Oh sweet Autumn

..with your dark surprise, and your short days all smudged with gold..

It’s September. It’s turned a little colder, I even had the heating on the other night, and the nights are fair drawin’ in. Autumn must be at least on its way, if not here already. And that’s bound to be good news 🙂

Possibly the only bad thing about Autumn, in fact, is that it marks the end of the cricket season, although that sometimes comes as a relief after a run of bad scores and being dropped to the 3rd XI for the last couple of games, to “strengthen their batting”. Not this year, however. I managed to post all of my bad scores in the 2nds this year. Apart from one duck earlier in the season. Anyway. While the cricket season here draws to a close, in Australia it is just starting, and eyes are beginning to turn towards the Ashes series which starts in November. At least, mine are. 23 November is when it all kicks off, in Brisbane. Mark R has already hinted at being willing to host all-night Ashes-watching parties (Mrs R, are you reading this?)… 18 December is when I fly out Oz-wards, although I won’t have to wait that long to get my passport out, as I discovered today I’m going to a German hearing aid conference in October. Not sure exactly where yet.

The times they are a-changing, at least in the Broughton area. Tesco, which is so close to my flat that I could probably hit the deli counter with a well-directed organic potato (given the prior removal of the roof), has been undergoing a radical facelift. Not least has been the arrival of Costa, that purveyor of over-priced coffee. Which in itself doesn’t affect me too much, as I’ve stopped drinking coffee, but it’s somehow sad to see the demise of the Tesco café. And it might lure the slightly pretentious coffee-drinkers (like myself, before I gave it up) away from Sandro’s top joint Caffelatte at the top of Logie Green Road – also a Costa outlet. Which would be a bad thing, as he makes fine pizzas, and I badly don’t want him to go out of business. Altruistic to the end, me.

More change on the parking front as well. I am about to become a resident of N1 Zone, which means that our beloved Council now get to take £80 a year off me for the privilege of parking on a street that I’ve been parking on for free for 3 years. It all starts on Monday, and I received my parking permit through the post yesterday. Unfortunately the Council (May They Live Forever) sent me a permit for Zone S1, which entitles me to park in various streets in the Grange/Marchmont area. Which is rather flattering, but singularly unhelpful. Hopefully they will get the right one out to me soon, although as I am away (and will have the car with me) all next week, it’s not a disaster.

My sister Alison arrived up from London last weekend, and has been staying with the folks since then. This has worked well for all of us, shall we say, as the levels of care and attention in the parental home have shot skywards, and I have managed to get more sleep 🙂 My parents will insist on holding wild parties until the early hours, and still expect the porridge to be on the table at 7.30am. There’s just no stopping them.

Next week marks the start of Forum, a UCCF conference in Oswestry, Shropshire. I am going to be involved on the sound engineering side of things all week, and am looking forward to it very much, perhaps partly because it will be my first full week off work since August last year. Perhaps also because a week away from my flat will be good, as it appears that my rodent visitor, having finally attacked the pile of tasty poison like Anne Brown tearing into a stash of chocolate biscuits, is now decomposing slowly underneath my floorboards. At least, that’s what it smells like. The last time such an odour pervaded my kitchen I thought the carcass must be under the floorboards, having undertaken an extensive search of the kitchen and its environs. 10 days later I discovered the body right in front of my washing machine. I am convinced to this day that someone planted it there to make it look like I didn’t use my washing machine much.

Anyhow, Forum should be fun. Nathan and Lou Fellingham (of Phatfish fame) will be playing at the late night slot on Monday night, so it will be great to meet them. Slightly nervous about doing sound for them… Actually I’ve met Lou, kind of, at Alyn and AJ’s wedding in Toronto in January last year. I daresay she’ll be bursting to find out what I’ve been up to in the intervening period. Perhaps I should give her the address of this blog.

Speaking of celebrities, I scored a famous win over Slid in the first game of my ongoing series of Celebrity Spotting. Celebrity Spotting is a subject worthy of its own blog entry, but I haven’t had the time to do it justice yet. Suffice to say that eyeballing Sean Connery on Lothian Road was enough to wrap up Game One, and Game Two is now in progress. No score yet. Other contestants, should they be interested in joining, and subject to ratification by the Committee, are welcome to throw their hat into the ring.

Having given it some consideration, I think the deli counter might be just out of range (I don’t have a very good throwing arm) but I am confident I could take out one of the checkout operators. Not for a date, obviously….

5 thoughts on “Oh sweet Autumn”

  1. So that means you can now park outside my old flat. Sweet. And only a short walk to your house.

    Say hello to Lou and Nate for us!

    The Joneses

  2. I am confident you can hit the deli counter!
    By the way, Mrs R deosn’t know anything about the ‘all night Ashes watch’… but you’re probably right, Mark would want to host one. Im just wondering where he has arranged to do it? Your place perhaps!
    Mrs R

  3. Hi,

    While walking between two of my employer’s buildings yesterday I walked past the Legend that it Gary Mackay. A mighty, mighty Jambo.

    Hope you are doing well with CP this week.

  4. so how come I only get the link to your blog by secretly looking in your sis’s email!
    Hope you no longer need such a detailed set of directions to make porridge…
    Love Ang x

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