Boxing Day

Boxing Day we went a walk round Appleton Roebuck in lovely weather. Rowan took this shot of Layla and I striding forth.

Party Picture

Nataliia and friend at our party last week

Happy Christmas

Christmas Greetings to all.

The four of us followed our traditional way of having a Xmas meal

10.00 The Starter (smoked salmon and brown bread together with bucks fizz)

14.00 Main Course (this year a vegetarian Wellington, lots of great veg and Ukranien mushroom/eggs)

18.00 Pudding (a chocolate pie, which to be honest were mostly to full to eat.

21.00 Night cap (the Rye that brother Ben had sent us, on ice)

The only way to do it I reckon.

Party Time

We had our first Christmas drinks party since Covid. Good to open the doors again. Between 40 and 50 people dropped in to say hello and raise a glass of class mulled wine (own recipe). Rowan and Nataliia are with us for Christmas which will be good. In the photo friends Emilie, Helen and Philip are with Danielle and Rowan (always in the kitchen etc)

Rescue Dog

Back on Thorne Moors with Layla this week. We ended up having to plot a way through a bog, each time I lost my footing and landed in the water on my backside, Layla would come to me so I could pull myself up by grabbing her harness and start again. It was a relief to find a track and be back on (relatively) dry land. An epic day.

Maria

Rowan and I were doing what we like best - walking around London. En route to London Fields and Broadway Market for street food, I said "this street looks like where Maria lives", a friend I had not seen for years. Rowan encouraged me to ring the bell and we found Maria and her friend Nooran who I had not seen for 30 years, busy baking delicious Cypriot biscuits and cakes for Xmas. When we left we had a bag full to take with us. A great visit.

London Times

I walked on to see Paul & Coral in Muswell Hill, and then to Rob & Kath where I stayed over after we had gone for a meal at the local pub. Paul and Rob were my 2 best men at our wedding. I have known Paul for 40 years and Rob for 47, so not new friends. Avery pleasing day. 

Next day I caught up with friend Wendy who I last saw at my Penn Club exhibition in 2019. Always good to keep in touch. Then in the afternoon Victor and I had our usual good catch up session. We went to the Conduit club in Covent Garden where he is a member. Fantastic food and a great great evening.

Saturday I went round to Rowan's flat off of Essex Road which she shares with her friend Orla. (see sign above.)

 

The Pergola

Thursday I took a train to London and walked on a whim from Kings Cross. Regents Park first then up Primrose Hill, the view from which is one of the best in London. I then worked my way across to Belsize Park and up to Hampstead. I have not been there for a long time, it is a great part of London. I followed paths across the heath to come to Golders Hill Park. 30 years ago I came to the park with a friend and found a way into what appeared to be an abandoned building of some sort. No one else was there and it felt like a secret place that I was not sure actually existed beyond my imagination. So I was delighted and shocked to not only find it, but to discover that it had been renovated, reopened to the public and generally saved from decay since my illicit visit in the early 90s. Luckily it was such a drizzly day that there only one other person in the whole area - I'm not fully sure that they were not a ghost. So a mystery is solved.

Toddler Time

Me as a toddler. Two things to note; one my attachment to bikes and trikes. Two: my imitation of my father holding a camera. Not sure I have really moved on from either interest really.

26 years ago

We had our first run out as a five piece band this week. Bass, drums, piano, two guitars. Went really well, so we hope to kick on in the new year. One of our new songs is one by me which is a setting of one of Robert's poems. First time we played it and it went well too.

I found this photo of my 40th Birthday Party at the much-lamented Pegs Club in Covent Garden that we were members of, and where we had our wedding reception. Long since shut.

Birthday

I've hit Route 66 this week. Danielle took me a walk with the dog to a restaurant down the river where surprise guests Sue & Eddy and Dave & Emma showed up. The six of us met for my birthday in 2002, 21 years ago. Quite a thought. Then we walked home, made it back just as it was going dark. A really good way to celebrate the day. Then in the evening Danielle and I saw the Marian Consort at the National Centre for Early Music: a really great concert, fantastic singing.

Meantime here is me as a toddler (as far as I know)

Gurmeet

 

I moved from Oxford to London in 1980, and started working with disabled people in King Henrys Walk run by Islington council. I worked closely with Gurmeet who had moved there a month or so before I arrived there. He was a similar age to me, and we got on. He was disabled from birth, and used a wheelchair. His Sikh family had moved to Islington from India. They were not well off. His sister and younger brother were also similarly also disabled. It was the 1960s. Gurmeet was sent off to a residential unit in Northamptonshire. Eventually his social worker got Gurmeet a place at King Henrys Walk. Back in the urban environment, and able to use the staff and volunteers to assist him without question, Gurmeet flew. He persuaded Time Out magazine to commission him to do access reviews for every venue in the capital. He worked at the Kings Head Theatre on Upper Street in Islington. Within a year he had his first play on BBC radio 4, and soon after he decided he wanted to make a film with Faye Dunaway in it. Through incredible persistence, some talent, and a lot of nerve, he managed it. Starring Faye and that bloke out of Gregory's Girl the BBC made a film, Raspberry Ripple which was broadcast in 1988. Gurmeet went on to work with, amongst others, Ian Drury and Tina Turner, on ideas for projects. I travelled with him to the Cannes film festival, as his carer in 1982, and we managed to blag our way into the premiere of Fitzcaralldo the Werner Herzog movie. I helped him get his own flat supported by CSV volunteers in 1983. His determination and maximisation of anything he had going for him was something else. I went to his funeral in the early 1990s, and met up in the Kings Head for a wake drink with a few of his friends. Through the door we saw an old light blue Morris traveller slow down outside the pub, then ease off down Upper street. Gurmeet had always had such a car; they were not common. 

Paul

I met Paul when I was working in Oxford. We shared of love of music, when my cassettes were stolen he made me nine or ten C90s of music he knew I would like. A real kindness. He was a paraplegic. I never ask people with spinal injuries how they got them; it is up to people to share what they want. It was only after he had killed himself that I found out his injury was from a previous attempt.

Percy

When I lived in Hereford & Worcester for a year in 1985, friend Chris hooked me up with his friend Percy. Percy, from Longridge originally just down the road from my childhood home in Preston, had moved to an isolated, very rural, totally off-grid tumbledown cottage. It was truly idyllic, and Percy welcomed me to share time at his amazing place. He survived by doing seasonal work, including hop picking with transient labourers, on farms nearby. Then one day in the 90s someone offered him a lift into the nearby market town of Bromyard to run some errands. The car crashed en route, and Percy died. A ironic end to a peaceful existence.

David

When I worked at Taylor House in Oxford there were four staff and four disabled students. Between the 8 of us we worked things out and had a great year. David, who is behind Achille in this shot was a great person to work with, and a great source of tales. He married Shallo, and Marie and I ended up staying with them in Cowley for a month or so when we returned from The Walk. He died of a heart attack (he lived a full life, so it was not that much of a surprise) in the early 90s.

Achille

Quite a lot of a death theme this year. So apologies for a bit more. Scanning old photos I realised I had lost a lot of people over the years - as we all have or shall. 

This shot is of Achille my Italian friend (and Inter fan) who helped me realise that I liked working for disabled people. I carried on seeing him once a year or so (he lived with Jan, his wife, in Oxford) until he died 10 years or so ago.