The central story, a Jewish family business dominated by a matriarch who has brought a lot of attitude with her from the old country, naturally resonated with me. Not that the Harris family was at war with itself in the manner of the tragi-comic Solomon family of this play, thank goodness.
Dad’s shop – a relatively tranquil place
Sara Kestelman as the matriarch, Yetta Solomon, was simply superb. We have seen her several times before; I especially remember her in Copenhagen at the RNT years ago and more recently in The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide at the Hampstead – click here, but this Yetta role might have been written for her.
As the play went on and the depths of Yetta’s schemes and subterfuges come to light, her character reminded me increasingly of Shakespeare’s Richard III. Perhaps this was Ryan Craig’s intention, as Yetta confides in the audience in very “Dick the Shit” style towards the end of the play.
The ghastliness of the Solomon family and the extent of the machinations at times errs towards caricature, yet Ryan Craig (perhaps combined with Ed Hall’s skilled direction) kept us caring enough about the characters and willing to go with the flow of the plot, even at its extremes. The funny bits are mostly very funny; the confrontational bits thrilling and shocking.
The Yetta Solomon character sees keeping the family together (and in the family business) to be so important as to override pretty much all other practical and moral imperatives. This is Yetta’s flaw, her tragedy.
I recognised some of the characteristics from my own family – the story Yetta tells from her childhood in the shtetl – of chasing Cossack trouble-makers away with a stick – was almost word for word a story I remember my Grandma Ann telling me.
But I don’t believe Grandma Ann used divide and rule to try to keep the Harris family together and she was certainly willing for (indeed she encouraged) her boys to branch out into other businesses – e.g. my father’s and Uncle Alec’s photographic businesses.
Grandma Ann: Harris family business matriarch, yes, machinations, no.
But Filthy Business makes you think well beyond the family and its business. It is a play about the immigrant experience, about London in the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s, about inter-generational change.
I had been impressed by Ryan Craig’s plays before – we saw The Glass Room at the Hampstead 10+ years ago and more recently The Holy Rosenbergs at the RNt – both of which will find their way to Ogblog in the fullness of time.
To my (and Janie’s) taste, Filthy Business is Ryan Craig’s best play yet and we look forward to more good stuff from him.
The night before, Janie and I had a super dinner with Toni Friend at Il Baretto.
Prior to dinner, Janie had picked up huge quantities of Lebanese food from Karam (formerly Crackers) and stored it in the Clanricarde Gardens flat fridge, while I played a losing game of real tennis at Lord’s en route to Il Baretto.
After dinner on Thursday, we stayed at the flat, then took ourselves and all that grub to the house early Friday…
…”are there four of us or forty of us for lunch?” I asked, as we lugged bag upon bag into and then out of Dumbo…
…before we headed off for an early game of modern tennis at Boston Manor Park.
It was too cold to sit outside, but we could admire the wonderful Noddyland bird life from the warm comfort of indoors. Micky had never seen one of our woodpeckers before:
Wine flowed throughout the afternoon. I was being fairly abstemious, as it happens, as was (to a lesser extent) Janie.
Just around the point that everyone was feeling replete, Daisy then served up kebabs (for three of us) and falafels for Kim.
Then fruits and chocolates, just in case anyone still had some room.
Soon after we’d eaten, Kim, full of advice, as always, asked me if I knew what the phrase “fair weather friend” meant.
Janie chimed in that she really likes my Fair Weather Friend song. So I played and sang the song.
“We can do better than that,” announced Kim, dragging Janie off to the surgery room for about five minutes, after which they returned with their own lyric ready to “sing” and instructed Micky to video the result.
Here is their result…or I should say, here WAS their result…
Censored text block, by antonella.beccaria (flickr) http://www.flickr.com/photos/_shalom/548635280/ The original uploader was ChildofMidnight at English Wikipedia (Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons.) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.Frankly, it is not bad for five minutes’ work by a somewhat tired and emotional duet. But one of the performance artistes has subsequently requested that the video be removed from the public domain. Very close friends might ask for sight of the material…at their own peril.
By way of comparison, I laid down a one-take, unplugged cut of my Fair Weather Friend song – click the play icon on the MP3 below…
…and originally asked the court of public opinion to decide between the two songs in a mini Ogblog/on-line Eurovision-style contest.
Whether the self-censoring contestant decided to withdraw their entry for reasons of modesty/manners, or simply decided to award themselves “nul points” in the contest will remain an unanswered question until the end of all time.
Still, it was a fun afternoon – what better way to start the holiday long weekend than with friends?
The next day, Kim and Micky outdid us in the bird life department by somehow attracting a grey heron into their garden…
Thanks to Kim for this stunning photo of “her” grey heron
…but now it seems that Kim and Micky no longer have any fish in their pond. I suppose you can’t have everything.
Here comes the summer – as evidenced by the Seaxe Club and Middlesex AGMs.
Seaxe Club AGM, Thomas Lord Suite, 5 April 2017
I managed to arrange my day sensibly for this one, with a game of real tennis scheduled at 16:00 ahead of the AGM which was due to start 18:00/18:30.
I had a good game that afternoon, winning against a gentleman I hadn’t played since my early days. Back then, he had to give me a significant handicap – this time I had to give him some points through the handicap system. Proof positive of progress, albeit painfully slow progress.
Buoyed by my win, after a chat with Daisy on the mobile, I joined the meeting.
This one was supposed to be in The President’s Box as last year (a suitable size of venue) but had to be moved to The Thomas Lord Suite (ridiculously oversized) due to some flooding problems and the need temporarily to relocate some MCC staff to The President’s Box.
Despite the supersized venue, this was still a cosy gathering of the Seaxe clan; depleted in numbers this year but always a joy to see those friendly Middlesex faces again.
The meeting part is dull enough, but it did give Chairman Mike O’Farrell an opportunity to rehearse Middlesex’s statement/position on the new T20 tournament with a group of loyal members/supporters, which went well.
The panel discussion, with traditional libations before and during the panel, was quite lively, with Richard Scott and Shilpa Patel bringing very different perspectives to the questions.
A shame we didn’t get to hear from any of the younger players this year, but the later date for the AGM than usual (presumably because of the champions match this year in Abu Dhabi) and the Champions Party commitments for the following week, probably made the scheduling a bit tricky for players.
Middlesex AGM and Champions Party, Nursery Pavilion, 12 April 2017
Not such clever scheduling on my part for this day (my own fault), so I ended up hot-footing it from the City to get to Lord’s on time. My timing issues were exacerbated by the early start scheduled (17:30) and a late change to the AGM venue, which was supposed to be in the Thomas Lord Suite, as last year, but was switched to the Nursery Pavilion at the last minute.
Anyway, I think the AGM started a little bit later than intended; to allow time for the bemused and confused (like me) to be stewarded to the right part of the ground.
The AGM was no more dull than usual, in the main. The contentious issue of the new T20 tournament was handled very well, with Mike O’Farrell signalling what was to come in his opening remarks and Richard Goatley then reading out the statement, getting early applause when the gist of it became clear to the throng.
A big turn out for the AGM with many AGM attendees staying on for the party and some there for the party but not the AGM.
I sat at the AGM with one of my real tennis friends, Barry, together with his son Freddie. At the party, the three of us then got together with another friend/retired client of mine, David and also Barmy Kev joined us at our table.
Barmy Kev got a bottle of wine quite early in the event and kindly shared it with me. I now owe Kev a couple of drinks; a point that needs stating and on the evening was oft-repeated.
The meal was a buffet, with infeasibly small plates – although you could go back for more once everyone had been fed – which a few people (not I, Sir) did.
Before and after the buffet, Gus Fraser hosted a show; basically a reprise of the 2016 County Championship campaign. There were several sections and subsections (Gus got mightily confused/confusing over the segmentation aspects of the show), including video clips and discussion, with the whole 2016 squad forming a large panel.
The final section (or was it sub-section) of the show as a smaller panel discussion with four former Middlesex greats; Mike Brearley, Mike Gatting, Clive Radley and John Embury – the latter being Middlesex’s new President, btw.
In truth, not really my kind of entertainment; personally I would have preferred more time to socialise. But the entertainment clearly went down very well and it was great to relive the successful 2016 campaign and also to hear from those Middlesex greats.
I can’t look at this photo too many times – here it is again!
Daisy and I both like a bit of Spanish Renaissance music. We’re familiar with the music of Victoria, but Alonso Lobo and Alonso de Tejeda were new to us, so we thought we should give this a go.
Ensemble Plus Ultra were also new to us and indeed new to the Wigmore Hall. Sadly, they were only able to sell a couple of hundred seats on a Monday evening, which was a shame.
The concert was mostly lamentable…sorry, I mean lamentations. Not cheerful words, no, no, no. But you don’t really need to follow along the words, you can just sit and listen to the sublime sound of the voices, which is mostly what we did.
Daisy commented that the audience was a particularly Englishy-churchy looking bunch. What else she expected at a Spanish Renaissance sacred music concert on the Monday of holy week, I have really no idea.
Anyway, the gentle, beautiful music was just what the doctor had ordered for us that evening.
The Thursday evening was a semi-regular-style gathering of the old Alleyn’s clan in the City. John Eltham tends to organise it and who would have bet against Johnny being the “get together monitor” back in the school days? He wrote:
here is the plan:
7.00pm Walrus & Carpenter public house- 45 Monument Street
8.30pm wander a whole 10 yards to Rajasthan curry shop ( our usual)
I pre-announced that I didn’t expect to get to the pub until 7:30/8:00 – as I had long-since arranged a game of real tennis early evening.
So I arrived at about 7:50 to be told by Mr David Wellbrook (who else) that I was late and needed to assume drinks monitor duties.
Fortunately (and quite naturally) it was John Eltham who was holding the float, to which I added my share and then three of us (Ollie Goodwin the kind third) shared the burden of getting the round in. A small float of “poppadom money” survived the round.
Fifty billion here and fifty billion there soon adds up to real poppadom money
Early April but such glorious weather – we were gathered outside the Walrus and Carpenter enjoying the setting sun and getting a bit cooler, yet not cold.
Indeed it was quite close to 8:30 when Johnny remarked that it was starting to get a bit parky…nippy even…but in any case it was time to regroup in The Rajasthan.
That restaurant runs like a well-oiled machine. Long-used to getting unco-ordinated groups of city folk to gather themselves and place their orders – it all just sort-of happens in that restaurant and it is always a decent (if not exceptional) meal.
My eye was caught by Hariali chicken, which is minimally-described as “Cooked to Chef’s special recipe”. I asked the waiter, who mumbled, “curry-leaf, lemongrass, lots of herbs and spices, very very nice” and I was convinced. Most if not all the others at our table paid far less attention to the detail of their chosen dishes than that.
Most drank beer, but Ollie Goodwin, Lisa Pavlovsky, one other (was it Jerry Moore?) and I formed a small gang of four for white wine, specifically Nika Tiki Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. Not the best I’ve ever had but a decent example; I’m sure Sir Nigel Godfrey would approve.
At my end of the table I was within chatting distance of Gavin Hamilton, Martin Brassell, Paul Driscoll, Ollie Goodwin, Jerry Moore, John Eltham and Mike Jones. Sadly I missed out on proper chat this time with Rohan Candappa, David Wellbrook, Lisa Pavlovsky, Steve “Peanut” Butterworth and the late Chris Grant. By “late”, I mean “arrived half way through the meal”. Not “deceased”, nor “arrived at 7:50, roughly the time I said I would arrive, Mr Wellbrook”.
As always it was a very pleasant evening indeed. What a treat to be able to take pre dinner drinks outside The Walrus and Carpenter.
Saturday 8 April 2017
Let’s gloss over the Friday, which I had intended to be a “do my own thing/get some blogging done” day but which turned in to a mostly work day. Bitty, stressy work at that, with a shocking game of real tennis thrown in mid-morning.
Saturday, the weather was truly glorious, although Janie and I weren’t really able to take full advantage of the weekend’s exceptional weather until the Sunday.
Still, it enabled us to start our evening with friends at the house in the garden terrace, which is a bonus in April and was a very pleasant way to start the evening. Our record for this feat is a mild 7 January evening with David and Steph – click here, but this April evening in the garden had the added benefit of enjoying light in the earlier stages of the evening and thus enjoying the sunset.
The guests were Jilly Black, Andrea Dean, Simon Jacobs and Wendy Robbins; all originally friends of mine from BBYO, i.e. going back to when we were teenagers. It is a testament to Janie that she gets on so well with all of them and likewise they have all taken Janie to their hearts.
It wasn’t long-planned as precisely this group of six, but we had wanted to invite Jilly for ages and she had particularly mentioned that she regretted not being able to see Andrea and Wendy at the party, which Jilly missed, last May.
Then, when I saw Simon in January, around the time we were setting this evening up, realising that he knows and likes all of these people, it seemed only sensible to ask him too.
It might seem a bit drawn out to some readers, inviting people in early January and setting a date for April, but by our (admittedly rather low) temporal standards, I think we got the gathering planned and implemented pretty quickly.
And everyone turned up.
Janie went to town with exotic nibbles; thai-style fish cakes, some flaky-pastry-meaty-parcels and a wonderful chicken liver pate on toasted french stick.
Between the nibbles and the main course I tried to pacify the guests with a few numbers on Benjy the Baritone Ukulele.
Andrea and Wendy, who are dear, dear friends of mine, appreciative of, but not experts on, music, declared that I have truly mastered the instrument. Jilly and Simon, who are also both dear, dear friends of mine, fine musicians to boot, were both clearly so moved by my performance that neither of them was able to add to Andrea and Wendy’s judgement. I think that says it all.
It did get a little chilly by the time we went inside. Some might even say “nippy” or “parky”. Anyway, inside we went.
The centrepiece of the meal was Janie’s signature beef with wasabi sauce dish, which works so well for gatherings of this size and which we knew would be novel to our guests. We’d have to eat it very often indeed to tire of it.
After the main course, chocolates, tropical fruits etc.
Less Trump/Brexit talk than usual these days – which was a blessed relief really.
Wendy told us the story of her recent visit to Downing Street, which really needs to be an episode of a sit-com, rather than an after dinner anecdote.
It was really nice to see everyone and (cliche alert) the evening flew by.
We could do nibbles on the patio again this evening, Sunday – the weather remains glorious. As I write, the sun is still streaming in through the window of my little man cave here in Noddyland.
Nibbles in the Noddyland Garden. Janie took the picture so once again she isn’t in it!
Postscript
While I was posting this piece, Simon Jacobs uploaded a couple of tracks from his forthcoming album. It was possibly one of those Brian Wilson/Lennon-McCartney creative tension moments after hearing my exquisite baritone ukulele playing last night. As Simon himself says on Facebook:
After 3 decades of procrastination, I’ve finally recorded some of my own songs – and now the first two of them are on YouTube (one of them even has a video!)
So please take a listen, subscribe, share with your friends and post your comments… Then, sometime in the summer I’ll release a whole album through the usual channels, tour the world and then of course there’ll be the drugs and the groupies, the breakdown and rehab, the bizarre plastic surgery, the invitation to be an X Factor judge – all the usual humiliations.
Ogblog readers might well enjoy one or both of these tracks:
I am very grateful to Rohan Candappa for granting me permission to publish the following text as a guest piece on Ogblog. Rohan circulated the piece originally to a few friends. I think it deserves a wider airing.
It also triggered a swathe of bants from others on that original circulation. I’ll take soundings on whether those should see the wider circulation light of day or not. Of course, if people want to add their bants to the comments section of this piece here on Ogblog, then bant away.
Rohan Candappa – bellicose back then…
Something has definitely come full circle.
That’s because today is the morning after the night before. And the night before is when my son – 17 two weeks ago – had a party at home. A party with girls. And alcohol. And a herd of previously hand-reared teenagers released into the wild of almost adulthood to fend for themselves.
Oh yes, and let’s not forget the instruction ‘You’re not staying‘ directed to me and Jan. At which point I came back with the perfectly reasonable point of ‘Actually, it’s my house, I paid for it, so I can stay if I want.’
So obviously we went out.
Out to the pictures to see ‘Moonlight’ – very good. Then on to a groovy pizza restaurant, to eat a groovy (probably artisan) pizza – also very good. The only problem was that by 9.30 we’d seen the film and eaten the pizza. And both were five minutes walk from our house. So we took a circuitous route home and got back at ten.
Walk up to the house – no police cars, no mass of kids trying to get in, no flames coming through the roof – Result!
Open the front door and, for some reason, the music blaring out is ‘Mirror In The Bathroom’ by The Beat. And that’s when it strikes me. That ‘full circle’ moment. This is exactly what I was listening to 40 years ago when I had a party at home when I was 17.
All of which got thinking.
So here are some of the things I can still dredge up from my age-addled brain of those parties of 40 years ago, Please feel free to wallow in nostalgia, add your own memories, or disown me as a sad old geezer who endlessly bangs on about how everything was so much better back in their day…
I remember being the hall of my house, at my party, when someone comes up and says I need to go into the kitchen, and going in to find that all the food was on the floor because Mick Carol had sat on the edge of an antique circular dining table, snapped the central support, and the table at completely tipped over.
I remember being at a party at Nige’s house when the patio door got accidentally pushed out, and Nige’s dad, instead of going mad, was worried about us all getting cold.
I remember that over time, going to parties I graduated from bringing bottles of Merrydown cider, to bringing half bottles of Souther Comfort. Why I brought Southern Comfort I have no idea as it tasted like cough medicine.
I remember Steve’s pair of Rupert The Bear checked trousers.
I remember taking singles to parties with my initials written on the labels so that you could take them home again at the end of the evening.
I remember that going to parties at other people’s houses was one of the few chances you had to see how other people lived. And sometimes that meant you got glimpses of other worlds. Worlds you could aspire to. Lives you could want to live.
I remember the expectation, the excitement, the hopes, the fears, the bravado, the posturing and posing and awkwardness of it all.
I remember a joint 18th birthday party with Steve at The Shirley Poppy.
I remember Nick and Tim’s disco.
I remember the word disco.
I remember dancing.
I remember rooms starting to spin, and lights starting to blur, and the sobering cold shock of the air as you stumbled out into the night and tried to figure out how you were going to get home.
And I remember walking home with John one night when it had snowed heavily and having a deep, meaningful conversation of which even the slightest detail escapes me.
So last night, there I am walking back into my son’s party and The Beat are playing.
Like I said, full circle.
And as my son gets older, I wish him many things.
Like friends as good as the ones I grew up with all those years ago and am lucky enough to still have in my life.
When Rohan Candappa circulated his very amusing and charming piece about his 17 year old’s party, I very much enjoyed the read and was thrilled when Rohan agreed to me posting it here on Ogblog as a guest piece.
You might have detected a theme here; school parties didn’t go so well for me back then. Conversely, the youth club ones rocked. That’s why I threw a couple of those myself. They were seminal moments for me, even if/when things did not go “entirely right”.
So Rohan’s wonderful piece induced me to write a trilogy of rite of passage club party pieces:
There are some pictures in the pieces, some unintentionally funny scribblings in my juvenile diaries (scanned and there to be seen in glorious technicolour) and also some of the best bits translated from scribble into English.
But one aspect of Rohan’s delightful piece is absent from those stories. The soundtrack of the events.
Rohan focuses on Mirror in the Bathroom by The Beat as the soundscape of his teenager’s party. Why his kid is playing music from our era rather than his is anyone’s guess.
But it got me thinking. Can I name one song that was stuck at the front of my head from each of the three parties I have just written up? Answer: yes.
Ivor’s May 1978 party – Because The Night by The Patti Smith Group;
My November 1978 party – Rat Trap by The Boomtown Rats got stuck in my head that night, although I didn’t much like the song. Down In the Tube Station At Midnight by The Jam was my soundtrack of choice during those weeks of my parent’s absence, so also deserves a mention;
My October 1979 party – Queen of Hearts by Dave Edmunds…no idea why, but that song was utterly stuck in my head that weekend. Fact. At least there’s one that I can play now on my baritone ukulele.
So here they are, for those who have got this far and want to hear/play any/all of those party tracks – five tracks below, they’re crackin’:
I was about to send John White a thank you e-mail this morning, when I realised that, as John is an Ogblog subscriber, I could thank him here and now while writing the blog piece about our meal, rather than e-mailing him first and then cutting & pasting or rewriting.
Thank you, John, it was a tremendous evening.
There, I have literally saved myself seconds…
…(the author pauses for a minute or two, admiring his words, cunning and outstanding efficiency).
It was a very pleasant evening. My turn to choose; I chose Chor Bizarre in Albermarle Street. Hence John’s turn to pay. Hence my turn to send the thank you message.
My thank you message to John would also have included these follow up points from our conversation:
you are quite right that the Innsbruck song should have guttural ichs and dichs, I listened to several versions when I got home and they all have flem aplenty – perhaps it’s because Heinrich Isaac was Flemish. Anyway, I have added a version for you to hear, towards the end of that Tallis Scholars concert blog piece – click here;
as we suspected, my CD version of I Love Music by the O’Jays is not the extended, nearly 7 minute long version, it is about half that length. The extended version can be found easily enough on line and I enjoyed listening to it.
But this must be confusing for anyone else reading this piece, so let me go sequential again.
We didn’t make it to a wine bar for a pre-dinner drink (we only occasionally manage those these days), this time because John was too busy hoity-toitying at the House of Commons until early evening.
Chor Bizarre was certainly a good choice for John – he loves his Indian food and this is absolutely top notch, British-style Indian. I started with Purani Dilli Ki Papri Chaat, a most amazing version of the type of snack lunch I ate so often in Drummond Street back in the day. John went for Amritsari Machhi, spicy fried fish pieces. We both tried each other’s starters, applauding both choices.
I went for a mild, yoghurty Kashmiri dish, Lamb Yakhni, while John went full tilt for a spicy Tamil Nadu style dish, Chicken Chettinad. Again we tried each other’s mains, pleased with our personal choices while recognising the quality of the whole meal. Rice, naan, cucumber raita…all excellent.
At one point, as we tucked into our delicious main courses, John asked if he could photograph me, as the gentleman he was with at the Palace of Westminster (I think John said it was his Chairman) didn’t believe that John has a friend.
Now I can understand the notion of, “I don’t believe you are going to meet a friend for dinner, I think you are merely making an excuse to get home rather than have another drink with me.” That’s fair.
But, “I don’t believe that you have a friend” is a very harsh suggestion indeed.
At one point John suggested that I had probably ruined his family life by choosing such a superb Indian restaurant; his family tradition of a takeaway curry from the local curry house in Saffron Walden will now seem utterly inadequate.
John even toyed with the idea of taking away from Chor Bizarre for his family, but that merely enabled the recycling of, “the wine will be flat and the curry gone cold” line.
“You’ve ruined my family life by choosing such a good restaurant” could be a friendship-ending remark of course, so perhaps the Westminster gentleman had a point about John and friendships.
Mind you, earlier I made my own potentially-friendship-ending suggestion to John; namely that his question, “what have you been up to lately?” is no longer appropriate in my case. He simply needs to read Ogblog regularly to find out.
Indeed, we really don’t need to make conversation any more at all. We could be like many of the other people we see in restaurants these days – just studying our smart phones individually while we eat.
Anyway, all good things must come to an end, so we wandered back to Bond Street together, from whence we went our separate ways.
En route to the tube, I set John a quiz, the answer to which is “Jimi Hendrix and George Frideric Handel”. A huge accolade to the first Ogblog reader (John White need not apply) who comments in with what the question must have been.
Unlike Scarlett, though, this production is a revival of a 1980’s play. Indeed, a quintessentially 1980’s play. It’s a three-hander. All three actresses performed their roles very well.
Lots of excellent reviews up there, mostly four stars. Of course, the Orange Tree only puts up the best ones with stars, so I add these only for balance:
Several of the reviews discuss feminism 1988 style and debate the extent to which things have changed since then – very much the conversation Janie and I had over dinner and the next day.
Anyway, Janie and I both really enjoyed our evening at the theatre and our Don Fernando grubsie afterwards.
We had arranged to stay on for a couple of days after Scott and Amy’s wedding. The Egypt Mill and Nailsworth generally sounded like a good place. Neither of us had spent much (or in Janie’s case, any) time in that south-western corner of the Cotswolds, so it seemed like a good idea to check out the area and walk off the wedding.
We didn’t need to walk far to see interesting flora and fauna; the gardens of The Egypt Mill were lovely. Only problem was, the gardens were guarded by a badling of ducks.
The weather forecast for the Monday was less than special, so we thought we’d better get most of our outdoor walking activities done on Sunday. After saying goodbye to everyone, we took some advice from the Egypt Mill folk and from Mr Google. Coaley Peak and Woodchester sounded like a very pleasant walk. Almost everyone recommended the Westonbirt Arboretum. We’d aim to visit both of those.
Coaley Peak was very windy and chilly when we got there. Also, the promised “superb views on a clear day” were not forthcoming as it wasn’t clear. The forecast suggested it might be a bit clearer later, so we left the car at Coaley Point and walked to the entrance to Woodchester Park.
There are several walks of various lengths recommended for Woodchester. We planned to walk more than the shortest circuit but less than the medium-sized circuit, making sure we got to see the start of the lakes and see the mansion, but not walk the extensive lakes.
Easily distracted…
The early part of the walk has some man-made paraphernalia designed to keep the easily distracted amused.
Easily amused.
Still, it was a beautiful walk in the main and the weather did seem to be holding up for us. Also, lower down in the park it felt warmer and far more pleasant than it had felt up on Coaley Peak.
…as we approached the mansion, we encountered strange beasts…
The mansion was guarded by wild beasts, the like of which we had not seen for many moons. Fortunately, I was able to emulate their sound (more “maaaaa” than “baaaaa” in reality) to keep the beasts honest. Unfortunately Daisy’s attempts to emulate the sound initially seemed to have no effect and then seemed to make these beasts nervous, so we stopped doing that.
Never really used
The old Woodchester Mansion, which was never really used, looks rather Gothic and splendid. The National Trust does open it up for tea house and mini tour purposes, but not as early in the year as March.
So we wandered back to Coaley Point in the hope of a better view; but up there the view had deteriorated since our arrival and the chilly wind had got chillier.
We took sanctuary in Dumbo (my Suzuki Jimny) and drove to Westonbirt, arriving there before 16:00. We realised that we didn’t have time to do both spring trails and opted to do the Spring Wood one.
The start of the trail was a bit “school-tripsy”; a walkway explaining what wood is and stuff. But once we got onto the trail itself we were in our element. Or more precisely, in Daisy’s element.
I can get all this at home
Lots of Japanese trees with varieties of cherry blossom just starting to show. Of course, as residents of Noddyland, we’re rather spoilt for Japanese cherry blossom trees and felt that “we can get all this and more besides at home”. Except for the number of varieties and the beautiful country trail setting of course.
Daisy got to see her chosen flora.
Not fully sated, we decided we had time to take on the start of the Old Arboretum trail, which promised camellias, rhododendrons, magnolias and (Daisy assured me) pterodactyls.
Daisy got to see her chosen flora…
Daisy got to see all the things she was looking for on the first four stages of the Old Arboretum trail, but we ran out of energy before spotting any of my pterosaurs. No matter.
…maybe behind that tree?…
That evening we had dinner with Tony and Liz, who ventured once again from their glamorous caravan site and dogs (it’s extraordinary how the other half live) to the relatively austere surroundings of The Egypt Mill. We had a very enjoyable evening.
20 March 2017
As promised it rained. Proper, wet rain. We enjoyed our breakfast. I spent some time mucking about with the blog and the pictures we had taken and my baritone ukulele. Daisy read and mucked about with her iPad (other brands of tablet are available).
But later, again as promised, the rain cleared and we were able to plan the local walk for late afternoon; Nailsworth to Stroud.
Perhaps 10-15 minutes out of Nailsworth along the walking/cycle track…
The first part of the walk was lovely, following the Nailsworth stream pretty much. Very pleasant scenery.
Soon enough, we reached a tunnel under the road (A46 I should imagine) which has loads of graffiti art, which we rather liked. Very colourful and some rather good.
We rather liked the graffiti tunnel
Daisy is the thinker…
I knocked up a quick portrait of Daisy (wink).
We continued to follow the track most of the way to Stroud, but then the track seemed to take us to the A46 itself, unless we wanted to loop. So we took to the road, but soon saw a sign which read “public footpath” leading down some steps and back to a rather attractive looking trail by the side of a garden. So we then took that.
A rather attractive looking trail…
…by the side of a garden
The trail continued past this garden…
…which Daisy admired, as the trail led back to the road again.
Just as we were about to emerge back onto the road, a rather strange-looking, frumpy woman accosted us and asked us what we were doing in her garden. I explained that we had followed the “public footpath” sign and stuck to the trail, but she was adamant that we had encroached on her garden.
I pointed in the direction of the sign we had followed and suggested that she report its ambiguity (or indeed its manifest error) to the council, as there was really no choice other than the trail path after following that sign, apart from really walking through the garden. The woman didn’t seem to like my idea of alerting the authorities, she told us that she was in a hurry as she had to rescue her cats. She merely wanted us to know that:
“there’s a cycle and walking track up the top there for people like you”.
I wondered what category of people the weird woman had put “people like us” into. Gentle folk out for an afternoon stroll? Anarcho-ramblers? Pikeys? People whose in-laws stay on caravan sites?
Janie was quite peeved by this woman. We followed a later sign back to the cycle/walking track, but it soon became clear that we would do a big loop round to Stroud that way, so we returned to the A46 and did the last mile/mile-and-a-half by road. Not the most salubrious surroundings for a ramble. Nor is Stroud a particularly interesting or pleasing town to visit, it transpires.
With the benefit of hindsight, we’d have done better to have walked half way from Nailsworth to Stroud and then back again, perhaps a slightly different way.
