Hawksmoor

A quick catch up on posting - this is Wednesday's post really. Went to the Hawksmoor restaurant near Seven Dials for dinner. Food and company both very good.

Grass

Taking advantage of a couple of dry and mild days, gardener Joshua came round today for the first time this year, and task number one was to cut the lawn.

To prove how much it needed it, and how much of a difference he made, here's a couple of quick snaps, before to one side, and after on the other.

8 books

It is well known that I have a bit of a book addiction. Those who are willing to feed my habit kindly supply me with Amazon certificates when birthdays come around. Last week, I cashed in some of them in exchange for a small batch of eight, which arrived today. They are:

• the second and third in the "Long Earth" collaboration between Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter, to go with the first one which is already waiting on the shelves;
• another Jon Ronson, who is very readable and this one looks particularly entertaining;
• a new copy of To Kill A Mockingbird, bought partly to go with my Go Set a Watchman which Georgie got me for my birthday, and partly because I used to have a nice copy, but foolishly lent it to the family over the road when they went on holiday one summer. I think they all read it, and it came back very creased, which was upsetting to a book nerd like me;
• The Poison Artist - a debut novel, but they were discussing it on the radio last week and it sounded good;
• another Sue Townsend. Her books are running short now. I enjoyed Number 10 that I borrowed from Mum, and the Mole books ran out a while ago;
• A Little Life (but a big book). Only just out in paperback and looks good. Makes me think a little bit of The Art of Fielding transported from college life to grown up New York, but I'm probably way off. We'll have to wait and see; and
• The Big Short - been meaning to read this for ages. Bit like old news now, but hopefully interesting and not too complicated when getting into credit default swaps or whatever.

There - who knows how long it'll take me to get through that lot. Oh, and by the way, total cost - £27.85 for 8 books. Some savvy Amazon shopping

And I just noticed that the new Lincoln Rhyme (The Steel Kiss) is out tomorrow. Will have to see if I can be good and wait for that in paperback.

Dad

It has been a very long time since my last blog. In fact, the last time I posted on here we were on holiday in Orlando.

A lot has happened since then, and finding the right time to put up a message, and knowing quite what to say has become harder and harder as time has gone on. I know that I want to continue to blog, and I'm sure that a lot of what ends up on here will be my usual trivial nonsense.

But I can't get straight back to that.

The world has changed.

I'm gradually getting used to this different world, but it is taking time. I don't suppose it'll ever be entirely ok.

Music both helps and hurts all at the same time. Romsey's concert, dedicated to Dad last night, was amazing. The tenors sounded beautiful as they sang the Agnus Dei - but he wasn't one of them. I don't think I've ever felt tears quite that hot against my eyes.

And then, at the end, as a further tribute, they sang Crossing the Bar, which they'd sung at the funeral.

The only words I can think to share right now are the ones that I said at Dad's funeral back in January, to try to explain how close we were and how special he was to me.

I miss him so much.

I’m not here to tell you all about Dad and his many qualities – you all knew Dad and already know what a wonderful, kind and gentle man he was.

I thought I’d share a few personal memories I have of my Dad, and the special bond we had. My Dad and I had lots in common – we went to the same school (where my son Jake is now a pupil), we went to the same university and studied the same subject, we sung in some of the same choirs and had a shared love of music, and we even shared a very similar sense of humour. Dad and I were able to drag out silly jokes for days on end, much to the annoyance of the rest of our family!

And as I think about the lifetime of memories that I have, I remember in particular:

• Playing trains together in the basement of our old house in Maidstone Road. The hours, the endless hours he spent building the layout so we could play together, and the excitement and anticipation of seeing him get off the bus home from work with something new from Beatties model shop.

• Loving, just loving, talking about a maths problem with my Dad. Dad would help me solve the problem in the first five minutes, but then we’d spend the next hour or two talking about topics that were vaguely connected to the original problem. I know for certain that this is where my love for the subject came from.

• And, a very important life lesson that Dad taught me in my formative years – never take musical ties to funerals. Should seem fairly obvious I know, by this was a lesson that Dad and I had to learn together the hard way.

• The holidays. The wonderful family holidays. Dad driving through the night to take us to the Lake District whilst Bec and I slept and kicked each other on the back seat. Renting the big house on the Isle of Wight and taking along extended family and friends. Dad taking the dog for her morning drag to the paper shop each day.

• As for the musical memories, it’s almost impossible to pick out just one. I expect everyone here has many musical memories of Dad – such was his lifelong passion. For me, I shall never forget the day a few years ago when we went together to a John Rutter singing day. He and I stood next to each other, me muddling on through whilst Dad sang in his beautiful tenor voice.

• And finally, only a few weeks ago, just being sat together in the Old School House with Dad, listening to a recording that he’d made from the radio of the Faure Reqiuem

So, whilst there may be no more new memories to make, I count myself lucky. My Dad has left me with a treasure trove. And maybe the memories are painful now, but I know that in time they’ll return to doing what they’d done before – bringing great joy in remembering happy times.

And Dad, as I said to you only so very recently, nothing makes me more proud than when people tell me I am a bit like you - and I'm going to carry on trying to be a bit more like you every day - and I know I'll be the better man for it.

Day 9 - golf and Golden Oak

A second early start in a row today, and even earlier than yesterday. This time Jake and I were up and out at 6.30 and along the road to Saratoga, and the Lake Buena Vista golf course in plenty of time to get set up for our 7.30 tee time.

I won't go into exhaustive detail here, but we played with a couple of American guys who were very good, but also thankfully very understanding of having a couple of beginner Brits with them. A highlight each would be that I got a par 3 on the 7th with the island green, and Jake got a par 3 (and was the only one of the four of us whose tee shot found the green) on the 16th which is also over water.

After our round Jake and I popped back to OKW for a much needed cooling shower and change before heading to Springs (trying our parking garage orange for the first time!) and meeting the others at Mirimoto for lunch - another new experience that was declared a success - my duck nasi goreng was excellent.

Then, in the evening, Nicky and I had another new culinary experience - we went to the Capa restaurant at the Four Seasons resort at Golden Oak. The resort is particularly impressive - I can see I spending a few nights there at some point in the future, and the food was excellent. We shared a charcuterie and cheese board to start, and then both had superb steaks as out main course. (I even had a glass of red wine to accompany mine - a red letter day indeed!)

Day 8 - mountains, safaris and spice

Early start today - Jake and I were up and out by 7.20, to take advantage of EMH at MK, and we were parked up at the front of the lot, strolled over to TTC, across on the ferry, into the park, over to Tomorrowland, walked straight through the queueing area, and onto Space Mountain for just after 8 o'clock.

As per usual morning EMH policy, Space is the only mountain running early, so we had a couple of walk on goes on Buzz, with Jake beating me convincingly both times, before heading back over to Main Street for a food and drink break at Starbucks. By the time we were refuelled the ropes were down for Adventure and Frontierlands and so we headed that way, and they were letting people in to Big Thunder, even though it wasn't quite nine yet. Again we walked pretty much straight on, and were riding before park opening.

This meant that we were fairly close to the front of the line for Splash, and only had a few minutes to wait for our final mountain. We secured the back row in our 'log' so didn't get too wet. Judging by Jake's whooping it up, I think this is definitely his favourite mountain.

As Big Thunder is definitely my favourite, and the wait time was still showing as 5 minutes when we came out from Splash, we snuck in for a second ride, before leaving the park, taking the (resort) monorail back to the car park, and heading over to Animal Kingdom.

We met up with the rest of the posse there and went straight onto our first fastpass ride of the day - the safari, which was as good as ever, with the one exception of absent lions. As always we eye up the outpost on the savannah and the small trucks taking people around, and say 'one day'!

After safari it was Kali River for three of us, with two taking up strategic positions on the bridge with the water shooters. In typical fashion we came backwards down the drop, closest to the water, and got thoroughly soaked, but is was plenty hot enough not to matter.

Lunch at the Flame Tree Barbecue, and then over to the Festival of the Lion King, and that was park two of the day done, and back to OKW for a well deserved rest.

Then, in the evening, Nicky and I headed out to Epcot (parking again at the Boardwalk), and enjoyed a very nice tapas meal at the Spice Road Table in Morocco, followed by the Boyz to Men Eat to the Beat concert (pretty lame), and then Illuminations viewed from Japan with the globe nicely framed in the Japanese gate.

So, whilst I can't claim four parks in one day, I can say four parks in 24 hours given the previous evening in Hollywood Studios!

Day 7 - lobster and lights

Long enough had passed without a trip to Red Lobster, and so it was time to put that right. We took a trip to our regular restaurant at Crossroads, and ate far too much shrimp! It was all good, but the clam chowder didn't get an overwhelmingly positive vote this year.

A restful afternoon at the apartment, and in the evening Nicky and I went to Hollywood Studios to enjoy the Osborne Lights. It was the first night that they were up, and a bit of a preview as they don't officially start until 6 Nov. Also, sadly it is the last year that they will be at the Studios as they will be making way for some of the Star Wars expansion.

Whilst we were there we took advantage of the evening EMH and did Star Tours, Muppet Vision, Toy Story (I lost again), and One Man's Dream, where we had an interesting chat with a cast member about some of the changes to California Adventure and watched a preview of the upcoming Good Dinosaur movie.