8 posts tagged “home”

Neutral Density Sky
Originally uploaded by Thoroughly Good

I've spent ages reading over photography magazines wondering how it is that other Flickr users I know manage to pull off a dramatic sky.

Apparently, the secret is fitting a neutral density filter to the lens and then firing the shutter release. I've assumed that perfect results are guaranteed with every shot.

Personally, I'm not absolutely convinced. First off, I know I could probably achieve the same results using Photoshop (although frankly, I can't be arsed). But secondly, I want that horizon I see every single day when I trundle my way down the hill to my front door to be more far dramatic than it is in this shot. I figured that just adding a filter would do the job. Now it seems I have to fiddle with the exposure a bit more or - shudder - actually do a spot of post-production.

Who really thinks digital photography is easy?

Leaving card

Just how much does your work life bleed into your home life?

I seem to recall thinking at some point during my big-haired, emaciated early twenties that proper people with proper jobs managed to get to their desks early at the beginning of every day. After they'd powered through their considerable to-do lists, it was these very same ordered people who made a point of leaving bang on five o'clock, making haste to get home for a relaxing evening.

This is not something I subscribe to at all. I just don't think it's possible. I've always known I don't keep work and home life separate. I'm an ideas man. Ideas don't come to mind between the hours of nine and five. They can come at any time without warning. That's why ideas people rely on their notebooks or on their laptops. That's just the way it is for me.

That said, this week, I've come around to thinking that its not that I have an affliction thinking about work the whole time. It's more like quite a lot of other people do too. Maybe I'm not quite as an unusual as I think I am. Maybe I'm not in the minority.

I went for a girly night out with a friend early this week. It was a tonic of an experience. I'd got to the restaurant early, stressing about the things I'd done during the day and the things I had to do the following day. I forced myself to write stuff. I missed writing. Do something before she gets here, I thought. That's the kind of person I am.   When my friend arrived we gassed about everything and nothing in between munching on pasta and olives and various other titbits. It was a joy. By the time the evening had to draw to a close, I was considerably more relaxed than when I went to the restaurant. (Interestingly, after I said goodbye to my friend I noticed the same stresses and strains come back and lodge themselves in the pit of my stomach.)

What was reassuring about what we talked about was hearing how her husband often found himself working and thinking in the same way I did. He's always reading newspapers apparently, always watching the news. He always needs to keep an eye on what's going on. I know her husband and look on him as though he's the kind of person who *doesn't* need to do that because he's so very good at what he does. When I learnt that he is pretty much the same as I am, I felt instantly reassured.

It didn't last long of course. Come the next day that same familiar feeling crept in and accompanied me on my way back into work. Work starts early in the morning - this week as soon as I've woken up - and rarely finishes until my head has hit the pillow again. In between those times I'm painfully aware of the need to keep energies up, remain focussed and try to maintain a relatively cool and reasonably good-humoured exterior.

Inevitably, it's not easy. There are questions to be asked and assessments to be made, fears about deadlines, concerns about possible misinterpretation of emails and messenger conversations and the thorny issue of my own personal sense of trust.

Good little producer

Little wonder my mate from Belfast asked me how I managed to remain stick thin when we last went to visit. Post-it notes and notepads might give the appearance that everything is very well-organised in my life but at times it's little more than a reminder of the physical state of anxiety I find myself under from time to time.

I spend a lot more of my time thinking about what can be said and what can't be said, fearing a great big god-like figure somewhere up in the sky bearing down on me with a big staff, wagging a finger in response to a personal judgement or a decision I've made.

This is one fine example of where my professional life bleeds into my personal one. Weighed down by a constant fear of crossing boundaries, the joy I felt I had writing a blog six months has disappeared. This perpetual state of self-assessment has an impact on my creative juices. It stops me from writing. It questions what it is I should and shouldn't write. Should I even hit the publish button? Should I, in fact, have my work read over by at least three people, proofed and typeset before I hit publish?

But perhaps the most destructive question of all is what to blog about. Think about that one and my hands won't go near the keyboard for fear of immediate humiliation. Plenty of people blog - seen a never ending stream of pundits on TV during the Mayoral election run. Those blogs are popular. People go there for news and comment. The bloggers are personalities in their own right. They are the new journalists. Those blogs and their authors are on the ascendancy. That's the kind of writing people want.

People generally don't want to and probably won't read the ramblings of someone wearing his heart on his sleeve. Don't do it. If it doesn't fit it with what everyone else is doing, don't do it. You'll only make a fool of yourself.

That's where I'm at with the writing thing. At the moment I'm finding that work throws up many, many reasons not to write and publish and not solely in terms of the amount of time I have set aside to do it every day. Sometimes that can be terribly disappointing depending on my blood-sugar level at any given moment.

Out on the decking in May

It's only today - a gloriously sunny Saturday in London - as I sit in the kitchen with the back-door open, listening to the Weepies on CD that I begin to feel the benefits of a mild-spring day. There is sixty pounds worth of bedding plants to pot-up, the grass to cut and the sheer indulgence of replaying "To Serve Them All My Days" from BBC iPlayer Radio. Its going to be a charming afternoon.

This may not immediately seem like the most appealing way to spend a Saturday nor to include in a blog posting, but I'm reckoning I deserve the simplest of indulgences and absolutely no interruptions whatsoever. Even the most passionate and committed individuals are allowed to break out of the sometimes destructive habit they have.

And if it means I feel suitably inspired and confident to write over the bank-holiday weekend, then fantastic. If not, then there's always Doctor Who and large bottle of red to sink.

Listening to Humph

A former-Yahoo 360 friend and now Flickr pal from the US asked who it was I was referring to when I titled this picture "Listening to Humph".   It was enough to prompt the following.

Twitter went wild on Friday night. Facebook too. That was where I learnt the 86 year old Humphrey Lyttleton had died. 

Plenty of people have written about him. I've just finished Melvyn Bragg's piece in The Observer today which sums the great man up better than I could. So there's little point in me attempting to provide detail about the man except for a handful of personal recollections.

It's Humphrey Lyttleton's role in the utterly brilliant I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (what I'm listening to in this picture) which saw me and Simon laugh uncontrollably on frequent ocassions and ultimately made us feel at home with the Radio 4 brand. Lyttleton's delivery of utterly filthy lines in the driest and most unassuming of voices made him vital to our radio experience. If you've not heard them, just take a listen to this gem where Humph introduces the concept of "Sound Charades")

Lyttleton and his show brought me and a friend together too. When I think of the show I think of a friend I did once sit next to at work almost ten years ago. He is more "Radio 4" than I am. It was him I thought to text when I learnt about Lyttleton's death on Friday night.

I've no shame either in explaining I shed a tear when I learnt of the news. I'd finally made it back to London Bridge station after leaving the UK Eurovision Preview Party at La Scala. It was there I'd discovered to my horror the presence at the event of someone I really didn't expect to see there, someone whose expression did much to confirm my fears he thought little of me. There was something in the way he looked at me and something in the way he reluctantly said hello to me when he and his entourage passed me on the stairs. The man hates me, despite everything. It's obvious, I thought.

It was that sighting which prompted me to text a group of friends from the nightclub. I explained how I couldn't believe that of all the people to see at what had been billed as the greatest little show on earth, I saw him. One of those friends responded saying that she was pleased to get my text. It had made her laugh. Her mother had passed away unexpectedly earlier in the day. The news really shook me.

I had to go home. My heart wasn't in the party mood both because of the presence of the unexpected guest and the news from my friend.

News of Lyttleton's death came shortly after that. "Jeremy is sad to hear about the death of Humph." Suddenly I felt a loss. I knew it was coming - Lyttleton had gone into hospital earlier in the week for an operation. I knew then an era was probably coming to an end but to learn of it made things so terribly final. Things wouldn't quite be the same again, I thought. Radio is so terribly important to me.

Inevitable then, come Hither Green station waiting for Simon to pick me up at 12.30am, I stood underneath a streetlight. I turned to face the wall behind me and started to cry a little. 

I don't quite know how it is I could have felt so upset about the death of a man I knew only through the speakers on my radio. It did seem rather strange. And yet I felt the loss. I didn't want him to go. I wanted him to stick around for a little while longer, even though I knew that 86 years was quite a long time to be alive.

I explained the sorry tale to my Mum when she called expressing concern not to have heard from me for ten days. "Are you OK?" she asked. "Yes," I replied, "I'm just stressed with work. I'm exhausted still." I proceeded to tell her about events during the week. She then broke the news that the farmer's wife who lived down the lane from her had died the previous Friday. Sheila was ten years younger than my mother. It must be terrible for my parents to see that happen.

Despite the seemingly never-ending stream of death-related news, the most appropriate and possibly cathartic thing to do seemed to be to listen to the edition of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue Radio 4 broadcast today.

Listening to the show felt like a goodbye, an opportunity for everyone across the country to stop and listen to a man who always offered a guaranteed giggle regardless of whether or not the show was a repeat. I perched on the edge of the kitchen worktop, cup of tea in hand and listened intently for half an hour. If they do end up replacing Lyttleton, I can't believe I'll be doing that ever again.

Humphrey Lyttleton was born in 1921 and died in 2001. He was a jazz trumpeter and a radio god. We've lost a great man.

I am the master of focussing on what most will regard as the banal.

There's a good reason for it. Sometimes I derive pleasure from the simplest of things. That's why Monday nights are usually nights I look forward to. Let me talk you through it.

Monday marks the beginning of the week. Even though it might sound irritating to say it, Mondays mark the day when I make one or two little promises to myself. "This week will be better. This week I'll write things in my notebook and make sure I get to the end of the list having completed everything." It's like the beginning of the week. That "fresh start" kind of feeling, a feeling which invariably continues into the evening. Nice.

Ridiculous, I know. But think of it in terms of a sort of mini-New Years Eve/Day kind of thing and you'll get the picture.

Come the evening, I'll perch myself in the corner of the living room on the comfy faux-leather sofas and have a nose around the internet. I spend all day on the internet making sure websites look right. I tweak things. I think about how things might be improved. I'm in a constant state of self-induced editing and repurposing. Considering how many times I open a sodding browser you'd think the last thing I'd want to do is open another one at home.

It's the pull of being allowed to indulge myself for a moment. That's why I will from time to time just immerse myself in what everyone else is doing, look for inspiration on the likes of Flickr or feel the pull of an empty blog posting form and see whether I can put something together which might, possibly, be interesting to read back.

Today is the third day on the trot I've committed something longer than a Facebook status or Twitter update. It feels good. It's been a long time since I last felt driven to write something. That maybe because I'm stumbled on my pal Vivien's blog about a Sunday morning walk minutes before. It's like I say, often the simplest of things derive the most pleasure.

There's the remainder of a cheap fizzy lager to finish off and the promise of home-made spicy crab cakes to devour shortly too. Monday evenings are great, just great.

See what I mean about the banal thing?

Since New Year I've been making more of an effort to get a good night's sleep. It's just easier that way. Sleep well, wake up in the morning bright and breezy, ready to face the day.

This morning was a little unusual, however. My body, clearly satisfied with less than usual amounts of sleep was raring to go at 6.42am. I tried to doze for ten minutes or so but failed miserably in resisting getting out of bed and getting going.

At the bottom of the stairs, looking for something in a bag, I ended up standing on something small, hard and wet. I switched on the hallway light and looked down at my feet. There, carefully positioned against the edge of the front doormat was one, plump looking goldfish.

I'm blaming our two furry cats, Cromarty and Faeroe for this delivery. They did, no doubt, make the delivery with a certain amount of pride. That said, this has to be one of the more unpleasant ways to start the day.

Still, the opportunity wasn't wasted.

It was ten years to the day (give or take seven days) that I embarked on a slightly unnerving journey. 

I set out from Beckton, as far East on the Docklands Light Railway as you can go, to meet up with someone at another DLR station further up the line.  

The original plan was to meet up somewhere in the centre of London but seeing as I was still relatively new to London and conscious that my time management skills equalled my dubious navigation skills, I figured that keeping the plan as simple as possible was the best way forward.

Inevitably, I did arrive late. I remember walking out of the exit at Limehouse DLR and nervously walking along the pavement to the White Swan pub. It was 8.15pm. My hands were in my pockets. It was cold. I kept my head down. It might have been raining. I really don’t remember that well.

It was only a short walk, but it seemed to go on for ages. The sight of Limehouse – one of many fairly grim areas of London – was a good deal more daunting from the ground compared to the train I normally travelled through it on. 

I passed the Railway Inn on my left, then Chariots Spa, then finally came to a stop outside the White Swan pub. It was closed. This was both a disappointment and a relief.

I’ll admit that I had no idea who or what to look out for when I got there.

This was, you see, a blind date. A friend had suggested that he knew someone who really wanted to meet me. It seemed a little unlikely to me. How could I be recommended so highly to a stranger such that the stranger really wanted to meet me? Not only that, but seeing as I’d spent the sum total of a couple of hours in the company of the person offering the recommendation, how could he be so sure ?

I remember looking down at a pair of feet pointing slightly out from one another on the wet pavement below me. My line of sight slowly moved from his feet, up the line of his jeans, past a denim jacket and up towards a beaming smile.

“Hello,” he said, “I’d almost given up on you.”

Simon held out his hand for a handshake. Surprisingly formal for a blind date, I thought but sweet nonetheless.

We’ve been inseparable ever since.

The plan was quite simple. Meet at ours at 6.00pm for a cheeky drink and a blini or two. Then drive to nearby Kidbrooke, park the cars and walk the fifteen minute walk to Blackheath in time to see the fireworks kick-off at 8pm.

Everything was going fine. We'd got to Blackheath in plenty of time, thousands of people all around us. It was a mild night - so mild in fact, the organisers had delayed the start of the firework display just so that more people could get along. Our party of nine tucked into the hot chocolate with rum and started jumping up and down excitedly.

My mobile phone rang after the first firework went off. It was the security alarm people who were monitoring our burglar and fire alarm system at home. Was I the registered key-holder, the lady asked, was I able to gain entry to the house. The alarm was going off. The fire brigade had been called out.

When I said I couldn't get back very quickly she said she'd call the other registered key holders. I had to point out they all at Blackheath with me.

A decision had to be taken. I took the car-key from Simon and ran the fifteen minute walk back to the car, jumped in and then realised that a) I wasn't insured to drive the car and b) I'd never driven this car before. It seems new cars nowadays have a credit car key and a ridiculous start/stop button. Very annoying.

I passed two fire engines coming the other way as I approached the house. At least the place wasn't on fire, I thought, it must have been a false alarm. I went into the house, checked everything out, observed the candles we'd lit before everyone arrived and then pondered whether it was the smoke from when they were extinguised which caused the alarm to go off. Rang everybody in Blackheath. Everything was OK, I assured them. Simon said they were coming back - the fireworks were now over.

I go around the house lighting all the candles again. I might have missed the fireworks but there's no reason not to make the place look nice again for everyone's return. As I do so, my friend Andi who was meant to be on Blackheath turns up on the doorstep. He's been majorly delayed getting to us. He had an road-traffic-accident with a young driver in an Audi sports car. He's quite shaken up.

Whilst we're talking about who was responsible for the accident (it was clear he wasn't in any way) I get another call from Simon. The vehicle the remaining 8 party guests have clambered into to come home has run out of petrol. They're all still stuck in Kidbrooke. The french onion soup remains simmering on the hob at home. They've been to two petrol stations already with a can and can't get any petrol. It seems there's been a rush on petrol in South East London all of a sudden.

Simon asks if I can come out with another can of petrol, only don't come out in the car I'm not insured to drive (his work car), come out in Andi's car seeing as he's there with me. I think quickly and totally ignore Simon's advice thinking that seeing as I have to fill up the petrol can I'll fill up the empty tank of our proper car (ie the one I am insured to drive - the one Simon and I have) and drive all the way there. I run around the house and blow out all the candles again. I don't put the house alarm on.

I go to the petrol station. Andi, sensing the emergency, agrees to follow in convoy. We get as far as the petrol station on the south circular and, in the process of paying for the damn petrol I get a call on my mobile to tell me that the stranded party have located some petrol and are now, finally, on their way home. It's 2239 at this point. I know because I look at the display on my phone.

Frazzled and a little bit stunned by the turn of events, all 8 remaining members of the party make it home at 2315. The fireworks finished at 2045.

French onion soup consumed, garlic bread topped with gouda cheese devoured. Last guests leave at 0130.

It has been the most eventful fireworks night ever.

Whilst I may detest Halloween (and, in actual fact it wasn't really that bad last night), I can't say the same about fireworks night.

Onions

Strictly speaking it should be 5 November, supposedly the day the Guy Fawkes plot to blow up Parliament was uncovered and (excuse the pun) blown to pieces.

For some reason, we choose to mark the failed attempts of an early terrorist by lighting a bonfire, burning his effigy (even when he wasn't, strictly speaking, the architect of the plot) and then going crazy as we watch thousands and thousands of pounds of money go bang in a pitch black sky.

I still don't quite understand how we reconcile all of these things but I'm happy to admit that I don't really want to reconcile them. I love fireworks and I love fireworks night. I get ridiculously excited when bonfire night approaches.

As in previous years, me and Simon and a handful of select people will be going off to the Blackheath fireworks. The place heaves with people on the night. Literally thousands of people make their way to Blackheath village on train and on foot. Forget trying to get there by car. You'll have to park miles away and walk the rest of the way. Hence why our little party will be having to walk for 20 minutes before we watch the free fireworks display along with the hoards of other people.

Then it's back to the house for a special menu of french onion soup and hazlenut and caramel chocolate bars.

Yes, I know you probably don't need to know the menu, but it's because of the food and because of the night that I get ridiculously excited. It's like having a dry run at Christmas. There's a trip to the supermarket armed with a list of ingredients necessary to prepare the best food for the night. Then there's the preparation (we're baking tonight and tomorrow night) hence the large bowl of onions (pictured).

And .. as a special treat .. there will be two flasks of hot chocolate laced with rum to keep us warm whilst we're watching the fireworks.

And no. Sadly, there's no more room left at the inn for this particular event. Sorry.