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A very middle-class problem

Waitrose in Malvern has closed for a week for refurbishment, and you can’t get much more of a middle class discomfort than that! In my case, not only is my preferred purveyor of good quality food unavailable, but I expect my social life to take a nose-dive too – as on almost every shopping trip I meet someone I know in the aisles and stop for a good gossip. And, worse still, I believe they’re closing the carpark too for the duration. Admittedly, it does need resurfacing, but it’s by far the most convenient level carpark in town.

The other traders are really worried about the knock-on effects. On the one hand, the butcher & greengrocer may get extra trade, but on the other hand it could well be that the punters will desert Malvern entirely all week if they can’t park at Waitrose. The butcher told me that he doesn’t know whether to order extra supplies, or nothing at all – it’s very uncertain for them.

I did a big shop yesterday to stock up in advance of a Waitrose-free week. I did my meat and veg shop first at the butchers and greengrocers respectively – and it was just as well that I did. By the time I got to Waitrose mid-afternoon, the shelves were practically bare! I think it was a combination of people panic-buying and the store deliberately running perishable supplies down in advance of the closure. There was no meat of any kind other than bacon joints, practically the only vegetables left were carrots and cauliflowers, and the dairy aisle was almost empty. The staff were frantically “facing-up” by pushing the remaining items to the front of the shelves, but that couldn’t disguise the fact that there was hardly anything fresh left. There were plenty of dry goods and tins available, but that was about it.

Oh well. It’s only for a week, and in the grand scheme of things it’s hardly a disaster.

06 11 2011 Gillian status Comments (4) Permalink

The Posthumously Published Photographer

About the only online account of Christopher’s which I haven’t deleted is his one with the photo-sharing site, Flickr. That’s partly because I like to go there every so often and look at his photos, but mostly because it gives me very little hassle.

So I was very surprised, about two weeks ago, when I got an email c/o his Flickr account asking him for permission to use one of his photos commercially (although unfortunately without any monetary compensation, just a copyright credit). The request came from an online web-magazine, MaltaInsideOut, and they wanted permission to use a photo Chris had taken of a Maltese hearse to illustrate an article for Halloween.

Christopher's photo of an old-style Maltese hearse

The photo was taken on a long weekend trip to Malta which turned out to be the last holiday that we had with my parents and sister. We were on an excursion to one of the local fishing villages, and I had a stinking migraine so spent the time sitting on a bench by the harbour. In the meantime a funeral was being held for one of the village dignitaries, a local politician by the look of it, and both Christopher and my father wandered around taking photos of the somewhat idiosyncratic hearse and funeral procession.

My reply to MaltaInsideOut perhaps could have been phrased more tactfully, but showed how surprised I was to get their email:

You sent Chris Booth a question about a picture of a hearse for your magazine. Unfortunately, that is probably more appropriate than you knew, since Chris is dead. Very dead in fact – he died over a year ago. So he can’t give permission for anything any more. I am his widow and I suppose that all the rights to his photos etc have devolved to me, so in principle I could help.  I remember the occasion well and the hearse was certainly interesting! What do you actually need? Do you just need an email giving you permission to use that photo as is? Or you want me to look through his computers to try to find the original image?

We agreed that what they actually wanted was a non-exclusive royalty-free licence to use the picture on their website. And thankfully they could download it off Flickr, so I didn’t have to go rummaging through his hard drive, which was not something I wanted to do. So I was pleased to give them that permission, and the resulting article is here: The Grateful Dead.

Christopher would have been so pleased. One of the things he really wanted to do when he got made redundant was to find a way to get his photographs published, and this would have been a start. The editor emailed me back to thank me, saying “I can imagine Chris perhaps giving us a knowing wink at using his photo now”, and I heartily concur that he would have been both pleased and amused at the irony.

02 11 2011 Gillian photograph Comments (6) Permalink

Second leak fixed at last – I think!

Tony came round again this morning, for the fourth time in three weeks, and brought with him another spare part for my pressurised hot water system. He says that should now have fixed the original leak – the one into the overflow pipe outside the kitchen. I went outside to check, and it does seem to have stopped dripping, so that’s a big relief. I’ve told him that I really hope not to see him again for another year, for a regular boiler service.

Now of course I need to get the hall ceiling repainted to cover up the dodgy stain from the leak that was finally fixed last week. I suppose I could do it myself, but I really don’t want to. Christopher always used to complain over many years that the very word “paintbrush” gave him backache. I was less than sympathetic at the time, but now I think I know how he felt! I shall give my regular decorator, Rob, a call and see if he can fit me in.

01 11 2011 Gillian house Comments (1) Permalink

Smokovaca

Three years ago (Is that all? It seems longer) Christopher and I went on a study tour to Split in Croatia with the Kent Archaeological Field School, and had a really good time exploring the stunning Roman remains there. On the last night of the holiday, as is traditional on such trips, the whole group went out for a farewell dinner at a little restaurant on one of the side streets within the walled city. As is also traditional, at the end of the meal the proprietor came around with a bottle of the local firewater for us to taste, no doubt in the hope of increasing her tip. It was Smokovaca, or fig brandy. We all tried some, and it was really rather good – a bit fiery, but with an underlying flavour of figs.  The next day, at Split airport, one of the group managed to find some on sale in the duty-free shop, and the whole party practically cleared the shelves as we all bought a bottle to take home.

Unfortunately, once we got home, Christopher and I discovered that it wasn’t actually very drinkable. What had tasted delicious on a warm evening on the shores of the Adriatic was a completely different drink on a miserable rainy November evening back home. So the bottle was consigned to the back of the drinks cupboard and nearly forgotten. Until, that is, Christopher discovered that it was really good for cooking with – in particular it was delicious added to baked apples, chocolate mousses and so on. Once he’d discovered that, the bottle got used up remarkably quickly as a “secret ingredient” in desserts. So when I went back to Croatia on holiday this summer, I decided to try to find some Smokovaca to bring home with me. Fortunately, Dubrovnik airport duty-free had a wide selection of local produce so I bought a bottle.

This is my recipe for baked figs in fig brandy:

Allow 1-2 figs per person. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Cut the top (pointy bit) off a fig, then cut a deep cross in it almost, but not quite, all the way through. Put the fig in a little ramekin dish, and open it out a little bit, like a tulip. Drizzle some runny honey into the fig, then add a generous slug of smokovaca. Cover with foil, then bake for 15-20 minutes. Serve hot, using a teaspoon to scrape the very boozy insides out of the fig.

If you don’t happen to have a bottle of fig brandy to hand (and let’s face it, that’s unlikely unless you’ve recently travelled via a Croatian airport duty-free!) then it is very nearly as good with ordinary brandy.

30 10 2011 Gillian recipe Comments Off on Smokovaca Permalink

One leak fixed, one to go

I’d arranged to work at home on Tuesday so that Tony could fix my dripping hot water tank. But when I was still having my breakfast that morning, I got a phone call to say that the supplier had delivered the wrong part, again. So we rearranged for Wednesday. I’d run out of sensible things I could work on from home by then, so had to take leave to cover it. That’s something that is much harder now I’m on my own – previously I could share the time off with Chris, and usually one of us could afford the time away from the office.

On Wednesday morning Tony turned up with the right part – at the third time of asking – and fixed the leaking hot water tank. Thankfully, it no longer seems to be dripping onto an electrical junction box, and the salad crisper has been stood down from drip-catching duties. But it turns out that this leak was merely masking another problem. The pressure overflow system is still dripping gently into the overflow pipe, which is the symptom I had noticed in the first place. That requires a new bladder, which inevitably Tony didn’t have available. So he has taken the installation instructions away with him so that he can order (hopefully!) the correct part first time. The heating and hot water is safe to use in the meantime, but I expect him back next week to fix the second leak.

I was challenged in a comment on a previous post to manage ten workman-free days between now and Christmas. Somehow, I don’t think I’ve got off to a good start……

28 10 2011 icyjumbo house Comments Off on One leak fixed, one to go Permalink

More lousy customer service

It feels like I ought to award the IcyJumbo Prize for Appalling Customer Service at least monthly, as there is such a high standard of competition! Today I’ve fallen out with AXA about my home insurance renewal.

AXA, or at least someone purporting to be AXA, sent an unsolicited email over the weekend to one of Christopher’s email addresses that hasn’t been used for two years. In it they said that my home insurance was about to expire, and to renew it I should click on a link within the email (which when I hovered my mouse over it was a very long link with lots of hexadecimal in it), answer some security questions and pay online. It’s true that my house insurance is due to expire, and indeed I’ve had another of those spooky reminders from Chris telling me to do something about it. But that email, although probably genuine, had all the signs of a classical phishing attack. All it would take would be for someone to hack the confused.com database, and they’d have a full picture of who I was,where I lived and when my various insurances were due for renewal.

So I phoned AXA up on the number in my policy details and asked them how stupid did they think I was? It’s an absolute first principle of cybersecurity never ever to click on a link in an unsolicited mail and then enter your security details or credit card number! It turns out that AXA have unilaterally moved my insurance policy to a web-only service, no doubt to keep costs down. I’ve no particular problem with that in itself – but they need to write to me to tell me, so that I know it’s genuine.  An email is not secure enough. Apparently they have written a letter telling me how to log on to the AXA website – but haven’t actually sent it out yet, so the email of course arrived days in advance.

I told the chap on the phone that AXA was training people to respond to phishing attacks, and that their behaviour was completely unacceptable. He seemed completely unaware of the basic principles of cybersecurity and struggled to grasp why I wouldn’t want to click on a link in an email that they had sent me. The concept that it might not have been them, but rather someone impersonating them, seemed completely alien to him! I have got him to promise that he would raise the matter with his management, but I have little hope that they will listen.

24 10 2011 Gillian invective Comments (6) Permalink

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Malvern is well out in the sticks. We do have a single-screen cinema, but it is at best several weeks behind London and the big cities when it comes to showing recent film releases – if we get them at all. However, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy finally arrived here on Friday for a two-week run. I’d heard good things about it from London-based friends, who saw it weeks ago, and strongly recommended it. So I took myself along to the Sunday matinée, partly to get myself out of the house, and partly out of curiosity.

I vaguely remember the Alec Guinness TV series, and I’m pretty sure I’ve read the book at some stage, so I knew the basic plot, though I couldn’t remember the important point about who the traitor was. The first thing that struck me was how unhurried it was. The director has managed to cram a long book, and 7-part TV series, into a film of about 2 hours, and yet it feels almost slow, and definitely deliberate and unrushed. The depiction of the 1970s was very accurate, and I particularly relished the ghastly institutional paint-job on the dingy walls of The Circus.

The cinematography was very well done, and the actors are all top-drawer (I always appreciate Colin Firth…….) but I’m not sure what I thought of the script. I thought there were gaps in the plot where there simply wasn’t enough time to fill in the back-story, and the motivation of many of the characters eluded me. I think I’m going to have to re-read the book to fill in the gaps.

23 10 2011 Gillian Day out Comments Off on Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Permalink

The Wrong Valve

I arranged to work from home this morning so that Tony, the boiler service man, could come back and fit a new valve to my hot water tank, to stop the drip which he discovered on Tuesday. However, I got a phone call at 8:30 this morning to say that, unfortunately, he had ordered the wrong part and that the new valve he had got in for me wouldn’t fit. Instead, he wanted to come back here this morning to have another look at the valve so that he could order the correct part number……

Tony did turn up this morning, very apologetic, and disappeared up into the loft to have another go at identifying the part number that was needed. But he still didn’t seem sure, so asked me if I had the installation manual for the boiler. That really tested my filing system! The hot water tank was installed as part of the extension only a few years ago, and thankfully I was able to track down the paperwork which came with it. Tony took that away with him, and I am assured that the correct new part will be delivered to him on Monday. So I will have to work from home again on Tuesday morning, and dial in to the project progress meeting that’s planned. That’s not very convenient, but I’ve just got to get this leak fixed and I’m even busier at work in the second half of the week.

The delay also means that I’m going to have to brave the mice and go back up into the loft over the weekend to empty the drip-catcher. At least Tony was able to empty it while he was here, which saved me one trip up the ladder. I’ve replaced Tuesday’s tupperware container with the salad crisper from the fridge – it’s got the same area but about three times the volume, so doesn’t need emptying so often. The only good news is that there does still seem to be plenty of mouse-bait up in the loft, so I won’t need to get Tim, the pest controller, back just yet. I’m deliberately not looking too hard for dead mice – and hoping very much that I don’t see any live ones!

21 10 2011 Gillian house Comments (1) Permalink

Problems with the hot water tank

One of the rather spooky Google Calendar Reminders I’ve received recently has been to tell me to get the boiler serviced. It’s oil-fired, and it’s good practice to get it serviced every year before the weather turns and I start to need my central heating. So I arranged to work from home this afternoon, and my usual chap turned up on time to disassemble the boiler, give it a thorough clean, and check that everything was working.

I knew that I had a problem with the pressurised hot water system, as the overflow pipe has been dripping gently outside the kitchen window whenever I’ve had the boiler on. When I had a plumber around recently to sort out the leaking pipe to the dishwasher, I asked him about it, and he said it sounded as though the pressure release valve was leaking and needed replacing when I had the boiler serviced. I thought the problem was minor, and left it until the routine service.

When the service engineer turned up today, I told him about it and asked him to take a look. He went up into the loft, and informed me that not only was the valve leaking into the overflow pipe, as designed, but it was also dripping onto an electrical junction box, and there was quite an extensive damp patch in my loft. And in fact, when I looked up I noticed suspicious stain on the hall ceiling where the damp has leaked through. I don’t think that’s been there for long, as I think I would have noticed it. So I suspect that the valve has been slowly getting worse.

Inevitably, he didn’t have the correct spare part with him, so there is now a tupperware box up in the loft to catch the drip and protect my electrics. I now have to wait for him to order a new part and find a time that suits us both to come back and fit it. And in the mean time I’m going to have to make regular trips up into the loft to empty the box. I just hope I don’t come across any mice when I’m up there…….

18 10 2011 Gillian house Comments (2) Permalink

A murder mystery weekend

Chris and I went on several murder mystery weekends over the years, and thoroughly enjoyed them. My college friends, Tom and Katie, had wanted to go on one with us for years, but never managed to get around to it. We did once get so far as all booking to go on one – I think that was 14 years ago! – but it got cancelled at the last minute, and we never found a convenient replacement to re-book.

So Katie decided that this year we were actually going to get around to doing it, and found a company called Murder Most Foul, who do weekend murder mysteries at locations all over the country. We chose one near Cheltenham – partly because it is within reach of Tom’s parents, who agreed to babysit their granddaughter for the weekend, and partly to be within easy reach of Malvern for me, since I’m still not driving long distances.

In fact, the driving did almost get the better of me. When I looked on the map, the shortest route to the hotel took me through the centre of Cheltenham, right past the General Hospital. Unfortunately, I know that route only too well, having driven it so many times last year with Chris, and I didn’t want to get the weekend off to a bad start with a severe case of heebie-jeebies. So, even though I hate motorway driving, I decided to go the longer way round to the hotel, using motorways and A-roads, and avoiding Cheltenham entirely. It was a longer distance, but should have been not much longer in duration. But there was a major snarl-up on the M5, with signposts warning of “long delays”. So in the end I decided to face up to my demons, come off the motorway early to avoid the tail-back, and drive through the centre of Cheltenham past the hospital after all.  I can’t keep putting off things I need to do, just because I’m worried I’ll have bad flash-backs.

The Friday night was rather fun. The premise for the murder was that a travelling musical theatre company performed songs from the shows over dinner – and at the end of the evening one of the actors gets murdered. We were given clues throughout the Friday dinner, and again on Saturday morning and over Saturday dinner, before the denouement on Sunday morning. So we were serenaded with songs from Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, Moulin Rouge, Caberet etc. I have to say that, if what we heard was the “highlight” of Phantom of the Opera, then I most definitely don’t need to go see the whole show – I was not impressed! But the others were quite fun.

The only drawback was that the Friday night dinner was billed as a Black Tie event. I don’t “do” black tie. In fact, I barely do “dressing up” at all – my idea of being smart is to wear a jacket with my work trousers rather than a sweater. So I was in a bit of a bind trying to find something suitable to wear – I most certainly wasn’t going to buy a new dress that might not ever get worn again! In the end I found that I could still (just about) fit into the dress that I originally had for formal events at college back in the late ’80s, and which I also wore to our wedding reception in 1993. It is a long black-and-white silk dress, and was still in the dry-cleaners bag from the last time I wore it, which must be about a decade ago! I was very impressed that, after years of Chris trying his best to feed me up, and a year of comfort-eating, I still managed to squeeze into it – thank goodness for elasticated waists! I did take a seam-unpicker to it on Thursday night though, and rip out the 1980s shoulder pads – this wasn’t meant to be a fancy-dress party!

We didn’t manage to guess the murderer. In fact, we didn’t come close. But we had a good weekend away and enjoyed ourselves so much that we’re seriously thinking of doing it again next year.

16 10 2011 Gillian Day out Comments Off on A murder mystery weekend Permalink