A Sunblest loaf and a packet of fags, please

As I mentioned in a previous post, Mike and I recently went for a little wander around the canal one sunny Sunday evening - the Kennet and Avon, to be precise, at the point where it mingles with the city. Gosh, we’re so lucky to live in such a beautiful part of the world! Just a short walk away from the rather concrete carbuncle that is the Travelodge hotel (recently revamped, natch), one finds oneself surrounded by the natural, unforced tranquility that only a canal bank stroll can offer. While Mike busied himself taking photographs of a huge sun setting over the cutesy cottages and rather grander homes that nestle all the way up the surrounding hills nearby, I sat on the riverbank feeding a duck and her two tiny babies bread wedges torn from a 39p Sunblest loaf - brought at the Smile stores for that very purpose (although really, I didn’t have to justify my purchase to the cashier there; like he cared about my apparent bad taste!) - and watching the invisible fish just below the water’s surface feast on the dough balls my new friends missed. A cheap loaf, a Marlboro light and sunset over the canal: the experience was, dear reader, about as good as life gets.

Last Friday, I finally got around to putting a real-life face to the name of Theo, a fellow blogger (and Bath-based architect student, and all-round interesting character) whose blog I can’t directly link to here as I still can’t get to grips with Wordpress (!) but who, I trust, might very kindly add a comment to this post and supply a link to his work. Theo was lovely; one of those people that one rarely has the good fortune to come across, who you just know is authentically, genuinely and effortlessly bright, interesting, charming and funny. Ah, t'internet; it’s not just for researching pornography based on a Lion King theme, y’know.

The next day, I spent from 4.30-10.45pm watching the Next Stage production of the entire Torch Song Trilogy at the Mission Theatre, for Venue review purposes. All three plays have a wonderful script and an enthralling storyline linking the trio together, but even so, such attributes would be nothing without the right theatre company to bring it back to live. Next Stage did, I’m happy to report, turn what could have been a totally arse-numbing evening into 6+ hours of sheer delight. After watching the Trilogy again for the first time in years, though, it did slowly dawn on me that the older I get, the more like Arnold Beckoff I become. Is that a good thing, or is it actually a bit tragic? Ah, what the heck; I never was comfortable walking in flat shoes.

And before I knew it, Sunday had rolled around again, and a lunch that, fortunately, failed to be haunted by the ghosts from the recent past (Easter Sunday’s decomposing leg of lamb - remember?). This time around, we feasted on soft roast pork, butternut squash roasted with sage and fresh corn kernels and the ubiquitous cannellini bean’n’savoy cabbage mash, followed by Portuguese custard tarts…and it was all really, really yummy, especially the tarts (which where actually just fresh custard tarts, but Delia’s recipe says they’re of Portuguese origin, and she’s rarely wrong). As the sun was still shining by the time we’d finished eating, we drove up to the Wheatsheaf and carried on supping rose in their glorious garden, an experience marred only by Medad throwing a really weird, self-indulgent tantrum over nothing at all (honestly, nothing at all!) and refusing to speak for the last 45 minutes of our outing. Way to go, Medad! I hope that when I’m 80, I’m still a teenager too.

PS. The first person to get the connection between the dog in the photo and this post wins a prize.