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2019

Llandudno:

New train company (Bye Arriva hello TFW) same difficulties... arrived on time ok but no reservations on the train- not that we really needed them. A gentleman from Rhos was in one of our (unmarked and therefore not-)reserved seats and I have a good long chat with him about lots of things on the journey. Coming home, a Chester race day (more train travellers) but smaller train than usual, no reservations, hottest day of year and no air conditioning, lots standing. Train serving holiday resorts, in Summer, and NO luggage racks, luggage not allowed on seats or aisles... (???). Stopped at Warrington Bank Quay and passengers told to get off. No station staff on platforms and train abandoned by driver and guard. Passengers told by PA to walk (only 15 minutes) across Warrington to catch a train from another station. Or at their own expense get a taxi. Found a Virgin rep and when pushed we were told we could catch a train to next local station and there would be a bus provided. However- with most of the trains passengers now struggling their way through a strange urban landscape without a map- our train was reinstated and we got back on, having a more or less empty train for the rest of the journey. Arrived in Manchester sufficiently late to apply for a 25% refund. The problem was a person on the line.

The train guard was not looking forward to his return journey, with a late reduced capacity train, with the preceeding hourly train cancelled, to cater for large crowds headed for Chester Races. He was 50 mins late getting back to Llandudno Junction where the train was terminated.

The weather forecast this year was as usual quite abysmal with "yellow weather warnings" in place for 60 solid hours, thunderstorms and heavy rain. On the Sunday is rained in the morning but we were able to get out in the afternoon and took lots of photos of the quite rare Great Orme butterfly (Plebejus argus ssp. caernensis).

All our evening meals were at Barnacles and were entirely vegetarian for all of us, and indeed mostly vegan. They have plans to start using the upstairs of the premises next year. A few more meals dropped since last year but they were extremely accomodating and perfectly happy to mix and match, so we did not have to have chips with every meal, which you might think looking at the menu!

Monday was fairly wet but we caught the bus to Conway and called in to the Albion for some real ale and some games of bagatelle. The barman remembered us from our visit of ten months ago! We enjoyed a little of the "George Shaw Brewery" beer and a few other beers. The landlord of our local Stockport pub passed us as he drove off to do some sea fishing. Near to the pub was an excellent tea merchant and we bought some of the 2019 white tea crop (including a rare batch of green leaves) and a little 2003 vintage Pu-Erh tea.

We bought a Japanese white tea (Ryo Morisaka) harvested only a month earlier (Zairai from Uji - Wilted 3 days, hot dried 1 hour) of which there was just 750gr outside Japan. Quadruply rare due to the age of the tea trees (not from a bush cultivar). Also, we bought a slightly older Chinese white tea harvested February 2019 ("Bi Luo Chun" Yunnan snow flower) and also a vintage puerh (2003 Changtai Shen Puerh Tuo Cha "Ji Nian Memorial" Yunnan). Needless to say you don't buy these in the local supermarket, but even at 500 pounds a kilo, a cup of tea (3gr of tea per small 150ml cup) costs less than a store bought latte. The Japanese tea is labelled as good for three brews, but the shop owner says he has had as many as ten brews. Multiple brews from the same leaves with each brew using hotter water, reduces the cost per cup and gives a wider range of tastes, moving from sweet to bitter. The vintage tea has no instructions but we have had vintage before and know to rinse and drain the leaves first and brew for a mere ten seconds. He suggested that even Assam tea should not be initially brewed over 85C. The English today just pour freshly boiled water on....

In the evening the weather had improved so much we were able to sit and listen to the Llandudno Town Band playing on the front.

Tuesday was really wet, but a dry part of the day allowed us to go out for lunch. After our visit in 2018 we thought perhaps of the vegetarian specials at the Happy Valley Cafe but this year that was back to pie and chips and the Parisella's ice creams were of rather obnoxious flavours- popcorn, bubble gum, unicorn... I mean! Pretty yucky colours too. So Plan B was initiated and we went to the Haulfre Gardens Tea rooms where there were some really tasty vegetarian meals on their specials board. We had to get back to town quickly to avoid the coming rain but had a nice snack at The Rabbit Hole.

Bought a harp CD of film themes, and a 1949 revised book of "Mary Jones and her Bible", well known in Wales but little outside, odd as it is the story of the founding of a Tract Society and the British and Foreign Bible Society (formed 1804), and is based upon a young girl's quest for a bible in Welsh. Her bible, purchased in 1800 when she was 16th (eg in her 16th year, or age 15 in English) is currently in Cambridge. The original English publication of Mary Jones story, told by MER in 1882 (only three years after initial Welsh publication) is available online.

Then followed three days of very warm dry weather- and us with five layers of fleeces all ready for the expected wintery weather. First outing was a return visit to Llanwrst to see once more the unsigned two spout-two trough water source (Ffynnon Gowper, 1830) , and to seek out and walk around the almost secret (unsignposted) 50 metre diameter spiral labyrinth/mound (16th/17th Cent) before returning to Gwydir Castle (1500/1540) to see how the grounds had recovered from the heavy flooding earlier in the year. Across the valley the railway line was closed and Network Rail had lots of heavy equipment adding new embankments, tunnels, drains and several hundred tons of stonework.

Llanwrst is to be home for the National Eistedfod in a few short weeks- and the floods meant a number of changes for the locations. A considerable lack of public transport for such an event. No trains. And only a restricted bus service - slightly fewer buses than last year but the Arriva Group bus tickets was still just fifteen quid.

The garden walls at Gwydir have been raised this year most beautifully and look excellent, it has to be seen if they will withstand the 4 meters of flood water that spread across the valley earlier. The owners most kindly allowed us to photograph the ancient painted and gilded leather work in the dining room - sold to W R Hearst in 1921, then bought back from the New York museum and reunstalled in the original room in 1993! - and we added a little extra funding towards the sandbags.

The peacocks were displaying for us and we were able to see the complex construction of their trains and how they produced the rattle without using a lot of energy - and its unusual visual effect as the erected train shook BUT the colourful "eye" effects stayed fairly still, quite an effect. It is remarkable to see birds with such long trains in flight, although they nest on the ground, roosting is in trees.

We also saw a couple of very odd looking bees, with the black head followed by a hairy bright orange-brown thorax with an indent in the middle of the back, a black abdomen and a small white bottom. These were tree bees (Bombus hypnorum), good pollinators of wide open flowers eg daisies, seen in the UK since just 2000.

Thursday had to be the walk to Abergwyngregyn (Aber Falls) which had about as much water as last year. And Friday was a visit to Angel Bay to seal watch- there were 5 or 6 grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) that day, they were people watching.

The chocolatier in Conwy was closed on the day we went (Monday) but we did see in another shop a bar of chocolate containing CBD oil- which is legal as it only traces of THC- but we didn't buy any. I imagine it is a product you probably should not try to enter any country outside Europe with as the penalties could be most severe. And so home. The development at the landward end of the pier has uncovered the old Pavilion swimming pool, but not gone much farther. The deep building is extremely close to historic mine workings and there is concern for those, and also the small difficulty of obtaining access to the site. The original plans for access to the pier have now been dropped and the planned building wall has been moved back behind the listed Pavilion metalwork. The small old galloper at the end of the pier had gone- scrapped??

The original Pier entrance is now fully closed, pending rebuilding of that part of the pier understructure which has corroded. As normal now the pier was quite deserted after 5pm and the most of the sales stalls had closed by then. The excellent Craft Shop on Mostyn Street has now halved in size and is no longer open on Sunday.

Bakewell in Derbyshire, home of the Bakewell Pudding. In the past we have had a direct bus from Stockport to Bakewell (originally Manchester to Nottingham, then Manchester to Derby)- now it only runs Buxton-Derby, and is the ONLY bus service between Buxton and Bakewell. Although it is operated by the same company as the Stockport-Buxton bus, the timings are the worst possible- the half hourly bus from Stockport arrives in Buxton just three minutes AFTER the hourly bus to Bakewell has left. No wonder transport guides now recommend a train to Sheffield then a half hourly bus from Sheffield to Bakewell! A consideration for next year.

The bus from Buxton to Bakewell was fairly unsafe as most of the panels were loose and the structural ceiling poles were held by metres of gaffer tape. The seats were hard plastic shell. No cushioning. It made the hated ancient "Pacer" trains look modern and well maintained. I have no great hopes that the bus service or company have long for this world.

Sunday was a splendid day and we went to Buxton for the day (no more holidays in Buxton as the house we used has been sold). We visited the "community farm" which we have been watching grow for some years on a former Council dump. The contaminated land has been sealed and organic soil placed on top, mostly in raised beds. As livestock is not permitted it is more of a community market garden, and a name change is likely. We were greeted and shown around by a local politician, who entered politics after the local authority gave the "farm" two weeks notice to quit the site. She was elected, the notice to quit was rescinded, and they are looking for a longer term lease- possibly thirty years.

The brick and tile garden "storage shed" is listed and as usual, in poor condition, with many parts too unsafe to use but maintenance of that is down to the council. It was designed and built by Edward Milner, pupil of the famous Joseph Paxton (1803-1865) to support the nearby Pavilion Gardens (1871).

The afternoon was spent listening to brass music from the Pavilion Gardens Bandstand, the band was Lydgate, a 4th section band. Lydgate is one of the Saddleworth area villages which has a Whit Friday venue. The conductor for the day was a local brass stalwart, Jim Hunter. A busy bank holiday weekend in the park, the warmest ever, with additional entertainment by the Buxton based Billerettes ("men in skirts") with some energetic and well choreographed "cheer leader" type dancing - there are movies on youtube of their act. The previous day they had performed at "Manchester Pride". Waiting for the bus from Buxton a bee got inside my shirt, panicked and stung me. I was able to get the stinger out and marvel at its length and the nasty barb on the end. I was also lucky to be able to get some anti-histamine cream on nearly immediately, so my third breast while painful was not too big!

This year (2019) the council (High Peak) passed the "management and operations" of the gardens (and ALL its "leisure services" including the Buxton gardens' buildings and facilities to a private company.

The bank holiday Monday, the hottest ever! we decided it was too hot to go far, and having explored the local market (bought almost nothing, it was mostly nick nacks and little else- the Tweed stall was not there, there was no fresh produce... Bakewell has an excellent sweet shop on Bridge Street with sweets from all over, a bigger choice than most. My tooth sensitivity to sugar keeps me to one or two sugar free sweets a day! They also had genuine American root beer, made with Cane Sugar (not corn sugar!). George quite likes the Australian Bundaberg root beer, and Carters UK root beer is OK- but he really enjoyed the US made Boylan root beer.

Tuesday and Wednesday were the wet days- especially Wednesday. However Tuesday afternoon there was a long enough dry spell for us to wander down the River Wye to Lumford to photograph the pack horse bridge ("Holme Bridge") there, Grade 1 listed status built 1664. Our reason for this was to try to match a lino engraving by Cathy's grandfather. Not possible- that South West corner is now occupied by a private residence. Wednesday was a wash out.

Notable place to go to on a really hot day- past the entrance to Holme Hall is a cutting leading to an underground structure (former mine- dangerous to enter). Really cold air wooshes out of here and the air some distance away is notably cooler. Stand near the entrance and on the warmest day feel cold!

Two good days left then! Thursday we went to Chatsworth to walk around the Stand Wood for the first time. Saw the old chimney from Paxton's great glasshouse which formed the model for Crystal Palace- the Chatsworth glass house was demolished after the first world war. A pleasant stroll to gain good height (120 metres above the House ground level) over the estate and to view some of the larger design features of Joseph Paxton (think Crystal Palace glass house) who started his career on the estate. At present most of the bananas sold (47% of world trade) are descended from a banana grown on this estate- although the fungus that killed the previous big seller (Gros Michel) is now moving to the Cavendish banana (aka Grand Nain, aka Chiquita). Fyffe bananas from the Canary Islands have been identified to descend from the Chatworth Cavendish banana! .

There is a pleasant lake and isolated cottage (Swiss Lake (1717) , Swiss Cottage - former gamekeepers cottage c 1840), very peaceful, and several water features, including the huge storage lake (Emperor Lake) for the Emperor Fountain (1844- normally a height of 200 feet (60 metres) is obtained from the gravity-only fed reserve, a record height of 300 feet has been recorded) in the grounds below.

One water feature involves artificial waterfalls fed from a round pond ("Ring Pond") leading to a "folly" aqueduct (c.1839) from which water falls 80 feet.

Friday was planned as a gentle stroll from Darley Bridge to Rowsley along a riverside path but we ended up walking down the riverside path from South Rowsley to Darley Bridge- the "Derwent Way" markers have been enthusiastically removed and for the final field we had to squelch through freshly sprayed slurry.

Two years ago we had enjoyed a good meal at the Three Stags at Darley Bridge, but they no longer offer lunch meals, and the welcome could hardly have been colder. They received none of our money, and we went just down the road to a large Robinsons pub the Square and Compass. This has been reported to have a new landlord recently, who seems to have taken a few weeks to get a grip on things (it is a hotel with camping site) but we found the Cambrian Way beer quite quaffable, if not in premium form. Certainly we have had worse Robinsons beer (the brewery no longer has any interest in the quality of the pubs that carry its name). We enjoyed a good meal and were quite happy with the pub.

From there we returned North along paths that were new to us- some of which were only laid in the last two years. From the pub we crossed a field towards the ("preserved") railway and then walked past Whitworth Park and Darley Dale station, joining a new length of footpath from Darley Churchtown (church locked of course. We were ignored by a church worker who went past us into the hall) - northwards. A recycled plastic walkway (more of a bridge than a plankway) took us over water to join the Derwent Valley way near to its origins in Rowsley. The end of the path was enthusiastically blocked by a large and noisy traveller encampment and we had to retrace our steps a little to leave the path.

Rowsley is home to Caudwell Mill, a mill museum, craft centre and cafe. This year during the peak tourist season they have been denied the use of their visitor car park and a chunk of riverside land outside, for several weeks. Not great for business - apparently for the laying of new sewers to the local school, but the total closure of access was probably not necessary and more laziness by the council than need. There was a diversionery route, but it was significantly longer - an extra 2.77 miles along a narrow back lane and not one any driver would take. Access to the mill is FREE - and it is one of very few places where you can buy retail packs of flour milled in Stockport (Nelstrops Flour from Heaton Norris, still owned by the Nelstrop family).

Noteable shops no longer found in Bakewell - the only shop (apart from the two supermarkets) selling vegetables and fruit has gone; the only newsagent (formerly W H Smith) has gone. One large pharmacy is now requiring 72 hours notice of medical prescriptions (!!!) - might as well take a bus to Buxton or Matlock. The courtyard shops and cafe at Kings Court were gone and vacant. I managed to avoid buying a CD from a charity shop for 10p of Margaret Thatcher reading Lincoln on Democracy. The Book End on Bridge Street remains open and we bought a half dozen books there- it is a charity shop supporting local community transport.

Eating in Bakewell is always a problem, apart of course from a choice of three different Bakewell Puddings (my own favourite is from Bloomers). This year we ate out at Eastern Court on three evenings, and had some lovely meals, served by frantic staff who were running everywhere but still smiling and giving a pretty good service- despite many diners being really unhelpful by changing their minds several times, or generally not being properly restrained.

Once again we enjoyed the hospitality and good food of Ricci's, serving properly prepared fresh Italian food. When we entered (three of us) the two four-seat tables were occupied by two couples so we spread ourselves onto the two seat tables. One of the couples was odd, the "gent" keeping all his legs and feet in the passage between tables, no part under the table. They had one seven inch pizza between them- and left half. The "gent" even left half a cola drink. A large plate salad (optional extra - it had been ordered) was untouched. As the owners are now ageing it remains to be seen how long Ricci's can keep going- quite a loss to Bakewell when it goes.

We did again try the Indian eatery by the river, and again were not impressed- the food was slightly more digestible than our last attempt but far too much oil for us. We also tried the Red Lion inn, where a Vegetable Chilli (generally assumed to be Chilli Con Carne with no meat just beans) turned out to be 99% bell peppers, which I cannot eat. So that was a total waste. We also tried the Vine Cafe, but enquiries showed that all of their house dishes were bell pepper based, regardless of the menu description- except for a chilli con carne that they bought in, which had the expected beans and no bell pepper.

After getting our first flu vaccinations ever, we went into Manchester to investigate a new vegan cafe- absolutely lovely food, good choice, low impact modern decor, unhurried service... to go back to again. But not on a Saturday, we took George and couldn't get in! Packed out.

Following our vegan lunch, we went for a much quieter and far more civilised musical lunch time at Chethams, with splendid music on the harp, trumpet, violin, and guitars. The harp player (Over the sea to Skye plus Bach Prelude in C Maj) was dimunitive but her playing was superb with great attention to tempo, rhythm and dynamics. The violinist (Kabalewski Op 48) was slightly older and played very well. The trumpet player (Larsson Op45 No 6) was a little older and played well and was followed by a much older guitar quartet (Domeniconi: Oyun). Finally a guitar duet by a senior pupil and a junior pupil. The duet played three short pieces by Len Williams- the father of John Williams (the guitar player not the film theme composer). All great playing of lovely music

In the program notes the college now requests that the full names of pupils are not given online. Fair enough- but the college gave the full names of the performers on their website (up to a week after this note appeared in the programme!). So kudos to young harpist IH. They now also don't even give the name of the instrument(s) to be played, which could possibly identify a pupil...

Saturday organ recital at Manchester Cathedral by the sub organist- who now knows his way round the new organ which had just been tuned. Just the Ireland Elegy sounded a little muffled but otherwise the music was clean and enjoyable. As we could not get near to the new vegan cafe on Cross Street, we went to our nearby vegan Indian cafe.

The next Glossop band room concert I gave a rest for my ears to recover from the last, but Cathy and George went and enjoyed it- the band played Slaughter on 10th Avenue. And Ireland's Elegy. Then while Cathy visited her mum, I went on my own back to Chethams for a harp recital, where the seniors played a Handel harp concerto and several pieces for three harps, followed by the juniors, where IH played a shorter simpler version of Over the sea... followed by the junior ensemble- the two youngest assisted in following the music by two seniors, while the smallest player played a clarsach. IH was the eldest player of the ensemble by a long way!

Another Sunday and another day at Glossop for the afternoon concert by Ashton Band- a championship band. They played "yellow music"- so old the printed copies had gone yellow, so fairly standard brass band fare without the overt drumming, pleasant.

Then it snowed. Apparently our local bus which runs 18 buses an hour, was running 140 minutes late, while another route with 6 buses an hour was running over 3 hours late. Even Petersgate in central Stockport had been closed to buses. Only one days snow (4cm) but continuing cold weather turned it into horrible slippery black ice.

Birthday time and a quiet morning with a Plaza Organ coffee morning, with rather a lot of piano, not unpleasant. The music this day lacked something- pleasant but not memorable. We had ample notice of a singalong at the end to make a timely retreat to the pie shop for lunch.

A lovely concert at Chethams with two viola solos (Bach Cello Suite and Telemann Viola Concerto) followed by over a dozen middle school students playing as "Serenata Strings" Mendelssohn's String Symphony No 10. Than a pleasant vegan lunch.

Great piano + clarinet concert at the Cathedral- Andrew Wilson's Breakfast Suite (The Song of Grilled Tomatoes, Melting Marmalade and The Kipper's Reel)- the composer had come up to Manchester from Devon to listen. Then three pieces by Schumann before returning to more modern music with Another Dawn by Peter Byrom-Smith, present in the audience- not at all a pastorale but more urban. Finally a piece by Paul Read, the suite from the theme for "Victorian Country Garden" (1991)

Onwards for another vegan meal at Vertigo- and discover it is yet another eatery which is unable to give you any paperwork for paid-by-card sales. It is getting so you now have to carry more cash and give up cards. Too many people using smart phones contactless and not wanting paperwork. And traders using very dubious card intermediaries.

Stockport is to have autonomous cars running from the railway station to Manchester Airport by year's end, the government advises that there will be no statutory regulation of autonomous traffic, except it recommends it should be monitored (which may be from miles away) and it is recommended that incidents are reported. And operators should have a PR department to handle incidents- and pedestrians trained to avoid cars with no drivers.... meanwhile our local bus operator has rather secretly taken delivery of an "autonomous bus" which is a new idea- not to be used on the roads but tested within the depot. What could go wrong. Update- Didn't happen by a long way, the technology has a long way to go- and our roads are not suitable.

Interesting concert of baroque concertos in the Manchester baroque church of St Ann- an inaugral concert by a group of musicians who decided before playing to first establish a company limited by guarantee than register as a charity.... it is pleasant to hear music of the age, although we were in a location in the church where there was undue echo. Walking back down the road we heard some classical string music- and as we got closer saw the musician sitting on the ground with an upright instruent which was being bowed in the manner of a cello- but smaller. Rather like an Indian violinist might play a violin- but we were surprised to find it was a European street musician bowing an electric guitar. Something new every day. NB Not at all unpleasant.

Next brass band at Glossop was Friezeland, who had impressed us last year- their arrangements of modern music this time were not so successful- the director had given up on trying to do anything with the modern noise called "grime music". The second half was entirely medleys. Boring.

We returned for breakfast and lunch to Pear Mill, Stockport - possibly the last built cotton mill in the UK, intended to be two (Apple and Pear) but the collapse of the market put paid to that. They seem to have ended up with a lot of sewing machines. Establiswhed with steam power (by the side of the River Goyt) they now, just, have a river powered water turbine providing their electric. We went with some friends who are marrying there (after an office ceremony- update: before a registry office ceremony...) later in the year - to be our first handfast ceremony.

The mill had a print of "Sweet Slumber" by Lilian Rowles. I recall a similar print on the bedroom wall of Nan Shaw. Rowles was from Wales but lived in Congleton and was active in the 1930s producing adverts (Nestles, Huntley and Palmer, Wrights soap...), book illustrations (Blyton), cards and prints. At Pear Mill it was on sale for £22 which seemed a little over the top for an ancient print- they are available for less. They also had a 1962 "futuristic" silver lame lift operator uniform from the Seattle World Fair. Odd thought that- a futuristic lift operator! Not very many of those left these days.

Glossop Band Room concert by Tintwistle (tinsel) with a first public performance by their new director. The first half had a couple of excellent standard marches, but the second half was all fairly modern film themes, which are little more than background sounds with little of interest.

I was right to ignore the many cold callers insisting on adding wall insulation to our house- apart from the government (again!!!) scheme not being available for buildings before 1920 (our house was the last on the road and was finished in 1905)- as a few years later some older houses now require complex and expensive repairs.... and yet another government!!! insistance- more and more loft insulation. NO-ONE has queried side effects, and as most houses have wiring in the loft these can be fatal- a 20 amp rated cable above a plasterboard ceiling, when covered by 150mm of insulation, has an effective downrating to 13 amps, as the normal low level heat in the cable builds up. If the cable was already under strain, the risk of fire increases dramatically. Elecrtcity suppliers, driven by our government, continue to push "smart meters" still claiming the cost of 384 pounds will give us savings- now reduced to eighteen pounds a year. Our electricty supplier continues not to fit the most modern meters. The mass installers have little training and know nothing of the dangers of interfering with older installations. We continue to resist.

We all need new passports- quite impressed with the Mark 2 European passports, with the former chip replaced by printed circuitry in the page, and a second photograph printed using the name and date of birth. Also a removable "blocking" label to stop the passport being read whilst in transit. (It is a pity our old passports were sent back unblocked, no indication the chips had been burned out). The little blocking label cost HMPO about 3p. New technology first sold retail in 2018, possibly three different mechanisms are patented- you can now purchase plastic cards to keep with your credit cards and passport to stop the rfid being scanned. Some are obviously better than others and there is absolutely no indication in the sales literature to tell you what technology they use or what their limitations if any are. Unlike signal blocking sleeves they react to the query signal with a corrupting response signal- which has to be more powerful than the target, so therefore has to be close to it and preferably nearer the scanner than the target. Some may have more efficient interference codes than others.

You think the UK government could not possibly be more racist and then they get more racist. There is a senior government minister who makes an appalling decision and then within two days says with a straight face "I would not make that decision". Utterly insane. The UK has lost it and should be deprived of nation status. Perhaps we could be a dependency of the Isle of Sark...

BT have huge posters up which say "ONLY WE guarantee wi-fi in every room"- now look at the small print. If you don't get wi-fi in every room you are still tied to their over the top contract. Under their "guarantee" they will give you a one-off payment of twenty pounds, period. That's it. Wow, super impressive. And you may have wi-fi in only one room while cheaper options are heaps better than the BT offer which BT themselves think so very little of.

We have a Tesla showroom at the bottom of the road which means we see the late night antics of their cars, and don't have to rely on Youtube. The sun gets lower in the sky, the light fades. The full moon rises. The lonely isolated car stirs. Not a driver or passenger in sight. A car lamp light glows dimly. The doors gently open a little. There is a quiet audio on the player. It gets louder and the various car lights flash in time to the music in differing patterns, the music gets louder and the lights flash brighter. The gull wing doors open fully. As the music gets louder the gull wing doors start to move up and down in time to the music.... (not something you would want in the middle of a motorway!).

Concert time and a return after too long to St Mary in the Baum for a pie lunch and an hour with a wind trio. Then back to Rochdale for a different church (St Chad) and a couple of reed players with a pianist, they played a rare number, Vernon Elliott's suite The Penguins, which fans of his music could identify as music from the black and white tv series The Pingwings, from Smallfilms. The young musicians had never heard of it...

My 20 year old PC decides it has had enough and won't turn on- one local shop had one (1) ATX power supply which we bought and I am now using- uprated from the old 300W to 750W as newer PCs now use masses of amperage on the video cards. The old power supply was a real mess inside with piles of dust and strange things around the capacitors. It gave good service as we were probably stresssing the 12v line by using two large (by the standard of those days!) hard drives. From another shop we buy a stand by power supply, rated at 500W but almost certainly enough for our needs.

Another planned trip to Glossop has to be called off as there is no train service and no viable alternative public transport. So we miss seeing Arnfield Band. Cathy researches a long distance holiday and finds that as a tourist she can stay in Singapore without a visa. She can even stay in Hong Kong without a visa. But for a weekend in Australia, once part of the "British Commonwealth" and settled/colonised by the British, she must have a visa for any entry.

News you may have missed- a civilian injured in the second world war who dies now can have thirty quid towards their funeral from the government (currently funerals are around 2500 quid) while the PARENT of a civilian killed in the second world war can now have a pension of 25p per week!! Courtesy of a statutory instrument. Another statutory instrument increased dental charges for anyone able to find an NHS dentist.

Back to Rochdale for a recital by the Telemann Baroque Ensemble, playing as a quartet- beautiful music.

A rare organ recital at Rochdale Town Hall, as the room is now being used for very lucrative wedding receptions, leaving no time for a lunch time weekend concert. Good range of music from Alain to Yon and Bach to Shostakovich. Then back to Glossop for a community band Ellenbrook- the usual fashionable film scores and popular music but a few brass band traditional pieces as well including a march new to us, The Recruit. Sadly Glossop Old Band, who were 2017 National Champions in their class, were this year unable to even take part in the Regionals as they didn't have enough players. Any brass players out there???

Another brass concert at Glossop, another community band, lots of music from films, very heavy drum kit- and a quiet contemplative piece from a musical "I don't know how to love him" starts with a manic maximum volume drum kit solo. I didn't last until the interval and went home. Nearly at the end of the season and really only one concert I've found of interest so it looks as if brass band recitals have gone. Too few players means bands have to borrow so many players to make up a band, and lack of rehearsals together mean the music falls to the bottom denominator.

Glossop teens have problems- Derbyshire have closed the local secondary school, there is no room at the nearest alternative; the Catholic secondary school, an academy (it can avoid the national curriculum), is oversubscribed AND boasting its latest OFSTED report has IMPROVED to "Requires Improvement". The young teens are required to make their way to New Mills, with one bus per hour along a road frequently closed in winter. Or a walk of over two hours. Glossop still has a railway station because the roads are very poor in winter. The pupils could travel by train- a 90 minute journey each way with a child fare of six pounds per day. And there is planning permission for many more homes in the area, which will mean more kids with no way to get to school (except parental car).

Our central heating controller lost touch with its thermostats again, this time rather more investigation seemed to show not that we needed new controls but rather to take the batteries out of an outdoor temperature sensor (NOT part of the central heating) which was misbehaving and drowning out the boiler sensors. A part of the central heating system, a backflow valve has again failed (this time after 10 months) which means the radiator hot water is also heating the water for the hot water taps (it should be possible to run the radiators without heating the hot water). Ho hum, guess that bit of plumbing is now unfixable. This means we have (at present) constant hot water at about 49C which is about right- without running the hot water pump. For hotter water the specific pump still works fine.

As we needed some more packaged curries we did the trip out to Ashton and tried to drop in at the new building for the famous vegetarian restaurant there. Hardly anyone in but they now have a barrier at the door for you to wait to be shown to a table (I really HATE those in empty restaurants!), with one staff member far too busy taking telephone bookings to even acknowledge anyone who may wish to enter. No sign of the old friendly staff. Walked out. Our days journey was by bus Heaton Chapel to Stockport then Stockport to Ashton; then by tram from Ashton to Manchester (where a school kids demo against climate change was in progress) then tram Manchester to Chorlton to visit the famous vegetarian shop there (Unicorn) to stock up on vegetarian foods and a 5 litre container of Bio-D washing up liquid. Had a lovely vegan Latte and Bakewell Tart at a coffee shop which was almost entirely vege or vegan- even offering vegan scrambled "egg" (tofu). This time our vegan coffee was with coconut milk, which froths very well and adds sweetness. Then by bus from Chorlton to Belmont Bridge, Stockport and finally a 192 home.

If you build a new road at a cost of 290 million pounds, someone should be thinking about the local rainfall. Yet the new airport relief road is closed for days, deep in water, as it relies- in an age when we are not allowed to buy a 40 watt electric bulb- on pumps to drain the water. Water has a useful tenedency to find the lowest level and run downhill on its own. In sealed hollows it stays there. And the pumps have failed. We won't mention the 20 metre high fence to protect motorists from balls from the adjacent golf club. And it is a pity one of the contractors went into liquidation (all that rain...).

Wales seems to have given up on the Conway Valley, condemned by hilltop clearance (reduced ability to hold water, more silt runoff), plus large earth mounds alongside the river protecting farmland, lack of dredging- lots of Welsh rain with no place to go means increasingly heavy flooding, with the railway line constantly badly damaged and towns cut off, ancient buildings ruined. Public transport has virtually ceased down the valley, once quite accessible.

Our 30 year old stereo unit finally lost an audio channel. The radio has been very dodgy for many years- so it was off to BHF charity shop to buy a 2nd hand replacement- the only way to get a tape deck these days! This one also has a CD player which the old one didn't. And a remote control. Alas it lacks Long Wave radio- and is going on 25 years old, but has a better tuner than our dead one.

Busy musical weekend, with a lunch time recital in Rochdale, a joint concert by a pianist and -playing separately- a string quartet. In the evening there was a local concert with a viola player and piano accompanist, with donations to BHF. As Cathy is not fond of piano music and had had her dose at lunch time, she stayed home. Next day, George went to Glossop for the brass band while Cathy and I paid a long delayed return visit to Stockport Town Hall for a Wurlitzer organ concert. A nice change. One of the pedals failed mid-way and had to be repaired.

With little music on the next weekend, we heard of some RNCM brass musicians playing at Holy Name in Manchester and went along. Advertised as just 8 military marches, played by a brass quintet, with donations to Help for Heroes. Obviously lacking publicity as we were the audience. No donations as there was no collection. Probably a similar event to the duet at St Pauls a few days earlier- graduating students required to organise a concert for charity. But a lot less publicity, a very short recital - they actually only played 7 marches and made the event last 17 minutes! And as far as we could tell zero raised for charity.

As much of the day remained, we visited the Manchester Museum and found the anthropology and geology building closed for two years, so the world famous Egyptian collection was off limits. The live bees had long since gone and this time the live spiders had disappeared, apparently replaced with tiny poisonous frogs. It looks as though there will be more room for events and hirings, and special (charged for??) exhibitions- but for two years you must plead directly with the curator if you want to see any "ancient civilisations" collection. And may not get it.

With no notice our Sunday train service- already so poor it is unusable- is cut even further, and no longer reflects the printed timetables at the station. (Looking more closely I see there is now a separate Sunday Only timetable, from 31st March- with no trains in it!). The train company on line train timestables are nonsense but as far as you can make anything of them, are also wrong. But it is the trains scheduled to run on the evening before that are counted, so all those cancelled trains are simply not counted as cancelled.

In case you missed it- a diabetic prisoner is given a last meal at 3.30pm. After six hours her organs are closing down and she is passing the point of recovery. After 18 hours as she lies unresponsive on the cell floor a prison warder shouts at her. An ambulance is called after 21 hours. She dies and the Home Office- responsible for prisons- refuses to allow her children into the country from Africa for a funeral..... an old man falls and is taken to hospital in Manchester, then discharged as they did not find out about his broken wrist, broken hip and broken neck. He is readmitted and left without pain relief or food for nineteen days- he dies with a weight of just 45kg. A Manchester teenager breaks his arm in two places and requires surgery. He is sent home with paracetemol and has to wait five days in agony (attending hospital each morning) before the hospital can operate. The police do not respond to reported crime, the courts are closed to anyone without unlimited funds, people can be thrown out onto the streets on a whim (where many die), children in local authority care live unsupervised in tents, the number of fire engines is being reduced... banks and cash machines disappear but "you can use the post office"- no you can't they have been closed. You can't get to see a doctor, "go to your pharmacy"- no you can't they've been closed. Public transport dwindles. Anarchy seems close as humanity dwindles into the far distance.

I find it of interest that our "digital by default" (eg no smart phone= no services) government continues to push for a move of radio to DAB, and turning off FM, but in forward looking Singapore DAB has been abandoned (as has short wave and medium wave (AM) radio)- DAB was irrelevant. Broadcast radio in Singapore is FM only (40 odd stations), and listeners usually use their smart phones and apps to listen! Meanwhile I have three DAB radios that can only receive BBC broadcasts- in an urban area. Commercial channels have been changed to low quality low power, or worse, DAB+ which is not compatible with my none-upgradeable receivers. Digital? Ha.

Off to Loughborough for the annual AGM of the TI User Group UK- a tiny gathering of less than a dozen, but including one of the reporters for the UK's leading IT News site (the register) and the CEO of a global comunications company (who also sang with a pop group called Showwaddywadi (something like that!) - my first meeting with a man I spoke to by telephone, when he was just 14 - back in 1982! Young TI99/4a users often end up in interesting places. Had some "Castle Rock" beer.

The warmest Easter in my lifetime saw us out and about, first to Etherow to see the bank of bluebells, this year the best display we have seen, nicely set off with daffodils, forget me nots, celandine, and a few wood anemones... the missing bridge on the Keg Pool path is back in place but the path remains closed for clearance and stability work. Interesting to see the bridge is designed to break away in flood and has a chain anchor point. Poor year for birds as the closure of the park warden service means the bird feeding tables are no longer maintained. The toilets by the weir, left with their lights on, are out of action long term due to a broken pipe, and may be demolished.
To Buxton for a brass band concert from the outdoor bandstand- not been there for many months. Saw what claims to be the oldest English brass band, established 1812 - New Mills. The players didn't all start together, didn't all end at the same time, and may have played the notes in various orders, but this was a true traditional English brass band, playing traditional brass band music, and not a drum in sight. Enjoyed it. Bought a Bakewell Pudding (made in Bakewell- Bakewell Pudding Shop recipe). Drank the free Buxton water and visited the newly restored Pump Room alongside the free drinking fountain. and observed the lower street fountains were back in water although labelled "unfit for drinking".

Then off again after a long gap to Lyme Park near Disley. Their Easter plans nearly went amiss as eight fire engines dealt with a moorland fire on Maundy Thursday. Many decades ago the Stockport Council 92 bus used to be extended at Easter from Hazel Grove to the entry to the Lyme estate. Long ago! In the 60s we went several times. This year we took advantage of a free bus service from Hazel Grove to the estate information office near the Hall. The bus was a branded 192 which replaced the 92 service Manchester-Hazel Grove. The National Trust pay 16k per annum to run 7 return buses every Sunday and Bank Holiday (not Christmas). I was surprised to find they even ran through Winter. The bus dropped us off by the House entrance and we did our circular walk to the Cage and back, with some new paths to us, discovering that Lyme also has a couple of bluebell banks. Very poor numbers on the bus- even with a free car park in Hazel Grove and a free bus to the park, people prefer to pay eight pounds to park at Lyme, rather farther from the house than the Sunday bus stop. Most of the free bus users connected by bus.

The walking guide to Lyme estate now has the added warning in RED regarding the dangers of Lyme Disease- named after an American "Old Lyme" not ours. Infection is serious but rare. I discovered long ago that the National Trust (in common with museums and art galleries generically) don't do great refreshments so we go prepared with food and drinks. I really don't understand anyone who says the NT do good catering!

Next weekend a long day of brass band music at Buxton. No contest in 2018 due to no venue, in 2017 we had 23 bands, this year down to 18. It must have been a near thing if they would cancel (they did one year due to lack of entrants). A number of bands had been booked for St George's Day events. We had 18 different contest pieces!

The fourth section is our favourite and started with two perfect pieces. The third and last band still has a little way to go but played well for the section. Third section was good. Oh dear the second section- we generally don't like!- five bands and only two we would call tuneful, the other three (the three winners) chose raucous tuneless pieces- but the adjudicator does not mark on the chosen piece, only how well they play the score. The six bands in the top section (more than the other sections!) mostly played well, and there wasn't much doubt about the winner, playing a tune fairly unknown in brass banding, written back in 1979 by Paul Huber.

The band placed second in the top section... oh dear. Take a gently carol, Lulay thy little tiny child, and turn it into a serious extended accident in a fireworks factory, lots of aerial bombs and weird sounds- oh dear. Crazy. The composer was clearly concentrating on Herod's wrath and the mass bloodshed.

The three most raucous pieces were all associated with the Salvation Army. Hmm.

Going home we filled up with free Buxton mineral spring water- and were preceeded by a man taking 50 litres of the water!! Even with sanitised bottled water it should be drunk within two days of opening, but he was filling huge containers with "wild water" and keeping it a week. Risky. By the end of the week even tap water would be tasting better.

An afternoon at Stockport Art Gallery. They had an exhibit upstairs by Stockport Photographic Society. Also upstairs was a book launch to celebrate 100 years of Stockport Art Guild, we bought a copy or two- Cathy's maternal grandfather was on the front cover, one of his paintings (which we have, donated to us following the death of one of his former pupils) was pictured inside and he had several mentions. Snacks and drinks available. Downstairs another book launch of photographs of the railway scrapyard at Barry with the photos on the walls. Free food and drinks. And a small brass section playing.

A very disappointing weekend. We had hoped to go to a Sarangi recital at Manchester's Bridgewater Hall. As usual we went to buy tickets before having lunch outside and then returning for the recital. They refused us access to the building (even to buy tickets!) as we had bottles of water. Their obligatory TERMS occupies EIGHT PAGES of tiny print and basically you have zero rights. Completely fascist and not a place we wish to go near to ever again.

Instead we shopped- George bought a coat (permethrin treated with RFID protected pocket) and wallet (RFID protected). Cathy bought some shoes. I bought some graphic books- a couple of Japanese books about a cat, and a Penguin book on Ada Lovelace and Babbage by Sidney Padua. The author started with a 5 page story dashed off in a pub to celebrate Ada Lovelace day. Then did a few more pictures for the BBC. Then some more for Oxford University. Finally- a book. She also constructed virtual animated Babbage machines (to understand better how they worked) and lectured on them to folks at Google. A talented lady, she was lead CGI animator on the 2016 Jungle Book, and worked on many other films (Stuart Little; Prince Caspian, The Iron Giant...). The book I bought even came with an autographed bookplate!

In the bookshop I noted there was to be a book signing on the Sunday so went in and bought a copy of Glitch by Sarah Graley- signed bookplate, signed doodled book, and a pin broach. The heroine is stated to be 14 and the book (Published 14/5/19) seems to be aimed at (mostly) young ladies of 10-14, but is well enough written to be readable by adults too. The publisher is a major US educational one, Scholastic. Very like the classic E Nesbit stories, with independant children exploring together, but inside a virtual world rather than Nesbit's magical worlds.
Sarah was also approached by major US comic publisher Dark Horse to to the art work for the first Minecraft graphic work which is due to come out in June 2019.

On the bus into Manchester we first saw street signs and lamp posts festooned with white toilet paper and then a topless man wrapping up someones fence. Odd. Coming home the bus omitted Longsight entirely as the A6 was closed from Matthews Lane to Plymouth Grove- the man had got onto a roof and was throwing tiles. The road was closed for four hours.

In roads near where we live cars had their windscreens smashed one morning. And our local hardware store- still recovering from a sledgehammered door- had it big plate glass window smashed. Nearby the post office reains boarded up after the cash machine was dragged from the wall, and the "CoOp Food Shop" has only just reopened after its ATM was exploded from the building.

We are members of the CoOp and remain so although they have closed our nearby (and open a century) local CoOp. They send us coupons which clearly say on the back "you can obtain cash at a CoOp food store". Sadly, they don't tell any store staff- including store managers. Even going to a major store in Manchester it still took the manager to give us cash for our vouchers. The staff are utterly untrained including store management.

Monday- out for a pleasant Wurlitzer concert at Stockport Town Hall. Nope. No notices anywhere but equally no concert. Third one at the town hall we have "gone to" to be arbitrarily cancelled- the Town Hall ballroom is used for vote counting and it takes them a whole week to set up a handful of tables (rubbish). Another venue it is not worth our time trying to attend. To the bank for money- the atm did all it should EXCEPT give out the funds. Apparently the bank staff inside were fully aware but were not allowed to put a sign on the machine!!!!!! (so-named CoOp so-called Bank- in reality not a CoOP and barely a bank). Walking to the bus stop we must have missed by only a minute or two a serious group assault on a man in Princes' Street resulting in a hospitalisation.

An organ recital at St Anns - sad to see serious security fencing around the church prior to an invitation only memorial service there the following day. Immediately after the organ recital the camera crews were in there with their long lengths of cable. The following day there were a small number of flowers outside the church- where the mass of flowers started two years ago. Meanwhile the war memorial at Victoria Station is in use as a constant maintained memorial to the 22/5/2017 attack.

Passing Morrisons in Piccadilly we saw a sad looking individual with his hands handcuffed behind his back, with two PCSOs, two PCs and another 2 PCs coming up. He wasn't being any trouble. Meanwhile Manchester Police have charged- and the courts have fined- a woman whose mother had died, who was self harming, accepted to be in mental disorder, and "causing a public nuisance" by threatening to jump from a bridge onto a motorway; they have also- in the same week- taken action against a woman who had left a psychiatric unit and was found walking down a motorway- charged with being "forbidden traffic on a motorway". Any yet 97 per cent of reported burglaries in one area of Manchester are not investigated. (The figure might be higher if people thought the police could actually DO something!).

A lovely nerdy tech story not caught by the general press- three British engineers responded to an offer on ebay of a "Puma 2020" computer, located in Gerany, and their bid was a success at just over 3000 pounds. They thought they were getting a rescued bit of historic kit, but found they had bought an entire abandoned IT department, in a sealed and inaccessible little building. Crowbars required to get in. It was fully cabled and with the tapes still threaded- the original IT gear of the sports manufacturer Puma. They were the proud owners of two IBM360/20 and an IBM370/125 (three mainframe computers) plus full set of peripherals including field manuals, punch cards (with boxes of unused cards), computer tape (two reels unused) and so on- then two weeks to get it out before the little building was demolished. Placed in storage and an appeal set up for funds to bring it back to the UK.

The now quarterly coffee organ recital at the Plaza in Stockport, a church organ concert at St Anns by Elin Rees, who performed her favourite Suite Gothique- the closing chords are quite hair raising. She is performing the organ concert at the Welsh Proms in Cardiff this year- not broadcast. Then an unusual performance at St Pauls Church of the Schubert Quintet, not one you come across too often, but possibly one of his more interesting works.

Whit Friday and off to Dukinfield. Our lunchtime venue had to change as the vegetarian cafe formerly our destination has changed building and apparently management as there has been a sharp move away from a welcoming customer experience (entirely the contrary) so we ate at an Indian stall (Gnats) in the indoor market which does a lovely vegetable curry. We also bought some fruit at the market and a resurrected local form of bread sold as LeClerques and seemingly based on a speciality bread delivered by the now defunct Oldham bakery of DuClercqs. Ashton market is THE place to buy genuine oven bottom muffins- The big bakeries offer bread with this name but not made the traditional way and usually omitting the tell-tale hole in the middle.

On to Dukinfield, and despite serious traffic problems we made it for the first band. What a surprise- it was Northop, we have only seen them in the dark of night before. Over the course of five and a half hours with little break we then heard 47 out of the 48 brass bands to play at Dukinfield which again had the largest number of bands in Tameside (which has 11 venues). There was a welcome break around 8.15 which I haven't included in the 330 minutes playing time.

Many bands new to Dukinfield including the first overseas band for a while, all the way from the little village of Rong in Norway. The longest distance UK band seemed to be Wroughton from Wiltshire - sadly they registered and then took absolutely ages to be ready to play, causing a seven minute hold up and resulting in nil points. Possibly a little harsh. Even a first time band travelling from afar should have seen the need to start without undue delay, to enable so many bands to play.

We heard several new pieces of music to us including some by Rimmer. Parr played Irresistable which joined competitive play in 1995 in a new arrangement by a French arranger. Long Eaton, who contest rarely, played Rimmer's Knight of the Road, which they played in 2014. Before that its last airing seems to have been 1948. It was played by Mossley in 1896 who then won with it! Mossley are still playing and won the best local band prize with ORB.

We also heard Rosehill by Jakeway and The Howitzer by J White which is quite a rare piece- I have little information (eg none) on the composer. In all our holidays in Bakewell we had not heard of Bakewell Band but they turned up and played Punchinello. We also heard new to us pieces Redcliffe March (Hollis) and Under Hill House (Heyes), and Walkabout (Woodfield). The Hattersley school band brought along the first Sousaphone to the contest. Sadly Roberts Bakery Band seem to have run out of players as so many brass bands have recently. Stockport Silver managed to find enough players after hitting a weak spell. Glossop Old Band were another band missing due to lack of players.

The winner at Tame Valley Hotel, Dukinfield was as usual Fodens Band with Rothwell Temperance coming second. Hard to keep track but the bands seemed to come regularly and we don't think there were ore than three bands waiting to play at any one time, usually they arrived just as the prior band finished.

Meanwhile over in Saddleworth one venue had ten bands registered to play when registration closed at 11pm. Saddleworth was as usual busier with a maximum of 81 bands at Delph, their quietest venue was 37 bands.

At Tameside two venues only managed 31 bands this year, and Tame Valley with 48 bands was just shy of its rather old record of 53 bands set in 2010. An excellent days music with just some very heavy rain around 7pm and the usual rather rowdy pub regulars between 7pm and 9pm- the bands play in the pub beer garden.

The following day, something completely different, a string quartet in a local church. Very pleasant with a work by local composer Peter Hope (either A Dorset Calendar or The Gardens Year as you choose, written in 2010.

July and warm days. Lovely organ recital at Bolton by composer John Hosking, who played some splendid Bach, Vierne and Demessieux (very complex but pleasant) as well as a couple of his own pieces. He had found a jolly piece by Vierne! And one by a little known composer Barry Ferguson. We took an alternative route to the church from the railway station via the "skywalk" to the bus interchange.

Bolton has a luxury bus interchange, linked to the station with a fully enclosed walkway. There are information panels with the times of buses AND trains. Each stop has only a bus at a time (generally one route per door) with a display for each stop. Ample room for buses to wait. Unlike the new bus stations at Ashton and Stockport, where Stockport will have a new half size bus station with open path to the railway station shared with bicycles and almost no room for buses or passengers- we shall see but the plans and artists impressions look dire, and the on the ground result is generally a lot worse than such optimistic fare.

The next day another organ recital on a very different organ and in a different style- back to Albion United Reformed Church in Ashton for an afternoon recital by Hans Uwe Hielscher from Wiesbaden, with a program of lightish organ music with a major piece by Christopher Tambling, a piece by Hans himself, and short pieces by Enrico Pasini, Denis Bedard, and Gordon B Nevin. Hans also played an organ transcription of a piece by Ketelby, whose music he greatly likes and has transcribed many pieces. However No Bells Across the Meadow did not fill me with joy- I missed the bells, which a church organ simply does not have. Bought a couple of his CDs including one based entirely on the organ works of Gerard Bunk- great name, music rather so so. but then again the organ he played as not a pure pipe organ, having dubious electronic augmentation.

Also had a chat with Ian Wolstenholme who has a couple of monthly organ programs on Oldham Community Radio- he was recording Hans for his program. By coincidence I also discovered OCR on my radio just a couple of days previously. They have a great lineup of music programs that the BBC refuse to play. Community Keyboards, Community Brass, and lots of real folk music. And the announcers all speak real Northern English!

And via Ian I discovered another organ web podcast "Organ Encores" which is very much in the style of "The Organist Entertains" which the BBC killed. Complete with a monthly program by Nigel Ogden himself, using his personal recordings archives. We don't need no BBC.

One of our friends has discovered that his presumed gluten intolerance wasn't- his sensitivity is due to a new and common contaminent now added to most breads sold in supermarkets including very common names - most now have added soya flour. Why??? And the newly added palm oil which is appearing on bread ingredients lists is not only not required but the worst choice of oils as it significantly increases saturated fats as well as being bad for the environment.

We found NO bread at Aldi which did not have one or both of soya flour and palm oil. At Waitrose, Jacksons Bakers had the same bread at the same price with a choice- with or without palm oil! Waitrose own brand had a "Healthy Choice" marked bread with palm oil, and therefore double the saturated fat of proper bread- enough to move it from the NHS England "Green" category to the "Orange" category, definitely NOT a "Healthy Choice"!!! Indeed we often find specially marked "healthy" main brand foods are the exact opposite.

Bread may not have arsenic in today but it is returning to its place as being not very good for you. It is time we had some new bread purity laws. Indeed, looking at ingredients lists, probably some new food purity laws.

McVities have the healthiest biscuits with the Digestive Light and Rich Tea- other brands of these bisuits are far more unhealthy, sometimes a lot less healthy. Oatcakes are usually unhealthy due to palm oil (eg Nairn) but not always- Waitrose have some that are low in saturated fat. Italian Ameretti bicuits are also low fat.

The number of "cholesterol reducing" foods has increased now from spreads to yoghurts and yoghurt drinks- including a none dairy variety for vegans. Many use sterols but Benecol uses stanols which may be more effective but may require a higher dose. The boiler plate required health statement on all of these requires that a single dose gives you a minimum of 1.75 grams of sterols or stanols and incluide a statement saying over 3 grams of sterols or stanols may have no effect. This is based on 1999 research, which is of course ongoing. Stanols MAY have more effect if increased from 3 to 5 grams; everyone is different and it depends upon your diet. Eating with meals is important. There is no research on long term effects (except they have now been on the market nearly two decades) and you need to take them for a long period- at least a couple of weeks and maximum effect in ten months or so. A single does per week has no effect, it must be daily or very nearly so. We especially like the "greek style" yoghurt with low fat and stanols.

Another organ recital! This was the first of three local concerts by David Price, now retired, David started life in the Heatons, going to St Thomas Heaton Chapel junior school (as did George), moving on to Stockport School (I went from 1962, he left in 1961!)- he had played the very early model Compton Electone organ which was then in the school. He later became Assistant Organist at St Georges in Heaviley and Head of Music at Peel Moat School. Then he left the area for East Anglia.

David showed he was a fine talented player, adjusting his styles for the composer, and adjusting the music for the type of organ- unlike some organists who play German and French organ music on English organs all with the same style, and it usually doesn't work well.

A few days later we went to David's old church, St Georges in Heaviley, where he played for nearly two hours- and we were the audience. The weekend was a major sporting day and it seems a number of people were watching the tennis finals at Wimbledon, or a bit of a rarity, England winning at cricket. With so few people present I found myself acting as David's cameraman to produce something for his facebook followers. David posed for a retake of an old photo which showed him at the console at the tender age of 17.

The pipe organ at St George's has been silent for a couple of years, now restored, so this was a chance to hear it better than it has been for quite some time. It was originally a Forster and Andrews organ. The church was using a second hand Allen digital organ in the meantime, formerly at Bollington Methodist Church. Bollington now has no open churches. One more concert to come from David.

A Summer Community Party for our neighbourhood also had a fairly low attendance, probably due to the major sporting items being held.

Weird weather this year- hottest June and hottest July on record and even the hottest UK day ever. Lots of very heavy rain (several days with over 40mm!!), plenty of surface water from time to time. And a nearby reservoir has problems. Fake News!!! Courtesy of the lazy and feeble BBC (time they were done away with- good for nothing!) which saw on Wikipedia that Whaley Bridge had a population of 6500 and promptly reported "6,500 evacuated". No no no. This fake story was then widely rereported by other media too lazy to fact check. Had the BBC read another paragraph of the Wikipedia article they would have seen that 6,500 included quite distant parts- Horwich End, Fernilee, Taxal etc. The Manchester Evening news, with more local knowledge fact checked and contacted Derbyshire Police and were the ONLY news source on Thursday to report 400 households evacuated. Bit of a difference! Trust the BBC?? Never.

Bad flood damage at Lyme Park which is closed for at least seven days for clean up, as the pond outside the house rose up to house level and cascaded into the lower Italianate garden and then further cascaded into the car park. Very bad public transport problems, with the bus from Stockport to Buxton having to go to Glossop first, and anyone travelling from Manchester to Sheffield by train having to go via Birmingham.

Celebrating the annual school holidays, for the first two summer weekends Network Rail took away the trains from Manchester to North Wales (again) requiring travel via Chester and Crewe- until a landslip closed the Chester-Crewe line for a while.

The various transport woes caused family problems as a Welsh relative visiting Stockport had a harder journey than necessary and an impossible return journey (a car had to drive from Wales to collect her), while family in Chapel en le Frith had to travel via Glossop to get to Stockport. Had I been working in Disley still (the bank there is now closed), I would have been forced to walk to Hazel Grove- by Friday an hourly shuttle bus was in place.

There was a brief mention that the reservoir sluices had been closed, and a later report of a single employee trying to open the sluices after the dam had started to fail. We later heard that the sailing club had sought for the reservoir level to be maintained high (it has shallow shelving sides) and the person who was responsible for the sluices had retired, leaving the sluices closed and not maintained. With so much rain forecast the reservoir level should have been reduced well before the rain hit. Splendid flying by the RAF helicopter pilots gently placing sand bags into the failing spillway. Had the dam completely failed the school underneath would have gone in seconds and the railway line in minutes.

Eye test and got some new glasses. Nothing can be done about large floaters, no sign to be seen of glaucoma yet, developing cataracts can be operated on after a greater loss of vision, but the enlarging drusen signal AMD for which there is no treatment. Sign of age. Eating lots of carrots (do that already) and lots of dark green veg recommended to slow down progress. Apparently sweet corn is also beneficial. Ho hum. Already collecting book recordings, large print, and have text to speech on the computer. Also use a digital camera with strong zoom for distant fine resolution.

You could not make it up... 200 years ago a group of people met in Peters Field Manchester to ask for universal suffrage and regular elections. The cavalry charged in and at least 18 killed, the first an infant in arms. Two hundred years later a memorial was quietly opened- quietly because it was designed to be inaccessible to anyone with a mobility disability or in a wheelchair, and erected despite protests from the start. In 2019, after the PM announced that Parliament was to have an extensive prorogation (found to be unlawful!), and that he would not be bound by any laws it may pass before that, and that elected representatives would have their access passes cancelled... Cathy and I went to the Peterloo Memorial for a small short rally in the rain- maybe three or four hundred there, not bad for a wet 6.30pm event with little publicity. The BBC reported the days important event- our PM had a puppy.

"We expect marches for universal suffrage in Moscow and HongKong. Maybe a march in support in UK, but to march for OUR OWN DEMOCRACY against the Johnson/Cummings/Farage axis? In the UK? Days after the massacre's 200th anniversary? Dystopian."

How can you then be satirical when the governing party in a few short weeks is to erect strong barriers, with armed police, to stop the citizens of Manchester seeing or going to the memorial. Yes the Conservative Party Conference is to be held just yards from the site of the Peterloo Massacre, almost 200 years to the day after the event which gave rise to extended suffrage- and due to the lies in the press of that time, to the founding of the Manchester Guardian newspaper.

August and the treat of the now quite rare organ morning at the Plaza, with the old Compton sounding excellent as always. Cost of a cuppa has gone up to 1.25 after many years at a pound. Another four months until the next one.

The final local organ recital by touring David Price, this time at his "home church" of St Thomas Heaton Chapel. David went to the infants school next to the church and taught at the nearby Peel Moat Comprehensive School, now the site of a new housing estate. A better audience here but I was still David's cameraman for the event. The organ is little used apart from one or two services a week (I noticed a Yamaha keyboard alongside...) so this was quite a rare event. The organ was mechanically quite noisy and the quieter Toccatina (Yon) seemed overwhelmed by internal clunks but it was excellent on the louder pieces.

Check out my camerawork at the following facebook videos, the url's all start with "https://www.facebook.com/100007978358915/videos/" which is then followed by the video number and a closing /, for example
https://www.facebook.com/100007978358915/videos/2449731005302821/
The video numbers are: 2449728738636381/ 2449728765303045/ 2449729118636343/ 2449729155303006/ 2449730891969499/ 2449731005302821/ 2429512277324694/ 2429512320658023/ 2429512680657987/ 2429513190657936/ 2430007730608482/ 2430008633941725/ 2430010773941511/ 2430008880608367/ 2429514040657851/ 2449408298668425/ 2445209969088258/ 2444512659157989/ 2436662249943030/

. August and the outside temperature drops enough and for long enough to cause the central heating to come on. Lots of rain so apart from the summertime lack of concerts, little in the way of outings. Discovered the youtube channel of the Boarshurst Band with recordings of their Sunday concerts- excellent music by a variety of visiting brass bands.

A brief but widespread power outage due to a lightning strike and two major generators failing in seconds, reducing the network frequency and triggering protective breakers (a generator at 45Hz can explode quite quickly). Considering the chaos on the railways to the south with nearly 1800 trains delayed or cancelled, it was notable that the AC supply to the trains suffered no power cut at all. The normal mains frequency which should be 49.5 to 50.5Hz had dropped to 48.8Hz in a couple of seconds. The train specs require them to operate at down to 47.5Hz and the older ones did but the newer 700s failed- 60 sat down, 30 were restarted by drivers, but 30 required a personal visit from an engineer, no matter how hard they were to get to - meanwhile blocking some of the busiest track in the country.

Stockport town centre and Cheadle were without power for about 15-20 minutes, and ancient local trains were not affected. Domestic appliances are more sensitive to lower mains frequency and are liable to explosion or fire as transformers saturate or compressors in particular explode or ignite - fridges and freezers and low voltage transformers (plug in ones are often under-rated by 50%!) are particularly sensitive hence the rapid cut to domestic supplies.

Transport for Wales put on extra trains for the International Eistedfodd this year- and on the final day they were cancelled as there were no drivers available. Great planning. Major international festival with no (ok, utterly inadequate) public transport.

Well done to a town in South Wales that decided that any overweight people using its public toilets (?? some still exist!!) deserved a cold shower- a deliberate ploy to "reduce vandalism" by introducing "weight sensitive floors". Checks date- nope, not April 1st. Couple of days later the council announced the specification had been issued in error and normal toilets would be built.

Demonstrations and protests are of little value when the ONLY organisation and publicity uses Facebook and Google (Google maps, Google calendar) There is no other way to find out what is happening beforehand- and both of these are very far right government-supporting organisations that ANY protester should keep more than well away from. The autocracy has nothing to fear. The BBC and Sky are remarkably inaccurate and regularly fail to query obvious government lies. Ho hum. I can no longer tolerate listening to any BBC broadcasts.

With two major roads in Manchester City centre closed for four days for an encampment by Extinction Rebellion it is remarkable that Stockport choose to encourage the young folk showing concern for the environment by cutting down two very large mature trees outside St Thomas Primary school in Heaton Chapel. The government empty Climate Change promises have no real value.

The start of September can only mean a new season of brass at Glossop, with the immensely popular championship band Fairey, room full and standing. Lovely concert with a play through of the piece they are playing in six days at the British Open (Dynasty, in memory of the Mortimer family), and also a British premiere of another piece ("Pacific Melody" by C Bond). Purely from their playing of the Open test piece, my thought was "8th place"- I should have put money on it, as they did indeed place 8th.

Then another local band, but not so famous- Stockport Silver, conducted by Jim Hunter, who used many of the pieces he had conducted Lydgate Band in, just a few weeks earlier at Buxton.

Something completely different- we went to our first "hand fasting" ceremony, a pagan or wiccan pre-Church wedding ceremony- it is only quite recently historically that the Church took over wedding ceremonies. Nothing too unusual- the lighting of a candle, exchange of rings and vows, tieing the knot (literally- it was then framed as a keepsake), and jumping the broom. The legal bit at the registrars office still necessary. The celebrant had a lovely traditional headpiece with small horns. This took place at the last mill to be built in Stockport, Pear Tree Mill, now a multi-occupied establishment, mostly retail. The celebration was in the tea room forming part of a multi-stall antique centre. The grooms first wife died suddenly some years ago so it was good to see him happy once more- and his first wife's parents were also present.

Very early Friday morning (3am) and my wife leaves me... alone for a protracted period for the first time in several decades! Cathy and George took the very long trip to Oz to see Cathy's grandchildren, two of whom she has never seen, and to experience the trip of a lifetime! George told me Cathy had been face to face and up close (18 inches!?) to a 3 metre long Diamond Python- they may not be venomous but they do have good fangs. They had lots of adventures, enjoying seeing the different wildlife. Unlike the UK there was absolutely no problem with George eating vegetarian and (as a dairy intolerant) in the UK being given only a cheese/milk alternative to meat.

IN Australia it was visits to botanic gardens, animal sanctuaries, viewing points, a brass band contest, the beach, the rainforest (drinking water was collected rainwater)- inclusive of Netflix, Wii etc!! -really roughing it. In the eco-resort, George had his own accommodation a short walk from the main house. They both loved feeding the wild lovebirds. They went whale watching and into a man made home for glow worms. George bought an Oz hat.

They were both deeply impressed by Singapore Airport and its efforts to make life cosy for transiting passengers- just NO vegan food available. Their three hours there was too short, but they explored the several gardens. They did not have time for the "airside" city tours- technically, in transit passengers can take a bus tour which is considered to be on the "security cleared" side. There was free tv, films, massage chairs(!) and lots more.

The trip back failed on the last leg with passengers having to unpack take on baggage so that it could be put in the hold (LiOn batteries not permitted in the hold) and hold baggage left at the airport. Do not try to fly KLM- the very pits, obviously accomplished at not taking luggage. An industry source tells us their planes are known to have insufficient hold space for luggage. Over 24 hours later and their bags were reportedly in Manchester awaiting delivery. Bags finally delivered to the house 30 hours after Cathy and George arrived in Manchester. iN FLIGHT, KLM offered a "snack"- an egg mayo sandwich with NO alternatives at all. Going out, for the same length of journey (about an hour), Easyjet offered no food.

I put in some new LED kitchen lighting- the CFL unit I replaced our failed fluorescent with didn't last any time so I have added a plug and socket to make it easier to change units in future. Did plenty of housework- cleaning and tidying.

Organ recitals at St Anns in Manchester are back with a novel approach, drawing on the vast library of accumulated music music- a musical A-z of composers names including some quite forgotten composers. During Cathy's absence I had two brass band concerts at Glossop- one by a first timer to Glossop, Oughtibridge, with a fairly low key relaxed offering, followed by Burbage Buxton, now a First section band so quite loud, and with more drum kit than I like, but not overpowering the brass instruments.

Apart from a yellow weather warning for severe rain, we had to stay in to receive the luggage bags left in Amsterdam by KLM, so were not able to demonstrate at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester, and not able to go to see Poynton Band play at Glossop. Sigh. The following week we also could not go to Glossop as there was no train service and the buses took an extra hour each way!

Following their return to the UK there was a funeral for Cathy's mum at the Crem and the following week we had a lunch with our friends of the Wiccan wedding, following the "legal bit" at the Registrars. We initially tried to have lunch at the Swan with two Necks, but as with that other Robinson's pub The Pineapple, the large outside sign for home cooked lunches really meant that no food was available (or in the case of the Pineapple the pub was closed apart from when someone felt like opening it- the Swan has the opposite reputation, of closing when they feel like it.). So after a gap of some years and a change of manager and chef we returned to The Ardern Arms, for a splendid vegetable curry- they have a very good selection of meals but can be VERY busy at weekends. We drank The Wizard which is Robinsons attempt to win back disappointed Mild drinkers- mild (3.5%) was discontinued a while back. The jump to Unicorn at 4.2% was rather high. The Wizard is at 3.7% ABV. Robinsons now have a 4.1% beer (Light Trooper) compared to the 4.8% of Trooper, and a new lager beer at 4.8% which required Japanese consent- it uses a sake yeast from Fukashima.

I visited every shoe shop in Stockport and Manchester from the cheapest to the most expensive and was assured that no-one makes shoes my size (small and broad) anymore... not even Clark's who have been keeping me shod for some decades now. One shoe shop recommended a visit to Broadstone Mill in Reddish, which turns out to have several outlets over two large floors, including a good kitchen shop, wide ranging clothes shop, nice little tea room, a small but worthwhile health food/vegetarian shop- and a large shoe shop. I found three pairs of shoes that fitted me, one pair of which was the cheapest pair I recall buying- just ten quid and a good fit.

The European TI-99/4a Users Meetup returns to the UK and I went along just for the day at Leicester and gave a talk on a little known early piece of software which was a very early entry into the "retail display" category (Advertizer with a z), with special routines for displaying advertising, information, and included user-interaction routines including the possibility of running audio tape segments (this was WAY before mp3's). I had some problems as the display console had been modified (new VDP chip) and used memory in a manner that conflicted with the old software but enthused a couple of attendees (from the USA and Austria). Not a huge gathering and reduced support for the 2021 meeting and no sponsors for the annual awards- so the meeting awarded a long time Dutch supporter who was too poorly to attend.

Of interest- the ancient travel firm of Thomas Cooke had just gone out of business (subsequently the travel agent bit was bought by Hays) - Leicester Station was the venue for the first ever excursion planned by Mr Cooke. No problems travelling by train on this trip. (In 2023 a Green Plaque was erected at the destination station of the first excursion- Loughborough.)

Brass contest time at Rochdale and fun and games on the trains. On Friday I found Northern Railways had published a special timetable for the 20th with a half-hourly service Manchester-Rochdale, and a useful train at 8.33am. By Saturday half of these trains were cancelled and we were left with just an hourly service. Late on Saturday the train we intended to catch had disappeared ONLY from the Working Timetable- listed as running everywhere else. We turned up on Sunday to find the 8.33 on the board, then it became delayed (subsequently disappeared from the systems, did not run, was not cancelled, did not exist) - and all subsequent trains to Rochdale were showing as cancelled. There was a bus listed so we headed for the distant bus pick up and found that just after the listed stopping bus was an express bus which we caught- the bus took 25 mins against the train's 12 mins so we missed the first band. Because Northern had been repeatedly reissuing their timetables, the official records show that NO trains to Rochdale had been cancelled and the first train of the day arrived at Rochdale at 10.10am. The early trains simply did not exist and Northern pay no penalty for failing to run timetabled trains.

The initial special timetable was an improvement on the Sunday norm when two trains an hour have the usual Northern clustering of a 5 minute then a 55 minute wait between trains. This seems to apply to all Northern services. The special timetable, which was not in fact used, gave a good half hourly service. Running an hourly service required just one train (and one train crew) although it was possible for one train to cover the 12 minute journey both ways twice an hour, Northern could not be bothered. Midweek there are 6 trains an hour on the line- this compares to just three per hour midweek at Heaton Chapel and a three hour gap on Sundays!

The first band we heard was one of the weakest of the day but things perked up after that. We heard 27 of the 28 bands playing. Fourth section had a number of weaknesses, Third section was universally of very high quality. Then second section really disappointed- but first and championship made up for it. We met up again with Jim Hunter, who only a few months ago we saw conducting Lydgate and then Stockport Silver. This day he was on timps for Besses, for an especially difficult piece with odd rests- the band came third. We got to the station for our trip home expecting to catch a bus, to find that the hourly service was now running. We have absoultely no idea why Northern made such a terrible job of the morning schedules or why they felt it appropriate to reissue the timetable so often even the railway systems had no idea what was running. Northern Railways haphazard Sunday running has been raised in Westminster and loss of their franchise has been elevated.

Of note is that this year not one band withdrew from the contest - and the hall never had the rather empty feeling we usually get at the contest start, always a good number in. The town hall refreshment staff (bacon butties, pie peas and chips...) were kept very busy- except the bar staff who hardly sold anything.

After just 16 months our newest gas boiler stops working, just as the temperatures fall outside- but not yet freezing at least. There is a seven year warranty BUT the repairs have to be done by the manufacturer and unlike with our previous boiler, which was repaired by the installer who generally did repairs same day or next day, this time we have to wait a couple of days. The internal fan was not working- suddenly very quiet and immediately evident. This is essentially the same fault we had many years ago on the previous boiler, which then appeared within the first year. Repair is just a ten minute job, replacing the controller board. The fan itself is fine- it just had no power. Repaired in time for the freezing temperatures.

Off to hear another brass band in Glossop:- Besses, they played a test piece which gave them a third place at Rochdale the week before- and now they played it better! A little slower and with greater clarity. This playing would possibly have given them a first place the week before - but it is how you play on the day that counts. They also played a trombone trio that George had heard in Queensland exactly five weeks before. The audience could have been larger and the donation to the band was small for such a qualified band.

The band was the SECOND oldest brass band in England, formed a year before the Peterloo Massacre over 200 years ago. The oldest brass band played AT the Peterloo Massacre (and all escaped unhurt, walking home along the canal)- Stalybridge Band.

Our telephone kept tinkling one day and when we picked it up it was VERY NOISY which was odd as the broadband didn't hesitate for a moment. BT Openreach rapidly sorted the audio out and within a couple of days an engineer was out to rewire our line from the bottom of the pole to the cabinet, and he then spent quite some time fine tuning the broad band- which had not been having problems, but was always below the official target of 10MBS. As a result of his visit we now have the target minimum rate, the fastest broadband we have had for six years. Line speed dropped a little after 12 days but remains over 10MBS. But the engineer warned that the root cause- disintegrating wet copper wires- had not been resolved and it would fail again at some point.

Glossop bandroom for Rememberance Sunday- as brass bands are in great demand the day is usually the date for the "home" band, Glossop Old Band. After winning the Regionals in 2018, by 2019 they had insufficient players to take part, so this day they were supported by players from several bands- St Johns Mossley, Ashton, Tintwistle and Fairey and played a fairly undemanding set of military marches. Coming home was the usual Northern Railways failure as half the trains were cancelled due to a lack of drivers- a quite normal and regular thing on the railways these days, especially on Northern. We could not claim a refund as we travel free, and George could not claim a refund as he had bought a ticket from Heaton Chapel (saving 10p!) instead of Manchester, and with almost no Sunday trains at Heaton Chapel, he was not delayed arriving at his final destination!!

The following week it looked as though Northern had halved their already sparse Sunday timetable and we were unable to go to Glossop. Our local station, with a train in each direction per hour, two out of four trains were cancelled. On the Glossop line the trains were not cancelled, just removed from the timetable.

The same again the following week and another day with no outing and no brass band. Our local station had no trains to Manchester between 3pm and 8.30pm. Railway??? =Myth. With almost no railway franchise even trying to run their feeble timetabled services, and getting away scot free, our railways are in a dire state - as is almost every other "service". Our economy has been trashed by our government which is offering no public protections but rather deliberately ruining many peoples lives.

This year I received my third pensioner bus pass, have renewed my passport online - and as I have a passport, was able to apply for my over-70 driving licence online (very useful when opening new building society accounts!). If you don't have a passport your driving licence has to be renewed with paper, requiring a paper photograph and a counter signature by a driving licence holder. If you have a passport they take your photo and signature from your passport record, electronically. I haven't driven for 40 years and have no intention of doing so - but the licence is unofficially the official id card we don't have.

At Manchester Christmas Market we met Sean Wilson, who acted on Coronation Street for 21 years (Character: Martin Platt, Nurse) but has now retired from that, and after playing a part in founding several schools in Nepal, has settled down to cheesemaking. His tutor was the late Bob Kitching of Leagrams Cheese, whose cheese we have been enjoying for some time. Sean makes cheese under the name "Saddleworth Cheese Company". As Sean has no stockist local to us, our cheese continues to be Leagrams, made by Bob's daughter Fay. With a little very fresh Edam from the Christmas Market!

We bought some fresh Edam cheese and an Amaryllis bulb, which by Christmas day had put up four stems with five flowers per stem (six flowers on one)! We bought more amaryllis later for the New Year. And I still feel it is very wrong for British police to be hanging around with semi automatic rifles, it does NOT make ME feel any safer, quite the contrary. I will feel safe when the police decide to stop casually carrying powerful guns without reason. Six vans of police in a tiny peaceful square and no police to investigate actual violent crime.

Our grocer, Peter, in Cheadle Hulme is branching out to organic and "green" products and we are now spending much more there than at Waitrose! He had a good choice of fresh beetroot in November. And a range of "green" washing refills eg washing up liquid and toilet cleaner. Plus paper bags for butties. And so on. English apples are again disappointing due to the very wet late spring causing core rot in apples with large openings at the base (Fuji are especially prone). One of his customers was looking for mature cheese so we suggested Leagrams two year old Lancashire which he now stocks with a wider range of Leagrams flavoured Lancashire cheese.

We have two mostly vegetarian shops to buy from- Unicorn has its own Wikipedia page! and has lovely fresh veg including very fresh beet tops in season- they have their own farm. We recently bought bread from much farther afield- lovely Italian Fresella. Speaking to the Italian biscuit/cake stall holder at Manchester Christmas Market we made her quite home sick when mentioning we were enjoying Fresella. It has a very long shelf life due to double baking, and also serves as a useful weapon due to its packed concrete hardness. The Italian stall had a nice Italian "cake" with "Italian custard" (Ricotta).

The Unicorn can also have some very unusual fruit and veg- in November we could buy fresh bergamot, fresh Citron (the original citrus fruit), and we did buy and enjoy the lovely Feijoa, in this case from France- harvested in November it has a very short edible life once off the tree.

Our other veggie shop is "On the 8th Day" which has a nice cafe in the basement, and a good range of soaps free of palm oil. With National Health England now suggesting us oldies may need certain vitamin supplements, the supplement industry spoils everything by packaging several vitamins together, and selling them in insane doses- over 2000% of recommended intake which in some cases would cause peranent injury. On the 8th Day sells drops which allow finer dose control, so we can have B12 and D3 drops with a dose of just 5ug per drop.

Other places to go out to include a tea room at Broadstone Mill in Reddish, and an expensive pub in Stockport, The Midway on Newbridge Lane in Stockport (but miss December!) plus the Little Aladdin Indian in Manchester who does a nice "rice and three" for six pounds. There is a tea room at Pear Mill in Stockport but there is no alternative and they close without notice when they feel like it, so too unreliable and remote to consider.

We have a branch of The Range (est 1989) in Stockport, next to Wilko and B&M, and it makes the last two look very tiny even though the Stockport store misses several ranges they sell elsewhere (eg no appliances or audio goods)- your nearest branch is Southampton SO16 6TL. They do have an Iceland in the store, so perhaps Stockport was not considered sufficiently wealthy to sell appliances (eg washing machines etc).

Letter through the letter box- unsealed envelope- aagh. Once we started to breathe again and blood pressure restored, notice the letter advising bailiffs were on their way was for a different surname to ours. However we now have to prove the named person has nothing to do with us... well, at least create a paper trail. We had just five days to stop the process, not so good if we were in hospital or on holiday. Some nice person seems to have given our address to a none-local magistrates court. Two days later an eail from the Magistrates Court Fine Office to say they had removed our address from the case. Phew. Will be looking closely at the results of our next credit check.

At last get out to a concert at St Mary in the Baum in Rochdale, by the Kell Trio (clarinet, bassoon, oboe) and take my first ride on the new Spanish diesel trains, class 195.

Then a concert at St Chads Rochdale by a duo- clarinet and flute, most pleasant, with short organ pieces. We travelled to Rochdale in a Class 195 diesel Civity and from Manchester to Heaton Chapel in a class 331 electric Civity, both made in Spain by Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles who are now leasing the unused Eurostar garage near Piccadilly to test and service their trains, also including the TransPennine class 397. With a continuing pressure to "driver only operation" on the train crews, the guards which Northern continue with, must operate the doors from the passenger areas rather than the rear drivers cab. The information screens now have an arrow to say which side of the carriage the platform is. But no extra help for the poorly sighted.

Between the usual lack of musical concerts in December and the strike by management of Northern Rail whose performance, always dire, is now none existant, our outings are dropping considerably. We made one at the end of November that was a delight though- travel by bus of course. The wind ensemble day at Chethams School of Music, with pieces by Ibert, Soussman, Elizabeth Faulkner, Reicha, Nielsen, Giuiani, Ravel, Poulenc, Debussy, Schubert, Mike Mower, Gene Koshinski, Svante Henryson, Jean Francaix, and Dubois. A splendid couple of hours of excellent music and some composers new to us.

I was able to find sheet music for the pieces by Faulkner (for two oboes and Cor Anglais [English Horn] ) and Schubert (arranged for flute and harp), but no recordings which is a pity as the arrangement of Schubert was the nicest Schubert I have heard- taken from a little known opera with dialogue, I found a recording where the number was contaminated by the orchestra and dialogue.

Glad to discover composer Henryson, a cellist, who has written several cello/woodwind duets. I found a lovely cello solo by him of Indian music. The piece by Koshinski we heard was splendid- he is a percussionist, the piece was commissioned for a bassoon and Pandeiro, but worked fine with a tambourine (Chethams do not have a Pandeiro!). Mike Mower is a saxophonist very much in the jazz genre.

As Christmas fast approaches, our organic fruit store has in some unusual looking apples appearing somewhat flatter than usual - Court Pendu Plat, well worth looking for, with a very firm white flesh and unusual flavour. First described in the early 17th Century the variety is very old and may have been known to the Romans. For a holiday apple pie they had in a nearly as old variety, Herefordshire Beefing Apple (late 18th Cent).

The traditional Christmas brass concert in Cheadle by Stockport Silver Band. Last years emergency stand in conductor Jim Hunter is now the official MD and took the baton again for a pleasant seasonal concert. For the seasonal bell-fest piece I was given a small tambourine to bash. On 21st December Jim was conducting yet another band- Llandudno Town Band playing around the shops in Llandudno.

Our present to ourselves was a small Air Fryer, which quickly saw more use than four other kitchen appliances together, which are gathering dust and which are destined for the charity shops. The air fryer is quick and handy and can cope well with small pies, sausages and chips, but we will still need the oven for larger pies and joints.

On the Sunday of new train timetables when the "fake news" is that services are increased and more regular, here in reality, our train service is unchanged, and on the day before the "new timetables" Northern remove half their trains from operation on the day of the "new timetables" (so not "cancelled") and STILL manage to short notice cancel trains due to lack of crew. At 12.05pm the next train from Heaton Chapel to Stockport is 3pm. At 10.20am the next train to Manchester is 2.16pm and then- no more trains heading North for the day!!! It takes less than 30 minutes to walk to Stockport and about 75 mins to walk to Manchester. Fortunately there are buses, which usually have two to three times longer journies than the trains... but no busses to Glossop so we can no longer visit Glossop Old Band each week.

We recently spoke to a guard who had a big smile as he had given notice to leave Northern due to the terrible way management choose to treat their staff. Hence no drivers or guards to operate the trains. Arriva have no interest and no penalties by failing to keep to their franchise contract.

Heaton Chapel station was once the busiest suburban station in the county- now it is almost unused with less trains than most remote Scots or Welsh railway stations and in a nearly dangerous state of disrepair. This is not due to passengers not wanting to travel, it is entirely due to the franchise being given to a foreign owned company which had already proven that it could not run UK trains. And said company reducing the service to comedy levels, and failing utterly to be reliable - and answerable to no-one.

On the Sunday before Christmas Northern Fail did not operate 100% of their hourly trains to Crewe, 67% of their hourly trains to Buxton or 50% of their half hourly trains to Hadfield. The sole reason was "lack of train crew". In the case of Buxton several of the trains ran without stopping and no passengers. Backwards and forwards with not a passenger. Their website says "check for cancellations just before travelling"- but if it takes ten minutes to get to the station that is ample to cancel a train. And assumes you have no need to get home again.

Looking ahead to mid January although Heaton Chapel will have no Sunday trains we are gaining an hourly "rail bus" to Wilmslow! Some Northern Rail services are flagged by National Rail as "At present, we cannot confirm whether this service will run and some additional services may be missing from the journey planner." (That is a mere 4 weeks ahead!). Already in December there is a generic warning on rail services from Trans Pennine: "The introduction of timetable change means that a number of TransPennine Express services between Liverpool Lime Street and Newcastle / Edinburgh have been temporarily withdrawn from the timetable. Please note that some printed information will not reflect these late changes.". And Transport for Wales are simply removing services from the railway databases, sometimes mid-journey, they are not being recorded as cancelled so refunds will be really hard to get. Their own website is temporarily recording "cancelled due to lack of resources" or "cancelled for unknown reason"- in both cases this means inadequate drivers. "Cancelled due to more trains than usual requiring maintenance" has been used daily for several years and is now a simple lie. The train companies do not have the train stock to run the services they have agreed to run and do not employ the staff to run them anyway.

Looking to go to Llandudno by train I find that the Manchester-Llandudno day return has been withdrawn! To go to Llandudno for the day I "must" buy an off peak return- or I can travel on the same train with three separate day return tickets and save eight quid. Insane. Chester to LLandudno day return not available. Chester to Llandudno Junction day return is available. There are about 70 different DIRECT fares from Chester to Llandudno and one train company wishes to increase that to over 100 different fares. Then you add in the many possibilities of split ticketing... and Trains for Wales adds in an odd off peak reduced day return Llandudno Junction-Llandudno but only for groups of 3 or more.

Investigating old British broadcast radio drama I discovered Britains oldest legal independant radio station, from way back in 1968, University Radio York, which broadcasts on medium wave in the York area during term time. Still on air after over 50 years and some interesting programming, also available online and sometimes on demand podcasts.

And the traditional Christmas Organ Recital in Rochdale given by Jonathan Scott and his family. Lovely music, the encore this year was a recital on organ and Olympia typewriter of the famous Leroy Anderson piece. Although Jonathan is now playing all over the world, he still comes back, with his family, with this special concert for local folk.

We have a government now with a very large majority, despite the leader making several U-turns a day and telling untruths none-stop. A few years back a none-binding referendum decided by a tiny majority to exit the European Union. Since then the mantra has been "we don't need another referendum, despite a tiny majority, the lies and unlawful acts are of no matter. People had no knowledge of the consequences of the referendum result but the people have spoken once and for all".

A government with a large majority can do what it wants- and before the election it made it clear, and in the opening Queens Speech it has confirmed its plans to remove the ability to vote from around eleven million (the poor, confused, elderly, homeless..) while allowing British emigrants to vote for life while overseas. The removal of the five year fixed parliament makes sense- in its first five years we have had three elections! However not a whisper of a replacement law. ....the people have spoken and elected a government with a large majority. In the absence of a constitution or replacement law, there will be no legal need to have any further elections.

2020 Update- I had no idea when writing the above that the British Prime Minister would cancel all the May 2020 local etc elections!! Or that the PM would attempt to dissolve parliament unlawfully. Or that we would end up with a "parliament" sitting for three days a week and attendance limited to 50 MPs (out of 650).

Reuters reported "A policy which allows British security service agents to commit serious criminal activities including violence is lawful, a tribunal ruled by a slim majority on Friday (20 Dec 2019)." The specific complaint was "the MI5 domestic spy agency permits agents, those who are informants or provide intelligence but do not work directly for the government, to commit crimes including murder and torture.". [The permissive directive was signed by former Prime Minister David Cameron, and confirmed that MI5 officers could allow their informants and agents to commit crimes in the national interest, without any duty to tell police and prosecutors.]

The tribunal agreed with the government that "it was necessary for agents to be allowed to be involved in criminality.". British citizens targeted in Britain will feel much better that there is no "immunity from prosecution." for the agents- but someone would have to prosecute the agents. eg the state, which would have to allow information about MI5 operations to be made public. Won't happen. Another unsolved crime to go on the ever growing pile then. And so the state protects its citizens.

Christmas draws ever closer and we go to the pub for the usual "brass in the pub" evening with more than two hours of festive brass band music. This year it was on a Sunday and there did not seem so many present- and many left early, leaving barely a dozen for the final number, which could not be the "12th day of Christmas" choral singing. But we did get the Snow Waltz.

On one day we had a phone call from a relative of Cathy in Australia, wishing us a happy Christmas - she had visited the distant aunt in September. On the same day we had an email postcard from the owners of the cottage we rent in Llandudno, who were visiting their daughter in New Zealand and enjoying the warmer weather. It is a small world.

Christmas Day 2019- and Cathy has a video call to Australia to chat with family- total cost nil, sound and moving image. It is exactly thirty years since my parents last visited our house, when we all went for a walk to Cringle Park, Levenshulme. As the weather wasn't too bad the Shaw family retraced that walk and found Cringle Park much changed. From a public leisure facility, popular, much used, and with lots of facilities- to a muddy wasteland.

I never knew the open air swimming pool, and by the time of my first visit the huge amphitheatre with a bandstand in the centre had been filled in and planted as a rose garden- although the bandstand remained (unused). This year the bandstand and rose garden is muddy grass; the area where the Lido was is muddy grass; the crown green bowling greens have been filled and made into a bumpy grass area- the old bowls clubhouse has been mostly bricked up and converted to a boxing centre. The brick shelter where George and I sat once upon a time has gone and is now a muddy grass area. The toilets we once used have gone and muddy grass remains. All the flowers have gone. The playground George used has gone- but at least a more modern one has replaced it. There remain a couple of tennis courts and basketball courts.

My Christmas reading has been some of what remains of the writing of Sydney Smith- a contemporary of Jane Austen and very alike to the church minister in Northanger Abbey. He campaigned for education for girls, for Catholic emancipation, for the extension of the electoral mandate; for legal representation for accused in court; for income equality, against hunting and against slavery, for better treatment of the insane...and more... and by upsetting the establishment ensured he would not become a bishop. If I find the time in the future I may offer my services to transcribe what seems to be an archive of his presently unavailable writings.

We finished the year with an excellent beer from Redcar- "Redcar Rocks", very tasty.