wednesday 1 – flew over to London Heathrow on BA, ready for Ruth’s funeral, my sister-in-law on Friday and to help John generally prepare over the next 2 days. worked from the office at bedfont lakes, then on to johns’
watched the apprentice show on bbc with john
thursday 2 – working from the office at bedfont lakes
friday 3 – really long day, picking up the hire car, waiting around at heathrow to pick up my sister and aunties jean and elizabeth then tearing along back to make it in time for the funeral at 1pm with just a moment to spare before going in ahead of the coffin bearers.
Packed service and some nice words from john, Ruth’s brother Philip and her best friend at school, also a poem from Alan.
go to the committal at the graveside at northwood cemetry and it all gets too much with lots crying, but then afterwards chatting and laughing as Ruth would have wanted; then back to the church hall for tea, chat and goodbyes
take margaret, jean and elizabeth back to heathrow, drop the car off and then take bus back to john’s where we go out for a beer and meal at the royal oak in harrow centre, taking over from where Richard had taken John for a beer after the tea and cakes had run out
saturday 4 – took the late flight back having spent the day clearing out stuff with john, going to the bank etc.
friday 10 – quote at work:
“Its amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit .” – Harry S. Truman
sunday 12 – 10km muenchen marathon lauf, just scraped under 53 minutes to achieve 62nd place in age group:
Split Zeit Diff min/km km/h
5 km 00:25:26 25:26 05:06 11.80
8 km 00:41:51 16:25 05:29 10.96
Netto 00:52:41 10:50 05:25 11.08
monday 13 – working from home, packing to go to uk, then meal with girls and on to elvis costello concert, impressions:
has a wonderful stage patter with a hint of merseyside accent, gets the audience on his side, stories tailored for munich
nice little intermission sitting down stage right, right near me, with a couple of jazzy numbers for his wife and 2 boys (at home getting a bedtime story and cognac with diana!), including “she”
plays almost exclusively gibson guitars, western and couple of jazz ones, a fender, fret emblazoned with his name, was used right at the end, a keyboard used at the end was also used for one song!
very varied and accomplished guitar/rhythm technique: caresses, picks, plucks and bangs the strings of the guitar (typically using i-m-a fingers at the same time and when picking, tending to come up the treble strings, a-m-i)
get the impression his nails on the right hand are not long, he fingertips for plucking rather than nails, hammer-on technique also
adds percussion also in via simply stamping his feet in time
amazing dynamics and variety, the completely unplugged guitar and vocal (to the whole of circus krone) for alison at the end of the first half (well his first set), which you would have expected to have been almost inaudible, but it was very moving
some wonderful renditions of watching the detectives (with a hailer giving a siren sound), oliver’s army (so much dry irony) and accidents will happen (love the line: “your mind is made up, but your mouth is undone”)
setlist at:
http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/elvis-costello/2014/circus-krone-munich-germany-bcc8dfe.html
playlist at:
support girls Larkin Poe:
http://www.larkinpoe.com/
otherwise:
tuesday 14 – got up at 4.30am to catch flight to heathrow, got tube at 5.15am from harras
plane left from gate B and saw the 2 girls from the support band, taking a later delta flight to atlanta, were on their own with big sis checking in electronically
kept restrained and in any case was in a rush and couldn’t find my ticket from last night to get an autograph!
worked out of bedfont office, met up with roy from virtual sales then later stuart and stan from our team
went to chicken peri peri place with john for meal in evening
wednesday 15 – got up again at some unholy hour to get into office as dry run for tomorrow, when i have to get in for 8am uk time, not that easy for an hour and a half commute
working from building 10 corner desk, worked ok
went to mediterannean place on main drag from bus station
thursday 16 – big day and TP team meeting, great fun and got in in decent time, there about 8am with set of croissants for our london group
went to decent restaurant in town near oxford circus:
then onto an irish pub round the corner standing outside and drinking london pride
friday 17 – another last early start then carrying on with the document i’ve been trying to finish for the last month!
met up with philip w. to go thru things which needed doing around john
went out for meal at yates wine lodge, had 2 fish meals, couple of lagers (no hand-pulled bitter, no demand!) and a game of pool
saturday 18 – got up and going before 9am,
clearing out the clothes into about 8 bags (john had already taken 4 bags), taking these to sue ryders, plus rollator
plus papers clear out to tescos to make space for more paper
then went to coffee morning with john after doing all of the dropping off
got back to work:
taking down gazebo and tidying up patio for the scaffolding needed for roof repairs
taking easy route with books on shelving and moving into the space created in the wardrobe
stacking files on the shelving created:
top shelf: photos
middle shelf: left has empty files, right has ruth’s information
bottom shelf: left has johns information, right has bills and finance files
went to the “golden years” event at john’s church and sat with jasmine and chic, listening to the music incl. pack up your troubles, long way to tiperary and auld langsyne
got back to do a filing blitz with john and typical stress before dash to catch bus and last flight to munich, only one bottle of wine this time
wednesday 22 – go out to GBR to see jose
at evening meal have a really good laugh with the girls, what got us in stitches was comparing how news travels between the ears when katie hears something bad from the girls as opposed to how slowly I react when I get any bad news and we acted out the news coming through like waves rippling across us; all a great laugh
saturday 25 – listening to saturday live whilst doing some work on the never-ending document, there was tom hollander on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Hollander
finished john peel’s autobiography, key points I took away:
made falafel salad for my tea as saby was out at flea market and back late, tasted really good
friday 31 – failed my ccie recertification (again), blast, looked like a completely different set of questions to what i took last night
got back and eve plus friends were getting ready for halloween night, which turned out to be a very late affair with some “klassenkamaraden” turning up and chatting in the hof until 1.30am, then they make a pizza until 2 or 3am
monday 13
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