Timetable

Alice Suryani


Bristol dockside


Bridgwater canal



So much for my tortuously prepared timetable designed to ensure daily sessions of chess practice, AutoCAD, house cleaning, drawing, paperwork etc. Having attended a meeting to meet Craig Murray the now sacked UK ambassador to Uzbekistan who objected to the regime’s widespread use of torture despite it being a fellow bulwark in the ‘war on terror’ I bought a copy of his book. Can’t remember when I last bought a book not from a charity shop! At all events I wasn’t disappointed and spent a large part of the week reading it, now finished.

A German film at the Arts Centre last night “The lives of others” was gripping and about life, censorship and the secret police in East Germany before the reunification – the atmosphere was very much the same as Murray had been describing in his book

Having noticed a lonely hearts advert in my newspaper one morning I checked it out and soon found myself ‘profiled’ and signed up to a dating service – free but then with no access to anyone without paying for a ‘premium’ service. All the same, a brief 24-hour trial upgrade allowed links to 2 or 3 likely contacts. I met up with the first this week, a very attractive lady with a quite alarmingly similar range of interests and attitudes, but who knows? - We will see. It was too a fine day with the dockside trees in Bristol starting to shed their autumn leaves

Alice in Sumatra has apparently had a successful operation, which is good news but will surely need to recuperate before returning to Jogyakarta and husband Thomas

Autumn in Bridgwater

Entrance to Fore Street from the riverside


Prezza restaurant in the refurbished Cornhill building


Life drawing workshop - I really should practice more between sessions


The leaves on the trees and my Virginia creeper in the back garden are already turning brown and red for the autumn and the mornings are dark and distinctly chilly with still weeks to go before the clocks go forward to winter time.

After my Polish guests returned home I emulated them in buying some chocolate spread for my toast, perhaps after all it is not suitable only for primary school children!

Went to see Norman Lovett at the Art Centre last week – he was the voice of Holly the computer in the TV Red Dwarf series and gave a great presentation in his dead pan voice with a set of inconsequential slides he had taken around the Country

On a less successful but in a more high-tech mode I gave a one hour powerpoint presentation to an old folks group, part of the U3A about my experience in Indonesia. Inevitable problems with the projector but it appeared to go down well and prompted many questions about building with bamboo, religion, politics and corruption.

Have booked tickets for a half term trip to brother-in-law Stephen’s family’s second home in the Vendee region of France for half term. The attractive and ecologically sound route by rail would have cost £179 so I will fly, £15 for the coach to the airport and then £10 for the flight (including airport taxes etc) – how can they make any profit at these prices!