saturday 1 – reading some of jonathan’s posts and interesting link:
https://opendemocracy.net/

glorious day, went for croissants for the group who were staying with eve, maxi, helena and finian

went for walk with kats along the isar and into coffee shop along kapuzinerstr.

sunday 2 – another glorious sunny day showing the autumn browns and greens so clearly

feeling a bit dizzy presumably due to stress of all the jobs to get done

monday 3 – went for jog to get going then working at home, preparing for meeting tomorrow and next nearly 3 weeks in uk

tuesday 4 – up 05.30 to get 06.17 sbahn to donnersbergerbrücke, get my breakfast nussschnecke and chocolate croissant from müller, their “leitsätze” fit well for today:
– zurück zum Original
– höchste Qualitätsstandard
– wir leben Werte
– echt und ehrlich
– mit vollem Einsatz!

big meeting, was ok even if from my side a little passive

make way via Luton Airport and West Hampstead Thameslink via Jubilee and Metropolitan lines to get to Harrow-on-the-Hill for about 11pm.

wednesday 5 – reading some papers, incl. the junk journalism which is the free rags, Metro and Evening Standard around London now, find that James Blunt and he is so, is now an agony aunt and some of his comments are quite good, “you create your own luck” and “be a victor not a victim”.

friday 7 – went to the Royal Oak with John for evening meal, had a veggie burger which was nice.

saturday 8 – working on filing system at John’s then emptying the freezer (more like a scene from “The Eiger Sanction” with all that snow and frozen ice), then round for coffee; then taking freezer out to be picked up with Jon, John’s friend who’s helping with the repairs.

We leave mid afternoon to meet up with Pete and James at the Coal Hole on the Strand, next to the Savoy hotel, quite a way up from Charing Cross, had forgotten just how far; find a quiet table on the gallery.
go into Covent Garden for pizza, “Fire and Stone”, is again amazingly busy in London centre; then onto the Concert at Warren Street tube.

Interesting concert, the smell of joss sticks or is it drugs pervading the air, nice warm-up tape with “Breaking the Law”, the Psychedelic Furs’ “Pretty in Pink” and Pat Benatar’s “Love is a Battlefield”.

And then the band come on for a good 2 hours plus an encore, my rough notes:
Nicky Barrat the lead singer, great guitarist, uses mainly Fender Strats picking out a blue one for the tricky lead work, it looks like it has a sleek, fast fret board and he uses a slide for a few numbers, but no capo, resorting to barre work to compensate instead I suppose, guess that is true of clapton too. A couple of times he resorted to a Gibson Les Paul for that brasher AC/DC sound. His songs are good and his playing excellent. The bassist had the widest range of instruments, 4 and 5 string bass, also playing a 12 string very nicely. Pete mentioned he was a social worker for his day job and it certainly seems to be a stress-free job since he looked pretty young to me, I thought only the lead singer and keyboardist (a silver-haired Roy Wood) actually looked in their 50s.

The sound mix was for me a little light on percussion and strangely also, the lead guitar was a little light. we were on the left side but that shouldn’t have made a difference.

Overall, they steer a tricky course staying on the Pink Floyd side of prog rock, rather than the Genesis side, traces of Led Zepp to be heard. So, given they’ve been around so long since the 70s, why didn’t they make “big”?

Maybe punk flattened the wave they were riding around 1978, maybe it is the lack for me at first listening, of a killer melody or even just trying to fit too much into the punchlines, “take what you need and be on you way”, being one example and at that point, given the lyrics and audience antics, I was wondering if I’d got mixed up in some UKIP event; but it’s all unintentional and harmless in that respect, or is it? James also wrote about it here:
http://www.blogrant.co.uk/ViewItem.asp?Entry=253

Great concert which I enjoyed and would see them again.

sunday 9 – clearing out freezer and doing the papwerwork
train journey to skipton, with no change, kings cross vastly modernised, but looks a little cramped:

tuesday 10 – reading the Craven Herald from 06.11.2014 about Allan Cawood, whom John and I both knew from our childhood doing paper rounds. He had a difficult life of tragedies, losing mother at 5 and his father at 11, being brought up by his stepmother and then going to live with his sister. There were some wonderful quotes from people talking about his life:

“Nothing was too much trouble … always the first to arrive and the last to leave.” “He didn’t look for praise at all; he just liked the job … a true gentleman”. For his epitaph he wanted:

“I always tried to do my best for people.”

wednesday 12 – watching the apprentice with john up at mum’s; bianca gives quite a good quote in an argument with james on the programme:
“a wise person speaks when he has something to say; a fool just speaks …” or similar
this week gemma from birmingham is booted out – sad, she was good, just a little self-deprecating

friday 14 – went for swim with john and met up with the masters swimmers, andrew, paul and stuart; then onto the narrow boat where ian joins us

saturday 15 – Deborah Hosam from work has these messages as her signature:
The only person you should ever compete with is yourself. You can’t hope for a fairer match!
Be yourself, everyone else is already taken!
Do something today that your future self will thank you for!
Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself!
There is always, always something to be thankful for.

wednesday 19 – went to spar which re-opened today and got some trebor mints, along with the desired large fresh chicken

watching the apprentice with john up at mum’s again
this week lauren from yorkshire is booted out – now starting to think lord sugar (salt or pepper as john calls him) is actually just a bad decider, should have been one of the chancers and worse has a bias for the oxbridge-educated, well-spoken male twits he leaves in

thursday 20 – so nice to see josh sprawled out with his headphones on and writing/studying in front of the fire

Quote from John Stupi at work:
“If you are always striving to achieve success defined by someone else; you’ll always be frustrated. Define your own success. – Coach K”

friday 21 – big day to finish stuff off at work until 4pm then packing to go over to clitheroe with tv and dropping shopping off at mum’s

massively successful trip to clitheroe, put a temp solution up for curtains, went up a treat, tv sorted out and a lot of freeview channels; then got some shopping in ready for our next visit on boxing day
got back and decided on a quick beer at the narrow boat, happily reading the craven herald when hear phil r’s loud laugh and sit down for chat with john p etc

last set of jobs around the house finishing off

then when about to leave, see the masters on their way out – have a quick chat with andrew

saturday 22 – took early train with john to leeds, then we split up – he takes the london train, I spend some time at the bagel cafe looking out at the Leeds’ streets:

Then take the train to cheltenham where i meet up with pete and roz, we drive to Littledean near Gloucester for the rugby game – beer and sandwiches in the pub beer garden then the bus to Cinderford to watch the match – little in the way to write home about but the bar at the rugby club was good, then the bus back and more beers and decent food at The Belfry pub in Littledean.

sunday 23 – breakfast together then we visit Cheltenham – still a lovely Spa town for a walk around the shops, particularly Waterstones then I travel back with Steve and Christine to Manchester to catch the 6pm flight back to Munich and the late s-bahn train arriving home about 10.30pm go into to see sabs, still with the tell-tale smile she had as a baby, “I’m feeling ok right now” managing to keep cool and composed as ever; went in briefly to see eve and then to bed.