Danger, Unexploded Bomb

I was to spend part of the half term week at my parents. Over the preceding weekend I isolated to ensure I didn't take any illness with me.  

It was the perfect time to experiment in the kitchen and I made three jars of red cabbage sauerkraut (which is two jars more than I meant to make - seems like cabbage gets bigger when you grate it).

Sauerkraut ferments, meaning it needs to be 'burped' each day. By the time I departed for my parents it was becoming very lively and needed to be burped twice a day. I left Nigel with instructions...

The visit to my parents went ok, with me getting through a number of the things on the parental to-do list. So, by the time I was sitting in Truro station waiting for the 14.54 to Paddington, I felt quite pleased with myself. 

The last thing I expected was the announcement that all trains were cancelled owing to an unexploded WW2 bomb at Plymouth. I made my way back to my parents. 

It is was only as I returned to my childhood bed that night that I remembered the sauerkraut. 

Nigel probably thought his cabbage-related duties ended on Thursday and would not have set himself a phone reminder for Friday. 

I lay awake in the darkness, ears straining for a distant explosion. Not the WW2 bomb at Plymouth - the sauerkraut in St Albans.

Mudlarking

I had often squinted over the railings at the muddy foreshore of the Thames and speculated on what I might find there.  So when Sharon told me she sometimes went mudlarking (like beachcombing, but along the Thames), I asked if I could come. 

To introduce some dramatic tension, this was the week when the police made an announcement about the man who had deplorably thrown corrosive liquid over his wife and daughters. His body was thought to be somewhere in the Thames.

We went with a licensed guide.  She could identify all the different animal bones which littered the mud, but asked 'Please don't find any human remains as it involves too much paperwork. Haha!'

Those of us who had been listening to the news exchanged furtive worried glances.

Between us, Sharon and I found pottery from the Mediaeval, Tudor, Georgian and Victorian eras, a metal hook from a boat, and large chunks of eighteenth century wine bottles. In fact, almost everything on the foreshore was an artefact of human habitation in one way or another.

My favourite find was a small square of Roman tile (centre of the pic below). The tile had been left on the ground to dry before being baked in a kiln and, while there, a cat had walked across it. Maybe 1600 years later, its paw print was still clearly visible. Magic.

And to our immense relief, no grim discoveries!

Beware the split-level patio

Carolyn and David travelled from the North East, Nigel and I from the South East, and we met up in the Peak District. As usual the agenda for the weekend was long walks, pubs, a bit of culture and a trawl of charity shops.

However, this time our attention was grabbed by the landlord of our accommodation.

Carolyn had very kindly made the booking, and soon began to receive very long emails with detailed instructions for the house.  Amid the many paragraphs were concealed vital information like the postcode, keycode and wifi password.  It was like a very inconvenient wordsearch puzzle.

When we entered the (very pleasant) house, the folder which was left out for visitors did not disappoint.

There was a lengthy screed on how to raise and lower the (perfectly normal) blinds.

The patio was on two levels and there was a whole page about not tripping or falling down the four-inch-high step, and outside, an outsize yellow traffic cone to mark the hazard.

The section on using the wood-burning stove was positively Dickensian in its detail.

After all this, I saw Nigel hesitating in the hallway, a frown on his face.

‘Anything the matter?’

‘Yes.  I couldn’t find the instructions for how to walk up the stairs.’

 

The Cult of Beauty

We were meeting Perran and Carenza in London to celebrate their birthday.

But what would we do together? 

Nigel, Carenza and I were interested in  The Cult of Beauty exhibition at the Wellcome Collection. 

'No' said Perran, 'I've never liked the Wellcome Collection, ever since you took us there as kids. It smells weird and medical, and some of the exhibits are always gross.'

However, we failed to achieve consensus on anything else and ended up at the Wellcome. Surely an exhibition on Beauty would be fine!

I watched Perran steel himself at the entrance. In the exhibition he was breathing shallowly. In fact, I couldn't detect unpleasant smells and there was even an art installation which replicated the beauty potions made by mediaeval women and emitted scents of rose and herbs.

With beauty as the subject, many of the images were colourful and attractive. So far, so good.

We were nearly at the end of the exhibition, when it happened. My eye was caught by two jars of fluid containing round, peach-like objects. What were they? I looked closer. 

The photo above and the label informed me they were the surgically removed breasts of a trans man. Complete with tattoos.

Rapidly I moved on.

The weird thing was that afterwards, when we compared notes, the only other person who'd spotted this challenging exhibit was Perran. 

Sorry son. 

Happy birthday anyway!