Jim Granter

Here’s the second piece of old furniture I have subjected to cleaning and polishing:

We bought it for £20 from an antique shop at Wolseley Bridge, Staffordshire when it looked like this

with a piece of brown, damaged lino inset into the top, coming loose. That’s the picture I sent to Ursula, the researcher at St. Bride Library to see if she could identify whether it was indeed a “newspaper lettering table” as a friend thought. She is going to show it to Nigel the librarian to help, as it does have a familiar look.

It has been a pleasant day in the garden doing the last part of the cleaning while listening to the 3rd day of the Test Match (cricket) against India. There can be few better ways of spending a Saturday afternoon in July. Good tip from the internet – clean Bakelite with Brasso.

Just as I had finished applying the first coat of finishing wax and brought it indoors, Julie next door came round with her delightful 2 and a half year old son Adam. I took him up the shed and showed him the bees coming to and going from their nest (hive?) under the floor, which he thought was amazing and great fun as we stood in their flight path, which of course it is.

The two literature classes I have become a member of are to start up again in September. The tutor of one has sent us the “syllabus” for hers, with the title Aspects of Empire with a reading list of works all completely new to me, which will take me where I’ve rarely been in terms of style and subject – Paul Theroux, Kowloon Tong, V S Naipaul, A Bend in the River, Paul Scott, The Jewel in the Crown, Leonard Woolf, The Village in the Jungle and Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal. Looking forward to all that. The other “tutor” – this isn’t strictly accurate as we all “volunteer” to contribute a paper or a short talk on something under our general theme – has suggested that I might like to do a presentation on the Beat Generation of writers. Our theme is American Literature 1940-1960 which should be great for me. I’ve revisited Howl already and bought the Penguin Portable Beat Reader. Hours and weeks of unadulterated pleasure there, then.

Feeling a bit like a refurbishment / refreshment / renewal session myself after three greatly enjoyable days refurbishing, refreshing and renewing the condition of a bookcase-cum-display cabinet. The residential care home across the road had a sort of yard sale on Sunday and £5 seemed a small price to pay for a piece of 1930s furniture that looked quite grimly knocked about a bit and heavily varnished but oozing potential. I was unaware whilst de-dooring,

 

Nitromorsing, scraping, cleaning, sanding, re-assembling, polishing and filling with books how tiring it was and so I  just kept going and here it is in its new life.

I may have mentioned before or elsewhere, I like a project.

Thursday June 8 2000

Noon – through Smithfield on 70 to Becky’s Log Cabin which is very nice. Checked in for Thursday and Friday . Lunch to Eddie Murphy film.

“Let us take time, therefore, to be gracious, to be thoughtful, to be kind, using the social graces as one means of turning the wheels of progress with greater velocity on the upward road to equal opportunity and justice for all” – Charlotte Hawkins Brown, quoted in North Carolina Historic Sites leaflet.

“Earl Had to Die” on Country Channel on TV/Radio (No picture). E-mails

4.00 p.m. Smithfield

 

 

 

Arranged to arrive Richlands end of next week to meet Vernon [who? 11.5.2011].

Library at Smithfield Thursday 8/6 [?] Superb set of encyclopaedia – American Decades edited by Vincent Tompkins (1996) Gale Research Inc., Detroit, MI48226 (a division of ITP Co Ltd) goes from 1900 to 1989

Fri 9^th June 7.50p.m.  Log Cabin Motel Smithfield.

At 7.15 I sat on a chair and hunched over a low coffee table looking at the Road Atlas when on came suddenly the right-side kidney pain I’ve had at least 6 times before. It isn’t getting any worse or better. Have taken two Anadin Extra. Best position is squatting or curled in a ball face down on the floor. It goes off for about 1 second only then returns. Have packed everything in case I have to call Emergency Paramedics and leave in a hurry and fished out the Medical Insurance!! It’s taking my breath away as usual. Hopefully it will pass through like all the others and I’ll just need painillers ’til it shifts. Guess I should drink lots of water, which I will now do.

8.05 Has moved round to the front, as is usual, and is just as bad, in waves which make me sweat, or at least go hot.

8.10 Two more Anadin Extras. Feel a bit sick now.

[1220 A.M. Friday I AM BACK]

Staggered over to the Motel office where there was nobody to be seen except a party of four also looking for the receptionist. She came in two minutes and they let me go first. She dialled 911 and Paramedics arrived within 10 minutes, one para-driver bloke, one woman paramedic and a trainee. They did not immediately jump out to help this bearded, rather unkempt, crouched over and grimacing apparition that greeted them in the car park. Having eventually got me laid down inside the ambulance, and checked out that I had insurance (pre-packed in top of rucksack), they started an IV drip of fluid, blood pressure, pulse 3 cardiogram (?) sticky connections to chest and lower left abdomen. In less than 5 minutes I am in the A&E booth for the painkillers etc. Everyone extremely efficient. Morphine given and it kicked in after 10 minutes, lovely. Asked for a urine sample, I was delighted to see the little bugger emerge into the filter over the sample bottle. Still woozy after the morphine, but am back in Room 28 of the Log Cabin Motel at 1230. They gave me a Yellow Pages to get a cab – $5 and a $5 tip. See specimen jar to see the only American Kidney Stone in the family [currently lost 21.5.2011]. Dr. Mike Baker gave me a comprehensive run down on everything they had done. All tests normal (including pulse of 68 while waiting for the pain to go off). He said his wife has had children and she’s had kidney stones and she would rather have a baby than experience the pain of kidney stones.

Plans back on track for tomorrow as long as wooziness has cleared.

0910 Saturday 10^th

Woke 0830 went to breakfast – one waitress for what looked like half a dozen coachloads of residents. Got some coffee, after 25 minutes and ordered toast. Left without, after 40 minutes for own banana breakfast. No more cheese-of-the-kidney-stone-making fame.

Saturday 10^th 2.40 p.m. Williamston Holiday Inn. 2 nights booked. Pool, coffemaker in room.

Phoned home with kidney stone news. Stopped off in Chocowitty – took photos of VW “Bug Meet”, had a hot dog.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then stopped in Washington for an hour. On to Williamston up bumpy old 17N. 80% of travellers are retired, white haired, slightly overweight and very happy with their lot. No Yankees. Father and son fishing at Log Cabin. Son caught a big fish photographed by Dad. Thought about laundry today but thought again.

Receptionist conversation with resident: “Busy today?” “No, fairly quiet” “Just before the lull?(sic) ….” He was getting some “nourishment before golf this afternoon”. Put tickets and passport in safety deposit. Reception area of this Holiday Inn has leather chairs in greenand cardboard book spines on the “shelves”. They can certainly do eggs over easy and thin crispy streaky bacon. Waitresses “of a certain age”, very efficient, confident. Young black guy all in black strode through but he was on his way to the kitchen. Car still in the shade, though there’s a nice cooling breeze. Going to be 90+ today

9 a.m. Downtown Williamston – deserted. Discover Our Town pennants. Uh?

Only a few cars passing every so often mostly driven by blacks. White couple, retired, shorts, walking pug dog for its morning ablutions.

50% closed down shops. Drove out to Hamilton seeking Fort Branch Battlefield site. Missed it – found lots of churches, people arriving. Can’t find back road to the river. Saw Fort Branch Road on way back. Looks like it just leads to a house and nothing else. Drove on to get gas in Williamston and back to cool of room. Classical music station like ClassicFM. No towel or linen change today – door hanging notices ask for cooperation to conserve water and energy and environment. V. good idea. Holiday Inns a grade up from Days Inn.

2.20 Sunday 11 June Holiday Inn. Went out and found Fort Branch Battle site – Fort closed due to Storm Damage – see photos. [?]

Read discharge documents from Johnston Memorial Hospital. Very good detail. No mention of charges. 90 degrees outside but a good breeze. CNN World Report v.good. Phillipines, Spain, Sierra Leone.  Watching The Hunt for Red October – US propaganda submarine movie. Tonight at 8 Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, tomorrow- Elizabeth City, Appomatox Virginia and maybe Lynchburg.

6:55 p.m. Appomatox Viginia. This budget Motel is OK. £35 a night, good A/C, grass and woods out the back window, Information Centre round the corner, supermarket next door, Post Office opposite, (bit like 62 Station Road, where I live). Reserving all day tomorrow for the Lee/Grant surrender site visit. Some of it is “reconstructed” but so what, this is where it happened. Long but pleasant 6 hour drive here well worth it. Came past the Great Dismal Swamp and through Suffolk Virginia.

About 21 miles to Lynchburg VA but don’t think I’ll go on to there. Sent Ed and Beth very strange “graduation” cards and e-mails to everyone, including Mick Cooke. Lady in gift shop by Information Centre says there’s a very good bookshop at the Courthouse site. We’ll see….

Everyone asks where I’m from. Nice lady in supermarket asked me if if Elton John lives in London! LA, I think. She’d lived in LA for 2 years.

8:55 a.m. Tuesday 13 June 2000

Sitting outside Confederate Cemetery at Appomattox Courthouse National Historical Park. Watching praire dog (?) feeding and going in and out of burrow. Birds singing, little traffic. I had arrived really early and I shall always remember standing by the roadside in the quiet morning; I swear I could hear the sounds of the final confrontation between Grant and Lee’s armies just over the rise, with the gunfire, shouts and horses. Park opens in 5 minutes. Praire dog having a wash.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bought 3 tapes of Country and Western music. Liked the Park and the houses. And displays. Worth it. Very “atmospheric” $4 entry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back to Granny Bees restaurant for a BLT lunch. Very traditional 1950s type interior, locals eating there, more comments on accent. Found new book on Faulkner on the Recent Acquisitions display in the library after checking in and sending e-mails – Daniel J Singal – William Faulkner – The making of a modernist 1997: UNC Press: Chapel Hill & London [ bought this in 2010 to support a paper I gave to reading group at Bradwell Community Centre, Newcastle-Under-Lyme]. Village idiot came in gift shop back by Information Centre. Baseball cap, T-shirt, shorts, unshaven, eating ice-cream, greeted by shop assistant, “What do you need, George?”. Bought 3 CDs of string music/ songs and got a Christmas one free. Got to cool off.

Back to Budget Motel, been up since 5:00 Have put a plaster on the IV hole under my watch, which the paramedic shifted to my other arm.

 

Just ten days now to the start of a week when two potentially life-changing events take place for two people in my family – one hip replacement operation and one job interview. This morning the traffic outside is very quiet as it’s some kind of national holiday in recognition of another event that could be somewhat life-changing for a couple of people getting married in Westminster Abbey. I remember the street party in Middlemarch Road, Radford, Coventry in 1953 when the current old-girl-rent-free-resident of Buckingham Palace had a fancy hat put on her head in the same church by a bloke in a nice frock. We had cakes and jelly and our own fancy hats and everything, including running races for us children, up and down around the long row of tables in the middle of the road. I wonder if there are any photographs anywhere.

A jogger has just gone by for a second time, lapping our block I guess. We used to have races back in the fifties ’round the block’ formed by Middlemarch, Villa, Grangemouth  and Lanchester Roads. That was a long way to run or skate or push a trolley our Dad made out of pram wheels and scrap wood. Haven’t seen one of those lately!

Not a leaf is stirring on the trees and bushes I look out on now since I’ve moved the desk to the window. All a bit pleasantly eerie, as if something is going to happen any minute as we dreamwalk through the still day unaware of what is going on round the corner. Mind you, that’s not particularly unusual for me on any day, let alone today. Which is not completely a problem as innocence and wonder can feel alright when they meet or discover or go along with or even arrange events.

Great title for a post, eh? Its a wildlife reserve owned by Staffordshire Wildlife Trust and is just under 4 miles from home.  I’ve joined the Trust and plan to visit this reserve quite often. I have visited twice recently and started a set of photographs on Flickr where more is revealed about the place and its name.

I am getting to love the place, it’s so damned old and wild and yet the entrance lies between a veterinary supplies warehouse and a builder’s merchant and opposite a home and garden gear distribution centre.

There’s a ‘Friends of’ group which I shall join soon despite not being much of a joiner. They are running a Bluebell Walk and a Dawn Chorus visit shortly, which sound like fun.