(Mantel) Piece de resistance

I think this is the highlight and the centrepiece of my new house:

 The dining room fireplace...

Fireplace from Newhaven tip (£10), cleaned and restored by Jim - but in excellent condition to start with, under its layers of white gloss paint. Brass skirt thingy from the marquee at Braunston. 'Teapot brown' oblong tiles from the V&A collection (£90 a metre!); Victorian decorative tiles bought on the works outing to Cleethorpes, 2015; oak shelf made by Pete Boyce (designed by me!); brackets by Yesterhome, all beautifully put together by Jim.

I love it to bits.

Promised me a river

One of the things I've got involved with because of my job is the Foundation Year Network (they're working on the website), and because I can't resist a committee, I got myself elected (unopposed, I think) to their executive last year. We meet at various institutions where the network has a presence, and yesterday this provided an opportunity for the boss (who currently chairs the executive) and me to take a trip Up That London, as it is obligatory here to call any journey to the capital. Our hosts were Kings College, and we were to meet in the River Room, which we were assured had a stunning view of the Thames.

Well, it probably did, before they put the scaffold up.

It was a lovely bright, dry (if cold) day in London, a welcome contrast to the slushy Sheffield I'd walked through to the station for the 0729 train. In the afternoon, the FYN held a workshop, in which I participated in the traditional fashion:

A good time was had by all, and I was particularly impressed by the college's monogrammed Wedgewood plates.

The boss being a fell runner, and me as you know a keenish walker, there was no question of us taking the tube for the scant mile and three quarters from St Pancras to the Strand. What with my walk down to the station in the morning, I clocked up over six miles over the course of the day. We left it a bit late getting away though and had to stride out fairly briskly, not helped by starting off in the wrong direction and someone putting a building site whereof Google knew not. Now, here's an interesting thing - we each had Google maps on our identical iPhones, set up for the same destination, and they were giving us different ETAs. Does Google/iPhone take account of your walking speed (as measured in the past) when estimating how long a journey will take?

Anyway, we beat Google's estimate(s) fairly comfortably, and had a most civilised return journey.

And a ghost of one

This stopped me in my tracks yesterday morning, revealed behind the facsia of an abandoned shop.

I think I've worked out what it once said. Can you make it out?

A good sign

Well, I liked it.

In brackets

My latest set of brackets arrived today.

These will hold up the mantelshelves in the front room and the dining room.

Like their plainer counterparts in the kitchen

(and bathroom), they're from Yesterhome, and cast in Birmingham. They're not cheap, but they are really nicely finished. Service is good too - easy to order on the website, postage at standard Royal Mail rates, and dispatched quickly. The ornate brackets were out of stock when I first looked, so I ticked the box saying 'email me when they're back in' without much hope, but just before Christmas I got the email to say ther were available again.

It tool me ages to track down some decent brackets, so if you're on the lookout, Yesterhome are definitely worth a try. They have all sorts of other tempting stuff as well...

Through pit and loft

That building is of course Sheffield University's Arts Tower - and as well as seeing it from my study window and passing it on the way to the office, I forgot to mention that I've taught in its basement too. Rather churlishly, we tend not to like its windowless lecture theatres - especially as last semester they were too small for what we were trying to do.

Built in the sixties, and opened in 1966, the tower did, as the name suggests, originally house all the Arts departments. Sadly, they have outgrown it, and although Architecture and Landscape still have the privilege of occupying the upper floors (and I, once, have had the privilege of visiting them), the rest of the building is largely given over to offices now, with HR on the 5th and 6th floors being my most frequent destination (after the basement).

It's the tallest University building in England (Glasgow pips it to the British crown) and was until 2009 the tallest building in Sheffield. What it is most famous for, though, is this:

The Arts Tower Paternoster lift is reputedly the largest in the  world. It has 38 'cars' whcih can each take two people. Paternosters were popular in Europe from the early 20th century, but fell out of favour in the 1970s. In Britain, they were particularly popular in university buildings, but over the years there numbers have declined, largely, it seems, over safety concerns - which, to be honest, are understandable. Until last year there were three remaining in the UK, all in universities; now there are two - the University of Leicester have just closed theirs, and will replace it with a conventional lift, citing not safety but the impossibility of getting spare parts for it - something I guess will chime with historic boaters. Sheffield's however was completely refurbished - with added safety features - in 2009, and the university website assures readers that it will be in operation 'for many years to come'.

I confess I was quite trepidacious about using it at first, until - on that visit to Landscape - my boss said, 'I suppose it's a bit like getting on and off a boat' and I thought, I suppose it is, a bit, really - and have quite taken to it since. I was slightly disconcerted on when occasion when, after I had safely disembarked, the lift stopped, leaving my colleague in the next car coming up peeping up from below ground level. She did eventually clamber out - I'm not sure I would have dared in case it had started again.

Rather like the waterways system, it's a refreshing reminder that 'health and safety' hasn't actually gone mad (see 'most popular posts'), and we are still trusted to do slightly dangerous things (and very dangerous things, like driving cars). We even trust students to do it! So long may the Arts Tower Paternoster continue.

Perspective

It may not be to everyone's taste, but as sixties buildings go, I think this is rather lovely. I can see it from my house, and I walk right past it on the way to work every day.

En route

We broke our journey down to Newhaven with a short detour off the M1, to visit somewhere we usually only see at the height of summer.

It was all looking quite festive - they'd had quite a lot of snow, although the roads were clear by the time we got there.

I finally bought Pete and Irene (of Renfrew, and Rat, and James Loader, and Lucy...) the dinner I'd promised since they so enhanced our enjoyment - nay, survival - of the Thames in 2016. Enjoyable as that was, it was a bonus addition to the main purpose of the detour... to collect a piece of oak:

Pete's photo

Beautifully cut and finished by Pete from my very technical drawing:

Which was emailed to him in exactly the form you see it here.

No prizes for guessing where that's destined for (especially if you look at the photo file names :-)

Northern grit

When we set off for Sussex on Friday, it was snowing, and had been for some of the night. Big, wet flakes, settling on un-gritted roads. We took the roundabout, more contoury, less hilly, route out of Walkley and set off on our usual route via the A61. We crept along fine until we got to the other side of Woodseats but then the traffic started to back up. In the distance we could see a bus slewing, failing to get up the hill to (at?) Meadowhead. We sat, and sat, and debated whether to turn around and go another way, and then the queue of traffic moved a little, then stopped again. Then another couple of vehicles moved forwards, and then we could see what was happening.

Two men - as far as I know just local members of the public, with a bucket and shovel, were spreading grit from the bunker half way up the hill, walking back and forth with it, and making the difference that enabled the traffic - including the buses - get up the hill.

Now, that might happen in London, but I'm not so sure.

Vinyl day of the year

I got a turntable for Christmas.

I'm not one of those people who is a massive fan of vinyl to the exclusion of all else; I don't think it sounds superior or anything. But I am one of those people who likes my music on the shelf, in physocal form, actually owned by me. Spotify and downloads just aren't the same; too ephemeral, never really mine. Not there on the shelf to catch your eye, take your fancy (although I do like a bit of a random shuffle, sometimes).

I replaced very few LPs with CDs, as until we moved onto the boat we'd always had a turntable (or three). Over the years I've been away though, they'd stopped working, or been adopted by someone else. Having inherited some fairly high quality speakers from my mother, and invested in a new amp to go with her CD player, a turntable seemed the next logical step - but it was still a splendid surprise to unwrap one (from Jim and Sebastian) on Christmas morning.

So I have now come back from Sussexd with a small selection of my vinyl collection, including all my Paul Simon archive, starting from the Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits which I see from my carefully orange-inked note on the inner sleeve I received for Christmas 1980 and taking in a few rarities as well as both the British and US versions of Sounds of Silence and Parsley, Sage... (bonus points for knowing the difference). There are a few Bob Dylan, my Beatles Blue and Red, Lloyd Cole, Tracy Chapman - and Squeeze - all of which I haven't listened to for going on a decade now and some not for two and more (hmmm.. and where are Tanita Tikaram and Suzanne Vega?)

Whatever you enjoy, I hope you have plenty of it in 2018.

Never knowingly

Just as Holly Golightly felt about Tiffany's, I feel that nothing bad could ever happen in John Lewis. I was a late arrival to this temple of middle class consumerism, and I knew instantly that I had found my retail nirvana.

Even today, during the sale, it was quiet and civilised (certainly a lot more so than Primark on any given Saturday). I had a very successful session of present shopping, and treated myself to a lovely new dress as well.

It was only after I got home and went to hang it up in the wardrobe that I discovered it still had a security tag attached to it. (Yes, how did I get out the door?)

So I now have to go back tomorrow to get it removed. And somehow - and this is the worrying bit - convince them that I haven't just picked it up off the shop floor. Yes, I have the receipt, but that could be for another dress, couldn't it...

Productivity

Jim has got on so much better than me today...

Celebrations

How to tackle a box of Celebrations - especially if it's a shared one - is obviously the the question vexing the minds of the nation at this time of year. Should you pick randomly, or is it acceptable to root out the last Caramel? Or perhaps you should distribute them on an agreed basis - if such agreement can be reached.

I used to be an advocate of the random approach - it's as good a rule as any, but it wasn't necessarily maximising my Celebratory enjoyment. Then last year I hit on the audacious approach which I am still utilising - for as long as they are available I will eat all my favourite ones first, then once they are gone, my second favourite, and so on down the list, until we get to the Milky Ways, which I won't actually eat.  Other people's choices still introduce a random element - what will the top remaining choice be? In this way, the range of colours in the tub gradually diminishes and I don't have to mix my chocs.

And here is my personal order of preference:
1. Maltesers (the Celebrations 'Teaser' is much, much nicer than actual Maltesers)
2. Twix
3. Caramel
4. Bounty
5. Galaxy
6. Marathon
7. Mars
8. Milky Way

What's yours?

And talking of celebrations, I hope you're having a splendid Yuletide/Christmas, call it what you will, holiday. I posted a card through my new next door neighbour's letterbox yesterday, after some careful consideration... because she's a - apparently quite devout - Muslim. I selected a card with polar bears on - neither Christian nor Pagan imagery - and hoped to see her over the holiday and wished her a very happy 2018. Two ironies were not lost on me, however - the first that I have no problem at all sending 'Christmas' cards to the many fellow atheists of my acquaintance; and the second that my understanding is that most devout followers of other religions would have more respect for, and find more common cause with, a Christian than with an atheist.

Julian Baggini had a thoughtful piece in the Observer yesterday, and I thought this extract was particularly good:

   Atheists are not just people who don’t believe in God. Put positively, our belief is that the natural world is all that there is. Only by fully accepting this fact can we live good lives that are true to our nature. The marking of midwinter brings these truths home. It reminds us that the cycle of life and death turned for aeons before we were born and will continue its rotations for aeons after. It exemplifies the legitimate hope that darkness can be followed by light but not the false hope that we can ultimately escape the fate of all living things. In our feasting, we are asserting the value of appreciating the good things while we have them, while remembering that nothing is meant to last, for good and for bad.

I was talking at the work Christmas party last week to a relatively new member of staff who is a Christian (some of my colleagues were quite shocked that I just came out and asked him). Someone asked if I was a 'militant' atheist (I guess Dawkins has a lot to answer for). Where once I might have been, I decided that no, I'm not. Inasmuch as I'll fight for anything politically, in the public sphere, it's secularism - and my Christian colleague was happy to agree with that. However I might once have felt, now I see my atheism as a private belief. I don't need or even want everyone to believe the same as me. But what is, surely, vital is that we preserve that space where everyone's beliefs can flourish without threatening anyone else's.

Last Thursday I made a point of wishing everyone a happy Yule - I don't believe in Pagan gods any more than the Christian one - but I do think the Pagans have the best calendar.

Anyway, whatever you believe and whatever you are celebrating, I hope you are having an amazing time.

Today I have been...

...mainly procrastinating getting on with my first assessment for the new qualification - an MEd in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education - for which I need to write 6,000 words on my chosen specialist subject: the changing nature of mature students following changes in HE funding policy, and the implications for those of us who teach them...

And I have, effectively, four days (including tomorrow) to do it, because it's due in on the 3rd and I'm back at work on the 2nd and down in Sussex from the 29th to the 1st. All that advice I give students about starting in plenty of time...

Meanwhile, Jim is tiling the dining room chimney breast with the absolutely gorgeous 'teapot brown' tiles I eventually tracked down from the V&A collection. It's going to be breathtaking.

I have also spent some quality procrastination time in slightly rejigging the blog - new title photo! New self-deprecating words! - all part of a declaration of intent to blog if not better, then more frequently.

I spent a few hours last night setting up a new Twitter account, wondering if I really wanted to do that, then deciding that I didn't, but it's given me the idea of being a bit more Twitteresque on the blog. More fluff and folderol, on the basis that there's always something to write about.

Yes! I am here!

In answer to Enceladus Sarah's post - yes, I'm here. I'm not going to make it to 200 posts this year though (and to think I once had hopes of reaching 300).

A look at the posting record tells the story:
March 26 posts
April 30 posts
May 31 posts
June 29 posts
July 21 posts
August 20 posts

Then...
September 7 posts
October 2 posts
November 1 post
December - up to now - no posts

The thing that happened goes by the name of 'Semester One', which starts with Intro Week in the middle of September, and ended last Friday. Semester 1 is always hard work - new students, in ever increasing numbers every year; my heaviest teaching load and of course the shortening days, the cold and the dark. This year I've had bigger responsibilities too, a once-in-a-career (or at least I hope so) management issue to deal with, plus I've taken on studying for a new qualification, and all the time while trying to come to terms with the implications of my autism at work which has challenged my very sense of who I am and what I do (and how well I do it). So this has been a particularly tough Semester 1, and I've been in the office from eight until six nearly every day just trying to keep on top of it. When I left at three yesterday, it felt quite momentous.

I have done no Christmas shopping - although I did manage to get some cards done. I'm planning to go down south on the 29th, so hoping I can pick up some presents in the post-Xmas sales. We might just get some food planned and shopped today. Most shocking of all, my 50 year old advent calendar is still in its envelope, for the first Christmas ever. I forgot that I gave my little artificial tree to Oxfam last year, and now it's far too late to get a real one, so here are my Christmas decorations for this year:

I hope to get a few more posts in before 2018.

A few lines on the tram

Typical. She doesn't post anything for over a month, then comes back with some witterings about the tram. Well, sorry about that, but if that's waht it's taken to finally tug me out of the doldrums, then perhaps it's better than nothing. I say doldrums, but in many ways it's been the precise opposite that has kept me from my blogging keyboard: a maelstrom; a perfect storm of work related-stuff that has led, for the first time in my life, to there really not being enough hours in the week to deal with it, and to the requisite emotional, intellectual and physical resilience hanging on by its very fingernails. Or that's how it felt, anyway. Obviously, things are feeling a little more manageable now, and here I am.

And there I was this afternoon, on the tram. Not for the first time - I think it was actually the fifth, or eighth if you count return journeys - but you know how sometimes it gradually dawns on you that you're developing an interest in something... It was when the thought came to me that a good way to spend a Saturday afternoon would be to get a £4 Dayrider ticket and ride the length of each of Sheffield's three Supertram lines that I knew I'd been hooked in some way.

The only tram I'd ever been on before I came to Sheffield was in Moscow, in 1982. It cost 4 kopeks, and although I remember the Moscow Metro quite well (the chandeliers!), the only thing I recall about the tram was a sad-eyed man in a cheap leather jacket, and the smell of cigarette smoke.

More than buses or trains, what the tram most reminds me of is the Tube. It's frequent, so you don't plan your journey, but just turn up and wait for one to arrive. It has different lines - Yellow, Blue and Purple - serving different directions, and indicator boards that count down the minutes until the next one is due (and they seem to be pretty accurate). Inside, the seating layout is (slightly) reminiscent of a Metropolitan Line train, and there are grab rails and hanging straps. 

When it moves, it sounds and feels like the tube. It's electric, for a start, which the trains round here aren't (I'd been here years before that dawned on me, suddenly doing a double-take whilst waiting at the station).

But in some ways it couldn't be more different. The tram has a concuctor; a real live person who really says 'any more fares please', and while they issue tickets and read cards with a bleeping wireless handset, they give change from a heavy leather bag hanging from their belt.
There are 48 stops on the Sheffield tram, compared to 270 on the Tube, but I think that it’s got some far more fabulous names. My nearest stop is called Primrose View. Needless to say, it’s on a busy main road with nary a small spring flower in sight. On my journey today, I took in, amongst other stops called Infirmary Road, Manor Top, Gleadless Townend, Hackenthorpe, Donetsk Way (named for a twinned steel producing town in Ukraine), and, quite possibly the most over-promising station name ever, anywhere, Crystal Peaks, which turns out to be a small shopping centre. This was the Blue line, whose final destination, unimprovably, is Halfway. It takes a real visionary of a transport planner not only to retain that name for a tram stop, but to make it the terminus.

So this could be the beginning of, if not quite a love affair, then certainly an exploratory dalliance, with the tram.

Never too late

It's time to break out the thirty-year-old t-shirt that's been carefully preserved at the back of the wardrobe:

Souvenir of the 100 Club and the Mean Fiddler, and the Tom Robinson Band's tenth anniversary reunion tour...

Because it's now forty years since the release of 2-4-6-8 Motorway, and Tom is touring again to celebrate.

I don't think I could have imagined in 1987 that I'd be leaving my house in Sheffield, with my younger son - then not even thought of - to go and see a 67-year-old Tom playing the entirety of Power in the Darkness at a venue that had opened seven years previously, but that I wouldn't hear of for nearly another thirty. I could not have imagined that I would look up the venue on the internet, and, that had I needed to, a hand held satnav would guide me to it. When I think of the cumbersome cassette recorder I smuggled into those 1980s gigs (and yes, I still have the tapes, unlistened to but hopefully not ruined), and the big SLR camera (fast film purchased specially) that I sometimes took (not always, as it did get in the way...) - now both superseded by something the size of a fag packet, which also serves as phone, computer, telex machine and TV - it's amazing how much the world has changed.

And yet...  

Freedom... we're talking bout your freedom
Freedom to choose what you do with your body
Freedom to believe what you like
Freedom for brothers to love one another
Freedom for black and white
Freedom from harassment, intimidation
Freedom for the mother and wife
Freedom from Big Brother's interrogation
Freedom to live your own life... I'm talking 'bout

Power in the darkness
Frightening lies from the other side
Power in the darkness
Stand up and fight for your rights

Ashby aborted again

It's starting to look as if we might never see the Ashby canal despite Marston Junction being a short day's cruise away. Two attempts earlier in the year were postponed because of work on the house, but I set aside a week and went to some lengths to get the time of work especially to make the trip this time. The long term weather forecast was mild and even better, dry; the kids would be back at school and hirers hopefully thinner on the ground - there was only one thing that could spoil things. As we neared the weekend, the forecasts started to mention the tail ends of various hurricanes, but undaunted, we grasped at the straw that these would pass through over the weekend. We set off on Sunday, packed up the boat, and prepared to sit it out. Sunday night was windy and if anything it strengthened as Monday progressed. Furthermore, the forecasts now seemed to suggest that winds of up to 20 mph would continue throughout the week.

Now, I have learnt my lesson when it comes to wind. I will boat in rain, snow and ice, in heatwave and in hailstorm, but not in wind unless I absolutely have to. With winds at anything above about 7 mph and Chertsey's speed anything below roughly 2 mph (i.e. 90% of the time), the fore end becomes completely uncontrollable. Picture Chertsey - or look at the photo at the top of the page. At the back, where the cabin is, there's about 3' of boat under the water. Nice and heavy, solid and stable. At the front, there's nearer 3" under the water - and what, going on for 6' of floaty hollowness above it. Get a cross wind and there's nothing you can do but apologise to the moored boat you hit sideways on or spend ages stuck to the bank (quite possibly in the mud as well) swearing, poling, and ultimately weeping until the wind drops for a minute, at which point you might just get off in time to repeat it all again around the next corner. So strangely enough, the idea of tackling a shallow, winding, unfamiliar canal in those conditions did not seem to offer the sort of relaxing holiday experience I had assured my boss I needed.

So, disappointed, but resigned, we repacked the car on Monday afternoon and returned to Sheffield. Once the wind does finally drop, we'll have to go back and cloth Chertsey up for the winter - particularly as the translucent cloths are starting to disintegrate - they've done three years, so I'm quite happy with that, and the roll I bought for about £70 will make another two sets, so that's well under a tenner a year.

I wonder whether we'll get to Swarkestone next year...

Deck the walls

The house continues to take shape, and another finishing touch was put in place this morning:

Chertsey's old deckboard, adorning the living room wall. This is the deckboard that came with (although not on) Chertsey - it's definitely hers, and almost certainly pre-1962, as it's stamped with her fleet number, 130, on the back. The painting however must be post-1962, as it certainly isn't very BWB. The circular hole, which was for a headlight (I have old photos showing a light mounted behind it), has been cut out with a series of drill holes - again, not part of the original design!

Some of the wood has rotted in places, but it's not bad considering it's at least 55 years old, and was probably in use until the mid 1970s - and not that well cared for either. We even boated with it for a while:

It still has the heads of the bolts that attached the mounting irons to it showing at the front. Jim cut the bolts off and the irons are now in use on the new deckboard.

I'm really pleased to have such an interesting artefact and little bit of history to display on my wall - that fact that it fits so perfectly with the colour scheme is a complete bonus!

Holiday plans - and a tenth of a long life

My Daisypath ticker tells me that as of today,  I've owned Chertsey for eight years. That may not seem like long, but it's a tenth of her life!

I've also booked the first holiday of next year - back up the Erewash. Can't believe it'll have been five years since the last time.

Perhaps we'll leave off redoing the cloths until after then...