You’ll maybe not be surprised to learn that life hasn’t taken a dramatic turn from Boredom Boulevard to Liberation Lane, however, we are getting there I think. So stirring through the ashes of the last couple of weeks I thought I’d report as an alphabet..

Africa

For those who’ve stayed awake through my blogs you’ll remember I’ve been typing up the story of Eric Blackburn. His unique life started as a farmer’s boy in war ravaged Hull at the age of thirteen. We progressed from him becoming an orphan, through to firing steam trains, completing National Service and then back into the depressing clutches of post war British Railways. After 126,000 words I’m now writing up the adventure of his going to work for East African Railways in Tanganyika in 1954. There are some wonderful stories contained within. I shall be sorry when we get to the end of this remarkable journey

Birthday looms

I’m a long time past celebrating but being surrounded by females means that cards and felicitations will abound. If there is anything of interest in this decrepitude then I am officially about to become and Old Age Pensioner. Rishi Sunak hwill cough up my State Pension at the age of 66. I promise not to spend it at the first shop (as they’re still all shut.)

Car washing

The weather has been desperate, which has undoubtedly helped the R rate to fall but it has stopped me washing the cars, not least the Morgan. However after a long spell of zero degrees I was able to get out there and wash them. I even noted a woman on the street washing a car as Anna and I were walking past. I did remark to her that it was unusual to see a woman car washing to which I was quickly reminded that “you said that to her last time.” (Repetition holds no fear for me.)

Daytime TV

It would be disloyal to point out that the present Mrs Ives is quite a fan of iPlayer and Netflix during daylight hours but I couldn’t possibly incriminate her. However, it is a sad option for lots of folk given the lack of alternatives. Instead I slip upstairs to compose this type of brilliant missive (cough).

Esther Rose

This New Orleans resident’s latest album turned up in my inbox from Country Music People and it’s a a super record. You can check out my considered thoughts on this American Country confection by clicking the link.

Flat refurbishment

After the departure of the last tenants our inspection revealed they had irretrievably damaged the carpets we installed only 20 months before. There were seven such separate marks and were impossible to remove (as I think the food was oily, which doesn’t work well with a wool carpet.)

Other parts of the property were in need of upgrade eg. heating, shower enclosure and hob. So we have been energetically spending horrific sums transforming the property to something superior. Not all the work was acceptable, see below! Can you believe you’d fit a radiator that would stop the door shutting? Needless to say after a discussion it was moved!

The market is quiet as a result of the time of year and lockdown. We hope it’ll not be too long before we get new, more considerate/careful, residents.

‘Grower’

The Favourite Eldest Daughter is lucky to hold the prestigious (unpaid) job of being my sub-editor on my album reviews (that make it on line or into the Country Music People magazine.) Her grammar is first class and is an invaluable help. On one album this month I suggested that several plays made the album more familiar and all the better for that: it was a ‘grower’. At her insistence I was instructed to delete the word and Google the phrase. Apparently this colloquially now refers to men’s genitalia. And worse now that the internet algorithms have kicked in and I receive unwanted adverts for natural enhancing supplements!

House buying

The Favourite Eldest Daughter (her again) and husband (Matt) have got onto the ‘ladder’. After the haggling, surveys and compromises it’s theirs. Anna and I hope we’ve been helpful, albeit at a lockdown distance to Manchester, with some advice based on understanding properties and human nature. Frustratingly we’ll not be there to help them move in.

Jab

Yup, I got a text and took the first opportunity to receive a dose of the Pfizer vaccine. They are getting on with things very efficiently in York, the organisation for parking, queuing and then stabbing was exemplary, I even got a sticker, what more could you want? The only reaction was a sore arm the next day but otherwise great.

Lainey Wilson

This time served Country chanteuse has paid her dues and eventually found a big record label and a top notch producer who’s fashioned a terrific contemporary Nashville Country album. I loved it and the link to my review is here.

Mac Leaphart

A good question might be how come so many ‘Records Of the Week’ after none for so long Tony? I still keep getting quite a few albums and I may even write a review but they’re not good enough for my site. However like the others above this is a fabulous discovery of John Prine meets Boo Ray. The link is here.

News Coverage

As a news junkie then even I’ve had my fix for a long time to come. Coronavirus is the only story but what is there to left to tell? Vaccines, mental health implications, quarantine regimes, schools opening/shutting, illegal gatherings etc. on a never ending loop. A lot of folk are ‘incarcerated’ in their homes living in fear, I know some and a contributory factor to their mental state must be this diet of media misery. The real ‘story’ is that the vaccine is being brilliantly rolled out and that an end is sight. Of course we’ll have to live with the disease (forever?) and some will continue to be desperately vulnerable, but there again isn’t this something we knew all along?

‘Out Of Towners’

We have a daily exercise regime that saw yours truly jogging the other day plus we both like to get some steps in and stride out around the village. Being rural there was never a lot of folk to bump into. Now we have people driving out into the country in considerable numbers with push chairs and dogs. Of course they are entitled to do this but we’re finding car parking jams, dogs off leads chasing around and ‘private – no entry’ areas being entered and footpaths being turned into quagmires.

Dogs off their leads can be a threat to the local deer or hares. Let’s hope they forget our village when this is all over and they can stroll nearer their homes.

Old Photos

I’ve tidied up my digital photos on my computer, I had thousands of duplicates. However we’ve reached into the loft and Anna has been sorting through the older non-digital types of photo. There are some gems like the, grumpy, Favourite Youngest Daughter with her mother.

An old school friend, John Graeme Varley, dug out a couple of me from the late 1970s. I was quite good looking once wasn’t I! The bloke under the flat hat reading the broadsheet is the former Member of Parliament for Thurrock, Tim Janman. As I remember we’d attended a party in Camden then slept overnight outside the flat in my car before going back in for breakfast in the garden the next morning. Kids eh?

Queuing

With our general forbearance during the pandemic we’ve got used to the protocols of social distancing that delay our everyday lives. Posting a parcel at the Post Office can see you on the pavement whilst limited numbers are only permissible inside the shop, the same for the Chinese takeaway in Copmanthorpe (but in the dark and cold), the artisan bakers in the centre of York with a line of, say, 15 folks in front of you where the millennials are out for a morning coffee and croissants, the central York household waste site where they seem to ‘come and go’ about enforcing social distancing so that you can either drive straight in or hang about for 20 minutes whilst someone empties a Luton van in front of you. The one queue I didn’t mind was the one at the vaccination centre.

Recycling a bike

The Favourite Youngest Daughter briefly worked at Decathlon at Surrey Docks in London about 10 years ago. She espied a discounted folding bike and rang to see if I wanted it. I did and she lugged this 15kg bike on the Tube and onto the train for me. How she carried this block of iron, and survived I will never know. Sadly, despite her heroism, it lurked in the garage for most of this time and I decided in a world of bike shortages to give it away to a shop in York that calls itself ‘Recycle’.

Spring weather

The snowdrops and daffodils are out and there are other buds starting to sprout, the days are getting noticeably longer and the weather occasionally hits double figures. Every bike ride, and there’s been a few, has been done on wet and muddy roads, this means you and the bike get filthy; warmer weather dries the road. This really uplifts my spirits and despite not trusting the fact that we are past the worst I’m starting to feel happier times are ahead.

Twitter

There’s quite a debate on line about black footballers being racially abused. It’s awful. Twitter allows people to post vile abusive comments anonymously. I don’t think any footballer or politician is to be protected from criticism, cynicism or mockery, that’s life and free speech. However, steps to reveal these abusive people by preventing anonymity is the first step. From here they can be pursued for breaking the law eg. race hate speech.

Porky Upton

I’ve taken one of Eric Blackburn’s anecdotes and created a blog about his exciting night in Withernsea with this veritable fireman and his dancing feet. It’s a great story and insight into 1950s Hull. Follow the link

Viewing

Amazon Prime gave me ‘The Professor and The Madman’, a plot that involved an English language dictionary, a schizophrenic 19th Century US Army surgeon and Winston Churchill. Yes quite! It was an engaging two hours. Sadly Netfix’s ‘Call My Agent’ Season Four was only six episodes long and ended in a bit of a shambles but pencil me in for the spin off whenever it comes. ‘The Dig’ was based around the true story of finding some Viking treasure in Suffolk. The ‘true’ bit stopped at the relationships between the protagonists, the main female character’s age and, oh yes, the outdoor sex.

Sara Watkins

Yet another Record Of The Week. I was a bit unimpressed when the magazine sent me this children’s album. However quality will out and it’s a beautiful affair of tunes you’ll know and dreamily performed for your delectation and delight. The link is here.

Zoom (and me)

Winter involves going to York University to complete an evening class. Over the years I’ve done the lyrics of Bob Dylan, Irish history, creative writing etc. This winter I plumped for “Writing about the World: Contemporary Forms of Creative Non-Fiction”. Given my blogging and album reviews I thought it relevant. I only lasted two nights was, basically, reading up some passages of different types of non-fiction and then discussing them with other course members on Zoom and then reporting back. Every week a group would read out, in front of the whole class for a critique, something you’d written as homework. Oh dear, what a drag. The course members seemed homogeneous serial course attenders, some were bores who wouldn’t shut up and others were away with the fairies about what they hoped to do with a future project. In other words there was little or no meaningful instruction just a talk shop. I decided I’d wasted my money but I might as well not waste my time.