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Spoke too soon

I really ought to know better than to state publicly that the mice are dead – and in the case of the one above the larder, very obviously dead. At 11pm last night, just as I was trying to get to sleep, I heard the unmistakable patter of tiny feet in the cavity wall behind my bed. The unwelcome visitors are definitely back again! I phoned the pest controller this afternoon and have arranged for  him to come back later this week and deal with them. Unfortunately, my annual contract ran out last week – but I’ve already agreed with him that I will renew it for another year. I certainly seem to get the value out of it!

02 12 2013 Gillian house Comments Off on Spoke too soon Permalink

Dead Mouse

The mouse poison seems to have done the trick for now. I haven’t heard any scrabblings in the walls or ceiling for at least a fortnight. However, I strongly suspect that there is a dead mouse in the loft directly above my larder. Not actually in my larder, thankfully – the periodic infestation seems to be confined to the wood pile in the garage and to the loft, rather than the inhabited part of the house. But there is a ventilation panel in the larder that opens into the loft so that air can circulate. And there is a suspicious smell of dead mouse wafting through it. Unpleasant! They always seem to choose the most awkward places to die and decompose slowly.

27 11 2013 icyjumbo house Comments (4) Permalink

A busy weekend

It’s been a busy weekend. I met up with an ex-colleague of Christopher’s for lunch yesterday. He left the company around the same time that Chris did, and moved away from Malvern, so we only get to meet up about once a year. We went to lunch at the pub at the top of the hill, which has a new chef since last time I was there. I wasn’t very hungry, so just had two starters. One was pear poached in red wine (usually a dessert dish in my experience) with Parma ham and blue cheese. The other was ham, chips, pea purée and a fried quails egg. The portions were both pretty small, but beautifully presented, and the two together made a decent-sized lunch. They were both delicious, particularly the poached pear. But then that is one of my all-time favourite dishes. It was good to meet up again with our friend, and to catch up with all his news. After lunch we sat for ages over a coffee just chatting, which was nice.

Today, I was back at Eastnor Pottery. I had a large number of pots which I threw a month ago, which all needed turning to tidy them up and then decorating. I sat in the corner and just got on with it, while Jon the Potter was teaching the second day of a two-day throwing course. The other six people were also at the stage of turning and decorating the pieces which they threw yesterday. I always feel a bit of a fraud when Jon introduces me as “This is Gillian. She’s been coming here for so long she’s virtually a professional”, because I know that I’m nowhere near that standard. But I do know what I’m doing, and generally if I have an image in my head of what I’m trying to make I can get somewhere close. I ended up with thirteen pieces – jugs, mugs, bowls and candlesticks – all neatened and decorated. By then it was nearly 3pm and I was absolutely shattered. I’ve left them all with Jon to be dried out and fired, and I hope that they will all be ready in time for Christmas, especially since most of the pieces are destined to be Christmas presents.

24 11 2013 icyjumbo Day out
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Genetic Testing – an update

The story do far – due to a very significant pattern of breast cancer going back several generations on my mother’s side of the family, my sister and I are on an annual mammography screening programme. Meanwhile, Birmingham Women’s Hospital are undertaking genetic sequencing of our grandmother’s tumour (stored by Liverpool hospital for over 30 years) to see what is going on. So far, I’ve been told that there is a mutation of “unknown significance” on the BRCA2 gene, and last I heard they wanted to sequence Gran’s full genome to see what they could find. We also believe that they have managed to track down tissue samples from my great-grandmother’s tumour from at least 60 years ago. Liverpool has a track record in keeping bits of tissue “just in case” (think of the Alder Hey scandal), but this is getting ridiculous!

I’ve not heard anything further directly, which is a bit narking as it is ostensibly me that is the patient. All the emphasis is now on my grandmother – though she is 93 and quite seriously unwell. Birmingham have been strictly instructed not to contact her directly in case they upset her, but always to go through my mother, who has power of attorney. We were therefore cross to find that Birmingham had completely ignored those instructions, and had phoned Gran to say that they had found all sorts of unidentifiable antibodies lurking in her bloodstream, and did she have any idea what they are? As it happens, Gran lived for many years in south and east Africa, so she could well have been exposed to all sorts of exotic viruses, but she has no idea what exactly she might have caught fifty years ago.

My mother had a check-up with her consultant recently, who was in a very chatty mood, so my mother mentioned the fact that Birmingham were investigating the genetic basis of the family’s breast cancer. At that point, the consultant started typing away on her computer, then leafing through her diary for what were clearly log-in details to little-used accounts. She was looking up the details of our case on the NHS computer network – presumably Birmingham must have put some case details on the system, because soon she had access to the medical notes. “Hmmmm” she said, “Mammograms are fine, but I do hope your daughters aren’t being advised to do anything drastic”. By which she meant having a prophylactic mastectomy, like Angelina Jolie.

According to the consultant, the particular mutation in question is being actively studied in London and on the Continent, but she doesn’t think that Birmingham know much about it yet – which makes me even more convinced that they are investigating it out of scientific curiosity. It is my sister’s and my strong suspicion that someone at Birmingham hospital wants to get a research paper out of us, and reckons that a family with a track record of scientific research is likely to be sympathetic to that. The consultant further told my mother that she was aware of the mutation as it was relevant to a particular research interest of hers – that of the relationship between cancer and ageing. Apparently, this particular variation of the BRCA2 gene does indeed predispose the carrier to breast cancer, but it is age related. And, moreover, the evidence suggests that the cancer appears later in each generation. That fits with our family history – my great-grandmother was in her 50s when she got it, my Gran in her 60s, and my mother in her 70s. According to the consultant, even if we turn out to be carriers, my sister and I shouldn’t have to worry about it until we are in our 80s, by which time we’d probably have something else wrong with us anyway!

All very interesting. But it’s a bit unsatisfactory that I’m hearing all this third hand, via my mother’s consultant in London nosing about on the Birmingham computer system. I haven’t personally heard anything from Birmingham Women’s Hospital for over a year.

21 11 2013 icyjumbo cancer Comments Off on Genetic Testing – an update Permalink

Richard II

Over the years, I’ve probably seen most of Shakespeare’s comedies, and a good few of his tragedies, but very, very few of the History Plays. In fact, the only one I can remember seeing is Anthony and Cleopatra many years ago with Vanessa Redgrave (I think) as Cleopatra. What I do remember very clearly is that Christopher and I both found it very hard work and extremely slow going – when Cleopatra was in the midst of a very long soliloquy about whether or not to commit suicide, it was all I could do not to shout out “For Heaven’s sake, stop dithering and get on with it! Put us all out of your misery!”

So although I had seen some rave reviews of David Tennant’s performance as Richard II at the RSC, I wasn’t tempted to make the effort to go to Stratford to see it. Even when Chris was alive, we didn’t make it to Stratford very often – it’s an awkward distance away: too close to be worth staying overnight, but far enough that it’s a long trek home after a performance. And I’m just not up to that sort of effort at the moment. However, I then saw that one performance was going to be broadcast live to theatres across the UK, including Malvern, and that put a completely different complexion on the matter. The ticket price was mid-way between that of a theatre ticket and a cinema seat, and it was a very accessible way to see a play that I didn’t know at all. And, for all that he’s famous as Dr Who, David Tennant is an extremely accomplished Shakespearian actor, and well worth watching.

The play was broadcast on Wednesday night, and it was really quite odd. There was a live audience at the RSC at Stratford, and the actors had been instructed to play to them, while a number of cameras captured the action and broadcast it live. Some of the actors, David Tennant in particular, clearly always knew where the camera was, and were acting at least in part towards it, whilst other actors seemed more unaware and were apparently acting only towards the live audience. The cameramen were able to get some quite tight close-ups on key scenes, so we in the cinema audience got a better view of parts of the action than any of the people actually present at Stratford. But, on the other hand, we were restricted to the view that the broadcast director wanted to give us, and if that was a close-up then there was no ability for us to look at the broader ensemble cast and see their reactions to the unfolding events.

There’s a particular dynamic when you are part of the audience for a live performance, with the actors and audience having a shared experience and feeding off each other. The performers clearly had that link with the live audience at Stratford, but they didn’t have it with us, even though we too were watching it live. From the point of view of the audience experience, it was rather like watching a TV sitcom that had been recorded in front of a live audience. Better than a sterile performance without a live audience, but nowhere near as good as actually being there in person.

Having said that, it was clearly a very good production. David Tennant was excellent as Richard II, with long flowing hair extensions, secure (at least initially) in his Divine Right to rule. He spoke the verse extremely well, so that it sounded very natural and unforced, which is more than could be said for some of the more junior actors. I didn’t know the plot at all, and Mediaeval England is not my period, so I was coming to it completely fresh. With hindsight, it would have been better if I’d read the play in advance, so that at least I was forewarned who was who. As it was, it took me most of the first act to work out that the man they kept calling “Hurfud” was in fact the Duke of Hereford and therefore Henry Bolingbroke, the rival and ultimate usurper to Richard II. Without that key bit of information, nothing much made sense!

I think it’s very commendable of the RSC to attempt to broaden its audience in this way. This was the first time they’ve broadcast a performance live, but they have plans to do around three per year, as they work their way through Shakespeare’s entire canon over the next few years. It will make them a reasonable amount of money, and allow people to see the performances who would be unable to get to London or Stratford. By my reckoning, it’s not as good as being there in person, but still a worthwhile experience. I shall look out for more live broadcasts at Malvern – though I don’t think I’ll bother with any more of the History Plays. They’re clearly not my thing, and I think I’ll stick to the comedies and tragedies in the future.

17 11 2013 icyjumbo Day out Comments Off on Richard II Permalink

If it’s not one thing, it’s another……

The good news is that the electrician came back in between the rain showers on Saturday and replaced one of my external PIR lights, so that now works. It makes a real difference now that it’s dark in the evenings to have a light come on automatically – I can see to find my way from the drive to the front door!

So on Saturday evening, when I got back from the theatre, I was thinking that I’d done enough house repairs and maintenance for this year, and it should be ok to get through the winter. Huh! I woke up on Sunday morning to a very cold house – the boiler had failed overnight, so no central heating or hot water! And I only had it serviced recently…… I was not happy.

Fortunately, it’s not a complete disaster. I have a hot-water tank with a back-up immersion heater, which doesn’t get the water quite as hot as the boiler does, but it’s usable. There’s an electric shower in the en suite, and I have a couple of portable electric heaters which I can use to get the most-used rooms up to a bearable temperature. And if all else fails, there is an open fire in my living room and a wood-pile in the garage. Christopher and I had to deal with quite a few boiler failures over the years, so there are well-established contingency plans.

In fact the worst thing about it was that it took me right back to when Christopher was ill, and the boiler failed during a very cold snap. That turned out to be due to the condensate pipe freezing solid where it discharged into the gutter, and I had a very vivid flash-back of Christopher standing on a ladder with a hairdryer to thaw it. In fact, it was such a strong feeling, I had to look out of the window to check there wasn’t snow on the ground! I’ve subsequently had that problem fixed at source, so I knew it couldn’t be that, and anyway although there was a heavy frost on the ground, it wasn’t that cold. But the vivid memory still shook me rather badly.

The heating maintenance engineer came yesterday morning to have a look, and diagnosed a failed oil pump. Unfortunately, the wholesalers didn’t have a replacement in stock, so he wasn’t able to replace it yesterday. So that was another evening spent wearing a fleece and fingerless gloves, wrapped in a shawl! The new part was ordered on overnight delivery, and I’m apparently “2nd call” this morning, so I’m waiting at home for the engineer to come back and hopefully leave me with a working boiler. It’s very annoying, as there’s yet another short turn-around bid landed on my desk, and it’s inconvenient having to take the time off. But I’m not prepared to go without heating for much longer!

13 11 2013 icyjumbo house
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The Duck House

Last week, Malvern Theatres was showing a new play, The Duck House, starring Ben Miller, prior to it transferring to the West End. I wasn’t originally planning on going to see it – it’s a farce, and I don’t normally bother with those. Christopher really wasn’t at all keen on farces, finding them very silly, so I’ve seen very few and haven’t really developed a taste for the genre. But on Wednesday, as I was walking over to the canteen at work to get some lunch, I got talking to a colleague of mine who had seen the play the night before and loved it. He said it was a bit like “Yes Minister“, and very funny. So I thought I’d see if there were any seats available for the Saturday matinée.

I called in at the theatre on my way home from Waitrose on Thursday afternoon and was in luck – just! I think I got the penultimate ticket for the show – on the very back row of the circle. I normally like sitting in the middle of the stalls, rather than upstairs, but fortunately Malvern is not a huge theatre, and the view is still reasonable even from right at the very back.

The play was basically about the MPs expenses scandal. It was set in May 2009, at the tail end of Gordon Brown’s government. Robert Houston is a Labour MP who, together with his wife, has been living it up at the taxpayer’s expense for years. He loves the expenses-funded lifestyle that being an MP gives him, and appears to have no political convictions whatsoever. So, seeing the writing on the wall for Labour, he is about to cross the floor of the House, and become a Conservative, with the promise of a plum ministerial job once the Tories get into power. Cue lots of jokes about current politicians -such as how Nick Clegg would never “sell out”, and how Chris Huhne is a boring pair of safe hands with an absolutely devoted wife. Houston is about to be interviewed by a Tory grandee, to make sure there are no skeletons in his closet, before the press conference is held to announce his defection.

Of course, this being a farce, the skeletons come tumbling out of the closet thick and fast. In fact, the set was somewhat shoddily built, and I think a pile of expenses-bought hanging baskets came tumbling out of a badly-built cupboard more often than was in the script! I can see why Chris wasn’t keen on farces – they are very formulaic, and this one had the requisite number of mistaken identities, and people caught in their underpants or with their trousers down. The jokes were pretty heavily telegraphed – so that for example when a wardrobe was placed at the bottom of the stairs, I just knew that the Tory grandee would be caught hiding in it in his underpants, a good half an hour before the event actually took place! The duck house would clearly have a duck in it which was guaranteed to quack at the most inopportune moment.  And I was just waiting for the line “Houston, we have a problem”.

Nevertheless, despite being formulaic and very, very silly, it was laugh-out-loud funny. The audience thoroughly enjoyed themselves, and the couples on either side of me were almost crying with laughter at some points. I haven’t been converted to farces in general, but this was very rude indeed about the venality of politicians, and as such was distinctly enjoyable.

10 11 2013 Gillian Day out Comments Off on The Duck House Permalink

Fixing the electrics

For the past week or so, I’ve been having problems with the light in my bathroom. It was getting increasingly reluctant to turn on – which is a pretty fundamental requirement for a light! Sometimes it agreed to work if I turned it on, off, and then back on again, and sometimes it wouldn’t come on at all. I changed the light bulb, and it still didn’t work, so it clearly wasn’t that simple.

It wasn’t originally particularly urgent, as I don’t use that bathroom very often, since I have an en suite in my bedroom, and indeed a shower room in the extension. In fact, I have more loos than I know what to do with! But I had a friend from university coming to stay last weekend, and I didn’t want her to have to use a torch to go to the loo in the middle on the night, so I thought I’d better try to get it repaired. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get my usual electrician out in time to fix it before Katie arrived, which was annoying. I had to explain that it was currently a daytime-only bathroom, and she’d have to use the one in the extension after sunset…….

So I arranged instead to take today off work and get the electrician round to fix the bathroom light and do some other little jobs that needed sorting out. I had been a bit concerned lest the dodgy light was a symptom of the mice chewing on the wiring in the loft, but it turned out to be a faulty switch – much easier (and cheaper!) to fix. He also replaced my doorbell which has been annoying me for about ten years by “buzzing” rather than “ringing”. It took him a great deal of sighing and grunting, so I don’t think the job was quite a straightforward as he had thought, but now the bathroom light is working again, and the doorbell rings properly at last.

While he was here, I had also wanted him to look at the external PIR lights which have also stopped working. I got the window cleaner to go up his long ladder and change the bulb in one of the external lights a few months ago, but that didn’t make any difference, so it clearly needs an electrician with a good head for heights to have a look. However, it was pouring with rain, and forecast to remain so all day, so neither he nor I thought it was worth the risk of sending him up a ladder to investigate. That will have to wait for another time.

It sometimes seems as if I’m running to keep still with the maintenance on this house!

08 11 2013 icyjumbo house Comments Off on Fixing the electrics Permalink

Honesty pays – or at least gets a discount

I was sitting surfing away on my new laptop last week, when a thought struck me. I’d hired in a sysadmin for most of a day back in August to help me set up the system. I had also had a follow-up by telephone when the printer stopped working, and a diagnosis on Christopher’s old desktop machine which had stopped working – basically the machine was beyond economic repair, but the hard disk was still readable, so they returned that to me in case there were photos etc of sentimental value on there, and got rid of the rest of the hardware. So I had got plenty of useful work out of the company, but I couldn’t actually remember receiving a bill from them. I checked my cheque-book. Nope. No sign that I’d actually paid them.

I suppose I could have let it rest, as they had clearly forgotten all about billing me. But I’m too innately honest for that, and, now I’d remembered about it, it would have really bothered my conscience. It’s a small, family-run business, and cash-flow must be an issue. And now I’ve found them, it would really suit me if they stayed in business to keep sorting out my IT, unlike the first company I tried which appeared to have folded before I could get them to do any chargeable work!

So I phoned them up on Friday, explained who I was and what work they did for me four months ago, and suggested that they might like to think about getting round to invoicing me. They were very surprised to hear from me, and thanked me very much for getting back in touch. I said that I hoped the overall bill wouldn’t be too horrendous, as it would be nice to think that honesty paid off occasionally. The receptionist laughed, and said that an appropriate bill would be in the post.

It arrived today, and is significantly less than I was expecting – I’ve clearly been given a discount. They have only charged me for a half day of sysadmin support, when in fact the chap was here for substantially longer than that, as well as taking Christopher’s laptop away with him to work on back at base. So I’m happy that I’ve got a good deal, and my conscience is now clear!

05 11 2013 icyjumbo status Comments Off on Honesty pays – or at least gets a discount Permalink

Lady Wot Lunches

This year’s Bidding Season has been particularly manic, and for the last two weeks I’ve been working simultaneously on two bids. Either of them could easily be a full-time job, so juggling delivering both of them in parallel, whilst maintaining a semblance of working part-time, has been somewhat challenging, and I’ve built up a fair bit of both over-time and flexi-time credit.

I got into work this morning expecting to do some last-minute fire-fighting on at least one of the bids, only to find that they both seemed pretty much under control, at least for now. They’ve got to be reviewed and signed off (or otherwise) by senior management, and until they’ve read and commented on the documents there’s not a huge amount more that I can do in the meantime. So I tidied up some loose ends, and was able to take the afternoon off as Time Off In Lieu.

I took myself off for lunch at the Fig Tree, a little restaurant in town that Chris and I used to enjoy going to. Christine the proprietor always makes me feel very welcome, and there are newspapers provided so I can sit over a leisurely meal and read the paper. I just had a light lunch of a salad with fish fillets, followed by a slice of yummy carrot cake and a cup of coffee. It was very tasty and made a really nice change from a sandwich at my desk, which is all I’ve had time for over the past few weeks.

I think it’s important that I try to be nice to myself occasionally, and have the odd treat – particularly when I’ve been working hard. I don’t think I’d want to be a “Lady what lunches” very often. But it’s nice to do so every now and then.

31 10 2013 icyjumbo Day out
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