Monday Monday

I can’t believe that Monday was only seven days ago. So much has gone on, gone off and gone down that my diary-cum-organiser – the hard-backed variety that partners with a pen (and Tipp-ex) – is curling at the edges. I’ve had weeks like this before, but what makes this one stand out is that it was so very diverse (I employed different coloured marker pens), productive, fulfilling and good-natured. Almost everything I touched turned to stardust, and everyone with whom I engaged deserves a hug – whether they want one or not. These are just the (different coloured) highlights.

Monday morning, I posted on LinkedIn my previous blog about Starmer gambling with World War 3. Almost immediately the comments rolled in. People tend to contact me privately rather than respond online. As always, I got a mixed bag: some said something like ‘spot on’, some said ‘interesting’, some said ‘disagree’ and went on to explain why, which I always enjoy. So far, no one has said ‘disgusting’ (I’m using a toned-down synonym), maybe because I’ve blocked them. Funny how things work out.

Monday afternoon, I chaired a 1 ¼ hour meeting that was scheduled to last 1 ½ hours. Score! The agenda wasn’t that long but it was fraught with potential unintended consequences. Even the term ‘unintended consequence’ is a trip hazard. Several years ago, I tuned into a webinar, where a parade of boffins boffed about their research to we lay-people. All the presentations were eye-openers but one in particular polished the pupils and irradiated the irises. This boffin was tinkering with crop root systems, to enable them to process fertilizers and pesticides more efficiently, thus slashing the amounts required. Less expense, less waste, less pollution. Wanting to know more, I asked a question about something or other and used the phrase ‘unintended consequences’. Whoops. Apparently this flagged me as a disruptive Nimby eco-warrior who objects to scientific progress because, well, it’s just not natural. The response I received was eloquent, yet a tad ‘defensive’. Not long afterwards, I was quaffing cocktails at the House of Lords (as one does) and I recognised said scientist sipping sherry on the other side of the room. Emboldened (by the cocktails), I crossed the floor and said hello. He said hello back. It’s called polite conversation. I then said I owed him an apology. He looked puzzled. I reminded him. He threw his head back and guffawed. We ended the evening best mates.

As for the meeting I chaired on Monday (concerning sustainable aviation – an oxymoron), not everyone was in agreement with every aspect, but the mood was cordial and open-minded, and together we made some sound decisions, laying the groundwork for future progress. Tired but elated (and a little relieved), I closed the meeting.

That evening, I trotted down the lane to H and our weekly wine-fest, brought forward from Tuesday as I shall explain shortly. I teased the dog, tripped over the cat and emptied the bottle. We disagreed on Israel, Trump/Vance, foxhunting and how to roast potatoes. Yet when I left, the world was a better place than it had been two hours earlier.

Tuesday morning, I set about finding grants to fund our village choral society’s spring concert. Hiring sheet music and professional orchestras and soloists is darned expensive. After ages trawling the internet, chasing down links and leads, I hadn’t found one grant that wasn’t closed, not yet open, limited to registered charities, or helped specifically the young, the old, the impoverished, the marginalised, and any facet of DEI to boil Trump’s blood. I then looked at how other choirs funded themselves and noticed the lack of reliance on grants. I should have started there! I concluded my report with some recommendations as to where we go from here and emailed it to the choir committee, all the while feeling like an abject failure after my triumph on Monday. 

However, during rehearsals on Thursday evening – when we mixed the majesty of Brahms with the debauchery of Orff (even his name sounds risqué … as does ‘BRArms’, come to think of it) – I decided we could simply charge higher ticket prices: because we’re worth it. We’ve previously nailed Gerontius and knocked Verdi for six, so Brahms will be a walk in the park, and we’ll have them dancing in the aisles to Orff, although greenies might gag at the roasting swan. To be clear, that’s the swan being roasted, not the swan doing the roasting.

Tuesday evening was another wine-fest, this time in a private bar in a London pub. College reunion. You know the drill: kissy kissy, drinky drinky, chatty chatty, huggy huggy. The taxi there was also a blast. I hailed one on Clerkenwell Road and said very clearly, “Marchmont Street, please.” The driver warned me he’d have to go a strange route because his usual road there, which he named, was closed. I couldn’t think where he meant so I googled it. Totally the wrong part of London. Looking at my phone, I explained that Marchmont Street was off Bernard Street which was off Greville Street which was off Guilford Street which was off Grays Inn Road. 

“Oh, MARCHMONT Street,” he exclaimed. “Gotcha. But Grays Inn Road is closed so I’m going to have to go a strange route.” As long as you get me to MARCHMONT Street, fella, I don’t mind which way you go.

I commented out loud that I was used to road closures in Bucks. “Really?” he responded. “You’re not a Londoner then”. 

“Nay, Marra,” I seethed. He didn’t say anything further. Probably thought I was speaking Klingon. 

Once at the pub – open bar, my favourite kind – I caught up with a Lib Dem district councillor, a lefty lawyer, a clean-rivers campaigner and a fellow rightist who remembered me as being opinionated. Sometimes I just can’t argue. I then found myself discussing a guy’s PhD in theoretical physics. He’s now a fund manager. Scary. But not half as unsettling as me completely failing to recognise Hubby’s ex-boss. In my defence, it was an open bar. 

One thing that can irritate me about these College dos is that when some alumni see me materialise sans Hubby, they assume he’s no longer my Hubby. Whereas, if Hubby attends without me, they don’t think anything is amiss. I suppose it’s a mild form of misogyny. A stronger and more invidious version is me being judged as an appendage of Hubby’s and not as an independent, objective, intelligent human being with my own personal opinions. Such people are not only misogynists, they’re …. Whoa! This is supposed to be a good-natured feel-good blog. Slap wrists. Deep breath. Take two.

Back home on Wednesday morning, I guzzled coffee and paracetamol while juggling the gardener and the bathroom fitter, hoping I gave the right instructions to the right contractor, otherwise I’ll find berberis in the basin and porcelain in the pussy willow. Thank goodness the joiner, glazier, curtain designer and boiler engineer didn’t rock up as well, or I’d have a doorframe made of chintz, and a flue made of glass. 

That afternoon, I tuned in to a webinar on airport expansion hosted by another one of my groups. As expected, it was presented with supreme professionalism and attracted many insightful questions. I didn’t participate on this occasion as the whole thing chugged along quite nicely without me having a two penn’orth, either that or I was still suffering from two successive wine-fests.

Thursday, I started to prepare a penultimate set of monthly management accounts for yet another group. Penultimate, because I’m standing down by Easter. More accurately, I’m turning my back and walking away. While incompetently ineptly ignorantly clumsily (it’s hard being good-natured for this length of time) risk-managing a situation, an additional consequent risk, that the treasurer (me) might be incensed and resign and there’d be no one to cook do the books, hadn’t been anticipated. So it’s tatty bye. No more bending over backwards while treading on eggshells and having the rug pulled from under me.

Before I went to choir rehearsals that evening, I scanned two very technical emails about aircraft noise and ‘arrival dispensations’. The authors wanted comments from the rest of us. Lacking the time to do them justice, and knowing that others would have a good handle on the maths anyway, I took a strategic approach and managed to contribute something novel and constructive. Score!

Friday was spent mostly with Hubby: doesn't happen very often. We had a grand tour of Bucks and Oxon, choosing bathroom tiles, buying a blackcurrant bush (not at the same place), buying suet balls for the birdfeeder so that Hubby can continue to remark daily, “I’ve got tits on my balls”, enjoying lunch in a nice little pub, identifying a longlist of new sofas for the drawing room, and buying meat from the local farm: streaky bacon, a piece of topside and a shoulder of mutton. Pork, beef and lamb from a family farm in rural England – everything, in fact, that Farmer-Harmer Starmer loathes.

As for this weekend, I enjoyed two glorious walks in bucolic Bucks. A robin joined me along the bottom of the lane. They say robins appear when the souls of loved ones are near. Given it was Mum’s 95th birthday on Saturday, I’ll buy that. In addition, I was treated to late-winter sunshine, starling murmurations, Chinese water deer (trying not to think of the haunch marinating in the fridge), babbling brooks and sapphire-blue skies. Pity about the contrails, which brings me back to this Monday and another meeting about sustainable aviation.

All in all, a lovely week, apart from ReformUK. IDIOTS!!!