Over reaction is not something which President Elect Obama can be accused of, so far. One of my strengths used to be that of not getting in a panic when faced with the unexpected and to establish all the available relevant information, to go through options and to try and predict consequences, however unlikely. I try and remind myself of this when I now become overwhelmed, usually with my own increasing physical frailty.
I awoke determined to do something about my weight and lack of physical fitness, restricting food to a cuppa soup and one slice of unbuttered bread around 11 am and then resisting the call of some filled pasta shells at midday and going to Sunderland by bus to make a purchase. The temperature was above 50 degrees and in the autumnal sunshine it was very pleasant making my way to the bus station where the 35 route bus arrived just as I was about to sit down. I enjoy this route although it does not take the coast road. Once passed the shops and the Town Hall and the War Memorial, the bus turned into Harton Village which all part of the continuous residential housing does have its own villagy feel with the posh wash laundrette to indicate that this area is the most prosperous part of South Shields with large villas and even larger gardens and the former grammar school. There are just a few shops here and the local police station, before The Nook another shopping area going from East to West across the road from Cleadon Park. In fairness to its name this once notorious but now demolished housing estate does have the vast acres of open parkland which runs for a mile on one side of main road before reaching Jarrow and with the Cleadon Hills to the other from where an area from the Tyne River to the Wear River and beyond can be viewed. What caught my eye in this instance is that a second all singing and dancing health centre is to be built at the junction and I assume it will be as spectacular as my own, or more accurately the one I attend at the bottom of the hill to my home. A new estate of contemporary designed houses for sale is in the process of creation with old a few of older houses still standing waiting for demolition.
The bus did not take the main route but went along the Nook and then took the road to Cleadon Village where some of the most expensive properties on Tyneside can be found, together with the Sunderland Football Club Training centre and Academy. My attention was fixed on the back of a woman sitting ahead in the bus who I later discovered was about my own age. Her head was fitted into a cap similar to that worn by Charleston girls, full of charms and glitter and which also had side pieces of gauze like material also covered with sparkles. She appeared to be wearing a woollen top or coat and on this was also sewn badges and butterflies. She had with her shopping a shopping trolley with the top covered with metal badges and she also had a large bunch of dried flowers. She formed a wonderful sight, long since adjusted to her own eccentricity and I wished I had the time to attempt to find out more about her. We were soon on our way along the main Newcastle to Sunderland Road, passed the Grange pub where within the last decade it was possible to get two three course meals for £10 or two main course for 5 from a selection of ten including fish and chops and three sausages, mash and onion gravy. I wondered how the Newcastle Road traditional swimming baths are faring since the creation of the Olympic size pool and fitness centre was completed a mile further next to the Stadium of Light, home of Sunderland Football Club.
I got off the bus at Joplings store and thought about their cream teas and also thought further along such lines on passing the new coffee lounge with armchairs in the main covered thoroughfare of the shopping centre which was once a road with traffic when I arrived in 1974. I held firm and made my way to the recently opened Collectables store to make my purchase.
I was also on the look out for a second hand or specialist furniture store in search of an empty cutlery box and consequently made my way out of the precinct at the other hand towards a street where I hope I might find such an enterprise, Before then I had looked in at the crush in a card shop already full of Christmas thingies which confirmed the need to get on with the making of a list and then the getting. The local supermarket had removed all indications of Halloween including the lifelike ghost with three half aisles devoted to the season, and outside the Sunderland shopping one of the main Christmas trees in the town was already installed with lights attached but not switched on. I also had a little detour to see what had happened to the central Leisure centre This was a vast practical building divided by a covered way with the former ice skating rink on one side and a large Mediterranean style pool complete with wave machine on the other, fitness centre, sauna and café. You could see inside if you used the covered walkway. A notice explained that the pool and fitness centre had moved but there were sports halls, meetings rooms and the sauna remaining. The windows had been covered for two thirds of their height so the walkway was now cold, badly lit and an obvious place for drug addicts and drunks to congregate.
I did not find the require store but passing a greengrocers I could not resist the offer of three cartons of seedless red grapes for £1, especially as the supermarket charged £3 for two cartons of a similar size and this was a discount of ten percent on the individual carton price. I made my way to the bus station and walked in the wrong direction for the buses to South Shields. That added to the exercise factor The four routes home were all scheduled about the same time and I decided on the E6 which although the longest route took me passed some areas I wished to see. The route out from Sunderland to the river Bridge is common and then this route travels to Fulwell and Dykelands Road and the sea front close to my former home. Here there were four individuals in wet suit with the large colourful wind catching type kites but where one was standing on a water board driven along by the wind. It was not clear if the others intended to do likewise.
I nearly forgot the mental note to try Wilkinsons in Shields and Sunderland as places that might have the kind of box required. Yesterday on AOL UK there was a front page advertisement showing a number of mansions available for purchase in England from a Thames side penthouse to the mansion at Whitburn going for £3.5 million and one I would buy if winning at least £10 million in the Euro lottery. What dreams may come. You can get the briefest of glimpses from the coast road if you know where to look.
From Whitburn village the bus turns away from the coast road and runs parallel between extensive farmland up to the Cleadon Hills and overlooking the coast. It then passes through the South Shields and Whitburn golf courses and reaches the road back to the Nook. However the route is not direct into Shields but to Chichester and Bolden Lane where I travelled each day between August 2004 and August 2007 to visit my mother. This reminds that I met a former member of staff in the town centre last week who said that most of the staff from that time had now left, so I decided I would not visit this Christmas but just send a card, It was during this latter part of the journey that for the second time in the day my curiosity was aroused as first a family of a father complete with case and guitar, son and teenage daughter all with rucksacks and bags got one and sat together. And then at an interval but the same stop a woman with bags who I immediate assumed was the wife and mother and then later, at a different stop a gentleman of about my age with shaven polished head also got on with a bag, acknowledge the foursome but engaged in conversation with other passengers who he knew. All five got off at the Chichester Metro and one of the other passengers said hope you have a good trip after being informed they were away until Monday. Where were they going? To Catch a train or take the link to the Airport? Was it a holiday or some performance with the guitar?
I returned home as the sun had disappeared under cloud and made myself a cup of tea but could not resist one mince pie. Later I had half a dozen olives stuffed with garlic and the pasta as a side dish to the sea bream covered with a Parsley sauce. I had opened the wrong packet first time round for an instant curry I ended the meal with some grapes and later a coffee, I will not buy more instant packet sauces when present supply ends.
On return and switching on the computer there was a new My Space message which opened an amazing doorway into my past. On Thursday I had received a friend request from the Constant Father, a 12 minute film, adding a note that the writer had been interested to find that I had listed Smallcreeps Day, a novel as one of my 101 books and which was considered to be one of the most interesting books the writer had read. This stopped me in my tracks
Smallcreeps Day was written by Peter Currell Brown and published by Victor Gollancz in 1965, Peter had been a close friend during 1960 and 1961 and we had made several trips together, travelling to Scotland, Wales and various parts of England, and frequently sharing accommodation. He had married in 1962 and we lost contact during the 1960's. While the book had received some favourable criticism at the time it was Peter's only work published. How had the writer come across this work?
An internet search provided the explanation. The book had been printed as a paperback and recently reprinted to considerable critical acclaim and in 1980 Michael Rutherford a founder member of Genesis had produced a solo album called Smallcreeps Day on the first side was a suite inspired by the novel. On You Tube I found a short film of Peter reading a favourite passage from the book and looking as I remembered albeit some four decades ago. Although Peter had worked in a factory on which his surreal novel is based he loved working with his hands especially using a potter's wheel and clay and he was the earliest environmentalist I have known. According to Wikipedia Peter worked for a time at Peter Scott's Wildfowl Trust at Slimbridge and set up his own Pottery, the Snake Pottery and since the later 1980s has been involved in a range of activities, a master craftsman living in cottage on the edge of woodland. WOW.
I hope I have resolved the getting on line difficulties and did some e mail housekeeping clearing the Spam file only to find that a Travel Lodge advance notice of £9 a night rooms February to the beginning of April had been misdirected but fortunately I was only a day out and able to book several nights in March for a trip to greater London within yards of a railway station so I have the choice of travelling by car, by coach or train,
I wrote recently of my first visit to Newark and while shaving recently I listened to a BBC radio five story where the local council had moved the Poppy Day stall from its traditional position to a new one on grounds of Safety thus causing a significant loss income. Those responsible at the Council should be ashamed. I was talking to a former colleague manning out local stall this week, ideally situation under cover in a strategic position in the town centre supermarket who reported that here had been a significant increase in donations and while there a young man in in early twenties arrived, possibly younger and put a ten pound note in one of the collecting boxes. I live in an area in what used to have the highest levels of social deprivation in the UK although through efforts of the local authority and with help from central government the situation has improved and the local paper announced a new yesterday 400 job hi tec factory was to be built and follows on a 400 job call centre in a purpose built office on the Riverside close to where I live and a few miles away the Nissan car factory which announced last year it was moving from two shift to a three shift assembly having become one of the most efficient car producing plants in the world.
I was also in Nottingham this summer, for the cricket, and where the ground is a short distance from Nottingham Forest football club where along with Derby County Brian Clough took the clubs to the top winning things within a remarkably short period of time. Fans of the club have raised £70000 for a statue of Brian which was unveiled in the town centre this week, in the company of many former players and the present day team. It was great to see and to learn that his widow, his Football manager son, and other family members were thrilled by the what has been created. Last year a similar statue was unveiled in a park in Middlesborough where Brian played before becoming a manager.
Earlier in the day I had debated going to see W the Oliver Stone film about George Bush which brings to mind the science fiction series V in which was about a race of Lizards taking human form in order to colonise the world. So after the Lizard came George, although I assume in this instance the W stands for his second Christian name initial. What will a whole generation of standup comics and satirist now do when George leave office in January. I cannot believe they will attempt to poke fun at Barrack and expect to survive professionally.
I awoke determined to do something about my weight and lack of physical fitness, restricting food to a cuppa soup and one slice of unbuttered bread around 11 am and then resisting the call of some filled pasta shells at midday and going to Sunderland by bus to make a purchase. The temperature was above 50 degrees and in the autumnal sunshine it was very pleasant making my way to the bus station where the 35 route bus arrived just as I was about to sit down. I enjoy this route although it does not take the coast road. Once passed the shops and the Town Hall and the War Memorial, the bus turned into Harton Village which all part of the continuous residential housing does have its own villagy feel with the posh wash laundrette to indicate that this area is the most prosperous part of South Shields with large villas and even larger gardens and the former grammar school. There are just a few shops here and the local police station, before The Nook another shopping area going from East to West across the road from Cleadon Park. In fairness to its name this once notorious but now demolished housing estate does have the vast acres of open parkland which runs for a mile on one side of main road before reaching Jarrow and with the Cleadon Hills to the other from where an area from the Tyne River to the Wear River and beyond can be viewed. What caught my eye in this instance is that a second all singing and dancing health centre is to be built at the junction and I assume it will be as spectacular as my own, or more accurately the one I attend at the bottom of the hill to my home. A new estate of contemporary designed houses for sale is in the process of creation with old a few of older houses still standing waiting for demolition.
The bus did not take the main route but went along the Nook and then took the road to Cleadon Village where some of the most expensive properties on Tyneside can be found, together with the Sunderland Football Club Training centre and Academy. My attention was fixed on the back of a woman sitting ahead in the bus who I later discovered was about my own age. Her head was fitted into a cap similar to that worn by Charleston girls, full of charms and glitter and which also had side pieces of gauze like material also covered with sparkles. She appeared to be wearing a woollen top or coat and on this was also sewn badges and butterflies. She had with her shopping a shopping trolley with the top covered with metal badges and she also had a large bunch of dried flowers. She formed a wonderful sight, long since adjusted to her own eccentricity and I wished I had the time to attempt to find out more about her. We were soon on our way along the main Newcastle to Sunderland Road, passed the Grange pub where within the last decade it was possible to get two three course meals for £10 or two main course for 5 from a selection of ten including fish and chops and three sausages, mash and onion gravy. I wondered how the Newcastle Road traditional swimming baths are faring since the creation of the Olympic size pool and fitness centre was completed a mile further next to the Stadium of Light, home of Sunderland Football Club.
I got off the bus at Joplings store and thought about their cream teas and also thought further along such lines on passing the new coffee lounge with armchairs in the main covered thoroughfare of the shopping centre which was once a road with traffic when I arrived in 1974. I held firm and made my way to the recently opened Collectables store to make my purchase.
I was also on the look out for a second hand or specialist furniture store in search of an empty cutlery box and consequently made my way out of the precinct at the other hand towards a street where I hope I might find such an enterprise, Before then I had looked in at the crush in a card shop already full of Christmas thingies which confirmed the need to get on with the making of a list and then the getting. The local supermarket had removed all indications of Halloween including the lifelike ghost with three half aisles devoted to the season, and outside the Sunderland shopping one of the main Christmas trees in the town was already installed with lights attached but not switched on. I also had a little detour to see what had happened to the central Leisure centre This was a vast practical building divided by a covered way with the former ice skating rink on one side and a large Mediterranean style pool complete with wave machine on the other, fitness centre, sauna and café. You could see inside if you used the covered walkway. A notice explained that the pool and fitness centre had moved but there were sports halls, meetings rooms and the sauna remaining. The windows had been covered for two thirds of their height so the walkway was now cold, badly lit and an obvious place for drug addicts and drunks to congregate.
I did not find the require store but passing a greengrocers I could not resist the offer of three cartons of seedless red grapes for £1, especially as the supermarket charged £3 for two cartons of a similar size and this was a discount of ten percent on the individual carton price. I made my way to the bus station and walked in the wrong direction for the buses to South Shields. That added to the exercise factor The four routes home were all scheduled about the same time and I decided on the E6 which although the longest route took me passed some areas I wished to see. The route out from Sunderland to the river Bridge is common and then this route travels to Fulwell and Dykelands Road and the sea front close to my former home. Here there were four individuals in wet suit with the large colourful wind catching type kites but where one was standing on a water board driven along by the wind. It was not clear if the others intended to do likewise.
I nearly forgot the mental note to try Wilkinsons in Shields and Sunderland as places that might have the kind of box required. Yesterday on AOL UK there was a front page advertisement showing a number of mansions available for purchase in England from a Thames side penthouse to the mansion at Whitburn going for £3.5 million and one I would buy if winning at least £10 million in the Euro lottery. What dreams may come. You can get the briefest of glimpses from the coast road if you know where to look.
From Whitburn village the bus turns away from the coast road and runs parallel between extensive farmland up to the Cleadon Hills and overlooking the coast. It then passes through the South Shields and Whitburn golf courses and reaches the road back to the Nook. However the route is not direct into Shields but to Chichester and Bolden Lane where I travelled each day between August 2004 and August 2007 to visit my mother. This reminds that I met a former member of staff in the town centre last week who said that most of the staff from that time had now left, so I decided I would not visit this Christmas but just send a card, It was during this latter part of the journey that for the second time in the day my curiosity was aroused as first a family of a father complete with case and guitar, son and teenage daughter all with rucksacks and bags got one and sat together. And then at an interval but the same stop a woman with bags who I immediate assumed was the wife and mother and then later, at a different stop a gentleman of about my age with shaven polished head also got on with a bag, acknowledge the foursome but engaged in conversation with other passengers who he knew. All five got off at the Chichester Metro and one of the other passengers said hope you have a good trip after being informed they were away until Monday. Where were they going? To Catch a train or take the link to the Airport? Was it a holiday or some performance with the guitar?
I returned home as the sun had disappeared under cloud and made myself a cup of tea but could not resist one mince pie. Later I had half a dozen olives stuffed with garlic and the pasta as a side dish to the sea bream covered with a Parsley sauce. I had opened the wrong packet first time round for an instant curry I ended the meal with some grapes and later a coffee, I will not buy more instant packet sauces when present supply ends.
On return and switching on the computer there was a new My Space message which opened an amazing doorway into my past. On Thursday I had received a friend request from the Constant Father, a 12 minute film, adding a note that the writer had been interested to find that I had listed Smallcreeps Day, a novel as one of my 101 books and which was considered to be one of the most interesting books the writer had read. This stopped me in my tracks
Smallcreeps Day was written by Peter Currell Brown and published by Victor Gollancz in 1965, Peter had been a close friend during 1960 and 1961 and we had made several trips together, travelling to Scotland, Wales and various parts of England, and frequently sharing accommodation. He had married in 1962 and we lost contact during the 1960's. While the book had received some favourable criticism at the time it was Peter's only work published. How had the writer come across this work?
An internet search provided the explanation. The book had been printed as a paperback and recently reprinted to considerable critical acclaim and in 1980 Michael Rutherford a founder member of Genesis had produced a solo album called Smallcreeps Day on the first side was a suite inspired by the novel. On You Tube I found a short film of Peter reading a favourite passage from the book and looking as I remembered albeit some four decades ago. Although Peter had worked in a factory on which his surreal novel is based he loved working with his hands especially using a potter's wheel and clay and he was the earliest environmentalist I have known. According to Wikipedia Peter worked for a time at Peter Scott's Wildfowl Trust at Slimbridge and set up his own Pottery, the Snake Pottery and since the later 1980s has been involved in a range of activities, a master craftsman living in cottage on the edge of woodland. WOW.
I hope I have resolved the getting on line difficulties and did some e mail housekeeping clearing the Spam file only to find that a Travel Lodge advance notice of £9 a night rooms February to the beginning of April had been misdirected but fortunately I was only a day out and able to book several nights in March for a trip to greater London within yards of a railway station so I have the choice of travelling by car, by coach or train,
I wrote recently of my first visit to Newark and while shaving recently I listened to a BBC radio five story where the local council had moved the Poppy Day stall from its traditional position to a new one on grounds of Safety thus causing a significant loss income. Those responsible at the Council should be ashamed. I was talking to a former colleague manning out local stall this week, ideally situation under cover in a strategic position in the town centre supermarket who reported that here had been a significant increase in donations and while there a young man in in early twenties arrived, possibly younger and put a ten pound note in one of the collecting boxes. I live in an area in what used to have the highest levels of social deprivation in the UK although through efforts of the local authority and with help from central government the situation has improved and the local paper announced a new yesterday 400 job hi tec factory was to be built and follows on a 400 job call centre in a purpose built office on the Riverside close to where I live and a few miles away the Nissan car factory which announced last year it was moving from two shift to a three shift assembly having become one of the most efficient car producing plants in the world.
I was also in Nottingham this summer, for the cricket, and where the ground is a short distance from Nottingham Forest football club where along with Derby County Brian Clough took the clubs to the top winning things within a remarkably short period of time. Fans of the club have raised £70000 for a statue of Brian which was unveiled in the town centre this week, in the company of many former players and the present day team. It was great to see and to learn that his widow, his Football manager son, and other family members were thrilled by the what has been created. Last year a similar statue was unveiled in a park in Middlesborough where Brian played before becoming a manager.
Earlier in the day I had debated going to see W the Oliver Stone film about George Bush which brings to mind the science fiction series V in which was about a race of Lizards taking human form in order to colonise the world. So after the Lizard came George, although I assume in this instance the W stands for his second Christian name initial. What will a whole generation of standup comics and satirist now do when George leave office in January. I cannot believe they will attempt to poke fun at Barrack and expect to survive professionally.
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