Slept very poorly last night and am in consequence about as dozy today as I can be. I keep fighting the sleep away for fear of perpetuating the cycle but just now I feel like my sleep motor is running 12 hours out of synch.
Ain’t it wonderful, though, to be able to sleep when it pleases you?
Posted in sleep
Years and years ago, in the late 1970s/early 1980s, Graham and I were furnishing a rather nice house on an ‘executive’ housing development in Copthorne, West Sussex. It was prior to the digital age, just about, so I don’t have too much in the way of photos, and none close to hand. Perhaps some other day, some other story.
Anyway, we had a fairly decent income back then, so our furniture and decorations tended to be very up-to-date, and rather classy. Our living room, for instance, was entirely furnished from the Tapley™ store in Reigate–all very low-line, stylish, and horrendously expensive. And, so it would seem, very, very close to the ’1970s retro’ look that we are using in this house. Anyway, the house in Copthorne was traded for a farmhouse in Derbyshire (Matlock, for the curious) and then for a tiny ‘ty unnos‘ cottage in Westest Wales and, somewhere along the line, the Tapley™ furniture disappeared.
Fast forward to the present.
I was staring at the ceiling in the middle of a sleepless night a couple of weeks ago and had a vision of our old furnishing scheme and, particularly, the Tapley™ that gave it such class and substance.
“That’s exactly what we need now,” I muttered, turned over, punched my pillow, and dropped off back to sleep with the triumph of the eureka moment.
Next day I told Graham of my inspired idea.
“Now that is spooky,” he said. ”I’ve been thinking of exactly the same thing.”
The shame of it is that the company went out of business some years back, their furniture no longer sought after in these days of pack-flat economy.
We don’t give in that easily, though. Oh, no. So we eBayed for it, and yesterday’s trip to England was to pick up a couple of cabinets in ‘pre-loved’ or ‘well-used’ condition.
Two pieces of Tapley furniture
They are horrendously heavy, well-made pieces, and will need all of Graham’s refurbishing skills and energies to restore. But it can be done. It will be done. And we’ll be looking out for another couple of bits to go with them.
“Are you happy with our day’s work,” I asked late in the evening.
“Shut up and go to sleep.”
Well, that’s fair enough, I suppose. You can only expect to float along for a limited time on the strength of a eureka moment.
I’ll tell the story properly tomorrow. Today, after a round trip of about 320 miles into England and back, I’m just a little too tired to do it justice. I don’t enjoy long distance driving anymore, even with Graham by my side to jolly things up. Nevertheless, it was fun.
Crossing over the border
The house still smells of fish pie–delicious and sustaining though it was, we simply must ventilate better when doing a fish dish in future.
Last night’s opening into Stargate Atlantis (series 1, programme 1) was a resounding success. It’s a double length episode, so we had to chop it off in midstream–finishing it tonight. For some reason I find it impossible to remember Atlantis, so I’ve taken to calling it Stargate Asparagus, which works just as well.
It was good to get home. England, south-east England, seems to be on some other planet now, and the natives are not entirely friendly.
It’s been a sitting indoors, keeping quiet, playing with the computer, ready at all times to obey the “Tea, please!” command kind of day, with the devil looking over my shoulder, searching for idle hands.
Somewhere late in the morning I had a bit of a brainwave. I spend a lot of time ‘playing with the computer’–read ‘surfing’ or ‘researching’ if it pleases you better. Could be that by reintroducing the advertisements feature (AdSense) I can turn my idle thoughts and a few references to advantage with minimum impact on the content. Can’t do that here on WordPress–it’s against the rules–but Blogger permits it, and indeed, makes it easy. Might have something to do with both Blogger and AdSense being children of Google, of course, but that’d be a churlish way to think.
So, while I’m noodling at the thought, and wondering about it, I’ve created a shadow Blogger journal. Click here to see it.
I’m making no promises or threats. I’m well aware that some folks loathe advertising on the Internet, though I must observe that it’s darned close to impossible to avoid it. I value my readership, and all my friends, very highly, and shall not lightly desert a single one of them. It may be that the best way forward is to run the two versions in parallel, so far as content is concerned.
We’ll see. I have a feeling that the tone and nature of my ‘content’ is changing as I get older. I seem to need some kind of stimulus to keep my interest alive and this might, just might be one way to contribute to it.
Our new copy of Stargate Atlantis series 1-5 arrived this morning. I did as directed and sampled a programme at random and was impressed with the quality. The packaging is odd, however, and the provenance of the copy a little shady. We will investigate carefully, and quietly, of course, but I think my famous “we’ll see” might well apply here.
Oh. Oh. The “Tea, please” command has just been issued. I’d better get going. Time to start our dinner anyway. Fish pie tonight. Yummity. Something really, really reassuring about fish pie. The guy in the video might be something of a jerk, but his recipe and method (and foul language) are very close to my own.
Posted in cooking, home improvement, Uncategorized
We found the most attractive little garden centre today. Not far away. Just at the bottom of the main Cilfrew road and turn right for a few yards in the direction of Cadoxton. Take a left under the railway arch and it’s like entering a magic place.
They had all the vegetable plants I wanted, and also all the shrubs, trees and perennials we’ve been discussing for the garden proper.
I was thrilled to learn of the old guy who owns and runs the place that I am two or three weeks too early to be planting seedlings out just now and that I ought to come back when the time is right rather than try to nurse them on the window sills. I think he’s going to try to make me grow cabbage but otherwise his advice was right on the line.
Isn’t it good to get unbiased advice when you’re starting up in a new field!
When I go back I shall ask him if I can take some pictures. You have to be so careful with cameras these days.
Then, home, lunch, and a nap. I’m getting through my insomniac period now, and things are much better. Even so, I’m more than ready for my afternoon nap still, and some days find me wilting in the late morning, in need of twenty minutes power nap before I can proceed.
Hey ho.
A dearly loved man died today and the two of us were greatly saddened by it. One of Britain’s funniest and most erudite of men, Sir Clement Freud has had us in fits of giggles while listening to Just a Minute so many times it doesn’t seem right that he has been switched off. Ah well. He was 84, almost 85, and died while sitting at his desk. That seems appropriate in a time when almost nothing else does.
And, finally, we finished the last disc of our complete set of Stargate SG-1 two nights back, followed by the second of the two direct to DVD movies last night. We have the complete set of Atlantis series 1 to 5 on order but there’s going to be an interval of a few days before it arrives. Our evenings are going to seem strange until we get going on the new set. We could watch something else, of course–our DVD collection is pretty large–but somehow the Stargate team have made us part of the family and we’re not keen to desert them.
And that wraps it all up for another day. It’s been fine, in its own way.
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