A Lighter Inbox...

Oh, I feel refreshed. Revitalised. Nothing to do with the wedding. Caught up on that. A précis  on late night news... plenty. The bride looked exquisite; the groom looked like.... Harry. Some magnificent frockage. Hattily, nattily, stylish. And all went swimmingly.
Marvellous feat of British pageantry.

I'm actually talking about my Inbox. And yours. Because this is big stuff. I am so tired of Bitcoin emails. So fed up with being seduced by Russian women. Why don't they send me some women from North Yorkshire? I don't need any more insurance, and am not ready to put my first down payment on my funeral. Thank you, thank you, but finally no thank you.... No more raking through hundreds of unsolicited emails searching for the one that a friend might have sent you. Or missing the only genuine one because you have been trigger-happy in exterminating  all the trash.

Now we have emails asking you nicely to press this button if you wish to continue to receive emails from their company. No, thanks! The power. The pleasure. No more bombardment. No more delectable temptation. Control.

My Inbox is going to be lean and mean.
I'd like to have been mean with the Ben and Jerry's  cookie dough this evening. I'd like to have been mean with the Digestive Lights I spread with butter. It's all because I wasn't mean with the Porta 6 tonight. Which means that there is fat chance of me being lean in the foreseeable future.
If only I could zip up my personal Inbox....

Eve of the Royal Wedding ..

Well, I don't know about you, but I will be getting myself an early night. I want to look and feel my best, in readiness for the Harry and Meghan wedding fest. Tomorrow is the big day.
Steady the buffs. You might be watching, but I have to say, really,  that I will be quite happy to dip into a few edited highlights on News at Ten.
Because my dears, I have already done the Royal Wedding. Do you remember my mentioning a wedding filming date a month or so ago? Well, I was attending The Windsors Royal Wedding, filmed for Channel 4. If you like satire served hot hot hot, then this is the dish, or rather, the silver server for you. It is very funny. Rude and irreverent. Just my cup of cha.
So when gaga Britain is glued to their TV sets tomorrow, I will be planting my begonias. I wish the happy couple joy. And if they have as much fun as I did on those four days filming, they will have a ball.
Cheers! Time for one of my Negronis, I feel.

Not to be confused....

In Celebration of Big Organs...

Earth Wind and Fire at the Royal Albert Hall in 1997 was brilliant. But I swear it started my tinnitus. Last night, similar seats, the Grand Organ Celebration almost finished off the job. Oh boy. One of the biggest organs in the world and at times, I felt blown away. Literally. Not metaphorically.

I was happy to hear Toccata and Fugue in D minor which meant,  as a Hammer horror movie fan in my youth, I expected to see Christopher Lee at any moment. But really, apart from a cheerful rendering of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue on a piano, I have to say that we did not really engage with the music.

The concert was really for our guest's benefit who is an organ master. Even he had plenty to say about it. His comments were more technical than ours, of course.  When it came to the finale which was an improvised concerto, we were told by Wayne Marshall that improvising was like standing naked in front of an audience. Thankfully, no room for three more organs on stage. That was a relief. And so it was that we experienced one of the most magnificent organs in the world, and wished that we could have escaped at half-time.

I hope you appreciate that I have not resorted to any Mrs Organ-Morgan type of cheap joke in the style of Dylan Thomas.
Occasionally, I can demonstrate refinement and good taste.
God, how dull!

It's a whopper...

Neutrons that Fire Together Wire Together.....

I'm a sucker for supplements. Do they work? I wouldn't know, as I never stick with one long enough to find out. Years ago I purchased a bottle of Gingko Biloba which is meant to improve memory. It amused my friends to hear that I kept forgetting to take it.
At my age any glitch in memory, or poor word retrieval strikes fear into my heart. Could this be...
you know... that thing? Oh Lord, it'll come to me....  You know what I mean?

So any article on memory immediately grabs my attention. Is there some new trick in the book that can help? There was one this morning that caught my eye. Most of it I already knew.
Mnemonics are a fine device, provided you can remember them in the first place.
Write things down physically rather than type them. Generational thing... I don't type reminders.. still at the post-it note-level of evolution.
Blueberries and brussel sprouts (though not combined). Yes, both feature in our diet.
No, the new item to me, was caffeine. Apparently, a dose of caffeine after you have seen what you wish to remember has significant impact on memory.

Then I read a fascinating article about Sea slugs. The study is published in eNeuro (which is obviously where I didn't find it).  The experiment  involved a certain amount of sea slug cannibalism.. (See what I mean? Riveting stuff..). Leading researchers in the University of California  claim to have achieved an RNA memory transplant between living individuals of the same species.

Wowzers! If I take an extra large slug of coffee I might remember to tell Dearest all about it at the end of the day...

The best coffee ever...

Sleeping with the lights on...?

You will be forgiven for thinking that I am a bone-brain. No, come on, admit it. I'll never know. But the image you have of me is of a gin-swilling hedonist who does nothing but watch TV in her spare time.  I said it first. It lessens the pain. But you are only partly right. For I have most recently got back into reading.

The reading muscle is like any other muscle in the old bod. It needs to be flexed, if not given regular exercise. I have to confess that my reading muscle, unlike the rest of my finely-honed physique (Excuse me while I choke on my own spit... do you ever do that, as a matter of interest? No? Sorry I mentioned it.) yes, my reading muscle is distinctly flabby.
I have to confess that my reluctance to read is partly induced by Dearest who loves to read before he turns off the light. Can anyone explain to me how you get to sleep while the light is on? Because when he finally switches it off, he starts snoring in 0.5 nanoseconds. So reading has become a sort of bete noir.

But now it's bonsoir bete noir ( Forget the Welsh, I'm on a roll here or is it a baguette?) because I am reading again. So here is my list of must-reads: Proust, A la Recherché du Temps Perdu; Tolstoy, War and Peace followed by Joyce, Ulysses.
Asleep? Me too. Even with the light on. I am merely toying with you. Reading muscle? You need reading biceps to tackle that lot. No, I have to say my choice is far more prosaic. A few months ago I read Jane Harper's debut novel called The Dry. Set in Australia, an intriguing mystery, quite engaging. Her latest, A Force of Nature made me feel that this was one she'd written earlier, and found it under the bed. Very tame.

I always get a bit antsy when a novel receives huge acclaim. Eleanor Oliphant is  Completely Fine seems to have been universally loved.
My Glaswegian aunt had a GP who was renowned for saying she was "Fine,"even when suffering from terminal cancer. When pressed, she said that it stood for "Frustrated Irascible Neurotic and Exhausted." As an expression, subsequently, it has always made me look below the surface. Dear Eleanor Oliphant is far from fine. It is a perfect piece describing the inner world of a woman with Aspergers. You won't read that in the reviews; at least in none of those I've read. But it is indeed the case. Females with this condition are very undiagnosed. They tend to fly beneath the medical radar. This is a very charming portrayal that gives you great insight into her world. Beautifully written, it is a very gentle read with amusing social observation. And set in Glasgow. Auntie Margaret would have approved. And her GP.

I would like it recorded, however, that my reading into the small wee hours has no effect whatsoever on my bed-fellow. But miraculously, I am far more tolerant of the nasal orchestration to my right...

Amazingly, feeling fine...

Welsh Matters...

You wouldn't say I was partisan would you? I have found these eggs and to be honest, I can't say they taste any different to any other egg I've ever eaten. But I like the name and the graphics, and I'm hoping they will turn me into a prop forward for the Scarlets (Up the Scarlets! ) Llanelli's rugby team which supplies vast numbers of players for the Welsh national team.
So really, while I am only Welsh in terms of my parentage, I am interested in anything Welsh. Like the woollen mill at Melin Tregwynt, and Welsh cakes (not the same from Waitrose). Male Voice choirs. (May they all remain 100% male and none of this Me too stuff ). Tom Jones (in his hey-day for her); Katherine Jenkins (any day, for Him).

So last week, when The Sunday Times suggested a Welsh drama, Keeping Faith, that could rival the Scandi noir that we've all taken to, I was intrigued. It had been broadcast in English and Welsh. The lead actress, Eve Myles, is English but had wanted the part so badly she had learnt Welsh for it. (Impressive, good-girl.) It had only a week to go on I-player, so we gave it some welly.  Well'e didn't, because he fell asleep in the final episode. No stamina. I thought that it might have had English subtitles, and that we would hear the spoken Welsh, but no. Ours was, naturally, the English version.

I really wanted to love it, but it was all a bit too much. Too much passion. I'm not talking nudity, but hwyl. For me, I confess, it all needed to be toned down a notch. I couldn't help feeling that it would have played much better in Welsh, somehow.This got me thinking about the smattering of Welsh I learnt as child.
Today I looked up where I could take Welsh lessons.
I expect the moment will pass. Most of my moments do, if I sit very still.
Maybe, I'll just keep eating the eggs instead. Up the Scarlets!

Bank Holiday Weekend May 2018...

  What an absolute beauty of a Bank Holiday weekend. Bluebells and blue skies in Rutland. I shouldn't really tell you about Rutland because it ought to be kept a secret. It is the tiniest county in the UK. Each year we visit Rutland Water, a reservoir. We walk around it, navigating sheep and cyclists, and listening to silence that is only interrupted by birdsong. For us townies it is, as Dearest says every year, "Soul Food". A cliché  which irritates me, as  it is also a reminder that he is yet again thinking of his next meal. Which is very tough on someone who is studiously not. But I have to confess that there is more than an ounce of truth in every cliché, and so I wholeheartedly agree that this place soothes the battered spirit.
And is, thankfully, short on battered cod.

Take me home, country roads..

Man-training Has to Start Young....

The day loomed large in the diary. The date, as it it got nearer, seemed to vibrate with significance in a small household in Buckingham. And in particular, caused trepidation in the heart of its youngest member. (Discounting the dog who, if such matters interest you, wasn't bothered in the slightest.) This was the week when eight-year-old Joseph would go on an outward bound activity camp with his year group for three days and two nights.
Well, the chap was nervous. His mother was also nervous, but masked her anxiety by buying him new wet-weather gear, new underpants that bore no trace of SpiderMan (so un-cool now) and new wellies. The bag was packed, stuffed full, and the intrepid young man set off on Monday morning without so much as a kiss goodbye, or a backward glance. The same child who had assured his mother, the night before, that he was "Way beyond nervous," and on the morning of departure that he "wouldn't mind too much" if he was late and missed the bus.
The weather, the next two days, was atrocious, but we all knew he had ample changes of clothing.
He returned yesterday afternoon, in one piece, lugging his small suitcase and saying that he didn't fancy doing it again next year, thanks very much.
Gradually, fortified by food and drink he began to reveal more positive aspects of his mini-adventure, and his mother was relieved that it hadn't been a complete disaster. She steeled herself to open the suitcase which she fondly imagined would be stuffed with disgustingly muddy clothes. Instead of which, under a towel she found everything pristine. Suspiciously, in the manner that  she had packed herself.
"Joseph," she called, "Are you wearing the same pants that you wore on Monday?"
He answered ruefully, "'Fraid so.."
"And your socks?"
"I towel-dried them each night. I couldn't find any of my stuff..."
It had been astonishingly invisible under the towel. Oh Lord. Oh my dear Lord. When I heard that, I wasn't so worried about his wonging underwear. No, not at all. It was perfectly obvious that this was an inherited trait. From his grandfather. Sorry, let me be clear, in case you think my Dearest husband has a weakness for re-cycled underwear. It has taken him years to understand that you look under and behind when doing a search. He is so much better than he used to be. However, as for Buckingham...
Early training must start at once.

Dearest, after 38 years of training now searches under the top layer