Grazing Rights

There is a determination, upon receiving something new, to endeavour to keep that thing in an "as new", pristine and perfect condition.

You will clearly remember that feeling having been given a birthday present in its nice wrappings or presentation packaging. It may be that special thing that you have saved up for in order to afford it.

There will have been scrimpings and sacrifices to enable it to happen.

This could be anything from a brand spanking car to a pair of best shoes, from a piece of state of the art technology to an arrival in the family in the form of a new born baby.

I speak from experience as a three time father to our now grown up offspring.

There is the magic moment of their first breath in the world and cries of vulnerability as they seek a safe pair of hands and reassurance in touch and sound. First time parents are nervy in handling the infant and I was no different being fearful of a fumble, juggle and a spill.

Babies are actually quite resilient and in spite of your best endeavours and taking every care in the world there will, do not feign innocence or shock in this revelation, be that moment when you lose you handhold and grip and drop the little mite for the first ever time. Chances are you are in a safe environment with a limited vertical distance and hopefully onto a soft surface such as a cot, bed or changing mat.

The infant may be asleep and there may be no reaction and no harm may be done but in your deepest conscience you know what has just taken place and the memory of it will stay with you forever.

Whatever you perceived as perfection is no longer the case. Some closure may be achieved by telling that child, when at a reasonable age and level of understanding and temperament, the sorry truth or just blurting it out when it feels to be to your advantage faced with stroppy or disrespectful behaviour.

There would be some dramatic value to mentioning the event at say, a large family gathering or weaving the story into a Dad's speech at a wedding. This is of course an extreme example of the loss of innocence as a parent.

As a young child I clearly remember the gifting or pocket money purchase of a new toy car by Corgi or Matchbox. The anticipation and excitement was on many levels. The handover of hard earned cash was the starting point, a transaction in return for a small and brightly coloured rectangular box, slightly weighted and with its contents just moving about slightly as you left the shop with the item tightly gripped in a small hot hand.

It seemed a shame to prise open the flaps of the ends of the cardboard box. Typically this action resulted in a torn and unuseable carton and it was quickly discarded. I have no time now for those who managed to save the original packaging in their childhood and are reaping the rewards by selling on E Bay. They are the way they are because they denied themselves the true value, play value of the actual toy vehicle.

I at least extracted every possible second of play from the toy from its shiny first appearance to its eventual destruction by impact with a wall, burial in the sandpit in the garden, cremation in a glorious toxic plume of smoke or abandonment in the darkest recesses of the attic.

It was pretty similar when I got my first proper car, a company car. I vowed to keep it clean both inside and out, top up the consumables when indicated, maintain the correct tyre pressure and drive it properly with respect for other road users. Although not as dramtic an end as my toy car collection I did have mixed fortunes with the actual thing and, in no particular order, piled one into a gatepost, experienced an electrical fire in another and on another occasion scraped all down one side in one of those agreed 'knock for knock' encounters after competing for the same space on a narrow country road with another motorist.

I can therefore fully appreciate and sympathise with my son in the matter of his new road bike.

It is a beauty. Aluminium frame, shiny components, sharp saddle and a geometry to zip and whizz through bends and a lightness to give a sensation of floating up hills. As a first time roadie, after nearly 12 months on a mountain bike, he shows a great natural aptitude and ability to what is a new set of techniques and skills on two wheels.

The bike arrived a month ago and we have already covered in excess of 100 miles per week over weekends and where possible a midweek ride which is some going given rather mixed and unpredicatable weather conditions. Before each outing the bike is checked over and afterwards lives a cosseted existence in the sitting room resting against the sofa.

He is understandably proud and diligent towards it.

The accident yesterday was freakish and unanticipated at 40 miles into a perfect ride. The cycle path, an enforced route because of the blackspot status of the stretch of main road, was dry and smooth. In the preceding days heavy rainfall had evidently washed out silt and vegetation from a field entrance across the tarmac surface. Most of the debris had continued on the camber and by gravity into the verge or evaporated but a stubborn greasy film remained in the shade of the adjacent hedge.

I rode through it first, having moved slightly to the left to allow room for an approaching cyclist to pass. My back wheel fidgeted and momentarily lost traction in a wobble effect under me. I was just about to warn my son, closely following, but it was too late.

His new bike slipped out from under him and dumped him on the hard ground. The top layer of his skin on upper arm to elbow and from thigh to shin bone suffered an abrasive effect before he came to rest on the grass verge. He remained motionless as he tried to assess his injuries. His sister had broken bones only a few weeks prior from a cycling accident and this was foremost in his mind.

There was blood and scars but he was soon up and hobbling around showing good movement. To his credit he immediately climbed back on the bike but as he did the rear mechanism sheared off completely and the machine ground to a halt in a screech of wheel rim distorted on its axle.

We walked the next two miles to find a phone box to summon a lift home. The bike had been well and truly christened.

The lad laughed it off. There will be no holding him back now as a full bloodied roadie. Be sure that he will pester me every day to check on the progress of the local bike shop in putting it back together again as he plods around the house already kitted out in his gear ready to go.

Milking It

It is the opening day of the Tour de France 2013.

The 100th running of this epic endurance race.

My own affinity to the Tour is comparatively recent from around 1981 when I got into cycling as a sport and lifestyle.

Following the race was so much easier than in previous years graduating from sparse and almost apologetic coverage to full on primetime broadcasting albeit of the edited highlights. Still, it represented a bit of a revolution (French and bicycle wheels) and gradually the insults from those on foot in the street or in a close-passing car began to reflect the improvement in knowledge and understanding of professional continental racing.

In my own experience the shouts from man, woman and child alike of "get off and milk it" changed almost overnight with the TV publicity to "who do you think you are, Bernard Hinault" etc, etc depending on their own loyalties and affiliations. 

There were still few British or even English speaking riders at that time but names were becoming familiar such as Sean Kelly, Stephen Roche, Robert Millar, Phil Anderson and the Americans including Greg Lemond.

I even began to notice other casual cyclists wearing replica shirts of the main trade teams and this I found encouraging although the trendier shirts began to feature as essential wear to disco's and nights on the town as well.  

I am usually well prepared to be an armchair participant.

I have the Official Guide open and ready, a wall chart on which to ink in the main developments, a team issue hat from the 1990's (Raleigh Castorama) and a copy of the TV Times to make the most of the streamed live action or to catch up at my tea time with the Channel 4 highlights.

It is usually an exciting following three weeks particularly if there is prominent involvement by a British rider of UK based team.

Take last year.

It was an unprecedented display of how home grown cycling has been developed not to just take part, make up the numbers  and have a good time, typically English, but through scientific application and man management go out and compete with the best and win.

This year, with Wiggins absent, I am slowly warming to Froome and Co although my wife has admitted to following him on social media and considers him to be a good guy. I value her judgement and will give the lad every chance to prove that he is talented, dedicated and able to produce the goods over the trials, tribulations and mountain passes of the coming weeks.

I had my own favourites in past Tours de France. Laurent Fignon was the suave, educated Parisian who was unpopular with even his own countrymen but he wore prescription glasses, had a pony tail for some of the time and also a massive tape-worm nestled in his intestines. I could identify with the man in at least 30% of these traits (opinions within the comments section please). He was a grafter and won through against adversity but also had the ignominy of losing the Tour by the narrowest of margins as well to that hanger on Lemond. 

I quite liked Hinault. He was a bit of a bully by all accounts but a real hard man at heart which I could admire. Kelly and Roche, the Irish contingent were tremendous in their consistency and achievements and I had the honour of slapping one of them on the back and nearly getting run over on a Nottingham pavement by the other. Happy Days.

Of course there were as many disappointments as encouragements and I have found it difficult to accept the revelations surrounding Lance Armstrong and the dopey sods.

I do not want to say anything more about that.

The sheer physical effort to propel a bike forwards is still a thrill to me as I approach to within a few weeks of my half century of years. The personalities of the Tour and indeed in all aspects of competitive cycling have encouraged and inspired me for the last 30 years of my love affair with the bike. They have helped me to overcome fatigue and exhaustion whilst cycling into a head wind on a Saturday ride out in the depths of winter. In my first competitive time trial of a hilly thirty seven miles I was strengthened by the thought of the great riders of the past. My first race win, in fact my only competitive win, was a lonely affair after I had left behind the others and rode over the finish line to the amazement of my late Father who was expecting my usual timid and non-committal effort.

Just today I rode out with my own son and felt that same fusion of man and machine together that had kept me enthralled through so much of my association with cycling.

A Life on the Ocean Waived

For centuries the Royal Navy, the Senior Service, has been an exclusively male domain.

This is perfectly understandable given the inhuman, squalid and insanitary conditions to be expected on board ship for much of it's history, particularly in the days under sail power. Months or even years at sea and the perils of the oceans will have been more than enough for most men but add to that the possibility of conflict, ill health, accident, violence, drunkeness and many other potential afflictions and fates makes for a particular hardness of soul and character.

A life in the old style Royal Navy was seen as a career path for the Officers and enlisted ranks, a shot at proudly serving the Nation, ascending the hierarchy of command and securing a pension if unfortunate enough to be a second, third or lower son and therefore unlikely to inherit any family estate or wealth.

The common crew members signed up or were press-ganged and escaped poverty or criminal proceedings in some instances, running away to sea as a last desparate option for survival but not at all guranteed for that.

This structure on board, based on the Class Structure ashore, was the basis for a far ranging British Empire and the dominance of the Royal Navy as the pre-eminent sea power supported and supplemented the colonial exploitation of much of the globe.

Life on board will have been tough.

The actual day to day privations will be difficult for us to imagine or appreciate today, beyond graphic dramatisations in such movies as Master and Commander or the Tv series of Hornblower. Cramped conditions of a combined living and sleeping area mixed in with operational parts of the ship made for a stifling atmosphere and a breeding ground for disease. The linkage between scurvy brought on by vitamin deficiency and the benefits of fresh provisions would not be made for many decades.

The rum ration sustained and stupified but then again could be relied upon to render the crew compliant and capable of disciplining by the few Officers and senior ranks on board.

Luxuries and comforts will have been few apart from those sought and obtained during lay-offs in friendly Ports or on allied shores although in many areas of the known world living conditions will have been primitive and as hazardous for health and welfare as on board.

Even on a short rota basis of being on duty or on watch there will have been some form of downtime and any definition of entertainment or culture will have been broad and varied.

The main characters in the Patrick O'Brian 20 novel series of the nautical adventures and lifestyles of Captain Jack Aubrey and the naval physician Stephen Maturin as filmed in Master and Commander were depicted as having a sophisticated side to their otherwise functional roles. Fiddle and Cello recitals, the reading of literature of the day and the application of the sciences replaced gunnery practice, crude surgical procedures and the rigours of man management in the senior ranks.

The Officers Mess, invariably yet another use of the Captains cabin, on the fact based but fictional HMS Surprise , hosted the main formal dining in full dress uniform and it was in this setting that the Naval tradition of raising glasses and toasting was perpetuated.

The feasting was not of course on a daily basis but mainly to celebrate a victory or momentous feat or when safely anchored. The toasts epitomised a life at sea and the isolation and detachment that accompanied a long tour of duty. A few of the toasts are written in the language of the 18th and 19th century which represented the halcyon days for British sea power.

Thursdays were dedicated to "a bloody war or a sickly season". Friday was "a willing foe and sea-room", wednesdays were more woeful and fatalistic in toasting "ourselves (as no one else is likely to concern themselves with our welfare)".

The early part of the week covered "absent friends" (Sundays), "our ships at sea" (Mondays) and "our men" (Tuesdays) but the most meaningful and poignant was reserved for the saturday night. The sentiment of a toast to "our wives and sweethearts" followed by the whimsical and possibly truthful response of "may they never meet" has been a mainstay around the Officers Table for decades but has now been revised to reflect the cultural changes in wider society.

In the pursuit of a modern and inclusive Royal Navy two of the toasts have been re-written.

It is now a case on a tuesday for "our sailors" to be feted to reflect equality and diversity and the saturday version now just simply states "Our families".

I am sure that Captain Jack Aubrey will have appreciated the need to update a very masculine phraseology but will no doubt have been a little sad at the loss of this aspect of an illustrious history and tradition. Hoorah.

Myth World.

There are many, many stories and tales that have taken on legendary status in the modern age.

I refer of course to the Urban Myth.

These were prolific in my formative years and I was often the first to be taken in, completely and unquestioning of the truth, logic and provenance surrounding them.

The first themes always revolved around squeamish things.

The famous recounting by I recall not whom of the man who fell asleep and a spider crawled into his ear, laid its eggs in his brain and this nesting process gradually drove him to madness. Part and parcel of the decline into senility was that no-one believed his pleas for help to relieve him of the constant sounds of activity in his head.

Thereafter I often slept in a woolly hat pulled down tightly over my ears and always when camping or otherwise sleeping or dozing out in the open.

Other fables were about food and were enough to give a complex about ever consuming anything.

I always ate the whole apple, and by that I mean the skin, core and pips. Imagine my sheer terror at being told that an apple tree could start to sprout in your stomach after ingesting a pip and would burst forth from the lower abdomen with little or no warning.

Home made chips were a particular favourite of mine and I would help in the preparation of peeling and cutting up the potatoes but could not resist sampling a raw slice if there were, for example an odd number or an odd shaped one in the damp, starchy pile in readiness for immersion into the deep fat fryer. Apparently, uncooked potato could harbour all sorts of parasitic worms and grubs and yes, the stomach and intestines were, surprise, surprise the perfect incubator to nurture huge creatures which would, yes, eventually emerge blinking in the daylight from any number of bodily orifices.

Many Urban Myths centred on popular culture. It was potentially bad luck for the whole of the family to hide behind the curtains at the impending arrival at the front door of a Romany Lady selling lace tied bunches of lavender. The implications; A Curse on the household.

We were told that sitting too close to the televison would stunt your growth, what with the harmful emission of ultra high frequency signals.

Other myths just bordered on superstition, ignorance and fear but I was too superstitious, ignorant and fearful to realise it.

An industry developed around the perpetuation of the Urban Myth through science fiction, comics and magazines, films and books. I was again totally convinced by the phenomena of the Bermuda Triangle and had a section of my bedroom bookshelf dedicated to the works on this subject. My family would glaze over or leave the room at any indication of my lecturing them on the latest conspiracy theories, mysteries and speculations prompted by the first tentative news reports that a ship, plane or indeed anything had gone missing even if subsequently revealed as a mistake, an insurance scam or a publicity stunt.

The feeling of foreboding brought about by my perception of hazards, danger, mischief and just plain badness served to turn me into a timid, unadventurous youth and teenager and frankly, I think I missed out on a lot as a consequence.

I did participate in the Scouts where I actively pursued such activities as sailing, camping, bivouaccing, canoeing, rock climbing, abseiling and all manner of outdoor pursuits. I enjoyed them but there was always that negativity of a related Urban Myth in the back of my mind.

Take potholing. It would appear to be a natural progression for me to do this but I was paralysed by the story of someone who died on a potholing expedition and his body had to be encased in concrete because it could not be recovered. This was told to me, I do recall, by two older Scouts who either knew the unfortunate victim, knew of him, or were friends with someone who was best friends with a neighbour of the man's second cousin, or something like that.

Naturally, whenever a potholing trip was mentioned I would hide behind the Urban Myth and indeed avail anyone listening of the same tale. I was in fact perpetuating the myth on my own.

I was therefore a bit apprehensive when my 23 year old daughter began to take part in regular potholing expeditions to the Peak District in Derbyshire. She obviously has an affinity for crawling about in muddy subterranean tunnels, wading waist or shoulder deep in soon to be bottled mineral water and being cold and saturated underground.

In true parental fashion I told her the infamous tale of the entombed caver, half cautionary, half hoping it might direct her towards other activities beyond Middle Earth.

It was just today that my daughter actually confirmed to me the true facts around my supposed Urban Myth. She was in Peak Cavern in Castleton and specifically in a part of the system known as Moss Cavern.

The name suggests a dampish atmosphere but then again in the absence of any nurturing daylight would anything, even moss,lichen or algae be able to flourish?

The name was in fact a commemorative gesture for a 20 year old student , Neil Moss who was unfortunate to get stuck and perish in that hell (pot) hole in the black and white days of 1959.  It was his legend that I had been recounting for all these years.

I have mixed feelings on the subject. For one thing I have been deprived of the perfect excuse not to take part in the mad pursuit and may find it hard to wriggle out of any subsequent invitation or caving netwoek.

On the other hand I feel that I have closure but only out of respect for said Mr Moss. I am unable to comprehend the level of terror and despair that he will have suffered in the hours up to his demise but at least there is now no possibilty that Rescuers will be called out in my name with a bag of ready mix in their rucksack.

Mirror, Signal, Man with horror

Imagine driving along quite innocently in your car.

Make it at night and you are alone behind the wheel.

Unfortunately the radio is not working so you are left with your own thoughts, memories, insecurities and paranoia.

There may be some comfort from the glare of the lights from oncoming traffic or the sound of vehicles overtaking and speeding off into the distance. You have plenty of things to keep you attention. Negotiating even the best lit carriageway takes some concentration to avoid potholes, bits of lorry tyre re-treads, bodywork panels from previous accidents, the odd wild creature ambling across to the far verge or faster and more mobile ones risking their lives in between the flow of traffic.

A white van in a lay-by could as easily be concealing a speed camera than a tradesman's tools or an amorous encounter.

The dashboard in most modern vehicles can be a colourful and functional distraction. It can be an escape from the boredom of a long road journey to adjust the intensity of the in car lighting, play with the trip computer and regularly set to zero the miles per gallon setting so that the fuel economy statistics look momentarily impressive at around 70mpg before plummeting rapidly and fluctuating between 40 and 60.

Dropping down the sun visor gives an opportunity to check for facial spots or blemishes in the vanity mirror. If the road is empty you may even attempt to coax and squeeze that pimple which has suddenly erupted on chin or at the nape of the nostrils. Gripping the steering wheel with your knees allows two opposing forces to be applied by forefingers to said black or yellow head and if done correctly there can be a satisfying popping sound and a spurt of fluid onto the mirror glass.

If peckish there can be a frantic search in the glove compartment for any secreted snacks or goodies. This can be a hazourdous exercise as most boxes of this type are just beyond normal reach for the driver. For a momentary second all focus needs to be on the lunge to open up and see what is stored away and inevitably there is a loss of control of the vehicle. It may take a couple or more extensions of the body and left arm (please amend if reading this on the continent or in the US where left hand drive is the norm)to make a valid search into the darkest recesses.

If the contents of my glove box are typical there will be overwhelming disappointment at the absence of any consumables.

Other storage areas are within easier reach. I have yet to understand the reasoning for a sunglasses holder up by the courtesy light. The car windows are perfectly tinted to keep the UV at bay and the luxury of a custom made receptacle for spectacles is unnecessary.

My favourite, cavernous storage area is under the drivers arm rest. Odds on there will be a few sticks of chewing gum in between the CD's to provide a veritable feast to break the monotony and tedium of a long drive.

Pins and needles can set in without notice from a rigid driving stance. The only relief is to try to stretch out toes and ankle, rotating through 360 degrees and trying to put on some pressure without causing the accelerator pedal to be inadvertently stamped on.

Cruise control can be a great advantage in some circumstances but not without the nagging recollections of dramatic stories of this driver's aid getting stuck on a high speed setting resulting in a mad dash down the motorway whilst giving a running commentary to the rescue services and trying to run down the fuel supply.

Other buttons and switches can be toyed with to wile away the time.

A feeling of heaviness may suddenly fall onto eyelids and with that tell-tale nodding dog motion which can be a portent of full slumber behind the wheel.

In the absence of strong black coffee, an energy drink that tastes like Vimto or a high tech in car device which scans you face for signs of impending sleep (I do not have a Volvo)there is always the trick of winding down all of the windows for a short sharp and invigorating burst of cold, forward motion induced air.

Be sure that all loose papers and lightweight items are securely stowed as the vortex introduced by pressurised air can pull up, lift, separate and eject these items out into the dark of the night.

On a particularly long and lonely drive home late one night I felt the need to introduce a stimulating breeze.

On first glance of my immediate surroundings in the car there did not appear to be any potential for wind blow extraction of personal items.

There followed something that resembled a favourite trait of horror movies. The emergence of a face, a bloodied knife or worse from the back seat and its manifestation in the rear view mirror will send a cinema audience into a fit of fear and spine tingling sensations of murder and mayhem. On this particular night I sensed a movement behind me from the vicinity of the back seat. Then a sound, indistinguishable from the general road noise through the open windows, but nevertheless a scraping and rustling.

I could make out a faint ripping sound of metal on fabric and more rattling as though something or someone was restrained from actual movement.

By this time I had imagined the worst case scenarios seen in Hammer Studio Films, Hollywood Screamers and the rumoured atrocities in snuff movies. My fingers began to ache from their tightening grip on the steering wheel. A bead of sweat could be felt making its way down my neck into my nether region.

Suddenly, whatever was nestled on the back seat rose and loomed towards me in the mirror. It shot up onto the headlining, rotated through 180 degrees and came to rest upside down on the passenger seat.

I was not sure whether to pull over and bludgeon the intruder with a half empty aerosol can of de-icer which my right hand had located in the door pocket or lean over, at my risk and open the door to allow the thing to cascade out into the dark of the night.

The former action was preferable and I pummeled the object into total submission.

The second option of the sudden dumping onto the carriageway of an empty box from a Staples Photocopy Paper supply could be seen as a serious littering offence and my tall story, my intense tale of supernatural forces at play may not cut it with the local traffic police.

Roots

The town where I lived up until the age of 16 had a combination of very distinctive smells.

If you disregarded the stagnant odour from the two weed clogged rivers that ran through it, the sickly pungent odour that came from the muck spreading on the fields that surrounded it and downwind of the sewage works that served it, it was not that unpleasant.

In the middle of the town was the marmalade factory.

I always wondered why it had ended up as a major employer given that the production line threw out copious amounts of orange marmalade, both smooth and with peel bits and yet in our part of North East Lincolnshire I was not aware of any groves of the citrus fruit that went into it. The second main line was in lemon curd, again dependant on imports but I never saw any evidence of regular deliveries of either oranges or lemons at any time, and believe me I was always out and about and would have noticed such a thing.

It remained a mystery and may never be fully explained given that the business folded some time in the 1980's.

The other and perhaps more persistent smell was that given off by the sugar beet factory on the western edge of the town and therefore, according to my Geography Teacher of the time, more likely to dissipate its odour with the prevailing winds.

The factory dominated the skyline with its two large smoke belching chimneys, hoppers and steel clad buildings and for many years, from the 1920's ,it was a source of income for a good proportion of the working population.

We had, as a family, recently moved from another sugar beet town some distance away which was, to my teenage mind nothing less than a bit of a conspiracy.

It was easy to be confused in the early weeks of living in a new town because of the similarity of the attack on the senses visually and through the nose by the surroundings.

Father was a Bank Manager and not some secret troubleshooter for the British Sugar Corporation, as far as I was aware.Our relocation was therefore purely coincidental or so the story was.

Both towns had been selected as sugar manufacturing centres because of their central locations with regard to large and productive agricultural land where the root crop was grown which yielded the sucrose which was so highly prized. The rising price of traditional sugar cane and the uncertainty of supply in times of war had prompted the British Government to develop a home grown industry.

The actual merits of the beet root had been known since the 16th century. Boiling up the vegetable, possibly out of curiosity had produced a sweet syrup and in the following centuries a thriving commercial market was established in France with the support of Napoleon Bonaparte and through other central and eastern european countries.

The elongated densely fleshy plant has a composition of 75% water, 5% pulp and 20% of sugar.

I can verify this in that I used to eat it raw if out trespassing in a farmers crop. After an initial gagging action at the thought of munching through a dirty, mud caked plant which had been exposed to who knows what in the natural world there was much to be said for the kick of sweet sugar, a strange satisfying of any thirst, something to chew for a few minutes and then a sense of heightened energy.

The downside was usually a very sore throat but I attributed that to the chemical sprays to keep down aphids and other parasites.

The distinctive outline in the sky of the factory has long since gone and upon a brief revisiting of the places of my youth I was more aware of the other general smells of a small town such as carbon monoxide, the takeaways and of course that troublesome sewage works.

The Uk has slipped in the world rankings for beet sugar since the halcyon days up to the 1980's to 11th in 2011 and a long way in actual tonnage from the top spots.

It is sad to see the demise of yet another industrial process in this country and the loss of the pride of a workforce, the impact on families and the shrinking of the money flow through local businesses and the community.

Still, it may be for the best as sugar has been demonised by those dictating our health and lifestyles and those huge lorries, laden with the raw product did tend to kill a few of the townsfolk every so often as they bludgeoned their way down the High Street taking cyclists, pedestrians and motorists by surprise and to a shocking conclusion.

The Joy of Six and Wellington Boots

It was 6 years ago to this very day that it rained. I can remember it very well for a number of small, trivial reasons and two massive ones.

The day started off with the sighting by me and The Boy of a wild deer which was, with no regard to its own welfare, just grazing and gazing within the excavated bowl of the new road junction about 2 miles from our house. How it had got into the inner sanctum was not clear and after our initial wonderment at just having seen such a timid, sprightly creature, we did express concern about how it might get back into its more natural environment farther up the wooded hillside swopping a forest ride for the busy dual carriageway.

We were on the way to the unreasonably early start of a car boot sale at a new venue for us. It had promised well from chatting with other sellers at our usual recreational field pitch. It was in more affluent catchment area, close to a motorway junction for casual passing buyers, well established and popular or so we had been told. It actually turned out to be well away from any population areas, off the main traffic flows, in an old chicken farm and quite a dead loss in terms of actual trade. We had arrived early and were directed by a toothless old boy, the smallholder, to a narrow, claustrophobic pitch even for one outside, right in the middle of an old strawberry field complete with canes and wires.

It was the first sale we had participated at that we had not been pounced upon by dealers and scavengers as soon as we had opened the tailgate of the car. That did not promise much for the rest of our confinement in that place because we were now well and truly trapped by the slow build up of other sellers. There would be no possibility of leaving early even if we felt like giving the whole thing up. The first couple of hours dragged by with only a few pounds sterling to show for our endeavours. My best offering of a Champions League Final programme, £8 from WH Smiths, was looking a bit sorry and curling up at the edges in quite a fierce and persistent heat from the sun and with no respite from any shelter or shade.

The Boy first remarked on some quite magnificent towering cloud structures that had sailed from the west into the otherwise powder blue sky. They were like nothing I had ever seen before, and I had always made a point of commenting on such phenomena with the children and so knew what constituted a noteworthy cluster. Billowing, dazzling white. The occasional vapour trails of high flying passenger jets seemed to punch through the meringue-like peaks which again was something I had not seen before. We were certainly witnessing quite an unusual formation.

Such was our concentration on the clouds that our entire stock and the pasting table itself could have been whisked away by unscrupulous car-booters and we would not have noticed. Our meteorological observations made the morning fly by.

Then a gap in our closely packed row opened up as a fellow seller expressed frustration and upped and went and we too made our escape.

The afternoon was to be at the 90th birthday party of a family friend. Me and the Boy were quite radiant facially from a south facing morning and were expecting to attract attention as a consequence from the other guests.

As we arrived at Clarice's house for a garden party the mountainous Cumulus, which had followed us from the farmyard into town were in freefall. The collapse resembled a slow motion avalanche into a dirty grey full sky cover of rain cloud and with a strong driving wind now developing. The party, momentarily basking in the heat , had to retreat indoors in what became a torrential downpour and with no indications of a reprieve or even a brief sunny interval.

The rain continued for the next 36 hours and developed into the misery of the Hull flood with hundreds of houses inundated in flash flooding and from the complete overwhelming of the foul and surface drainage systems over large parts of the urban and suburban areas.

This day, the sixth anniversary of the floods has followed on from a very disturbingly similar spate of weather for much of June. There has been heavy and persistent rainfall most days. The clay soils which underly much of the low lying Hull have quickly filled up and as in 2007 it will not take much more precipitation to replicate the flood.

 Lessons have been learned from the events of 6 years ago today .

I am definitely taking a cagoule and possibly a small boat to Clarice's 96th birthday bash as those big clouds look a mighty bit ominous.

The Idiots Guide to Social Climbing

There are those people who are born to ride their bikes easily up hills and others, like me, who simply find it a struggle.

I would categorise myself as being reasonably fit but other factors are at play to hinder that effortless ascent of a slope.

Gravity is of course the primary influence and when applied to a complex combination of force, altitude and traction or expressed in scientific speak as fat then there is a direct correlation with the law of pi or, as I like to call it, just pies.

I have not always been of a non standard body shape.

In my early cycling years when I raced competitively I was quite slim and lean but still found those hills difficult, especially when in a large group of racers all vying for the smoothest and best line up what could be a rough old lane, strewn with loose gravel, pockmarked with potholes or slippery under fallen leaves, spilled sump oil from lorries and rainfall.

The symptoms of poor performance on an incline were demoralising. If entering the start of the slope in a good forward position in the peleton I would soon have the sensation of riding backwards as the rest of the field accelerated. Out of a typical 60 rider participation the first ten on the attack upwards would be the skinny youths, followed by inhabitants of such hilly places as Sheffield, Bradford and the Pennine towns who had to have some expertise just to get on with their normal lives, then the riders with no perception of the pain threshold, the mad, the downright aggressive and those who needed some of the prize money to pay for their petrol home and food for the forthcoming week.

That left just me, the other chubby tubbies and a few with mechanical problems that prevented their exploitation of the 15 to 18 gears on their lightweight machines, invariably causing them to come to a standstill and topple over onto the road in a shower of granite chippings and expletives.

The "Big Book of Cycle Race Tactics" did have a chapter of interest for me to try to counter this disastrous element of my racing career. I took part in about 50 races, managed 1 win, a few placings and a lot of abandonments.

Apparently, the trick to balance out a poor climbing performance was to actually get ahead of the field well before the bottom of the hill and go up it at your own speed. Hopefully, this was intended to have an outcome that you would get to the summit and the relief of the false flat and downhill before, or at least at the same time as, the rest.

As I mentioned, the cyclists from hilly environments can have a distinct advantage and an aptitude for altitude. I have, for my own serious biking life, always lived in flat surroundings. The flyover into the city centre or a humped back bridge over a railway line constituted my main challenges. If I had to climb a hill it was a matter of actively finding one, often some distance out of town and therefore affording plenty of time to talk myself out of doing it. Add a bothersome breeze, a light rain shower, a dodgy pie in the essential pre-training ride period and a social event the night before and the conditions and motivation to take on any hill diminished rapidly.

Riding alone is also not much fun especially if your are struggling. I did have a handlebar mounted speedometer and multi-function computer but there is nothing more demoralising than seeing the actual speed fall away at the first indication of fatigue. This could even be before getting to the first hint of a rise in the road.

In the last couple of weeks Me and The Man have been out on our road bikes. He is of the same frame of mind as me that it is just not worth going up a hill if you do not feel you can do it to 100% of effort and application.

Trouble is, The Man has a new road bike and this has given him an interest in testing it and himself on the biggest hills in our area.

For someone who has never even sat on a racing bike before he shows great natural talent. This is no more evident to me when watching him ride away from me, smoothly and efficiently whenever the road begins to waver anything above the horizontal.

I do try my best to keep up and for the first few pedal strokes I feel his equal but then he just increases the cadence and breaks any slipstream effect that I may have had the benefit of.

Our main local hills are of the long and drawn out type. They can be up to two miles long and with various changes in gradient that prevent any settling into a good rythm which is all important. Pace is also a critical aspect. Setting off too fast and you are easily stuffed. Too slow and any forward motion is lost and there is a panicky shifting through the gears to compensate.

The Man, again out of pure ability seems to be able to guage the speed from the start and still have some gas in the tank to accelerate away from me at will.

So, my lonely ascent persists, accompanied by a general wheezing, creaking limbs and the creeping beads of perspiration cascading from under my helmet into my eyes and eventually dripping off my chin. I must be a pitiful sight to the other road users. Once a small girl on a pink bike did overtake me on a particularly steep hill as I struggled up it. In truth she had just shot out of the driveway of her homebehind me and then turned in front of me sharply to go up to the neighbours but the damage to my ego had already been done.

I am therefore further distracted on a climb by keeping vigil for any similar event.

If I am in some sort of fit and lucid state by the time I reach the top I can stand a chance of flying past The Man as he stops to claim the summit, and plummet down the other side. At last, the fat quotient plays out in my favour and I feel like I could take on the world as I whoop and holler with legs out off the pedals. I may even celebrate the victory down the hill with a couple of nice pies when I get home.

Small Business, Big People

It was not an official competition in the office.

It was just that the newest junior employee, Joanne, was prone to blushing a deep crimson colour every time we spoke to her.

To a certain extent it was an unavoidable consequence of working in a small business.

The youngest member of staff was heavily relied upon as a gofor, gobetween and tea lady and without this role the whole operation of the organisation would without doubt grind to a halt.

It is a fact of commerce that for many years the Office Junior position has not been valued or appreciated. There was always an oversupply of school leavers or new job seekers who would willingly take up any vacancies to get experience and the inside track on employment. Unscrupulous and thrifty bossess were well aware of this and could exploit it mercilessly. The Youth Training Scheme (YTS) label, first established in the Thatcher Years became synonymous with cheap, dispensable and almost slave labour rather than a first step to develop young people into hard working citizens.

I do admit that before Joanne we had a fairly disastrous experience with junior employees. It was by mutual consent that we usually parted company. I found it both shocking and disappointing that our schooling system had not prepared and therefore let down its pupils in that any new arrival at our firm had little or nothing about them which would appeal to an employer.

They were pleasant enough but with no gumption, initiative or even common sense. I was by no means old myself but my generation had been instilled in the importance of speaking when spoken to, showing enthusiasm when asked to do something, doing your best at it and also having well polished shoes.

The arrival of Joanne and her blushing cheeks 15 years ago represented a revolution in the front office.

We were not to know it, however,at the time.

The efficiency and methodical approach to everything that was thrown at her just happened instantaneously. Before Joanne it had been a struggle to get things done and when they were required, usually to a tight deadline.

Suddenly, 15 years ago we became a well oiled business machine.

The retrieving of files and loose papers, sourcing of supplies, making of those bottomless cups of sustaining tea, the sandwich run, errands into town and postal deliveries were seamless operations and that was down to Joanne.

We had, at last, found a good 'un.

Over the following period, representing almost half of her life as she reminds me, Joanne has been a key factor in the business which itself is now in its 21st year. People tell me that this is quite an acheivement in modern commerce and in challenging economic, financial and social conditions.

I think back over what seems like only a matter or weeks since we took up, almost like a squat, occupation of the 1830's built and run down premises in the city centre. It was, with the growth of tthe business ,sympathetically renovated and,after plying two old ladies from the Civic Society with sherry and getting them squiffy and giggly, it also got an award.

Joanne made the office her own domain and within a few years was the Manager with red faced juniors working for her. Her momentum was unstoppable, not in a cold, calculating way to get ahead regardless of others but out of a genuine desire to do well, pursue her own potential and make her Mum and Dad proud.

The efficiency of the business just went from strength to strength. Joanne mastered the new operating systems and my daily workload through the county was more akin to a tourist route than a hard slog of continuous on the hour, every hour appointments and many miles between.

I have always been worried that Joanne would be poached or head-hunted by our competitors but her loyalty, sometimes pushed to the limit, has been unswayable and I thank her humbly for that.

Some of my proudest moments outside my own family have been with Joanne. I have been privileged to be invited to attend Graduation Ceremonies to see Joanne, a small diminuitive figure far off on the distant City Hall Stage and swamped by a mortar board and gown, collect her latest Academic Award. Her wedding to Andy was a momentous occasion for all of the office and tomorrow I look forward to the Christening of their son, Alfie.

There have been moments of great loss and sadness with the passing of Joanne's Mother in recent years but dutiful daughter in looking after her Dad is another role that Joanne excels in.

I have been privileged to have known Joanne over the last 15 years. Shamefully I admit that I have been guilty of taking her for granted.

I now appreciate that a cheese and pickle sandwich does not just materialise on the desk in front of me. It may seem trivial but it is important to me. This task is amongst the million other things that Joanne sorts out unselfishly and in a confident and assured manner although still, sometimes, with a faint trace of that girlish blush.

Distinct Murmurings in the Wendy House

The lady of the house followed me around incessantly.

I was not sure if she just didn't trust me in her home or if she was hanging around in a quest for knowledge of what to look for in her onward move, that is if I reported back to my clients, her purchasers that the place was in good condition and worth the money.

I would say that she did have some justification in being concerned in case I broke, damaged, disturbed or just plain fiddled with something that I ought not to.

I have been known to break the odd ornament, the emphasis being on odd, cause damage to decorative finishes, rip up tight fitted carpets and mess about with settings on boilers and electric showers.

It is not that I am clumsy, awkward, ham fisted or malevolent.

I do these things on occasion in pursuit of further information.

I am on the trail of something interesting and the answer may be in an otherwise concealed, innacessible or prohibited place. My clients, as prospective buyers, when availed of a key piece of information are usually thrilled but the house sellers are invariably far from it.

The shadowing lady led me to start a running commentary on what I was looking for in a particular room or location in her pristine home.

By way of a back story, my career in surveying started in 1985. It is true to say that at that time the only defects of note and mention were damp ,woodworm and dry rot. These horrors had captured the imagination of the house buying public through consumer programme features or articles in the media about how one's dream home could turn into a nightmare from the ravages of rising damp, the nibbling of wood to perforation by annobium punctatum (woodworm) or that phenomena of voracious fungal attack, dry rot.

In the 1980's and in my working area the cost of sorting out a damp and timber problem could be, on average, £500. In today's money that is hardly significant but bearing in mind that a two bedroomed terraced house, pre war built and that first step on the housing ladder was £14,750 the cost of the repairs was a tangible proportion of the transaction.

The now relatively paltry sum of £500 could be a real deal breaker.

But what of surveying today?

Well, I do not exaggerate by saying that I have driven an estate car for the last 15 years not out of choice, although they are useful, but mainly to cart around my equipment and a few box files of notes and information on problems to be expected in housing and environments in the modern age.

Take the beloved home of the lady trailing me through it.

It was built about 1970 in a seaside town as a true bungalow. Cavity walls, as per the norm for modern housing, tiled roof, solid floors so nothing unexpected or unconventional. To complicate matters, at some time in the 1980's a first floor was constructed.

As I explained to the lady I was checking for all manner of issues and by careful investigation these could be either eliminated as a problem or pursued, again, if there was a reasonable trail of suspicion to follow.

Take the roof, when built it was common to fit asbestos cement bonded sheets at the verge. Asbestos was then perceived and promoted as the wonder material being durable, low maintenance and cheap. I pointed it out to the lady.

The solid floors may have been laid onto rubble and waste from urban clearance sites as was the widespread and acceptable practice of the era. Over the passage of time the hardcore and any sulphates from old chimney linings could expand and push out the external walls of a house. The lady went a bit pale.

The cavity wall would be secured at regular spacings by metal ties. If as a child you ever trespassed on a building site you may have treasured the butterfly wire twists as legitimate booty. In a seaside town the salt sprays can cause the ties to corrode, expand and fracture the mortar joints.

The lady hesitated to follow me into the next room.

I explained that a first floor uplift on the footprint of a bungalow would require a lot of strategically placed steelwork to support the loadings of joists, floors, fittings, furniture and inhabitants. The lady noticeable ducked and shirked where she stood under a downstand beam in the hallway.

The upstairs floors were typically for the 1980's in large chipboard sheets. I explained to the lady that early chipboard was just not very good and was prone to sagging between the joist supports. My impression of John Cleese doing his Ministry of Silly Walks Sketch as I made my way across the master bedroom confirmed that, yes, the house contained the weak, undulating flooring.

I was not deliberately tormenting the lady but I could have written a text book on the basis of my visit to her house.

I dare not mention my mental checklist of potential problems but these included the clay subsoils beneath the foundations, the relative proximity of a crumbling cliff line, yet more asbestos in her ornate Artex decorative finishes, a few misted up and failed double glazing units, toxic mould in the shower cubicle, potential electro-magnetic fields around the electrical consumer unit, the possibility of lethal carbon monoxide from a poor flue arrangement for the gas fire in the living room and a threat to the foundations from a once ornamental tree but now oversized and sprouting from the base of the outer wall.

Similarly I did not disclose that my pre-visit investigations had considered but then dismissed such issues as radon, sink holes, mining activity, flight paths, flooding, landslip, subsidence, contaminative issues, socio-ecomomic factors and education catchment areas.

By now my host was a gibbering wreck. I reassured her that, in fact, I had not found anything unexpected given the type, age and location of her home. It was actually quite pleasant, nicely fitted out and decorated.

She did ask me, as I was preparing to leave, to give her a frank opinion as to what would be the best thing consider for her next purchase. I seem to think that I replied, flippantly, had she thought of a caravan.

Ambulance Chasers and The Art of Bicycle Maintenance

It's funny how things work out but the theft of my mountain bike has been a miracle in itself.

I was, and still am, very angry at the person or persons who forced open the garage doors and grabbed my Claud Butler Cape Wrath overnight now some four weeks ago.The anger has slowly emerged after the initial dumfounded shock at being the victim of an intrusion and a whiff of smoke type disappearance.

The bike was not by any means anything of merit but it was mine and I had travelled many miles on it. I had experienced great variations in emotions from reaching the top of a steep climb to the euphoria of a white knuckle descent of the by-pass flyover.

I had also suffered many aches,pains , trials and tribulations whilst in the saddle or sat on my backside on the road or verge mending a puncture or cobbling together a mecahnical repair of sorts if only to get home.

It was actually on its way out after eight years and I had recently spent hard earned cash on keeping it on the road with a new axle and before long it will have required a major strip down and overhaul.

The funny thing is that I would find it very difficult to prove that it was mine if I came across someone riding about on it in the neighbourhood.

I was never organised enough to get it stamped with my postcode in one of those initiatives that from time to time bring the police into contact with the general public. There are some quirky aspects such as the non matching pedals, different bolts securing that problematic axle, pitifully inadequate tyres which largely accounted for my frequent stops and puncture repairs . If the inner tubes were exposed they would show an array of classic rubber patches of various shapes and colours and some high tech ones of a bright yellow elliptical shape. Perhaps those guys and gals on CSI New York could take swabs off the tubing which would contain DNA from various bodily fluids evacuated from my pores from physical exertion. That would be pretty conclusive if pretty revolting.

Apart from that, I cannot recall any particularly distinguishing features.

It was a bit abused, for example being put away after a wet muddy ride without being cleaned down. The rear gear cluster was caked up with dried soil and vegetation so that only a handful of the cogs could engage with the chain, which was also loose, rusty red and often suffered from stiff and immoveable links.

Out of an original 27 speeds I estimate that 5 were serviceable. The front changer had to be coaxed into any downward movement between the triple chainrings with a deft application of the heel of my right shoe. Any upward changing was a matter of wrestling with the handlebar mounted lever until something happened.

When out on a track, bridleway or one of those mixed pedestrian and bike paths I had no problem in alerting other users to my imminent arrival as the bike advertised my approach with a combined creaking, rattling and chafing sound. I received many shocked and dismayed looks from other cyclists at the sounds and sight of my own bike. If there had been an Esther Rantzen equivalent for mistreated bicycles I would surely have ben reported on multiple occasions.

The saddest reaction to my cacophany was from babies and young children who regularly burst into tears out of a primevil sense of self preservation.

Dogs were also, apparently, acutely sensitive to the pitch and tone of the noises emanating from the machine and would panic on the leash or just bolt off into the nearest cover.

I appreciate that I have not given a glowing endorsement of the bike on a technical level but it was just about ideal for me in my return to regular cycling after it took a back seat for me to concentrate on family and business.

I am convinced that the thief saw me out on the bike, resplendent in my team replica kit and automatically assumed that such a fit, lithe and muscley individual can only have attained that level of all round athleticism on a top of the range, multi thousand pound, all singing and all dancing model straight from the Pro Shop.

He cannot have really known much about makes and calibres of bicycles but may just have been seduced, as I had, some eight years before at its purchase by the brushed aluminium oversized tubing, sharp nosed saddle, snaking cables on the top tube and the large evocative decals.

I can only guess at his great disappointment in the early morning light of realising what he had acquired by his stealth. Secretly, I half expect to find it returned to my front garden with a damning note about not looking after it. My fantasy includes a roll of tenners or handful of Halfords Vouchers tied to the seat post to contribute towards its refurbishment .

The alternative dark dream is the delivery of a formal letter from an Accident Lawyer citing me for negligence after their Client, the malfeasant, suffered injury from the detachment of a crank which caused an involuntary dismount into the cemetery railings as he rode away into the night.

To Hull and Back

Another June thing.

It is the end of the academic year for the student population in the city.

To them it has probably felt like a very long period of their lives. The first year students began their journey just hours after the disclosure of their A Level results when, dependant upon their grades there will have been a clamour and a panic to reserve their accommodation for the forthcoming September or October start.

Most freshers are encouraged to take up rooms in  the official and managed Halls of Residence so as to find their feet in a strange city, make a few friends and at least get two sustaining meals a day.

Subsequent academic years are usually spent out in shared houses run by owner landlords and it is these, a good proportion of them that I get to see at this time of the year.

Contracts for letting are usually over 48 to 50 weeks of the year which gives only a very small window of opportunity for attending to redecoration, re-fitting, new carpets and the heavy industrialised process of removing blu-tac from wallpaper.

The main student streets, in June, are a hive of activity as white vans descend with contractors and cleaners vying for parking spaces with rubbish skips and forecourt frontages piled high with more than worse for wear furniture and furnishings.

It is also a good opportunity for the houses to be inspected and re-valued for the purposes of extracting any equity to go towards such refurbishments or to fund the acquisition of yet more housing stock.

In past years, and as a consequence of historically lower house price in the city than the national average it was common for wealthy or financially astute parents to buy a house to accompany their beloved sons and daughters for their 3 or 4 year secondment to the University.

In the period of the 1980's onwards there was a good prospect for capital growth over the short period of an academic course notwithstanding the generation of rents from fellow students and acquaintances who took up residence. A double whammy as it would be referred to with hindsight.

Indeed, an appreciation in values over a short term could set up the offspring nicely with any surplus available to go towards a deposit on a first proper residence in employment , finance that little run-around or a year off before having to get a job.

A combination of factors eventually put an end to this money spinning enterprise such as house prices in the city reaching parity with other regions, lack of liquidity amongst the Bank of Mum and Dad and an inability to really compete with the professional landlords in terms of standards, management and marketing.

A few parents were left, in effect, holding the baby, after their young adult children had graduated and gone. The houses in the best student areas rarely got to the open market but rather were traded between owners and landlords or their property managers like a life sized game of Monopoly.

The top ten owner landlords in the city now dictate the market. Rents are expressed as fully inclusive of internet, utilities and  the weekly service of a cleaner or concierge. Fitting out can rival the best budget hotels with flat screen TV's, leather settees and with rooms being en suite and comfortable, a far cry from my own experiences as a student in the early 1980's when, as a rule, first one up in the morning had responsibility for shuffling away the slug trails and emptying the mouse traps.

No wonder my generation of students got a reputation for being lazy. It was just down to being squeamish.

The current students have it quite a lot easier in their living environment but I would not repeat my time now given the uncertainties in the post graduate employment market and in the economies of the world as a whole.

Imagine if student houses were, freakishly the only surviving examples of 21st Century living after some cataclysmic event.

What would future generations make of them?

To start with there would be a general conception that the race of students were colour blind. This would be based on the all pervading use of magnolia and pastel shades for walls, ceilings and floor coverings.

Perhaps the population did not have any teeth or means of chewing based on the evidence that all sustenance was taken in liquid form with an alcoholic content. Excavations of poorly kept and overgrown gardens would reveal masses of brown coloured bottles, aluminium cans and small shot glasses.

It would appear that most tuition took place through a television screen or laptop with Playstation and Xbox being very popular and over subscribed providers of knowledge and life skills.

There would be little on which to base assumptions of on what the students were fed although it would appear to have been delivered in a large, square cardboard box on a daily basis and sponsored by the Italian nation.

Icons figured highly in popular student culture and each individual room of habitation would display one or more of the following images in glossy colour. Leafy vegetation and the flag of somewhere called Jamaica, a busty woman by the name of Kelly Brook, a hound lying on its back on a dog house looking upwards, various black men of gangster reputation and a reference to a place called Nirvana.

Many student residences were evidently being progressively improved and will have resembled a construction site given the abundance of Men at Work signs and hazard warning lights of a flashing variety.

Nocturnal activity was apparently the norm with curtains being infrequently drawn to let in microbe killing UV rays.

A principal trait of the student race was an eye for a bargain. A mantra passed down in colloquialisms was of "Buyonegetonefree" along with "Happy Hour" and common exclamations, thought to be close to ecstasy, of "Wowcher".

Enemies were abundant and the term "Bloody Students" is thought to be a reference to regular clashes with the indigenous population over noise, insensitive posh accents and strangely disappearing lap tops and bicycles from what were thought to be sound and secure stockades of academia.

As I trail around the hastily vacated and sorry looking shared houses I wonder whatever happened to their occupants on the long, hazardous and enlightening journey down south from whence they came.

It's busting out all over...again

Days in June have a certain smell to them that brings to my mind many memories.

It is a warm, fragrant odour emanating from the soils. A slight rise in temperature is the catalyst to start to spur on the growth of the natural flora after a long hibernation through the cold winter months and indecisive spring.

I remember the excitement as a child of waking up early on a June morning.

The air would already be warm and kicking away the bed covers gave some relief to hot feet and legs. The sun streamed through the cotton curtains and the dark, foreboding images amongst the pattern made up of railway engines and depicted memorabilia of timetables and posters were no longer to be seen, well at least until night time came around again.

Peeking through the chink from which the floodlight of the sun lit up my bedroom I could see movement in the street. There was a heat haze from the surface of the road which gave the pedestrians and vehicles a surreal appearance as though their lower parts had evaporated.

An early bird next door neighbour had got through mowing half the front lawn and was preparing the sprinkler to try to restore some natural colour to the brown parched blades of grass. After a very wet few weeks in May when all outdoor activity, either play or gardening had been suspended there was already a rumour in the street that the Water Board were considering a hosepipe ban.

Those with absolute pride in their three metre square of turf were determined to beat the prohibition order and give everything a thorough soaking.

Soon our back door would be open to let in some cooler air into the kitchen as we had our breakfast. Facing north there could a tangible variation in temperature to the rest of the elevations.

If a weekday in term time I would start to get hot and bothered in my uniform even before the route march with Father who would escort us to within sight of the school on his own way to work. I would feel justified in lagging behind a bit trying to keep in the shade cast by garden trees and buildings rather than getting even more frazzled in the increasingly potent sunlight.

Of course, if on a weekend I would be up bright and early to make the most of the days off from school. Out on bikes, running around the block on the estate, digging up the earth bank where the cul de sac ended at a field, trespassing on the building sites beyond and writing rude words or insults about my enemies with flinty chalk rocks on the kerbs and tarmac roadways.

Life for an under 11 was idyllic in the month of June. No major cares or concerns, little responsibility or obligation and just time to get on and do favourite activities. The month was sufficiently close to the impending long summer holidays to start to get an excited feeling in the pit of your stomach, in anticipation of an abundance of pure leisure time plus the promise, from parents, of at least a fortnight on an actual holiday.

The fine June weather was ideal to get out and air the family tents and equipment. I would take on the task of counting the metal skewer tent pegs to make sure we had enough and some reserves. It was always amazing how many of the pegs were twisted and distorted as though by strange forces in the canvas storage bag in the loft rather than recalling how difficult it had been to retrieve them from the rocky soils on previous years Scottish cliff top camp sites.

School would be winding down in June for those not at a critical stage in their education and sitting exams. Some of the enlightened teachers, as they perceived themselves, or just plain lazy as we knew took their classes out on the recreation field to sit under a tree.

Sports Day was approaching.

I was always a bit depressed in the summer term when the football goalposts and pitch markings were removed to make way for the wobbly lines and lanes of the running track. It was knackering doing the trials for the 400, 800 and 1500 metres. I nearly always felt like throwing up after the sheer physical effort of getting around to the finish over any distance.

Hazards were everywhere in the name of sporting achievement.

The javelins were extracted from the back of the pavilion along with the ancient collection of leather discus (or is it discii), the shot put balls, stands for the high jump with red and white bar and a rake to clear foot and bum prints from the long jump sandpit. I was reluctant to throw myself into that pit because it doubled up, for the rest of the academic year as an large ashtray, spittoon and worse.

I did make an effort in the athletics events to avoid being impaled on a javelin, decapitated by a discus or knocked out by a stray put shot but mainly to make my Mother proud as she had set the standard in her regular streaking away to victory in the Mums and Dad's Race which was still a regular feature before political correctness spoiled everything.

It is one of my greatest regrets, when a parent myself that I did not get a chance to participate in such an event even though I always attended the sports day with a pair of running spikes in the car boot, just in case.

Before long I was at the exam stage and June and all its evocative odours and atmospheres was largely destroyed by having to revise and plan for O levels and, later, A levels. The same awakening on a warm, muggy morning but coinciding with an exam was accompanied by feelings not in anticipation of fun but dread and nervousness about my future being entirely in my own hands.

The sessions would be spread out over three weeks of June. I dare not relax in between in case my accumulated knowledge disappeared out of my consciousness with such a simple action as the heading of a football or listening to pop music.

The only sign of escape from the intense discipline of revision was the gradual ticking off on the calendar of the days and subjects and the slowly diminishing mound of text and exercise books in the pending pile.

There was actually plenty of time what with the lengthening evenings towards Midsummers. I saw both the earliest of mornings and the latest of nights during my swotting sessions.

June is still a special month for me but working full time means that the days just blend seamlessly into each other. I manage to get up about 6am and the first thing I do is open the back door and take in a deep breath of my past.

U for Rick

It is not really necessary to explain the origins of the Cockney breed because of their worldwide coverage through stereotypical caricatures of any English person in film, TV and the media.

Dick Van Dyke in his appearance in Mary Poppins seems to have cornered the market in the depiction of someone a) British, b) from London c) working class in the eyes of, in particular Hollywood and every US broadcast subsequently.

Perhaps it did take the likes of Hugh Grant and a few plummy accented unknown UK actors in american sit coms and dramas to perpetuate the equivalent of someone a)British, b) from London and c) other than working class.

Cockney rhyming slang is similarly part and parcel of the English culture and still reguarly features in everyday dialogues or to further confuse foreigners about the British Class System and hierarchy.

One excellent example of Cockney humour is the Cockney Alphabet, also for some reason called the Surrealist Alphabet. This relies on the accent and pronunciation for the actual letters followed by a humourus phrase, joke or witticism.

This use of language, slang and innuendo is deep rooted in as long as the Cockney's have existed but it was its development as a comic mechanism in music hall, review and popular theatre that brought it to the masses.

A recorded version in 1930 by performing artistes Clapham and Dyer remains the classic version although there are as many options per letter as the alphabet itself is long.

It is only really necessary to illustrate this by sampling any three of the twenty six in total. The tone is set by " A for 'orses", "B for mutton" and "X for breakfast".

I have had some thoughts on updating the alphabet and adjusting it to reflect the resurgence of a middle and upper class in this country. In doing so I make the humblest of apologies to Cockneys and the working class.

A for Gymkhana Pony

B for Quorn as a valid choice for a gastro pub lunch

C for sailing the yacht on

D for restation and how everyone should do their bit for the environment to prevent it

E for Gstaad or Klosters this year depending on the availability of chalet staff

F for t'num and Masons

G for landing a good job is the Old Boy Network

H for getting access to the Trust Fund should be reduced to 18

I for a place on the Board of a City Merchant Bank

J for caused by wearing tight Pineapple sweat pants with personal trainer

K for 'teria serving organic full English for £32.50 on Kensington High Street

L for looking after the children between boarding school terms must be Swedish

M for size the need for a large 4x4 in Chelsea as not being anti social

N for gettable Cold Play Concert at the summer festival, ok yah

O for seas holidays at least six times a year

P for reference for Rolex over other luxury timepieces

Q for Glyndebourne, no way. Friends of the main sponsor.

S for the losses of being a Lloyds Insurance name

T for the Dean of an Oxbridge College if offspring too dense to pass entrance exam

U for Member of Parliament if being a Barrister does not pan out

V for La France and a nice gite in the Dordogne

W for, an up and coming London housing district

X for, nice compact, sporty BMW

Y for her dowry and inherited family seat even if pug ugly and inbred

Z for an idea for a new complex hedge fund or financial money making scam

Gene Genie

It is Father's Day today in the UK.

If convention were dictated by the goods and services marketed specifically for the day I should be by now, by rights, snoozing in my favourite armchair, half a bottle of whisky already downed, remnants of a steak dinner down the front of my personalised "Best Dad in The World" T shirt, clutching gifts of customised mug and bottled ale, wearing bespoke socks and listening to the CD of the rock anthems that someone has perceived to be those favoured by Dad's across the full age range.

I may even have contemplated getting up out of my potato couch and doing an embarrassing display of Dad dancing or switching on the lap top and in a bleary eyed exercise booking that long overdue trip to Disneyland with my female offspring before they get too big, bored and horribly embarrassed in my company to contemplate it at all.

I have determinedly shunned the disgraceful exploitation of my children by the moguls of gimmicky, tacky and superficial tat and have enjoyed one of, if not the most superb Father's Days ever.

I have received a text from my eldest daughter from the deep south of France in which she attributes her strange sense of thoughtfulness and sense of humour to the genes inherited from me. I call that a result.

My younger daughter, in her early 20's,  made a card with bold letters on the front thanking me for all the bear hunts and I also got an atmospheric CD by a band that was on the radio during our early hours drive back from the Neil Young and Crazy Horse gig in Newcastle last Monday. Both these gifts were beautiful but of course were topped by the sherbet dip dab, a good one at that with the sherbet retaining its fizz and the cherry flavour lolly had not gone soggy in the packet. You would be surprised how much that does happen and it certainly serves to spoil the anticipation of the moment. I put that down to poor storage and display by the nations confectionery retailers.

My son, still on his 18th birthday weekender, proposed a good alternative to a conventional present by offering to ride at the front on our cycle route today to give me a bit of a well earned and welcome breather from my normal pole position. I slipstreamed contentedly for the good part of two hours , most of it into a head wind , before snicking out perfectly refreshed and for only the second time in twelve months managing to reach the top of the steep slope over the dual carriageway flyover before him.

So, I send a challenge to Moon Pig, Tesco and all the other commercial interests for Father's Day for next year.

Forget about booze, fancy foodstuffs, screen printed garments and cheesy soundtracks and follow the fine example of perfection that I received from my loving children.

Eighteen

The Boy was 18 yesterday.

I will have to refrain from referring to him as The Boy as he is now The Man.

That sounds pretty good being called The Man but he has assumed the position well.

Me and The Wife, as I call her, were congratulating ourselves in a typically modest and thankful way on getting all three of our offspring up to and beyond voting age.

Indeed the birthday celebrations happened to coincide with the news from eldest daughter that she had got her degree at the usual meritorious family grade. She was unable to be with us for the birthday festivities as she is marking the end of her four long academic years climbing up boulders and mountains in the South of France.

We continue to admire youngest daughter in her brave battling against injuries sustained in an accident which although severe have only made her more determined to get on with her life in her first full time job after graduation.

It is a fact that the three together make me and The Wife very proud and not a little bit emotional.

What of The Man?

Well, not to be patronising or parentally pushy he has excelled in everything that he has set his mind to do.

As I write this I can hear the riffs and runs of his electric guitar in which he has been entirely self taught. This has been through sheer determination and borne out of a great interest in and love of rock music in which he is now also an encyclopedia of facts and knowledge.

It only takes a few opening notes or a mid song phrase for instant recognition of title, artist and even date of release.

The technical level of his playing is as good as that found in recording artists but he is not one for self promotion or showboating and it is the world's loss that he has not yet found it in himself to allow anyone beyond close family to share and enjoy in his expertise.

We have trailed near and far in recent years to see his guitar heroes from Joe Bonamassa to Michael Schenker, Walter Trout to Angus Young and Matthias Jabs and tonight I am going along with him to see the undisputed master, Joe Satriani.

I have no ability whatsoever in the instrument but I find it engrossing and thrilling to be with The Man and in the company of those who have been influential in his progression from novice to virtuoso.

It has taken, to date ,and continues to demand considerable dedication, determination and focus to attain such a proficiency but by doing so in just one of his many interests we have every confidence that our son, The Man, will achieve all that he sets out to do in his life with similar spirit and reward.

Three letter word of damnation

It all came back to me today.

The mind is a wonderful and mystical thing.

It only takes a small trigger in the form of a sound, a smell, a taste, as a recognition of something to bring back a certain time in your past. It could be a good memory, an event you would rather forget or deny it happened altogether or something that has just vacated completely the grey matter and comes hurtling back into your consciousness. I

In my particular case it was a voice on the radio.

I have wracked my deepest memory banks, my personal hard drive to try to recall the last time I actually last heard the unmistakable tone of Richard Skinner.

In the early 1970's he was a regular broadcaster on BBC Radio One mainly as a presenter of the topical Newsbeat Show. From this low key role he graduated into a mainstream programme slot taking over from Mike Read in a primetime early evening weekday presentation.

In 1984 he took over the Sunday Top 40 Chart Show which in our house was a must listen event just to be able to participate in the chatter in the playground when returning to school the following morning.

Arguably, the peak moment of his career on the airwaves was his announcement on July 13th 1985 of "It's twelve noon in London.........." which launched the worldwide epic that was Live Aid.

Thereafter, in my perception he disappeared from the public gaze, at least on a national broadcast basis but did perform on a number of regional and local stations up to the present day.

Today he was filling in for a regular on the digital Planet Rock and his voice immediately took me back to my teenage years when I first became an avid listener of radio.

His voice also reminded me how much I used to shout at his faceless persona because of his most annoying, persistently annoying habit of calling my favourite bands by a shortened version of their full and proper names.

For example, after I had sung along, word perfect, to such songs as "Town Called Malice" and "The Bitterest Pill" his dulcet tones would let the audience know that they were listening to "Jam".

In my understanding and I am sure in 99% of the population of reasonable education "Jam" is not a tight three piece mod band but a preserve usually made from fruit, sugar and water and presented in a glass jar under a wax seal.

Similarly, the final strains of "Too much too Young" and "Ghost Town" were attributed to "Specials". I can only visualise from this two things. The first is a blackboard in a restaurant advertising one off or promotional fare and secondly a delicacy that was produced by my Mother consisting of deep fried battered apple fritters.

In the same plane of annoyance was the association of those anthemic songs "London Calling" and "Should I Stay or Should I go" to a bit of civil unrest and friction or an unfortunate and accidental bump of the head on a low slung object.

The list went on.

"Hold me Now" and "Doctor Doctor" were apparently by an identical pair of offspring sired by a Mr and Mrs Thompson.

Even mega bands did not escape the treatment with "Roxanne" and "Message in a Bottle" being , it seems, performed by generic fully paid up members of the constabulary.

My indignation would erupt in expletives and frustration at this sloppy broadcasting but as with most influential sources such as radio even some of my friends started to suffer from an allergy to using "The" and gradually the same slack and lackadaisical practice permeated into everyday language and became acceptable as the norm.

It is clear from todays blast from the past involving Richard Skinner that he has not altered at all in his accrediting of tracks to anything else but the actual bands and I found myself in the same frame of mind in 2013 as I had in 1984 which was a massively retrograde step.

My enjoyment of "Winds of Change" and "Big City Nights" is now irrevocably spoiled whenever these iconic rock songs are performed by predatory anthropods.