Some thoughts about parks, garden sheds and reading!

In the park in Uppermill at weekends and on bank holidays there is a man blowing bubbles. I use the term "blowing bubbles" very loosely. He uses a string attached to two sticks, dangles the string in a bucket of bubble water and occasionally produces huge bubbles. Often he produces no bubbles at all. Just once in a while he successfully manoeuvres the bubble making equipment to put a bubble round a bubble round a bubble, a quite impressive feat usually ruined by some child coming along and popping them all. In pursuit of his chosen profession he wears a brightly coloured coat and a felt jester's hat, complete with bells. People with small children stop and tolerantly watch his performance, encouraging the children to,put coins in his collecting box.

He has been doing this for years and I have always found his antics rather disturbing. Our daughter is much more accepting of him now than she was a teenager. Back then she referred to him as "that creepy bloke who blows bubbles in the park". Now, presumably informed by her experience in teacher training, she tells me that he is probably somewhere on the special needs spectrum. She almost admires his willingness to play the fool, especially as he probably comes in for some abuse from local teenager, although from what I have seen most of them limit their activity to popping his bubbles, at least while there are adults around.

Also in the park is Granny Annie's ice cream van. I used to wonder why it was called Granny Annie's when the ice cream seller was so clearly an ice cream MAN. That was before I realised that the ice cream MAN was in fact a stoutish, rather muscular woman with a masculine haircut and a deep, gruff voice. Her heart, however, seems to be in the right place; she is always kind and friendly to the children and gets very agitated about the speed at which some drivers enter the carpark! Here is a bit of a conversation I overheard at the ice cream van yesterday:

Father to small boy: This is proper ice cream, this is.
Granny Annie: Indeed. I don't sell any of that Mr Softee, Tasty Freeze rubbish.
Father: Frozen sterilised milk, that's all that is.
Granny Annie:They say pregnant women shouldn't have it. That shows it's bad.
Father: .....
Granny Annie: Mrs Thatcher invented that Mr Softee stuff. That's enough to put me off it!

Well, I have heard Mrs Thatcher blamed for many of the ills of the modern world but bad ice cream is a new one. However, I am quite prepared to accept this addition to the list. So out of solidarity I bought a 99! (For the uninformed, a 99 is an ice cream cone with a Cadbury's flake stuck in it, best eaten without coloured sauce or sprinkles!)

I read yesterday about a new trend in getting away from it all. You can rent a log cabin for a weekend, or presumably longer, of relaxation and roughing it in a countryside location. Not quite my idea of a fun holiday these days. I think our camping (or even glamping) days are done.

Former prime minister David Cameron, on the other hand, is reported to have invested something like £25,000 pound in a garden shed, complete with furnishings, including a bed, and painted and decorated tastefully, the decor chosen by his wife. As we know she is fashion trained! In fact it is not just a garden shed but a shepherd's hut. He must have been listening to the Archers; I am pretty sure that Linda Snell has one in her garden and lets it out to B&aB clients. Mr Cameron plans to use his as a retreat to write in but Mrs Cameron would like to use it as a sewing room or some such and one of his offspring would like to have it as a wendy house and another as an alternative bedroom!

This is, of course, a problem with garden sheds. Everyone has a different use for them. When I was a kid we used my father's shed as a kind of gang hut when it rained, perching on his shelves and work surfaces to gossip.

When Phil and I bought our shed, having no garage in which to store overspill stuff from the house, our neighbour assumed it was a wendy house for the children. We put this misconception down to her being such an elderly lady, almost ten years younger than I am now but seemingly ancient to our younger selves!

Yesterday the 'week on books' feature in the Observer had a piece on how people who declare themselves to be readers on dating apps are more successful at finding partners. It went on:

"And being a reader can confer even more advantages. In 2015, the Reading Agency charity analysed 51 papers and reports and discovered that reading resulted in benefits including increased empathy, better relationships with others, reduced symptoms of depression and risks of dementia and improved wellbeing throughout life.
So being an avid reader makes you more popular, more successful, happier, sexier and, all in all, a better human being than someone who isn't. But people who read a lot already knew this".

There you go!