Yes, I know. Don't call me on it.
Lots of events round here, several incidents and interactions every day. But not much to report of blogworthy significance. I have been writing a lot but not here.
It is now autumn and the lawn has died so there is no further need to mow it. (Muffled, decorous delight - I don't like to gloat but I WIN.) Less good news is that the large tree in our garden seems to be dying. We noticed an outpouring of something like sap from one of the branch stubs earlier this summer. It looked as if the tree had been out for a beery evening and then had been sick down its front. Apparently not. Elms don't do that, said the tree surgeon man. In fact it's worse than that, it's probably about to be dead, with heartwood rot. That would be a shame. We have to scrape up the sick and send it off to a tree vomit specialist. Thirty quid then several hundred to chop it down before it becomes a spiky, Gormenghast ent. Sadness approaches.
Meanwhile on the streetward side of the house the painters have just finished. Our lower two storeys are now a dazzling white. Indeed, a whiteness we never dreamed possible. It looks like we are the first in the street to wash our house in Daz. Slight snag is the fine white dust all over the path, which makes it look like we are trying to get to Christmas first and are about to put up two tons of coloured lights and electric Santas. Second snag is the blokes that did it wouldn't accept payment in cups of tea. They wanted money, so I had to walk back from the bank through Peckham with a pocket full of cash, scowling at innocent passers by as if to say "Hands off - don't even think about it - my best friend is a drunken tree". Got home safely, and after trying for one last tea-based discount I coughed up the lot. Sadness two.
Zoe-daughter has covered up one side of her bedroom with pictures of angsty-looking boys wearing eyeliner. This she calls her "wall of darkness" and it has now spread to the outside of her bedroom door. Perhaps it is our own cultural heartwood rot, spreading, spreading... I have considered pointing out to her that the Darkness (remember them, squeaks, satins and sequins?) are not actually included but I have refrained, being aware that in heavy metal terms discretion is the better part of velour.
Heard Jools Holland reading his auto-namechuck-ography on Radio 4. I think everybody should get their money back, in advance, on that one. He didn't even mention the incident when he got banned from broadcasting for two months for swearing live on national telly. Perhaps it's in the book and was deemed unsuitable for radio. Yeah, right. If he'd been swearing at Stevie Wonder or Bob Dylan it would have been in.
This week I wondered whether 'Sell Fridges' wouldn't have been a better name for Comet.
I am off to a lunchtime jazz experience. The rest of the family are going to the Dulwich Picture Gallery for a last chance to see "The Changing Face of Childhood". I've already seen enough of those for one day because Jake treated us to a pretty good selection of faces when he realised he had to go too.