A Busy Few Days

After the relative calm of the first days of last week, things got busier on Thursday when I headed to London to act as a contestant in a run through of one of the many new quiz shows being developed by son Paul in his job as a TV producer. I really enjoyed the opportunity to help out even if I wasn't exactly great at answering the questions. 

Paul has devised and developed a fair number of shows in his career so far including Magic Numbers, The Colour Of Money and Sky's smash hit and number one rated show on SKY1 HD  A League Of Their Own which is now in its seventh series. 

And tomorrow sees the first airing of his new creation Beat The Pack on BBC at 3p.m. Unfortunately we have to be out at 3p.m but it will give us an excuse to open a bottle of champagne tomorrow evening when we watch it on catch up. We can't wait to see it.

On Friday it was back to London again as I took my collection of Japanese Satsuma to Bonhams. I've been collecting this for the last ten years and it used to look great displayed on an oriental stand that we had in our old house. However, downsizing has meant that there's no room for the stand here in Framlingham so it is all going into Bonham's Bond St sale of Japanese Art in May. I left about fifteen pieces and hope that we get some good prices. It should go a fair way towards repaying us for the garden landscaping which will be an added bonus. Funnily enough, Bonhams' Japanese art expert didn't think very much of the piece that Lars Tharp raved about (and valued at £2,000) when my collection was shown on The Antiques Roadshow and only put it in the sale to make up a lot with another piece.  

Earlier in the week we went to Fram Soc's book club. About ten of us attended and discussed Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. Marion and I enjoyed it very much but I was the only bloke at the meeting. I was made very welcome but I wonder if the members would have enjoyed it more if it had been an exclusively female gathering.

Yesterday saw our regular visit to the local shops and market to stock up for the week. We're enjoying getting all our shopping locally and hope that our small input into the local economy will help keep shops open. I'm pleased to say that all the shops (and The Crown where we had coffee and some great cake) were busy yesterday. 

Today I went out with the metal detector for the first time since we moved. I'll write about the finds tomorrow.

Treasure In The Attic

You may be aware of that BBC programme Cash In The Attic where antiques experts visit someone's family home and rummage through all their stuff to see if there's anything they can sell at auction to fund an exotic holiday or a Golden Wedding celebration; after the auction there's usually enough for a night at a Travel Lodge or perhaps a couple of bottles of Cava and some Iceland sausage rolls. 


With our move potentially imminent we haven't invited the BBC around but we've been carrying on with our own attic clear out and our lovely guest bedroom is stuffed full of boxes and things from our past while we try to get our hoard down to a manageable size. I spent the whole of yesterday - from eight in the morning until after six p.m shredding paperwork - stuff from when we were working, all my old eBay records that are no longer needed by the taxman and lots of Marion's mum's records. The shredder kept overheating so I had to wait for it to cool down but I have to give credit to Fellowes (the shredder makers) as their very cheap machine coped with what ended up as ten black bin liners full of shredded paper.


While I was busy shredding, Marion carried on with box emptying and she certainly came up with some wonderful treasures.

If only our boys in blue knew what a thief looked like. According to a very young Paul they often look the same with a round head, mark over eyes and hands with dots on. They are also fat and have long? legs.

Sarah was a poet 
"The Colours Of The World"


The greens of the trees and the grass down low
Blue of the sky up high
With the yellow of the sun
Let the world become    a sphere of colour
Countryside has all the colours
And you and I shall be happy.


Not bad for a six year old.

I don't think Paul has ever sent me a card that was anything but interesting but I liked the sentiments of this up with guns and down with flowers card that has me (I assume) firmly caught in the crosshairs. 

Sarah's literary career continued apace and she even found time for a booklet of reviews of work by "this author".

Pop Up Pirate may have seen better days but he still works and has to be one of the best toys ever.

Marion wanted me to cull my large collection of antique reference books so I took a few down to the charity shop. I'm relieved to say that I didn't take this shelf as I checked out some values on the internet and came across this.

You won't be able to read it all but those three volumes to the left in my photo are the same books as in this auction lot. I will follow the sale on 19th June with interest as the estimate is US$2,500 to US$3,000. So, along with our children's treasures, perhaps there really is some cash in the attic.

And I Thought Golf Was Just A Gentle Stroll

My lovely daughter in law Josephine kindly treated me and son Paul to a beginner's golf course as an extremely generous gift. I travelled down to the James Andrews School of Golf in Seddlescombe near Battle in East Sussex on Friday and met up with Paul who travelled from London to Tunbridge Wells. The course comprised two full days of tuition and we both enjoyed it very much despite neither of us having picked up anything other than a putter for a round of crazy golf or a visit to a seaside putting green before. Our inexperience certainly showed but by Sunday afternoon we were both able to hit the ball (well most of the time) and we even played five or six holes of a short course with the other two novices in our group before we headed back for home. I don't think that the instructor would describe either of us as "naturals" but we had a good weekend. I didn't realise that hitting golf balls for maybe ten hours in all would have such an effect on my body but my hands (especially my thumbs) are very sore today and I've got an enormous bruise on my hip (probably damaged a blood vessel with all the swinging backwards and forwards). I'm also extremely stiff and struggle to bend over but that could be down to the six hundred miles of driving.


I would recommend the course to anybody interested in learning the game. The instructors are very knowledgeable and they have courses to suit all levels - even advanced. They've got video linked to computers that allow you to study what you are doing wrong and train you to put it right and at the end of the weekend I was able to hit the ball straight for about 150 yards most of the time with the club we trained with (7 iron for anyone interested). That's not bad going for a complete newcomer so the instruction must be good. The hotel was okay too and the food at the school was fine so all in all a pleasant way to spend a weekend. Will I now be taking up golf? Probably not as it seems to take a long time to play a round and I've already got one time consuming hobby in metal detecting but I will certainly go and do a bit more practice when I'm at the caravan in St Andrews and if Marion is interested then perhaps we could take it up together. It's not quite as stuffy as I thought although I'm not keen on the no jeans in the clubhouse and that sort of formal attitude that still seems to prevail.  


Driving through the Sussex countryside on Friday reminded me what a beautiful part of the country it is. Marion and I are planning to move away from Southport soon as we've been here for most of our lives and it's time for a change. If Sussex was not so far from St Andrews I'd put it at the top of the list as, scenery apart, it has plenty of great villages, castles, abbeys and other tourist attractions. You can get to London in about an hour by train and it has a very pleasant climate. As it would turn our regular trips to Scotland into extremely gruelling treks, we won't be putting Sussex on the list of possibilities but it's certainly a wonderful place to visit. 

Speaking of St Andrews, we got a letter from the caravan site this morning. It seems that over twenty trees on the site blew down in the recent winds but most of the caravans escaped unscathed. The site closes for the whole of February so we're going to go and spend the last week of January there. It will be great to see Sarah, Duncan and Rose although it will be the first time that we've been away from Flo for any length of time since she went into the care home and we wonder how she will cope.

So That's Christmas Over

Well not quite. We've still got all these unopened presents and tomorrow we're off to St Andrews to play Father Christmas and deliver them to our super daughter Sarah, her partner Duncan and our lovely little Granddaughter Rose.

It's difficult to celebrate the big day as one big family now that our kids have their own partners and live at opposite ends of the country. And that's sad in one way but on the positive side we've been able to celebrate twice as we spent Boxing Day and Tuesday visiting Paul and Josephine in London when Josephine's mum Jenny cooked us a fantastic Boxing Day dinner. Although we only had a few days in E14 we crammed a lot into our time and managed to walk from the East End to the South Bank along the Thames Path on Tuesday morning and we enjoyed a meal at Gordon Ramsay's Limehouse pub in the evening.

We had some super Christmas presents. We've got a gift token that will let us see ten films in 2012 before we start paying again and we've a nice selection of wines and some great books too. Perhaps the most fascinating gift is Josephine's. She has treated Paul and me to a weekend of golf tuition in Sussex. It includes an overnight stay and it will be great to spend some time with my son as, living so far apart, I miss him very much. I'm sure that the world of golf will have seen nothing like it before as, other than a few school summer holidays working on the Arnold Palmer crazy golf in Southport I have never picked up a golf club in my life. I'm pretty sure that Paul is equally inexperienced although I doubt that he will be quite as inept as his dad. Fortunately I think that we are only going to be let loose on the golf course for a couple of hours so we won't be able to do too much damage to the immaculate greens and fairways. Who knows, if I find a hidden talent I may be able to book a round next time I'm in Fife.

Marion and I went to Peacehaven on Roe Lane for Christmas dinner. We ate in the dining room with Flo and about forty other old people. We thought that other non-residents might be there but we were the only ones. The staff put in a huge effort and dressed as elves and snowmen and we enjoyed a pleasant meal. It's the first time since our daughter arrived 31 years ago that Marion has not cooked a Christmas dinner and it was certainly a very different Christmas day.

We're not going to stay in the caravan in Scotland this time as we've only got three days in St Andrews and it's not worth setting up the heating and reconnecting the water, gas and electricity for such a short time but we do hope to get back there again before the site closes for February.

We're VIPs (Even If It Is Just For One Night)

Nowadays when every pimply rep in his Vauxhall Astra brandishes a business card declaring him to be some sort of "executive" - a word once reserved for only the highest echelons of British business- we perhaps shouldn't get over excited at our passes at Elstree studios last night describing us as VIPs. I once thought of VIPs as royalty, film stars, Nelson Mandela and perhaps the Prime Minister. But last night Marion and I, as guests of Paul's employers CPL, enjoyed the cachet of being VIPs if only for one evening.

We went to the recording of an episode of  A League Of Their Own, the Sky panel game that doesn't take sport too seriously and enjoyed an extremely funny couple of hours of filming plus CPL's great warm up man doing his usual very entertaining stuff. Alongside the captains Jamie Redknapp and Freddie Flintoff and regulars John Bishop and Georgie Thompson were guests Lee Mack and Rio Ferdinand. As a Liverpool fan I am supposed to hate Rio but I could only warm to him as an eloquent bloke who, despite nerves in an unusual environment for him, came across extremely well. Local Southport lad Lee  Mack added his usual wit to the proceedings and if the TV audience enjoy the show half as much as those in the studio it will be a huge success. Since Paul first developed this show almost two years ago it has grown and grown from a typical 30 minute panel show into a pretty spectacular extravaganza in an hour long slot.

Sadly for Paul (pictured here with Marion and the lovely Georgie Thompson) this was his last recording of "League" as he leaves CPL on Friday to join the BBC. His colleagues made us extremely welcome at the after show party and told us that we could always come to future recordings even though Paul will have left. It's always good when people leave jobs on amicable terms. I spoke briefly to John Bishop and Georgie who were both charming and it was a great experience for us to be surrounded by celebrities who (as I tweeted last night) will certainly not be name dropping us. I was disappointed not to get a chance to speak to Lee Mack to chat about his Southport connections but maybe next time.

Before the show I promised my VIP wife a good meal out in Borehamwood. Now I don't know if you've ever been to Borehamwood but I don't imagine that it is on any of the South East's great culinary maps and we walked the length of the high street in search of somewhere decent to eat. We ended up in the Fiesta cafe. Now I know that it doesn't look exactly posh in the photo but for just over £12 we had a great lasagne with salad, a chicken and mushroom pie with potato and salad plus two drinks. The service was impeccable and extremely friendly and, at less than the cost of a starter at some up market establishments we ate and drank our fill. I'm not suggesting it as somewhere for a special occasion but if you need a quick meal in Borehamwood  you would find it hard to beat for great value, lovely service and down to earth food. 

And finally for those readers who didn't notice or failed to click on the link to the photo of the vase that I was getting all excited about on yesterday's blog, here it is. It's such a fabulous piece of pottery that I will be extremely disappointed to sell it. But that's what I bought if for and I suppose that it will have to go.

Ten Minutes Of Glory

If you've read this blog recently you will know that I went for an audition for the BBC's Antiques Master show on Monday. I wasn't convinced that I had done brilliantly but on Friday evening I was delighted when Dylan, one of the BBC's producers, phoned me to say that I had been chosen to appear on the show and that I would be specialising on my favourite Japanese Satsuma ceramics. Filming is due to take place in the third week of March at the beautiful Townley Hall in Burnley where I spent a week last May as a stand in contestant hoping that a missed train or a motorway jam would give me my five minutes of fame. The nearest I got was a breast feeding mum who thought that her baby wouldn't last through the filming without a feed.


Our son Paul works in television and I explained to Dylan that, since my audition on Monday, Paul had been successful in being offered a job at the BBC and I wanted to flag this up to ensure that there would be no conflict or problems. "When does he start?" asked Dylan. "14th March" I said. "Let me get back to you" says Dylan. Ten minutes later Dylan is back on the phone and my moment of glory is over. As a family member of a BBC employee I can't take part. Talk about rotten timing! Never mind. I'm absolutely thrilled for Paul that he will be developing shows for the BBC - his career is far more important than my bit of fun - but with him at the Beeb and his wife Josephine at ITV my chances of any appearances are now pretty limited. Are there any antiques shows on Four or Five?

We're just back from St Andrews where we were visiting our daughter Sarah and her partner Duncan. As you can see, Sarah's pregnancy is going well and she is blooming. We can't wait to be grandparents and hope that we will be back in Scotland again a few more times before the happy event.

And when we do go back we will certainly return to the wonderful Old Course Hotel. Located, as the name suggests, right on the famous Old Course that is the home of golf, the hotel has mastered the art of customer service to a tee. Every member of the Old Course staff treats the guests in a friendly manner which makes the hotel stand out as you are made to feel at home from the moment that the concierge opens your car door on arrival to the minute you leave. This welcoming attitude is reflected in great little extra touches like these complimentary glasses of champagne and canapes that arrived at our room one evening. We've stayed at some grand places in our lives and found them intimidating and snooty - atmospheres that are often linked to golfing and golf clubs - but, even though this five star hotel caters for VIP guests, it is neither snooty nor intimidating and I strongly recommend it.