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Well, still no rain and the heat this week has been filthy. I mean really beyond a joke. I’m thinking of writing a letter to someone about it. WHO I’ll write and what they might be able to do about it, I don’t know, but my letter will be STRONGLY WORDED with lots of UNDERLINING. They’ll know I mean business.
How are you all? Are you coping with the endless scorching temps? I’m not. I’m not coping at all. I’m as wrung out as a damp sock, and my get up and go? V. much got up and gone…
Thank you all for being so sweet about the mini JOY PARADE last week as I had a little break. I didn’t do very much on my time off. I either spent my time having a lie down (snout buried in a book) or I pottered about. Something lovely about Pottering, isn’t there? Just sort of wafting about joyfully and aimlessly - changing the water in vases here, buying and eating a pastel de nata there, standing on the top of a hill with your hands on your hips having a really good look at your environs. Terrific! Highly reco, but - of course, as with all time off it was never really enough. However, I’ve been back at the desk with sleeves rolled up, glasses on a chain and I really dived head first into writing a new book. Will it be any good? WHO KNOWS! Am I having fun? Yes, but at the same time I am bribing myself outrageously with treats to get the chapters written and ticked off per day. I’ll tell you more about this book when I can.
Now we’ve got a bit of a heifer of a JOY PARADE this week so we’d better get a shift on. Firstly, though, we must take a gander at what’s been happening these last two weeks…
I was in a shop the other day and an extremely stylish man who worked there told me that he liked my outfit. “So chic!”
Naturally, I greeted this lovely and very kind compliment by losing all ability to speak so I just yelled in a flustered manner, “CLOTHES! YES!”.
I might have done a thumbs up. Possibly a double.
Vogue’s been on the phone. They said: “With that sort of very articulate analysis of fashion PLEASE will you cover NY Fashion week for us?”
I’ve said I’ll think about it.
I was stopped in the car at some temporary (v.longwinded) traffic lights the other morning and whilst waiting for them to change I had a little look out of my window.
I discovered that I was idling outside a Greek restaurant (not open yet, too early) and saw that there were two men chatting casually in front of the place - two pals who had obviously just bumped into each other and were catching up. Both looked to be in the building trade. High vis waistcoats, tool belts, many-pocketted slacks etc. One of the men was possibly a plumber.
What interested me MOST about the scene I was observing was that one of the chaps was also wearing an enormous leather gauntlet on one hand and sitting on it was a kestrel.
I watched for several minutes and even rolled down my window to hear if any reference to the bird was going to be made by either man, but no. They were talking about football and the kestrel was just slow blinking dispassionately and occasionally looking at her feet.
I have been thinking about all of this for two solid weeks now.
Why did he have a kestrel?
They were obviously on their way to work so does the kestrel wear a hard hat at the job site?
QUESTIONS!
I was just standing thinking of having a cup of tea in the nice cafe I was standing outside of when a couple seated at one of the outdoor tables asked a passing waiter if they could have a menu please as there wasn’t one on their table.
Waiter:“Oh we don’t really have a “menu” as such - what we have is a VIBE…”
I immediately turned around and went else where because can’t get involved with that sort of carry on no thank you.
I woke up at 4am the other morning and my first thought was “GET A PET TURKEY”. I know this because when I awoke hours later I found that sentence saved in my notes app with several “!!!!!” after it.
How was your eclipse? It was a bit something and nothing here.
I had to dash out the front of the house to see it but nothing REALLY seemed to happen. The sky perhaps went a bit darker than it should have done at that time - like a dimmer switch had been fractionally turned, and the birds went a bit quiet and one of my dogs (Elvis Potato) looked a bit anxiously pop-eyed and concerned with his ears on backwards, but I’m not sure that was due to celestial matters. The eclipse had rudely timed itself for their dinner time and I was a bit late serving it and he does tend to Worry Intensely about The Promptness of Meals.
I nipped into one of those teeny tiny mini Tescos the other (boiling hot) day to buy a bottle of water and the air con was FIERCE. The Irish woman who entered behind me cried “JESUS! MARY AND ST JOSEPH!” when the automatic doors opened then she asked the security guard by the tills how he was surviving the winter.
One thing I like is when you have someone doing a job that they are absolutely not the ideal person for but they are carrying on regardless.
The other day I was out with my two older Neph’s (21 and 18). Our mission was to get the 18 yo’s ears pierced which has been one of his birthday presents.
After that Experience™️, I took them for lunch and we went to Five Guys. It’s not really my sort of joint, but it is a useful spot if you need to urgently feed two 27ft tall boys with hollow legs and you want to spend roughly the cost of a studio apartment in Chelsea or Kensington in the process.
It’s one of those places that often gets very busy and there’s always a backlog of orders and inevitably one of the staff members is charged with calling out for customers to come and retrieve their food.
Today was one such occasion and the man tasked with the roll of Burger Announcer was the quietest man I have ever met with a voice no louder than that of a snail with laryngitis.
But oh! How valiantly he persisted!
We couldn’t get out eyes off him. It was like watching a church mouse attempt to preside over a rowdy livestock auction.
It was WONDERFUL! And I couldn’t have admired his tenacity more.
RIGHT! That’s quite enough of that. We must get on. Part of my pottering these last two weeks has been training this gorilla to play a one-man-band for generous applause and cash tips (we are splitting these so I can recoup the cost of that Five Guys), and he won’t be kept waiting.
SO… onto this week’s JOY PARADE!
1. We start, as always, with our BEHOLDING! and EXCLAIMING!
And this week come with me on some evening strolls…
Firstly, I posted this on a note earlier this week but I must share it here too.
This is, I think, my favourite spot in the entire world. Look at the hills rippling off into the forever. The soft focus horizon smudging like chalk into the sky.
And the SHEEP! Gently grazing, seemingly oblivious to the beauty around them, then trotting contentedly off into the evening.
There’s a real crispiness to the hedgerows now. Lots of rusty coloured paint splatters around the edges of ferns. The cow parsley skeletons are V architectural and wonderful and I’ve snipped some enormous ones to put in a vase on a sideboard and the effect is terrific.
Elsewhere, things are both a bit spiky AND fluffy. Here are some thistly things that made me think of those breeds of chickens that look like thrice divorced, very wealthy, elderly Manhattan women.
One evening, I went on a walk up the back field. For the first time in forever (because of the heatwaves and the drought and the early harvest) it was completely crop free so I could march right to the top.
The views were glorious but I was DELIGHTED by the oppo to get stuck into investigating these hay bales up close.
I’ve never been this close to them before. They are huge! This wall was enormous, but curiously cosy?
In other fields, the hay is rolled up like giant Shredded Wheats…
On my march BACK down the hill I discovered this old tree that I think may have been hit by lightening at some point. I was thrilled by it. Set against the wholesome, hazy, golden, late summer fields it had quite a punk sort of presence - like seeing Robert Smith from The Cure surrounded on all sides by The Beach Boys.
In the shadow of this tree were thick tangles of brambles. Luckily, I was wearing a shabby old jacket with enormously deep pockets so I spent a lovely quiet half an hour picking the blackberries like I was an industrious Brambly Hedge mouse. (More on this below)
Just an A++++ way to spend an August evening.
2. I have no idea why this popped into my head this week, but it did. Here is Princess Diana throwing off both her court shoes AND royal protocol and competing in the mum’s race at Princes Hazza’s sports day.
Naturally, she absolutely bossed it ❤️
3. Here are some secondhand books I’ve bought in the last two weeks.
Firstly this gardening book and a travelogue by PLF (dear pal of Debo’s)! Great covers, right?
And LOOK AT THESE TREASURES! You all know how much I love The Thirks, so finding these beautiful editions and in such good nick was a real moment of Awe and Wonder!
The illustrations! The lettering! Heaven! I also like that, although these books are all part of the same series, each cover is different. I sort of wish we could being that back.
4. SCENE: *In the restaurant car on the Orient Express*
“Darling, I need my lip balm - pass me my rat bag will you please?”
5. I’ve watched some old murder mysteries this week made in the 1930s/40s and all running no longer that 65 mins (pointed look at Christopher Nolan) and I’ve loved them.
My fav so far has been The Riverside Murder. Absolutely everyone is chewing the scenery at all times, the scenery itself is wobbling like something out of Crossroads, and all the actors deliver their lines whilst being about 2cm away from each other’s faces.
GLORIOUS!
Also, Alistair Sim is in it and here he is and I just want to tell you that he was 35 years old when this photo was taken.
6. I am WILDLY! in love with these dog portraits. WILDLY!
7. Let’s make a Crumble.
Suddenly you find you find yourself with a basket filled with hedgerow jewels (blackberries) and early apples that nearly concussed you went to inspect the tree.
(Make sure when picking the blackberries that your hands get painted with smears of juicy pink and deep royal purple and then feel a bit sad when you wash your hands and the colours go with the soap suds down the drain.)
Next turn on your oven to 180°.
Take the old butter stained, slightly threadbare recipe book (that was your mother’s Home Ec textbook in the late 1960s and that you liberated from your grandparents house many years ago) (For some reason the book was created and sponsored by Stork margarine but we won’t be using marg here) down from the shelf and look up the crumble recipe.
From: The Stork Margarine Cookery Book. It’s an apple crumble recipe but we’ll be adding blackberries because what I am is this.
Realise you’ve been a bit too giddy with your basket of fruit and that actually you don’t have half of everything else you need to make the recipe.
Turn off the oven, put on your shoes, dash to the shop, buy things, get distracted by a shitzu waiting outside for his owner, eventually return home.
Put your oven on again and wait for it to heat up. You could prep the recipe here OR you could wander off into the garden for a bit and then go and find a book you’ve just thought about and then about 45 mins later remember what you were meant to be doing in the kitchen.
Prepare your ingredients. Wash the fruit and peel the apples. Weigh out the sugar and the flour and the butter. Decide to double the crumble bit because you remember you like quite a hearty layer of crumble to fruit ratio.
In a deep dish, throw in the fruit.
Sprinkle over sugar WITH GAY ABANDON then mix things about a bit.
Combine the ingreds for the crumble bit. Do this in a large bowl and mix it with your grandmother’s 1970s hand held mixer (that’s still going strong) because your actual hands are too hot from the relentless heat outside and using them would turn the butter back into the cream from whence it came.
Wonder why you are making a crumble when the sun is no longer in the sky and is actually pressed up against the kitchen window melting the glass and threatening to come inside to melt you too.
Shake head and push on.
Tip crumble mix over the fruit. Sprinkle more sugar on top. You can be quite flamboyant here.
Shove in oven for about 40-50 mins until golden and gorgeous on top and all the fruity bit is bubbling away like witch’s hot tub.
Remove from oven and either serve hot (watch you don’t burn your gob) or wait until it cools down.
If heating hot I’d usually INSIST on pairing a crumble with what my Irish Catholic Granny called “Jesus Christ Custard” (a consistency so thick you could walk on it), but as it’s still summer, forgo that and slap some vanilla ice cream on it or some cream.
Fun Fact: leftover crumble is an excellent breakfast.
8. It’s August, So Let’s… by Elise M Powers
“Rub tomato leaves on our wrists like perfume samples…” - COR! Just absolutely COR!
9. YES! TO EVERYTHING HAPPENING HERE!
WOWZERS! Have a dekko at these gloriously, cluttered kitchens. Might have to get a tattoo of that red dresser I love it that much.
11. “As we’re having a doorstop slice of crumble later, I’ll have something light for supper - just a little bowl of tzatziki and a Cucumber Python…”
12. MESMERISING AND IMPORTANT LEDERHOSEN CONTENT!
13. Excellent and very true advice:
Sometimes you just know IMMEDIATELY that you could be besties with some people.
15. I doing a talk at a conference later this year and this is how I’m going to walk onto the stage:
Reader, I love him… (sound ON!)
As per, we finish with a song and this week we have the return of our favourite and most beloved (and missed) Victoria Wood. Joined here by Julie Walters, sit back as they teach us how to be Northern…
“Tripe, clogs, goin’ to the dogs!”
“Take it away Bernard!”
Thank you for reading this week’s JOY PARADE.
I hope you have a lovely Sunday. What are you all up to? I’m reading a v. fun book at the moment (more on that soon) so I’m going to spend a really good bit of time ensconced facially in that.
I’ll be back next Sunday with JOY PARADE No.55! In the meantime, if you’ve enjoyed this JOY PARADE I would simply adore it if you were to prod the heart button ❤️ below and do please follow me on Instagram (I’m mralextsmith over there) and also subscribe to and share this newsletter to all your chums.
Thank you so much!
In Tearing Haste,
HEAD PIGEON.
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