That sinking feeling...

...has gone! After a survey of the saggy floor, instituted by our insurers, then the finding of a plumber and carpenter to do the job after we were told that the problem was not covered by insurance, then the waiting for one or other of them - or both - to actually turn up when they said they would, the whole job was finally done in a matter of a few hours. Sigh of relief. Now perhaps we can go back to the boat!

Nope. Blood donation, car service and MoT got in the way. Then the plumber said quite unexpectedly that he'd be able to replace our radiator valves the next week - we hadn't expected that to happen until the weather got warmer, but you never say "no" to a plumber. Or carpenter, builder, electrician, gas fitter... Back to the loft. It's one of those jobs that never actually comes to an end, I think.

We had the privilege of listening to the new Said the Maiden line-up recording together last weekend. It sounds really good, and we're looking forward very much to following the Maidens' progress over the year. They already have gigs lined up for autumn this year and on into 2020, but they won't be doing any before then, devoting their time instead to building a new repertoire - though they'll be keeping a lot of the current one - and rehearsal. This first song will be posted on the web for free download when they announce their new member very soon.

I've just spent quite a strenuous weekend, working with Naomi and a couple of dozen or so of her FoodSmiles friends and other volunteers, clearing a patch of land close to the centre of St Albans and building raised beds for growing fruit and vegetables for the local community.

It's the second Incredible Edible community project Nome has launched in the city, and it's very much larger than the first, which was opened four and a half years ago and is doing very nicely.

The city-centre plot in its first year

The new plot has already attracted a lot of interest and excitement, and Naomi has great plans for its development.

Probably the most unusual Christmas present I received this year is this little book.

Michelle knows me well! It contains 642 writing exercises, and it's a lot of fun. My only problem with it was that it only gives the writer a very small space in which to write...

...and it does seem that many users take that to be a sign that they should only write a tiny bit.

That's not for me. I am not a concise writer! So, I bought myself a large notebook, and I write large. For example, exercise 7, Write about a time when you broke a bone, produced this.

I was seven. I had a dog. Don, a mongrel but lovely. Well, I say “I” had a dog, but officially he was Jill’s, Jill, my four-and-a-half-years-older sister. Why Don was hers I never knew. It was me who played with him, after all. It was me who crawled through the long grass with him as we (both Cheyenne Indians, though he without the headband and feather), stealthily approached the white man who spoke with forked tongue. I don’t think Jill could have brought herself to crawl, even if I’d told her that the headband and feather weren’t compulsory. It was me whom he knocked off the sledge every time I careered down the snow-blanketed grassy hill, jumping on me gleefully as I lay face-down in the drifts. Don was mine.

Because Don was mine, it was only right and fitting that he got used to being on the lead and being walked by me. So I stood on tip-toe to reach the leash down from the hook high up on the kitchen door, and I took it to him, took him outside and explained to him very carefully what was about to happen and why, and he looked very happy about the idea. I patted him on the shoulder in manly fashion and clipped the lead onto his collar. I think he nodded his approval. All was well. My ownership of Don had been sealed, had been signified by that simple act.

It was then that he heard the voice.

In one greased-lightning swish of movement he stood, and ran full-tilt towards the side gate. It took a fraction of a second for him to reach the fullest extent of the lead, at which moment my feet left the ground and I followed him at speed towards the voice. What Don hadn’t considered, however, was the actually blindingly obvious matter of the garage, the concrete home of my dad’s Ford Popular. It halted my progress with a loud thump as my skull met with it. Crumpling in a much distressed heap, I let go of the lead, something I should have done 1.7 seconds earlier. At that instant of freedom, Don became something of a self-seeking, callous brute, his whole personality upturned by the adrenaline rush of raw instinct. The traitor left me there. Unimpressed by all of this except the sharp corner of the garage, I lay sprawled out on the ground, my bloody head resting on the red-stained concrete, and my broken wrist bent under me.

I don’t remember much of what followed, except feeling eight stitches being pulled through the split in my scalp, the plaster being put on my left forearm, and the revelation from the back of my shaken brain that the voice that triggered this trauma was that of my dear sister.

Never had betrayal been so acute.

================== 

Who knows? It may become a book!

https://amzn.to/2R55IPA

2016, A Spacious Odyssey

It's not often that Grace and I go to the cinema in the St Albans area. Hatfield Odeon used to be our nearest, but long before this 9-screen monster was even conceived, St Albans had its own small Odeon. But that was closed decades ago, and fell into a sad state of disrepair. Locals feared it would be demolished to make way for a McDonald's Drive-Thru (because we all need one of those so badly) or housing (which we DO need, but NOT the stupidly expensive properties which keep appearing in the city), but it was finally bought by a man who had already refurbished an old cinema, The Rex, in nearby Berkhamsted. And in due course, our old, crumbling picture-house was beautifully renovated.

(bbc.co.uk)

(bbc.co.uk)

(tripadvisor.co.uk)

We paid it a visit yesterday, to see "Bridge of Spies".

"During the Cold War, the Soviet Union captures U.S. pilot Francis Gary Powers after shooting down his U-2 spy plane. Sentenced to 10 years in prison, Powers' only hope is New York lawyer James Donovan (Tom Hanks), recruited by a CIA operative to negotiate his release. Donovan boards a plane to Berlin, hoping to win the young man's freedom through a prisoner exchange. If all goes well, the Russians would get Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance), the convicted spy who Donovan defended in court." (imdb.com)

The film was brilliant. Grace thought it was a bit slow to start with, and it is a long film at 2 hours 21 minutes, but I don't mind slow usually. Based on a true story, it's tense, gripping, intelligent. We loved it.

So too did we love the Odyssey experience. Where the Odeon had had a second screen added in a most clumsy and ugly way, the renovation returned the place to a single screen. It's spacious, comfortable and beautiful. I think it's the only cinema I've ever been in where the seats don't swing up when you leave them, and don't need to because the space in front of the seated viewer is perfectly adequate for people to pass in front of them without any need for anyone to stand up to let them by. Most seats are single and in rows, as normal, but there are also sofas for two, and seats arranged around small tables, at which the viewer can eat and drink while they watch.

(herts.muddystilletos.co.uk)

(oddyseypictures.co.uk)

greenstalbans.blogspot.co.uk

I would have expected a visit to a very classy cinema like this to be expensive. It was cheaper than any we've visited in the past five years. Just £5 a ticket for us over-60s. Even their Maltesers were cheaper! The Odyssey in St Albans is well worth a visit.