Windblown

          The fact that there had been three storms within seven days made venturing outdoors unappealing at best and dangerous at worst. But there came a point when cabin fever symptoms began to manifest themselves to me in the form of contemplating shuffling the furniture and furnishings in pursuit of perfect feng shui. That was when I decided to boot up and venture outside. After all, when we moved here from central Manchester, I declared that I no longer had need of a gym, as this place is well situated for outdoor activities.

          So, in between gales, I tooled up for a walk with my litter-picker and a stout bag that would not blow away too readily. But it seemed that everyone else – including the litter-louts – had, like me, stayed indoors, as there was no litter, except for some fragments of a sheet of corrugated plastic roofing, the main section of which was beyond my capacity to cope and had to be left for the council’s clear-up team – assuming there is one. I also came across an abandoned tent, collapsed against a wall in the park. I don’t know how long it had been there, having been away for the previous week, but there were signs of habitation, so I left it for the absent owner to sort out and retired to the comfort of a permanent home, where I felt more than a little privileged.

          The next day, I was walking past Tommy’s junk shop and decided to pop in for a nosey. He was shifting stuff around, listlessly rearranging the stock according to a plan discernible only to himself. There was no one in the shop and, when I asked how he was, he admitted to being a bit down-in-the-dumps, saying he had seen only three people walk past all day. “Sometimes I just want to leave it all behind for a while, just get away. Know what I mean?” he said. Our conversation turned to ways of improving his business so that he could afford to take on an employee and absent himself occasionally. But he admitted that he is a “trader” at heart, not a shopkeeper with a bent for window-dressing and customer service – which has certain advantages for me: I picked up a nice cast-aluminium bowl, a perfect complement to the one we already have in the kitchen and that is always overflowing with onions; and a copy of another classic I have been meaning to read, Laurens Van Der Post’s The Lost World of the Kalahari, dedicated to “Dad, with love from Molly, Peter & Megan, July 31^st 1962” (I bet he never read it either); both for the sum of £1.50. I handed him £2 and urged him to keep the change, mentally questioning his business acumen.

          After the third gale had blown through, I resumed my routine constitutional walks and found that, in the park, the wind-blown tent was still there, still collapsed and unoccupied. As I stood speculating on what had become of its occupant(s), a couple of dog-walkers went by, uncommenting and apparently uninterested. It seemed reasonable to assume that the tent had been abandoned and that its unfortunate occupant(s) had found accommodation elsewhere, so I took the unilateral decision to dispose of it. I gloved up and emptied its contents – a plastic bag of perishable foodstuffs, some empty beer cans, a sodden sleeping bag and a few garments. Then I rolled up the tent, stuffed it into a refuse sack and transported the lot to the capacious council bin on the road nearby.

          Now, I ask myself this question: Was mine the uncompassionate act of a litter-picking zealot or the sensible response of an environmentally concerned citizen? But I also ask this: considering the immense wealth that capitalism has extracted from the Earth and funnelled into the Swiss bank accounts of a tiny minority of individuals, why are social services so underfunded?

 

 

Solo Dining

          This week, I finally got around to reading one of those seminal works of English Literature that old-timers like me feel obliged to tick off their list, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway. What took me so long is that there are so many novels to read that the classics, already familiar through osmosis, get pushed to the back of the queue by the noisy newcomers. What prompted me to pick it up at last was that, within the space of two days, I had heard a radio programme about the author and come across an unopened copy of the novel on a bookshelf at home. Also, with my birthday fast approaching, I was aware that time is running out. Nowadays, birthdays are not so much a cause of celebration as of contemplation and a reminder to complete whatever ambitions you still have.

          We are currently on a road trip to Manchester and beyond, where my OH has business and I am free to spend time catching up with old friends, another activity that gains urgency with the passing of years. And, whilst nostalgia plays its inevitable part in our meetings, I have been taking care not to imbue them with the whiff of a ‘farewell tour’, focussing instead on continuing companionship and future dates. It’s been a busy time, but for the last two days I have been left to my own devices in the Lancashire town of Southport. This genteel seaside resort was and is the retirement destination of choice for many a Mancunian and Liverpudlian, vestiges of whom are evident in charity shops in the form of cravats and twinsets. The place has seen better days, but much of its heritage remains intact despite some fraying around the edges. An amateur social historian like me can find much of interest. Lunch options, however, are limited, so I returned to the reasonably authentic, family-run Italian deli that I had discovered on a previous visit.

          The deli is a corridor space, with a counter on one side and four tables-for-two along the other. I took the only free one, passing as I did so another solo diner, a woman who apparently had finished eating but was still nursing a glass of wine. After placing my order, I looked up and noticed that she appeared to be staring at me. I busied myself with my phone, thinking that she had probably not meant to catch my eye and that, anyway, she would soon depart. She did not. She and I were facing each other and, with nothing blocking our line of sight, the only way to avoid eye contact was to read. She, however, sat very still and upright, reading nothing, phoning no one and looking right at me. She didn’t look crazy, or eccentric, just a bit vague and faintly smiling. When my food arrived, I was grateful for the distraction. Then she started talking, very quietly. I assumed she was on the phone but, after a while, realised she was addressing me, though I could not quite hear what she was saying and, despite my telling her so, she would not or could not raise her volume. Exchanges were impossible so, eventually, having cleared my plate, I took my unfinished drink to her table.

          She just wanted conversation, it seemed, but not about the weather. In a wistful manner, she told me about her two failed marriages, the second of which was to a man “below her social class”. Whether her strangeness was due to anti-depressant drugs, I don’t know, but the fragments of her story suggested loneliness and regret, like some character Mrs Dalloway might have known – and certainly shunned. Eventually, the waiter (who was unsure what to make of our relationship) came to take her empty plate and she inferred she might have another drink. It was then I took my leave, gently. I detected disappointment, but I hope she understood that I was just a passing stranger, willing to lend a kindly ear.

Charity Shops: Blight or Bounty?

          I saw three films at the cinema last week (Belfast, Memoria and Parallel Mothers). Once upon a time, this would have involved going to three different cinemas, but the 16-screen facility within the modern leisure complex on the edge of the city centre has replaced all those Odeons, Gaumonts, ABCs, Savoys, Empires and Rexes that once graced its streets. One or two remain as repurposed venues, others exist only in my memory, like the ABC, where, in 1963, I went to a live Beatles concert. The old Gaumont still stands, in our patch, Union Street, just off the city centre – and, last week, we bought it! When I say “we”, I mean the not-for-profit community building company in which we have shares. Union Street has several other grand but disused theatres, having once been the entertainment district, catering to ships’ crews, passengers and the local population. Not all of them can be saved – nor should they be. Space is valuable in cities and the needs of the population come first – which is why we have ensured that at least some of the redundant buildings are now in public ownership.

          All over the country, cities are facing this challenge. Infrastructure that was built with permanence in mind becomes a liability when it is no longer needed. Not that this is a new phenomenon, but the speed of change has quickened to the point where we can all remember something that has had its time (Blockbuster video rental shops?) and will not return. But perhaps it’s fair to say that the onus is not just on city planners: we too must do our bit. Change is inevitable but we don’t have to be victims of it. We have at least two weapons with which to fight: our ability to influence and our ability to adapt.

          Meanwhile, life – in all its daily mundanity – must go on. It’s not all about cinemas. Over the course of 25 years and three relocations, one item of our household inventory went missing: the butter dish. Butter does not feature large in our daily diet, but it is there and needs containing. Making-do with inelegant Tupperware or, worse still, knifing it straight from the greasy, tattered packaging had begun to irk me at last, so I determined to sort it out. Once upon a time (again), I could have enjoyed the experience of shopping in town for such an item, but it is no longer straightforward. The centre is a triumph of post-war 1950s planning that replaced the bombed-out heart of Plymouth with generous, tree-lined boulevards, modernist buildings of Portland stone and an elegant, airy covered market. It remains a pleasing and pedestrian-friendly environment, but its retail offering is diminished. There were, until recently, a kitchenware specialist – now migrated online – and four department stores, only one of which remains, with its depleted stock and air of desperation. So, where to find a butter-dish?

          The answer, I thought, is the street where the vegan café and several charity shops have taken (or been given) leases. Charity shops have upped their retail game, many of them having learned to price their goods as ‘antique’ or ‘vintage’, while still presenting an eco-friendly, recycle-and-do-good option for shoppers such as me. I tried them all, without success. But one day I got lucky, when I stumbled, literally, over the threshold of a shop in the touristy Barbican district. “Bloody bi-focals!” I exclaimed as I regained my posture. “Mind the step,” said the lady in charge, into whose arms I had almost fallen. It’s an old joke, I know, but as I straightened up, my attention focused on the very thing I was looking for, a ‘vintage’ 1960s dish. And it was reasonably priced at £2. Maybe she needs to visit the optician, I thought as I tapped my phone to pay, then made my contented way home through a haze of nostalgia for a lifestyle eclipsed.

 

 

Lifetime Learning

          As you will recall from last week (do keep up!), I had left the campervan in the custody of Derek and his oppo John for them to fix the driver’s door window-lift – which they did, without having to buy an expensive new motor. I don’t know how exactly they accomplished this because, when I collected the vehicle at the end of the day, Derek was absent (I later learned – in considerable detail – that he was undergoing medical treatment) and John was too drunk to explain lucidly what he had done. He did, however, recall that the bill was £80 (cash only), then tried to coax a cheeky £10 tip out of me on the basis that he had taken care to use a plastic seat-cover to protect the upholstery. I gave him the £80, asked for a receipt and drove away nervously. The next day I discovered that the door lock had ceased to work. So, presuming (not unreasonably, I thought) that the mechanism had been disturbed by John’s probing inside the door-panel, took it back to the garage, where Derek (it was too early for John to appear) affected to make no such connection and charged me £30 (cash only) to fix it.

          I know: a cheap fix is not always the bargain it appears to be. A bit like when you get a parking fine that is reduced if paid promptly, it’s still an expensive fix; and I had yet another such fine this week – on the very day of my Speed Awareness Training course (for which I had paid £80). I had driven to the bakery across town, early, in the hope of stopping briefly in the loading bay before the Enforcement Officers got their act together. But they beat me to it and I emerged from the shop to find two of them stood chatting next to my delinquent van. I had been outmanoeuvred and had no case to argue, so I took it on the chin, along with the accompanying quip, “That was an expensive loaf!” By the time I got home for the course (on Zoom) I was in no mood to be lectured at.

          It’s been a very long time since I was in a classroom – virtual or actual – and I am aware that teaching methods have evolved since then. Nevertheless, I felt a twinge of schoolboy reluctance at the prospect of two hours in class. But I was soon put at ease by the ‘teacher’, who was comfortable in her job and experienced at coaxing cooperation out of a dozen assorted adults, some with underlying resentment issues and one, at least, in grumpy mode. She had cleverly developed a light-hearted technique for dealing with the serious subject of death and injury on the roads caused by speeding. She broke the ice by asking us to introduce ourselves individually, made small talk about the weather, then urged us not to use offensive comments or rude language – the classroom equivalent of ‘road rage’. Then, she put us at ease by acknowledging that, although we may have been caught exceeding limits by just a few m.p.h., it was important to realise just how much difference that can make to the outcome of a collision. And if the prospect of reducing accidents by safer driving was insufficient incentive for us to pay attention, she pointed out that completion of her course had the benefit of avoiding points on our licences and consequentially elevated insurance premiums. Even Nigel in Northampton, who almost lost it when he declared the A14 to be the worst road in England and all motorway users to be “idiots”, seemed to calm down once it had all sunk in. It proved to be an enlightening, therapy-tinged educational session.

          In fact, if I were offered a similarly efficacious Parking Awareness course, I might be inclined to further my education.