Sunday 1st November 2026

Woke at 0330...took an hour or so to nod back off. Got up at 1000 and breakfasted with ma and pa at the dining table. Kath had gone to the gym. Drove down to The Broadway to buy biscuits at the Co-op, and got a takeaway coffee from Elkwater...a lass was strumming an amplified guitar and singing, entertaining the regulars. Drove down to Dobbies to pick up a couple of ready meals for the freezer. Bought some frozen Yorkshire puds to go with the evening roast. Drove back to High View to find Kath preparing lunch. I was planning to poach eggs, but discovered they were about three weeks past their use by date, so had to chuck 'em in the bin. Helped dad in trying to put the downstairs bathroom wardrobe back together...slow going. Managed to secure part of the vertical frame to the concrete structural wall...it was like drilling granite! Had to abandon my efforts and start cooking the Sunday roast. Kath did a crumble, and made cauliflower cheese. It was quite a feast for the six of us...felt a bit like Xmas dinner! Dad didn't eat much of it though. Watched Blue Planet III. Aki FaceTimed...she'd enjoyed the afternoon gig at Chats Palace, and had managed to catch up with Marianne, Katrina, and Lesley. Watched MOTD before bed...

Saturday 31st October 2026

Woke at 0500...took a while to get back to sleep. Woke again around 0915.  Eventually got up and descended to make tea. Breakfasted at the dining table. Dad already pottering about in the garage! I did an hour's work at my laptop. Drove into Westerhope with mum in the passenger seat...bought washing machine hose from Wickes, then drove over to do a shop at M&S on Kingston Park. Stuck some diesel in the car, then drove back to High View to put some lunch together. Spent most of the afternoon in the kitchen, though occasionally having to dive into the garage to give dad a hand with the DIY! Cooked up some roast apples with toasted pecans, and a sausage ragu, which we ate for dinner. I'd left the apples in the solidifying caramel in the frying pan on the hob, the intention being to slowly warm them up tomorrow for Kath to add to her crumble. I found that mum had emptied the contents onto a plate, and the frying pan was sat upon the kitchen table, so I returned the apples and sauce to the pan, and set it back on the hob. There was a bit of caramel on the egg flip I'd used to transfer the goods, so I licked it off, and was surprised by an odd, bitter flavour...mum had put washing up liquid in the emptied frying pan, and it being black, I mistook it for caramel sauce! Watched a bit of MOTD before retiring for the night...

Friday 30th October 2026

 

Woke around 0430...took hours to get back off to sleep! Got up around 0945. Text message from Gary saying he wasn't feeling too good, so wouldn't be working on the roof today. Got up and descended to make tea. Breakfasted with ma and pa in the dining room. Drove in to Ponteland and parked up at Waitrose. Walked mum round to Sip & Loaf for coffee and half a chocolate brownie. It's housed in what used to Maynard's sweet shop when we were kids...bit cramped in there, and very noisy, though no complaints about the coffee. Did a quick turn around Waitrose, then drove mum back to High View. Warmed up some soup for lunch. Just as we sat down, Payam, the plumber, arrived. Nice fella...he said he was here in his lunch break, so I gave him a mug of the soup. He re-plumbed the pipework in the upstairs bathroom, and successfully got the cold water supply to the downstairs shower unit...so hopefully, all is well. Dad insisted he put the vertical bar back up in the shower...it allows you to move the position of the shower head up and down, higher or lower. Took about 2 hours to basically get two screws in the tiled shower wall! I was exhausted afterward, and my bad hernia repair was giving me gip. Put dinner together...chicken tikka masala and wholemeal rice...forgot to boil up some vegetable accompaniment! Watched the final episode of Celebrity Traitors...good fun, though mum and dad were not into it...it allowed dad to nod off on the sofa!

Thursday 29th October 2026

Woke around 0745. Got up at 0815 and made tea. Warmed up some soup to take for lunch on the train later. Grilled kippers for breakfast, with poached eggs. Packed a couple of bags. The roofers turned up around 0930. Got them sorted, then headed for KX station. Got there in good time. Bought myself a coffee, then headed for my train. Uneventful journey. Managed to finish Dagga. Train rolled in to Newcastle Central at 1415 and I hopped on a Metro train to Callerton Parkway where Kath picked me up. Ma and pa were in the car...she'd taken them down to the GP surgery to get their flu and covid jabs, only to discover that dad had got the appointment time wrong! We drove back to High View for yea and cake. Mum and dad looked in good fettle, I thought, all things considered. I drove them back down to the surgery, giving Kath a bit of me time before she headed out to Matfen to attend to a client. I drove down to the village to buy fish 'n chips from Gill's. Dad had warmed up some plates by the time I got back with the food. I made some custard to have with Kath's bread and butter pudding for afters. Watched the penultimate episode of Celebrity Traitors. Mum and dad didn't know what was going on, so I watched Uncloaked upstairs on the computer. FaceTimed Aki who had watched it from home. Returned downstairs for The Ten...

Wednesday 28th October 2026

Alarm at 0730...Aki up to ready herself for Rowing Club. She brought me a mug of tea. I got up in anticipation of receiving the roofers, but Gary rang to say that Mark wasn't able to come in this morning, so he'd aim to turn up about lunchtime. I did a little work at the laptop trying to work out some routes for the Suffolk and Norfolk inspections for Hastoe. There's a lot of mileage! Will have to base myself in Bury St Edmunds for a night, and in Norwich for a night or two. Popped out to Waitrose to buy courgettes...came home and made courgette soup for lunch. Gary and Mark showed up at 1330. Supplied them with a bucket of water to mix cement...extensive brickwork repairs required to the parapets! Warmed up the chicken lasagne for dinner, with lots of vegetables. Noticed a sad post on FaceBook from Nicky Bolton stating that her husband, Howard, had passed away after battling a brain tumour...I alerted the GGMM community, and will look out for funerary details. Ventured into town...No.29 bus to Tottenham Court Road, and a short walk to the Brunei Gallery at SOAS for a concert of Bangladeshi music and spoken word, part of the Bloomsbury Festival, and centred around the publication of a novel, Red River, set in a village in Assam. Fortunately, the readings from the novel were all in English. An interesting, cheap night out! By the time we got home, I'd decided I needed to head for Newcastle tomorrow to help Kath out, who seems to be struggling a bit with the aged folks...bought a ticket for an 1130 train tomorrow morning. Eddy York had left a phone message in response to my flagging up Howard Gray's passing...I gave him a quick ring before bed...may see him at the funeral.

Tuesday 27th October 2026

Woke around 0530. Strange noises going on...I thought perhaps a mouse had gotten into the wardrobe...if not, then there's definitely something crawling about in the roof void above our heads! Alarm at 0745. Got up and made tea. Porridged. No sign of the roofer...eventually showed up around 0930. Lynne's TV still not working. Nobody seems to be able to work out why! Drove Aki down to Sainsburys at Angel and we did a fairly hefty shop. Back for lunch...soup and toasted sourdough. Ventured into Southwark to visit Tate Modern...wanted to see the photography exhibition, Light & Magic, focussing on the Pictorialists, pioneers of photography as art...some extraordinary stuff going on in those early days. It was dark by the time we came out...caught a train from Blackfriars, and walked home from Finsbury Park station, popping into M&S for bread. Julie Williams rang with some inspections work...I say some, there's loads of it!!! Mostly Suffolk and Norfolk...should earn me enough to pay for my share of the roof replacement! Aki cooked mapo for dinner. Watched an hour of "Avanti", a 1973 Billy Wilder movie we heard being talked about on R4...it's slow going, but some great laugh-out-loud moments from Jack Lemmon. Had to hit the pause button to watch the Ten...hopefully, Netanyahu is on his way out as Israelis take to the polls...

Monday 26th October 2026

Alarm at 0745. Dozed for half an hour then got up to make tea. Gary and Mark showed up. I went up the scaff rig to inspect some dodgy brickwork at second floor level. May need to get the front re-pointed!!! Noticed Lynne's timber window sills are rotten. Pottered about for a bit. Raining again, so trapped in the flat for the morning. Put a sardine salad lunch together. Gary and Mark knocked off early as they had errands to run. We headed into Covent Garden mid-afternoon...to see "Fatherland" at the Garden Cinema. It follows the author Thomas Mann and his daughter as they return to Germany from exile after WWII. Beautifully shot in black and white. Very short for a movie...about an hour and a quarter, but it had emotional heft. Glorious! Caught a No.91 bus back home. I cooked up some tortelloni with a garlic and mushroom sauce. Watched 70Up...rather moving final episode, the director Michael Apted having passed away five years ago. They managed a final interview with Nick, the farmer's lad from Skipton, three days before he died. An amazing document...