Just what was the point?

 

So here we are with petrol shortages and long queues. Carol tried 4 places en route home from work on Friday and failed to get any fuel. Knowing we had to head to London yesterday to join Becksy at a long-planned retirement party for 3 of her former carers, and with not enough fuel in the car, I had to search for garages at first light yesterday morning. Fortunately our local garage was open and there was not a huge queue. I filled up. Phew. We later headed off to London and headed back home afterwards getting back around 7pm. There were huge queues at every garage we passed during the day so we didn’t try and get more.

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All the world’s a stage…

So yesterday was one of those perfect days. It was the day after our 48th wedding anniversary which itself had been fun. Our very good friends Cindy and Keith visited us here for the first time and they were in great form. We prepared them a vegan brunch; Carol did the cold stuff and I did the hots. Though I say it myself, it was really pretty good.  By 12.30 we were finished and toddling off down to the RSC Theatre to see an outdoor performance of A Comedy of Errors. The main theatre hasn’t re-opened for performances as yet but this outdoor stage has been packing them in all summer. And this was one of the last few performances so we were pleased to get in.

Oh Jimmy, Jimmy

So it was sad to learn of the death of Jimmy Greaves today, probably the best natural goal scorer the English game has ever seen.  He didn’t score 30 yard screamers and very few headers; his technique was to pass the ball into the net. And he did it for every team he played for – Chelsea, AC Milan, Spurs, West Ham and England. So why am I so interested? Well he was probably the first footballing hero I can remember.

Hospital drama

So regular readers will know several things about me; I have endless charm, I’m utterly modest, I had cancer several years ago and drama seems to follow me around like a Shakespearean lapdog. I’m delighted to tell you that all those features came out to play today at the West Middlesex Hospital, scene of all my great medical theatricals.

Fish and geeks, Robert and the missus

It’s an intriguing title right so what on earth is this posting all about? Well it’s all to do with new sources of entertainment that quite frankly I find amazing. When I was a senior marketing guy, media meant print (news press and specialist), tv and radio. Social was nowhere and online was in its infancy. Now they’re almost everything and increasingly I’m searching out stuff almost exclusively on my devices. And I’ve come across two sources which, unless I’m the last person in the world to find them, I think you’ll go wow; they’re very different and completely nuts.

A-ha!

There’s a hotel at each end of our little lane in Stratford upon Avon. The Indigo is a beautifully restored, 100’s of years old, timber-framed property, significantly extended in recent years. It’s a lovely hotel with a magical hidden garden in its inner grounds. My daughter E and son-in-law stayed there for Stephen’s 50th birthday and we had some super cocktails there after a great Thai meal at our local Giggling Squid. It’s a really busy and popular place now that lockdown’s ended. It’s just charming….

If you’re thinking they haven’t finished painting the timbers then you should know that the black painted timbers are the originals whilst the untreated oak is the restored timber and has been deliberately left like that to show it’s a sympathetic restoration but the building’s history can be accurately read. And this building sits across the road from New Place, the location for Shakespeare’s impressive home once he became successful. A later owner, no doubt hoping he’d profit from the Bard’s fame after his death, got so fed up of visitors gawping through the windows, he pulled the place down.  It seems incredible but it’s the truth. New Place is now a beautifully laid-out garden and it is located less than 100 yards from the stunning Royal Shakespeare Company Theatre. And about the same distance from our home in the opposite direction. We do feel privileged to live amongst all this fabulous architectural history.