Fathers' Day and The Longest Day

Midnight - Looking North

Not that Fathers' Day and The Longest Day are in any way related. It's just that this year they fall on the same weekend. Yesterday was the longest day. Apparently today is one second shorter up here. Given the weather it will feel a lot shorter. 

Speaking to neighbours and friends today we all had the same thing in mind. We've all been looking forward to the long days and short nights and now it's all down hill and in 182 days it will be the shortest day and 4 days after that it will be Christmas. 

I also took a photo last night looking East which, because the scene is being lit and I'm not looking into the sunset looks much lighter and is more like what the eye actually sees.  However when I woke this morning the weather had changed completely and I wasn't so keen on the view.

Looking East from my kitchen

I've never been one for observing Fathers' Day and my son, brilliant son though he is, is not a great one on such occasions either. So I was quite surprised when, a few days ago, a card dropped through the door with a big imprecation that the envelope was not to be opened until Fathers' Day. I had to look in my diary to see when it was.  This morning I opened the card. It's certainly topical:

SID 92. Thankful Thursday - Piddling

What are you doing today?

Piddling around.

But you did that yesterday.

Yes but I haven't quite finished yet.

Today has been a strange day. It started very dull and totally windless with a moist atmosphere. Midge heaven. I fed the birds and the fish and retreated indoors. I wrote a blog post and read a few blogs and answered some emails, drank coffee chatted to various people on WhatsApp. By 10am I'd got a few things done in the workshop and  discarded the first blog post. 

A friend arrived with my shopping and a slight breeze. The two were, so far as I know, unrelated. We decided on a socially distanced coffee in the garden as the midges had retreated in the face of the breeze. We couldn't see the sea because of the haar but it was very pleasant listening to the birds and the water in the waterfall into the pond and being able to chat face to face.

I spent the afternoon in the garden in the sun mowing the grass, scarifying, weeding, and many such mundane and rewarding tasks. It was good exercise. When I had my afternoon coffee I wrote another short blog post. Then I discarded it. Not, I decided, my day for a blog post.

However half a day in the garden was good for the body and the mind and at 6 o'clock I decided that it was time for The News and to make some dinner. A wee libation whilst the dinner was cooking was a  bonus. 

This evening I have various emails and so on to write and I managed to get carried away and write another blog post. The fact that I have managed to say absolutely nothing in it just about sums the day up.

The wind has dropped and the midges are gathering in clouds. I have shut the conservatory door and battened down the hatches. I have put some strawberries in a dish and when I've finished the emails I shall add some ice cream and go and watch a recorded QI.

Life is good. I am content. For that I have every reason to be very thankful.

More Transport Nostalgia

I was contemplating a post on a current news topic but decided that that would require brainpower and could be a bit controversial so I decided to return to the theme of my transportation starting with my first car and my subsequent three cars.

The first car is a Standard Ensign WNE 193 bought when I was 20 or 21 with a loan from my Grandmother.  Apart from the opportunities she afforded for taking my Grandmother out (we were great pals as well as Grandmother and Grandson) it also enabled me to do my London trips, formerly undertaken on the Hippogryph, in comfort. This photo was taken when the family went to visit a relative in North Wales. (For my records, thanks CJ, it was Flora Scott, née Jarvis, my Mother's first Cousin, daughter of Aunt Edie, my maternal grandmother's - Nana's - sister).

The second car was a Singer Vogue picture here on the banks of Loch Ness.

I think that I decided after a while that I should stop being an old man and get a car more suitable for my age. So I acquired an MG Midget Mk I. Oddly I have very few photos of it that I can find so this was provided by my brother CJ from his archives.

My fourth car came after I'd married and decided that we needed a car more suited to married life than to courtship and weekend excursions to the Lake District (where the Midget took us to our honeymoon staying at Riggside with the Roscamps at Grange-in-Borrowdale).  

The car was a Volvo 221 Estate. When we had done the deal we noticed that the letters on the bonnet said VOOVO and not VOLVO. The dealer was mortified but the deal had been done and we refused to have it changed. It was sold 80,000 miles later and was still known as The Voovo, The picture was taken at the top of Honister in the Lake District. The person shown is my Dad. I think we were all on holiday together. 

SID 77. Music - Another First

I was brought up with music. My parents had catholic tastes and a wide selection of music when I was a young child. It was, of course 78 rpm records played on a wind-up gramophone which was a wedding present from my Mother's place of work. I still have lots of old 78 rpm records even though I got rid of my hundreds of LPs. Except, that is, for the first one that I bought. I was 16. I bought it at Rushworth and Draper in Liverpool on the corner of Whitechapel and Richmond Street. How is it that I can remember all that but not how old I am?

The record was, rather predictably I suppose at the time, some Tchaikovsky pieces played by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra C Sir Malcolm Sargent. It was an orchestra I listened to at the "Liverpool Phil" almost every week during the season. 

As time goes by our tastes tend to alter, some would say mature, and that probably wouldn't be my first CD now. On the other hand in 'classical music' terms my tastes are still late Classical (Mozart and Haydn for example), Romantic and post-romantic. 

I wonder how many of you recall what your first record/CD was. It's interesting that in another 10 years people may well not be buying CDs in any number and music will generally be streamed.