Permissions

 A few weeks ago I went to my college reunion.  The college (Collingwood, Durham) is roughly 40 years old, and those who started within the first five years of its opening were invited to the event.  From the start I had the feeling that this would be a complicated affair. 

I really enjoyed those three years, and I did go back once to a reunion in the early 90s, which was good fun.  But actually and for some time now, I have felt a greater attraction to the city...

... than the college. 

Also, a lot of the attraction of the place was - of course - related to the people I met there, and I am still in touch with a good few of them (albeit somewhat distantly).  So no need to go back to meet up.  In fact many people I knew had decided not to reunionate.

And we now have a son at Durham, so in the last few years I've been back several times, and - as has been pointed out to me more than once, particularly within the family - it isn't just my place now. 

And Collingwood has grown, expanded almost beyond recognition.  None of these blocks existed in my time.

So in many senses it wasn't like going "back" after a long time away. 

On the other hand, the grounds are still great. and there were rabbits on the lawn. Although the field next to the College, which used to have cows in it, is no more.

And there was still a game of table football to be had.

So as I said, it seemed a little complicated. I wasn't quite sure why I was there and it felt somewhat awkward.

(Here is a sample of complicated and awkward Collingwood architecture to illustrate the point and hint at some kind of pathetic fallacy...)

On the other hand, the room was rather good (in one of the newer blocks they've built, in part, to encourage the conference trade).  And Joe Elliott, the new Master, (or rather the Principal, as I gather they are called nowadays), seemed very pleasant and rather jolly.

There were few from my year there - so I spent most of my time with people I remembered from the year above me, which actually wasn't bad at all(!)  Anthony Tuck's history of the college was being handed out, and I also spent some time looking at the old college photos - which Christine got the porters to fetch down off the wall. Lots of memories returned with those.

However, it only really began to come to life for me when I went on a solo walk into town. 

Walking through Grey, looking down towards the Science Site and the City, I suddenly realised in a rather weird way that I was *allowed* to reminisce.  I had permission.  In fact, it was the whole bloody point of the weekend - it was what I was there for.

So for the next day or two, I'm afraid to say, I revelled in the past just a little...

Dawson Quip

A favourite Les Dawson joke appeared on the hated Saturday Live this morning:-

I was sat at the bottom of the garden a week ago, smoking a reflective cheroot, thinking about this and that - mostly that - and I just happened to glance at the night sky, and I marvelled at the millions of stars glistening like little pieces of quicksilver thrown carelessly onto black velvet. In awe, I watched the waxen moon ride across the zenith of the heavens like an amber chariot towards the void of infinite space wherein the tethered bolts of Jupiter and Mars hang forever festooned in all their orbital majesty, and as I looked at all this, I thought to myself, 'I must put a roof on this lavatory.'

- and thanks to h2g2 for the quote...

O Beamish!

For various reasons we were in the North East late last August, as demonstrated by the bridges.  So on the late Summer Bank Holiday we decided - despite the rain - to go to the open air museum at Beamish.

Beamish celebrates and records the lost industrial and agricultural past of the North East of England.  But it does so by recreating a landscape through which visitors can walk and explore.  Like the confectioners above, which in addition to selling sweets from jars, has a sweet-making workshop in the back, where various flavours of boiled sweets are produced.  This requires large amounts of molten sugar, pulled around like taffy and flavoured as it cools, and then cut in to lozenges for the pleasure of the customers.  Hot, and amazing.

 Elsewhere there are mineworkings, miners cottages, a chapel and school, actors selling things and so forth...

While Beamish occupies a big area, it is still walkable, but most people seem to want to use the trams and buses and carts that travel around the different locations on the site. 

There are indoor bits (where we sheltered when the rain got too bad)...

... as did some other residents...

And of course, as you might expect, there is a little bit of heritage steam railway to have a go on.

Although to be fair, not every heritage steam railway has a replica of Puffing Billy!

The Nunhead Olympics - 3

As the Autumn begins to bite (hence my poem of the week) and Winter is only just around the corner; while the TV sport that appears to be everywhere is godawful football; it seems an appropriate moment to recall a happier time this Summer...

So, one warm weekend evening we went to the Excel centre for the Fencing (men's team foil finals - yes, we watched some people medalling!).   This truly was a public transport Olympics, and a highly successful one...  The DLR (which I have criticised here in the past, I must admit) proved simple and straightforward.  We arrived with plenty of wandering-around time to spare.

I must admit I wasn't very clear about the various types of fencing before we went there...

Once inside the Excel centre,, the venue- all darkness and neon lights - proved amazing...

If there was one flaw, it was that whenever they were presented, the fencers faced the other side of the arena and kept their backs to us....

We knew little about fencing, so in the final we applied science to decide who we would support - Italy or Japan?

In the end we went for the Japanese, because the Italians were unfairly tall and had floppy hair.

The supporters on both sides were eager and enthusiastic - but even with our help the Japanese couldn't win.  The Italians got the Gold.

 

And then it came to the medalling.

So, after a slick hour and a half of top-quality sport, the podium had to be built. 

By people in Olympics purple (so by definition they were nice) bringing out the sort of boxes you'd use to build a school stage.   You know, handles cut into each end, made of cheap boards - easy for people to manhandle around. And they were fiddly to fit together and they had to go in a certain order, so it took a while. 

I don't know, there was nothing wrong with this as such, I'd just expected something higher-tech, I guess.

And then the teams all medalled.  With their backs to us.

Although they did turn around at one point for a big wave. 

So basically that was all good then.

Poem of the Week

To Autumn
John Keats

1.
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

2.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

3.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Bank Manager up on the Wall

Well, after its Fitting, the print of a Flying Machine to Escape the Bank Manager finally is on my office wall.

It arrived, was unwrapped, carted in to work, and now there it is...

Of course, it is hard to see the scale like that - so here it is parked on a comfy chair...

Crystal

A crystal clear blue sky this morning.  No clouds at all, the sun and moon both high, and a gentle breeze as I left Nunhead for work...