Busy, bitty, beery, bookish

Where was the Wye? Despite spending a week in the Wye Valley, I never did get to walk along the river bank, in fact I didn’t even see the wonderful river Wye – next time? Last week, seven Companions and three dogs stayed in Gorsley village, about five miles east of Ross on Wye, in Blind Man’s Gate cottage; the first house in the town and formally a church and a pub – a good base for our annual walking break. Lots of beer was drunk, a bit of grub eaten; lots of games were played, including a (highly competitive and great fun) Top of the Pops DVD quiz, and we participated, successfully but unofficially, in the Sunday night pub quiz at The Roadmaker – a Nepali operated pub, cum restaurant, just over the road from the cottage.

For a variety of reasons we didn’t get to do much walking but explored the area by bus and enjoyed days out in Ross, where I bought me a window and a water jug, and Gloucester, where I bought us several pints of beer in a new, to me, micro-pub: The Turks Head – dogs & sheep welcome, no children. Our nearest town  was Newent, which I thought that I’d never heard of until I realised that, quite by chance, I’d spent an evening in its splendid Cobblers micro-pub a few years back. The weather over the week was kind, cold with sunny blue skies, and I got to see my first lambs and first daffodils – despite all this ‘beast from the east’[1] stuff, spring is coming. Other than two dogs, nobody fell out: nobody fell over – another happy holiday. Thank you organiser, whose turn is it next year?

We drove down to Gorsley on Saturday evening, having watched the Moseley victory at Billesley (36-21 against Fylde), and drove back on Friday, ready for the next Moseley game on Saturday. I don’t expect too much from Moseley these days, so it was no great surprise that we lost (16-10 to Plymouth). I stayed behind to watch the England/Scotland game which I was expecting  to end in a further victory on England’s way to the Grand Slam and was shocked to see Scotland running all over us and greatly reducing our chances of retaining the Six Nations Championship. Our second team, Moseley Oak, also lost – hey ho.

The previous week, we helped boy number 2 and his family move from their rented house in uptown Burbage to their newly bought house in downtown Burbage, a comparatively easy move – I wish them all well in their neat new home. Boy number 3 is still (anxiously and most frustratingly) waiting to exchange contracts (Today? Monday?) on his new fancy house in the nearby village of Stoney Stanton. That’ll be all three boys in three new houses within three months – it’s been an expensive winter.

Despite my debilitating affliction, I’ve enjoyed a few local trips out including an evening talking books and bollocks with my mate in Lichfield, which now boasts three micro-pubs (A theme {An obsession?} developing here?) The Bitter Suite having just opened. A day exploring Loughborough, with yet another new micro-pub – definitely an obsession. And, two weeks back, a Companions’ day out visiting Oxford’s classic pubs, many of which were unfortunately too small and/or too busy (two Six Nations games on television) to accommodate the nine of us; but we squeezed in a few and got to see England’s victory against Wales – another grand day out. Incidentally, I’m told that one Companion missed his last train and ended up staying the night in an Oxford B&B – an expensive day out for him.

Sadly the manflu persisted into a chest infection and I eventually (after 60 phone calls) got to see the doctor who told me that I was ill and gave me some drugs. Whilst I was waiting in reception, I watched a video that explained, in simple terms, why we all had to wait so long (lack of resources) and how the NHS was in danger of imminent collapse, to be ‘rescued’ by heroes of the private sector – no prizes for guessing whose fault this is. But, as an old man who now qualifies for free prescriptions, am I partly to blame?

So, constant coughing and belaboured breathing means no real exercise and more reading including David Mitchell’s Ghostwritten[2], a novel in nine, vaguely-related, stories (each of a different genre), featuring nine, occasionally-related, characters in nine parts of the world (from Okinawa to London, via Hong Kong, Ulan Bator and Petersburg) – clever, unusual and excellently written – I do like David Mitchell and still have one more of his books to read. I followed Ghostwritten , which had nothing to do with ghosts, with Neil Gaimans’ The Graveyard Book, which was all about them – an easy kids’ read and good fun. Maintaining the theme, I’ve just finished Jeremy Dyson’s The Haunted Book –  a series of short ‘true life’ ghost stories. It’s a strange, well presented,  book which was recommended to me on the basis that its first story was set in Hinckley. The stories, written in different styles and ages, are meant to coalesce into a clever, coherent metafiction – disappointingly, the whole thing was confusing and read as a sub-standard version of Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected.

So, after a comparatively quiet start to the year, a busy, bitty, beery, bookish but poorly three weeks. Time now to dry out and get better – cough cough: wheeze, wheeze. Anyway, gotta’ go – just remembered I’m off (weather permitting) to the Lake District this weekend – forget the above.

[1] Shock horror media headline to explain the current reversal of the jet stream – the wind from Siberia bringing the coldest winter in a million years and the end of the world, perhaps; t’is but an occasional covering of icing sugar round here, but bloody freezing – minus all week

[2] His debut novel, first published in 1999