Teasels in the sun.

We went for a walk at 'The Arthur Jacob Nature Reserve', which is only a couple of miles from us.

It sounds very grand but in fact, if I tell you that before this became a nature reserve it was known as 'The Horton Sludge Lagoons' you'll get a better idea of the place.

It's a highly polluted piece of former industrial land, which nature has been encouraged to take back from us.

On one side is an industrial estate, on another the road, on a third is a disused gravel pit and above a constant stream of planes from Heathrow Airport.

It's meant to be an island for nature with emphasis on reedbeds - but it's getting very dry these days, possibly due to climate change. 

It was still nice on a sunny day and the Teasels were running wild.

They are a kind of thistle but the seed heads are very hard and survive for months. they are also prickly and it means that this was once a valuable industrial crop used to 'tease' out felt so that it became soft.

One or two latecomers were still flowering, most were ready for winter.

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

Sunshine and fish at The Lammas.

Sunday was another glorious day - warm and sunny. We spent a couple of hours at The Lammas at Staines and fed the ducks, at least we did when the swans let us.

The cygnets are getting big now, although it will be next year before they get their white suit.

As the bread floated downstream we saw that the fish were getting interested and I tried to get a picture as they came up to eat.

Nearly;

This time I got them;

Not easy because they didn't hang around.

We watched a group of young people with learning difficulties being shown how to paddle canoes and I was very happy I wasn't on a boat when we saw someone fall in the river as they were trying to tie up at the riverbank. That is no kind of fun.

There were lots of kids who were having fun; the crazy golf was open and the little train was doing good business.

Best of all, I managed to sit a while on one of the benches, just letting the sun flood over all over me. 

There haven't been many chances to do that this year.

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

Bizzarro world.

On Sunday we went for a walk, we both needed to get out. I was desperate to go somewhere I'd never been before but couldn't think of anywhere and I wasn't up to driving a long way.

In the end we walked along from Staines bridge but on the opposite bank of the river.

It was really weird - in all the years I've been here I'd never seen the places I knew from the other bank.

They looked completely different, smaller. And now I could see all the buildings close up that I'd only seen from across the water.

It was strange going through the bridges where we went fire spinning....in the day time.

It didn't help that everything was back to front.

Just before Bell Weir we passed the boatyard near Runnymede and I couldn't help taking a picture of a narrow boat, out of the water.

Then we walked passed an expensive hotel (I'm not giving them an advertisement here) and lots of people lazing away a Sunday afternoon.

They had deckchairs;

And you could hire a 'Tub Tug', a hot tub that was a boat;

I didn't fancy that one little bit - and it's a £120 an hour, so that isn't happening.

We made it all the way to the recreation ground at Runnymede - passing lots of buildings I see from the road but never saw nearby.

But by now I was tired and hurting. We had a sit by the river, enjoying the sun but where I'd parked we were limited to 2 hours and we had to get back.

I was hurting big time when we were back at the car but we walked about 3.7 miles which wasn't too bad.

Mind you, today I'm really paying for it.

Ouch!

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production.
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

The Lammas.

It was a beautiful day - unusually sunny for this miserable summer. We couldn't actually think of anywhere to go - I always want to do something exciting which I'm no longer up to so in the end we went to The Lammas at Staines and watched the river flowing by.

We watched dads fishing with their sons, watched boats idling by, basked in the sun and fed the ducks;

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

The M25 Fire Spinners.

Friday night we had an appointment under one of the M25 motorway bridges;

We went fire spinning with The M25 Fire Spinners who you can find on facebook;

I must admit I spent quite a lot of the night wrestling with my camera but I did enjoy it;

There were some very skilful fire spinners;

There were fire jugglers and here a fire eater;

Once again, a magical night;

And a chance to meet some wonderful people;

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

The London Stone, Staines.

Once upon a time there was a very fine music venue in Staines; 'The Hobgoblin'.

Sadly, the pub closed it's doors for the last time at the start of 2015; here's a picture from the last night;

That was a very special night.

Since then it's been refurbished and transformed into 'The London Stone', which sells 'craft beers' and has arty chairs.

Anyway, yesterday I walked past 'The London Stone' and saw this notice outside;

Now Robyn often wears a tracksuit and I don't go out without a hat, these days.

So that's both of us excluded for a start.

Now, to make it clear, a licensee can exclude anyone they don't want, just like we don't have to let anyone into our house, if we don't like them.

And 'The London Stone' has security on the door.

But what this sign is saying is "We don't want your sort in here" - and that isn't the same thing at all.

The notice is for benefit of all the 'up themselves' people who don't want to mix with anyone who isn't up themselves in exactly same way they are.

It's intention is to exclude a whole group of people who have just as much right to go to a pub, if they are prepared to pay the outrageous prices charged.

It's the difference between asking someone to leave because they are causing trouble and stereotyping whole groups of people because you are prejudiced against them.

Funnily enough, Robyn and me are probably just the kind of people they would like to attract and after all I'm quite partial to an exotic beer now and then.

But we won't be drinking it down at 'The London Stone'.

And I suggest no one else should while they have this attitude to the people of Staines.

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

UKID and Tree House Fire at The Wheatsheaf and Pigeon, Staines.

Friday was a special night for us although I was out for the count for a couple of days afterwards.

For one night, 'The Hobgoblin' lived again when 'The Wheatsheaf and Pigeon' was taken over for a night of live music in Staines.

Apart from a huge crowd, there was a very special line up too;

This is UKID from Glastonbury - one of my favourite Hob regulars. Mixing D.J culture, rapping and heavy metal they are always a blast although now they've added a female vocalist they have mellowed a little. for me

I mainly like their full-on, high energy, political stuff but they were still good and Robyn likes them too. 

There was a definite culture clash - one of the bar staff had her face frozen in a look of jaw-dropping disbelief for most of the evening while the next door neighbours were probably unimpressed as well.

There were some mighty fine bass notes vibrating out from the speakers all night.

Mind you when they total up the nights takings at the bar it may change attitudes.

We are running out of venues very quickly and some of us in the audience begin to suspect the hand of the Police and the local authorities are behind this. It seems to be country wide too.

The second act were 'Tree House Fire' playing their usual blend of white reggae but with wider vocals and a more prominent keyboards this time;

Always fun, they were a great end to a fabulous evening.

There's a huge amount of talent locally and a mobile audience trying to find somewhere to go for a Friday night - it seems strange that every venue that plays live music is closing down.....to be replaced by a chain restaurant.

But there are some interesting initiatives coming up - I'll keep you posted.

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters@blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

65000 reasons to keep Blogging.

Once again, thank you for taking the Blog to 65000, which somehow seems quite a significant number......probably because things have been fairly tough recently.

I suppose I ought to update you on 'That Hospital'.

For the last 18 months, Ashford and St.Peter's have been building their campaign to take over the Royal County Hospital at Guildford.

It's a take over no one wanted - the only people who were asked (consultants at Royal County) overwhelmingly said in a poll that patients would suffer.

The hospitals are miles apart so any services closed at one site means a nightmare (and expensive) journey to another.

Ashford and St. Peter's conned their workers it would help them and they never actually bothered to ask their patients what they wanted.

The reality is that Royal County has a very good reputation and a specialism in cancer treatment, neither of which Ashford and St. Peter's have. They saw cancer as a big growth area and by taking over Guildford they thought they could hive off part of that to Ashford to try and steal some cancer patients from other hospitals.

Meanwhile they could close some other services at Guildford and move them to St. Peter's to save money.

As I said, no one wanted this.

Meanwhile a whole lot of money has been spent on getting the P.R. to bulldoze this through.

There have been endless studies and negotiations, there have been experts reports and consultants fees, there was a referral to the competition authorities which resulted in a whole years delay.

And they even organised a series of public meetings - not to consult us but to tell their patients why it was all such a good idea in the first place.

And then it all fell to pieces in their hands........

A couple of months ago Ashford and St. Peter's announced that they had gone into deficit; £195,000.

Then Royal County announced that it had done the same.......to the tune of £7-5 million.

Ouch!

To be fair, while a deficit can say that a 'Trust' is being badly managed, it doesn't automatically mean that.

So, a trust could be in surplus every year because it isn't doing enough for it's patients.

A trust could be in deficit because it's refusing to reduce treatment standards and has opted to spend money from it's reserves until it can improve it's income.

Both parties took a fortnight to reconsider and then announced how determined they were to continue.

Then suddenly last week it was all off.

We can all breath a sigh of relief but what a waste of time and money it's been.

These are publicly funded hospitals not some business out to make an empire and a profit.

Forget the money; what about the endless meetings, the precious 'Management Time' that should have been used to improve things for the patients and instead has been wasted?

Oh, by the way, we are still waiting for the trial at Guildford Crown Court of the former 'Infomatics Director' at Royal County Hospital who has been accused of allegedly accepting corrupt payments.

I'm expecting some rather interesting information to come to light there but I'll wait for the protection of legal proceedings before I report on it.

At the moment the former 'Infomatics Director' has pleaded not guilty to accepting corrupt payments while the person accused of paying him has pleaded guilty to making allegedly corrupt payments to him.

Hmmmmmh!

So I suppose I'd better go on Blogging!

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

No Lip at The Five Bells, Stanwell.

That was a good night and it very nearly didn't happen. I'd been looking forward to seeing No Lip, the only Punk band worth seeing, play Baroosh in Staines for a very long time.

Then the venue closed down.

Luckily, the band found a replacement venue at the Five Bells in Stanwell; 

Punk rock at it's best;

These days I'm not so good at standing up for a whole evening but it was worth it even if I'm paying for it now;



The Clash, The Ruts, The Ramones, The Sex Pistols played fast and furious as it was meant to be played, in a small venue up close and personal.

There was Pogoing (not by me), beer went flying, speakers went flying! Someone tried to steal my hat, twice.

It was a good, good night.

1977 all over again, even if my joints are a bit creaky these days;

Staines finest punk band are getting a reputation a lot further away these days, you can catch them at festivals as well as all the major local venues - they are even on Facebook too.

Check them out.

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

Tree House Fire at Baroosh!

It's been a rough week and by Saturday night we were going stir crazy.

I still haven't really got over the closure of The Hobgoblin; it was the ideal music venue and the nearest thing I had to a 'local'.

For one night only, the ghost of 'The Hob' came back to Staines; Tree House Fire played Baroosh!;

It was strange, to say the least.

Baroosh! is everything I'm not; trendy, fashionable and expensive. But for one night only the bar was full of regulars from The Hob, including me.

We saw Jenson Nightingale and Paul Mundy helped out on the sound which really needed a great sound engineer like him.

There were Hob musicians and a number of the usual suspects.....me and Robyn!

Tree House Fire play reggae;

It's not the kind of reggae I grew up with - very 2015.

It's fusion;

Also they usually play differently every time I see them; last night there was a heavy Dub sound;

It was a good night and in a year of 'goodbyes' it was nice to have a night of good memories.

There are big efforts to breath life into the music scene in Staines, there is a Facebook page; Alternative Music in Staines. It's going to be a struggle - a number of bands I liked have given up and the opportunities to see bands are declining quickly.

I have to admit that a long night took its toll on me.

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)

Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogsdpot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

Uxbridge's Millstreams and the Canal.

By now I was getting bored and I drove around to the other side of Uxbridge, parked up and had a walk through the water courses.

Uxbridge is a big town full of office blocks and shops but underneath (and I mean underneath) there's a network of streams, rivers and canals.

This is the heart of 'The Colne Valley' which ends up at Colnebrook, the River Colne by us and then at Staines Moor before it flows into the Thames.

Except it isn't one river, its a collection of streams that split and combine all over the place.

At Uxbridge there were once a series of Mills, most of which have been converted to offices or restaurants. Underneath, the streams still flow even if some go through pipes every so often.

I've even tried to follow them on a map or Google Earth and failed.

Some end up flowing into The Grand Union Canal which is where I ended up walking along the towpath.

Many of the narrowboats still have traditional designs like this fine lettering;

The canals were built in the 18th century, had a short spell before the railways came along and took most of their trade.

In the 1920's, the Grand Union was created by merging several canal companies into one in an attempt to get big enough to compete and modernise.

The main branch is from London to Birmingham but this is the Oxford branch which runs through Slough and Uxbridge on its way to Town.

I stood a while on the bridge by the lock, watching the water squeezing through the lockgates;

The guy in the blue boat wasn't too sure of himself. As he left the lock he collided with the boat on his right then bounced back hitting the wall of the lock before colliding with the lock gate as he emerged.

Meanwhile he forgot about his partner who had been struggling the lock gates for him so he had to reverse into the bank which involved another collision so that he could get her back on board. She wasn't too happy about it.

Of course, I wouldn't be any better myself but it was very funny.

I like the idea of these lost streams, just as I like following the course of London's many lost rivers; The Fleet, The Tyburn, The River Moselle, The River Westbourne (Westbourne Grove!), Stanford Brook, meanwhile in South London which I don't know so well there is The River Effra (Effra Road).

Most ended up in underground drains, some are in pipes which you sometimes see when you are travelling on the Tube, under a bridge or you hear them bubbling under metal grates in the road.

Sometimes, you just see the damp in the walls of a building!

In medieval times they were important water courses, used for drinking water, sewerage or a way to catch a boat.
Life went on around them or was about getting over them without getting wet.

Now they usually end up as a drain coming out of a wall in the Thames Embankment.

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)

Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

The Skasouls at Mr Bumble.

If you followed my blog for any length of time you'll have seen The Skasouls before - probably the biggest thing to come out of Staines since Hard-Fi;

On Friday we headed down to Mr Bumble on the edge of Camberley - always a good night at Mr Bumble - we made a new friend;

This is Allan and Nick Tidbury on brass; the band plays Two-Tone/Ska to a very high standard. Every night with The Skasouls is a lot of fun.

As you can see, I wasn't the only person who felt that way;

I'm missing Carl Gaywood, their longtime drummer, he brought different influences to them from old time Trojan Ska and Reggae.

These days there's more fun, more rock and I miss the old sound.

But we still ended up leaving after midnight, always fun The Skasouls, check them out for yourself!

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)

Home:  helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

Brass bands and Mayflies at The Lammas.

After a wonderful trip to the seaside on Saturday, Sunday was back to the usual grind.

We have a 'cancer garden' - the grass is waste high because I've been too ill to cut it.

Sunday morning I got out the mower - it burnt out. I only bought it halfway through last summer, We hardly used it - all I can say is don't buy Flymo it's a rubbish make. the small print told me I shouldn't have been using it on 'long grass'.

I believe the young folk would say WTF. Needless to say I won't be buying Flymo again.

Everything else seemd to be going wrong too and it was such a beautiful day which just made it worse.

In the end we went to Staines for a walk because we didn't want to waste the day.

As we got out of the car we heard music and just followed the noise.

Here's Robyn's picture of the bandstand at The Lammas;

We found a shady bench and just sat listening to The Cobham brass band.

It was delightful.

Around us children were playing, people played crazy golf and tennis and then a Mayfly landed on my leg;

Do you remember early May when I could hardly walk and we spent a Sunday afternoon by the river at The Lammas watching the Mayflies dancing?

They've grown since then.

Then a couple of weeks ago we were in Amersham and I posted a picture of fishermen's flies in a shop - there were Mayflies?

Here they are again. Take a look at the ones on the right hand side. I think the fly maker has got a few of them just right; 

 

 

It was a wonderful afternoon in the sun.

 

Oh and after yesterday I decided to go out and not use a walking frame. So, I walked with just a walking stick.

 

Isn't that great?

 

Neil Harris

 

Home:  helpmesortoutatpeters.blogspot.com

Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

 

 



The Lammas at Staines in springtime.

Sunday and we were going mad - over the last few days there were a couple of chances to go out and I wasn't up to it.

So, on a sunny Sunday afternoon, we went down to the River Thames at Staines.

It's May, and the Wisteria was flowering everywhere, leaving a heavy, heady scent.

This is a narrowboat, built small to fit in a canal. He's doing his rounds, selling coal and diesel fuel to the boats. There's a fuel pump in the middle.

It's a floating garage;

When we didn't have anywhere to go to last summer, we spent evenings at The Lammas by the river, it means a lot to us.

We fed the birds; ducks swans and geese.

It was beautiful; warm and sunny. We sat on our bench by the lazy river.

The May flies were out and about, dancing over the water.

Once in a while a fish would come up to catch a fly.

People came to feed the birds and eat ice cream.

I was in a fair bit of pain but it was a nice day.

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)

Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com

Contact me:  neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com