November 2023

November 30, 2023

Persevered with the Hubspot integration and finally worked out why it wasn’t filtering on the Membership field. It’s too trivial to go into but it was satisfying to resolve it. I’m enjoying the Hubspot work for the intellectual challenge of it. It’s been awhile since I’ve had anything remotely techy to sink my teeth into.

Lyra was home for a few hours before heading over to Loki’s for dinner. Adam was out for the evening, so I was on my own. Worked until about 7pm then it was leftovers in front of the telly (A Time to Kill with Matthew McConaughey).  The glamour…

The death of Shane McGowan of the Pogues was reported today. Another sad but not unexpected death. He lived hard, that one…

November 29, 2023

Had a technical issue with the purpose economy site that took up a chunk of the day and put in a stretch on the Hubspot integration for the beauty site. I’m getting a few solid hours in at the end of the week and learning new stuff as well.

I finally got my “zap” working (the bit of code that automatically writes to Hubspot when someone signs up to Memberpress). The next challenge is producing filtered lists by membership type. It’s not rocket science but is new to me, and there are a couple of issues I still can’t get past.

Adam was out at the football this evening. Lyra wanted amatriciana pasta for dinner, so I popped out for the necessary ingredients while the pasta water came to a boil and whipped that up.

Watched The Hours, which I thought would be good for her English coursework as she’s doing Mrs Dalloway. Lyra didn’t like the film much at all. I rated it more than she did, but agree that for such a star-studded film, beautifully filmed, and with a haunting soundtrack, it manages to be less than the sum of its parts.

November 28, 2023

Drove to the Heath with Adam first thing and had a quick pond swim while he did his walk with Doron. The water is now 7°C. It was a nice bright morning though and I wasn’t as cold afterwards as on Sunday.

Lyra went on an ice skating trip to Somerset House today, a privilege granted to the top fifteen students in her year. She hasn’t been on ice skates since she dropped her figure skating classes, but it came back to her quickly enough.

She got chatting with another girl on the trip whose cat has just had a litter of kittens. I’ve agreed that once Cleo was settled we could look at getting another cat, and the vet advised a kitten rather than an adult cat would work best. So that might happen around Christmas time…!

Finished The Bee Sting before starting work. It confirmed my opinion that it’s definitely the better book. Such a strong list this year – most of the books are better than almost anything on the last two years.

Had a long chat with Nova in the afternoon. She’s doing well and enjoying her course more, which is good to hear. Dinner was a potato green bean curry with a rice lentil pilaf, both recipes from my Vij’s cookbook. He employs different techniques to those I’ve learnt (mainly from Madhur Jaffrey) so that’s fun. Watched an episode of Friends with Lyra and then carried on with The Crown after she left us.

November 27, 2023

Monday is now laundry day, did four loads not least because I’m being careful not to overload the machine. Hung a couple of things out on the terrace to dry, but need to rely on the dryer now that there is nowhere inside to hang clothes.

Lyra was out at some sort of experimental jazz concert in Dalston with Loki’s mum. Celeriac soup and toast for dinner.

Heard from Carol and Scott this evening – they are planning to visit us in the spring, which is exciting!

November 26, 2023

We managed our pond swim this morning. It was cold as fuck, and we both had chattering teeth on the walk back. Our former neighbour Alex was on the road ahead of us. We had no desire to talk to him and managed to use the curve of the road to stay out of site. I think he may have spotted us at the top of the hill putting his cockapoo back on its lead, but don’t suppose he was keen to talk to us either.

Adam headed over to see his mum. I stopped in and read like the wind, as the Booker announcement is tonight. I wasn’t going to finish my sixth novel, but got close enough to decide that The Bee Sting was certainly the best book.

Watched the ceremony in a Youtube live stream. Prophet Song took it, which was my second choice. It’s certainly a novel that sticks with you afterwards.  

November 25, 2023

We were going to swim in the Pond this morning but ended up doing some necessary banking in Muswell Hill instead as well as shopping for dinner. Lyra and Loki were home when we got back, and we had kimchi grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. They are off this evening to a costume party as Mr & Mrs Fantastic Fox.

 Had Ava’s parents Cathy and Adrian round for dinner. I made a mushroom Guinness stew and mash with a pear frangipane tart for dessert. They are easy company and we are very much on the same page politically so there was no shortage of conversation. To bed about 1am.

November 24, 2023

Opted for a leisurely start this morning. The Marriott has a pool and gym facilities etc. and Adam had thought he might take advantage of them, but in the event we preferred lounging around in our room.

Packed up and out at 11am. Walked to the Neue art gallery, which is only five minutes away and the main reason for choosing this hotel. It has been closed for renovations for some time and I hadn’t been since a visit with baby Nova, which was not an ideal viewing experience.

After coffee and a muffin we checked out the exhibits: Judit Reigl, an exhibition that merged the national art collections of East and West Germany called Extreme Tension, and one of Gerhard Richter. He is either taking his art in an entirely new direction, or I had a very different idea of what he was about.

Headed back to Friedrichstrasse to see the Berlin Wall panorama. Interesting enough, though I wouldn’t pay to see it twice.

Got back to the hotel just time to collect our bags and grab a taxi to the airport. There was a terribly long queue for the bag inspection and we had lots of time to watch the proceedings. Managed to avoid the guy who was carefully examining individual toiletries.

The flight was smooth, as was the commute in London: DLR, northern line until the final leg where we waited 20 minutes at Archway for a bus to Crouch End. There was a great crowd including Basil, who Adam caught up with on the trip.

Lyra was over at Loki’s for the evening. We fixed some food, watched a bit of telly and headed to bed. I was tired and thought I might save the unpacking until tomorrow, but couldn’t do it in the end.

November 23, 2023

Had a very brief breakfast with Adam – a couple more of those little sandwiches to stand me up for the day. I did a couple of hours work before heading out, then packed up and left my bags with reception. The weather was miserable, slightly less cold maybe but gray and wet, and the wind has picked up something fierce.

Caught the U-bahn to Friedrichstrasse near Checkpoint Charlie and visited the Black Box Museum, which is all about the Berlin Wall. It finally drove home to me that the wall had completely encircled West Berlin and East Germans were trying to break in to West Berlin not break out of East Berlin.

Walked up Wilhelmstrasse, which hosted quite the collection of former Nazi headquarters based on the information signs. Through the Holocaust memorial, the Brandenburg gate (currently under wraps) and along Unter den Linden. Stopped a Neue Wache, which is always moving, and currently thick with Remembrance Day wreaths.

At Museuminsel I visited the Alte Gallery to see the Friedrichs. Unfortunately it’s 250 years since his birth or something and they’ve loaned many of the paintings out to museums round the world. There were still a few to enjoy and more time to look at the Schinkels and contemplate how he doesn’t hold a candle to Friedrich.

Met Adam at the hotel and headed straight back to the station to catch a train to a different hotel for our final night – a Marriott just south of the Tiergarten. It was a bit of a hike with our bags from the station, but we found it alright.

We had a nice, big room, conventionally and tastefully furnished. Quite the counterpoint to the previous place. Ordered a beer and some nuts hung out until it was time to go for dinner.

We’d booked a place called Nobelhart & Schmutzig which had caught my eye. It seemed a bit pricey but I was intrigued and it was relatively close to the hotel. Their mission is to reinvent German cuisine from first principles, not based on French foundations. Everything was hyper-local and made with the greatest attention to detail.

The diners were arranged around a long rectangular counter around the kitchen where fifteen people were busy at work. We opted not to take up the wine pairing, both for budget reasons and because it never ends well. The menu:

Naked oats/Coriander seeds/Honey

Brotzeit with rye sourdough bread

Leek/Quince

Celeriac/Egg

Kale/Parsley

Duck/Plums

Topfenknodel/Raspberry

Quince/Brown butter

Pear/Rosemary

 None of that gave any indication what the dishes were actually like. The first item was a warm beverage, and the pear/rosemary at the end was a little jellied sweet. Overall, the portions were generous and everything completely delicious.

November 22, 2023

What a gorgeous morning… brilliant blue sky and the Spree as still as glass reflecting the Kreuzberg waterfront. Downstairs for an early breakfast, before the conference start at 8am. Adam wasn’t eating as he doesn’t want his stomach thing to flare up, but I put away a couple of ham and cheese rye rolls.

Spent an hour exploring the East Side Gallery, which is right next to the hotel. This area is so different from my previous visit. It was all squats in transport containers, techno clubs, open fires, rubbish sculptures. Berlin seems to have lost nearly all of that vibe…

Aimed myself at the Fernseturm and made my way to Alexanderplatz on foot. Everything is new and polished, and there is a much greater presence of international shops like TK Maxx, Zara etc. It was getting on for lunch, and I remembered a scruffy little stretch of cafés by the river behind the cathedral, where you could buy a beer and sit on the grass. I was amazed to find it still there, and pretty much unchanged.

Ordered weisswurst and a half litre of beer. Sat outside despite the cold, enjoying the view of the cathedral through the trees. Strolled into Mitte and did a bit of browsing in the shops, buying myself a pair of trousers.

Back to the hotel for the 5:30 drinks reception. Adam was in full swing. He’s meant to be compèring for the company that is organising the conference, but they are keeping a very low profile and there seems to be a general feeling Junxion is in charge. Good for profile I guess as long as things goes well.

Dinner was a buffet, and the food pretty nice. Had a couple of glasses of red and stayed until about 8:30 then up to the room left Adam holding forth.

November 21, 2023

Left at 7am for City Airport – my first time flying from it. There were problems with the DLR and we ended up calling an Uber at Finsbury Park. Despite the morning traffic we arrived in good time. Just as well, as I was triggering alarms at every stage – extra bag search, shoe removal, special machine where they can scan your whole body…

The flight was bumpy without being actively unpleasant. Taxied to our hotel in the outer reaches of Friedrichshain on the river. It’s a weird pink rock-music-themed place. These zany German hotels…😉

Walked across the water to Kreuzberg for some lunch. Ended up in a vegan Japanese place for ramen – surprisingly delicious. Adam headed back to the hotel to work and set out on a long walk afterwards. Headed south and east, then through a long stretch of Gorlitzer Park.

It seemed to be getting dark very early, until I worked out that my watch hadn’t forwarded to local time. It meant I didn’t have much down time before heading out again to the Swans gig at Admiralspalast on Friedrichstrasse.

There was a lone guy on stage surrounded by a ton of equipment, making a continuous, interminable, instrumental racket. They hadn’t said anything about a backup band, and I was just wondering if this was the start of Swans set, but eventually he stopped, bowed to a smattering of applause and sloped off.

Within ten minutes Swans took to the stage. There were six of them – singer/guitarist Michael Gira, a bass player, a drummer, a second drummer/keyboard player, another keyboard player, and the sixth guy (I can’t recall what he did, but think he swapped around).

The sheer wall of sound was unlike anything I’d experienced. At one point, both drummers were bashing away furiously, and I couldn’t distinguish drumming from the overall noise. I’d listened to the album a few times so recognised some songs, but the recorded version is much quieter and acoustic than tonight’s performance. I was glad that I’d gone to the trouble of tracking down earplugs earlier today.

Michael Gira is a mesmerizing performer, waving his arms, conducting, shaking his hands outstretched to the sky like a gospel prophet, dancing like a demented puppet. A very entertaining couple of hours.

November 20, 2023

Monday has become laundry day – I did four loads in the end, what with extra bedding and towels from having guests. Made a new batch of kombucha to do its first ferment while we’re away and other than that I did client work. A technical article for the engineers, some Hubspot integration for the beauty group, more amends to the Call to Purpose page.

I was still working when Adam got in around 8pm. I hadn’t thought about dinner but pulled together a few random things and made another yet another roast broccoli/brussels salad, with roast slices of aubergine, done with chorizo, kale and red onion, topped with mozzarella. Bit of a mixed bag but tasty.

Watched an episode of Lilyhammer. The premise is a NY mafioso is sent to witness protection in rural Norway. I think it was one of Netflix’s first shows. Lyra was eating at Loki’s mum who has a rare day off from touring but was back by 10pm. Loki informs me that Swans are playing a gig in Berlin while we’re there. I may look into that… Packing and to bed…

November 19, 2023

Drove to Highgate first thing for a swim in the ponds. The temperature is 8°C – lovely and cold. It was a beautiful day. The water was thick with fallen leaves that gently parted as you swam. Found an interesting one with a seed pod attached…

Dropped a couple of bits at the consignment store – some plates we don’t have space for and the microscope. They haven’t sold our mirror as yet, but seemed quite excited about the plates.

Popped in on the Crouch End open studio exhibition in the library. It’s a very nice library actually – I need to get my card transferred to this branch.

Drove over to visit Beulah late afternoon. She seems pretty well, though she had another tumble. This time she tipped backwards when she was already on the ground so it wasn’t  too bad. She’s not using her new stick as much as she should, though wouldn’t have helped in this instance.

Leftovers for dinner. Lyra and I finished the Japanese curry and Adam had the Moroccan soup. Finished watching Loki’s mum’s TV show, which we all quite enjoyed.

November 18, 2023

I thought we might go swimming this morning before our guests were up but the weather was foul. Two pots of coffee and a four-person assault on the cryptic crossword before we headed out for brunch.

Beam was rammed, so we tried a nearby place called Mélange. The food was nice enough, but the offering was confused – clashing décor, random elements on the plate, over-complicated menu. Mélange indeed…

Adam drove Ben and Michaela to Finsbury Park to start their journey home to Somerset. We watched Murmur of the Heart when he got back. Pretty good film, not my favourite of the three Louis Malle’s I’ve watched thus far.

Popped out to buy a few essentials and ended up having a glass of wine and little sampling of tortellini in a local wine bar. I wasn’t hungry, but Lyra and Loki were coming back to hang with us and have dinner, so I rustled up another broccoli/brussels salad, couscous pilaf and grilled halloumi for dinner.  

Watched Fargo afterwards, which went down well with everybody.

November 17, 2023

No chance I was going swimming this morning, what with work and a Thanksgiving dinner on the cards. I used my lunch break to do the shopping, hitting the veggie shop, supermarket and fishmongers.

Thinking to save time I bought some pre-rolled shortcrust pastry. What a total fiasco. It came in a rectangular sheet and wasn’t large enough for my pie tin, so I gathered it together and re-rolled it in a circle. Fortunately, I pre-baked the crust because when I opened the oven, the pastry had contracted to a thick little disc in the centre of the pie tin. I hate to think what would have happened if I’d filled the tin with pumpkin pie filling.

Threw together a batch of my fail-proof paté brisée, (which I should have done in the first place). The resulting pie looked great. Did a bit more dinner prep then got back to work.

Lyra popped home for a bit after school before heading out again. Seeing She’s seeing Stereolab with Loki and his dad. Apparently Stewart used to date the lead singer or something…

Adam down around 5:30 to help. I asked him to get the guest room ready, which hadn’t yet got to it when Ben & Michaela arrived. I put her to work instead and before long we were enjoying cocktails and blini with smoked salmon.

Dinner was roast salmon glazed with cranberry jelly, broccoli and brussels sprouts with cranberry agrodolce, and a big pan of roast veg. Pumpkin pie for dessert plus chocolates. It all worked well aside from the brussels sprouts dish being a bit too close flavorwise to the salmon.

Ben & Lu joined us for the meal as well and it was a good evening. They headed off relatively early and we were all in bed before midnight.

November 16, 2023

Adam went into the office. He doesn’t usually do that on a Thursday, but wanted to meet up with some B Corp person who is in town…

 Richard and Rachel have put an offer in on a house in Henley. Previously, they were in line to buy a house in Sevenoaks that fell through, so fingers crossed for this one. I’ll miss having them in London, but Henley is nice to visit and a good for walking…

November 15, 2023

Pretty nice day today, which makes a change. Adam was feeling poorly (one of his stomach episodes) but managed to pull himself together and head off to a leadership event in the city.

I had a visit to the dental hygienist to look forward to. I was dreading it as haven’t been in about five years, but apparently my teeth are remarkably clean and largely plaque free — an unexpected happy surprise.

Did a bit of shopping then headed home where I put in a good chunk of work. Mainly focused on the engineering website, where I have a backlog of things to do. There’s an art to balancing the amount of work I do to the size/budget of the client. If I flew at it and did everything on their list, they would choke on the size of the invoice. Plus I wouldn’t be available enough to my other clients.

Kitty has a new, annoying trick for the office. She sneaks onto the futon behind my shoulder, then surprises me with a great leap onto my slippery desk. She skids into, then pads across my keyboard, messing up whatever I’m in the middle of. The little pest just loves doing that and has repeated it three times today already…

November 14, 2023

Happy birthday, Wade! After an initially bright start the rain resumed normal service, treating us to a little electrical storm just in time for my dental appointment. Even with my long raincoat, my jeans and trainers were soaked by the time I arrived.

My first visit to dentist since they kicked me off the NHS roster post-covid. (I was so annoyed about that, but I guess they don’t have as many patients or something because they let me back on again…)

My usual dentist is no longer doing NHS work but the new guy Ray seems very personable. He checked me over, took a couple of x-rays, then talked about “my ambitions for my teeth”.

My main ambition is to sort out the little chip in my front tooth. Apparently he can repair that with dental cement but suggested whitening my teeth first so that they more closely match my front cap before doing the repair. A nice enough idea but I imagine what will happen is whitening the teeth will the cap look worse and I’ll end up replacing that as well.

Adam’s book group round ours this evening. I took Lyra out for sushi and then to the cinema to see How to Have Sex. What a depressing film. Lyra was in tears at the end, and I got so riled up I was telling the protagonist what (not) to do, to Lyra’s embarrassment.

As it happens, Chris from Adam’s book group knows the woman who directed the film and his daughter Matty has a small part in it.

November 13, 2023

Rain, rain, rain… Had a whole day to myself as Adam headed off early and is out for dinner as well. Lyra is going to an Ichiko Aoba and Weyes Blood gig at the Hammersmith Apollo with Ava, and then staying over at hers, as it’s close to both the gig and school tomorrow morning.

Did five loads of laundry. I’ll never wash more than three big towels at a time and never with anything else…

Lyra popped back briefly to grab some clothes and eat before heading out. Went for a late afternoon walk before I lost all the light. It was pretty dark by the time I got to Ally Pally, and I cut it shorter than I would have liked.

Popped across the road to see Anatomy of a Fall, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes this year. Excellent, gripping courtroom drama. It’s wonderful having seven cinema screens less than five minutes from the front door…:-)

November 12, 2023

Felt a little muzzy when I woke but it soon passed. Adam headed off to give blood in Golders Green and I did the shopping and prep for bagel brunch with Beulah, Doron and Antonia. Turns out Antonia couldn’t make it… she fell down a flight of stairs on Friday night and has messed up her back.

Doron collected Beulah and brought her home afterwards, and it was altogether an improvement on her previous visit. She actually asked me if I’d repainted the living room, as the colour is so much nicer now…

Loki’s dad gave me a Louis Malle box set the other day, and I watched the second film from it – Au Revoir, Les Enfants – which I haven’t seen since it came out. So moving… The first one I watched was Mailou en Mai, also excellent, but a much lighter offering, despite dealing with a family coming together following the death of the matriarch.

 Loki came round for dinner – Japanese tofu curry and rice. Spent the evening reading my novel – Prophet Song by Paul Lynch. I need to pick up the pace of my reading, the Booker is announced in two weeks…

November 11, 2023

Glorious sunshine for a change. Had our array of morning bevvies, then drove to Highgate and walked down the private road to our respective ponds. The temperature is dropping fast now and the water was only 9.5°C. Practically perfect for me – properly cold but it’s no trouble swimming two laps.

Saw Jill in the change room – Richard was electrocuted at work yesterday by a dodgy plug socket. He’s a barrister, so not the kind of risk you’d expect to face at work. He went straight to A&E for an ECG and fortunately everything seems to be fine.

Did some banking/shopping in Muswell Hill – attempted banking is more accurate. We want to cash a couple of ISAs early to pay down the mortgage, but it turns out we need hard copies of the certificates from when we set them up last April.

Dinner at Ben and Lu’s tonight. They are close enough to walk in about twenty minutes – the same distance they were from us when we lived in Highgate. An excellent meal, as always – steamed clams, followed by sea bream, polenta and kale, a chocolate cognac cake, lots of excellent wine and some calvados.

Left about 12:30, walking part way then catching a bus that dropped us at the front door. That is a pretty sweet feature of this place – that climb up the hill from the tube was the last thing I felt like doing at the end of an evening out…

November 10, 2023

Didn’t go for a swim in the pond as I was planning to play tennis with Millie this morning, but we were rained out. Lyra forgot her packed lunch – she was stressing out about it, so Adam decided to deliver it for her. Unlike most of her friends, she has a full day of classes on Fridays, plus the history test today.

Once the rain let up, I turned off my computer and went for a long walk – through Priory Park to Ally Pally, then down and home along Park Road. It’s becoming my default walk. Popped into a couple of shops I hadn’t visited and made small purchases. It’s my ambition to buy something from every feasible shop and eat at all but the scariest looking food outlets.

Dinner out at a restaurant called Through the Woods about five minutes’ walk from the house. One of those places where they just bring the food (like Del Parc). It’s essentially a supper club – they are only open three evenings a week, seat twenty covers and serve a fixed menu. Tonight’s offering was:

Spelt sourdough & sour cream butter
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Jerusalem artichoke broth & Isle of Mull cheddar
`~
Kohlrabi, apple & walnut
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New season squash, chard & girolles
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Chicken ballotine, celeriac & autumn truffle
or
Mushroom pie, celeriac & autumn truffle
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Hasselback potatoes
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Chocolate, espresso & hazelnut
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Baron Bigod & warm rye bread

 Very satisfying evening out – home and to bed about 11pm.

November 9, 2023

Lyra woke with a bad migraine, and her late start scuppered my morning swim plans. Adam was around until noon and then headed into town for meetings and some kind of beer drinking work event. That’s his story…😉

Made a big pot of harira for dinner – it’s the kind of thing both Lyra and I love to eat. She has a history test tomorrow so we didn’t hang out.

I opted for The Shinjuku Incident for this evening’s entertainment – I enjoy a good Jackie Chan film. This one was atypical – not much humour or martial arts, and quite dark. Set in Japan it focussed on illegal immigration, exploitation and racism.

November 8, 2023

It’s pretty nasty out there this morning. I’d thought I might go for a walk first thing, but the weather put me off. Got Lyra sorted for school, did some house stuff, work stuff, the usual…

 Finished my audiobook of Agnes Grey, which I really enjoyed. That Anne Bronte may be the best of the bunch.

 Loki came round for dinner – spinach potato curry, raita, rice. Ate at the table, which made a nice change. Adam headed off to McCafferty’s pub to watch the Arsenal v Seville and I started watching Drive with Ryan Gosling. Stopped at 10pm to drive Loki home to Stoke Newington.  

November 7, 2023

Went for a pond swim this morning while Adam and Doron did their Heath walk. It was a lovely bright morning but very crisp. I was surprised that the water temperature was still 11°C. It felt colder, with that icy knife across the neck feeling. Otherwise experience is entirely positive.

Returned to find our parking space had been nabbed. The fence builders are back and the house next door is putting up scaffolding to fix one of their windows as well. Despite five guys being on site for a number of hours, nothing appears to happened.

Had a long call with Nova, who is doing well and enjoying her Bristol life and her studies. Took Cleo to the vet for a follow-up appointment. I tried a different route, which was good for building my mental map of how things connect.

The vet was euthanising a dog in the office, so she examined Cleo in the waiting room. She was pleased with the substantial weight gain and says that her belly feels fine. (There was  something in her blood test that suggested there might be an issue.)

I asked about getting another cat, and apparently it’s fine so long as we get a kitten of either sex. I’d prefer a girl to avoid spraying issues. We’ll keep our ears out…

There was just time when I got home to change and spruce up a bit to go to the theatre with Antonia. She’d bought tickets to see a friend of hers in To Have and to Hold at the Hampstead but Doron wasn’t able to come.

The play was pretty good. Alun Armstrong (a British character actor who’s always turning up in things) was the main guy. Had a drink with a couple of Antonia’s friends afterwards. Got in about 11pm – Adam and Lyra were already in bed.

November 6, 2023

Welcome to the working week… Not that I got much work done… I had a meeting first thing, then switched to housework mode, seeking out a washing machine repair person. Found a promising sounding guy who turned up mid-afternoon.

It turns out that a bundle of bedding and towels got tangled into a great boulder and banged around to the extent that it knocked a pipe inside the machine out of position. He was able to fix it pretty quickly, but it seemed to take an age to get the front facing back on the machine.

It was already dark by the time I headed to the shops. Another month or so of this and the days will start lengthening again. Cauliflower sweet potato tacos for dinner, after a lengthy search to find the recipe as I haven’t made it in a while. That one definitely needs to be on tenmorebites.

Went for an after dinner walk with Adam. Stopped in at McCafferty’s pub on the home stretch for a pint and to watch the end of the Chelsea-Tottenham match. We’re in the heart of Tottenham country here, and Adam kept his joy under wraps as Tottenham crumbled at the end and allowed Chelsea three late goals.

November 5, 2023

Went for a pond swim first thing. Back home for a coffee and a bit of breakfast, then collected the furniture, which we managed to do it in one trip. It looks pretty good in situ ­–especially the piece on the second floor, which could have been made for the space.

Adam headed off to visit his mum, and I went to the allotment to meet Lawrence. He’d asked if I could come help shift some manure, which I was happy enough to do. He didn’t mention that the manure was actually at a city farm in Hendon.

It turned out to be closed, but we hopped the fence with a stack of rubble bags and trespassed our way a great mountain of manure at the far edge of the site. What with all the rain we’ve had, it was in the middle of massive squelchy, oozy puddle that required us to drag and position wooden palettes as a sort of bridge so we could reach it.

It was tricky balancing and shovelling wet manure into bags then lugging them to firm ground, then hauling the bags back to the fence. The fence was much harder to climb from the inside, and then each bag had to be shlepped to the car. Back at the allotments it took four uphill wheelbarrow trips each to deliver our bounty to our site.

I was pretty knackered when I got home. Made a chicken curry with tamarind and coconut milk for dinner, the dozed on the sofa until it was time for bed.

While we were home watching telly on Saturday night, Lyra was having a beer with Robert Plant backstage at the Royal Festival Hall. Robert fucking Plant…!

November 4, 2023

Woke early and headed downstairs to let Adam have a lie in – not that he slept that late in the end. Just as well, as we were meeting our friend Rob D from Victoria in Soho for lunch and the theatre.

Popped into Oliver Bonas on our way to look at the prospective furniture. Adam negotiated a generous discount if we take two cabinets, so that’s what we’re going to do.

Arriving in Soho, Adam realised that he’d forgotten his glasses. He now wears glasses on top of his contacts to see longer distance and for driving. It’s an alternative approach to bi-focals, especially as he wants to continue wearing contacts. This forgetting of the glasses is becoming a recurring theme – it happens every few days. He ended up going to an optician’s and ordering another pair while I went ahead to find Rob at Maresco.

Great to see him again – it’s been a few years. Within a few minutes I noticed that he had a pronounced tremor in one arm and difficulty using that hand. He has developed a neurological disorder that affects the leg on that side as well. It’s not Parkinsons or MS, which is a good thing. It’s likely linked to stress, which Rob has struggled with.

After lunch, we went on to see Dear England, about Gareth Southgate’s tenure as England football. I thought it was brilliant and was on my feet the minute it ended. It seems to me that standing ovations are more frequent than they used to be, but I don’t stand unless something is really special.

Had a quiet drink afterwards in a place at the top of Dean Street. Nothing special, but it fit the bill. Home by 7pm. Lyra was out at a Burt Jansch tribute event which Loki’s dad was compering. We weren’t hungry enough for dinner – whisky, a bowl of nuts and watched The Client, an 80s legal drama with Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones.

November 3, 2023

Pretty tired this morning… the cat was a super pest in the night. We usually close her out of our room, but she was hiding under the bed when I returned from mopping and by the time I noticed I was half asleep and decided to let her stay. 

Had a closer look at the washing machine but can’t see anything I’m able to fix. There isn’t a hose loose at the back or anything. I’m still mopping and sponging – I don’t know there’s anything else I can do. There’s definitely water beneath the machine I can’t get to. Just hope it doesn’t soak through the floor too much… 

Spotted a cabinet in Oliver Bonas that I liked the look of. I measured things up when I got home and it would be perfect for the first floor landing. A place to store the overflow of toiletries and some towels. 

For dinner, Lyra and I popped across the road for a kebab, which we shared while finishing the film. Wrapped up just in time to watch the Ally Pally fireworks from our bedroom, which were pretty impressive.

Opted for an early night and was long asleep by the time Adam returned from Cornwall at 1am…

November 2, 2023

Horrible weather this morning… Jersey is taking the worst of it, but things are pretty bad in Cornwall where Adam staying.

It was a pretty hectic morning round here. Alex the electrician arrived at 8am on the dot to replace more LED lights. After a consult about the living room, where we have a special Lumos system that is likely to require a transformer to work with LEDs, I decided to hold off on changing those until we have a chance to speak to some of the neighbours who may have done it already.  

 Then the cleaners turned up at 10am. They started downstairs and were able to sort out the office and Lyra’s room once Alex had departed. So now we have LEDs in the kitchen, all bathrooms and the second floor, with the living room and top floor still to do.

 On my pop to the shops, I impulse purchased a beautiful pair of handmade, navy leather clogs. It will be good to have something easy to slip on to go to the patio or out to the lock-up. A pair of crocs or slippers would have sufficed, but these definitely spark some joy.

 Ava came round for tteokboki this evening. Watched the first half of An American Werewolf in London while we ate. Those special effects have stood up surprisingly well. I’ve been meaning to invite Ava’s parents round for a meal, and texted her dad Adrian after she left. In the course of our conversation, he mentioned that Flying Lotus gig had been cancelled this evening due to weather, and that the main guy was Alice Coltrane’s nephew. I’d heard of John Coltrane of course, but had no idea that his wife Alice was a successful jazz musician in her own right… 

I went upstairs to put some laundry in the dryer and discovered the washing machine had flooded. Half an hour spent mopping the carpet, but there’s not much I can do about the water under the machine itself…:-(

November 1, 2023

Rabbits! Called Adam to wish him well. He’s on stage today, part of a panel that includes Will Hutton. Pretty heady stuff and I’m proud of him…

Returned to earth with a thump a few minutes later when he called to inform me that he’d packed my blue trousers for the event, and to insinuate that it was my fault because I must have left them on the bed next to his packing.

I hadn’t done that, not least because I don’t own blue trousers. And anyway the offending pair were size 36” men’s suit trousers. Adam is sharing a closet with his friend Mark so it shouldn’t have been difficult to work out whose trousers he’d put on… numpty…

Did my invoicing, not that there was so much to do and the invoices I could issue were on the light side. Work just hasn’t been a focus for months now…

Lyra was at Loki’s for the evening, so I made a pot of tomato soup for tomorrow’s lunch and fixed a snack plate for dinner. Watched an utterly pointless film called The Little Things.

What a waste of time – it wasn’t even enjoyably bad. Decent cast – Denzel Washington, Remi Malik and Jared Leto as the suspect. Leto’s acting is always so bad, it’s like he’s the Eddy the Eagle of the movie industry. To bed after midnight.