Jim Granter

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.

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.

April already and not much to post about on the face of it so here’s a ramble. Formula operating today: (Hands dry and aching + dodgy back) = (decorating and gardening last few days) so recommendation is a day of rest in the hot sunshine / cool house of a peaceful Sunday afternoon. I agree with myself and am complying.

One hundred and twenty years of neglect and over-painting of seized-up study sash windows presents quite a challenge but investigating the state of the cord and weights was interesting. Replaced the cords, in the course of which one of the heavier weights from the larger window rolled off the sill ( daft place to leave it) onto my foot, picking out for special treatment the toe next to the big one which went blue, along with the air. Hopefully that’s the major wound which usually occurs at some point in my “projects”. Good to see the bare wood of the frame – hot air gun and Nitromors, lots of scraping and glass-paper. Back to it tomorrow with final sanding and white primer. Aaaaaah …………. relax.

Next door’s two primary age children E and J came round yesterday and helped with our gardening. We all enjoyed J’s skilled performance on my shoulders as he tied up the top of 4 canes to create the wigwam shape for the beans in the pot below. Not sure he totally enjoyed it though as he approved greatly of my fetching out the steps for him to do the next set of canes. Emma collected some more rainwater from our butt for her triops eggs experiment. I cooked a mushroom risotto from the recipe on the rice packet. I thought it was fine and B liked it better cold. E and J had a portion without any great enthusiasm, but it all went.

We have a date for B’s hip-replacement operation – May 11th, the day before son E has an interview for a job. Could be quite a week. While on medical matters, must remember my appointment on Bank Holiday Easter Monday to donate platelets. Even had a letter about it, urging donations in holiday times, when stocks get really low. Heard statistics on the radio recently showing that donations from black and Asian people are much lower proportionately than the rest of the UK population. Something cultural apparently.

Literature classes have come to an end until the Autumn. One will definitely resume, on the theme of “Empire”, which should be very interesting. News about what is happening with the other one is imminent, from two of the members charged with coming up with ideas and making premises arrangements. I missed the final session as it was B’s birthday and I wasn’t too sure it was happening anyway, but it turns out to have been the wonderful John Toft on Henry Miller. John has sent B and me another book he has written and in the accompanying letter he says he was disappointed not to hear my views on Miller and that everyone “pretended not to be shocked”!

Have received the second monthly Newsletter from the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust which I joined recently. It is a very good publication and this one features a 2 page spread on my local Reserve, Parrot’s Drumble. Must get there again soon, before the bluebells have all gone.

Time for lunch.

This morning Irma Kurtz did Something Understood on BBCRadio4 which she called Happy Accidents.  Having just woken up when it started I pricked up my ears and consciousness because I knew I had a book of hers downstairs called The Great American Bus Ride, which I had enjoyed very much, having traveled a few thousand miles on Greyhound buses myself back in the 1990s. When the programme was over I found my copy and sat with it over breakfast. After traveling with her for a few bus rides or so I found the receipt between the pages, from when I had bought the book. It was from Dillons in Oxford Street, 17 years ago in 1994, on 20th March, which is today’s date. Serendipity? Coincidence? Irma says this in the programme blurb:”Serendipity differs from mere coincidence – it doesn’t knock at the door and you can’t go out to look for it.”