Author: Cathy Penman

Royal Windsor Horseshow

Posted on by Cathy Penman

I continue to amuse and console myself by going to all sorts of events – I’ve never been to as many as in this last year.

Crawling round some show or other, or attending a sporting event, or going to an antique market, or a new shopping centre, all serve to distract me and generally make me feel better than when I’m sitting at home alone feeling depressed.

This has been a year of ‘reckless leisure’ for me.  It cannot, of course, go on.

Decided to go to Windsor for this horse show on a complete whim, the day after I saw it mentioned on TV.  Went by train, found it was a long walk to the venue.  Absolutely loved the view of ranks of flowering chestnut trees around Windsor Castle, so beautiful.  Lots of pretty horses and perfect people riding them – another world!

It was so hot!  Especially trudging back to the train station laden down with horsey purchases.

Lovely day though.

News update

Posted on by Cathy Penman

Dear John

It will be three years soon, and I’m still living in the same house, the same area.

I need to move and am working towards ‘letting go’.  I don’t want to be faced with difficult spots, painful memories wherever I go.  I think a fresh start would be a good idea now.

But I’ve lived in the same house for 20 years.  I’ve spent 2 years tidying and sorting and now know every corner and where everything is.

I’m attached to it, I’m comforted by the familiarity, and I don’t fancy the disruption of a move.

Nevertheless, it has to be done.

In other news –

I keep seeing things in my local area that I want to tell you about, that you would have been interested in.

That new school has opened already, by the station, which you thought was in such a bad spot because it would add to already ridiculous traffic.

They have added more ‘street furniture’ everywhere in the form of benches, which promptly become used by large groups of vagrants drinking beer all day.  (I remember your opinions on street furniture!)

Yet another place we knew well has closed – the Indian takeaway ‘Depa’ which we used for so many years for deliveries.   I don’t like things that provided me with comfort not being available any more (!!!)

You would hardly recognise the area around Victoria station – so much new building, huge new office blocks and new bars and restaurants (which we could have explored).

And finally –

I saw a small dead black and white bird on the pavement right in front of me today, in the town centre.  Must have been a pied wagtail, hit by a car.

Unusual.  Not nice.  I refuse to give it any significance.

Chelsea Flower Show

Posted on by Cathy Penman

I went to the Chelsea Flower Show this year.  I think I’ve only ever been once before, a long time ago.  I did enjoy it, though it was very busy and noticeably expensive to get in.

I wandered round for hours, looking at stuff, eating, buying things – most notably a little picture of seven sparrows from the ‘Moorcroft’ stall.  (John would have liked it – see Sparrows.)

The main thing that struck me about the show was how different it actually feels to be there, compared to how it appears on the television programmes.  Of course they film when it’s quiet, but I think a lot of close ups and careful angles are employed to give an impression that the show gardens are bigger, there are far more flowers and beautiful vistas in general, and far fewer people!

Very pleased to find there was a shuttle bus right outside the exit which went to Victoria station, though, as it was an exhausting day.

 

Wet monkeys in Gibraltar

Posted on by Cathy Penman

(Aha!  I seem to have accidentally – belatedly – found a way to present photos a bit smaller, good.)

So one of my urges has been to go on safari and animal-themed holidays – to enjoy the natural world and go back to one of my early interests (having studied Biology).

Since I didn’t feel ready to go on a ‘proper’ safari on my own, I thought I’d start with the only wild monkeys in Europe and booked a few days in Gibraltar, earlier this year.

I reckoned, as a British place, it would be a safe location to travel to alone.  I chose a decent (famous) hotel and anticipated that I might meet and chat to some interesting people.

Well, the reality was that the weather was awful – very wet and very windy – everywhere was deserted and the hotel was virtually empty.  I ended up wandering around windswept streets alone in the rain, having done what there was to do (the whole place was much smaller than I’d expected, and none of the tourist excursions were running,  eg to Morocco, because it was out of season) – feeling lonely and miserable.  So it wasn’t a great success.

A few nice photos of monkeys, though!

You can see some more on the bottom of this page:

http://flamingophotos.weebly.com/animals-2.html

 

Christmas cruise

Posted on by Cathy Penman

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Went on a short cruise from London Tilbury, just before Christmas 2016.  Amsterdam, Hamburg and Antwerp (Netherlands, Germany and Belgium), featuring Christmas markets.  Was shocked of course hearing about the Berlin incident, when I’d just been on a similar market in Hamburg.

I went on my own with the intention of being sociable, but it was difficult, it was mainly all couples or groups of friends and I felt rather awkward chatting to strangers and very much feeling the loss of my life partner, who would so much have loved to have been on the ship and seen all the things I saw.

There was a stunning sunset as we set off, and I bought lots of nice things including some clothes, and ate the most wonderful Belgian waffle I’ve ever tasted.  I discovered a lovely little zoo in the middle of Antwerp which had a wonderful exhibition of chinese (japanese?) lanterns in the shapes of different animals.  What I chose as my favourite photo on return, was one of these – the elephants below – which seems to have captured a nice variety of ‘texture’.

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Krakow horses

Posted on by Cathy Penman

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(I stopped doing this photo blog a while ago because I don’t believe many people are looking at it and it just seemed too sad to continue writing stuff no-one’s reading.   Nevertheless, with the new year, I thought I’d do a couple of posts with photos I liked.)

I went to Krakow in late summer 2016, and stayed on my own in an apartment in the old town for a week.  It was very noisy all night with people talking, drinking, and laughing – particularly on the Friday and Saturday when the noise really didn’t die down until about 6am.  Difficult when it’s hot and you want the window open.

There are horses and carts giving rides to tourists in the main square, and I would keep hearing the sound of horses hooves from my room as they passed along the street below, all day and until late at night, and I would go and look out of the window at what colour the horses were.  I’m a bit obsessed with horse colours for some reason, and I liked the way they were so nicely paired up – two white, two dapple grey, two brown, two skewbald etc.  I particularly liked this unusual appaloosa colour on the photo – big brown spots.  I’ve never seen a horse that colour in England.

I do recommend Krakow as an introduction to Poland – it’s a lovely old city with lots of historical stuff to see, plus wonderful shops and loads of cafes and restaurants to try.  Right at the end of the week I discovered the more modern side of the city – a huge three storey shopping centre near the railway station that I thought was more impressive than any I can think of in London!

The trumpet call that is played from the main church every hour is so interesting and impressive – to think that it has sounded every single hour for something like 700 or 800 years to commemorate the death by arrow of the person sounding an alarm call.  Very profound to think that the poor man himself could never have guessed that that would happen for so very long after his death.

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Red and Green

Posted on by Cathy Penman

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Today I put on a brand new light green top I bought at the South of England Show, but forgot that I changed from my black to a red handbag a couple of days ago, because a strap broke (and then I couldn’t be bothered to change my top).  I’m not exactly fashion conscious, but I felt like it was a mistake going out with this clash of green and red, and I was feeling self-conscious about it.  I thought to myself that what I needed was a scarf with red and green on it, which would bring the two colours together, and at the V&A shop (I keep going back to the V&A Museum cos I find the familiarity of it comforting and I like the cafe!) – I found just the thing, in fact I had a choice of two different red and green designs.  So I paid rather a lot of money to treat myself and make myself feel better about the red and green thing.  I asked them to cut the label off and wore the scarf straight away.

I don’t really see what’s wrong with red and green.  Red roses with green leaves.  Poppies in a field.  Wild strawberries.  It’s quite a ‘natural’ combination.  Anyway, I think my lovely new scarf saved the day.  The question is – will I ever deliberately wear that combination again?  Guess I’ll have to now.

(I’m aware that this is a pretty inane topic to write about.  What I need is a metaphor.  The scarf should symbolise something, bringing two extremes together.  Suggestions welcome!)

Kallax

Posted on by Cathy Penman

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I am so proud of myself!  I have worked for 30 years full time in various jobs, but nothing I’ve ever done at work has given me as much satisfaction as having built a big 5×5 Ikea Kallax shelving unit successfully, on my own.  Took me 2½ hours.

I hesitated and deliberated for ages before buying it.  I studied the instructions online, and watched a couple of assembly videos on YouTube, and decided I thought I could do it.  I reckoned if I got stuck, I could pay someone to help then.  Anyway, it went exactly as I expected, with the most difficult stages being the later ones.  Getting the second side and the top on is hardest, where you have to line up eight rods at the same time, and I can see where a second person would be useful at this stage (you’re told it needs two people to do it).  The very final bit, where you are supposed to screw together the final corner by tipping the whole thing one way and then the other, was the only bit I knew I wouldn’t be able to do alone, and though I tried leaning it against a wall and attempting to do one of the screws from underneath, it just wouldn’t go in, so basically I gave up and decided I’d just have to leave one out of four corners not screwed together.

But I’m surprised, I’ve really got a buzz out of doing it.  Having to think hard, work out which bit is which, consider whether the pieces have a front and a back, think ahead to how you’re going to manage the next bit, discover as you go along exactly how far you have to hammer the rods in – and problem solving when things aren’t quite as expected.  It’s like when I’ve been singing classical pieces recently, and thinking to myself that the relationship is between me and the composer who wrote the music hundreds of years ago.  Here, you are alone in a room, and the relationship is with the unknown person somewhere who designed the thing, who anticipated what you would have to do, maybe who tested it to check that it worked, and that it was as simple as possible.  It’s a little piece of engineering, and so clever!  Thank goodness there was no major problem and I managed to finish it successfully and without hurting myself.

Now I can enjoy filling it up with my various collectibles!