onionbagblog

Buying a new shed. How the chuff has it come to this? And so we’re in the market for a new shed.

The old one is only half knackered. It was built on a slope - not by us. A shed on a slope is not too optimistic for the long term. Already, opening the door is restrictive. You can only open it by about 45 degrees.

A new shed it is then.

Long gone are the days of nipping down to your local B&Q and simply buying an off-the-shelf shed. I’m sure that option still exists, but customising what you want has opened my eyes and made me become something of an old man shed guru.

We’re talking about the customisation options here which you can achieve online:

• Side or front windows?

• Even maybe a window in the roof?

• Guttering?

There’s a whole plethora of choice about how to hang a fleet of bicycles.

Who knew buying a new shed could be so sexy.?

To the Cong! …on Saturday evening. We made the shortest of short walks across the road for the latest in the Music Mix jazz series. Having live music right on your doorstep is an opportunity too good to miss.

We rocked up at the Cong and received some very distressing news: We’ve run out of wine. What are we going to do about it? Chin Chin, etc.

We decided on a teetotal evening. Who needs BOOZE when you have some of the finest music in all of Wivenhoe?

The Music Mix club nights are turning out to be a real highlight on the local scene. It’s genuinely a lovely, lovely setup. The tables are arranged in a really informal way to encourage conversation in between the sets. It has the feeling of a genuine jazz club.

A couple of Nina songs over the PA was a great start to get me in the mood for the evening. Mr Bojangless has to be one of the most moving pieces of music in the past century. No shit.

Shortly after 7:30 pm we welcomed the New Conrad Miller Trio on stage. I’m not sure if there was ever an Old Conrad Miller Trio but the new version was certainly a lively outfit.

They are a Dutch touring band, with plenty of stage talk in between songs to highlight some classic Dutch humour. Ha, bloody ha, etc.

The mood of the evening was set with the first song, Tripping. Even without the red wine I was still able to send myself into something of an out of body jazz experience. Steady the buffers, Jase.

All the songs were original numbers. What was quite remarkable is how the three musicians were able to fill the space so effectively. The music was powerful and uplifting.

The highlight for me was the samba rhythms that sporadically came out from behind the drum kit. All three band members were smiling throughout. This is always a good sign.

A short interval took place. You know you’re at the right kind of jazz club when an audience member puts in some eye drops during the interval, rather than injecting anything else.

The second set from the New Conrad Miller Trio picked up the pace. I was impressed by how they play as one, not individually. This is clearly a tight band with some very close friendships.

Some of the music became technically challenging to play in the second set. It certainly wasn’t technically challenging to listen to. The audience was in awe of some of the talent on display with the double bass and keyboards.

This is the end of the current season of Music Mix gigs. There’s a short summer break before it all kicks off again early autumn. You really can’t beat live music, especially when you’re home with a cup of tea, less than a minute later.

A little random quayside wandering, and we stumbled upon the opening of the summer season down at The Notage. There is a three-week run with the local artist Ernest Turner. It’s a name I’m familiar with, if not the artwork itself.

As ever with The Notage, the exhibition is very quirky, with random display boards laid out on the top floor. If you’re looking for a Newport Street Gallery minimalist experience, then probably turn away now.

We didn’t turn away though. The artwork and the random nature of the exhibits was rather appealing. Plus there wasn’t too much detail about Ernest, something which is always a bonus for me in these exhibitions. I want to look at the art, and not read an essay.

The brief bio details that were available explained how Ernest Turner was born in Wivenhoe in 1899. He came from a well-established Wivenhoe family. His father was a shipwright and his uncle was Captain Albert Turner, a professional yacht captain.

The term used in the exhibition to describe his style was naive. I’m not sure if this is a piss take or not. There was definitely an element of not really wanting to be an artist and creating his work as something of a hobby.

This gives a great injustice to the quality and playfulness of the work on show.

The story continued explaining how once Ernest had retired from working in the shipping industry himself, he took up the paintbrush. Initially he wanted to paint for money. Soon he became rather decent and managed to sell all over Europe.

This coincided with the town itself undergoing a major shift from the industrial to the more arty and academic. The small paintings created by Ernest capture a certain playfulness as you see this transition taking place in front of you.

Sculptures are also included. It was pleasing to see some ships in bottles forming part of the exhibition.

His body of work is a great snapshot of local history. It documents the boats of Wivenhoe and elsewhere along the estuary. It’s also some of the rarer moments where you can see the old Crab and Winkle line being captured as it shuttles along from Wivenhoe to Brightlingsea. That Dr Beeching was an absolute bastard.

Ernest died in 1977. The paintings on show at the Nottage are a wonderful memory of a town that has long since changed.

To the Table of Dreams! …whilst there was a break in the rain on Saturday afternoon. It’s a shame there wasn’t a break in the wind.

The table was remarkably dry, considering there had been an absolute Estuary Wilds drenching only an hour earlier. The wind was always going to be a bit of an issue to get a meaningful game in.

Instead we settled for an elongated warm-up. The idea was to TWAT the ball with a forehand, diagonal to diagonal. It looks really impressive when you pull it off, so to speak, less so when the wind takes the ball about ten metres on the other side of the table.

We then repeated the exercise with a backhand. This was even trickier but progress was made.

The aim was for ten decent returns as we TWATTED the ball back and forth. This then advanced to 20 and then 30.

It started to spit with some more rain. A couple of dogs, not on their leads, were running around. These got right on my tits. It was time to call an end to the session.

A little later on Saturday afternoon and the rain had subsided. We had a more fuel in the legs and time to undertake some allotment bits and bobs.

I should rephrase that: A had a little more time than I had. She was quite content to arse around doing her thing. I simply sat on the bench, took pretty pictures, and watched her go about her business.

It was a good time for an allotment inspection. I was the inspector. I didn’t really have any point to prove. We had been forewarned that proper allotment inspectors may soon be on our case, and so this was a bit of a dry run.

The sun and the rain of the recent weeks has led to the allotment absolutely blooming. We thought it would be a patch of land where we could grow spuds and carrots. It turns out it’s a bit of a garden of delight for poppies and other colourful plants that I haven’t got a chuffing clue what they are.

Elsewhere and A has been busy with her sowing and planting. She did give me a tour of the various seeds and subsequent sprouting shoots that are coming through.

I lost a bit of interest when I could see a game of cricket breaking out at the cricket club on the other side of the allotment. I really should pay more attention.

To the Wivenhoe Museum!… on Saturday lunchtime. Yep it was one of those kind of days. The pissing Estuary Wilds was getting right on my nuts. This was a kind of day for a five minute dash out somewhere within a local radius, and then be within safe distance to head back to base if need be.

Trouble is there’s not a great deal of options within a five minute radius of my house. The Wivenhoe Chapel Museum, to give it its full name, is the only option other than a trip to the shops. Needs must.

We’ve been meaning to go to the museum for a number of years now. It opened around a decade ago in an old chapel in the public cemetery. Each time we go past we joke we should pop in. We’re normally setting out on a bicycle ride and so stopping off is only a passing thought.

That all changed today. We were welcomed as we arrived by a couple of familiar and very friendly faces. We were offered the choice of either a guided tour, or just to ramble around and do our own thing. Being a loner in life, we opted for our own thing.

It is a pokey little place but full of many hidden surprises. I get kind of turned on by local history, but not in a massive BONER kind of way.

I did enjoy looking at the completest set of the Wiv miniature models. There was also some cracking map action taking place. Map makers from years gone by had little sense of scale - or even reality.

The 3D model from the bottom of the town dating back to 1959 was interesting. It showed the extent of the valley where some of the houses by the railway line peer up above from. There was even a replica model of an oak tree. Best not go trying to chop that one down, Comrades.

We were then kindly offered the opportunity to explore the magical software that J at the museum has put together as part of the Wivenhoe History Group. This is a unique package which takes in hundreds of old documents and allows you to merge them together.

In a very, very clever way we were able to see an early map of our road and house, and then overlay this with subsequent maps that followed.

We even ventured into the census to find out some names of past occupants. We knew our house was there but it didn’t appear on any census records. We have some more digging to do back at base with the deeds that were bundled up as part of the house sale.

I’m pleased we finally managed to pop into the Wivenhoe Chapel Museum. It brings an end to the running gag of: Hey! We should pop in there.

Been there, done that. We must do it again.

The great Gary Crowley was sitting in for Robert Elms on BBC Radio London this morning. Up for your listening pleasure was a four-fer made up of Stiff Records classics. It’s quite a back catalogue to dive into there.

The occasion was 50 years of Stiff. It’s not quite a continuous timeline, but 50 years is 50 years. I still love the Stiff Records mantra from back in the day: If It Ain’t Stiff, It Ain’t Worth a Fuck.

Best not saying that live on BBC Radio London.

Fittingly, the four-fer opened with the very first release on Stiff Records: Nick Lowe’s So It Goes. It’s a perfect power pop song and set the agenda for what was to follow.

Ian Dury’s is My Old Man followed. This is another great London song, as were the next two choices, Kirsty’s New England and Baggy Trousers. What a back catalogue.

A brief online shifty of the Stiff Records Discog, and it’s a case of being spoilt for choice here. Woh! Where to start?

You could have chosen The Damned’s New Rose, the very first punk single, or the Banshee’s Hong Kong Garden, although I doubt that will get any airplay any time soon with some very questionable lyrics.

There’s the whole early Elvis Costello back catalogue including the peerless Allison. And then we have Wreckless Eric with Whole Wide World, Jona Lewie and his Kitchen Song, plus some early Devo.

The label developed a little over the years with Madness always propping it up with their strong singles back catalogue. Every release from One Step Beyond right through to One Better Day came out on Stiff.

The later years as Stiff entered into the mid-80s, included the Belle Stars, Temple Tudor and even John Otway, with a ropey cover of Green Green Grass.

The Freshies also featured as an early incarnation of what would later become Frank Sidebottom. You can see what a diverse label it is when Stiff was also putting out side by side early singles by the Pogues.

Along came Tracy Ullman, Graham Parker and King Kurt. Yello somehow slipped in there, along with an unlikely release by Motorhead.

The very final releases included Furniture’s Brilliant Mind, as well as one of my favourites, the Every Kind of People cover by Mint Juleps.

That would all make for a bloody impressive compilation. There’s various Spotify playlists out there, but nothing covering the entire back catalogue.

Stiff is my new fave old label.

Sunshine down at the Oval for Friday evening. Make hay, etc.

The arrival of Hampshire in SE11 looked like being a lively contest for Surrey as they continued with their stop / start campaign in the T20 Blast this summer.

Surrey had themed the game as an LGBQT+ occasion. GOOD. We need to fight back against the pricks. Cricket shouldn’t be part of the culture wars. In fact, nothing should be part of the culture wars. We should be proud of who we are. Shout out to the official Surrey drag queen looking resplendent whilst on the piss in the Peter May.

The Surrey YouTube channel was superb as ever. The commentary may be a little hit and miss, but the production and TV angles are on par with anything Sky can deliver.

I was a little pissed off, however, to see them plugging a June Test match at the Oval. This is just completely wrong. The Oval Test should always be played around the second week in September. It puts your whole season out of sync. It’s like holding the FA Cup final in November and the Charity Shield in April. Cricket is bonkers.

t was good to see CJ back bowling for Surrey. This is his 20th year as a pro. The Dulwich DUDE may have lost a little pace in recent years, but he still has plenty of energy left in the tank.

Hampshire had a strong attack as they took to the crease. The onslaught was relentless. A fantastic final over from Fuller gave Surrey a tough ask of 215.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Oh dear, J-Roy.

Up stepped Ollie Pope for some showboating. He never really got going after one wild swing.

We needed a skipper’s knock from young Sam as he stepped up to the crease. No, that’s not gonna happen, is it?

It looked like Will Jacks would be on his Jack Jones as being the final hope for Surrey to try and get this over the line. We were helped out with a nightmare over from Lumsden, who went for 24. Thanks for coming, etc.

Desperate Dan Lawrence was our last stand. He’s not the most elegant batsman to watch, but he knows how to put on scoreboard pressure.

The final over was a little frantic. Surrey just fell short with the final ball in what was a great game of cricket.

This all leaves us in serious danger of not progressing to the next stage of The Blast. Oh well, there’s always the Metro Bank to look forward to.

Yeah, right.

I gave in and finally bought another bicycle. Don’t buy another bicycle, Jase. DON’T BUY ANOTHER BICYCLE! Oh dear. I only went and bought another bloody bicycle. Chapeau!

And so I’m now awaiting delivery of a budget iScooter U4. It’s a foldable, cheap as chips electric bike. But of course I don’t need it. But as ever, n+1.

I’m losing count of what n currently represents. I’ve gone through the calculations in my head and thought about where my various bicycles are located. I’ve come to the conclusion that n currently represents 9.

Where to store the U4 was the main stumbling block. It sat in my online cart for a few days, as I spent some time pondering a solution.

I think I’ve come up with a possible workaround. If all else fails, then I could do the dirty and reduce the bicycle count. I’m not ashamed to say that I’ve got bicycles locked away that haven’t seen any action in over a year.

That’s not really the point though, is it?

All the online reviews for the U4 paint a picture of a very functional and affordable workhorse. I will probably use it for getting around Sunny Colch and my increasingly frequent trips to Lidl.

Some self-assembly is needed for the. This worries me. There’s also limited options in terms of gears. Put bluntly, there aren’t any. It’s a fixed wheel bicycle where the only option in terms of speed is to choose which electric mode you want.

And yes, I am aware that I’ve become something of a hoarder of bicycles, CDs and G Force clothing.

“An empowered working class can offer an alternative. Soon, it must.”

Morning Star on how to defeat the far right.