Adventure

This morning Madame Pudding had the bright idea of heading out to the far south east of the city to visit the Crystal Peaks shopping centre. She was keen to use her senior travel card on the city's "Supertram" system. We would travel by bus into the city centre   then near Fitzalan Square we would catch a blue line tram all the way to Crystal Peaks. Neither of us had been there in years.

Hastily, I hatched a supplementary plan which would see me spurning the retail delights of  the shopping centre in order to walk in a big circle - out to Rother Valley Country Park, round the lakes and then back again to Beighton and onward to Crystal Peaks - some six miles in total.

Soon after setting off on the walk I found myself in the Church of St Mary the Virgin. Inside, a small number of senior parishoners happened to be decorating the church ready for Christmas. They were most welcoming and a silver-haired lady called Christine asked if I would like a hot drink. It seemed to me to be a very Christian thing to do so I asked for a coffee and she even brought it to me as I was photographing the statuette of Mary that stands in a stone apse and happened to be caught delightfully in sunshine.

Then off I plodded, climbing two railway footbridges and a stone bridge over The River Rother. The path led me on to Rother Valley Country Park which sits on the site of what was once a large opencast coal mine. Its dirty, industrial past is almost impossible to detect these days. The years have softened it and thoughtful authorities have planted and developed the 750 acre leisure area wisely.

Onward I plodded feeling slightly giddy - probably because I do not eat much in the morning these days - just a banana and a handful of grapes today. The sun continued to shine. Three men were feeding wildfowl at the water's edge  and a few other people were out walking like me. A couple of joggers dashed by and a daft lad on a motorbike who knew for sure that motorcycles are banned in the park.

On the way home there was an unexpected and unheralded  hold-up with the trams so after waiting for forty minutes, I caught the number 120 bus back into the city centre.  All in all it had been another grand day out with good exercise and not what I was anticipating when I was woken up this morning by a scam telephone call that instantly made my blood boil: "YOU JUST  WOKE ME UP!"Then I placed  a hex on the call centre responsible.

89

It's my old friend Bert's 89th birthday today. I went off to see him yesterday lunchtime.

For the past few months he has been living in his ex-wife's little terraced house in a different part of the city - about four miles away. It's a two-bedroomed house and their youngest son - Philip - usually sleeps in one of those bedrooms. Bizarrely, Bert and Pat sleep in the double bedroom - top to tail. They separated thirty years ago.

All three of them were glad to see me. I brought Bert a birthday card I had made myself. It included the top picture I took of him a few years ago - before he broke his hip and before dementia began to creep into his brain like a white rot fungus. I also gave him two cans of Bacardi and Coca Cola which was often his tipple of choice after a hearty pub session in "The Banner Cross Hotel". In addition, I gave Pat a bunch of flowers I had just picked up from a nearby supermarket.

It was snug and warm in the little house but quite spartan too with few pictures or adornments - just some framed family photos. And it was quite untidy and grubby with stuff piled up here and there. This was not a home to accommodate visitors or incidentally show off one's worldly wealth or tastes in decor. In the corner, a forty two inch television screen resided like an idol to be worshipped. Fortunately, the volume had been turned right down.

I wish I could have videoed or tape recorded the visit. It would have made a great basis for an existential TV drama.

At one point, I was trying to participate in three different but simultaneous conversations that seemed to have no connection with each other. Pat was talking about how much she despises Donald Trump and her vaginal bleed. Bert was talking about climate change as some Antarctic imagery had appeared on the silent TV screen. Philip was talking about yellow label bargains he had picked up in supermarkets and a band called The Cardiacs that I had never heard of.

Perhaps I had unwittingly entered a miniature asylum. Maybe I would get sucked into it and never leave but after ninety minutes and with some tactical difficulty I managed to extricate myself.

At one point, as Pat was making me a cup of coffee in the kitchen, I said to Bert, "How old are you tomorrow?"

"Eighty. Seventy something. Ninety - what's it?... November 24th 1936. Pat! Pat! How old am I tomorrow?"

"You're eighty nine Bert! Eighty nine!"

Africa

Africa? War, giraffes, corruption, gorillas, AIDS, lions, malaria, crocodiles, poverty, The Great Pyramid of Giza,  infant mortality, Mount Kilimanjaro, mass kidnapping of schoolchildren, The Victoria Falls ... but who would automatically think of the joy of dancing, happily moving your body to the music, lost in that music and laughing for that too is Africa...Here we go...

Rajneeshpuram

 

Three weeks ago, I wanted to watch something on our television set - something that would hold my attention and would entertain or inform me. Given the number of options out there in the ether, you might think that such an itch would be very easy to scratch but not so. There's so much rubbish piled up on accessible channels - stuff that I would never want to see.

Flicking through Netflix, I found a documentary series that I thought might be just the ticket - all about a commune that evolved in the state of Oregon during the nineteen eighties. The series is titled "Wild Wild Country" and it focuses upon a cult that was centred around an Indian fellow who had become a kind of mystic -  a guru if you will. His name was   Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, later known as Osho. That's him in the header picture.

Back in 1981, he and his immediate followers purchased a  valley in north central Oregon. It had previously been the site of The Big Muddy Ranch It was about twenty miles south east of the town of Antelope and pretty remote.

Citizens of Rajneeshpuram greeting their spiritual leader  in 1983

Rajneesh's followers became known as Rajneeshees. They came from all over the world but mostly they were Americans. Some of them were pretty wealthy, influential people. Together they turned the valley into a small city known as Rajneeshpuram. It had lots of good accommodation, a large meeting hall and even its own airstrip. They built a reservoir and a sewage reclamation plant. There was a police station, a fire department, cafes and restaurants and a health facility. It is estimated that at its height over 7,000 people lived there including a large number of down-and-out homeless people from various American cities.

Downtown Rajneeshpuram in its heyday

Although I watched all six episodes of the documentary, by the end I remained very unclear about what if anything Rajneesh had been preaching. What was his message and why did he attract so many devotees? I mean he looked like a guru with his customary smile and his long white beard and his mystical robes but what was he actually saying?

Anyway, by 1988 it had all fallen apart  for mixed reasons. Local citizens were distrustful, politicians and lawmakers were quite hostile and within the cult itself cracks began to appear with various accusations and wrong turns. The dream was over as the authorities began to circle like hawks.

Today the former site of Rajneeshpuram is occupied by a Christian youth organisation called Young Life . It's like a giant summer camp and retreat - operating within the remit of The Washington Family Ranch. I checked out their website and could find no reference at all to  Rajneeshpuram. It's almost like it was never there - a kind of fiction - which I suppose it was.

Washington Family Ranch

Black

Ram with a black nose and mouth at Silkstone Common

Black Friday today. I donned my black Hull City manager's coat and my black walking boots along with my fashionable black beanie hat. Incidentally, I had remembered to put on some black Marks and Spencers underpants (Large) and black socks.

It was damned cold out there today but sunny too. When singing "Up on the Roof" yesterday as I worked on our almost flat roof, I promised myself another long country ramble today. Silkstone Common was my destination - by train - and in my backpack was a map of the circular walk I had planned.

Track on the edge of High Field Plantation

Last weekend a bloke I know told me that Black Friday was all about celebrating the role that black people have played and continue to play in British society. A noble reason it seemed to me and as I sat on the 10.33 train at Sheffield railway station, a young black man climbed aboard and sat in the seat opposite me. Immediately I grabbed his hand and wished him a "Happy Black Friday".

He looked bemused and I was taken aback when he said, "Let go of my hand man! I should warn you that I am a black belt in karate!"

Well, I could not understand his reaction and of course apologised most profusely.  When I offered him a black liquorice gum, he went to sit somewhere else. Charming!

Across the aisle a fellow passenger was reading a free "Metro" paper and I noticed the headline: "Black Friday Week Begins". More puzzlement for me. How could there be a week of "Black Fridays"? After all there's only one Friday each week. Even so, I thought to myself - a full week of celebrating black heritage and treating our black brothers and sisters extra nicely - that can't be bad!

Monument to the twenty six children

It was a lovely walk in an area I had not visited in quite a while. Returning to Silkstone Common, I paused at the woodland memorial to the twenty six children  who died in the Huskar Pit Disaster of 1838. However, I was back at the railway station in good time for the 15.49 train back to Sheffield.

When I got home in the blackness of nighttime in a black taxi, the missus gave me a black look and asked, "Where the hell have you been? I want my tea!".

I got cracking. We were having black bean stew in black squid ink with a grating of black truffle on top followed by a black chocolate mousse with black cherry sauce. As I was preparing it, I listened to appropriate songs for Black Friday on my music player such as "Black Night" by Deep Purple, "Back to Black" by Amy Winehouse, "Paint It Black" by The Rolling Stones and of course "Black and Proud" by James Brown.

Tonight I shall sink a pint of Guinness. One of that company's past advertising slogans was "Black Is Beautiful but the World Is Often Not". Thank heavens for Black Friday!

Courage

Your intrepid correspondent bravely scaled a ladder this morning. Then with the assistance of  two rectangles of thick foam to kneel upon, he courageously climbed onto the flat roof of our extension.

When we first moved into this house in 1989, a long thin garage connected our property to Tony and Jill's house next door. The house was built in 1925 but I expect that the garage was added during the 1970s.

In 1998, we decided to convert the garage into extra living accommodation. The builder we engaged was a very pleasant and competent fellow called Paul who knew what he was doing and cared about his clients. He was able to extend our kitchen by nine feet while also creating a  ground floor shower room and a study as well as a little corridor connecting the three rooms. He did a grand job.

I say that the roof of this extension is flat but actually it enjoys a small gradient meaning that rainwater never settles upon it. It always flows into the gutter. 

Mostly, we have no problems with that roof. Months, even years can pass with no ingress of water but two weekends ago, during a long spell of rain, we suffered a leak in the kitchen and had to use towels and a couple of buckets to collect the unwelcome visitor.

Because of the rain, I could not get up on the roof to take remedial action and I needed to wait for a couple of dry days to check out the situation.

As expected, there were no obvious signs of where the water had got in. The roof was unblemished but I know that water cunningly finds its ways and the sources of leaks are invariably hard to find. The problem had to be with the joint between our almost flat roof and next door's side wall. The joint runs for twenty two feet.

When I think about temperature variations that have occurred in our city this year, they have ranged between -5°C  and +36°C.  Flat roofing material and joints will expand and contract and over time weak points like connecting joints will often be affected. It should come as no great surprise.

I bought the Thompson's "10 Year Roof Seal" pictured at the top and painted the entire roof joint - being generous with the overlapping sealant. It was bloody cold up there today - not the best drying conditions. Of course I do not know yet if my "fix" has worked. That can only be confirmed during another spell of sustained heavy rain.

At lunchtime, Mr Brave swung his legs back onto the ladder, his trepidation eased by the presence of his helpful female assistant whose was holding the ladder with  her on the bottom rung.

Job done...for now!

Reviews

In the past, you could buy things without having to trawl through previous customers' reviews. Now, it seems, just about everything is reviewed and sellers kind of expect it. In fact many businesses send out customer surveys straight after a sale has been made.

For at least twenty five years I  had no idea how much I weighed - quite simply because I never weighed myself. We had an old mechanical set of scales in our bathroom but I never stood on them until very recently when I began having weight loss reduction injections. Some might say that previously I was "in denial". Maybe I was.

The old scales were a wedding present forty four years ago and it had become hard to read the little plastic dial behind a now clouded, slightly yellowing plastic window. Wanting to track my gradual weight loss pretty accurately, I decided to treat ourselves to a new set of scales.

In 1981 there were no digital scales on the market but now in 2025 most available scales are digital and some have extra features to do with body mass  index calculation etc.. There are even scales that talk to you or give you printed read-offs.

I did not want any of that. I just wanted a reliable set of scales and in Great Britain the brand that people immediately think of  is Salter. That company has been around since the eighteenth century.

So I go online to look at what is available and that is when I enter a reviews minefield. Eventually, I decided to purchase a Salter Max electronic scale but as for pretty much all other scales, some customer reviews suggest that they do not weigh accurately or consistently. I needed to remind myself that 89% of buyers were very happy with their purchase. It was only a measly 6% who gave the product a one star rating.

Here's a typical five star review followed by one of the one star reviews:-

I am delighted with my purchase of the Salter bathroom scales for several reasons, firstly the weight is displayed in large figures which are easy to read, secondly the scales are digital giving a more accurate reading and thirdly the figures remain on screen for a few seconds when the scales are dismounted.Brilliant.

Very disappointed with this purchase that we have returned for a refund. The scales were showing about 6lbs more than a known weight. Salter should hang their heads in shame for producing such an inaccurate item. Now looking for an alternative make.

Anyway, fingers-crossed our new scales will be just fine. I just wish that I had bought them before my weight loss journey started.

Finally, the old scales are here, captured in a photograph before they are binned. In forty three years they witnessed a hell of a lot of bathroom activity. Goodbye old but oft-neglected friend...