Slough's enchanted forest.

We were in Slough last night and so we stopped off near the station to take some pictures of the graffiti.

I have to apologise for the quality of the photos - we had to go at night because it's really hard to park nearby in the day time - but I think you can get an idea what it was like.

The developers of 'The Porter Building, Landid Property and Brockton capital, hired 'Global Street Art' to put some decoration on the hoardings. The brief was to create an 'Enchanted Forest' in Slough.

I think they did quite well, really;

The artists who did the work are; Astek, Zadok, Busk, Oliver, Switch, Hicks, Spore, SkyHigh and Trafik.

I'm biased, I really like the work of 'SkyHigh';

You can find them on the net as 'weareskyhigh'.

I liked this tag too;

I think I prefer the tags to the forest, but that's just me. It's pretty good;

There was a white rabbit which didn't do so well when I took a picture of it and this fairy;

I liked this a lot;

You can catch the pictures on the hoardings opposite Slough Railway Station and they'll be there as long as the building work takes or until someone else writes over it.

You know (and you'll hate me for saying this) I think I prefer it when street art is actually illegal - there's more edge, more risk.

But that's just me!

Of course, it's great when anyone actually supports this stuff.

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

Slough MotoCross.

I've been ill this weekend and irritable with it although on Saturday afternoon we did go out for an hour or so;

We went to see Slough MotoCross by the motorway, the entrance is just opposite 'The Myrke'. 

It's a motocross track carved out of an old rubbish dump - you join the club and pay as you go.

It was quiet when we were there - they told us Sundays are the busiest time but everyone is very friendly and there is a properly banked track.

Racing is divided up by age or ability.

And we saw some quite young riders having the time of their lives.

And some bigger ones too.

The track desperately needed some rain to damp down the dust that was blowing around.

But everyone was having a great time.

I wouldn't have minded having a go at that while I was able to.

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.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

Ant-Man.

In the afternoon, I had to go to the post office and after, we went for a walk. As we crossed over the village green, I stopped to have a look at the cricket square and then, rather thoughtfully, suggested to Robyn; "You know, we could go to see 'Ant-man' tonight?"

Robyn started to have convulsions, laughing. I caught it too - so bad I had to stagger over to a tree stump to hold myself up.

We were almost paralysed, and I know a thing or two about that.

How ridiculous.


By the time evening came tumbleweed was blowing through our heads. 

There was nothing on the TV and it was supersaver Tuesday, after all.

We set off for The Empire Cinema, Slough. Perhaps Ant-Man wouldn't be so bad after all? 

We made it, even after I got the urge to park way up at the top of the multi-storey car park and then I forgot my ticket and had to go all the way back.

Terminator Genesys?

It wasn't that great last week - convoluted, unbelievable story and a silly misuse of CGI.

"Hey, the focus groups don't think much of the movie....boost up the CGI!".

Ant-Man was so different. Unlike Jurassic World they took time to build up the characters so you actually gave a $%?@ what happened to them.

There was a good cast - actually really good. Even Michael Douglas (who I can't stand) was used well.

There was a story. No, really.

And it was funny. By which I mean it made us laugh in a witty way.

It was a lot of fun and over far too quickly.

So unless you are a complete Arnie fan or have a real need for dinosaurs, I would head on down to see Ant-Man instead.

Good old Marvel comics.

Can't wait for the 'Fantastic Four'....in a couple of weeks.

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

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

42000 Thanx!

 

 

 

42000 page views and by chance Robyn had made an enormous Tiramasu......so we celebrated!

 

It was rich and alcoholic and huge.

 

What more could you want?

 

 

 

 



It's great to notch up another thousand views but it's also a sad time of year.

 

I hate June ending - my favourite month and when I would try to get some kind of holiday. Nice weather and the school holidays haven't started yet.

 

 

It's also sad that the Airports Authority has chosen Heathrow as its preferred site for a new runway; after all we wouldn't want those poor business men and women to be forced a bit out of their way would we?

 

 

It means a long and tough political battle, which I could do without.

 

I was thinking about Harmondsworth village where we were last weekend.

 

No one actually thinks about the hundreds of thousands of people in Colnbrook and Slough who will be most hurt or the millions of West Londoners whose lives will be made worse.

 

Big struggles to come!

 

It ain't over till its over!

 

Neil Harris

(a don't stop till you drop production)

 

Home:  helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com

 

Contact me:  neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

Black Park.

We wanted to catch a last sight of these but we were really too late; we went to Black Park, Slough. I think we used to call it 'Black Rock park' when I was young and it's just north of Slough.

Actually, even though it's only a couple of miles away from Slough, it's like another age - country lanes, woodland, and a lake all within reach of a bustling, busy, town of a 100,000 people.

This is almost Jurassic; the Scots Pines were dramatic in a weak afternoon sun.

There are trees all around the lake and on a day with no wind there were slight breezes that brought strange smells; of animals, of pine trees, of still waters;

 

We sat and watched a fisherman - every so often fish would surface just away from his float. He'd reel in his bait, cast it over where the fish had been and wait......shortly, the fish would surface just a little way away from the new place.

 

Lots of people walked their dogs, there's a café. 

 

And these;  

 

 

 

I have no idea what it is, I only know it's poisonous!

 

It felt like we'd stolen a day......

 

Neil Harris

(a don't stop till you drop production)

 

Home:  helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com

 

Contact me:  neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

 

 

 







Thank you, Jubilee Ward, Upton Hospital, Slough.

I didn’t know that anything could ever be as hard as that. For that matter, I didn’t think that anything that wasn’t illegal could raise my blood pressure so much.

I’ve been icing my cake, baking the thing yesterday was hard enough but the icing…...

 

The kitchen looks like a bomb has hit it and vaporised everything into fine white powder. And tonight I was meant to be cleaning up ready for the arrival of the massed ranks of carers, social workers and occupational therapists who are due to bring my mum back home on Tuesday.

Who’s stoopid idea was it to bake a cake anyway?

The cake is for the care assistants, nurses, sisters, occupational therapists and physiotherapists at Upton Hospital, Slough who took in my 94 year old Mum five weeks ago after she was very badly treated by Wexham Park Hospital. Then they started the long process of trying to put her back together again.

Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to do the washing, cook a Bolognese, and a whole load of other things at the same time.

 

I finished the lettering at 1130 pm.

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)

The best Christmas.

Christmas day brought me a very special and exclusive invitation (to be honest I’d sort of invited myself) to the Christmas day party run by the nurses and care workers on the Jubilee Ward at Upton Hospital, Slough.

That’s why I had these with me;

As well as crackers and party poppers I had a few other goodies besides; presents for my Mum and everybody else on the female ward as well as few patients from the mens ward invited over for the day.

It’s a pity there was a fault with the air conditioning, it seemed to affect my eyes. I must have a word with the maintenance department after Christmas.

It was a real pleasure to watch the nurses and care workers being so kind and careful with the elderly people in their care and to watch them opening their presents, eating chocolates, having a glass of xxxx, doing a quiz, singing songs and just being human. That darned air conditioning – every so often just when everything was going well, something would get in my eye.

Anastasia, who I know well, normally doesn’t speak very much and makes constant attempts to get away. Because she is at risk of falling, often someone has to be with her all the time to make she is alright. Today she was talking and smiling and had no thoughts of making a run for it.

I made a new friend – Thomas who didn’t want to be with the others and was sat on his own with a religious programme on the TV in the day room.

I had a chat but couldn’t get a lot out of him; he’d been in hospital over 4 months and was having problems with internal bleeding. He told me he was ‘lost in time’.

We started to flick through the TV channels and both of us settled on a nostalgia show – pop videos from 1977. I started to dance and sing to Talking Heads ‘Psycho-killer’, which I thought was a very appropriate tune for Christmas Day;

Psycho-killer

Que’s que c’est

Fa fa fa far better, fa fa far far better.

Run run run run run run away.

He liked that and then we watched Ian Dury and the Blockheads; ‘Sex and Drugs and Rock ‘n Roll’ and I showed him the scar I got when I broke my arm dancing to their ‘Sweet Gene Vincent’. He liked that a lot.

It turns out that while I’m an old MOD, Thomas is an old Rocker. We should be sworn enemies but we decided to have a truce.

Thomas and I had a good chat about music and bands and old days. We agreed I’d pop in and see him again when I’m passing.

Then on another programme they played Peter Sarsted singing ‘Where do you go to my lovely’, a wonderful song which was also a favourite of someone I once knew, and while I was remembering her I had another problem with some dust getting into my eye. I really must speak to someone about that.

It was a real privilege to be there. It was the best Christmas.

I cannot understand how people can be cruel and nasty to the elderly or the vulnerable. How can they be so foolish, that they will never know the sheer joy of spending a morning like this.

All my thanks and good wishes to every one at Jubilee ward who made it such a special morning.

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)