New boots for the winter

Yesterday, I bought some boots for the winter. It hadn't been my intention. Frankly, I hadn't thought I could afford any this year.

By 'boots' I'd had in mind proper women's leather boots, covering all the leg below the knee. And not just any boots - they needed to be quality boots, which might mean spending anything up to £300. That kind of figure really was out of the question! So with a sigh I'd resigned myself to making do without.

But look what has happened.

I'd gone into Brighton in Fiona - who, by dint of driving her carefully, was exhibiting only small signs of her rapidly-growing auto gearbox problems. They were still there however. In fact I'd had a couple of surprise moments in the previous few days, when the auto gearbox wouldn't deliver power and speed when asked to. I'd had a dire 'low-performance' message on the dashboard display. When you get that, you have to drive along slowly until the gearbox recovers a bit. Thank goodness it happened while still in the village, and not going up some hill, or on the fast A23 road.

Such things were happening unpredictably. I'd already decided some days back that a crisis was brewing. So long journeys were absolutely out, and only local runs were prudent, even when the engine and gearbox had thoroughly warmed up and were working at best efficiency.

I had a worrying five minutes getting up a hill yesterday - it was Clayton Hill, the easiest of the nearby South Downs hills, but still a steep gradient on its north side. I had hoped to take it at a steady 40 mph, but I found myself stuck in a queue strung out behind a clapped-out French van, and forced to crawl uphill, with hunting gears and the occasional judder reminding me that all was definitely not well. It wasn't pleasant. But once over the hill, Fiona picked up speed again, and could manage a smooth (but hummy) 60 mph on the dual carriageway A23. In general, she felt happier in the higher gears, choppier in the lower gears. Really I shouldn't have been out in her at all. I could have taken the train. But I felt reasonably confident about a quick daytime visit to Brighton.

I was going in to have a fringe trim at Trevor Sorbie in The Lanes. Then I promised myself one of two things. A visit to the Royal Pavilion, not seen for over fifteen years, or, failing that, a look at the latest stuff in Fat Face. I found out on TripAdvisor that you couldn't take photographs inside the Royal Pavilion. What? Well that made it not worth visiting, so far as I was concerned. No shots, no interest. So Fat Face it was.

I selected three skirts to try on, then saw their winter boots. Two in particular caught my eye, in tan and in black, because they obviously had plenty of room for my wide feet, and especially my toes. The usual problem with women's boots is narrowness and lack of toe space, because Fashion insists on pointed elegance, and ignores the modern trend for women's feet to be larger and wider. But these Fat Face boots looked sensible and very comfortable. And they had them in my size (size 8)!

I took skirts and boots into a changing room. The skirts were fine. What about the boots?

They were half-length, not quite what I had in mind. But the leather was supple, the side-zips smooth, and they were well-finished in every way. I could get them on and off with no problem. Although the tan boots were very attractive, it was clear that the equally handsome black boots would be the more versatile choice. They'd go much better with my black winter coats - and with the red handbag!

The headless mannequin nodded in agreement. The price of the boots? £95. I could cope with that. The skirts? Two of them could wait for the sales. One was another example of the blue denim skirt, with buttons up the front, that I'd first bought at Fat Face in September. It cost £40, but having two such skirts would do no harm at all. And denim skirts went rather well with boots like these.

Back home - an easier northward journey for Fiona this time - I contemplated my purchases.

These half-length boots looked pretty good with my black tights and black skirt. My feet enjoyed the toe-room inside them. In the next shot, you can see the side zip. The black leather was quite shiny, but not so glossy as you get with a pair of Doc Martens, although on the whole my new boots did remind me strongly of classic black Doc Martens lace-up boots - but sans laces, and sans the distinctive very thick rubber sole.

No, they weren't exactly the same as the 'real thing' - but they would still do the job if it were necessary to pin an errant man down on the floor, dominatrix-style, as my photo clearly shows! Or as a kind of bovver boot, as once worn by skinheads, then by punks, and still likely to grace the feet of some of Brighton's lesbian ladies. Not that these boots signal my going in any new direction! I'm not a punk, nor a lesbian.

At any rate, I now had three types of winter boot, for different occasions, and different types of outfit:

Two of these pairs were at least four years old. It was high time I bought something new.

The tan Dubarry boots in the background were good for small country towns, and for short country or beach walks, but were too heavy and cumbersome for trendy shopping in Brighton. The short black pair in front were excellent with tights, but too short to wear with leggings, as the bottom of each leg tended to pop out. My new boots would be fine with both kinds of legwear.

It was a shame that purchasing a seriously-stylish pair of winter boots would have to wait for another year, but I could at least now step out properly-shod for any type of weather!

God bless George Osborne!

No, I don't mean 'bless him unreservedly' - for hasn't his decision some years back to upgrade Civil Service Pensions in line with the Consumer Prices Index rather than the more generous Retail Prices Index led to a general lessening of annual government pension increases each year? That's not looking after your staff. And in fact this year, because the CPI went 'minus' in the year to September 2015 - the period my April 2016 inflationary increase would have been based on - I won't get any Civil Service Pension increase at all! And it's four-fifths of my income! How will I manage? Booooo.

And he keeps on threatening to do unwelcome things to the incomes of other people, so I hear. Even if, when push comes to shove, he changes his mind at the last moment, with a debonair insouciance that is wonderful to behold. But by then the damage is done. How many folk around the country had heart attacks worrying about what it all might mean to them? Booooo.

Gosh, we could all have ended up on the game. I mean, you have to get cash from somewhere. We'd all have caught the very death of colds, standing around at street corners in tight bras, mini-skirts and fishnets, trying to entice punters. Colds or worse. Then what would the NHS have done? Booooo.

Still, Mr Osborne - what a clever young man, bright as a button you know - has kept faith with the State Pensioners of this country, and has retained the 'Triple Lock' under which we (that is myself, plus all the rest) will now get a whopping 2.9% pension increase next April. That's important money. Hurrah! 

No wonder Senior Citizens are reckoned to look like this:

And today I got a letter saying that I'd been awarded the Winter Fuel Payment. For the first time. Hurrah!

As a single householder, I get £200. Mmm, that's neat. And it'll be paid sometime before Christmas. Hurrah!

There's more. In yesterday's Autumn Spending Review that sweet and kind Mr Osborne - such a reasonable man really - did nothing to take that £200 away from me by some sneak sleight of hand. So if he turns up at my front door, I shall now bob and curtsey and cry, 'God bless, you, young sir!' and generally fawn on him, and keep bobbing and curtseying, until his entourage moves off to another Sussex village.

Hurrah for George! Three cheers! Long may he reign! (Tsk. I'd forgotten. He isn't actually in 10 Downing Street...yet...)

Hmm, two hundred nicker to play with. Shall I turn up the central heating to roasting levels now? No, not yet. Not yet! Let my visitors shiver a bit more, get a little bluer...they'll appreciate the difference all the more keenly.

Gower

I didn't only wish to see Treorchy in the Valleys. Gower beckoned.

Gower is that thumb of land that sticks out westward, into the sunset, beyond Swansea. It has a mysterious interior, full of heaths and pools and ancient stones. Its coast must be the finest in all Wales. I've been visiting it on and off since the 1980s, but I never could spend more than a few hours there - except for one year, 1996, when M--- and I booked a holiday chalet for a week at Oxwich, in glorious sunny weather. We also went caravanning in 2009, and stayed a few days at a farm at Scurlage, but it was not a happy holiday.

Nevertheless, that fretful, dysfunctional 2009 visit hadn't spoilt Gower for me.

It was now late in 2015. I resolved to have lunch in Swansea, and then, if it were still sunny, drive onwards into Gower. It would have to be another flying visit, because the days were becoming short.

My first stop was Oxwich. Oxwich gives its name to one of the largest sandy bays on Gower. It isn't by any means the very best, but most people would say it's a lovely place. I went there for the first time in 1993, with my parents - we were enjoying a late-season hotel holiday. At that time, Mum and Dad liked me to go with them for two or three days in early November, Dad paying for everything. In 1991, 1992 and 1993 these were the only holidays I had. Mum and Dad were then in their early seventies, and still in good health. Here they are on the wet beach at Oxwich on 5 November 1993:

And here am I on the same beach on 1 November 2015:

I do wonder what they would say to me now. I thought of them as I parked Fiona. I wished that I might see them together, waiting on the beach for my arrival, out on the same wet sand, and that I could walk over to them. There would be a mutual appraisal. What would they say? What would I say? Was there any chance that it would be a happy meeting?

We were never a family to embrace and kiss. Nowadays I am very used to hugs and kisses - lots of them; but with other people. My parents and I did not communicate with any kind of emotional gestures. Certainly not in 1993. Nor did emotional expression come easily in 1995, when my brother was killed. Nothing was unlocked. This hiding of strong affection persisted even to 2009, when both my parents died one after the other. We always avoided physical contact, and relied solely on words - and not embraces, nor tender physical gestures.

So I would have had to introduce myself with words alone, and hope for the best. And in reply, would I have had the smile of welcome, or the frown of rejection? Or even worse, the polite puzzlement of total non-recognition?

They were not there on the beach. Not even in spirit. I had the place to myself.

The sand was very wet. I wasn't wearing quite the right kind of shoes for it, so I walked towards the headland and onto drier sand, and eventually to the path that led to a secluded and ancient church in the wood that overlooked the bay.

It was dedicated to St Illtyd, a 6th century saint. The church wasn't open. The churchyard was damp and cold. It was difficult to imagine how it might ever be dry, even on a summer's day.

M--- and I had walked past in 1996, at the start of a long tramp along the coast to Port Eynon and back. M--- was very keen on walking, and often insisted on venturing into lonely areas where I didn't care to go, not then, and certainly not now. The coast between Oxwich and Port Eynon was not especially remote or desolate, but there was no possible escape from an attacker. Here are two pictures of how it was:

It was just sufficiently lonely and out of the way to make you wary (and possibly fearful) of anyone coming into view, if you were inclined to be nervous. We passed one or two young girls out on their own, and thought they were taking a big risk.

M--- was very eager to explore such places, often unreasonably so I thought, and would head off alone if I wouldn't come with her. She had plenty of self-confidence, something I was rather short of back in 1996.

One sunny afternoon, we were driving back from a visit to Threecliff Bay on the south coast of Gower. It had been strenuous, and I was ready for an afternoon nap. She wasn't. She wanted to follow a path down through the Nicholaston Woods, over a river bridge, and then back along the beach to the chalet at Oxwich. It was hot and she was wearing only a short skirt, a bikini top, a hat, and sandals. She insisted that she would be all right walking on her own in such a skimpy get-up. I disagreed. I thought she was underestimating the problems she might encounter. But my objections were brushed aside. M--- was wilful, and generally did as she pleased, and was impatient of any objection-raising.

I dropped her off, and drove back to the chalet, trying not to feel concerned.

I was tired, quickly fell asleep, and was out for more than an hour. But she wasn't there when I awoke. Yet she ought to have returned well within an hour. Vaguely concerned, I locked up the chalet and went off to look for her, expecting to meet her somewhere on the beach. But she was nowhere in sight. Now more than a little worried for her - she might have slipped and hurt an ankle, who knows what - I walked far out on the beach in the direction of the river bridge. She seemed to have vanished. I walked back, thinking that I might have to raise the alarm.

Well, we did finally meet up, close to the chalet. She had returned to it after I'd locked it up and gone off searching for her. And not having a bag with her, and therefore no key, she was stuck outside and had got rather angry with me for - as she first thought - being fast asleep, and deaf to her cries to be let in. It finally dawned on her that I wasn't inside the chalet at all. Eventually, she headed back to the beach where we met up. I got a ticking-off before I could properly explain.

Mind you, she'd had a scary time. Very soon after I'd dropped her off, she started to regret walking through the woods. They were creepy. But worse was to come. As she began to descend into the dunes, she realised that she was surrounded by men - mostly nude men. One or two sun-worshippers (of both sexes) might be expected in any stretch of dunes, but there were a dozen or more of these nude men, enough to make her feel threatened. So she backtracked, and tried to find another way down to the beach. This of course delayed her getting back to the chalet. It was just pure bad luck that we hadn't met when I went out to find her. By the time we did find each other again, her half-fright had turned into seething exasperation.

It was just one of those things. It didn't ruin the holiday. But I've never forgotten this incident, and M--- herself never learned anything lasting from it. Again and again she stepped out ahead on her own in later walks, exposing herself to possible danger, and leaving me lagging out of sight behind, because I couldn't keep up with her. I sometimes felt quite abandoned. But she was restless and couldn't be held to a slower pace. I often pondered on this and other differences between us, and wondered whether one day they would undo our friendship. I'll never know now.

Once back in Fiona, I zig-zagged north across Gower towards the M4 motorway. The sun was setting as I came to that big, haunted stretch of water called Broad Pool. Despite the passing cars, it seemed serene and magical.

A cold sea mist was following me. Wisps of it were rapidly creeping over the ridge and down towards where I'd left Fiona. Time to go.

I didn't make it much past Cardiff before I ran into thick fog, bad enough to provoke a weather warning on the radio. The traffic had to slow to a crawl. It was quite scary. I speculated on what I would do, if any gearbox problems arose while creeping along. I was fortunate. Nothing happened.

Treorchy

I referred to my early-November visit to Treorchy in my post Rugby club men. Now I can show some pictures.

Treorchy used to be a Rhondda mining town, but it had more than just mining, and did not die when the mines closed. I went there three weeks ago - for the first time since 1960, when I was only aged seven or eight. I won't pretend that I was able to recall that visit in any detail. It left only a very general impression. 'Dingy and grimy' would sum it up. Coal dust everywhere. I was prepared to find it very much cleaner in 2015, and it was.

This is what Treorchy looked like in real-life colour as I drove in.

Drab maybe, but not dirty. I parked behind the library/job centre.

The imposing building in the background was partly a theatre, partly a big working men's club. The photo gives the impression of space, but, like all Valley communities, Treorchy was hemmed in by high hills. You had only to raise your eyes a little, and you noticed the hills. They plunged the place into shadow early in the afternoon, making it dark and damp and chilly. I wouldn't care to live here. Old men in scarves, some of them former miners perhaps, were here and there, walking their dogs in the growing cold.

I wanted to capture the spirit of the place in a series of photographs, and it seemed best to use black-and-white. And high-contrast black-and-white at that. The full set is on my Flickr site, but here are some of the most evocative.

There was a river. It tumbled over rocks. When this part of the Valley was unspoiled countryside (well before 1850) it must have been a very pretty river.

There was a railway. That's how I came here in 1960, up from Barry. Single-track now, with Treorchy station rebuilt, possibly the most modern and stylish thing in town.

There were still signs of the railway as it used to be. This old iron footbridge, for instance.

There were chapels. mostly used for other purposes now. Superdrug had taken this one over.

But this chapel was still going strong, even though it appeared somewhat dilapidated.

There were pubs, though some had seen better days. This one, the Cardiff Arms, was shut and boarded up.

But this pub, the Lion Inn, was alive and kicking, though no place for a single woman to venture into.

And there were clubs. Small ones like this. A private pub devoted to rugby, if you like.

And big ones like this.

No doubt the famous Treorchy Male Voice Choir have often performed here. They have their own website, with a page devoted to the history of Treorchy itself, which makes sense, the choir being so identified with the town and its former industries. See http://treorchymalechoir.com/.

But what I remembered most were the streets full of little terraced houses, two up, two down. They were much sprucer than they were in 1960, and some had been knocked through to create a trendy open-plan ground floor, and with it the illusion of spaciousness. But essentially they were just the same as I recalled.

I don't think the black-and-white shots over-emphasise the sombre plainness of this kind of housing. Here's a colour shot, with the sun just gone down. It's still pretty grim and gloomy. Treorchy seemed to be short on street lighting.

There weren't many people about in these streets. And not all that many on the main road through the town.

Well, it was late in the afternoon on a chilly day, with an evening mist moving in. Sensible people were indoors.

I stayed till it was dark, then drove off. It was thick fog most of the way back to Newport.