Daffodils on my feet

Mum and I went to Bluewater yesterday and although we did sod all in terms of getting xmas presents for other people, we did enjoy sandwiches at Pret a Manger and get a few more bits of clothing for me :) We also very nearly had great success in getting me a new pair of shoes.

I have been without shoes for a few years now, having to rely solely on my gorgeous boots, which no longer support me properly and therefore actually cause me immense pain *sob*. Nowadays, I have to wear the boots that aren’t anything like as nice, my Doc Marten-like things, or fancy high heels. On our mission for shoes, we went into Barratts and I tried on a black shoe from the shelf. Very nice, good God, the damn thing fits! It hasn’t got bows, butterflies or glitter on it either!

We asked for the other one to make the pair. The girl couldn’t find it. There were apparently lots of odd shoes in the storeroom and there’s nothing she could do. The shoe couldn’t be ordered as they have no control over what comes in the deliveries … by now I was considering arson.

We got the name of the shoe – Daffodil 2 – and rang Dad to see if he could track a pair down at the Maidstone branch. The Bluewater branch couldn’t do this as Barratts in Maidstone has moved and Bluewater didn’t have the new number(!). Within a few minutes, Dad had a pair reserved for me at Maidstone. This morning we went to get them and in fact bought two pairs to get me through the next inevitable shoe drought.

As it was such a nice day, I went for a walk in the afternoon (hello, self-employment!) and took my camera with me to take advantage of the great sunlight. Having had my fill of leaves and trees and things on the ground, I’ve got the urge to take more pictures of people now. The leaves are nice ‘n’ all and I saw some amazing colors, but after a while I need some life that’s less still.

KT Tunstall rocks and so does Arnulf Lindner

Those of you who are worth your cultural salt, may have guessed that Saturday’s concise blog had something to do with KT Tunstall: the lovely Arnulf had put me and Suzy on the guest list for the last gig at Shepherd’s Bush Empire :)

Suzy and her friend from uni, Helen, picked me up in the afternoon and we went back to Suzy’s flat, so Suzy could get ready. I’d not met Helen before, but we hit it off immediately. She’s just like Suzy and looks a lot like her too – to the extent that at one point it took me a moment to work out which was which when I came into the dimly-lit room they were in.

We left Helen to play with miles for the evening and headed to the station to go to London. First hurdle, Charing Cross wasn’t open, so we went to London Bridge instead. Then Northern line to Bank and Central line to Shepherds Bush. All fairly straightforward, although it took about forty minutes to get from London Bridge to Shepherds Bush.

Having had no tea, we stopped at a newsagent’s to get some water and I bought a packet of crisps. Suzy got directions from the guy in the shop and off we toddled to the venue. On our way we passed a slightly crazy man who looked at me and said, “oh bless you, bless you.” Well, it’s always nice to be blessed.

Queues were already forming outside the theatre: one for the standing area and a shorter one for the seated levels. As I headed for the latter, I could hear a guy trying to get my attention. I studiously ignored him, but once I was in the queue, I was able to see that he was indeed a ticket tout. But he looked like quite a dude, with his big rasta hat. While waiting in line, we were also witness to a slightly mad street guy who took offence at someone asking him a question and walked off shouting and swearing – “I don’t know him … fuck off!”.

At around 7pm, the doors opened and we were let in. I told the guy at the door that we were on the guest list and he directed us to the box office, where two Scottish girls were also waiting. Eventually the guest list was ready and we were provided with tickets and passes for the aftershow party. Security made a cursory check of our bags and while I had to dump the water I’d bought, they didn’t spot my (enormous) camera at the bottom of my bag. I’ve a feeling that had we been standard ticket holders, our bags would have been rummaged through, not just peered into.

Suzy and I took seats on the second row of the first level of seating, stage right. We had a very good view of the stage – especially of where KT and Arnulf would be – which could only have been bettered if we’d been in the first row. The first support act was Jon Allen, who barely made it in time. He was just the kind of scruffy guitar-playing, harmonica-puffing guy that Suzy likes. I would certainly much rather have listened to more of his stuff than the second support act. I don’t know what they were called, but they didn’t seem to be many people’s cup of tea that night.

Two merry guys came to sit to my left during the support and before long they went off to the bar to get more beer. Clambering back over us, one of them offered to buy us drinks and then profusely apologised to Suzy, saying, “sorry, she’s your daughter!” – it was dark and he was drunk – and offered me a Coca Cola. On his return, there were more apologies as it was evidently now light enough to see that I wasn’t Suzy’s daughter.

A while later, the guys made another bar trip and asked if they could get us anything to drink. I only had a packet of crisps inside me, so I asked for a small coke, while Suzy ordered a beer. To the drunk guys’ credit, when they eventually made it back to us, they had got me exactly what I’d asked for – there was no trying to get me drunk just because they were (that said, one of them did keep tipping more beer into Suzy’s cup!).

KT and her band – Sam, Kenny, Luke and the delightful Arnulf – came on stage to great applause while the guys were still at the bar. The first song was “Other Side Of The World” and I was really impressed with KT’s performance. She has a superb, strong singing voice. KT played all the songs from her album “Eye To The Telescope”, (to quote Mum: “Over The Other Side, Woohoo The Cherry Tree and the other ones”) plus a couple of new songs. We were introduced to the sixth member of the band, “Wee Bastard Pedal” with KT explaining that sometimes the pedal fucked up, or was it her that fucked up? You just couldn’t be sure. She began to use the pedal to lay down the loop for “Miniature Disasters” then stopped and announced “the pedal fucked up!” before starting over.

Ed Harcourt had been KT’s support for the previous two nights, but unfortunately not on the Saturday. However, we were treated to him joining KT and band on stage for “Girl And The Ghost”. So at least we saw him for one song :)

“Heal Over” was absolutely breathtaking, with Arnulf on cello and KT’s beautiful, haunting vocal. The final song of the set was a stomping rendition of “Suddenly I See”, with a fantastic percussive end, with KT doing a stint on the drums, then lobbing her drumsticks into crowd. We cheered and cheered and clapped and clapped and the band came back for a two song encore of “One Day” and “Through The Dark”, in which KT accompanied herself on piano. A really great evening.

Our two new friends were on their way to a party – they were fair out of their minds with excitement. They thought the gig had been wonderful, evidenced several times by the jumping up and down, the wild dancing and arm waving! they kissed us goodbye and disappeared.

Suzy and I headed over to the bar and presented our passes, which turned out to be stickers. We peeled the backing off and stuck them to our tops and were let in. The bar was crammed full of people, but I only spotted Jon Allen and KT’s drummer Luke as “noteworthy” people in the crowd.

Just as Suzy and I were running out of time before we had to leave for the last train, Arnulf appeared from backstage. His friend very kindly let us have him first as we had to go. We hadn’t seen Arnulf since last August, so it was lovely to see him again and to be able to congratulate him on the show and say thank you for our passes. My pleasure in seeing him once more may well have been betrayed by the way in which I kept throwing my arms around him.

We chatted for a few minutes and then Suzy and I had to go for the train. Our return journey went without a hitch and as we made our way through the underground passages of the tube station, we were serenaded by some unseen girls singing “Shout”, their voices echoing through the walkways.

Back in Sevenoaks, Helen and Miles had kindly opened up the sofa bed for me. We said hello to Helen and then stumbled to our respective beds, my head buzzing from the evening’s events.

The next morning, Miles was a perfect gentleman and made us all delicious sausage sandwiches for breakfast. We devoured them while watching (and judging) The X Factor and arsing about with my camera and then Suzy drove me home around 12.

One thing I must say: kudos to the person who searched for ‘preparation for a spanking by headmistress’ the day before yesterday. That’s what I call proper use of the internet.

Woohoo!

That’s all.

6 feet of sandwich pleasure

Despite the bad hair day, I blew off work today (‘John, I’m going for a walk’ – ‘ok’) and went to Tonbridge with Suzy on her day off. We went to Haysden, listening to my new Ausseer Hardbradler CD in the car on our way. I was slightly surprised that I said yes to the walk (as if I have no control over my actions) cos I’d already been on two walks in the last seven days and my legs were beginning to consult their lawyer.

In the country park we played with touch-me-not balsam (Suzy: “don’t-touch-me-burbles”), were unimpressed with a small bouncy dog and impressed with an impeccably behaved rottweiler, who was apparently male, but called Bonnie. We also saw a big fuck off pile of geese in a field, but when they all flew off in picturesque style, I unfortunately didn’t get a picture cos my camera was back in my rucksack hiding from the rain like a very expensive namby-pamby. That’s why there’s only a few pics this time – it kept raining and the light sucked big time.

We went to Subway for lunch, where Suzy nearly asked for the 6 foot sandwich, meaning the 12 inch one. Mind you, the rate at which she put the foot long sandwich away, I don’t think the 6 foot option would necessarily have been much of a hurdle. I once more spread a six inch chicken teriyaki sandwich across my face and hands and afterwards enjoyed an oatmeal and raisin cookie. Oatmeal and raisin? Must be healthy.

P.S. It’s only having just loaded today’s photos that I realise that the first photo from the previous Haysden set is of touch-me-not balsam in flower – and the first photo of today’s Haysden set is of the plant’s seeds. Aah, wia die Zeit vergeht.

Own up, who’s upset the Protestants?

Someone came to Dreamdust having done the following search: the Protestants were upset. What upset them in Henry VIII time. This isn’t just a horrific abuse of a search engine that makes me want to break that person’s fingers, so that they can’t sully my internet with their words, it also reminded me of that dark time that was A Level history.

When I was ill in the last two years of school, somehow the abscess glowing malevolently inside my head affected my academic abilities – but only in history. The subject no longer made sense and I couldn’t understand why nobody else in the class was having the same problems as me. The subject seemed so different from the course I’d taken for GCSE, but since it wasn’t, nobody – neither teachers nor friends – knew how to help. Even throwing my book at the wall with contempt one night failed to clear the fug in my head, although it did make me feel better for a while.

Then in spring 2000, Chris Chandler removed the abscess (and, I hope, threw it at the wall with contempt). I went back to school after Easter, much to everyone’s surprise, and suddenly history made more sense. I didn’t become David Starkey overnight (just as well really, that would be horrid), but history was no longer the bane of my life. I’d missed two years worth of full understanding, but I still managed to get a grade C in it. And that, I think, deserves some kind of fanfare. Or at least a KT Tunstall-style “woohoo”.

Climbing through hedges for the internet

Having missed my exercise last weekend, I took advantage of the nice weather today and went for a walk. I started off on my usual route, but then took a detour onto what I thought was going to be a route I’d done only once before with Suzy. However, I took a left when a right would have been much more the ticket and so I ended up in the middle of the village … not quite what I was expecting. I hadn’t recognised anything especially on the way, but I have such little faith in my bearings and my memory that I don’t even listen to them when they’re right.

I wanted to go further than the middle of the village, so I turned back towards Church Lane, passing home and being unable to decided whether or not to pop in and have a drink. My feet eventually made the decision for me by continuing to propel me past the end of the road. So, off I trotted (trat?) to Church Lane, where I hoped to find some autumnal-looking trees, conkers and whatnot.

As I’ve said previously, the turning of the seasons amazes me and I was surprised to find almost no sign of the conkers that had littered the ground three weeks ago (though not as surprised as I was to work out that it was three weeks ago), but the fruit farm office had emptied their fire bucket full of fag ends, so one can’t complain. I found a few spiky horse chestnut shells here and there and piles and piles of acorns. I had fun taking shots of these with the camera set to macro. Sometimes I would simply hold the camera near the ground, click and see what happened, but other times you would have found me bum in the air, with my hair trailing in the leaves as I peered through the viewfinder.

At the church, I found that a portion of the graveyard that had previously been cordoned off was now open. When I’d been up there with His Highness in September, I didn’t know if the cranky old gate that was tied up was part of a fence to keep you out, but it turns out that it was tied up as a gate to keep the sheep in – the sheep that weren’t there (maybe they’d worked out the whole gate thing quicker than me). Anyway, I went through the gap and wandered among the ancient headstones. I saw a number of stones for families whose surnames now form road names roundabout. The ages of the deceased were also notable in many cases – 36 years, 45 years, even 8 days.

On my way home, I once more tried to get a picture of the rabbits that taunt me. Ok, they don’t actually taunt me, but they do sit on the other side of a hedge looking cute, while my camera fails to focus on anything other than the leaves and branches two feet away. If I was clever, I’d be able to get the photo, but I’m just not. I found a bigger gap in the hedge, so I thought i’d climb through. As you do. So I stepped up the bank, and got through the hedge into the clearing the other side. The trouble is, of course, the noise made by 30-odd kilos of human (or 30 kilos of odd human) scrambling through a hedge gives the cute bunnies plenty of warning of approaching danger and the bloody things had scarpered before I could say “Nikon”.

In which we eat a lot of food

Yesterday I continued my culinary world travels with Lauren and Suzy. This time we were off to Belgium, which is, oddly enough, situated in Bromley. However, the first stop was Sevenoaks, where Suzy is now living. Very nice flat, beautiful wooden floor in the sitting room, door handles, however, at “taking the piss” height. We hung around in her flat, gossiped, messed around with the camera and Suzy made a sandwich in the dark.

(You know, a while back I said that it was a difficult to type while listening to KT Tunstall. It’s nigh on impossible when listening to Hubert’s new album “Ausland”. All the headbanging to “Goassbeitlbauern” slows me down.)

Finally we set off for Brommers in the rain. We’d arranged to meet Lauren in The Glades, but she rang to say that the powers that be had closed off that end of the centre. Lauren headed to the restaurant to wait for us like a sad little loner and we carried on to the car park and then had our fun trying to get down to the ground level and out through the gardens. These gardens smelled very strange and I for one was happy to be through them and into the restaurant.

The restaurant was called “Abbaye” and it was a very cosy place. It was fairly quiet cos apparently the football was on that night. Did i win? We ordered our drinks from a delightful young man (I assume he was a waiter) and set to examining the menu. I wouldn’t have minded ordering all the hors d’oevres, but maybe we’ll do that next time. The olives and warm bread I ordered were very tasty.

Lauren had salmon and various veggies I can’t remember for her main and Suzy and I had each ordered a puff pastry tart with roasted vegetables and brie on top. Very scrum and it came with a bowl full of salad of red onion, lettuce, green beans and possibly some other stuff.

While I was eating, I caught the eye of a guy sitting on the other side of the glass panel that our table was against. We smiled at each other in what I thought was an “oops, didn’t mean to catch your eye” kinda way and Lauren told me to get my coat. We carried on with the eating, talking and laughing and I was aware that this guy kept looking through the panel at us. I studiously ignored him (apart from when I took a photo of him), but Lauren and Suzy couldn’t help meeting his gaze from time to time as he mouthed questions at them.

Eventually, this man appeared behind the empty seat beside me and asked if he could join us. I told him we were on a girls’ night out, so as Suzy pointed out, unless he was a girl, no, he couldn’t. He started to say, “my nephew’s…” and Lauren finished “a girl?”. No, that wasn’t it, but the guy apparently started nodding towards me. I wasn’t looking and so didn’t see any of this. We weren’t about to let him sit with us, so he went back to his seat.

Suzy said to us that she thought maybe he’d meant that his nephew had achondroplasia and suddenly the guy was back. I asked him if this was the case and it turned out that it was. He just wanted to speak to me, to see if I knew his nephew, but I think possibly a few beers had rendered him incapable of knowing how to approach me. He also had no idea how to refer to the condition, though I don’t know how much this was down to slight inebriation, nervousness, or a more general not knowing what to call it.

Despite being decidedly pot-bellied after our main courses, we said yes to looking at the dessert menus. The waiter was very good and duly gave us the time we asked for to let our food settle a bit. Suzy and I ordered lemon sorbets and Lauren ordered a chocolate pudding with a gooey centre. I also asked for another white wine spritzer and Lauren followed suit – “peer pressure,” she said. Then the waiter came back and said that there were no lemon sorbets. So I had chocolate ice cream and Suzy had vanilla. My ice cream melted a bit before I got to it, as I was busy drawing a diagram of the nuclear blast shelter that is being built nearby. I don’t think I finished my ice cream, but I don’t remember Suzy having it either. Maybe I just blacked out from over-eating and that’s why I don’t remember.

Having finally decided to stop eating, we paid the bill, Lauren flicked the tip, I piled it up again, she flicked it, I piled it up again, she flicked it and I piled it up once more. Lauren went to meet her escort, I mean, her Dave and Suzy and I went back to the car. As we walked through the nearly empty multi-storey on our way to the lift, I checked out the acoustics. Once you’ve got yodelling in your heart (and lungs), anything with resounding acoustics and a bit of an echo just seems to begging to be yodelled in. Suzy’s used to this exhibitionism and as we approached the door to the stairway, we turned round to find a couple of people halfway down the car park, walking towards us. So, that gave them a bit of culture they probably weren’t expecting. We fortunately got into the lift and were on our way before they could catch up and ask, “what the hell was that?”