Monday 4th January 2010 - Snow to the rescue

I got out this morning with the scraper to get the ice off the side of the car windows. The heaters and front windscreen wipers took care of the front and back. It was during this time that J asked Ed what he was doing today with Daddy. Ed replied ‘Going to Rumble’ (a soft play centre) so after 10am I set off to that very place with him. Our entrance to the place brought a period of vocal stroppiness, the cause of which I could not discern. He eventually entered into the spirit of play, starting first at the soft play part and ball pool before graduating onto the cars.

It was a wretched period walking back home on the ice covered ground. Ed was unhappy and refusing gloves. My own hands, meanwhile, felt itching pangs from chaffed skin cuts despite the fact that I was wearing gloves. We stayed in the house for the rest of the day.

It was snowing by the time I took Molly for a walk at 9pm. This is the best option as I'm not yet bored of the snow which helps to grip our shoes against the ice.

Film Review: Home

Home - Directed by Ursala Meier (French – subtitles)

Marthe and Michel’s family of five live off a highway. Not one that tails away from a slip road – there is little space between their house and the road. As the road has been un-used for some years, this hasn’t been a problem. The road becomes an extension of their life as the space is utilised for various sports, games and leisure activities that indulge the free spirits of this family when they’re not at work or school. Yet there is always the creeping spectre of their lifestyle being rudely shattered with the motorway once again set to host traffic. Reports of work lorries, some way down the road, are wearily investigated and a local roads based station ‘Radio Highway’ becomes a harbinger of doom when it anticipates, in excited tones, the re-opening of the motorway.

If Radio Highway’s voice reeks of propaganda on behalf of the petrol heads, the element of ‘occupation’ is suggested by the appearance of road workers, all orange nylon work trousers and heavy boots, who descend to erect road guards and dispassionately move anything on the road owned by the family.

Up to this point we have seen a happy go lucky family living in their own idyll but with the onset of traffic and noise pollution, characteristics of the family give out and eccentricites are exposed. One of the daughters Judith, a stoic, thrash metal listener who seems to predominately sun bathe elicits honks from passing motorists. The family begin to get viewed with freakish curiosity. Cracks open up. Basic things like setting off to work or school become fraught operations.

Michel’s temperament often threatens to boil over in these circumstances so when he bursts in on the bedroom of a now communally huddled up family to declare ‘It’s over’, things take a darker turn into a living entombment. This is an original ‘anti-road movie’ film on what happens to a family when the outside world starts to unwelcomingly encroach on a family’s space.

Phantom Band 7th November 2009

Having arrived at Salford's Islington Mill by way of asking directions I was glad to find that Marple’s Dutch Uncles were the support band. I had seen them last year, also in a support role, and found their spidery guitar tunes all contained within a pop framework very enjoyable. The band are young, their stage manner bouncy and fittingly, inside what was an old cotton mill, their clothes carried a radiant hue.

The Phantom Band appearance is more inscrutable by contrast with some of their hooded attire extending to spangly, sequined robes although singer Rick is unfrocked.

In contrast to the Dutch Uncles elasticity they positively take their music on an exploratory loop for minutes at a time before morphing into something else, feathered along with various pipes or percussion instruments. The more conventionally structured songs such as Island (whose preliminary strums enticingly recall Silent Night) are delivered with such echoey precision as to make them sound other-worldy. It would be a challenge to see the songs of such length hold the audience’s attentions but there’s enough in the likes of the Howling and the Doorsy Throwing Bones to pick up the pace. I left after their main set to catch the bus home seven miles away but they were to come back and played two encores.

I was unaware of this venue which has already been active for several years. This looks a fine place with other floors given over to artistic ventures. The open plan is all it had in common with the loft apartments that often arise from such unoccupied buildings. After lying derelict in urban Salford the Mill has been re-opened.

Photo by Simon

The beggar on the bus.

I took part in a 5K run at the park this morning. The organiser’s website asks us to walk/run or take public transport to the park rather than drive so as to reduce our carbon footprint. I bought a day bus pass to get to the park and used it, later in the day, to go into town. So far, so economical.

Coming back from town, Ed and I were at the end of the queue that tailed outside of the bus shelter. As the bus pulled in and the passengers draw forward to get on, I became aware of a commotion going on towards the doorway. It was being orchestrated by a rotund guy in his late thirties who was wearing an acrylic track suit. He had his ‘uncle’ with him, who was slighter of build, also donning a black tracksuit and wearing a dejected expression. What the loud guy was talking about was clear enough as he wished it to broadcast it to anyone within hearing distance: He had just come from the train station where his bag has been stolen by ‘some smack head’. His bag contained their return train tickets to Leeds. He had previously explained his situation to the people at the train station but they wouldn’t let him board the train without tickets.

Thus his next step was to turn up at our bus stop. Not that our bus went to Leeds. What he wanted, he says after completing his monologue, was £40 – ‘two quid off everyone here will get us back’. As the bus opens its doors, the people queuing, clearly uncomfortable, drew towards it. The odd person, such as a girl in her late teens, hand over the requested cash. He is exasperated at the lack of response and, during this period, appears to be in a phone conversation with his mum. He comments to his uncle – or to us – ‘I’m telling her what’s happening and she’s in tears’. Incredulous that a busload of people (consisting of pensioners and people heading to districts of varying economic status) were unable to summon together the collective fare to return him and his uncle to Leeds he continues to press his case: ‘I’m going to try again’ he says to his uncle. He steps onto the bus. To no-one’s pleasure he’s ‘going in’. He hasn’t finished with us yet.

The bus driver’s reaction from behind plastic sheeting can’t be gleaned but he doesn’t appear to tell the loud guy that this is not the time and place and can he now sling his hook. So another request is now put out to everyone on the bus – all the more intimidating and ‘in your face’ for being in the confined space of a carriage. The pensioners sitting at the front of the bus bear the biggest amount of its ferocity. Someone further down the carriage comes forward with some money. The loud guy talks to the bus driver about the inflexibility shown by the rail company while rail bosses go on to earn millions then he eventually leaves.

I’ve seen requests for money made to the gallery on transport carriages before but never with this amount of ‘shock and awe’. In these situations, I’d guess that he gets some cash from people who don’t necessarily believe him but just wish him out of their personal space. As a ‘panhandling’ tactic it draws on levels of energy which would be beyond most of us. A lot of boxes are ticked in his stream of narrative: victim (at hands of ‘smackheads’), morals (we owe it to see them home alright), emotions (his mother that is crying) and justice (the rail bosses that earn millions).

Ed didn’t seem too put out at this scene and even started singing a song. Perhaps he’s used to hot heads.

Taking public transport can sporadically ask challenging and unwelcome questions of the person travelling. Do we give to people who ask for money? Do we say something when someone is smoking, especially when it’s in the presence of children? How do we intervene if some bloke is bullying his partner? Much easier to be a car driver, detached from these issues - other drivers or pedrestrians may be cursed; rolling scenery may be commented on but as a driver we are one step removed from things that go on and can drive on by easily enough.

Woodbank Parkrun

I decided to take the plunge run the first Woodbank 5K Park Run on Saturday morning. To get here I memorized the directions, alternatively walking and jogging. The final road that I thought backed onto the park was impenetrable and I had to ask a dog walker for an accessible route to the running track. He advised me to follow a trail path at the end of Bideford Road. I found the running track with minutes to spare. There was to be respectable turnout of 59 runners. The route seemed an obvious place for running with its oval running track which would lead, out of the stadium, onto a path with wide paths. I wondered if most would be experienced runners familiar with the running track and I had no qualms about putting myself at the back of the runners lining up. There wasn’t the throng of runners that may initially slow things by dint of sheer numbers so being at the back of the pack would have no bearing on my performance.

It was a bright sunny morning and perfect conditions for the run. It wasn’t long after completing the initial running track that I established my position which turned out to be middling. I was able to see the person ahead of me by a respectable distance and aspire to overtake them if I had it in the tank to do so. The track is mainly flatter than Bramhall Park’s but it occurred to me running down Vernon Park’s path that what goes down will invariably come up which it certainly did after one sharp incline. On this trail, unlike Bramhall Park, I was also able to get a sense of how far ahead the front runners are on the further path as they swept past on an adjoining path many minutes ahead of us.

My final time at 25 and a half minutes was at about one minute slower than normal. I am loathe to blame it on anything other than a drop in my physical performance although my unfamiliarity with the new route may have contributed. At Bramhall Park, I know the parts to hold off and where to build speed and I‘d hope that my next run on this track finds me using my acquired knowledge of this route to hone my style better.

The greater space and smaller turnout to Stockport’s other established 5K run meant that I didn’t establish the familiar rivalries on the track and strike up any chat while queuing up with my number position at the end (although the efficiency of the coming of bar code system may unwittingly iron out the latter) . Bramhall Park’s greater numbers within smaller confines brings a more noticable community feel but as numbers expand on this race (not to mention the on site tuck shop and nearby café) , I’m sure the same will occur here. To organise two 5K runs in Stockport at the same time shows what a great amount of interest there is and with this now requiring double the amount of volunteers, I am full of admiration for the organizers and volunteers of the park runs.

http://www.parkrun.org.uk/woodbank/Home.aspx

We've been camping

Tuesday 4th August 2009

I am not a fan of camping. I like breathing in the air and being around nature. I like the wafting smell of powdered soup. But I also like to return to a warm, snug bed and for basic errands like making a hot drink and travelling to facilities not to be too laboured and hazardoud an activity.

We arrived at the Bakewell Camping and Caravanning Club site in wet and blustery conditions and left a complaining Ed strapped into his car seat as we set about putting the tent up. The weather helped to concentrate our minds to the task in hand. I tried not to glance too much at the tent next to us that was palpitating in and out with the wind.

We surprised ourselves by getting it up in a decent amount of time, something that the couple in the next tent even complimented us on. Jan waved off my suggestion that we should have a contingency plan if our tent was to blow down in the night. In the conditions, we drove to the town centre – to our shame, it’s a walkable distance. We walked along the river and found a coffee shop and, naturally, had the Bakewell Tart, a lemon version of which I found delightful with the first bites and sickly with the last.

Back at the tent, we had a drink at the on site bar, came back to the tent and made up Ed’s milk. We put him to bed whereby he would resurface constantly to have a scamper around the insides of our tent until 10:30. The wind up lantern, it transpired, didn’t generate much light – some batteries are needed there. Outside, I side-stepped muddy trails with the torch.

Wednesday 5th August 2009

Our tent is on a downward facing bank which, in the conditions, makes getting away in the car very difficult. In fact, our car got stuck in the mud: the wheels whirred frantically, spraying some mud my way after I had tried giving the car a push. I subsequently sought the guy with the tractor and applied a tow hook at the front of our car. The tractor man eventually got us to the top of the slope. Buy that man a drink if we see him at the bar later.

There was a stationary convoy of traffic to the Bakewell show which brought back memories of getting stuck in similar on the way to last year’s Dunster show. In what was still a slightly fraught journey we went a long way round around Bakewell. We decided to catch a steam train to Matlock from the Rowsley South stop. When, on arriving at Rowsley South, I saw a penguin bin at the end of the ramp to the station it cheered me. A chap on the opposite table of our train didn’t agree and thought the bin to be naff and aimed at the children. But it was the exception as all the other characteristics of a steam train station were in place - the old world signs and slow paced guy manning the ticket booth who was eventually roused from his activities to serve me. On the train there was even some people making disapproving noises of Lord Beeching’s rail legacy on the next table up.

We followed the long riverside walk into the town centre, ate out (beans on toast for Ed) and bought another lamp for our tent and batteries for our existing wind up lantern. This period marked a change in the weather. When we got back to our tent the mud had dried a little, campers had shed upper layers of clothing and there was the smell of barbecues oozing around. We laid out our picnic cloth, cooked some Linda McCartney sausages and I began to see the potential of doing this. With the encroaching darkness after 9pm we were also able to read in altogether brighter conditions.

Thursday 6th August 2009

We learnt our lesson from the previous days and didn’t put any shoes or socks on Ed. By the end of his morning of running around the field, his toe nails were black. ‘Make sure he has a long soak in the bath later on’ said Jan.

As we packed up in the morning, it occurred to me that it’s not setting the tent up that’s the hard bit – it’s packing the thing. Several times we tried to straighten out the tent after taking it down – we folded it in thirds, physically rolled across it whereby the air content would bulge at the other end from where we were folding it.

We adjudged thus camping trip to have gone reasonably well and have committed to a second bout of camping in Ripley later in the month. A full compliment of good weather days would go a long way. Note to self: Buy some wellies.