Lost World.

Few people ever notice as they stumble from one bar to the next on Queens Road, that if they were to just stray a little further the other side of the Clarendon Park Rd. traffic lights, then hang a left, they are in unspoilt countryside. This is the Queens Rd. allotments and have, I guess, been there since the area was developed around the beginning of the twentieth century. Throughout the War they would have provided a lot of fresh food and post war they have offered chaps a chance to escape from the family at the weekend and head for the shed. There are various pleading notices asking if any are vacant, but no clues as to who owns any of them. Some are cultivated, but many are not, so I expect it’s only a matter of time before a property developer buys them and they become another housing estate. Ever the optimist.

All gone.

Almost as quickly as it came, saw and conquered, so it has melted with the exception of these massive snow balls rolled in the park looking rather incongruous in the sunshine. I listened last week to the news on local radio casting doom and gloom about closed schools, buses not running, the county ground to a standstill etc. etc. What a stark contrast this made to the reality on the streets and in the parks, where everyone was out having fun - snowball fights, tobogganing and building snowmen. I guess that will be it now, possibly for some years. What fun it was and how it brought back memories of ones own childhood as a crisp, well formed snowball goes down the back of your neck.

Flower Power.

Braced for the busiest days of the year the stalwart and delightful staff at Flower Corner are ready to sell, wrap, listen, advise and deliver thousands of blooms this weekend. It’s quite a risky business. All those flowers will fade rapidly if not shifted over the next three days. Those who plan in advance were in today ordering the best, tomorrow will be the last minute’ers and Sunday morning will be those in the shit trying to bail themselves out of a tricky situation. My pals Naomi and Steve run a florists in Gloucester, Steve seems to end up doing a lot of the deliveries, like Paul, the owner of Flower Corner. Steve told me he was amazed at the number of girls who, when he knocks on the door with a lavish bouquet ask him to tell the bloke to shove them where the sun don’t shine, and slam the door in his face! Strange creatures women.

R.I.P Vicbag

Vicky Keens-Soper, aka Vic-bag, or Vicky Keen Groper was our first employee at TJ’s Hamburgers when we opened back in 1982. Vicky was a little older than us and a member of the much revered Clarendon Park Women's Army. A group of women who all went through divorce at about the same time and were feared throughout the area. Vicbag was a star though, and a good friend as well as model employee for about 7 years before drifting off into a thing called a career. Social Services, working with ‘lifers’ in prison, from memory. However, she was always at her best flirting with the young chaps and this picture was taken at Clive Millac’s 40th a couple of years ago when she was in full flow with Clive and Leon Fisk. Vicky was always good at listening to the problems of others. Hence the career listening to prisoners. Maybe her own colourful life equipped her for that. It seemed to have many phases. First the Mum, living in a Chateau in France bringing up Robert, Alex and Gus, then a vague cultural existence with Maurice 2nd in Clarendon Park, then her ‘wild’ days working for us and sharing her life with Doug, before settling down with Stephen in Devon and starting a whole new life. It all adds up to far more ‘life’ than most of us manage and yet she embraced it all. It was last Autumn that I had a call from Splev (Ian Splevings) to say she was not well and in Hospital. Things were apparently ‘not looking good’ and just today I bumped into her old pal, Lynne Smith, who confirmed Vicky had died last week. A great loss. Many fond memories, but one that sticks in my mind is when I had completed a basic food hygiene course and felt I should assert the importance of hand washing before starting work to all the TJs staff. “There’s no need for me to wash mine, they are perfectly clean already” was Vicky’s predictable response! R.I.P.

Curry Bashing.

Staple diet of the English.... Curry. What better after a few pints than a couple of Popadom’s, some hot pickle, Onion Baji’s and a red hot Ruby Murray, washed down with Indian beer, probably brewed under licence in Birmingham? Following three lovely pints of Timmy Taylor's each last night, three of us ambled over to Queen’s Tandoori starving. It was busy. Usually is. Giggling like school boys we ordered a mixture of dishes, none of which I can remember, but all were good and we ate the lot, complimented by a bottle of Cobra each, just to be polite you understand. The bill was £55. Very reasonable for Popadoms and two courses to follow, whatever it was. The downside of consuming so much beer is that I clean forgot to photograph the meal itself, casually getting my camera out when it had all gone and we had licked up the gravy.

Resident's Parking.

We have seen a victory for common sense here over the last week. The council was planning to impose a residents parking permit system. £25 to park outside your own house - no guarantee of a space, a quid a go for visitors, local businesses wiped out as shoppers unable to park and everybody getting thoroughly pissed off with parking tickets when they forget/don’t give the visitor a voucher/left the second car out by mistake. There was a heated meeting on Wednesday 3rd, as about a quarter of the residents would like a residents parking scheme. True. It is very difficult to find a space, but that is the price we pay for city living, for having good bars and restaurants on the doorstep, for a range of excellent local shops. Without free parking they would all loose custom, we would loose the ‘buzz’ of Queens Rd. and the whole area would slip back down the popularity scale. Those of us who have been here a while can remember the empty shops of the eighties. One pub and a couple of takeaways. The plan has been shelved for five years. Great.

He's here.

Still November and the first sighting. Thanks God he can't see. Wake me up when it's all over.