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.
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...
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...
Clocks went back overnight, so an extra hour in bed. Woke at 0600, but nodded back off fairly readily. Got up at 0830. Aki cooked breakfast. I got some costume together from my wardrobe, namely a scarf and a couple of hats, and then drove in to Stoke Newington for a morning rehearsal session. Got rehearsed into the first piece, which basically has me coming in at the end as the director. Broke for lunch. Wandered through Abney Park Cemetery, and then double-backed along Church Street and picked up some soup from Pret. Walked back to the theatre to eat it, joining some of the rest of the cast in the bar area. Did a run of all eleven pieces in the afternoon. Lengthy dinner break...wandered down the High Street, then walked back to the theatre to eat my packed dinner. Surprised by how big an audience turned up this evening...about 70 odd altogether. It all went down very well. I got a lot of congratulatory comments afterward, especially for my drunk acting. Sloped off around 2130. Aki drove us home. Watched a bit of MOTD before bath and bed...
Woke around 0530...took an hour or so to nod back off again! Alarm at 0800. Got up and made tea. Had expected the scaffolders to be finishing off the tin hat, but no sign of anyone. Porridged. Scaffolders eventually showed up...they winched several loads of corrugated tin sheets up to roof level...the lad doing the hauling was completely uncontrolled, letting the sheets swing into the door of the bike shed, and catch on the metal trim around the green roof. I had to go stand in the front doorway to make sure he behaved himself. Pain in the butt! Light lunch. Gary and Charlie turned up to take a closer look at the southern parapet wall...it's in a bad way, but they had taken a look at it back in August at my insistence, so I'd rather assumed any works had been costed into the quote. Gary wanted Casey to extend the tin hat toward the party wall with No.5, and they vowed to come back and finish it before dusk, but needless to say, didn't turn up. Lentil curry, baked rice, and vegetables for dinner, preceded by a baked fig and taleggio starter. Watched "The Traitors", and started 70Up. Had a bath...as I lay there, I could hear the rain battering our skylight, and an alarmingly loud drip, drip sound somewhere above my head...I surmised that it was rainwater being diverted from the tin roof onto the wrought iron guttering to the church next door. Hope there's nothing coming in behind the bathroom tiling!!!
