A Day in the Life

November Song

The clocks have changed. We are at the tail end of another year. Amanda is wandering in the night.  I take this picture at around five a.m. She sips a glass of water and nibbles a biscuit, then we go back upstairs and try the toilet.  Then she snuggles down for another couple of hours, while I lie restless.

Then it is tea time, and proper waking time.

Followed by some washing and a little breakfast before dressing up to go out.

Twice a day we take her out, whatever the weather - sometimes it's me, though we also have kind carers who vary the diet.

Sometimes we go down to RSPB Snettisham, where whirling waders entertain us as the tide washes them from the mud:

Though Amanda is often more interested in the huddles of twitchers:

Other days we go to the beaches of the North Norfolk coast, where shadows are long 

and space is unlimited:

Sometimes we happen on something dead, like this Guillemot, and I think how peaceful it seems....  No need to worry about death, perhaps, (though dying is a different thing):

Anyway, a couple of hours is usually enough for her, and we need to get back to have a snack, a drink and a clean up.  Then she will snooze until I prepare something for lunch:

Lunch is nothing much - sometimes we have an omelette, or some soup; on other days it is just bread and ham, and a glass of water.....

And then it is time for another rest......

Before another cup of tea:

Then it is time for another walk, round the village, watching the geese honking their way back from their feeding stations to their roosts on the Wash:

Dusk gathers easily this time of the year.  Sometimes there is a touch of menace in the cloud:

Other days the sundown gleams with a warmth and all seems well:

If our carers permit, this is the hour I can slip away for a pint in the pub:

Where if I am lucky a brief conversation can take my mind off the daily round. On the other hand, some days the craic may leave me adrift:

Then I need to hurry on home in my Bugatti to relieve the carer:

While the geese plough their own furrows overhead:

And then it is time to bath Amanda and to make her a bowl of pasta and peas, or something similar, timed to coincide with The Simpsons (well I like the primary colours.....)

The cats help, or try to, in their own ways:

Mr White

Denmark

Meadow

And Amanda settles, as her dose of Memantine kicks in....

But the world is not at peace.  Outside the pyrotechnics of the curiously extravagant burst under the stars, terrifying the animals and disturbing the slumbers of those who might wish to be quiet....

Why is it that we remember Guido Fawkes?  Could it be because we would really like to blow up the Houses of Parliament?  Given the shenanigans of the last few days that has to be a reasonable assumption......

It's a sorry tale, and the details are unpleasant, but it is curious that we don't have similarly popular celebratory days (or nights) to commemorate Boadicea, or Hereward the Wake, or Wat Tyler, or even the Tolpuddle Martyrs?

But then I may console myself with a plate of duck breast with broccoli and farro, and a glass of red.

Followed by a glass of Armagnac and a page or two of printed matter.....

Before it all starts over again:

I read the news today, oh boy
About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad
Well, I just had to laugh
I saw the photograph

Lennon/McCartney

A Day In The Life....

I read the news today.....

It's fifty odd years since John Lennon read the news, today, and worked out how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.  

Having read today's news, I sit in the courtyard of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea under the golden statue of Charles II, while planes pass by his highness,

Waiting for Imelda May, and for Jeff Beck....  Just a day in my life, like, or unlike, any other, as you will.

Woke up.  Fell out of bed.... Found my way downstairs....It started with disruption, as any train journey does these days.  When I bought my ticket, the 9.49 was on time.  When I reached platform 1 it was 'delayed.'  I noticed I was late..... It then went to second place as the 9.53 moved into pole position.  Then the 9.53 was 'cancelled.'  Then the announcer said it wasn't cancelled.  Then it approached.  Then it drove straight past the crowded platform, someone standing in the driver's compartment with an arm across the driver's shoulder.....  He didn't notice that the lights had changed.....

Well, I just had to laugh.....  Eventually the 'delayed' 9.49 arrived.  Although it was originally scheduled to get to St Pancras International for 9.26, it was now going to stop at all stations, though the announcer still promised we would be in London for 9.30.  We weren't....  [Yeah, OK, I should be grateful..... But.....]

A crowd of people stood and stared....

But from then on the day just got better....  I made it to the Photographers Gallery to see two new exhibitions: Tisha Murtha's black and white documents of British social history, where skinny young people dive into images from desolate backgrounds; and Alex Prager's Silver Lake Drive, technicolour stagings of American life, where everyone is detached, uneasy, pre-occupied, perhaps overweight.....

Then, after a cool relaxing spot of lunch at The Drones with a chum, I potter off through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens to visit my aged Aunt in Putney, pausing to admire the finishing touches to Mr and Mrs Christo's Mastaba (a flat topped pyramid; a house of eternity) floating in the Serpentine....  It is an impressive slice of colourful oil-drum fantasy burial ground in the middle of London: a monument to the fragility of our economy perhaps?  A caricature of the echelons of our governmental structure? 

Then to see Frida Escobedo's Serpentine Pavilion; dark, rough tiles,  and smooth reflecting surfaces; it delights with quiet and irregular space.....  But I just had to look.....  

There is no regional architecture, she says. There is an architecture that absorbs the context and is informed by where it is from and where it is going to.   I stumble to grasp what she intends, but instinctively lean towards her.  It is a fine contrast with Christo's multicoloured barrels....

Frida looks a little wan, but she is charming, and for some inexplicable reason insists on taking a selfie with me chuckling like a loon....  She must be exhausted, poor lamb.  Perhaps she thought I was Christo?

Anyway, a cup of tea and a drop scone with dear Auntie and her troubles, and then, carrying a sisterly message for my poorly ancient mum, it is time to wander back to Chelsea, for my tryst with the stars.  

I beg costly refreshment in the vicinity of the Saatchi Gallery, then present myself to the bag-handlers at the Royal Hospital.  No food?  she queries.  I wish, I joke, trying to be friendly.  Did she want a sandwich?  Somebody spoke and I went into a dream.....

I have come to see and hear Jeff Beck, a god of sorts.  A crowd of people stood and stared.....  It is hard to think of any living instrumentalist with such a million-hour command of technique.  We are in the realm of the lucky men who made the grade: Art Tatum, Pablo Casals, Stephen Hawking, George Eliot..... (insert names of gods at will.  Ed.)

I catch a glimpse of a tattooed arm, snapping at ankles, guarded by the militia.....  Could this be Jeff?

I am disappointed.  'Tis but a a Dorset Lad, posing.....

 

But then, as the beers become more expensive, Imelda May graces the stage, all tonsils and emotional grit.  I have no idea when I last went to a show like this.....  Kiri Te Kanawa at Hampton Court (supported by Andrea Bocelli, with champagne and smoked salmon in the dressing room after)? or was it Bob Dylan and Santana in the Palasport in Rome?  

[I did see the Lowlamps at the Carpenters Arms, recently.... and they are really good....]

But, with no disrespect, this is something else.  A Chelsea Pensioner, probably not much older than Jeff, stands centre stage and draws the crowd.  One of us, he says,  went to see a physiotherapist in the gym the other day, asking for some help loosening up a bit.  'Well, are you flexible?' she asks.  'I can do Tuesdays or Thursdays,' he says.

Boom, Boom!

The audience, in general marginally younger than the Queen (or Jimmy Page), applauds, politely, and Jeff Beck appears.  He plays.  A crowd of people stood and stared.  He plays, with support from bass, drums, 'cello and vocals, and all is right with the world....  He plays a white guitar with a left-handed neck.  He plays with his thumbs and fingers.  The range of tones and harmonics is aaaaaastonishing.....

For me, perhaps, though it was a close call with Little Wing (a wonderful tribute to Jimi Hendrix, who Jeff saw perform this piece), the highlight is an extraordinary version of A Day In The Life....  Fifty years or so since John Lennon read the news.  And today here we are, though the news [is] rather sad....

Well, I just had to laugh.....

*      *      *      *

And then, the day after, James, and me, and Roy, with his family, gather to celebrate the life of Moyra (Moyra Daphne Dodds):

Another day.  Another life....

And so it goes.....

I'd love to turn you on.....


Love you all.....