Easter Bank Holiday Monday

Saturday. 4.20 p.m. We had another men's breakfast this morning, this time in the restaurant at Dobbie's garden centre in Fenny Stratford. When I had taken Alfie out at around 6 o'clock, there was a mist hanging over Oldbrook Green, but it was still quite bright, but not sunny (well, the sun had barely risen by then. The moon was again shining brightly, more allusions to coins, medals and silver discs as a description seem more than  appropriate.) But when I went out at around 8.35 to drive to Fenny, I found that a thin fog had descended over Milton Keynes.

Some of the men's breakfast members (for want of a better word.) began to arrive. Dobbie's didn't open until 9 o'clock, but when a staff member came and opened the front door, we went inside and made our way to the restaurant. The entire place has been modernized, given a good deal more than a mere lick of paint. In the restaurant, the self-service element has been removed. It used to be one of those restaurants where you took a tray and moved along a counter where you could choose what you wanted to eat and a member of staff served you and then, when you had everything you wanted to eat, you went to a till to pay. You now go to your table and staff come to you, and they take your order, which is written on an iPad this is how your order is made up, and then it's bought to your table.

Monday. 6.40 a.m. It has been raining overnight. There were definitely signs of it when I went out with Alfie. Well, it is a Bank Holiday Monday, and it's surely traditional for rain on a Bank Holiday.

10.15 a.m. It's overcast and drizzling. By which I mean it's a rather paltry, thin sort of rain. Not the sort of weather you would want to go out in, in the traditional British, Bank Holiday visit, to a zoo, stately home or wherever, so it's just a stay-at-home sort of day. Alfie, I'm sure, would love to go out, but as it's a bit wet out, I don't think he'd enjoy it. We will wait and see how the weather develops and then perhaps go out.

I have been to get a few items from Sainsbury's. Fairy washing-up liquid is the main item, but also a few snacks. It wasn't excessively busy. Well, I don't think most people go grocery shopping on Bank Holiday Monday.

Going down on the travellator (moving people carrier? I don't know what you call it. It's what you stand on to get from the car park level below Sainsbury's store.) there is a really annoying recorded voice, which keeps on telling you to 'stand still and hold onto the rail' and, as you approach the top or bottom to 'get ready to push your trolley off the travellator.' It's so repetitive and annoying, done with a female voice. I was thinking, don't people think for themselves? Do we really need to be told the obvious, like this? (I have discussed this sort of thing elsewhere within these blog posts.) It's a bit like 'nanny knows best.' Okay, I know it's to warn you, but surely, any intelligent person can SEE the spot where you either get on the thing, or off (unless, of course, you are short-sighted or 'visually impaired (politically correct usage for 'blind.' The female voice is not only annoying, bossy and over-repetitive. Why not less hectoring? It could have Anne Robinson's voice, she of, 'The Weakest Link.' As you step off, or on, it could say 'You are the weakest link, goodbye!' or a Margaret Thatcher voice, in her rampaging headmistress-style voice. That would be enough to get customers moving. I was wondering if a female voice has the same effect on people compared to that of a male voice. 

2.00 p.m. The rain has ceased, and the sun has been shining, although it hasn't been very warm. As I write this, I can hear the wind roaring around the building.

Telly Watching- Part 1

At the moment we seem to be having a lot of similar television programmes which feature making-over or repairing items of furniture, toys, clocks, bicycles and so on. It started a few years ago with 'Money For Nothing,' where a restorer/maker/designer goes to a tidy-tip and rescues items of furniture and other things before they end up in the skip and are crushed. They then take the item to specialist designer/restorers who transform them item and then the presenter sells the item for a profit and the money they make is given to the person who was about to throw it in the skip at the tidy-tip. What makes this programme so good is that we see how an old piece of furniture which was past its best can be transformed and the journey it goes on to become something stunning and the money it can make when sold. The reaction when the presenter turns up with the money which has been made after the work has been done on their piece of furniture is a treat. I'm really surprised myself because some items are sold at ridiculous prices.

I suppose there have been many other 'make-over' shows on television over the years, 'Changing Rooms' and 'Ground Force,' and more recently 'Garden Rescue', but they don't have the 'repurpose' element in them, although 'Garden Rescue' does sometimes use recycled items, such as railway sleepers and other items in their make-overs, but not to the extent this rash of shows have.

Then there's 'The Repair Shop.' This is intriguing. People bring items into the shop to be repaired, usually, items that have some sort of connection to a friend, a family member, probably who has died. These items are in a really sorry state, in desperate need of care and attention. For example, a valuable piece of porcelain, a vase or bowl, but some have no real intrinsic value, probably the property of a grandparent or friend, which has a sentimental story to tell, such as a rather tatty teddy bear which survived a house fire or a clock which someone inherited but accidentally got knocked off a shelf and has been left in a drawer because no one can repair it, is the basic format of this show. A series of craftspeople, each with their own set of special skills, manage to restore and revive these pieces. It is a good show, but the sentimental side is beginning to get a bit tiresome. It seems the producers are trying their best to wring every tear out of the people whose items are being repaired. This usually at the end when the 'big reveal' is made and they see their beloved heirloom in its newly-repaired state. There is so much sentiment and gushing that a person can take, surely. Or perhaps not. It's all about nostalgia, and as someone once said, 'nostalgia isn't what it used to be.' (I may have got the quote wrong, but you get a rough idea of what I mean. But, on the other hand, it's great to have a programme where people are actually NICE to one another. Probably accounts for the series success, particularly during the lockdown where people are crying out for something soothing and pleasant to watch. Remember such programmes as 'The Weakest Link,' presided over by the 'Queen of Mean' herself, Anne Robinson, who could make some quite nasty remarks and 'you are the weakest. Goodbye!' was her mantra? Or Craig Revill-Horwood, one of the judges on 'Strictly Come Dancing', who could make some quite nasty quips about the contestants? Done in the mode of a pantomime villain. Just to get a reaction in some respects, and to get people talking on social media and thus increase the viewing figures.

This 'nostalgia' theme is carried through in the fact that the show is filmed in an ancient barn in the  Weald and Downland Living Museum near Chichester. Then it's been styled with objects that give a suggestion of nostalgia, metal advertising signs, bric-a-brac, dried flowers, carriage lamps from a bygone era, and so on. Playing on a rather fake past, in some respects, seen through a haze of soft focus, horses grazing, gaslight, drifting fog, and so forth. Not really genuine really, because living in, say, the 19th century, might have been fine for the upper classes, but pretty terrible for the lower orders, especially those working in the factories and cotton mills in the north of England.

The last of this type of programme is 'Saved and Remade,'  which is Broadcast on BBC2. Members of the public bring in items that have become redundant or have no real purpose anymore or hold some sort of emotional connection (much the same sort of thing which holds 'The Repair Shop' together.) It might be a wedding dress, an ancient sewing machine, or a transistor radio. Specialist craftsmen and women then have to 'repurpose' these items into a useful piece that can still retain something of its original use which can be a functional item in the person's home.

It's good that the BBC is showing programmes to at least attempt to recycle things that would otherwise be sent to landfill, but I think that there is a limit to the same sort of programme. Perhaps these shows are being made at the moment where it's difficult to produce other types of the show under government covid-19 restrictions.  They seem to think that if one type of show is popular, such as cookery or antiques, that if they make more of the same, then the public will lap them up.