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Good to see you back on board Drone and welcome to the thread Richard 88. You see I’m not just Rugby 🏉 and racing 🐎!
Although I really enjoyed the rugby and the bookie bashing that ensued there, they of course bash me repeatedly on a daily basis in racing.Drone it’ll take you light years to go over much of my ramblings but the pertinent bits are,
the thread will run until,
A. I learn to post photos so I have some evidence of my hopes of establishing a cut flower patch,coming to fruition.
B.I become productive producewise twelve months of the year.
C. I’d like to get BOTH my locations fully organised and productive.
D. Until I tell a truly funny tale.Also
I’ve planted a tree with the Squadron Leader.
Manure bag sales have now exceeded 40
Bouquets sales have got up to close on fifty.I’ve put a few points across on air (Suffolk sounds) about the importance of supporting the “unique” micro climate which is just that to this area. My immediate aim to raise awareness in person by means of conversation. Hopefully this will lead individuals to think about the potential impact of buying cut flowers from supermarkets who have ordered them regardless of the global footprint and regardless of the environmental impact in both the country of origin and on our country and the negative impact on the deben peninsula’s unique environment.
If one person’s conversation could lead to just one person becoming aware and acting, that would dwarf all the hot air generated by countless politicians worldwide who are paying our environments mere LIP SERVICE and as a direct result having a truly bad impact on all global local economies and environments. So read on Macduff and enjoy the ride.DARKIE
I played Rugby to differing standards. I wasn’t anything speacil, but could hold my own in better company. No matter how good a player is, you need a decent team to bring out the best. In the engine room of many a good side lay DARKIE. I played with him for the Town’s Rugby Football team and for the works team.
Andy Darke was also my boss. He loved the horses and most sports especially football and cricket. He was part of a group who regularly attended the Trent Bridge test match. I’ve been involved in many keen scrapes in working and sporting capacities with Darkie.
Highly intelligent, articulate and irreverent in equal measure,and proudly politically incorrect, Darkie was to be found at the seat of most sporting and social events.
The absence of alcohol would likely guarantee the absence of Darkie too and the consumption of pints not exceeding double figures would be a rairaty.
Amidst all of this Darkie found time to be a husband (twice) and father to two kids. His devotion to his kids was unquestionable his devotion to marriage not so.
A works Team event to watch Ipswich Town found us all on the local pay train and occupying an Executive Box against The posh in a local derby. A very enjoyable beer strewn night saw town win and enjoy a big win cheered on by an especially Darkie led group high up in the “pioneer” stand. Every sporting trip turned into an escapade with Darkie at the helm.
So it was with some delight that my bet tonight was landed on Ipswich Town to score three plus goals tonight at odds of 2/1 a bet struck very much with the late Darkie in mind who left these shores this week.
The last time I saw him, retirement and a meaningful working life missing was taking it’s toll. His wit was sharp as ever and he loved to sit early morning holding court in his Walton seat on a bench next to a covered bus shelter which was actually the village of Walton’s ancient gaol which had been moved here back from Chiswick of all places. It looks like a folly but the Tudor style shelter serves as reminder of London and Suffolk for that matter in a bygone age as it really did serve as a prison with stocks.
Retirement led to a sharp decline health failing very sharply in retirement and the bachelor life without his career hastened his downward health.
One thing He told me that day, was that he was very proud indeed of the impending arrival of a grandchild announced to him by his son and daughter in law on ladies day at Newmarket last year so he lived long enough to welcome DARKIE Mk 3 into the world proudly.Yesterday had its own challenges and today likewise. A ton of stuff to move between locations and then the opportunity for a gardeners joy a good old bonfire. There was an early opportunity to wish happy birthday to a swimmer 🏊♀️ and hopefully she had a great day. I’m tempted to go back in for the third swim of the month and as it is the last day might well do. Had five minutes of reflection this morning at Walton gaol on Darkie’s bench. The traffic swept by and the reality of “life goes on” was fully evident and occurs over everyone. An event peculiar among these shores to the English and Welsh, a slight dip in temperature and pandemonium breaks out.
This time around I can fully understand it the council aren’t for treating Roads at any cost and the gritters stayed out not even a sprinkle of salt on the paths. It is admittedly early days and five degrees of frost shouldn’t cause too many problems and for able bodied people there is plenty of truth there. But for the elderly and vulnerable help is needed. I saw ten people fall over this morning mostly children and I saved one from almost impassable pavements.
Reg is an ex jockey and well used to frosty Newmarket mornings for most of his life. He was grateful for the lift into town and we both agreed the council have lost the plot not spending our millions of rates on a little bit of salt today.
There is a fear of litigation over vigilante kerb salters but I will find one tricky place in the morning and spread my own treatment over it under cover of darkness.
Fantastic moon today along with a great sunrise again.Massive fire 🔥 at big Lottie. And a nearby resident has given me the largest collection of pots and odds and sods you could ever see, thrre were also some tiles which will come in handy and my second metal incinerator bin someone must know there is a bit of a firestarter in me! 🔥.
I saw a friend on his allotment with a new hand made fence. “If you did it yourself it must have been very cost effective”. I said innocently.
Yes “£200.00” He said proudly.
I haven’t spent that much in all my years as an allotment holder, save the fees.
Everything and I mean everything is found in skips or is something that no one else wants. My absolute first rule is spend as little as possible reuse and recycle ♻️.
except the seeds which maxed this year at one pound a packet buying me approx 200 varieties ( estimated) last month for an outlay of £60 and that amount shared with a client. Everything comes from giveaways or the tip.We do have a phone signal in places down here, honest! But all joking aside I hope you enjoyed your trip Drone
Whenever I go a-wandering around this septic isle in search of the still-sceptred nooks, of which many remain, I endeavour to cut myself off from the zeitgeist as much as possible, particularly phone, world wide web, tv and the dead-tree press. On returning from that higher, peaceful plane little seems to have been missed
I visit the Cornubian Peninsula regularly: this time I was based in Exeter with day trips on the slow trains to Okehampton and Barnstaple, and on the not-so-slow train to Totnes, a rather weird town that seems to be populated by ageing hippies; so I felt at home there
We’ll be off to Bawdsey for a night or two in a few weeks. It’s an isolated place across the mouth of the beautiful Deben river. The Romans, Normans, Saxons and Vikings ( to name a few) in our age all came to see the unique and strategic military significance of the area and all made settlements here. The unique properties of it’s lush rich peninsula were lost on none of our ancient peoples and conquest of this vast hinterland was crucial to all who wished to rule and tame the land.
Without a doubt civilisations previous to this modern age had the same desires and discoverers and Archeologists of their day would likewise have marvelled at the previous exploits of their ancient ancestors too.
Perhaps those who settled at Sutton Hoo way way upstream were following ancient trails and having dug up and marvelled at the technology at the disposal of their ancient forerunners set about conquering the vast forests and woodlands which were later to provide Britain with Her huge navy’s requirements. We have a river here called KINGSFLEET and the main settlement on the river Deben is Woodbridge. Just before you get to Bawdsey as the crow flies, you come to the end of Felixstowe on the edges of one the countries oldest links golf courses at the very end lies Felixstowe ferry ⛴ A once tiny remote fishing hamlet. Here’s where it gets complicated. It’s a small but rapidly growing place with a small amount of space dominated by a beautiful boat yard almost unspoiled by developers but they are adding larger and larger installations as London and the affluent grab Suffolk by the balls and stake a claim like an American gold rush. My earliest memory of this place as a visiting “urchin“ from Ipswich aged ten. Myself and a lad called Julian Smith on a seaside expedition to the ferry with his family were let loose on the golf course while the others sunbathed on the beach which lines the golf course right up to the mouth of the river. We found these lovely inland “sand dunes” and proceeded to make elaborate sand castles. Very soon the plus fours were upon us as wave after wave of Danny Kaye lookalikes informed us we were trespassing on Felixstowe Ferry golf course! A kindly old gentleman gave us a pat on the head seeing the funny side of us thinking we were on the beach and gave us a rake and sixpence to level things off. It would be 30 years before I ventured onto a golf course again!!
The approach to the river silts up quickly and is a very narrow fast tidal gateway and many a posh sailor has run aground here. Marooned for hours until able to refloat. The currents are treacherous and you DONT swim here. Indeed go in by all means but you won’t come out, simple as. Many a strong swimmer has been lost here and many tales exist of heroic rescues.
I worked with a delightful lady at the port called Shirley and her husband was the ferry’s best fisherman and he indeed drowned in the strait between the ferry and Bawdsey.
Due to the spring tides the ferry has been flooded many times and obviously was badly affected in the great flood of the fifties. A coastal surge where the water came in and then back out again with devastating effect.The local hardware chain have a glut of bulbs and I’m hoping I can get first dibs when they go past the sell by date.(now)I meant to go in last week but have been otherwise engaged.
Priority lies with pruning my fruit 🍎bushes today at the main site I’ve got blackcurrant and red currants.
Ive applied to stage an exhibition in the new year. There is no point hanging about and I’m grabbing the Bull by the horns. The gallery is booked solid for the whole of 2024 but I know I’ll get a date, because I’ve got something different to offer and a statement to make which won’t wait. I even think I can obtain a sponsor, because I’m confident and the organically minded people I’m thinking of would readily associate with my message. (As would most companies.) In fact if you can’t identify with genuine environmental issues and something socially beneficial to the community then you’re not the type of company I’d want onboard anyway!!
I can get ten. I want one main sponsor and two associates.
The main person I need to get onboard is the artist 👩🎨 I’d like to double up with me.
More about that as things develop, but getting the main man onboard is critical but not vital but a twin exhibition would be good. You get a concept in your mind and then you have to convince others of your “big idea”. I overcame one such hurdle at the journey’s beginning when meeting “force of nature” Amber at the Hospice shop. She was so clued up and importantly, open to a fresh idea 💡 that the key denominator of “listening “ sealed the deal and a receptive mind meant I barely had to explain my ideas before She’d got on board. Today’s flowers are hydrangeas and hopefully I’ll source some big blooms for the shop. My neighbours want some as does my fisherman and if the weather remains calm he’ll lay his nets tonight and I’ll go out with him on Saturday for a view of the land, my land from the sea, my sea again. It has been a long long time.I never cease to marvel at the kindness of older people. I saw some nice blooms a few days ago and with the cheek of old nick I knocked on the door. A Lady came to the door in dressing gown and a sheet of paper over her mouth. “ I’ve got the flu”. She explained. “ I’m sorry to bother you in that case, but….”
I complemented her on all her beautiful plants clustered into her tiny front yard. There were thirty or forty or more different varieties beautifully arranged. “Could I cut a few flowers for the hospice shop? “.
“ Help yourself, I haven’t been out the back for a while but there might be something for you there”.
You’re the young man who knocked and told my husband he left the back door on his Land Rover open aren’t you?”.
I was late one evening I was behind and earning nowt that particular dank evening two Tuesdays ago and I had to return to finish off an early morning job in the alley adjacent to this house, and right enough I’d paused to tell the owner he’d left his car door wide open. In this area you can get away with such an oversight, in other towns even Ipswich he’d be looking at his car being rifled and ruined.
There were some stunning white Guernsey lilies, striped Astro Maria’s and right by her door lay a stunning solitary yellow rose. “Take as much as you want “ It’s for a very good cause “. She TOLD me. The explanation and the patter all came from her whilst I was cutting away she disappeared back indoors. As I finished she re-emerged with a fresh cut bunch of blooms. “And these were round the back “ Carnations and more astramarias. She also gave me a piece of paper. “ There’s our phone number call again”.
That Tuesday which I thought had been my worse day and ended with me walking the beach near penniless on the day and fraught with frustration, had turned out indeed to have been my best day of them all now with a freezer full of Cod fillets and now an alliance with a friendly citizen and last night I popped back at the days end with a small bouquet of hydrangeas to say a big thank you to the lady who’d taken it upon herself despite being Ill to not only allow me to plunder her delightful but small front garden, but forced herself outside in the cold to cut yet more blooms.
You might not believe it but NO GOOD DEED GOES UNREWARDED. It’s a Suffolk phrase, to me but quite universal obviously.The hydrangeas are a thing of consummate beauty. The depth and variety of colour are indescribable. In Guernsey where there is plenty of rock in the ground and soil is so varied, the blues on view in this plant inspired some of the great painters to depict them in watercolour.
Somehow before I started cutting flowers this year hydrangeas were a shrub I’d never given a second glance to, but now I’m HOOKED 🪝 by their range and stunning beauty. How this plant has gone totally unnoticed in my eyes is beyond me. Probably the way Amber put together some blooms earlier brought the sheer beauty of this plant to my blinkered attention.
Yesterday I set out to find some more hydrangea blooms “to order” for two neighbours another friend and The fisherman who wanted to suprise his wife.
I’d started the day with a willow delivery two more huge stands to provide a brand new archway for CUPPA an independent coffee tea shop in Walton. Sarah is the proprietor and before cuppa the building housed a fancy dress shop I’m quite sure despite the time disparity this place could have been the inspiration for Mr Benn!!It really was a place ( run by Sarah ) that transported you wherever you wished to go. The entrepreneurial savee of this woman has gone on to come up with an award winning venue in cuppa which has caught the local imagination. My partner followed up after to me to fit the willow arch the second for the shop. Just a couple weeks ago the rods were growing from their tree stump in langer park. I’d coppiced them and the rods will not only provide the two archways at Helmingham Hall on show to thousands and cuppa but will make the sweet pea supports and runner bean canes on my allotments. There was time to run to trimley to walk my special place the horse stable. The beach is ok but nowhere is more isolated and calm than the glade which runs down to the huge pile of accumulated muck which is so well rotted and Alive with worm 🪱 and microscopic life. Rabbits squirrels deer fox 🦊 magpies jays kestrel all dart about on this walk oh and the odd horse but apart from the odd freight train, very little sound. A wooded idyll. At the head of the track back at the crossing lives my terminally ill friend. I won’t see him again but I pass by and send him my best wishes through his family. The walk is ever so special in a way my words refuse to tell. Time is very short so I’m headed back to town tasked with finding twenty large hydrangea heads. I’m going to email them to Nathan Hughes or Drone to post up here you can see them and understand why I wax lyrical about them so.
I know their true value and should I need to branch out next year myself they will be at the forefront of can’t business I do…..
The feedback was high from the bouquets recipients last night and they all sent me photographs of their vased treasures.I sent an email of application to the gallery during the week to run an exhibition next year.
The slots though are booked solid right through 2024.
I got a swift reply telling me so, but that there was a window of opportunity in January 2024 if I’d be willing to take it at short notice. A chance to step up to the plate on one of two weeks available in January if me and my proposed artist partner were willing to exhibit.
I’ve accepted along with Mike the photographer. Now the hard grafting starts to make this exhibition a reality.It has been a good day and although I’m not a goody goodie, ( by any stretch of the imagination) I’ve become maybe a wee bit more thoughtful. I have taken stock a tad for a variety of reasons and it has been paying off. A major change was the tree 🌲. It seems ridiculous on face value, but my struggles with a small but gritty determined sapling left me thinking about why I felt the need to break a belligerent opponent when he really was not in the way. I felt guilty about removing a tree that was stopping me from laying my no dig bed. Like the Romans I was determined to go over it and erase it when I didn’t really have to. At about the same time the sycamore gap tree was being mercilessly and wantonly destroyed. How I came to link the two bears no explanation, it sparked a chain of thinking and events that have simply changed everything for me and those around me.
It might bore the absolute pants of some of you, but bear with me ( as I always say) I’ve got a point to make.
I’ve been given a firm date now to stage an exhibition in early January. It is a big big thing and although I have over a month to get Set up, I still have a tonne of work to do not least because it involves two artists.
The big news today was the end of day email I received inviting Me to stage an exhibition in early to mid January next year. Next year gives it a sense that there is still a bit of time, but given Christmas 🤶, which is almost upon us one could be forgiven as though it all depended on one to nail things very quickly.One thing that has happened also is my selections have gone off a cliff and nothing at all that I choose wins at all recently.
And I’m relived the selections have tailed off totally almost.
Far more importantly I’m concentrating on the horticulture much more and today I based things around Molly Roberts. Molly was the jack Russell belonging to my main clients Mrs and Mr Roberts. I laid them a no dig flower bed which five years ago was ground breaking. I used to take Molly with me for walks and to my allotment which at the time was just around the corner up the hill and over the railway track Railway Hill. It was the highest ground in town and rather like Orford Castle it lay in a very dominant position. Molly ruled supreme on the allotment we were often the only creatures present and mice and rats were shown the door by Mouse finder general Molly. She stuck to my side like poo on a shovel and her departure so soon after the tree was a sticky situation.
I dealt with it by accepting she was at her time given her health record and she’d lasted as long as one could hoped.
I do miss Molly as she was so loyal and welcoming, always snapping at my heels and jumping and down at my legs excitedly. The emergence of HYDRANGEAS as a cut flower is also one of several “game changers “ this thread has thrown up. They are all significant perhaps just to me but significant nonetheless. Unless I’m absolutely certain there will be no more speculative choices.
The aforementioned hydrangeas have come into their own and their incredible properties have come into sharp focus with many people approaching me to do personal bouquets for them.
Next up are two pictures of my bouquets courtesy of a fellow forumites I’m learning the new fangled way but very slowly.I’m rather worried about my paper “boy”.
I shouldn’t be too worried as he’s the wrong side of fifty. I’ve ordered the delivery of the racing post for the last three Saturdays.
On the first Saturday it was through the door spot on 7:30 and it looked like it had been through a trouser press…
Week two just before eight and as I walked my four legged friend I passed him going down to the beach and he was engrossed in a newspaper which looked very much like my racing post. Now trouser press this time and the folds and creases in it suggest he’s very concerned about the affordability checks.
Nonetheless why I’ve bought it on a Saturday I don’t know.
We’re talking 8:30 🕣 yesterday and I was going out to the sammobile and loading up when it arrived. I might as well have left it with him as I barely saw the front cover again. Chief culprits this time were the Twins 👯♀️. I’d passed round their place enroute to collect a batch of blooms. They were very excited about Newbury and the big race and told I thought they PAISLEY PARK would go well today. “ Yes” they replied ( as one as usual)” Leading just passed the post”.
Oh I said realising I’m still a day behind EVERYTHING. “Here is todays post girls” I’ll fetch it back at 11 ish” They’d been to the sales at Tattersalls all this week. What these two don’t know about racing as far as bloodstock and breeding is concerned is not worth knowing.
My sponsorship of the Cash rich RACING POST© is complete now and should I decide to cash in my shares in it they’d need to issue a profit warning in the city.
The girls gave me a nice present when I returned to collect my post at six pm it was dark and one thing these ladies are is mischievous 😏 and if you are not alert they’ll have you over a barrel and their sense of fun and devilment is high.
It wasn’t until I opened my racing post to read up on Sha tin last night that I realised they’d had me again…..
“ We’ve thrown in a Tattersalls catalogue and Wednesdays shop copy of the racing post and coolmores annual brochure for you dear”…..
As it isn’t working for me on a Saturday, I’m going to the shop next week ala Clive Holt and I’m ripping through the delivery bundle and delivering it to myself at 6 am. The other option is Liverpool Street at 1 am on Friday night just like the old days on my way home from the city after a show to get pricewise’s selection before the bookies.
Between my paper boy and them I have three nay TWO formidable opponents….As he has yet to master the method of posting images kindly supplied by Nathan earlier on this thread Son Of The Soil Sam has asked me to post these pics of his hydrangeas and, for reasons that escape me, one of last Wednesday’s RP
“Well that didn’t work
“Trust me big G, it has worked brilliantly.
“
Firstly, a big thanks to the rhino hided Drone for posting my pics. The post before his explains the racing post pictures it’s the two papers I ended up with last night after leaving yesterday’s racing post in the care of the twins on Saturday morning. 👯♀️
I’ve just ( two hours ago) completed a day long shift, I haven’t been near the allotments. I’ve even tried my hand at plumbing 🪠 to no avail, as my client has a drain blocked which is spouting maggots 🪱. I’ve got a mate who I couldn’t find who is a plumber and when I finally tracked him down to the right pub he wasn’t free until Friday. So I got the rods out myself but it’s a proper blockage and not being a plumber, we’ll need to find one.
So the massive news is I’ve been offered an exhibition slot at the best Gallery in the region bar none and it is here in town and although the joint is fully booked throughout 2024 into 2025 it seems my message cannot wait and I’ll debut on the art stage next month, January 2024.
No prizes for guessing what I’d like to call the exhibition….A great weekend even if the Twins made off with my Saturday copy of the racing post.
It’s December 4th as we spin relentlessly towards the unspeakable festival of greed overindulgence and selfishness. No, I don’t mean Cheltenham.
More relationships come to an inevitable end over this time than at any other time.
It means a lot to so many people for so many differing reasons. I’d happily pass on it myself.(or worse).
I’ve got back into the swing of my racing again with a group 1 winner over night in America for the round the world in 80 ways thread.
The main news other than my inclusion in the art exhibition next month is my first installation starts today. I’ve won a commission to restore a bed in the town. It is actually a rockery bordering an old cottage. This rockery is overgrown and riddled with weeds. My task this week is to learn the art of posting my pictures on this thread do you can see this installation take shape it will be done in time for the exhibition on January 11.
My Co-exhibitor Mike, a highly talented cinematographer cum photographer has the task of deciding his role in this exhibition He is certainly the lead as he has exhibited in his chosen profession before and will I hope gain further recognition from this event.
The reason for asking Drone to post up the images? The Hydrangeas will form part of a montage/ collage at the Exhibition of the bouquets that I’ve made up in the past week. It has been difficult getting available staff in the shop so I had a go myself and while my flower arrangements haven’t got a patch on that of Amber it is time I had a go as the charity push will come to an end for me and I will move on towards earning a keep from my work.
Musically there are a couple of songs or two that I’m putting up today including this one ironically by the Liverpool band the Christians
Forgotten Town.
The featured albums this week will be the iconic and very apt U2’s
The JOSHUA TREE and
HACKNEY DIAMONDS ♦️ by the Rolling StonesThere was a chap called Paddy Ireland 🇮🇪 in Ipswich in the sixties. I never had the pleasure of meeting him, but when I complete my first book sometime in the next six months he’ll have pride of place in a prominent position in it.
The Greenwich Gainsborough and Nacton council estates were served by a secondary modern school in Landseer road and Priory Heath school in nacton road.
Mr Ireland was the headteacher at priory. “Priory” was the main wing of the secondary modern school at the time I believe it may have been split in two to keep the sexes apart which was the convention of the day back then. My older brothers attended the school and by the time the two youngest of us attended,he’d left and the split was then by age rather than sex and Mr Ireland was long gone.
The tiny kids went to Landseer Road for the first two years while the last three years were taken a mile up the road at Priory Heath. I never knew or met Paddy as I said but his name was ledgend amongst everyone and spoken of in hushed tones.
Mr Ireland you see had a pilot’s licence and amongst his rather unorthodox teaching methods were to take his pupils up for flights from Ipswich Airport which was across the road from the school.
His ethic to all and sundry was simple.
“If you aim for the skies you can reach them no matter what you are told “. He was not of his time I’m talking Dead Poets society and The History Boys all rolled into one. He was that gap between youth and Audulthood which mentors can give to their pupils to show them that no one sets your standards with a cap on and no one can tell you that you cannot achieve better far better than that which is offered you.
The Greenwich Gainsborough and Nacton area was central to my life and some twenty years later I’d find myself working at the airport when one of the music industries biggest names would walk into me inbound from Amsterdam and would instigate my book today and today’s musical selection 🎶.
Today everything revolves around the two allotments. I’ve made enquiries to try and source some items from the now rundown stables who may have some useful items surplus to their needs now which I could use on the allotments.
I need to reconfigure Victoria street due to the requisition of space for the car park. I also need to plant some new raspberry canes acquired from an allotment neighbour they are quite old but the roots are the important things here. I’ve also got more willow coppicing to do today as inexplicably I missed an entire stump when harvesting the other three last time. They are incredibly handy as my lovely partner has produced two significant arches one being a centrepiece on the light trail festival at the incredible Helmingham Hall, the other is outside the lovely independent cafe “CUPPA” on Walton high street.
Finally I’m awaiting a call from the fisherman who may be heading out to do his pots or nets at sometime today. He has invited me to venture out and give him a hand in his harvesting….
Two very significant people met this morning on my roundsThe ex wife of our washing machine repairman Rick.
Rick the rogue was often missing in action but when available very good at his work. Like all of us we can always find better things to do than that to which we are assigned. In Rick’s case a fag in his car and a read of his paper were much preferred to mending tumble dryers and fitting dishwashers. But, if you could pin him down and get him through the door, he’d do a very good job. We bit the bullet and replaced the dishwasher a few months ago. I loved the old dishwasher even though it was as eccentric a machine you could get, but I knew where it was like an old black and white telly that you could tap or bash in the right place so it was with the dishwasher. When it began to malfunction and smoke even I acccepted it was time to get another one.
Finding one to fit the space and work with the simplicity of the old one was an impossible task but we settled on a Bosch ordered it and waited delivery 🚚. It arrived and of course the delivery men could only do a modicum towards its installation and as a token of thanks they left with a beer each. They went that extra step and I’m always grateful. We now awaited the arranged arrival of Rick He duly came two days later, two days late this starting a chain of cancelled visits and some of the most ridiculous excuses for not coming he’d mustered in recent years when repairing any machines we had that went wrong. But he always came ( eventually)and always got the job done.
Fitting this machine was a simple job the complicated part was getting the door to go with the existing furniture and we had to endure weeks of a trigger swinging weighted door slamming a bit like arkwights till in “open all hours”. The new machine had come with a “template and the appropriate screws etc to fit to the outer fascia door, but it didn’t fit our old suite and Rick though had a plan. I’ve got a mate in Bury st Edmonds who has the right bits I need so I’ll have to go and get it tomorrow and off he went.
Two days later after several calls we got hold of him. “ unfortunately my mates wife’s mother has died”! So I couldn’t collect the screws we need but I’m going to get them on Tuesday, so I’ll definitely be round Thursday.” There were similar tales in the past and eventually the same woman had actually died twice three years apart!!
Rick didn’t come back and we had to get another fellow round in the end.
But this time he hadn’t come back for good reason and this morning his ex wife told me he’d passed away after a night out. He suffered a massive heart attack and couldn’t be revived about ten days ago. I’ll miss him.
My musical choice today is inspired by that chance meeting with Brian Eno at Ipswich airport and a conversation about ten years ago in a cargo shed at Felixstowe. 94 shed, to be precise working with one of the dockers unloading a container. There were a gang of three lads working together who were as thick as thieves with each other, mates and if you can get your shifts in line with people you get on with and actually like, the day goes better and you can have fun and enjoy your work. When I got to work alongside these particular guys we always had fun. There was always a boom blaster set up alongside a container bay and this day rather than all the rap the kids liked, it was playing rock and roll 🎸. The gang of three were on early shift and had control of the music. One of them said he loved Don Henley’s boys of summer and said the lyrics “dead head sticker on a Cadillac were hugely personal to him.”
and he was nearly in tears as the song played. “Never look back Sam, never look back mate”. For me today it’s Bullet the blue sky by U2 from the album the Joshua Tree 🌲.Brian Eno produced the Joshua tree and it reminds me strongly of our brief encounter at Ipswich Airport. We had a brief but telling conversation and I’ve recorded his words for posterity. Handily I took contemporaneous notes, you never know when they’ll come in handy!!!
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