Battleaxe has been doing too much over recent weeks. All this rushing about does not do much for health and stress levels. So, over the past week have only been to Mallydams as usual, had my Covid vaccine – which always makes me feel a bit ill, been to WI, had my purple hair redone, listed lots of things on Ebay and Vinted, met friends Jan and Tom for a meal, helped at a WI Well-Being day, attended an event to volunteer for next year’s Hastings International Piano Competition, engaged in a savage dispute with Booking.com, had my flu vaccine, and pressed on towards finishing my second novel. So, hardly anything really…
Thought I’d start with this lovely old travel poster which I found somewhere on the internet – honestly, I forget where. Not sure what it means… ‘recruit your health’. But it is nice to think that once Hastings was thought to be health-enhancing. Well, you just have to look at the graves in the cemetary to see that. So many who came here in the hope of the sea air curing their Consumption.
Let’s start with the piano thing. Above you can see 2024 competitor Dida Condria playing for us volunteers at a gathering at the White Rock Theatre on Sunday. Those electric pianos are amazing. We had tea, cake, chat, piano playing and sign-up. Shunta Morimoto the 2022 winner was also there, to tell us about his positive experience of being hosted by a Hastings household during that year’s competition. It was a good do except a friend of ours manage to spill a big cup of tea down my leg… no harm done really though, just wetness…
Of course, 2022 was the year poor Philosopher got so terribly ill during the competition. We never saw the finals. The night he was taken ill we were both volunteering for the competition at the Rye Creative Centre during the day. For some reason hardly any volunteers had turned up, and I ended up both trying to manage the public in the hall as well as shepherd the contestants on stage when their time came. Philosopher had to sit with Head judge Vanessa Latarche and do time-keeping stuff. All seemed well then, but later that night – crikey. Here is the blog post about it.
I mentioned in this post a couple of weeks ago that I was thinking of being a host in 2026, and have decided to go ahead. Philosopher, of course, had to agree to it as well! The competition lasts for around ten days in late February/early March. ‘Our’ competitor might get knocked out in the first round, or progress right through the competition to the final. You give the person B and B and maybe an evening meal. Most of the competitors seem to be Japanese or Korean, with also folks from America, Russia, Eastern Europe, Germany etc. They can be as young as sixteen. It will be very interesting!
Have already looked up what Japanese and Korean people eat for breakfast, and Google lists things like raw egg broken over boiled rice, pickled vegetables, natto (fermented soya beans), seaweed, miso soup etc etc. These are so easily picked up in the Co-op in Ore Village…. However, it also says that modern youth are OK with toast and cereal.
Purple hair? Well, most of you will have seen it, so no news there. Just a very brief shout-out for my hairdressers, Valhalla in Queens Road.
It describes itself as an ‘alternative’ hairdresser, and indeed it is. It is very lively, a bit goth, lots of tattoos on show, Norse runic symbols, Vikings, soap dispenser shaped like a skull in the loo etc., and the only place I have found in this area that is willing and able to do the Battleaxe required off-the-wall colouring. My hair is done by Alex, the owner. When I first went I expected to be sitting with a load of slighly scary youth, but Alex told me that the majority of their clients are older. Anyway, I like it, and get many compliments on my hair!
Second novel? Is getting on well. It’ll be called ‘Death is a Desirable Property’, and although it has plenty of WI content, it is also about Caroline’s job as an estate agent. The ‘Property’ is the Old Rectory in Compton Perceval, which still belongs to WI committee member Alice Raven, who featured in the first novel. Alice’s attempts to sell the house have deadly consequences… Have got a bit bogged down with an Organised Crime Group though…
Booking.com? I can’t be bothered to yarn on about it. It is far too annoying. Suffice it to say that I have now called in Barclays to extract the unpaid refund they swear blind they have paid me. Their customer service is worse than useless. I’ll do a social media blitz about it, urging people to AVOID BOOKING.COM.
Finally, here is Battleaxe on a very tacky tinsel throne at Blackbrooks. Actually, we had just gone on a trip to the tip and called into the garden centre for a coffee after the tipping. I have already put a post on Facebook complaining that Christmas comes to the shops far too early…
