Sax Appeal

Re-arrangments on the second hand musical instrument front, as a saxophone turned up. Second son now has the clarinet, which he was wanting to try, having done recorder and flute as a child. And I have a saxophone! It's fantastic! I love the action of blowing it! I can play five notes, and if I get them in the right order, I can play (a phrase from) the New World Symphony! How amazing is that! Clever Mrs Demon and her wheeling dealing!

How was your day?

How was your day? Mine was pretty good. Yes, you did read that correctly. Pretty good. Warm, still, sunny weather at last. I love September. Mrs Demon went off to see all her chums at the big car boot sale, and came back with a second-hand clarinet. For me. Isn't that sweet? I really want to get a note out of a saxophone, but a clarinet is as good. And I spoke to my neice, Gorgeous, on the phone. Gorgeous has packed her job in, rented the flat and is off to Vietnam for a year with her boyfriend. And good for her, I think it's brilliant. So a slight adjustment is needed to the Exit Strategy, and post-Exit strategy. It must now include:

a. Learn the clarinet
b. Visit Vietnam

Down-sizing news

It's women who are supposed to have the vast wardrobes, and Mrs Demon does have a substantial one, it's true, but I discovered eight pairs of new blue jeans in my section; all new, and unworn. Why? And what am I doing with four pairs of khaki shorts? I've only worn shorts once this year; the other evening, for about an hour.

The downsizing of the wardrobe came about because I sat down to write a blog post. if I sit down to write a blog post, the block sets in, and nothing will come. But, as a displacement activity, I get other stuff done, such as sorting out my wardrobe.

Well, I hear you say, this post seems to be going OK. Which it is. But that's because the writing is itself a displacement activity. I'm supposed to be down at church getting ready for a wedding later today.

We have a spare room

We have a spare room! We had one in 1983, and now we've got one again. The Dude having moved out, we can really get cracking on our down-sizing. What was his room is now largely clear, and will be used as a transit area for boxes. Next to that, we now have a spare room. this is a spare room in the original meaning of the term; a room which is spare; none of our clutter of years left in it; basic furniture, a bed, chair, wardrobe and dressing table. Any single guests coming to Demon Towers in the next few months will get the chance to use it. I love it. i go and sit in it. It's very peaceful, like a room in a traditional bed and breakfast, or a good retreat house.

The Spiral Staircase

I have had two nights of insomnia, brain racing, pulse racing, heart pounding, deafening tinnitus. I think the reason is the consultation meeting taking place today. You may know the sort of thing, where an organization invites its members to consider what the organization will look like in five or ten years time. I used to enjoy such occasions, and have facilitated many for community and voluntary organizations. Now, when someone says “Where will we be in 2015?”, my answer is “Walking the dog on a towpath somewhere, heading for the pub, I hope!”. The whole idea of taking part, the groups, the questions, fills me with dread. So I didn’t go.

I'm making rapid progress through "The Dog Listeneer". And I’ve begun to read Karen Armstrong’s memoir “The Spiral Staircase”. Written four or five years ago, it is the story of her life from the point at which she left the enclosed religious order she had joined at the age of seventeen. January 1969. As Karen Armstrong was leaving one religious institution, I was having the first conversations about joining a different one, the Church of England priesthood. I shall enjoy reading her account, and no doubt more discussion of the parallels.

Some of the things I plan to do

Haven’t done a list for ages, so here’s one, of some of the things I plan to do with my years of happy, relaxed and fulfilling retirement:

- Take our boat over the Pennines by canal
- Complete a Sudoku
- Train the dog
- Take a train through India
- Finish the Guardian Quick Crossword
- Write a book
- Get a note or two out of a saxophone

480 days.

iDidIt!

Our whole music collection is now copied into iTunes, all 653 albums. Last week Mrs Demon, always with an eye for a bargain, found an iPod Classic, plus free docking station, in a sale offer in town. So last night was spent putting the whole lot in, which apparently is called syncing, a new word I’m not sure I like. Anyway, after only a few glitches, delays, inexplicable twists and turns of capricious fate, the whole system is set up, and our music collection is truly portable. All done by 2 am. It would have been a lot quicker if we’d had a ten year old available. I’m not much for technology, but I do like the iPod; a very beautiful machine.

So, my Cunning Plan is coming together!

Things that Cling 2

I see that writing in the last post “clearing a space upstairs” glosses over rather a lot of preparatory work. The space is the Third Man’s room. You don’t here much about the Third Man, because he lives and works away now. He is away, but a lot of his stuff is still here. But his room is the best one for having enough space to decant all the stuff from the other, crowded rooms, in order to spread it out, sort it , get rid of what we don’t want, and do some packing. It really is going to take a year, working on it off and on. So all the Man’s music equipment (he has virtually set up an recording studio in there) has been packed and sorted to give us the space.

It also means sorting out some of his “other stuff”. The collection of odd socks in one of the drawers. The fifty (there are exactly fifty, I counted them), the fifty Pot Noodle cartons, all washed and neatly stacked in a wobbly tower. By the sink is a yellow car licence plate: J457DAB. Is it yours? Please arrange collection, or it’s going to the tip.

Viva Espaniel!

We can now reveal that as part of the Exit Strategy, we WILL be taking on a dog again, after twenty years without one, and that it WILL be the result of a union between a very sweet border terrier (mum)



and a wonderfully calm and obedient (though randy) working cocker spaniel (dad)



which has produced this delightful bunch ...



... one of whom will be joining us in a few weeks.

Things that Cling

So we’ve made a start on the down-sizing, clearing an area upstairs for sorting, packing and deciding on disposal. Not an easy project for us to embark upon together, as one of us is a squirrel and the other is an, erm, a, well, an animal that likes to throw things away. But, needs must.

One of the first problems of down-sizing is dealing with the stuff that you know you have to get rid of, but you’ve had it for so long, you really find it hard to make that decision. These are not necessarily things that you use. Or even things that still work. But they are things that have become a part of the background of your life.

The last time I counted, we had six TV sets. This is odd, because we don’t really watch much TV. None of them are much good. Out here the reception is poor, and half the time you can’t see what you’re watching, which is annoying if it’s the one programme that week that you really want to see. In a couple of years, the government tells us, all our tellies will be useless, as they will have switched off the signal. This will include our little black and white portable Sony. It still works with the original aerial, a hoop of wire, stuck in the top. It prefers upstairs to downstairs. It’s thirty-five years old now. We bought it the week Edward Heath got chucked out of Downing Street and Harold Wilson returned. This was soon after we got married. We agonized over buying it, as we thought it might change the way we lived. (It didn’t). For similar reasons, we don’t have a TV on our boat, and don’t plan to get one.

The little Sony set was our only TV for some years, until the boys were born, and we realized that we would have to get a) a bigger screen and b) colour. But we kept the Sony as a back-up. Later it became an early computer monitor, and then a games console. Then it just got forgotten in a cupboard. Out it came last week, and, with a pile of other stuff, we said our goodbyes, and thank yous, and off it went to the tip for recycling.

Happy New Year 2

So. It is now 500 days until my sixtieth birthday. The Exit Strategy has begun! Having worked out a place to store our stuff we can now begin to think about a life afloat. When the Magic Bus returns from the body shop we’ll have something to use to move things. And then there is matter of the Small Manageable Dog … where a decision is expected any day now.

I broke the news of my not too impending departure to the churchwardens group. No-one threw their hats in the air; no-one burst into tears. This is the countryside, though, and news travels fast. Several people spoke to me after a funeral today, and said that it had come as a surprise, but that they understood. And when I gave them an outline of what we might do, they got quite enthusiastic. So, although “Happy New Year” is being said by many more in hope than expectation, we have a plan, and it’s forward looking, and we’ll keep you in the loop as things develop.

A small manageable dog

Since we are on our own together, I’ll let you in on a conversation between Mrs Demon and myself some time ago. Having been married for many years, I summoned up all my courage and asked, if I were to die first, if she would miss me. She thought about this for a few moments.

- Of course, she said eventually, but the dog would be a consolation.
-What dog? I said. We haven’t got a dog.
-Well, I thought I’d probably get a small manageable dog, she said.
-As a replacement? I said.
-Well, yes, kind of, she said.
-You think I can be replaced by a dog?
-Well not entirely, in every respect, of course!
-But some of my functions?
-Well, yes, I suppose so!
- A small manageable dog?
- Well, that’s what I thought.
-Can I meet the dog before I go?
-How do you mean?
-Well, can there be an overlap, a sort of handover period?
-I suppose so. I don’t see why not.
-And I’ll be able to help to train the dog?
-Well yes, I suppose so.

So that’s how it all ends. Replaced by a small manageable dog. How humiliating. And is that the period we are now entering? I feel fine. No health problems. But maybe Mrs D can see things I can’t. Is this the beginning of the end… ?

We have a problem here

So we have a problem here. The keen reader will remember the post about the cockapoos (can’t remember when, sometime in the summer, look it up). Well, following that glance back into the world of dog-owning, Mrs Demon laid down the following conditions before any dog-owning could even be considered:
- The dog must be female (more than enough men about the place)
- A cross between a border terrier and a working cocker spaniel sounds like an interesting combination.

So here’s the problem. The curate’s border terrier has just given birth to five puppies; three male, two female. They are border terrier and working cocker cross. They are cute, and I mean, cute. Mrs Demon knows that they have arrived, and will be back from work (cos she works away) in a couple of days. The noises she was making over the phone when I told her suggested to me that dog-ownership was a distinct possibility in the not-too-distant future.

I have found myself driving about today imagining how the day would have run with a dog in the back of the jeep. Okay, was the general conclusion. Any dog has to be good with boats and water, and borders are good boat dogs. But what about all the other stuff that goes with having a dog; the restrictions on travel, going away for a few days, etc?

Well, I think I know what is going to happen, but in the end you, the reader, must decide. The decision is yours, unless we don’t like it. If you think that we should get a dog, and it’ll mean I get out more, and do all that exercise that I should be doing, then vote YES. If you think it’s a crazy idea, and these days dog owners end up walking around with carrier bags full of poo, then vote NO. The number to ring is 0999 123 45678. Lines are open until midnight. Remember to ask the person who pays the bill before you dial. The cost of calls is astronomical, and we’ll make sure you can’t get through the first couple of times. I’ll pocket all the money and invest it in a couple of business opportunities I’ve heard about on the island of Sark. Or start my own hedge fund scam. Can’t decide which. Lines are open now.

Let's see, where were we?

Oh yes, this is supposed to be a blog charting my relationship with the Church of England, or more accurately, the decline in that relationship. But actually, we seem to have arrived at a plateau in that relationship, and things are, well, quiet, at present. We don’t say a lot to each other, the rest of the diocese and I. I haven’t been in the Cathedral this year. I haven’t seen the bishop for over six months. I don’t reply to a lot of the diocesan email traffic. Have you noticed that if you stop replying and sending emails, you also stop receiving them? I mean the junk and stuff; obviously, if you stop writing to your mates they don’t write to you, I know that. But my junk mail count has gone down dramatically. So that’s good.

The thing is, with very few exceptions, I’ve never really enjoyed the company of clergy. Generally, they make me nervous, or bored, or I’m just left feeling as though I don’t fit in. Thirty five years, and I still feel as though I’m on the outside looking in. Not that I want to be in either. I’m OK with being an outsider. It just puzzles me.

I was at a church service, a funeral, in the south of England not long ago. I knew no-one in the church except the bereaved family. I went in to the refreshments afterwards and looked around and sat down beside a lady in a dog-collar, who was politely welcoming. We did the usual stuff; where are you from; who do you know; how are you getting back. She very kindly offered to take me to the station, for which I am very grateful. And we did talk about ministry and stuff, but it all felt a bit stilted. She was non-stipendiary; a volunteer, therefore. She made it clear that although she worked in the parish, she didn’t live there, and couldn’t afford to live there. I said it must be a busy place, to which she replied that “they set the bar high for their clergy”. I offered the opinion that she was the future of the church , and old dinosaurs of stipendiary clergy like me were on the way out. No comment. I mentioned the emphasis in our part of the world on lay ministry as part of the solution. No comment. Lines of discussion got started, and then led nowhere. Was she interested? Bored with shop talk? Didn’t agree with me? We’ll never know. We parted happily enough, me to the train, she to her allotment, and I wished her well.

The Escape Plan continues. I’ve got to grips with iTunes now, and am digitalizing our music collection (is “digitalize” a word; or is it “digitize”? Dunno). This is quite large – some 400 albums I reckon – so is going to take some time. It’s all going onto an external hard drive, and can then be copied onto an iPod, or similar. Cousin D has over 1,400 albums on one iPod, he tells me. He’s my 24 hour technical support. I rang him the other day. He was in an airport departure lounge, heading for Vienna. Mrs Demon and I look forward to a simple carefree existence, living on our boat and moving slowly around the inland waterways system, but we cannot survive taking off with the minimum of belongings unless that includes a handy pocket size version of our entire music collection to take with us. Once that is done, I have to digitalize all our slide photos, which go back long before the boys were born, and contain lots of really important stuff from the days when were backpackers and intrepid travellers. So tonight I’ve been trawling the net looking at reviews of slide scanners. Down-sizing is so much more complicated than it used to be.