Death may be inevitable, but that does not detract from the emotional upset of losing someone or some living thing close to you: a living thing that you have nurtured and cared for from its very beginning until the life is snuffed out of it. Jane has just suffered a tragic loss and, even now, one week later, is having difficulty in getting over the tragedy. Alas, I am the one who is partly responsible, and I feel it very strongly. We will not see the like of that climbing rose and clematis ever again.
Jane had made a tentative booking for my services in the garden several weeks ago. It is a reservation that is necessary in order that I can prepare myself mentally and physically for the ordeal for, as I have stated previously in these blogs, that garden hates me. A simple trip to our detached garage often results in me being pricked by roses, stung by insects or soaked by overhanging plants; consider, therefore, what injuries can befall me if I actually venture off the garden path and into the undergrowth, balancing precariously on stepping stones or patches of virgin earth, yet still managing to tread on some growing plant or fall into a pyracantha while receiving the lash of Jane’s tongue. No, a job in the garden for Jane requires full PPE of stout clothing, leather gauntlets, steel toe-capped boots, the low-slung tool belt, safety goggles and a careful programme of pre-meditation.
The booking was to cut back a climbing rose with intertwining clematis that infested a pretty little arch over the garden path that leads to the garage. Even Jane admitted that the rose had grown just a little bit too cocky for its own good to the extent that its trunk was even thicker than the steel arch that was its home, and prickly offshoots threatened all humans within a two foot radius. The burgeoning clematis which, in the summer, added a colourful addition had also become a little wild, clearly influenced by its prickly host. Sensibly, Jane would normally deal with all matters of pruning personally using her secateurs but, on this occasion, the rose trunk was too thick for her to deal with and so, perforce, she had to fall back on The Last Resort: macho muscle man (well, me). Alas, the weather caused two cancellations of my horticultural adventure and so the rose remained in place, thick and malevolent, mocking Jane whenever she looked out of the Garden Control Tower (aka the Breakfast Room or Orangery), but she could do nothing about it. However, while she was away playing mahjong and bridge with members of her coven one afternoon I had a sudden burst of love and charity: I determined to do the job for her before she returned, as a surprise – I could then bathe in the warmth of her undying gratitude and affection, for she would know that it was a task that did not come easily to me. On went all the PPE, out came the step ladders, the big loppers, the hedge trimmers, the chain saw and the garden shredder. Crunch, crunch, crunch – the rose was soon trimmed right back; snip snip snip, the dead clematis strands followed suit. I shredded the debris to hide the evidence, swept up the area, treated my cuts and abrasions, and repaired to the house for a welcome cup of tea and a feeling of a job well done.
I had to wait an entire week before Jane noticed the naked rose arch. We were returning from a shopping expedition and making our way up the path when she suddenly stopped dead with a cry of,
“What’s happened here? Someone has cut back the rose! And look at my clematis!”
I gazed at my fingernails with an air of modesty, the phrase, “Aw shucks…” poised on my lips.
Some years ago I read in a psychology book that it takes the average man 9 minutes to realise that his wife is punishing him. As I stood there on the garden path on that day, it began to dawn on me in somewhat less than that time that the warm wind of gratitude had not only veered dramatically to the north, but was now building up to an impending storm. The temperature dropped, the air pressure went with it, and Jane exploded. I will not recount verbatim the harsh words that sprang forth: suffice it to say that her sentiment was not one of gratitude so much as severe disapprobation. Apparently one should prune a rose just above a joint. There were no joints; none had survived. Also, the brown twiggy strands of clematis that I thought signified dead wood were, in fact, healthy parts of the plant that had previously borne shoots; they had not survived the shredder. The final blow came when she discovered a thick trunk of rose in her flower bed that I had missed in my tidy-up, and it was crushing a polyanthus. I hung my head in shame as the storm raged around me, protesting feebly that I meant well and that I thought she would be pleased, but that seemed to make matters worse. Finally, finally, the hurricane abated and a sort of calm descended. After gazing wistfully at the stump of her clematis and taking several deep breaths, Jane made a visible effort to calm down. She put her arm on my shoulder, looked at me, and said quietly,
“Darling, I know that you meant well… but you are NEVER, repeat NEVER, to go into this garden again without adult supervision”.
I nodded. I always knew that garden hated me.
Well, that’s the Radisson hotel group crossed off my list then. Jane and I had planned to visit York in July to celebrate my birthday and, now that we have a little more cash available after the sale of my boat, we decided to make it a special occasion and travel by train (parking in York being at a premium). Initial planning yielded an eye-watering figure for First Class rail travel, but we were not immediately put off and pressed on to find a luxury hotel in the city centre that met the usual demanding Shacklepin criteria. We finally settled on the Radisson as a tolerable compromise and duly booked the hotel for four nights. Having sorted out the accommodation in York we moved on to detailed planning of the travel arrangements and it soon became clear that First Class rail travel would not only be very expensive, but it would be far from straightforward. There were two options for the routes to take: via Bristol (two changes) or via London (three changes). It was all getting a bit complicated and the risk of missing connections as we galloped around with heavy luggage on an increasingly unreliable rail network was high. We therefore decided to change the plan and travel by car, which was perfectly feasible as the Radisson in York had a private carpark (though you had to pay for it). The only potential snag that I could see would be if we arrived after a tiring five or six hour journey only to find the carpark full and no alternative parking in the medieval city. I therefore emailed the Radisson in York, reminded them that we were coming to stay in July and asked if it was possible to reserve a place in their carpark; also, did the carpark have electric vehicle (EV) charging facilities? The reply came back,
“Hi Shacklepin, the parking is on first come first serve [sic] basis and it is not prebooked [sic]”
That was it. No, “Dear Mr Shacklepin, thank you for your enquiry. We are very sorry but…” I was incensed by the rudeness, the slap-dash approach to customer service and the fact that the issue of EV charging was not even addressed. Moreover, why should a hotel guest not be able to book a parking slot? Would that not be a strong selling point for the hotel?
I replied that, clearly, politeness and helpfulness were not strong points at the Radisson, but received no answer. So that was it as far as the Radisson and I were concerned: I cancelled the booking on the spot. We are now going to a delightful little hotel on Dartmoor, the Lydgate House Hotel at Postbridge, which we visited many years ago and which now offered to make ad hoc arrangements to charge our electric car. Over reaction to the Radisson? Maybe, but nobody addresses me by my surname and gets away with it. Besides, Dartmoor will be a lot more fun, quieter than York, and there won’t be any parking problems. Alas, poor Yorvick, I [almost] knew him well.
Oh dear. More expense. It seems we will have to change a proportion of our glassware in the drinks cupboard because champagne flutes are Out and the old-fashioned champagne coupes are In. Or so I read in a top newspaper the other day, in an article about how to drink champagne. Apparently the coupe – the balloon-type glass beloved of black-and-white films and Babycham drinkers in the 60s and 70s – is the best-shaped glass for appreciating good champagne. I cannot really comment, as we can never afford ‘good’ champagne (truth to tell, we prefer Crémant de Loire anyway); either way, it means four sets of six flutes in our collection will be consigned to the recycling bin if we are to remain ‘U’. I don’t think that will be happening. I suppose we could look at buying champagne coupes to test the theory – I will submit the proposal to the memsahib. At the same time, maybe we should consider buying a few bottles of Babycham, for the drink is back on the shelves again after a revamp. For the benefit of younger readers (if any) and those outside the UK, Babycham is a perry – a sparkling alcoholic drink made from fermented pears – and it is a drink created by the Showering brothers of Shepton Mallet in Somerset, primarily for women in Britain after World War 2. It was a time of great social change in Britain, particularly for women, who were considered to be someone no better than they ought to be if they entered a pub bar unaccompanied. The time was ripe for a sophisticated lady-like drink, and Babycham was born. The top London advertising agent Jack Wynne-Williams, who developed the advertising campaign for the drink, accepted the contract to promote Babycham for no fee as he was so impressed by the drink’s potential. The Showering brothers joked that they would present Wynne-Williams with a Rolls Royce when sales topped £1M. A mere twelve months after Babycham’s launch, they were able to deliver on their promise and duly handed over the car keys. The jingle, “Everyone loves Babycham, the genuine champagne perry” was the very first alcoholic advertisement to appear on British television, and it continued to be a common feature of television advertising in the 1960s and beyond. Pubs initially did not have glasses to suit the Babycham image, so Showerings developed their own to fit their target audience: the characteristic coupe with a logo of a Chinese Water Deer on the side. The Showering company was bought by Accolade Wines in the 1990s and Babycham withered on the vine (no pun intended) thereafter. However, the company was bought back by the descendants of the founders in 2021 and the drink is available again under the family ownership of another four Showering brothers. The Showering factory is still a dominant feature of Shepton Mallet and Jane and I occasionally drive past it. Maybe we should pop in and buy a few bottles of Babycham to support British industry. I have never tried it, but I understand it is a lighter, sweeter alternative to champagne. Perhaps we can also buy the characteristic coupe glasses at the same time.
So that’s it. I have finished my two-year treatment for prostate cancer. The saga that started with the bad news on 9 March 2023 is now over and Jane and I celebrated with a bottle of fizz on 20 February 2025. The unused pills have been returned to the oncology team and I can begin to return to ordinary life, though I will still be monitored remotely every three months. Apparently it can take a year for my testosterone to return to normal and the hot sweats may linger for a while (useful tip here, girls, the doctor recommended sage tablets to reduce the frequency and severity – they did help). I shan’t mention the topic again, for there is nothing more boring than reading details of a person’s medical conditions (one’s own are always far more interesting). I only mention it now, finally, to emphasise to any male readers that The Thing can be defeated totally and the diagnosis and treatment are painless; but it is essential to get it diagnosed early. I cannot fault the NHS for its care and treatment, both of which have been impeccable. My main task now is to lose all the surplus weight that I added during hormone treatment, so it’s back to the broccoli for breakfast (Blog 130).
Now here is an interesting question: how much soap powder do you use for your regular laundry? I ask because the Consumer Association magazine Which? has just run an article on the subject and, as a subscriber to the magazine and Chief Dhobeywallah in the Shacklepin household, I thought I would read it on the principle that there is always something new to learn. The result was a revelation. The amount of soap powder you should use for a normal wash is two level tablespoons full, or roughly an eggcup-full (30 ml) . It is a tiny amount. I was so surprised that I double checked the article by reading the side of the soap powder box (I was between books at the time): it was absolutely correct. Of course, you should double the amount if you have clothes that are badly soiled or if you have hard water, but – on the whole – most people (including me) use far too much soap powder, which is expensive, unnecessary, leaves a soapy residue, and inhibits sewage treatment further down the line. Gosh, the things you learn in these blogs.
We really do live in a topsy-turvy world in 2025. I won’t go into detail, as I’m sure you can think of your own examples. Suffice it to say that things that were set in tablets of stone to my generation as indisputable ways to behave, of right and wrong, of black and white, or of plain common sense have all gone by the board. And that is not just in my country. As the old song says, things ain’t what they used to be. But never mind, here is some good news. There was a 3% chance (1 in 32) of an asteroid hitting the Earth on 22 December 2032 and wiping out Dhaka, Bogotá or another city around those latitudes, or hitting the sea and creating an enormous tidal wave that would sweep round the world. Fortunately, the latest estimate by NASA is that it will miss the Earth and there is now a 2% (1 in 50) chance that it will hit the moon instead, no doubt causing severe tidal disturbance and possible floods or tsunamis. Phew! That’s a relief – I had plans for that day. I do wish I hadn’t sold that boat though.
26 February 2025
"A Very Vintage Chap..." 