Kosher bacon buttie

Half-way through half-term, and we're having something of an Indian Summer. It would, I thought as I heard the sound of arguing over the computer from upstairs, just be a total waste of these last gorgeous days, not to go out somewhere. Could we make it, on our bikes, to a particularly nice spot I vaguely had in mind, and back, in time for Lunchista fille's rendez-vous at the flicks with her friend just after lunch? Turned out no, because her bike's tyres were flat, and our new, unfeasibly-compact, technologically-advanced bike-pump was (a) lost, and (b) totally lacking in anything as technically downbeat as instructions.

Which meant that Lunchista fils and I set off alone, after much protesting on his part.

Now Lunchista has the sense-of-direction of a deranged fruit-fly, but fils happened to know a nice route beyond the ring-road that would (allegedly) take us round in a big circle, through nice country, entirely off-road. It started with a ride down the entire length of the local golf course: it's a very long thin course and, for extra entertainment, seems to include part of the ring-road. People were driving golf-buggies over a special little bridge. I was rather glad fils was wearing his helmet. Part of the path, along absolutely flat land with rows of trees, running beside a fosse, reminded me of the opening sequence to "Secret Army" with its roads through the Low Countries.

The golf-course includes a large area of land still marked as "Common" on the map. Hence the old ditty:

The law locks up the man or woman
who steals the goose from off the Common.
But then it lets the villain loose
that steals the Common from the goose.

Beyond the golf-course lay grazing land, which (we found out from a notice on a stile) was also an SSSI bristling with ground-nesting birds. And, erm, cows. We were halfway through the field beyond this, in other words in the middle of nowhere, when fils suddenly announced:

Ten minutes to ice-cream!

What???

And sure enough, ten minutes further on down the line there was a campsite, with a cafe, with a terrace, and (yes!) ice-cream. So I bought him one, and sat down with a mug of tea while he went off to investigate a nearby lake, and give some passing anglers a hand chasing the cafe's chickens off their grubs. It was idyllic: the terrace had a pergola (half of which was discreetly covered with perspex, in case it rained), up which newly-planted clematis were making their first steps. In a couple of years' time, I thought, it would be like my favourite place on earth, the pergola (now sadly demised) at the CAT.

Apart from the serious-looking chaps who had come for the fishing, we seemed to be the only visitors. I got talking with the chap who ran the place, who'd been a farmer there since the 1950s, but now looked like one of those classic "Farmers Diversifying" success stories you regularly find in the Yorkshire Post Country Supplement (every Saturday). The cafe, for example, had been there less than two years, and the fishing was taking off to the extent that they'd just excavated another lake. He seemed even more outraged than Lunchista about the Common, and also knew the name and address of the owner of a disused piece of land whose predicament had been puzzling Lunchista for years. What's more, as a farmer he happened to know that cows, amazingly, never step on birds'-nests. Not even when they're on the ground.

I could have sat there all afternoon, but for two things: it was lunchtime, and I'd run out of cash. There was a gorgeous smell of bacon butties, so I asked about cards, or even cheques, but no go. So non-existent bacon butties it was, then (the only Kosher type: well, better that then Zen ice-cream I suppose), and we'd have to have lunch at home. Such is life.

One consolation was our haul from today's sortie: in addition to fresh air and sunshine, we'd picked up lots of pine-cones (we dry them, spray them gold and use them for Christmas decorations), and a golf-ball. I checked with fils and he reassured me that, yes, it had stopped moving before he picked it up...

Postal strike

"My old boss lives round here somewhere...I wonder which is his house?" The street, part of a little knot of recently-built roads which collectively formed a dead-end, was new to me, and to Lunchista fille who had asked to come with me to pick up a package of leaflets from somebody's porch. We kept going round bends that led the wrong way, in roads which all seemed to have been named after Vikings. Well, whatever floats your boat I suppose. There was no-one to ask the way: it was a Tuesday morning and it was easy to see that the place, with its immaculate, open-plan gardens, was completely deserted.

"Listen..."

"What??"

"...nothing. Isn't it quiet?"

And it really was. The older, straight road that led to the one way into the little knot of roads, is itself a dead-end, and as if that wasn't enough we were low enough down to be shielded from the otherwise-ubiquitous noise from our city's ring road. In other words, nobody would break the silence by coming in here unless they were utterly lost, or had some connection to the families in the neat modern houses.

Eventually, right at the far end of the little knot, we located our leaflets under a porch. We noticed wind-chimes hanging there, but even they were silent. I picked up the bundle and we headed back.

It's funny what you notice when things are so quiet: not just sounds, but unusual sights too. Perhaps, like in the American joke about driving down a street looking for the right house-number and turning down the car radio so as not to miss it, we all have a bit of synaesthesia lurking in our brains.

"Hey look at that post-box" There was a banana-skin directly underneath it, but also a note that someone had stuck on near the slot. We went over to see what it said. Someone had posted a letter but forgotten to put a stamp on it: they must have gone back home, fetched a stamp, some cellophane, tape and a pencil and paper, and written the note that we could see, asking whoever collected the letters that day to stick on the missing stamp. As we stepped out into the straight road, we noticed the post-van coming down. We decided to wait and see what the reaction would be, so we carried on walking until he had driven round the corner and had time to stop at the post-box and get out. Then we turned round to kneb.

And he'd gone.

No van, no postie. He must have driven right past all of it. Then I thought, perhaps it's easier for him to turn the van at the end of the knot and then pick up the letters on his way out. So we picked a convenient low front garden wall next to a tree, just within line-of-sight, and we waited. And waited. And, have you ever noticed that, if you have no business waiting somewhere (a bus-stop would have come in handy, or even a dog), it just seems like ages? It's easier with two people than just one because you can always chatter as if you've just bumped into each other or have suddenly developed something urgent and complicated to say (in our case it could have been, for example, the crucial but convoluted logistics of practically any arrangement involving school). We were there for 15 minutes (we timed it).

We could have walked to the end of the knot and back in that time, probably twice, so where was our postie? We gave up and turned to go: we'd just have to put up with never knowing whether the mystery letter would have been delivered.

Then in the few minutes it took us to walk back up the straight road away from the little knot, several other vans drove past us and went in. A florist's. An electrician. Generic tradesman's white vans (several). A red van (not a postie). A fishmonger for heaven's sake: I hadn't seen one of those since I was Lunchista fille's age. All within the space of about five minutes. None re-emerged.

We wondered if someone had maliciously called them all to the same address. Had they all got it in for our postie? Was someone in the knot running a Red Diesel racket? Or had the entire far end of the knot, just after we'd left it with its silent wind-chimes, been devoured by a Black Hole?

Mean Time

"I'm really looking forward to not having to get up early tomorrow morning!" said Lunchista fille over dinner last night. It's half-term week, so as well as no school, there's no football practice either. Suddenly an entire Saturday morning is open to us to do with as we see fit. Which is just as well, because "350" had decided to declare today a Day Of Action and our city's humble contribution to the worldwide array of stunts many and varied was to form a human chain, complete with Mexican Waves, around the Minster at the eminently civilised time of 11:30 in the morning.

We got there early and immediately bumped into our local eco-enthusiast par excellence (of course) who, knowing that Lunchista is something of a lapsed astrophysicist, mentioned a conversation he and his son had been having about how far it was possible to travel in a lifetime, assuming that you could, over a long enough distance, accelerate to about nine tenths the speed of light. Of course it would be a lot longer than an 80-light-year round trip given that, as your ship accelerates, the time would pass much more slowly for you on board than it would for your stay-at-home relatives, or indeed for any (stationary) aliens you might intend to visit.

The worst bit would be coming home to find everybody you care about passed away or aged beyond recognition. And, assuming Climate Change plays out as currently expected, in our case we'd find our city (presently only some 20 metres above sea-level) about 50 metres under the (all too real and not very Mexican) waves.

I wondered if the son in question had ever listened to the lyrics of '39 by Queen, written by fellow lapsed astrophysicist Brian May. And, walking round to find the event's organisers, I couldn't help wondering also if the Minster, which has been there for the best part of a millennium, would manage to stay around for a second one. At which point I bumped into the organiser of the Nature Reserve, who has been trying to assemble enough of us for a meeting to launch a new "outreach" programme. There are ten of us, and he's had to resort to putting all possible names, dates and times into a spreadsheet in the effort to solve the logistical conundrum involved in assembling us all. How little time everybody seems to have. Even the Year-Long Lunch Break is passing at a disturbingly rapid rate: now more than half gone.

Both mainstream and "skeptics" invoke Time repeatedly in their spiel: skeptics will say either that we still have plenty of it, or else that if you travel back through enough of it you'll see lots and lots of "Climate change" due to volcanoes, the sun, cosmic rays, you name it. And it never killed anyone, did it? On the other hand, listen to anyone serious talking about Climate Change for long enough (in my case about 2 minutes will do) and you rapidly develop a sense of "time running out".

All Lunchista can do is offer you an extra hour tomorrow morning before you have to get up. What can we do with this precious, and some would say illusory, extra time?

Light my fire

People seem to bear a serious grudge against this time of year. They complain that "the clocks are going back" and then invariably start a campaign to stop the change to Greenwich Mean Time, as if that would somehow prevent winter, or by extension, old age or that tough deadline at work. Elaborate plots are spun to avoid the worst of the cold and the dark: many of these involve flying off long distances and spending unfeasably large amounts of money. Lunchista has never done this and wonders what it would be like: on returning to an airport submerged in the general dreich-ness of a Northern Temperate Maritime (translation: dark, cold and damp) winter, would I feel worse than if I'd stayed put and got used to it, or would I somehow feel "recharged" by the extra hours of sunlight?

Sadly, unless you happen to be Goldman Sachs, "winter sun" holidays create the sort of holes in the budget that aren't exactly enablers for year-long lunch-breaks. Lunchista would therefore offer an alternative strategy: do as we have done. Instead of running away from autumn, by chance we've done something that improves it: we got a woodburner in. Lighting up has become something of an autumn ritual: a landmark which, unlike Hallowe'en, the clocks going back or the leaves dropping off the trees, is warm and cheerful.

We did it when speculation surfaced about the Gulf Stream packing up. It turns out that reports of its death were somewhat exaggerated, but we're glad we took the plunge. There are two- to three-week stretches on either side of the heating season when a stove is about right but firing up the entire central heating system (and the bills that come with it) would be a little OTT.

We started to notice how many lumps of dead tree people left lying about. In fact a combination of landscaped workplaces, other people's gardens, council tree-felling, and DIY projects has meant that in the six years since we first lit up we have never had to pay for any wood. It generally starts to appear about this time of year, and we quietly ask if people mind, and if they don't, we load it up and bring it home, where it has to dry out for a few months. Then it gets sawed up and stacked in the garage.

So, since last week, every evening when the darkness closes in, instead of mourning it we have something to look forward to. It's funny how much of a difference it makes, being able to look into the flames. I mean, you couldn't tell ghost stories in front of a radiator, could you?

Car Booty

The Party kitty was, well not quite empty, but perhaps feeling a little peckish. An election was, well not quite imminent, but in the offing. The Meeting was collectively wondering what to do about this undesireable state of affairs, when somebody mentioned a car boot sale.

Now as you can imagine this isn't something Lunchista could take on alone, lacking a boot, a car and indeed permission to move anything larger than a bike (with or without trailer) along the public highway. So I offered to be co-pilot to whoever took this on. And somebody (let's call him Will) rose to the challenge. It turned out that, lurking in Will's garage, was a load of stuff he wanted rid of. You know the kind of stuff that's absolutely indescribable until you look at it and try to enumerate it, and even then it can be a challenge. Old camera gear, board games, a bathroom cabinet, shoes, well-used sports kit, ugly ornaments. And that was before the call went out to everybody else to take a long look at their wardrobes, bookshelves, cupboards and (for the better-off) garages and perhaps even sheds (though we're not the kind of party to have many punters with stables and outbuildings...yet!).

More and more stuff arrived at Will's house. I never asked (out of a kind of British politeness I suppose) but I'm willing to bet he was beginning to regret taking this on. Then a promising weekend materialised: the local car-boot, held at a former airfield, turned out not to need bookings, and the weather chart just said

HIGH

so we went for it. In mufti, so as not to scare off people (the vast majority of the population, in fact) who vote for parties other than ours.

By the time we got there things were already in full swing, and we drove past rows and rows of colourfully-laden tables, following directions and gestures, to a spot under a tree in the far corner. We had driven through the entire "field of combat", and it was massive!

As soon as we got out of the car and openned the boot, a crowd gathered round and people jostled for position to see what we had on offer: some of our things got sold before we'd even unfolded our table's legs. I began to get a bit worried about the money tin, especially now it already seemed to have quite a lot of money in it. As the morning grew hotter (it was high summer, literally, and we were becoming thankful for that tree and its shade) the action continued, at a scarcely less frantic pace. I couldn't get over the number of people there, or indeed the variety of languages that chattered past us.

We hadn't bothered to label prices for anything and it turned out that was just as well: better to adapt your price to your punter, using as a guide their apparent affluence and/or enthusiasm. If they stopped to ask, they were interested. If they didn't, my sales pitch became "come over here out of the sun, we're the coolest pitch at the airfield today!" or if people hesitated: "just because we're in the shade, doesn't mean we're shady!".

We took turns to sit on the one deckchair we'd brought along (there hadn't been room in the car for another), and were glad to have had the prescience to have brought along something to drink, and sunhats.

By about 2 pm we realised that most of the bulky stuff had gone, the crowds were beginning to thin out and the heat was just ludicrous. The shade from our tree was long gone and I had resorted to using my umbrella as a sunshade, far-Eastern style. A particularly long lull gave us a chance to consult the money-tin. It contained an indecent sum of cash and we decided to beat a retreat.

In case you may be wondering why I'm writing about summer exploits (and not even this year's, at that) when in fact we're facing the back end of October, it is for two reasons. Firstly to reminisce about hot weather (which is always kinder to memories than it is to real people at the time), and secondly to "compare and contrast" with a more recent car boot session.

Just last week we were back at the booty: same personnel, same venue, same vehicle. But making a wild difference to our fortunes were the range of goods we had on offer (lots of glass ornaments this time, and no ancient camera kit or home-made jewellery), the ambient temperature (although it was still bright and sunny) and of course the times of credit crunchiness to which we are now exposed.

One or more of those factors made the difference between clearing nearly £100 last summer, and our more recent, but rather less impressive, net total of £25. Sadly, however, it doesn't look as if we're in line for a bail-out from the government.

Space Invaders

"What d'you do if you see a space-man?"
"Dunno"
"Park in it-man!"

The quality of jokes circulating at Lunchista fille's school never ceases to amaze. But I quote this one because it describes, quite nicely, what a bunch of us got up to on International Car-Free Day: we invaded some space. In fact we happen to know that we invaded exactly 18 square metres of space.

Now that particular 18 square metres of space isn't much to look at. I must have walked past it dozens of times, and never really noticed it. And there'll be people who drive past it every day, who'll see it but on whose brains it will make no impression whatever, because their attention will be elsewhere. That probably includes a lot of people who have actually parked their cars on it at some time in the past. And that's why we had to go there quietly before the day's events and "case the joint". The area, the cost, the distance from the nearest place where we could store things, how early in the morning it would start to get busy, and so on. I volunteered to be the first to arrive, and my mobile number went on the press release. Then I looked at the weather forecast and shuddered.

And so, at 7 a.m., aided and abetted by my other half (who is very tolerant about all this) and his bike-trailer, we arrived on our bikes with two deckchairs, a huge potted palm and a banner. Incredibly I've never had to work a parking meter before: I was pleasantly surprised that it actually produced a ticket, rather than simply eat my last pound coins, smile at me and leave me stranded on the wrong side of the law without a witness. Some of the meters here even have solar panels on top.

At this point the big guns rolled in. Trike-trailers, drafted away from their usual task of picking up the recycling from our city's best narrow streets, had been loaded with turf the night before. Our resident eco-enthusiast had bought it the day before that, ensuring not only that the nearest DIY emporium actually had it in stock, but also that he knew someone to whom he could sell it on afterwards: total cost, zero.

So we laid down the turf. We put up a table and got out the deckchairs, next to not one but by now two huge potted palms, and a parasol brought along by some brave soul unfamiliar with the term "equinoxial gales". Mind you my banner was also struggling, but people (including the gentleman from the Press who turned up at 8:30) were still able to make out the blurb:

People Park, not Car Park

Car-Free Day Sept 22

The table was graced with a cloth, two self-service tea-urns with cups, milk, sugar, and plates full of Danish Pastries. There was also a basket of apples from the Orchard. The idea was to have a picnic breakfast, and to offer some to hungry commuters.

Now there are people out there who write fascinating research tracts in fields with names like "Psycho-geography", about phenomena such as "mental maps", "sense of place" and "connectivity", whose description of our activities would sound a bit odd at first blush, but bear with Lunchista as she leaves her home turf of energy and matter to foray into the ever-changing world of intangibles.

Apparently what we achieved was to turn a "non-place" into a "place". Oh all right, the first person to come up with the term "non-place" was called Marc, did it in French and spent far too much time indulging in existentialist contemplation of the meaninglessness of his modern life, probably while smoking too many Gauloises, and so didn't follow his idea through very well. So instead, how about an American chap called Eric talking in a straightforward, no-nonsense way about how he first came to notice that his home-town was becoming "nowhere", instead? Or even, how about Will Self?

For three hours or thereabouts, in fact until our ticket ran out, we chatted, drank tea, waved to passing drivers, offered our breakfasts, read articles and (in my case) were quietly thankful that the weather forecast had got it wrong, and the sun was shining. A jolly lass in a red dress and dreadlocks from the local radio turned up and Lunchista, as the person whose number had been given on the press release, was interviewed live on air. City councillors came along, including the former leader (on his bike as ever), and our favourite LibDem (because he's such a character) who took our leaflets out into the 5 lanes of raging traffic and handed them to passing commuters. We had turned a bit of space that nobody gave a second thought to, into something that was (apart from the incredible noise level from the traffic) really rather worth something.

Late morning took me into the city centre, where I could sample the delights of a street I'd never walked down before, because the pavements are narrower than I am and it had always been full of traffic. But the Council, as a bit of a dare, had closed it to traffic for the day (using a row of massive planters of flowers: it looked rather good). Suddenly you could walk down it, and look at the shop windows, at the same time. People had brought their wares out into the street. The buildings were visible, in that you could afford the time to look up at them: everything from mediaeval to art deco. It reminded me of Diagon Alley from Harry Potter: it really was another world.

The radio station rang again: heck, they couldn't get enough of us! I was back on the air, live from the studio, and by a delicious irony for "Drive", the afternoon commuters' show. No doubt some of the listeners will have thought Lunchista was a bit barking. But I wonder how many are, even now, beginning to plot their escape?