Marriage

As I was driving my daughter to school today there was a short piece on the radio on the governments plans to allow same sex marriage. To debate the issues they invited two men of opposing views Rt Reverend Tim Stevens The Bishop of Leicester, and Ben Summerskill, chief executive of Stonewall. Personally I'm no longer sure where I lie on this issue, but it is interesting to note that my daughter and I agreed that the Bishop came over as much more considered and reasonable as he simply stated his, and the Church's views where Tim Stevens got quite emotional and tried to interrupt and speak over the others. I'm afraid that Tim Stevens did his cause no good at all this morning.

As some of you will know I have been trying to work out my position on this for some time now. I am sympathetic to my Church's view that this is a major change in how society works, the ability of individuals and groups to act within established systems of belief and practise. and could undermine the whole position of the Church of England as the established Church. I also can see no reason why my gay friends should be denied the joy and stability I and many others have found in marriage.

I am quite certain that there is something wrong with how we as a society do marriage, this is evident by the number of marriage and civil partnerships that fail. I have heard it said that divorce is too easy, but not by anybody who has been divorced, I suspect that getting married is too easy, and maybe undertaken for the wrong reasons. It often seems that the wedding is more important than the marriage, all the trappings of a wedding, the dress the photos the reception, the whole thing costing tens of thousands of pounds and putting into the shadows the essential thing of two people saying publicly that they are committed to each other for life. In a religious marriage there is of course the other factor of inviting God to join them together and play a part within that marriage. Again I suspect that many church marriages do not fully embrace that aspect as much as just finding a nice venue for the photos.

I am convinced that civil partnerships were a fudge and a missed opportunity ~ they should either made available to all people living in stable non married partnerships or abandoned all together.

Something that was pointed out to me recently is that since marriage can only legally be between a man and a woman, if one partner transitions gender (not necessarily through surgery, but by legally changing their status) then the marriage will be annulled, with all the implications that can have for children, and grand children, property and pension rights and all sorts of other issues. Now I don't know how many people that actually effects as the only people I know who have transitioned were not married before, or were already divorced. However for a partner who has stood beside their loved one all through the trauma, pain and bureaucracy of transition to then be told that their marriage is null seems heartless.

Wash out

At the weekend I was accused of being a fair weather gardener, well yes I guess I am.   I am of the opinion that much of the commercial gardening I do will do more damage to soil structure if I do it in the wet than any benefit that might come about.   Because of this I have got very behind with some of my customers gardens and very behind with my own.   Given that I am working in some one else's garden when ever the weather allows mine has been very neglected.   On Saturday I agreed with the family not to work, and of course it was the best day for some time.   I actually did do a bit in my own garden!

I cut the grass, trimmed the hedge (rather unevenly) and made a start on controlling the Winter Jasmine.   I have decided to take this out, it is too rampant and tends to swamp the rose growing next to it.   On Sunday I had hoped to carry on, but yes more rain.   Pretty much as soon as I got back from Church it started to rain so no more work in the garden.   As I had planned to carry on where I had been working I left a tub trug out when I just looked at it there must be nearly three inches of rain in the bottom, that is from Saturday evening to mid day Monday.   And we still have a hosepipe ban.

Jubilee Weekend

This weekend means all sorts of things to all sorts of people. To me it means lots of work, and lots of performing.   Yesterday I played with with the All Saints Concert Band at a do in West Wickham, it was quite a big occasion with lots of rides, side shows, stalls and events in the arena.  We were playing in a large marquee with a nice temporary stage.   We played two sets of about 45 minutes each, the first we played to a fairy, but expected sparse audience.   The second set was to a paced house, tat may have been something to do with the rain, which was lashing down outside; and incidentally just behind my back as well.

Ice Cream in the rain, I opted for tea

It was a pretty good performance under the circumstances, but for me it was a bit frustrating as I was playing tenor sax parts on a borrowed euphonium.   Way out of my comfort zone, the parts are pretty boring and rather high for me.   Still at least two of us enjoyed the occasion.

The House that Paul Built

 A couple of weeks back I was installing the concrete base for a new green house. This base is approximately 3.5m but 2.5m but 10 cm at the thinnest but about 30 cm at the thickest (to allow for the slope) the nearest level place I could put the concrete mixer was about 20 - 30 meters away from the site of the green house. this meant that all the liquid concrete had to be carried in buckets 20 meters and up 35 steps ~ by me.    By the end of the day I was totally shattered and quite glad of my visit to the osteopath.    This is the first time I have had to do a job like this and I was hoping that I had done it right, as I also had to build the greenhouse.  

Well I have now more or less completed the greenhouse as well. This is the first time I have built a green house so I didn't know how long it would take, or quite how complicated it would be.

 

Of course it would have helped if the instructions had been printed in English, rather than something that looked like English, had all English words, but didn't make sense in any language I know. It also would have been good if the holes had been the same size and shape as the glass, I had to make a few adjustments.

Overall I am pretty pleased with the results so far, and the customer is very happy. I still have to put in the automatic vent controls ( they have to be placed in a fridge for half an hour before being fitted) and there are a couple of things, like a replacement for the pane of glass that got broken, I am waiting for before I can really be finished.

Now I am feeling very tired, with a lot of aches and pains from lifting, stretching and getting into some pretty odd angles, so I am looking forward to another session with the osteopath tomorrow, I am definitely in need of the the ministrations.

Worthless Musicians?

It is some time since I last posted, butthis is an issue that realy gets m goat so I had to write about it and add my voice to those of many other musicians who are being exploited.

So far I have tried to avoid any mention of the Olympics, since I live in London it is going to have some effect on me.   When the first registration for tickets came up I registered on the basis that since it was going to be here I should go to something.   When it came to applying for tickets for specific events, I cogitated for a while, then asked the family what they wanted to go to, they sat and thought for a while, and between us we couldn’t think of a single event that we would want to go to.   It is not that I’m not interested in sport, I follow Rugby, Cricket and motorsports with various levels of enthusiasm, we just couldn’t think of an Olympic sport that we would want to make the effort to and watch.

However that is not my beef with the Olympics, it’s their attitude to professional musicians.   Like many other musicians I was invited to play for the opening and closing ceremonies, like most of them I was being asked to give up not just the two days of the events but several days for rehearsals, and all of this for nothing.   For some reason there seems to be a view that playing music is not a proper job, and that musicians are happy to give their time free just for the privilege of taking part, or because they enjoy playing so much.   London is a world-wide centre of excellence for top level music, that is only possible because musicians can make a living and not have to fit  it in around work.

To be a professional musician requires years of training, hours of practise, and a collection of expensive instruments.  Because of the dedication of musicians we can enjoy the benefits of their excellence.   London hosts the finest music festival in the world with the Proms, we have three or four of the finest orchestras in the world, two first class opera companies. These top professionals are supported by all the freelance, gigging musicians and teachers playing at local events and concerts, take away this support and the whole will collapse.

I have worked in many fields often being self-employed, I have done mobile car servicing, used car dealer, I have been a landscaper, a cleaner a delivery driver, musician and I am now a self-employed gardener and waste management consultant.   It is only as a musician that I have ever had any trouble getting paid.   It is hard enough to get worthwhile work as a musician these days, a trio will cost around £300 per night, and you can add £75 to that per person as the band gets bigger, that is why you will so rarely hear a top rate big band these days.  

My Brass Band is an amateur organisation, but we have a lot of costs.   In theory the conductor should be paid, music has to be purchased, rent paid for the rehearsal room  instruments bought and maintained, all this adds up, so as well as the members paying a subscription we rely on being paid when we play for people.   To have a brass band at a fete or play in the park will normally cost in the region of £300, this is way below what a professional band would need to be paid, and is not really a true reflection of the work that the band will put in but it is what the “market” allows.  Like many other bands we have been asked to play on the route of the Olympic torch, we have agreed in the hope of some publicity, but once again there is to be no pay.   Security guards will be paid, drivers will get paid, administrators will be paid, why not the musicians?

We need to get away from this idea that musicians do what they do for the love of it and live on that without being paid.

No Tuba

Nobody wants me to play tuba these days, it seems like ages since I last played a tuba in performance; that's not to say that I haven't been playing, I have had my fair share it's just not on tuba.   Of course for the Brass Band I am the stick waver, a position I am still surprised and honoured to hold, and at the Croydn Symphonic Band I am currently on Bass Trombone.   We have had a bit of a change round in the heavy brass section, still looking for a regular Euphonium player we have a "friend" who plays with us when ever he can, on top of that we lost one of our bass players and our bass trombone.   The first trombone is very committed to other things and finds it hard to make every rehearsal, so that leaves our new bass player, just back from Cardiff University, and me.

Having said all that we will be having a full section of three trombones, euphonium and two basses at our concert on Wednesday as well as for the National Concert Band Festival on the 1st of April.   The concert on Wednesday is at the excellent hall at Trinity School, we have played there a couple of times, and the only draw back it has as a venue that I can see is the lack of a bar.   The whole Croydon/Bromley/Sutton area has a real problem in that there is no suitable venue for amateur music outside of school halls.   We have the wonderful Fairfield hall, but this is simply too big, an audience of two or three hundred will just get lost, everything else is a theatre, very good theatres but they all have a presidium arch which causes acoustic chaos for some of us.   What we want are halls like the QEH and the Purcell Room.

Progress - sort of

Last week I put up some photos of the job I am currently engaged on, well despite the bitter weather I have been able to make some progress so here are a few more

New raised bed, with rose

This job was originally in three parts. First clear the garden area at the back of the house - this meant removing three large conifers quite a few ash trees and lots of lilac that was spreading everywhere.   As the undergrowth disappeared it became obvious that one of the pear tress and the cherry tree also had to go.   There was also a paved path of rather nasty old concrete slabs and lots of large bits of broken concrete.   The resulting cleared area was then going to be seeded with a meadow flower mix with stepping stones through to the bird feeders and nesting boxes.   On one side of the garden there is a shared drive to access  garages, this is often used as a public cut through and hiding pace for those engaged in nefarious activities.   To add to her feeling of security I put up a trellis the full length of this fence.   The fence is not straight or level so the trellis also looks a little off, but it will make her a bit more secure.



New trellis full length of fence

The next stage would be to clear the wasted area beside the house, breakup and remove the pored concrete and remains of the brickwork that had once been raised beds.   The house had been extended into this area something like six years ago and it hasn't been used since.   In the course of clearing the area I found quite a lot of builders waste from when the extension was built.   This really annoys me, it would only have cost the builder a small amount to tidy up and finish the job properly, instead it is left for the next contractor to sort out his rubbish.   Well after clearing all the vegetation - mostly brambles and nettles but again a couple of trees - another lilac and a sycamore along with a Philadelphus I could start breaking up the old concrete, this proved to be of variable quality and thickness.   I had expected to have this all broken up by now and looking to start finding my levels.

Trellis attached to old wonky fence

Breaking up old concrete

The final stage was to be a deck across the width f the back of the house and going round the side to overlap the paved area.   This would allow me to leave the existing drain and man hole covers, ad make up for some pretty wonky levels without too much excavation.   I had a good idea of the finished garden in my minds eye and rather liked the "feel" of it, I was planing to have a rail at the edge of the deck, which would be on two levels with the slats running in chevrons, the straight lines of the deck contrasting with the softness of the meadow which would blur the harsh straight lines of the fence and the deck.

Well on Thursday the customer threw me a bit of a googly.   She now wants to replace the fence on the other side of the garden and have paving all the way around with no deck.   Someone had told that you get rats under decks and that has put her right off.   This meant that I spent all day yesterday getting prices, making calculations and typing up fresh estimates.   The only actual progress I made on the job was to get rid of my first load of waste (she won't let me have a skip)

This is the biggest job I have had since starting the business, and is rapidly becoming the most complicated as well.