Tag: Snow

Top of the Pansy Pops 2021

It’s been a queer year all told – locked and unlocked, masks on, masks off, masks on again, thrice jabbed, and a foreign foray thwarted. Unsurprisingly, 2021 pansy posts were a mixed harvest. I kept the memory of a treasured friend alive and ranted on about the unwelcome return of a nasty little word I thought had long been consigned to the dustbin of history. Then there were the lockdown tales keeping the home fires burning, sparkling art from rural Asia Minor and the interviews and reviews that came out of the blue.

2021 was also the year I acquired my very own looney toon stalker, Marsha the Troll, who regularly sends me rambling rants from the other side of the Pond – always incomprehensible, often threatening and sometimes with porn attached. I feel like a celebrity.

Here’s the cream of the crop for 2021 together with two evergreen posts from 2020 and 2014 bringing up the rear.

A Tale of Two Villages

We queued up at the checkout with two bottles of Majestik and a tub of Cadbury’s Celebrations, attracting the curiosity of the shopper ahead of us. She was loading her groceries into a large tartan shopping trolley, her eyes darting quickly between me and Liam as if she had suddenly recognised long lost friends. I…

Forever Young

Last month saw us in London for a very special commemoration. An old friend died suddenly in early 2020 and it would have been his sixtieth birthday on 25th August. We couldn’t let the day go unmarked so we threw him a boozy late lunch in Soho attended by twenty of his nearest and dearest.…

Get the Bloody Jab

We just can’t wait to get back into the theatre – we’ve a glittering chorus of touring musicals queued up – from the modern: Six, Waitress, The Book of Mormon to the classics: Bedknobs and Broomsticks and The Sound of Music. Few trades have suffered from COVID more than the performing arts. The only sure…

Queer as Folk

I was bullied from the moment I first flounced through the school gates. Nothing physical, you understand. That would be unseemly at a traditional grammar school with a 400-year-old charter granted by the Virgin Queen. Besides, beatings were reserved for the teachers to dish out. I suppose I hardly helped my cause by being a…

Nothing Beats a Good Story

I don’t get interviewed much these days. Back in my pansies heyday everyone wanted a piece of me; queuing up, they were. But now we’ve settled into county life, I’ve become old dog, old tricks, descending into idyllic rural obscurity. But then up popped a request from Nicola MacCameron, a voiceover artist at Mic And…

A Final Farewell

We can’t complain. Village life is calm and cuddly. But when the easing of lockdown let us travel further afield for the first time in around seven months, we packed our bags and were off like a shot. The bright lights of London beckoned and not even lousy weather could dampen our spirits. Travelling across…

Bring Out Your Dead

Before the miracle of modern medicine and universal healthcare, life for most was plagued by illness or the fear of it. People croaked in their beds from mundane diseases that today we pop a pill for. Many a cottage stairwell was too narrow for a coffin so some featured a trap door between floors called…

And For My Next Trick

We’re currently living next to a building site. A local developer is chucking up a few more bungalows, like the world really needs a few more bungalows – affordable housing for the cash-strapped, yes, more well-appointed dwellings with double garages for the well-heeled, no. It’s a lost cause and we’re resigned to it. While a…

Jack in the Bottle

That flicker of light at the end of the lockdown tunnel is getting brighter. Our days in the sun (or beer garden) will soon return. Meanwhile, we continue to do what we can to stay safe and sane. I hear sales of jigsaws have gone off like a rocket. It’s not the sport for us.…

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!

A light dusting of the fluffy white stuff generally brings the entire nation to a shuddering halt and a lot of huffing and puffing over the airwaves. But, as we’re already under house arrest, this year’s avalanche has made little difference to our daily lives – except for one thing. Our Sainsbury’s supermarket delivery was…

RIP, Lindsay de Feliz, the Saucepans Lady

I was badly shaken and much stirred to hear of the murder of fellow author, Lindsay de Feliz in December. Among her many qualities, Lindsay was very social media savvy and developed an impressive following. Her evergreen blog chronicled the many ups and considerable downs of her fascinating life in the Dominican Republic with her…

Oi Speak Narrfuk Oi Do

Anyone living on these damp little islands and anyone who visits them knows that Britain is a nation of a thousand and one accents and dialects. Homespun and imported lingo twists and turns through town and county. We may live in a global village and in a mass media world where ‘Globalish’ (the cut-down version…

Wishing everyone a healthier, safer 2022 and a new normal more like the old.

It’s a Sin

So far, February has delivered freezing Russian snow and an icy blast from the past on Channel Four. Storm Darcy brought two-foot snowdrifts, abandoned cars and our resident pheasant pecking about for frozen morsels. But it was Russell T Davies’ AIDS-era drama, ‘It’s a Sin’, that really chilled us to the bone. Brilliant as it is, the series made for tough (though compulsive) viewing especially for those, like me, who survived the worst of times, ducking the Grim Reaper’s scythe by the skin of the teeth. By episode three I was ripping open the wine box to squeeze the last drop from the plastic bag.

Many have binge-watched the series on-demand. That wasn’t for us. There’s not enough wine in the box for that. So we took it as it came, broadcast-wise. Last night’s brutal and uncompromising finale was the bitter pill that had us fighting over the Kleenex. The irony of screening the series during another health crisis was not lost on us. I hear it’s gone down a storm with the current cohort of young gay boys putting it about town, leading to a record uptake in HIV testing. Good job, Russell.

 

Baby, It’s Cold Outside

Baby, It’s Cold Outside

A Siberian cold front  – ‘The Beast from the East’ – has rolled in from Europe,  cloaking the flatlands in a thick blanket of fluffy snow drifting in the arctic breeze. Cancelled buses forced Liam to take the day off and a ‘real-feel’ of minus 11 means we’re going nowhere. And neither is anyone else judging by St Stephens roundabout, empty save for one brave soul. Come rush hour, it’s normally nose to nipple.

Thank the Lord for central heating.

In the Bleak Midwinter

East Anglia tends to get to best of the weather – it’s often drier and warmer than other parts of these wet little islands. During the bleak winter weeks, when low damp clouds cloak the rest of the nation and drive half the population into Thomas Cook to thumb through the glossy travel brochures, we often enjoy clear skies and bright sunshine. But in the last twenty-four hours, we’ve gone from this:

Sunset Over Norwich

To this…

…as an Arctic snap blew down from the North Pole closing roads, runways, schools and A&E Departments. Brrr…

So today, I thought better of my routine (a stroll to the gym – like I need an excuse to step off the treadmill – followed by a steaming americano and a trawl through the free papers). Instead,  I slipped on my fluffy mules, whacked up the heat and tuned into daytime TV. Let’s hope the weather turns by tomorrow. At my age, a diet of soporific trash on the box could easily become habit forming.

Stop Press!

Stop Press!

Perking the Pansies - HDNSo far, the start of spring has been a nipple-hardening affair. Wild March winds are whistling across the East Anglian flatlands and snow flurries swirl around the daffodils. Thank God for central heating and high tog duvets. March has also been remarkable for a flurry of activity for Perking the Pansies, Jack and Liam move to Turkey. The middle of the month saw a spike in sales sending it to the top of the Amazon charts. I know not why. Then, quite by chance, Twitter of all things alerted me to a review of the book in the Turkish Daily News. The out-of-the-blue piece was written by Hugh Pope, an eminent writer and journalist. Hugh lives in Istanbul and has assembled an impressive CV – The Wall Street Journal, The Independent, Reuters, and United Press International as well as three critically acclaimed books under his belt – Dining with Al-Qaeda, Sons of the Conquerors and Turkey Unveiled. These days, Hugh is Project Director (Turkey/Cyprus) for the International Crisis Group. This is serious stuff for a serious writer who knows a thing or two about Turkey and the wider region. He’s a busy man and I’m not sure how a little-known book by an unknown author caught his attention but I’m grateful that it did. Hugh gets the book in a way some others don’t. It might be a gossipy tale written in comic carry-on style and tied up with a pink ribbon, but there is a more thoughtful message in there too. Thank you, Hugh, for seeing it.

You can read Hugh Pope’s review here.

To find our more about his titles click here for Amazon.co.uk and here for Amazon.com.

Matilda

Matilda

Matilda2We ventured down to the Smoke during the big freeze for a night at the theatre. Surprisingly, our train ride both to and from London was untroubled by the threat of snow drifts wafting across the frozen flatlands. Our West End treat was Matilda, the RSC musical adapted from Roald Dahl’s dark parable of good and evil. The gong-drenched pantomime was a slick, visually stunning, superbly staged, brilliantly choreographed, foot-tapping extravaganza that left a warm glow like a vintage brandy on a chilly night. The performance was only slightly marred by the quartet of ladies sitting immediately behind us who provided a running commentary while rustling their way through a hundredweight of Maltesers. Every appearance of a cute child on stage was greeted with an “aah” and, since much of the cast is made up of cute kiddies, there were a lot of aahs to sit through. A word of caution, the deafening crescendo of pre-pubescent sopranos singing in perfect harmony might crack your glasses and make your ears bleed.

Matilda1

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The Big Thaw

The Big Thaw

After the big freeze comes the inevitable big thaw as temperatures rise to their seasonal norm. The glaciers of Norwich are gently melting to a sloppy slush of dirty grey and iced water gently trickles away into sewers. My bruised back is gradually recovering from my big trip and I can venture out once more without fear of slippage and indignity. Before the cold snap becomes yesterday’s news, I give one last cold snap of my own – our patio table looking like a giant iced sponge on a silver cake stand.

The Big Thaw

The Hazards of Duke Street

Tombland on Better Days
Tombland on Better Days

Norwich City Council in its municipal wisdom has decided that gritting pavements isn’t their bag. While city streets are generally clear, the continuing arctic snap means that unsuspecting pedestrians risk their dignities and their coccyxes attempting to skate along the glacial footpaths. People are dropping like nine pins judging by the amateur footage taken by a voyeuristic resident of Duke Street. Yesterday, I was gingery trying to navigate the Tombland icecap. My thick-tread winter boots did not save me from an arse-over-tit, ice scream tumble that nearly put me into an early grave. It hurt. I think I’ll sue. It’s all the rage these days.

Winter Wonderland

Winter Wonderland

It didn’t take the power of the Delphic Oracle to predict the chaos that would result from yesterday’s whiteout. Even a light dusting of snow generally brings the nation to a shuddering halt. East Anglia has been particularly badly hit by the avalanche. It’s been the talk of BBC Radio Norfolk all day with a litany of cancelled events hitting the airwaves – whist drives, netball practice, line dancing, am dram, bowls and bingo. The county is littered with abandoned cars, parish halls have shut up shop, the brownies will not be dib-dib-dob-dobbing any time soon and the oven’s gone cold at the WI. Hundreds of schools have called time and thousands of kids are playing in the snow before it turns to dirty slush. Trains are cancelled and planes are grounded at Norwich International Airport (Yes, Norwich does have an international airport, not that you can fly to anywhere particularly exciting). The Dunkirk spirit has been rekindled and tales of random acts of kindness are flooding in. Plummeting temperatures and a sharp frost will guarantee that the show will run and run for a few days more. This all pales into insignificance when compared to the drama and tragedy that unfolded on the streets of South London this morning when a helicopter crashed into a crane, killing two people and injuring twelve more. You would never know it from the coverage on local radio here in the frozen east.

A sparkling blue sky enticed me out of the warmth for a hot drink and an iced bun. I took these snaps along the way.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

I was going to pop out for an Americano,  but when I peered up from the laptop, I noticed that Norwich was enveloped in an instant blizzard. I thought better of it and decided to stay inside all warm and cosy instead. I can’t afford to break a hip at my age. Naturally, the county came to a standstill with jack-knifed trucks bringing gridlock to the highways and byways. Liam arrived home from his rural office two hours late. “Bugger the dinner,” he said. “Let’s go out for a pizza.” So that’s what we did.

Cue the home video…