Seb Palmer

We have our pal Patrick stopping over with us. Antonio is away in Spain for several weeks.

Last night, after a beer and a wee dram o’ brandy, I went to bed around 7.30 pm. I’m typing this at roughly 7.30 am.

I used to have a lot of problems around sleeping. These days? Less so. I did have a wakeful spell around 11-12 pm. So I read some Betjeman…

Several chapters on old churches did the trick! Calming my troubled mind, and getting me back off to sleep.

The small but regular consumption of booze is, potentially, a worrying development. I can’t claim to be tee-total any more. And, although I’m currently ‘getting away with it’, I don’t think it’s a good or sustainable development.

It seems my mind and body chemistry is so volatile nowadays that I must of necessity adopt almost monkish levels of restraint and abnegation.

To promote calm, I’ve had more of my affirmation cue-cards printed. Indeed, I intend to gift a few sets this Yuletide.

I have a thing for the colour green. And I love the albums featured in this post.

The cover art and design perfectly complement, to my mind, ears and eyes, the music.

These albums sound as beautiful as they look.

What a great time for music and graphic design.

If I can, I’d like to have decent life size (i.e. record cover sized) prints of these and other similar albums covers adorning our walls.

Needed to finish this polishing malarkey.

With these bits cleaned and polished we now have three such candlesticks.

Teresa put the ol’ faithful Bach CD on. Gorgeous! I cooked us an omelette lunch. It’s been sheer bliss having Teresa off work at home with me, for the last two weeks.

We looked at and talked about the art studio model, together. Teresa had various comments on it. We’ll need to agree a few things, and work out the budget/costing of raw materials.

It’s hard work, cleaning silver! I’ve just finished two candlesticks. I still need to do the little doodads that actually hold the candles.

In the above pic they’re out, awaiting cleaning/polishing. Below, they’re temporarily in place, altho’ still dirty.

Even as they are above – i.e. not quite finished – the candlesticks are massively better than they were a couple of days ago. They’ve gone from grim and sad looking, to rather lovely.

Well, another one joins the jam session in the sky.

Roy Haynes died yesterday, Nov’ 12th, 2024, at the ripe old age of 99!

His resume is a who’s who of jazz, and even extends to pop, soul, r’n’b, etc. He’s on countless classic recordings, with the world’s greatest singers and musicians.

Usually I get those East European car wash guys to douche Flo’. But I can’t afford it now (never really can, truth be told). So I did it mice elf. Not up to their standards. But it’ll do for now. And it was lovely n’ sunny whilst I was working.

I’m also attempting clean up a couple of our (three in total) nice silver plate candlesticks.

I bought some silver cleaning stuff from Boyes. But, of course, I cannae find it.

I’m totally wiped out by exhaustion. Which is fairly normal for me. We’ve returned Roxy’s little kitten. Bit of a shame, I s’pose? But it wasn’t working out.

The several days of trying to entice him out of the floor/ceiling void took its toll on me. And I’ve now got a redundant net-on-a-pole – Teresa caught him before it arrived – coming from Amazon! Well, never mind. I’m sure it’ll have other uses? Or I can return it.

I’m due to work later. And I’m keen to get another earlier shift, if poss’. It’s almost all I do at present, really. I’ve just got no mojo. Or, less melodramatically, very little.

Some time later…

Today’s work turned out to be mostly in some very picturesque villages, towards Bedford. And it was a very lovely clear bright sunny afternoon.

I passed several churches I simply must visit. Including one in either Upper or Lower Dean. I forget which, now. And, of course, the two pictured above.

Now I’m back home, in bed. I love going to bed early! Before turning in we watched a bunch of episodes of Rising Damp. Very funny! But Teresa wanted to watch just one more…

Whilst I enjoyed the other episodes, this one was decidedly not the right choice for me, right now! So I bailed, and climbed ‘the wooden hill to bedfordshire’.

*A rare moment during the kitten’s sojourn with us where he wasn’t in hiding.

I’ve sprung the above trap on the kitten three times now, and every time it does t work; yes the lid closes, but in doing so it also moves towards me, and u covers the hole. Which the kitten goes straight back into.

Okay, so this time the tap is taped to the angle twixt skirting boards and floor, and help up by a prop (aka a drum stick!). Hopefully the next time he ventures up into our room – which he’s doing regularly – I can spring g the trap on him successfully.

I’ve long harboured a desire to make some replica flintlock (or whatever) type pistols. Aunt Margaret, in Harpenden, has a real pair. They’re fabulous!

I opened to a random page of The Book of The Gun, and started to read about a chap called Alexander Forsyth, a Scots clergyman who advanced firing technologies, back in the Georgian era. Fascinating stuff!

Earlier in the day, Teresa and I went for a walk, to see the High Street, in March. The roadworks there, which have been ongoing for about two years, are very nearly finished.

One of the last things the construction workers did was rebuild the cast-iron monument, pictured above. It’s now in a new off centre position. And it appears that something remains to be added (there’s an empty central space).

Like another similar bit of town planning – the car park on market square was totally rebuilt – the planning and execution are a bit odd.

Both developments lessen the overall amount of available parking in the town centre. Which I can’t imagine is very good for local commerce? And our local branch of Lloyds bank is closing down permanently tomorrow.

Anyway… why do I mention ennui? Well, a WhatsApp chat with dad and several siblings earlier today, left me severely depressed. Plus we have the errant kitten. And I’m just depressed generally, at present.

After a brief work shift – work is very good for me at present; simple, constructive, pleasant enough – I got home, sat in my favourite chair, and… well, did nothing.

I feel utterly spent. Washed out. With zero energy or motivation. Not a nice feeling!

I’ve been trying to get into Betjeman.

Quite possibly mostly on account of Rick Stein quoting or mentioning him so often. Teresa watches Stein most days!

So I bought this book, quite recently. It’s a collection of radio talks he did, broadcast on the BBC (of course!), from before during and just after WWII.

I’d have to say that I’m somewhat disappointed. Not totally surprisingly so, to be candid. He’s a dotty old duffer, for sure. C. S. Lewis, who tutored him at Oxford, called him ‘this idle prig’!

The first x chapters/talks are on provincial West Country towns. Then there’s a bunch on the loose theme of eccentrics. And I’m currently wading through a segment on religious folk.

I like poetry and the arts, and I’m interested in architecture, as Betjeman is, as a kind of index on our current cultural state. I share some of his views, on all of these things. But by no means all. Far from it!

Thanks to his poetic and linguistic skills, he occasionally puts things very nicely – or at least amusingly – such as when he describes London as ‘that vile octopus’.

But his rather wet almost effete old-fashioned tweediness can grate a bit, at times. And I find his very dewy-eyed conservatism in relation to Christianity pretty baffling.

Nevertheless, I’m glad I bought the book. And I am, on balance, enjoying reading it. I guess I ought to go to his poetry next? That’s possibly a better bet? We shall see…

The above, illustrated by David Genitalman, looks worth a punt. I think I also have this (somewhere?):