Fact Emulating Fiction

Last night we watched the hugely enjoyable film "Love Actually".

Today, I went to get some Christmas presents and emerged heavily laden from the shops to find people carrying Christmas trees and snow coming down in rather large flakes.

For a moment, I thought I was back in the film!

Working From Home

I'm working from home today. And I when I say that, I really do mean work from home; I've a great pile of preparation to do.

It seems that in this age of electronic communications, for some jobs at least, this is now much easier. There's been a lot of coverage in the last year or so of what the media seem to call "shedworking", ie building an office in a shed at the bottom of the garden and working from there.

Well, we haven't run to that. We've acquired a summer house this year but it's emphatically not connected to anything. It's a refuge from all that.

No, for me working from home means a spare bedroom converted into an office. And that leads me to the subject of this Blog post:

In this weather, having an office just at the bottom of the garden is great in that you don't have to worry about roads, public transport, etc., in this sort of weather.

However, unless these "sheds" are extremely well insulated (!) I think I prefer my former-spare-bedroom-turned-office with a radiator on one wall, thank you very much!

Snow: The End of British Civilization. For a Couple of Days.

There's some snow. It's earlier than usual but it is December tomorrow and we've 200 years of tradition of illustrating Christmas with snow scenes, so it's not that amazing.

Yes, some areas have had a lot of it and rural life can be disrupted. But here in the urban West Midlands we have barely enough to cover the ground and even our road, a fairly minor one, has no snow on the carriageway. So it's not the end of the world.

But guess what? There are lists of closed schools and cancelled events everywhere. Why on Earth do we do this in Britain? Are we afraid that if someone hurts themselves, "we" as the organiser of an event or the opener of a school will somehow be liable? And if you want to tell me that the heating is off, that begs the questions *why* is the heating off? Or is it that teachers now all live in barn conversions 40km from where they teach?

Basically, we're all namby-pambies who think that a few centimetres of snow represents the onset of a new ice age.

Get out there. If only to build a snowman!

Clerkenwet!

Last night I did an evening walk in the lovely, atmospheric Clerkenwell area on London. It’s a genuinely fascinating area, home to such varied delights as the New River (not new, not a River), the Finsbury Health Centre, Saint John’s Gate and some K4s and K6s thrown in for good measure.

But oh, what an evening for weather! It just just bucketed it down for the whole two hours and the legendary Ian Jelf Umbrella was actually of practical use for once. Now, despite our country’s reputation for bad weather, this is actually a surprisingly rare occurrence I find on walks. Traditionally, I recall two such occasions, one in Rugby and the other in the Moseley area of Birmingham. But this one definitely goes up into that category, I’m sad to say.

Luckily, I had an extremely tenacious group whose desire to learn more about the place left me staggered!

Thank you, dear member of SPICE Adventure London!

Shivers Down the Spine

I’ve noticed an unusual trend doing walking tours over the last few weeks.

People seem incredibly susceptible to the cold. Okay, we’re just coming out of winter. Okay, it’s certainly not been balmy. But people seem to literally shiver in temperatures between 4C and 7C; hardly arctic. I make sure I have layers on but in these sort of temperatures don’t even need a scarf or gloves.

I did think that some people just don’t dress for the conditions (and they certainly don’t; fashion seems more important than practicality for many) but one client did suggest that the majority of people now are simply cosseted all day in warm offices and travel by car and simply aren’t used to being outside for long periods.

It’s a worrying trend for me. I have visions of only being able to do walks between June and September.

I’ll have to start wintering in the Southern Hemisphere…….

Verbose Media

The many friends I have in Melbourne keep me informed that Australia's "Garden State" is a bit parched at the moment, with temperatures "soaring" up into the 40sC.

Interesting that in media speak temperatures never seem to merely "rise" and "fall"; they "soar" and "plunge" or even "plummet". We seldom get "high" winds; rather they are "gale force" and rain is never "heavy" but the more diluvian "torrential".

So I'll give this media language a go describing my day. Hope it impresses you all and leads to me being offered a sub-editor's job somewhere.

I flew from my bed at the very crack of dawn this morning, rapidly making a bee-line for the bathroom. After some vigorous teeth-brushing I wolfed down a high-fibre dose of sustenance (well, okay, muesli) before navigating the slush-filled Edwardian thoroughfares of Metroland and then plunging to a subterranean voyage on the Northern Line.

A fact-packed morning of studious endeavour followed, my fingers flying across the pages of a notebook like a swallow soaring through some alpine valley.

A traditional East End hostelry served to me some of its best foaming ale before I privileged to see the London of the twenty first century truly rolling Eastwards towards the site of the XXX Olympiad, beyond Bazalgette's effluvial temple.

A secondary subterranean projection brought me back to the bosom of my hostess (eh?), where a sumptuous supper ushered in the opportunity of a somnorial interlude.

Think I'll stick with the tour guiding. Goodnight!

Olympic Pause

I’m currently half way through a course in London studying the venues to be used in the 2012 Summer Olympics, staying with friends in North London and being Northern Line commuter for a week or so. Great, I'm getting to admire some splendid Charles Holden architecture twice a day!

Anyway, despite the weather and “unpredictable” road conditions, I’ve been home for the weekend.

Weekends off are a strange experience for me, as they’re obviously among my busiest days for work. However, Louise and I popped into Birmingham yesterday morning (I needed to find a copy of “Chariots of Fire” on DVD as material for my course!) I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: what a horrible experience shopping in major centres is on Saturdays. I get spoiled by being able to indulge in such things on – say – a Tuesday morning!

The media do tend to get their knickers in a twist about the weather, though, don’t they? While I admit it’s been a difficult spell with the very low (sorry, “plunging” temperatures), as far as motoring on main roads goes, there have been no huge problems for us. Side roads are a different matter but the thought of local councils ploughing narrow residential streets lined with parked cars is really a non starter.

The press do love to do their “the glass is half empty rather than the glass is half full” routine, don’t they? Actually, in recent reports for “glass” substitute “salt depot”.

Anyway, in between all this I’ve been typing up notes (my handwriting is appalling; it’s so long since I’ve taken longhand notes) and just generally relaxing.

Just about to enjoy a “proper” and very late breakfast before setting off back South this afternoon. Now, what do I know about Theodosius I…….?

Sublime Day in Wells

I was doing a tour in Wells yesterday and arrived very early just to check things out. It was entirely worth the early start as – after a terrible rainy Saturday – Sunday was just wonderful. The sun rose over flooded fields in the most photogenic way possible and – as I was walking around the City before the group arrived – it looked simply stunning.

I regretted not having a camera with me but then remembered that my mobile has a camera which I seldom use; so I started snapping. They’re not brilliant photos but they do convey the sense of this amazing golden early sunshine and deserted streets.

When the group arrived, they were great, too, which always helps. For all the hassles, which we all have, I spent much of yesterday thinking what a great job I have. If you’ve never been to Wells – and it amazes me how few people have – then go. It’s always been one of my favourite places. Yesterday I felt as though I could have spent the rest of my life there.

Yanks a Million!

I’ve been missing from BlogWorld for a while as I’ve been working pretty much continuously this week with an American group throughout the Midlands.

It’s been a very busy week, characterised by a series of very early starts to get to their base at Catton Hall on the Derbyshire Staffordshire border. However, hard work though it was, things were made considerably more pleasant by two other factors.

Firstly, they were a very pleasant group, largely the “accompanying persons” of a group taking part in a sort of Edwardian Shooting holiday.

Secondly (and most unusually) they had asked me to more or less concoct an itinerary for them myself. Unusual this might have been but it did mean that there were none of those ridiculously crowded days with impossible-to-achieve deadlines and skipping past places to say that you’ve “been there” rather than “seen it”.

A review of the group’s week gives an “interesting” insight into the world that is tourism in the Heart of England…….

On Monday went to explore Old Shropshire, with visits to Shrewsbury and Ludlow. These are two places I think are amongst the loveliest towns in the Midlands and deserve to be explored just as much as the Strafords and the Warwicks. If the group went anywhere because I put it in, then this was the day!

It was up into Derbyshire and the Peak District National Park on Tuesday for a visit to Chatsworth, the “Palace of the Peak”. This was somewhere the group themselves chose to go, although I did add an Ian flourish by calling in at Buxton on the way up. Chatsworth is, of course, superb, although it was fully decorated for Christmas and I find it very difficult to be festive in, er, November.

Wednesday saw an unashamed assault on Tourist Central, going on a tour of Stratford-upon-Avon in the morning and a ride around the Cotswolds in the afternoon. Bizarrely, though, both were curiously deserved, even for November. I don’t think the group knew it but they were seeing it as quiet as it’s ever going to be!

I a little bemused that – despite free time in Stratford – no-one went into the Birthplace! Still, they found places to eat drink and shop and what keeps them happy keeps me happy!

It was back to Shropshire on Thursday for a look at the Iron Bridge and then the rest of the day at the recently-extended Blist’s Hill Victorian Town. The latter was awash with school groups and some of the staff seemed a little surprised to see a non-school group there.

I think it's fair to say they were less "blown away" by Blist's Hill than other groups I've taken there but it did give our transatlantic visitors the chance to learn about our pre-decimal money, though, which is as big a challenge for them to understand as Cricket!

And that brought us to today, another unashamedly “Ian” day, as I took them on a ride around Birmingham and a visit to the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. On the way back we called into Lichfield to have a look at the Cathedral, the Lichfield Gospels and the newly-discovered Lichfield Angel.

And do you know, that was the only time all week that they found themselves outside in any rain? Everywhere else, it rained when on the coach and stopped as we left.

Whatever magical meteorological power it is that these people have, I want some of it. Could do with a few more like these, I tell you!

Sunshine, Doctor Who and the NHS: a varied weekend

I know we’re always supposed to be delighted with the fine, sunny weather and I confess I do like to be able to walk around in some sunshine without a coat.

However, this weekend has seen the sort of temperatures in which I can only really survive in a swimming pool. And certainly not in a collar and tie walking around towns explaining relevant and amusing tales to people…….

On Saturday, I spent a whole day showing a group various sites around London associated with Doctor Who. It was necessary to leave my long woollen scarf behind, although I did take the sink plunger. (Yes, really.) Fortunately only after I’d finished for the day and was enjoying a rather pleasant pizza in Borough High Street did the heavens open and the rains come! It reminded me of the sort of weather you get in Northern Queensland, where a spectacularly hot day in followed by a “late storm”. Actually, Borough High Street isn’t that much like Northern Queensland, to be honest but I can dream.

Yesterday I ran a brand new tour in Wantage, the birthplace of Alfred the Great and (more importantly for me) long-time home of Sir John Betjeman. Again, it was bright and sunny and pleasant. It’s just that I wanted to be at the beach or in the garden having a barbecue and instead I was in a collar and tie working.

I’ve two jobs today, too. However, they’re in the afternoon and evening, so am I enjoying a morning off? Oh no. Mum has had a hospital appointment for tomorrow (TOMORROW!) cancelled. The same department did the same thing with the same lack of notice last December and I had a long and protracted discourse with the head of department who said they’d put in new procedures to stop this happening. Plainly this was drivel, so she’s getting a phone call at 9.00am.

I’ll keep you posted!