I’ve railed elsewhere on the website about the bias and pre-occupations of the media but the following BBC caption truly irritated me. There were quite a few pieces covering Princess Anne’s 70th birthday and some ‘official photographs’ were published. Why would you notate the size of her land holding? Clearly it’s to cast an aspersion? The Royal Family have a lot of land and money; it’s not news but it does feed into the negative mind set of those who might want reminding in order to meet their daily ‘outraged’ quota.
I’m not much of a Royalist (and don’t get me started on the Honours system) but I do think that the Queen, Duke of Edinburgh and their two elder children work or worked very hard. They bring a lot of pleasure to the people who’s lives they touch. When the Queen passes I think a number of things will change about how we view the monarchy as an important influence in our lives.
I helped a neighbour pull out a quantity of bull rushes out from in front of his property. They are attractive but soon take over the lake and are difficult to remove. Happiness is a morning in a deep boggy lake up to your knees in mud. I thought he’d found a neat solution to keep the wildlife off his jetty: he built a fence around it. Around here the ducks sit on the jetties. Unless they’re controlled they leave a foul (as opposed to fowl) mess.
So I girded my loins and made a trip to B&Q to get timber, screws and a saw. (You may have read about my procurement of fishing line to put along the top of the fence in another blog).
The present Mrs Ives has captured me in the water playing at being a carpenter. I’m now hoping I have accumulated a number of domestic house ‘points’ this summer (around the garden) to sustain her tolerance of idleness during the winter.
This leisure might include completing more box sets. I often look around Netflix wondering what to watch. Currently it’s Narcos. This has been out for a while but it had been recommended and so I had a look. Based on the fictionalised account of a true story it follows Pablo Escobar’s drug and murder career in Colombia. It’s terrific. The body count is such that you wonder who’s left in Colombia and is there enough global lead to make all the bullets. Anyway I’m into Season 2 and still horrified at the worldwide misery that drugs bring the countries that produce them and the users who fund this mayhem.
I popped up to Northallerton in North Yorkshire with my sister, Ann-Marie, on an errand and ended up watching my nephew’s son playing football. Back in the day I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed watching Sophie (Favourite Youngest Daughter) play netball when she played for the mighty Rufforth. I remember my father coming to watch me play rugby at school. (He would have been 100 years old this week had he lived). Being a dad on the touchline is a complete delight. Ted’s a true star and scored six of the eight goals that won the five-a-side contest.
He’s got his father’s sporting gift and at seven he’s a wonderful time ahead. Due to the age group the team was mixed. At this age the girls have all the physicality that’s needed to compete. I was staggered by how fearless a couple of them were. Maybe there’s something in this women’s football?
Eventually the virus put paid to our Singapore, Vietnam and Cambodia jaunt in October. We thought it was coming and it has. We book our stuff with Trailfinders and they are very good to deal with. We received all the money back within a couple of days of the cancellation. The holiday couldn’t take place because of lockdowns but they didn’t get tearful when we rejected rescheduling for 2021. They had no other international holiday destinations available either. If there was anything like a silver lining for them then customers who’ve had all the problems with the advent of the virus have had a magnificent partner to help sort out these complications; not least finding me a flight to escape Australia in March. I know this news will crush you, on my behalf. I can console you by telling you that we have a couple of nights in Bakewell, Derbyshire booked as the consolation. It’s always warm and sunny there and it never rains I’m told (cough).
Record Store Day is usually an annual event (this year it’s three) and some special edition records are released in limited quantities. The records can be vinyl LP’s or singles but there’s a scattering of CD’s. The artists are usually legacy acts and many of the releases are of music that resided in a vault somewhere as an outtake or a live concert and this is their first release. Where it’s not the first time the music has been released you may also get coloured vinyl and fancy packaging. Needless to say this drags out the grey market (!) and I joined early last Saturday. Bliss.
Lastly, I was out on my bike yesterday and was struggling up a hill for over a mile leaving the Yorkshire Wolds village of Bishop Wilton. (This 50 mile circuit brought up 4,500 miles for the year). It hits 15% but averages 8%: I wasn’t cycling very fast. I heard some metallic sounds and feared for my gears when I realised it was horses hooves on the tarmac behind me. Slowly but surely they advanced to draw level. Ahead of us both was a lady with a pram and a horse baulked. Riding at 6mph up a hill is not easy at the best of times for balance but having Trigger towering over you is a further challenge. Slowly but surely the recalcitrant nag was persuaded to go past only to start projecting great clumps of dung in my direction on the road. I usually don’t need a reason to weave on a gradient but I had even more incentive at this point. The rider cheerfully commented that the horse obviously didn’t like me. I had worked that out.
Tony Ives’ Blog 