Bright And Early

Thursday. 5.40 a.m. You know what they say 'It's the early bird that catches the worm', or something of that sort. Well, it's early (probably far too early!) but I'm here and writing this. 

2.15 p.m. It's turned out to be wet and windy. I have just been to Lidl. I wanted some raspberry jam for my hot cross buns and the Lidl jam is such good value. You get a much larger quantity than you would in Sainsbury's or any other supermarket, for that matter. It also has a higher fruit content. Also, I wanted cream for my pudding. Chocolate fudge something-or-other.

As I was waiting in the queue to pay at the till, the man in front of me had a vast quantity of tomatoes, peppers, of various types and colours and lettuce. I thought to myself, 'he's either going to make a very big salad or else he has lots of rabbits that need feeding' Crazy, I know, but that's the way my mind works.

7.15 p.m. At around 6 o'clock this evening, I was in the bathroom (I won't give too much detail . . .) when there was a flash of lightning and then the most enormous thunderclap. Then, for around 5 minutes or so, there was a very heavy downpour. As I write this, the wind is howling outside.

Good Friday. 5.25 a.m. It's really peaceful on the weather front.

6.40 a.m. The sun is shining as I write this.

I went to the Oaktree Centre for the Good Friday service. It was about an hour long and afterwards, there was tea and coffee, as usual, and hot cross buns, although they weren't hot. I have bought hot cross buns in Sainsbury's and have put them in my toaster and eaten them with raspberry jam.

Saturday. 7.25 a.m. I have mentioned that I lived in Cardington Village, near Bedford, as a child. (there is plenty more about this period in an earlier blog post.) The huge airship hangers are in the distance and dominate the landscape for miles around. The area is known as Shortstown, after the name of the company which was responsible for the building of the airships, Shorts Brothers. It was from these hangers that, in the 1920-1930's that several airships were constructed, notably the R100 and R101. As a result of this, I have been fascinated by the R101, and its later demise, when it crashed near Beauvais, France, on 5th October 1930.  I have found several fascinating videos on YouTube, one showing the inner workings of the earlier airship, the R101 and video footage of the R101 being built. It seems amazing that men who constructed the airship clambered up the sheds and worked on the girders and metalwork without any sort of safety measures in place, something which would never be allowed under 21st-century health and safety legislation. 

I also discovered something else, which has amazed and somewhat shocked me. The internal gas bag of the R101 and, I presume, the R101 and other airships at that date, were made of cow intestines, but, more precisely, the caecum.  In fact, around 50,000 cows' intestines were used to make these gasbags. I imagine that there were no materials, as we have today, such as man-made plastics, which might  have been used. I can imagine today if something was built of cow intestines, there would be outrage from vegetarians and no doubt animal rights campaigners. Not surprising, when you think about it.

12.20 p.m. I've been out with Alfie. We went as far as the rubbish bin on Oldbrook Green. It really is time the Council replaced this bin. It's rusty and falling to pieces. The bin on the opposite side of the Green is also in a dilapidated state. Both have great gaping holes in them, rusty and unsafe. Alfie insisted on cocking his leg against it, probably not helping the rust. I notice some delightful soul has left a bag of, presumably, doggy pooh, in a black bag, tightly tied up neatly, right next to the bin. Could they not have possibly made the effort to put the bag actually IN the bin, or is that asking too much? It has been bright and sunny for most of the morning.

Time and Time Again

 Monday. 6.35 a.m. What about the title of this blog post? Attempting to put something across to someone and having to repeat it over and over again. Perhaps that person not understanding something and having to keep on repeating it. It is the title of a play by Alan Ayckbourn. I did the book for it when I was D.S.M. at Ipswich in the 1970s. The lead actor, Chris Godwin, created the part when the play was premiered in Scarborough. Alan Ayckbourn came to see our production and said that he thought it was far better than the West End production, which must have said something, considering the limitations of the stage at the Arts Theatre. (They actually dropped 'Arts' when I was there in 1973.) There was space off-stage on the prompt side, but the opposite side was extremely limited, and you had to get off the stage through a sliding door and to get from one side of the stage to the other, you had to go through that door and outside and round through an alleyway and then came back through the stage door to arrive prompt side. This could be problematic when ladies wore long dresses, particularly when we did a production of 'Great Expectations' and it was winter, with snow on the ground, and they come to pick up snow on the bottom of their dresses if they forget to lift them enough to not get covered.

11.40 a.m. I have been out attempting to make a video, walking along the towpath beside the Grand Union Canal at Peartree Bridge. Unfortunately, the Hohem gimbal began to play up. I did a test video along the path towards Oldbrook Green yesterday morning (and mentioned in yesterday's post.) All seemed to go well, apart from the microphone not working because it wasn't set up correctly. That was resolved this morning, but then the gimbal kept locking and spinning around (it was supposed to be set for POV (Point Of View.) and then kept spinning around. It eventually resolved itself and I managed to walk between two of the bridges over the canal and at one point saw a heron and got really close to this amazing bird, until it flew away, unfortunately not on video. It just moved too quickly for me to catch it on video. I walked back to Peartree Bridge and then into Jeeves Close, which is where I had parked my car.

I have now got my car booked in for its MOT on Wednesday, at Anglo Motors, which is in Mount Farm, on a road near the football stadium. I didn't go with Bleakhall Motors, because someone at church told me they had a bad experience with them, (which I have never had.), but I thought I would try them.

4.30 p.m. I've been to Monday Club at the Oaktree Centre. There weren't as many there as there have been in the past couple of weeks. Perhaps the weather has put people off. 

I  came home and took Alfie out, and we walked around Oldbrook Green. In fact, we did two circuits and a bit more, so I hit the 10,000 steps. 

I got back inside the flat because it started raining. The weather has changed considerably, which might or might not be such a good thing. (The flat temperature, according to the digital thermometer, is 23ºC. Just as I was removing Alfie's lead, I heard my phone ring and it was Mears. The lady I was speaking to me said they wanted to know when they could come to fit the extractor fan, and it's booked for Wednesday morning at around 9.30. After all the effort, it looks like it's about to actually happen!

Tuesday. 5.05 a.m. I awoke in the night. I think it was around 1-2 o'clock. It's the usual thing of having to go to the loo. No good pretending these things happen, particularly as you get older. I could hear what at first might have been an aeroplane, the engine sound did make me think that. But it didn't go away, at speed. It droned on, seemingly circulating Milton Keynes. Then it occurred to me- it could have been an airship. I know the sound, having lived in Cardington Village and close to the airship sheds just across the fields from where I lived at Malting Farm. You can hardly miss these two vast sheds, as they stand out in the landscape and can be seen for miles around. It was from here in 1930 that the ill-fated R101 took off for its flight to India, but, basically, because it was overloaded, it crashed in flames on a hillside near Beauvais, France, killing all the passengers and crew. The remains of some of those people are buried in a special area of the Cardington graveyard.

Anyway, I could still hear the sound of whatever it was, but I was more or less convinced it was an airship. I had to go and see, but, looking out of my bedroom window I could only see lights, and it was certainly, well, to me anyway, most likely to have been an airship. You can usually tell, because they float, rather than fly like a conventional aircraft. Then I was thinking, what was it doing over Milton Keynes, at night, in the dark? It possibly is on a test flight, because Cardington (and more precisely, Shortstown, the village which was built up around the airship hangers), is only around 15–20 miles from Milton Keynes, as the proverbial crow flies. It might have been flown at night to keep it hidden by the dark. I don't know, but it made me think it might have been that. One of the two airship sheds is used for filming, and quite a few well-known Hollywood blockbusters have been made there, including sections of the Star Wars and Batman movies.

7.45p.m. Another Tuesday at Camphill, in the performance art workshop in the Chrysalis Theatre. The day was a mishmash. The filming for the silent movie which I had originally been with, about time travel, had been completed, apart from a tiny scene which will be shot next week. We were supposed to go off to a location in Milton Keynes to film scenes for the pirates' film, but in the afternoon the weather changed, and it started to rain slightly, so it didn't seem such a good idea to go out. Instead, it was decided to use green screen to eventually mix in backgrounds and the green material was set up to allow filming in front of it.