Every year for the past eighteen years, I’ve been to the annual science fiction convention, Novacon, organised by the Birmingham Science Fiction Group. My nineteenth, Novacon 39, is coming up this weekend and I am busy trying to get some of my stuff together for the art show. One of the stitched boxes I want to take to the show is still only half finished, so it is a race against time.
If you see someone stitching furiously on a train to Nottingham on Friday morning, it will probably be me!
Two nights in a tiny village near Eyam. Just long enough for a first, brief taste of the Derbyshire Peak District, and a welcome chance to catch up with Colin Greenland, whom I hadn’t seen for over four years.
The Wednesday morning was grey when I left Shrewsbury, and the train was filled with noisy families off to Manchester for the day. But after changing at Stockport I had a much more peaceful run to Buxton, with the sun finally breaking through the grey cloud and shining into steep wooded valleys, the tree colours all golds and rust against the grey of the rocks and the buildings.
I had plenty of time for a wander around Buxton, and a quick lunch before catching the bus to my destination. I found the Pavillion Gardens – an old-fashioned park with a miniature train chugging around and a Victorian hothouse complete with palm trees and a goldfish pond. The camera was kept busy.
The bus took me through more steep, wooded valleys, through neat stone-built villages and across high land divided into long, narrow fields by grey drystone walls. Colin was waiting outside the village pub, and took me to the cottage, which is as comfortable and cosy as you could wish, tucked away from the road. A perfect home for two writers, although Susanna Clarke was down in Cambridge while I was there, so I only had Colin’s company. After a cup of tea, we went across the fields to Great Hucklow: a good few stone stiles and squeezes to negotiate, but an easy walk. While Colin fed a friend’s gerbils, I tried to catch the colour in the trees before the light went. Mostly stands of beeches here: it’s high, well-drained, limestone country. Wells and springs, rather than rivers, dictate the settlements - as did the mining industry, now all gone. Even more than Shropshire, the area relies on the tourists – mostly walkers.
Back to the cottage, to a fine lamb casserole, and out to see a film at Eyam Mechanics’ Institute with some of Colin’s friends. The Age of Stupid is a clever presentation of the urgent need to take action on climate change. It makes its most profound points by simply showing the lives of a few people who we get to know as it progresses. Complex lives, real people, true stories, no clear-cut ‘goodies and baddies’. Around and among this excellent documentary series are some graphical depictions of facts and figures and the film’s weakest part, Pete Postelthwaite as a supposed archivist looking back from the ruined future, calling up the clips on his computer. Much food for thought, managing to make its point without being too ‘preachy’. We discussed it in the car home and then until bedtime, in front of Colin and Susanna’s wood-burning stove.
An early start the next morning, as Colin had to go to Bakewell for a class. Angela, the friend who had driven us to Eyam was giving him a lift and I was happy to tag along. I had ample time to walk up to the parish church which overlooks the town and take more pictures. There was a layer of mist in the valley, which gradually cleared to a fine morning. After the class was over, we had coffee with Angela and a couple of other ladies.
I enjoyed visiting the farmer’s market with Colin, who was shopping. We had an excellent lunch in a restaurant above a bakery which claimed to be the home of the original Bakewell Pudding – not much like the Bakewell tart met in other places, this is more of an egg-custard in a pastry case. (No room for that after the main course, so I bought one to take home to Shropshire with me. I can report it very pleasant, if a little sweet for my taste.) A quick browse in a secondhand bookshop, and then a circuitous bus journey passing through many little villages, the first part of it on a double-decker bus. A very good way to see the countryside.
We ended up dining at The Bull’s Head in Foolow, which served us good food. The landlord and barmaid were very friendly and welcoming. We sat in two former theatre seats, at a table near to the bar, where we could watch all that was going on and join in the banter occasionally. Back, eventually, to the cottage, to attempt to light a fire that refused to do more than smoke, to listen to an interesting selection of music and to talk about books, life and people until nearly midnight.
And then it was morning and we took the bus to Buxton. Colin to do some shopping and I to wait for a train home. The train journey was less fraught than the outward one, and I was home by the middle of Friday afternoon.
Many thanks to Colin for his excellent hospitality and to Angela for driving us about. For such a short break, it was incredibly refreshing and relaxing. I came home with memories of golden trees in grey valleys, snug stone houses, friendly, intelligent people, a comfortable place, good fresh food, sunlight, woodsmoke and conversation.
I went to Queenswood Arboretum in Herefordshire on Sunday. An outing with the Shropshire Community group on Flickr. A bit damp in the morning, with one or two showers, but by the afternoon there were long spells of lovely sunshine.
About a dozen of us went wandering around in the woods, met up for lunch and then carried on taking pictures and enjoying the gorgeous colours until the light started to fade. A superb day. I’m gradually uploading the pictures to this Queenswood set on Flickr.
Firstly the good news – my half-a-job has resumed again. So although I am still seriously looking for something else (this temporary one is not really enough hours), I am off the dole. Which is very good news.
Last week, I turned my two storage heaters on, as I needed some background heat in the flat. Nothing happened. I have been here ten years and the heaters have worked perfectly every year until now, so I can’t really believe they’ve both suddenly popped their clogs at the same time. There seems no obvious sign of malfunction, no switches tripped on the consumer unit, they just don’t work.
After giving them a couple of nights’ trial at various settings, just in case, I called the housing association’s repair line on Thursday and booked an appointment for for the electrician to come and look at them this morning, Monday 19th. I even got a letter confirming the appointment.
This morning comes. I make sure I’m up and dresed in good time. I wait – but no electricians appear. At eleven, I rang the repair line because I needed to leave at twelve to get to work.
“Oh,” says the lady on the customer service desk, “They rescheduled the appointment for Friday last week, and they called but couldn’t gain admittance.”
“I was at work on Friday. The appointment was was for this morning, it’s on the letter. Nobody contacted me to tell me it was being changed.”
“Yes, but they rescheduled the appointment without telling you.”
Er, now isn’t it the very nature of an appointment that it is a time agreed by both of the parties involved? Apparently not in the eyes of the housing association and their tame repair company. I think what they did was just call here on Friday on the offchance – fair enough if they were working in the area – but to then cancel the original, scheduled appointment (and not even tell me about it)… It’s a little thick!
The upshot is that I still have no heat in my storage heaters. We have made another appointment forthem to call tomorrow afternoon. I hope they keep this one.
And if they don’t turn up, the Estate Manager for the flats is coming to see me on Thursday morning (about another matter altogether), and will be asked, very firmely, to Do Something.
Provided, of course, that she also turns up when expected!
Update, 20th Oct:
The electrician turned up — two hours before the scheduled time, but I was at home. The fault is not the heaters, which are in perfect working order. It’s the timer in the electricity meter, he says, and that isn’t something he’s allowed to touch. (The electricity meter is only a couple of years old.) Next: a phonecall to npower… They will come to sort it out on Monday the 2nd of November. The earliest they can do. Brrrrr!
Long awaited, delayed by difficulties, still standing in a bare building-site rather than the Geo Garden that will eventually surround it: Shrewsbury’s controversial Quantum Leap, the Charles Dawin Bicentenary Memorial sculpture, was officially inaugurated on Thursday the 8th of October, 2009. The area in front of the statue was jam-packed with people, the crowd spilling along the narrow footpath of the Smithfield Road almost to the Welsh Bridge. The late afternoon sun shone kindly on the warm-grey concrete of the curving, twisting structure. Darwin’s great-great-grandson, Randal Keynes, made the inaugural speech on behalf of the Darwin family. Finally a brass ensemble from Shrewsbury School played a fine fanfare, composed for the occasion by Ben Powell Davies, a student at the school.
I have some more pictures in a set on Flickr.
Quantum Leap has been beset with problems. There were several unforseen difficulties with the site, and the original construction, built up from two sides, failed to meet correctly in the middle, needing to be partly dismantled and corrected. We don’t expect professional constructors to get things like this wrong, but Quantum Leap was a novel and daring project, almost an experiment in construction science. (Here’s my piece on the early stages of the construction.) And in the end, they got it right. I’m less happy about the thick concrete bases that have been added to the structure, particularly the one on the river side of the arch. Necessary, perhaps, but the bulky lumps anchor the piece rather too firmly to the ground: less an idea leaping into the air, more something struggling to escape. Maybe that is more symbolic of Darwin than we might think? His own doubts about how his thoughts and researches would be received, and the effect this would have on his family, held back the publication of The Origin of Species for many years.
To digress only slightly, I went to see the film Creation on Friday. It’s beautifully acted throughout, with the high standards of production one expects from BBC period drama, but Creation is more a film of a battle with emotion, doubts, ill-health and anguish than of science. I cried quite a lot. It’s worth seeing, but do take plenty of tissues and don’t expect to learn much about Darwin’s work beyond the most obvious.
The film is based on the book Annie’s Box by Randal Keynes, who dedicated the Quantum Leap sculpture yesterday. Darwin worried that his ideas would be misunderstood, cause anger and and a storm of criticism he did not want to face. Quantum Leap has already attracted a fair amount of criticism, but we should give it time to mature — to be finished and then to mellow into its setting between the trees in the garden-to-be on the riverbank. I fancy that Shrewsbury will come first to accept and then to delight in its bold, curving, twisting shapes against the sky, once it has found its place among us.
(And of course people are worried that it will become a ‘Saturday-night climbing frame’ for young drunks, who will then fall into the river and drown or kill themselves by landing on stone. I must admit to thinking that anyone so doing might provide an excellent example of evolutionary principles in action.)
Give Quantum Leap and the Geo Garden by the river time to settle and to mature, and I think we will have something that Shrewsbury can be very proud of. Even when still surrounded by concrete dust and metal bariers, it makes a fine sight against the sky.
Ten years ago, I moved into the Celestial Tortoise Loft, my housing-association flat here in Shrewsbury town centre. (You won’t find that name on the map, but that’s my name for this attic appartment under a mansard roof.) I’d had the keys for a couple of weeks by then: moving things in, cleaning the place up, but 6th October 1999 was the first night that I slept under my very own (rented) roof.
After fifteen years of living in furnished rooms in other people’s houses, the delights of having a bathroom and kitchen all to myself and my own living room made me giddy with joy. I’d lie on the floor and just stare up at the high ceiling and all the space, just marvelling at it all.
After ten years, the Tortoise Loft is still wonderful. Oh yes, there have been problems now and then, but the feelgood factor is still there. And now it is home, with room for my books and craft materials and all my other clutter, comfortably liveable, familiar, my retreat in bad times, my anchor-point in good.
That’s the view from my bedroom window at 6:45 this morning. Wet streets, hardly anyone around. I am so lucky to be here.
The last few weeks have been rather mixed. My ‘half-a-job’ of 18 hours a week came to a sudden end, and I am unemployed again. So I’ve been doing the merry rounds of the Jobcentre, the various employment agencies. It’s very bleak out there. I hope I can find something before too long. I hate filling out application forms, interviews, the stress of it all.
Meanwhile I have been using some of my unexpected free time to start on a big it’s-not-exactly-spring-is-it? clean of the flat. Long overdue sorting out of boxes of papers and bits and pieces. Things shoved in boxes from when I started to become too ill to deal with them, a couple of years ago, overfilled cupboards, general chaos.
I’ve made a huge improvement here aleady. I’m no longer worried about people seeing the state of the Tortoise Loft. Yesterday I had two friends here for lunch, followed by a walk around the town. We ended up sitting in the warm sunshine on the terrace at Theatre Severn, watching the motes of light dancing on the river and thinking how good it was to be able to sit outside in October.
And now, with the rain lashing the windows on a dark, chilly evening, I am here at the computer thinking how nice it is to sit here inside, in my own space which is personal, private and yet connected by the internet to the whole world. Wonderful times. Here’s to the future.
READER, whoever thou art, prepare to meet thy descending God. Erelong the clod’s of the valley shall cover thee: and the worms feed sweetly upon thy flesh. Be ye always ready:
Since no device, nor work is found,
nor faith, nor hope, beneath the ground.
SEEING WE ARE AS GRASS,
OR LIKE THE MORNING FLOWER;
IF ONE SHARP BLAST SWEEP O’ER THE FIELD,
WE WITHER IN AN HOUR.
As a tribure of sincere affection, a memento of true friendship and a memorial of a faithful Christian, N. BRADBURY erected this monument.
While I was in Lichfield on the coach trip (mentioned a couple of posts ago), I wandered into the yard of R Bridgeman & Sons. Charming old buildings, decorated with a strange assortment of old bits of bass relief, broken statues and the like. I didn’t have time to stay more than a few moments. I took few photos, including this one, and continued up the road to the cathedral.
Now I have processed the photos and read this inscription properly. Isn’t it wonderful? Does anyone know any more about it? There’s no date and no mention of the person the memorial was made for. Was it a reject from the stonemason’s workshop?
The Telling Space Storytelling Club which meets at Mythstories Museum of Myth and Fable in Wem had its annual Tales & Trails story contest last night, held on a privately-owned island in the River Severn in Shrewsbury. Fortunately for us, the island belongs to one of the club members and her family. It was decorated in our honour with nightlights and candles and fairylights, transforming it into a perfect location for the story contest. Even the weather stayed fine for us. Before we crossed the bridge to the island, a flotilla of little paper boats were launched, bearing tea-lights. A pretty constellation on the river to match the twinking stars overhead.
I couldn’t afford to go away for a holiday this year, but I took a week off work and went out and about as a local tourist. Have bus ticket, will travel…
I started on Thursday 10th September with a trip to Whittington on the number 70 bus. A beautiful morning. I wandered around Whittington Castle and sat in the sun with a coffee, enjoying the sunshine and watching the ducks and swans.
Then I went on to Oswestry. I didn’t stay there long: wandered around the town centre, bought some food and picnicked at the bus station while waiting for the bus back home. Another lovely ride.
The next day I was back on the number 70 again, this time just as far as the Three Pigeons at Nesscliffe. A pleasant early-morning ramble up and around the hill. I saw Kynaston’s Cave — once the haunt of a notorious local highwayman. It is not open to the public because it is home to a large colony of bats.
The colours of the sandstone on Nesscliffe were wonderful. I was a little disappointed that the morning mist did not lift enough to give me much of a view from the top of the hill, but it was lovely to walk through the peaceful woods.
Saturday was a Heritage Open Day. I caught the 96 bus to Atcham to meet up with Natasha another member of the Shropshire Community group on Flickr, and to visit the National Trust property Attingham Park which was one of the places offering free entry for the day. We were given a short tour of the interior by one of the conservators, who was most interesting and amusing. As well as giving us the history of the house and its furnishings, she looked at things with the eye of one who has to clean them and protect them from deterioration. (The large, new, wine-red carpet in the picture gallery came in for particular criticism. I can imagine how much work it is to keep it immaculate – that colour will show every mark.) After our tour, we took a walk through the shrubbery and woodland around the central paddock, and
then went into the kitchen garden and the walled garden. Cameras came out, butterflies and other insects got chased and flowers and vegetables photographed.
A sweet song coming from deep inside a sculpture made of razor-wire turned out to be this little robin. It was not trapped, just using the wire as a place to sit and sing.
Sunday was a stay-at-home day, catching up on chores. I’ve already recounted Monday’s adventure in my last post.
Tuesday looked like it would be another grey, cool day, but by the time I had taken a bus to Shawbury and walked past the RAF station to Moreton Corbet Castle, the air was warm and there was a long fine interval, ideal weather for photographing the ruins. I visited the old church next to the castle and also had fun trying to photograph the pigs and piglets belonging to the Castle Farm. By the time I’d walked back to Shawbury, I’d had the best of the day.
Wednesday was another stay-at-home day, but Thursday was the major outing of the week, a day trip to Lichfield in Staffordshire, by coach, organised by the Friends of Shrewsbury Borough Museums.
We started at Dr Samuel Johnson’s birthplace, on the eve of his 300th anniversary. The birthplace was full of ladies arranging flowers for the celebrations. After a quick look around there (I’m not very interested in Johnson), I went to Lichfield Cathedral. A wonderful place. Dedicated to St Chad, an early bishop of Mercia, it has three fine tall spires and an amazing wealth of high-Victorian sculpture decorating the medieval building. The West Front is packed with figures. Inside it is equally fine, with a cast-iron rood screen, all painted and gilded and decorated with musical angels. The Victorian restoration of the cathedral was done by Giles Gilbert Scott. It’s a sight worth seeing and for all the ornamentation and decoration, it excudes calm and peace and rest.
The East Window has been removed for restoration, and stonemasons are busy repairing the structure. This made the inside a little too dark for hand-held photography, but the outside was a treat! I must go back sometime when the tarpaulins are off and the window has been replaced in the repaired tracery.
After an pleasant lunch in a little restaurant adjacent to the cathedral, it was time to visit Erasmus Darwin’s house. The house is nicely restored, and gives a good idea of the character and interests of Charles Darwin’s grandfather. This interested me very much. A fascinating man, and obviously a great influence on Charles. In the close in front of the house there is a beautiful garden, a mixture of herbs and flowers and medicinal plants, full of colour and interest. More food for the camera! A fine day out and a fine end to my holiday.
Today I had an adventure in Birmingham.
I’m having a few days off work this week, and decided to spend one of them visiting a friend I haven’t seen for over a year. This friend — let’s call him G — lives in Stirchley, in a part of Birmingham I had absolutely no knowledge of. (To be honest, that includes most of Birmingham outside of the very centre.)
We arranged that I’d come and see him today, unless he was working — always a strong possibility as he does some supply teaching. We swap mobile phone numbers, and I decide to find out how to get to his house by public transport.
The public transport bit was easy — feed the two postcodes into the Traveline website (I wish that name had two Ls!), tell them when I wish to arrive, and up comes an itinery. Magic! (They even tell me how to walk to Shrewsbury railway station, which I hardly need to know, but at least they are thoroughly door-to-door.) I’m told where to board the bus by Birmingham New Street Station, it’s a number 47, and where to get off it. Also how to walk from there to my destination. Excellent.
Over to Google for a map. Again, that’s easy – they’ll even show me the approximate position of that house number in a long road. Having printed out my map, I notice that Street View is enabled for this road, and decide to familiarise myself with the place I’m going to. I’m amazed how clear it is — I can count houses from those with largish house numbers, and soon locate G’s house. To my surprise, I notice I’ve also located G himself, standing outside it. Quite recognisable, despite slightly blurred features.
Amazed by what this new technology can do to take the guesswork and mystery out of a journey, I follow the later part of the 47 bus route, familiarising myself with the look of the place where I need to ring the bell. A couple of trips along Stirchley’s shopping street gives me confidence that I won’t miss the stop.
I’m half-expecting a phone message or an email to cancel my visit. (There’s probably a 50/50 chance. ) But nine am this morning comes without a word, so I set off on my adventure. The train is a bit crowded, but it’s on time, and soon I’m coming out of New Street and turning into Stephenson Street with a confident air. Play hunt the bus stop, and find it clearly labelled. In less than ten minutes, I am on the bus.
I look out of the window until suddenly the scenery becomes weirdly familiar — it’s a strange, dreamlike, feeling of dèja vu, seeing these roads where I’ve never been before and yet partially recognising them. I saw them a couple of days ago, but as they were last year: sudden changes have taken place. It’s disconcerting, but also reassuring — there’s the place with the carpets outside, oh, there’s scaffolding on that building, there’s that tool-hire shop…. (Stirchley seems to be filled with DIY shops and second-hand furniture stores: rows of cheap bookcases and odd chairs out on the pavement.) There’s the stop I need looming up ahead. Ding!
The easy dreamlike state continues as I walk down the pseudo-familiar road to my friend’s house. A fair walk, but I’m so bemused by the intermingling of the strange and the known that I hardly notice the distance. The house looks right, the correct number is on the door. I knock.
A total stranger answers. I am utterly thrown for a moment. “I’m sorry, I may have the wrong house,” I say, and tell him who I’m looking for.”
“No, this is the right house, but he’s not here at the moment, he’s working today.”
“Oh! He was supposed to let me know if he was going to be working….”
“That sounds like G! Do you want me to give him a message?”
“It’s okay, I’ll text him.”
Walking back to Stirchley and the bus to Birmingham, I was vastly amused at how easy 21st Century technology can make travelling to a strange place — and how little it can do about human nature.
I got an apologetic text from G and we spoke on the phone. All is explained and forgiven. Not that I was angry or anything, I had had fun getting there and enjoyed a couple of hours in the city centre, spending time and too much money in tempting shops and the markets, having a very tasty soup for lunch, in Eat, and generally looking around. And then I went home, tired but happy, to really familar parts and a nice cup of tea.
It wasn’t quite the day I expected to have, but it was a good day.
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