Tender Tarmac

Winning vista

A Good Friday decision to spend Easter in the Peak District.  With spontaneity comes a dearth of accommodation, which leads to the unexpected.  A Spanish-themed hotel, located on a dual carriageway, opposite a 24hr Tesco?  Yes, thanks.  I enjoy the check-in process, especially when the receptionist asks 'Would you prefer a view of the dual carriageway or the car park?'

Tough question.  Both have merits, obviously.  Car park wins, but I can't pretend it's an easy choice.

Mam Tor.  A brute.

Hills and lambs and primroses and cowslips. And landslips. At the bottom of Mam Tor, the road just falls away into a yawning maw. Odd to see the authority of tarmac and white lines overruled by nature.

Owned by Mam

The earth has swallowed some parts completely, and crumpled others.  Like you might effortlessly screw up the foil of a Lindt bunny.*.

Thick chocolate (apparently)

Back at the hotel, I marvel at the tender beauty of the dual carriageway and the car park.  So fragile.

(* I use this as a random example, and not because I am the sort of person who would eat a Lindt bunny in its entirety, especially as it is common knowledge that the chocolate in the ear area is particularly thick, so this would make consuming a whole rabbit an act of immense greed.)  

Numan Intersection

I must face the sad fact that the season for Brussels sprouts is coming to an end.  Last night's candidates were sorry specimens, starting to yellow and soften.  I have late-onset enthusiasm for sprouts, having scorned them for years.  Hence the zeal - making up for lost time.

Over the weekend I watched a documentary about Gary Numan, 1980s electro-robot.  Like sprouts, he has never appealed to me.  Easy to dismiss and ridicule in his tin-foil and eyeliner.

I have changed my position.  I'd failed to understand how radically he influenced music.  I'd disregarded how heavily he's been sampled and covered.  And how fresh his old tracks still sound. Not softened, not yellowing.

There's a Venn within all of this.  You work it out.  I'm not going to spoon-feed you.

 

Perfume Ponce

Today reality imitates art as Richard E Grant officially becomes a 'perfumed ponce' with the launch of his first

Essence of Petunia

scent.  He's been busy with PR, and I've read several interviews detailing his life as an ardent nose - sniffing everything from old exercise books to narcissi.  As a fellow nose, I understand this.  I think I care about smell more than most. I have even broken off associations on the basis that someone smells wrong.  Not necessarily bad, just wrong. To me.  Similarly, I occasionally find people who smell right.  Not necessarily perfumed, just right.  To me.

Handily close

I am free for the first day in months, and the air is full of cherry blossom, magnolia and hyacinth.  Closer to the market, it's bacon - from the breakfast van that serves early morning rolls to the traders.  Frying bacon in fresh air always makes me think of Glastonbury - mingling with wood smoke and crushed grass and grass smoke.  Undercut by the impressive tang of the long-drops.  Pity the foolish virgins who think they've bagged a good spot, conveniently close to conveniences.  I love the pace of festival mornings, as people emerge bleary-eyed, croaky-throated, in search of tea.  I've no interest in boiling under nylon, so I'm up and out, watching the site come to life.  

No tickets this year.  Having to make do with an alternative.  Here's hoping it smells right.  Not wrong.       

Sideways Move

Reminded how much
I dislike Garfield.  Prick.

I am very much enjoying one of the neighbourhood cats. Overweight and exercise-shy, with plumy tail. The first time I saw him, he was eyeing the garden gate.  He concluded pretty quickly that there was no way in hell he would be jumping over, so he attempted to squeeze through the gap beneath.  Optimistic.

This cat crawls better

He ended up sprawled and pancaked, like one of those Garfield toys.  And stuck.  After fruitless failed-marine attempts at crawling, he turned on his side and bicycled wildly with back legs, slowly winning ground.

I've just spotted him again.  He doesn't even bother with considering a jump or a belly-down approach.  He has learned from experience, and now goes straight to his Heath Robinson sideways bicycle move.

If I had a cat, I'd want one like him.