The old, abandoned house

Sunday, November 24th, 2013

While out for a Sunday morning walk today I noticed this rundown, boarded-up house just around the corner from where I live. Never seen it before, but it really does stick out like a sore thumb in its dilapidated state.
Seeing a house like this makes me sad. It was built however many years ago to be a home to someone, and has probably been a home to countless people over the years. But look at it now. Lost, forgotten and empty.
It's a shame that it has come to this. The story behind how this came about is probably a real tragedy: someone must own it, but why it's in this condition, I do not know. How it can be left like this is even more of a mystery to me.
At a time when housing is at a premium, places like this should not exist. This would make somebody a good home, but its dereliction is going unnoticed and unheeded. It's a damn shame.

It all started out as a mild curiosity in a junkyard

Saturday, November 23rd, 2013

Today was the 50th anniversary of the world's longest-running science-fiction TV show, Doctor Who, and after the unrelenting publicity and hype surrounding it, I expect most of the country was sitting down to watch the special episode at 7.50pm, like we were.
There aren't many television programmes that can unite a nation (and this case, the world though an international simulcast). There used to be a school of thought that said the days when Saturday night TV brought the whole family together were gone, people watched in different rooms at different times on different devices. But in recent years that has not been the case, and programmes such as Doctor Who and Strictly Come Dancing and The X Factor have brought that collective viewing experience back.
So watching The Day of the Doctor tonight was like sitting down with the rest of the family to enjoy a programme at the same time - only the rest of the family were millions of people all around the globe.
Quite a feat for the good Doctor in his fiftieth year...

I've often seen a cat without a grin, but never a grin without a cat!

Friday, November 22nd, 2013

This cheeky fella has recently been installed near the seafront round the corner from where I live. He's the Cheshire Cat from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll. The author has a link to Llandudno in that he allegedly holidayed here with the Liddell family, and it was young Alice Liddell who inspired his fictional character.
This wooden sculpture is very photogenic and the perfect height for kids to jump on top and have their picture taken. I resisted the urge myself, but that's not to say I won't give it a go next time...

Unexpected item in the bagging area

Thursday, November 21st, 2013

Supermarket self-service tills: who likes them? How can they possibly replace the human interaction of a checkout assistant, someone who understands the situation and can remedy any problems almost immediately (although some of the assistants I've encountered this might not apply to).
It's one of those inventions that works perfectly on paper, which is genius only in theory. In practice, it's a whole lotta hassle. Is it actually possible to get through a whole transaction without a hitch?
Those dreaded words: "Unexpected item in the bagging area". Why the hell is it unexpected? I've only just scanned it and you've only just charged me for it! Surely it's the most expected item possible?
"Please hold and wait for assistance" is another one. Some poor, flustered assistant has to waddle over and wave a magic swipe card in the air to rectify any hang-ups the machine has with your 'so light they don't register on the scales' crisps, and apologise for the hold-up before sliding off to the next mini-crisis. These poor devils are slaves to the red flashing lights above the self-service tills, running hither and thither like an epileptic in a disco.
Worst of all is when you're buying alcohol, particularly if you're buying more than one bottle or can, and the repeated "approval needed", which basically translates as: "Look over here, there's an alky".
And sometimes you get the smartypants assistant who will regard you carefully, then ask: "Are you over 18?" before deigning to swipe their card for approval.
Idiots.

The stillness of winter

Wednesday, November 20th, 2013

Brrrr! It's that time of year again when there's a cold, dry snap and the woollies come out. It really feels like winter is here at the moment, with sleet and hail... and a biting wind.
I love the stillness of a winter's early morning and evening, when there's no breeze, just the crispness of the cold air. We don't have crisp, dry cold in the UK often enough - anybody who's been to Canada will recognise the difference between a British winter and a Canadian winter. The Canadians have good cold, the sort of cold that makes you feel alive, not close to death like our blustery winters do.
All we get is puddles, leaves, face-eating wind and pathetic spots of ice and snow that never last.

Force-fed cream cakes

Tuesday, November 19th, 2013

This cake stand is in one way my nemesis, and in another, a simply beautiful thing. Whenever we visit Gareth's mum and dad's, when we have a cup of tea, this cake stand comes out and it is laden with cakes, usually cream cakes.
Normal people would eat just one cake, but so insistent are Gareth's parents that all of the cakes should be eaten ("or they'll just go to waste") that I often end up having to eat two - sometimes, to my utter horror, three - cream cakes. Like the wiliest of pensioners, they will not take no for an answer, and appear to take considerable offence if you decline.
It's OK for them, they seem to be able to eat as much fattening food as they like - they consume considerable quantities of sweets, chocolates, biscuits and cakes, without ever putting on an ounce in weight. That anatomical mystery does not translate to me, however, and so a visit to the "in-laws" always goes hand in hand with gluttony and that awful feeling of having had "one too many".
They look delicious, they taste delicious, but by 'eck they're harsh on the arteries!
But look at them... they are so hard to resist. And impossible to decline.

Raining on my parade

Monday, November 18th, 2013

Bah! It's Monday morning, it's November, and it's Wales. So it must be raining! This was the damp view from my car as I drove to work today, and as it turned out, it wasn't such a great day ahead of me. And I fear, due to unavoidable circumstances, that the next five weeks might turn out to be pretty unrewarding too.

Smiles and frowns on a Sunday

Sunday, November 17th, 2013

It's Sunday, and I'm in work. Every now and then I do a Sunday shift, working until around 9.30pm, and these little fellas who sit on my desk every day kind of sum up how it makes me feel.
Bagpuss, the perennial sourpuss, looks as forlorn as I do just before I have to leave the house to go to work, whereas Pinky looks how I do just before I am due to go home. The Sunday shifts always fly by because there's plenty to do and with a skeleton staff, so it's swings and roundabouts.
Sadly, I do feel I'm more Bagpuss than Pinky most of the time though!

Lights in the water

Saturday, November 16th, 2013

One of my favourite places in England is Salford Quays. Until a few years ago it was an undeveloped, partly abandoned disused - or under-used - docks, but in the last 15 years it has really sprung up and become a top destination for eating, shopping and the arts.
The Lowry theatre opened in 2000, and there's also the Lowry Outlet Mall, the Imperial War Museum North, and now, perhaps infamously, the BBC's new MediaCity UK base.
It's a very watery, glassy, new place: not a lot of vegetation or greenery (although we did stand just feet away from two cavorting foxes this evening as we walked through the Blue Peter garden!), but this modern look allows for some stunning photography after dark. The lights on the quays are like Blackpool's illuminations, and the reflections from the glass structures all around lend it an almost futuristic air.
It's a place well worth a visit, whether for shopping bargains, a good meal, a tour round the BBC (and now, of course, the new Coronation Street set at Granada), a trip back in time at the war museum, even a visit to Old Trafford close by.
To me, who sees an awful lot of cracking stuff at the Lowry theatre, it's like a home from home.

New take on an old story

Friday, November 15, 2013

Most people who know me probably wouldn't think of me as a dance fan, but the truth is it's one of my favourite things to see at the theatre. The genius of how a person can express themselves through movement always amazes me, so tonight's very special performance of Swan Lake by Matthew Bourne's New Adventures company at the Lowry in Salford Quays was right up my street.
I'm not really into classical ballet, which Swan Lake usually is, but rather more contemporary, modern dance, which is what Bourne is renowned for doing. His Swan Lake is usually mistakenly referred to as the "all-male" version (it isn't), but the casting of both the main Swan and the Prince as men puts a welcome new spin on an age-old classic.
It forces you to see the familiar story through new eyes, and the performances were wonderful, as was the set design and the live band and the costumes (although the male swans didn't have much of those!).
Matthew Bourne has also staged performances of Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, The Nutcracker, The Picture of Dorian Gray, even Edward Scissorhands in the past, but 2014's new production will be Lord of the Flies, which I am already booked in to see!

Say hello, wave goodbye (for now)

Thursday, November 14th, 2013

For several years now I have been working with my good friend Eva on making newspapers, and in that time we have grown from acquaintances to work colleagues to proper best mates, almost like brother and sister.
But for the next five weeks Eva is to be seconded to another raft of duties and won't be working as closely with me for that time, and today when I left work I felt sort of sad, almost like she was leaving.
I'll miss her smile, her contrariness, her unique way of looking at life, her undiminishing support and advice, but most of all, I'll miss the camaraderie and the almost unspoken shorthand we have as working partners. Even at my grumpiest and in my darkest moments, she has the ability to lift me, and that is very valuable in a friend.

Bedtime stories and amazing adventures

Wednesday, November 13th, 2013

My ongoing task of sorting through my past and ridding myself of unwanted clutter has reached children's storybooks. Blimey, what a blast from the past!
Asterix, Noddy, Thomas the Tank Engine (why do people call him just "Thomas the Tank"? I've never understood that, he's a train, not a tank), The BFG, Rupert the Bear... the list goes on.
And they are such lovely books, most of them beautifully illustrated and they act like time machines right back to my childhood. Bedtime stories with my dad doing all the funny voices, marveling at the pictures and imagining being in them, playing the story out as if I am in it.
I miss the innocence of being a kid, when the only things that really matter are largely contained within the imagination. Not many children bother themselves with the mundanities of adulthood.
Losing yourself in a good book is one of the best feelings for anyone of any age, and I still do it now. But it really does mean more when you're a kid and the boundaries between reality and fiction are much more indistinct.
So I'll be getting rid of Noddy and Rupert and Asterix with a heavy heart, because losing those childhood stories is like permanently turning my back on parts of my past that I treasure.

A picture of my lunchbox

Tuesday, November 12th, 2013

I ummed and aahed for some time before I decided that yes, I would post a picture of my lunchbox on the worldwide web. It's probably not the lunchbox some of you would prefer, but it's undoubtedly the lunchbox most of you are glad to see.
Anyway, the first thing I do when I get home from work is make my lunch for the next day. I have to do it straight away while I'm in "work mode" otherwise I'd get too relaxed to bother with it. I make a good packed lunch - healthy bread with healthy fillings, fruit such as berries or apple or both, sometimes chopped celery or a piece of cheese (and sometimes, as here, a naughty sausage roll), plus a bag of crisps (today it's Skips - "extra tingly on your tongue!").
I used to go to the shop every day to buy sandwiches, those meal deal things, but the amount of salt and preservatives in those pre-packed sarnies is scary. I see people devouring them every day and wonder why they don't make their own sandwiches like me. It's much more rewarding, and the best thing is you can choose your favourite sandwich fillings all the time - AND you know what's in what you're eating!

Premature publication

Monday, November 11th, 2013

What's this then? No, it's not a bingo card, and neither is it a Tetris-style computer game. It's actually what a newspaper looks like before it's been born.
This is very much a picture to sum up most of my working Mondays - the electronic plan for the newspaper I work on every week. Each oblong is a page, and each colour means something different - white is editorial space (ie, news), yellow is a classified advertisement (ie, motoring or property or recruitment) and blue is a regular "run of paper" advertisement.
It looks crazy, doesn't it, but it makes (almost) complete sense to me. How it gets from this colourful mess to what you buy in the shops is where the real labour lies...

Today is tomorrow's yesterday

Sunday, November 10th, 2013

Put me in a branch of Ikea, and I'll come out the doors with various ingenious means of storage, such as these white beauties. They come as flatpacks but it doesn't take much effort to put them together to make easy and smart boxes for DVDs, CDs or, in this case, magazines.
It's amazing what you manage to collect over the years, and one glance inside our cupboards reveals that there are endless magazines, newspapers, books, folders and documents which all need sorting through and storing properly.
A lot of the stuff I throw away or recycle - things I forgot I had in the first place - while the stuff I want to keep gets boxed up and packed away. The litmus test I have for sorting through stuff is that if I haven't looked at it or thought about it for the last year, it goes. Why do I have it if I don't use it?
Some things you want to keep for sentimental value, but really, not very much. Whole swathes of junk from my school, college and uni days can go. That's not me any more, that me has gone. What matters today is the me from now, and I can't see myself wanting to look at old shorthand exam papers or second drafts of my degree dissertation ever again.
So, while the good stuff goes in the white boxes, much of the past gets thrown out. What is important is today, and tomorrow - yesterday is so old hat.

Return to Deva Victrix

Saturday, November 9th, 2013

A day in Chester today, and what a picturesque city it is. This shot was taken looking down on the street from the clock on the walls. It looks to me like an L S Lowry painting scribbled over by Salvadore Dali.
I have a special connection with Chester, as that was the first place where Gareth and I lived together, for six months, far too long ago for comfort! We lived in a pokey attic flat in Hoole, which had an anti-social neighbour below and a ghastly, unidentifiable smell that emanated from the cavity walls.
Ah, the memories ... ! Mind you, it was better than the student digs I lived in before that, which were below ground and with metal bars on the window. It was a proper flat, trust me, I didn't actually live in an asylum.

Friday night feeling

Friday, November 8th, 2013

Bee-yoo-tiful! What could be more rewarding on a Friday night after a hectic week's work than a chilled glass of white wine? Feet up, heating on, lights low, wine in glass, spending quality time with my loved one (I mean Gareth, not the wine. Then again...)

The beauty under my nose

Thursday, November 7th, 2013

Living in North Wales - or, I suppose, any other beautiful part of the United Kingdom - it's all too easy to overlook the splendour of your surroundings. I live in Llandudno and virtually have a great big bloody mountain in my back garden (the Great Orme); I have the Irish Sea lapping at the sandy shore 30 seconds from my front door; and I have the rolling green hills of the Conwy Valley just minutes away.
But do I see that every day? No. What I see is the drudgery of driving to work, filling up on petrol, nipping to the corner shop for some bread, and putting the rubbish out.
But as I do all of these mundane, everyday things, I forget that I am doing it in such beautiful, often breathtaking natural surroundings. North Wales is an inspiring place, and it is all too easy to ignore that fact by living here.
Today I noticed the sheer amazingness of the fact the ocean was just metres away from my shoes, just along a short cobbled pathway down to the beach near Conwy. Beyond it, the rest of the world, this beautiful planet Earth.
But we don't have to go too far to see a fraction of that beauty, here, in North Wales.

Operation: Central Heating

Wednesday, November 6th, 2013

Brrrrr! We have finally given in and decided it is time to activate the central heating settings!
We've been putting it off for as long as possible, flicking the heating on only every now and then when we want to take the chill off the room, but this week it's been properly cold, so I've had my head in the instruction booklet sussing out how to set up the timer for it to come on (because I always forget).
Only this year, because of the energy companies' price hikes, we've decided to try not having the heating on in the mornings. This both saves money, and encourages you to get up and out of bed rather than stay in the comfortable, warm confines of the sheets.
Well, that's the idea anyway!

A 20th century gunpowder plot

Tuesday, November 5th, 2013

Tonight is Bonfire Night, when we celebrate the failure of a 17th century Catholic soldier to blow up Parliament. We mark this occasion by burning an effigy of Guy Fawkes. Never quite sure whether that means we like ol' Guido or not.
Usually I'd be out enjoying the flashes and bangs with the best of them, but tonight was the press night for the latest play at Clwyd Theatr Cymru in Mold, Copenhagen by Michael Frayn, so we were there instead. While the skies were filled with colour outside, inside the debate at the heart of Frayn's intense play was more about the brilliant white flash of atomic fission than the gunpowder plot.
The view over the mountains from the bar at Clwyd Theatr Cymru is stunning, and provided an ideal place to watch the fireworks over Mold before the play began. This image of the bar reflected in the rain-dappled windows kind of summed up how reflective the play leaves you feeling.

Not so VIP Parking

Monday, November 4th, 2013

This has been bugging me for months. At work the sales department have been given this exclusive VIP Parking spot in the car park for whoever is "lucky" enough to be awarded Salesperson of the Month.
Money changed hands in order to pay for the extravagant signage, and I believe someone was even employed to shave down the corners of the magnificent amber emblem because the edges were too sharp.
The thing is, I've never seen a single car parked there because the space is always taken up by the grit bins, traffic cones, wire cages and recycling containers you see here.
I have to ask whether the VIP Parking signage was a well-advised item of expenditure in these straitened times, especially as whoever the Salesperson of the Month is must feel mightily aggrieved at having to park in the main car park with all the other plebs.

Time to tidy my drawers

Sunday, November 3rd, 2013

Look at this. Just look at it. It's my cutlery drawer. I'm pretty sure most people's cutlery drawers are as bad, if not worse, than this, but it's time to get this one sorted.
So many different knives and forks and spoons of differing designs and shapes that don't match, items I never needed and never use (a battery-operated Pot Noodle fork?) and wooden spoons and spatulas that just don't fit the space allocated to them.
There's also a stack of never-used-but-kept-just-in-case plastic knives and forks. Come on, we all have them. It's time for a clear-out.

A drop of middle-aged vitriol please

Saturday, November 2nd, 2013

There's an exhibition of craftwork on at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester at the moment which is largely made up of jewellery and glassware which doesn't really interest me, but there was one exhibit that I really loved.
Vinegar and Brown Paper is the creative name for artist Anthony Poplar, who designs and etches these simple but clever laboratory bottles, labelling them "Creative Juices" or "Sarcastic Venom" or "Acidic Wit" etc. I saw these and just thought they were so amusing, such a simple but clever idea.
Apparently Anthony ditched an award-winning career in advertising when he reached the "end of his creative tether" and indulged his artistic side instead, becoming a writer, designer and stay-at-home dad. How inspiring!
I considered buying a couple or three of the jars until I noticed they were £25 a pop, which is a good income for him but doesn't really do justice to my own cash flow! I do love them though.

Stag's head at the Molly House

Friday, November 1st, 2013

The best bar in Manchester is The Molly House on Richmond Street, a place not easy to find or particularly well-known. But it attracts the coolest clientele - creatives, media types, artists, fashionistas... and me!
It's not pretentious, but it is a cut above your average inner-city boozer.
Downstairs there is the more pub-like bar where they have European newspapers to peruse, as well as various guest ales and tapas dishes to try.
Upstairs they have the more sophisticated "bordello" bar where the seating is scant, but it needs to be to cram in the amount of people who turn up there of a Friday and Saturday night. They do great cocktails, there are some great Beartown guest ales, and there's a stag's head on the wall. What more could you ask for?
Unisex loos? Yep, got them too!