I once considered, but I chose another Maths course instead.

There are a couple of blowholes too which I’m sure are exciting to see on a good day, but for now, we were just happy to admire the views.

Liesel and Catherine adding to the natural beauty of Downpatrick Head

Back in Ballycastle, we enjoyed coffee and scones at Mary’s Kitchen, a really cute little place. According to the menu, Mary has turned grey over the ten years since she arrived, but her husband hasn’t, yet!

We had a quick look in the local gallery, Ballinglen, which had a display downstairs and a library upstairs where I could have spent a long time browsing through the books.

Catherine had to return to work, so Liesel and I set off towards Sligo but in the end, Easky was as far as we went. Knowing we have a long drive, back to Dublin, tomorrow, I think we were both happy to stop here, coffee, millionaire shortbread for me and a sandwich for Liesel, and a walk to the beach where we explored a 811-year old castle and watched a surfer fail to really get going.

Easky Castle, built in 1207, now incomplete

Belleek Forest Park

Melinda was mine ’til the time
That I found her
Holding Jim
And loving him

So begins Neil Diamond’s song, Solitary Man, which shuffled into play in the car a few days ago. This song went through my mind today when I was in the depths of the forest. Not that I’m a solitary man, and I don’t think I’ve ever known a Melinda, but I was making the most of my solitude.

Today is the seventeenth anniversary of Sarah’s departure from us. Another Thursday 17th May. In some ways, it’s a lifetime ago but in other ways, it’s such a recent event.

I took advantage of the opportunity to go for a long walk my myself, while Liesel went shopping, did some cooking and otherwise had a relaxing day.

Within walking disance of Catherine’s house in Ballina is Belleek Forest Park. It was quiet, peaceful and I saw very few other people. The paths are well maintained, well sign-posted and there is a lot to look at.

I followed the river Moy for a while too, thinking I might get as far as where it enters the Atlantic, but looking at a map afterwards, that was far too ambitious.

The Crete Boom is a ship made of concrete that was used by the Royal Navy but now sits gathering moss and seaweed in the Moy.

I was surprised to see warning signs of Japanese knotweed in a couple of places: not the vegetation I would have sought out. The forest was of course full of trees, some of which I could identify and some of which I identified from the flyer I’d picked up. Sycamore, lime, beech, oak, willow, elm, hornbeam and Monterey pine trees are all there, standing tall and proud. And putting all the world’s problems into perspective: I didn’t want to think about Brexit, Trump, Iran, North Korea, Israel, Palestine, plastics in the oceans. I wanted to spend time with Sarah, who has missed out on all our adventures over the last seventeen years, missed out on meeting her grandchildren, and I tried not to go through the cycle of thinking how unfair it all was, and what if, and if only.

Instead, I recalled the happy times we’d had together, with regret that those times didn’t last longer, but equally pleased that we’ve all moved on. I am so proud of Helen and Jenny and I’m sure their Mum would be very proud too.

There are red squirrels in the forest, but I didn’t see any. I didn’t see any rabbits either, nor any other animals bigger than birds. But it was a beautiful day to commune with nature while my thoughts meandered backwards and forwards through time.

Hmm, yes, I was enjoying communing with nature. Meanwhile, some other folks had been closely communing in nature.

Ring Fort with a used condom packet, some folks have all the fun — Ring Fort

When I left the forest, I walked along the road for a while, having seen a sign for Moyne Abbey. I thought that would be a good place to stop, but after every brow of a hill, I could see no sign of an abbey. So as a last resort, I looked at the map on my phone and realised I was still an hour’s walk away. I went back to the forest, again saying hello to the cows and the bulls and the donkey and standing well to the side of the road when a tractor appeared.

In the forest, I followed different paths until I found Belleek Castle. Yesterday, Catherine had said there was a coffee shop here, so that became an urgent destination. Coffee and a scone. I recalled the holidays Sarah and I had had BC, before children, often in the Cotswolds, often in the rain. Tea shops rather than coffee shops usually supplied the scones for afternoon tea, but it’s funny to note how things have changed over the years, but not much, really.

Yes, I’m sure we will always miss Sarah, she and Liesel would have a lot of laughs at my expense, I’m sure, if they’d ever met.

Back at home, we enjoyed the pasta salad and the banoffee pie that Liesel had made, along with a bottle of beer from Catherine that Lochlainn has chosen for me!

Solitary Man? Not me, I’m a very lucky bloke, I’ve met and fallen in love with two wonderful women, I have two beautiful daughters and two fantastic grandchildren. This is what’s important, not the stupid stuff that I tend to whinge about a bit too often.

So, a million thanks and lots of love to all of you who have made and who continue to make my life as fantastic as it is.

Disastrous Broadcasting Career

Liesel will tell you that what I wear most days is determined by what’s on top of the pile in the cupboard or in the drawer. But yesterday, I deliberately sought out a t-shirt that I’ve had for nearly twenty years, but have probably only worn a couple of times.

RIP BBC GLR, 1988-2000. A radio station that many people look back on with great affection. (Ed: Liesel rolls her eyes when I go on too much about GLR, so I won’t, on this occasion.)

We went to The Cavendish Arms in Stockwell last night to support a friend who’s going to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe in August for 27 nights. He’ll be talking about his Disastrous Career in Broadcasting. 27 years broadcasting, in fact, so plenty of disasters to choose from.

Let me introduce Jeremy Nicholas, writer, broadcaster, MC, after-dinner speaker and all-round good guy. We saw him at The Cav as he previewed the Edinburgh show for the first time. The material will be honed over the next few shows: some of the stories, all true, just work better than others.

And by coincidence, some of the stories came from his time at GLR where he presented the Breakfast Show in two stints and the afternoon show for a few years.

180506 me and jeremy nicholas

There were also stories from BBC World Service, BBC 5 Live, local Radio Nottingham, Channel 5, 2012 Paralympics and on the way, just like Don Black on Radio 2, there was plenty of name-dropping.

We’d like to see the show in Edinburgh but if all goes to plan, we’ll be in Alaska by then.

But we would definitely recommend going along: just don’t get drunk and heckle like someone did last night (not Liesel). The stories are true, you’ll have a good laugh at someone else’s minor disasters and we all like a bit of schadenfreude, don’t we!

Here’s another blogging experiment. If it works, you’ll be able to see the remaining dates in a box below…

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FJeremyNicholasSpeaker%2Fposts%2F168088033910637&width=500

How’s that?

Lead, Foam and Ice Cream

On Saturday, before returning home, we had breakfast with our family in Chorlton. The drive from our Airbnb took a long time as we’d been advised to avoid the M60 motorway.

But slowly, slowly, all these little places, towns, villages, suburbs around Manchester and Stockport are coming together in our mental map. I think today for the first time, I learnt for sure that Chorlton is the same place as Chorlton-cum-Hardy. And we realised that we weren’t all that far from Northenden where we will soon be living.

We’d planned to meet up at The Lead Station for a late breakfast, or brunch, and we all thoroughly enjoyed the food. We’ll definitely be back! It was a warm day and I regretted listening to my wife and not bringing my shorts: she’d said it was supposed to be cold all weekend. On the contrary, we might be having the warmest May Bank Holiday weekend, ever!

Liesel and I parked the car and as we were a bit early, we stopped off for a coffee just down the road at the Foam Coffee House. The coffee was lovely and I’m sure we’ll go back for cake or toast or something one day. We might even go along and play the board games. They had one that I’d never seen before: Subbuteo Table Rugby. I’m intrigued, how does that handle throwing the ball, drop-kicks, scrummages?

There’s a nice little park just down the road too. Very small, is Beech Road Park. Bijou.

The previous day, we’d taken the children to The Ice Cream Farm, a bit further afield, towards Chester. Martha had a whale of a time in the indoor water play area, Europe’s biggest, apparently.

And I had a whale of a time too, playing with my new Samsung phone, learning how to use the super slow-mo feature, which requires some dexterity with the aged fingers. It was a gorgeous day, and I wish I’d been wearing my shorts… have I said that already?

Here’s the first go:

It’s been edited for duration but the picture is too big for this page. Things can only get better.

That’s Impossible, Mummy

I went for a walk in Chessington a couple of days ago. During that time, I chatted with four former colleagues at Royal Mail.

Our own Postie, Michael, is very helpful and we’re happy to return the favour, to make his day-to-day duty a little bit easier.

Duncan, the Delivery Office Manager, had a hip replacement last year and says he hasn’t felt this good for a long time. Royal Mail senior management don’t get any better. Duncan has just been copied in to a long thread of emails discussing the sale of Chessington Delivery Office and moving the staff into the spare space the Epsom office. All the plans have been made, values estimated, timetables agreed. But there’s just one problem. Royal Mail sold this office ten years ago and have been paying rent ever since.

Paul usually works indoors, serving customers who come to collect items that couldn’t be delivered. He also prepares the up to seven, yes, seven, door-to-door leaflets (unaddressed junk mail, pizza menus mostly) that have to be delivered to each house. 99% of which go straight into the recycling box.

Steve had two knees replaced last year and is recovering well. In fact, he chose to retire a few weeks ago too and syas he’s loving it. Not having to get up at 5 o’clock in the morning. Not knowing what day of he week it is. He thinks he might get bored one day, in which case he’ll look for a very part-time job.

But he has grand-children too and I have a sneaky feeling he will be spending more time with them.

It’s a funny feeling spending time with our Martha and William, knowing it’s never going to be enough time, but also planning to leave them for a year while we go travelling.

William has just turned 5 months of age. He has a gorgeous, cheeky little smile and if he doesn’t become the number one joker in his class at school, I’ll be very surprised. He will be able to pick us out in an ID parade, no problem, given the amount of time he scrutinises our faces, while trying not to laugh.

And here we are now, boasting about Martha, just over 2 years old. She is incredibly bright. Not only can she count from 1 to 10, she knows when he has 2, 3, 4 or 5 balls in front of her. Proper counting.

Playing in the garden today, she slipped on the slide, and when her Mum asked if she was alright, she said, “I’m fine.” She usually refers to herself in the third person, as Moo-moo. So, pronouns too.

And when her Mum asked if she wanted to climb up the slide, for the second time in two days, and we just looked at each other the first time, she said, “That’s impossible, Mummy.” What a concept for a 2-year old.

Salisbury and Ireland

Salisbury has been in the news recently for all the wrong reasons. A Russian migrant, his daughter and a police officer were affected by Novochok, a nerve agent that can only be made in Russsia. They’re still cleaning up the town, but not everyone wears a biological protection suit. So when Liesel and I went to meet a friend there, we chose to wear ordinary clothes.

A lot of ordinary clothes, as it happens, because it was one of the coldest days of the month. None of us walked as far as we would have liked, from the car park to a coffee bar to the Boston Tea Party for lunch, a quick visit to the bookshop and then back to the car park.

The car park was free of charge for up to three hours, in an effort to attract visitors to the town again.

Today, we drove to Reddish to see Jenny, Liam, Martha and William. We’re staying in an Airbnb place because their house is in a state of flux right now, and probably will be until they can move to their new house.

In a first for Liesel, she asked our Airbnb host to sign her book. Our host happens to be Fionn Davenport, a travel writer who wrote the Lonely Planet Guide to Ireland that Liesel was reading on the drive today, as we’re off to Ireland next week.

Small world, innit?

Two Gigs and More Music

At the River by Groove Armada has just been played on the radio. It took me back to the late ’90s, listening to GLR while doing the washing up. The sky was blue, the sun was out, I could hear the waves crashing on the beach, the sound of gulls squawking in the distance, and feelings of comfort and warmth. Nostalgia. It seems along time ago, now, twenty years in fact, but it’s funny how hearing a song can evoke all those feelings from so long ago.

The previous song was Blues in the Night by Rosemary Clooney. Not many songs remind me of my Dad, but this one did. Far more songs remind me of my Mum, Dad just wasn’t interested in music, apart from a very select, short list of songs.

Thanks to Guy Garvey on BBC 6 Music for proving that mentally at least, time travel is possible.

Talking about music, this week, Liesel and I went to two gigs. Not on consecutive nights, that would just be too much for these old bones.

Martha Tilston appeared at The Half Moon, Putney and showed us her new film, the Cliff Top Sessions, in which she invites a group of fellow musicians around to her place to play and sing.

Afterwards, she performed some of her own songs too, both old and new. I think we’ve seen Martha play live more often in the last twelve years than any other musician and she’s always good value. We bumped into her Mum too, but never did get around to having a long catch-up.

O’Hooley and Tidow are rising stars from Yorkshire whose songs are usually about real people and real events. They have great harmonies and Belinda O’Hooley’s keyboard playing is fantastic (classically trained, surely?) and their on-stage presence is lovely, very friendly and funny. They were at The Ram Folk Club based in a sports club in Thames Ditton, not a stone’s throw from where we live. We wish we’d found out about The Ram Club years ago but somehow, it’s been under our radar. And just before we move away, too. How’s that for rotten luck?

Sadly, on this day in 1993, Mick Ronson passed away. He was in David Bowie’s band in the early 1970s, during the time most of us fell in love with the science-fictiony, strange new music. When I went up to University in 1973, there were very many Michaels so to differentiate, I chose to be called Mick, in honour of Mr Ronson. I shared a room with Nick. Mick and Nick, well, it made sense at the time. The only people to carry on calling me Michael or Mike were my parents and official bodies such as banks, the NHS and the passport office. I still feel like a ‘Mick’ and when someone does call me Michael, I still expect to be told off for something. I remember seeing Mick Ronson join David Bowie on stage at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992, a very moving event in many respects.

Practice Run

It’s going to take a lot of planning, this long trip of ours. So we’re having a practice run. The house sale seems to making good progress, if a little slower than we would like, so we’re taking a couple of weeks out and going to Ireland.

We want to see if we can manage with just one bag each, a backpack, with up to two weeks of clothing plus all the other paraphernalia we’ll need.

My list has been drastically reduced. If I’m going to blog, I’ll need a device, probably a laptop. Or so I thought. I need a new camera too. And my old iPhone is on its last legs. Well, it is nearly 6 years old, which is about 150 in dog years.

But instead, and after weeks and months of cogitation, seeking advice and careful thought, I bought a new phone a couple of days ago. A new smartphone. I bought a keyboard too, which connects to the phone via Bluetooth. And that’s it. All I’ll be taking is the phone, the keyboard and my Kindle. No laptop needed. And no camera, new or otherwise, because according to the adverts, my new phone has reimagined the camera.

It’ll take ages to get to grips with the new cameras on the new phone, but no moreso than if it were a standalone item.

It’ll take a while to make the most of this keyboard too, to be honest. This is its maiden voyage, and typing ordinary text seems to be working OK. When I’m not in blogging mode, I’ll mess about with the other keys: F-keys, volume control, ctrl, alt, cmd, fn, arrows, all the others. As with most modern tech and gadge, there’s no manual, in this case, not even a quick start guide.

New phone and keyboard combo

This is what my blogging setup looks like. And good to know I can add photos, a bit of a faff, but good to know it can be done. And probably can be done quicker and more efficiently with experience.

So, we’re trying to manage with one backpack each. We now own brand new, light backpacks. We’ll take them to Ireland with a minimal amount of clothing. And the first test after Ireland is likely to be Alaska, which can be a bit chilly and might warrant warmer, thicker clothing. The plan is to be there in Summer, though, not in the depths of Winter. And after that, a series of nice, warm destinations.

But first, we conquer Ireland. We thought about taking the car with us on the ferry from Holyhead or from Liverpool, but that is so expensive. We will now fly there and hire a car for a few days less than a fortnight. We’ll be staying a some Airbnb places and trying not to do too much. We’re saving Dublin for last, and will be making use of public transport there. Liesel’s done all the planning and the booking on this occasion, so I’m sure it will all work out.

Regarding the house: we have received some enquiries from our buyer and a form that needs to be signed and witnessed.

RHS Wisley

Another hot, sunny day invited us out. We drove to Clandon Park but we didn’t go in because we’d left the National Trust cards at home. There’s nothing like great planning. And this was nothing like great planning.

So we continued on to the horticultural gardens at Wisley, just by the A3. There, we had a lovely, long walk, a coffee and carrot cake.

The beds were of course very pretty, and the grass was mostly in top condition. One area of lawn was being cut by a robot, a little mower that was moving autonomously or had been programmed to follow a certain route.

Other areas were a bit more wild. Lots of dandelions in some places. Dandelions, named after the French for lion’s teeth, dents de lion. Because as we all know, lions have bright yellow teeth. Here’s a great work of art: Dandelion sculpture

And here’s today’s rubbish selfie. Trying to get the waterfall in the background. We discussed getting a selfie stick but decided against it: it’s just more rubbish to leave at home when we go out because it’s too cumbersome.

Rubbsih selfie

If you’re taking notes, we walked about six miles today.

I went to the GP this morning (never mind why). While sitting in the waiting room, I saw a sign saying “Are you having problems with your memory? If so, discuss it with your doctor.” I thought I might as well, since I do sometimes forget names and words.

I forgot.

#thehottestdayoftheyear

Yes, it was the hottest day of the year so far. This usually occurs in April of course, only to be surpassed later on in the year. But the main topic of conversation on a few of the radio stations we briefly tuned into on the way home was the fact that the top trending hashtag today on Twitter is #thehottestdayoftheyear. Other hashtags are available too, such as #hottestdayoftheyear and #warmestdayoftheyear. And capitalised versions. But after such a long Winter that didn’t really want to finish, it’s fabulous to see blue skies, see the Sun and feel its heat.

We went for a walk in Richmond Park, the biggest and our favourite royal park in London. We saw a couple of single deer, several dogs, some even on leads, loads of birds and many, many muddy puddles. One day, we’ll take our grandchildren there to jump in them.

We enjoyed a picnic under a tree, listening to the birdsong. The occasional aeroplane was seen and heard as it flew towrads Heathrow Airport. A group of young men were listening to music on their ‘device’: radio, ghetto blaster, phone? We’ll never know.

I am no good at taking selfies. At least we’re both in this one, but I usually miss. And of course, the horizon is horizontal in real life.

This is the dead tree that we didn’t climb, despite the temptation.

We walked over five miles today, not bad since it’s the first time in the park for ages. Other firsts for the year today include me wearing shorts, we both had an ice cream and it was the first application of sunblock (one of us, not me).