Red and Green Should Never be Seen

Setting up Robbie's new company has involved a lot of hard work but at last all the essential things have been dealt with and we can focus on some of the tasks that we had been putting off until we had time. One of those jobs was to choose a suitable office chair for Robbie, so one day last week I rang Verve Workspace for advice about the best choice of chair. They offer a wide range of chairs (as well as a diverse range of other quality office furniture) and they suggested that we should pop into their office so that Robbie could try some of the chairs. It sounds simple enough, but with Robbie nothing is simple!

When we got to their office Robbie was very impressed by the quirky design features. He hardly had a chance to react to the life sized sheep in the reception area, before he spotted an old red phone box set into the wall. Steve Allen, the owner of the company showed Robbie around. The phone box opened to reveal a walk in cupboard, then Steve showed him the kitchen, it has a map of London printed on the floor covering and it looks amazing. Robbie loved the boardroom which has a very bright  spacious feel, one wall is painted with a special paint so that you can write on it as if it is a white board. Everywhere he looked there was something else to admire, so it was very hard to get him to focus on chairs but eventually he tried out a selection of chairs and he chose one that would give him plenty of support for his back.

He was very happy with his choice and I thought that the hard part was over - but I was wrong, he still had to choose the colour and fabric for the chair. He was given a chart with colour and fabric samples, he had a whole rainbow of colours to choose from, but being Robbie he chose the loudest, brightest red. He had got that determined look in his eye, but this was one of those occasions rare occasions when I was even more determined that Robbie wasn't going to get his own way. I can't live with a red chair, it would be like a permanent party political broadcast! Tense negotiations followed and Robbie drove a hard bargain, when it was clear that my veto on the red chair would not we lifted he insisted having his chair in a bright 'leprechaun' green instead. Unfortunately they don't make covers for office chairs, but I think it will be covered in a dust sheet when not in use because I am not a fan of green.

So now we are awaiting delivery of the chair and a large 'industrial strength' bookcase to replace the one that has collapsed under the weight of the Burgess book collection. It will be lovely to have things looking more organised.

There is more information about the Verve Workspace Offices on their blog

Surely not!!

I have to acknowledge that I have a weakness, if Robbie wants something I find it very hard to tell him that he can't have it. I have always tried to do my very best for all my family, seeing them happy makes me happy. The difference is that Robbie wants some very odd things at times. I know that I am old and boring - my 'nearest and dearest' remind me of that often enough, but I think most people would admit that Robbie has a rather unique fashion sense, and I really don't have the words to describe his approach to colour, the only word that springs to mind is 'loud'.

Yesterday he announced that his Berghaus jacket has seen better days and it is time to get a new one. He told me he had seen a nice green one and he sent me a link so that I could look at it online. I was pleasantly surprised, it was a deep olive green, it would have looked appropriate with smart clothes but it would have looked good with casual clothes too. I told him that I liked the colour and he looked surprised. He mentioned that I don't like green, but I said that I didn't mind olive green. He looked even more surprised, then he announced that I was looking at the wrong colour. My heart sank when he directed me to his chosen colour - it was pea green! I begged him to reconsider but he said it was beautiful. I only recall one instance of pea green being described as beautiful. In Edward Lear's poem the Owl and the Pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat - but they were a very odd pair! As far as I am concerned pea-green looks good on peas, but on anything or anyone else it is a mistake.


I spent the rest of the evening trying to change his mind but I was wasting my breath. Can you imagine what it would look like if he wore that on one of 'rancid green machines' He would clash with the train and scare the passengers! So this is a plea to the select few who have more influence with Robbie than I do (you know who you are). Please take pity on me and persuade him to choose a different colour.

To dare to preserve the randomness of mind which in children produces strange and wonderful new thoughts and forms - Gordon Webber

Robbie has been keeping up his reputation for randomness, this afternoon he asked me if it was true that gooseberries were green. When I told him that they were he expressed amazement and said he had never known that. We have been together for quite a few years now and I am certain that the subject of gooseberries has never cropped up until today, the odd thing is that he went on to tell me that he doesn’t like them!

Robbie showed a marked reluctance to get up this morning, so we didn’t go to the North Norfolk Railway, we went to Cromer instead. Cromer is not very big, but it has two very nice book shops and both have a good selection of railway books so it will not come as a surprise that Robbie bought a couple of books, one was about buses and the other is about British industrial locomotives. We also bought a board for Robbie’s jigsaw, he has brought two jigsaws on holiday with him and predictably both have a railway theme.


This evening I haven’t been able to get two words out of him, he has been busy reading his Bus book and reading bus timetables that he picked up in Cromer. There is no hope when he is not train spotting he is bus spotting and when he runs out of buses he stands at the window with his binoculars spotting ships!

To dare every day to be irreverent and bold. To dare to preserve the randomness of mind which in children produces strange and wonderful new thoughts and forms. To continually scramble the familiar and bring the old into new juxtaposition.

Gordon Webber

Keep on Digging

Robbie managed to wreck the weekend again, I don't think it is so unreasonable to look forward to spending a whole weekend with him, but one way or another it never happens. I was annoyed that he went out on Friday evening and I was asleep before he got home. True to form when he found himself in a hole he just kept on digging, it was like living wit Mr Angry. It took him until Sunday afternoon to apologise for being so impossible and by then the weekend was gone. I knew the old Robbie was back when in the evening we had one of his famous random remarks, he informed me that a certain type of sloth only needs to go to the toilet once every four days. My life is so much better for knowing that! The girls are almost as bad as Robbie, he went on to say that the sloth moves so slowly that moss grows on it. Emily then informed us that there are no green mammals, but Laura insisted that poorly people go green! I give up, I'm outnumbered!

Timetable Trauma! 09.12.07

On Saturday we had to get up very early to make the long trip by rail from Northampton to Plymouth (via Birmingham). I don't like getting up in the middle of the night especially on a Saturday, but by 6.55am we were on the train and heading towards Birmingham. We had a very tight connection at Birmingham but we made it and finally we could sit back and relax. I like long journeys because I have plenty of time to relax and read my magazines without feeling guilty. The first part of the journey passed with Robbie lost in the latest edition of Rail, Sam in his own little world reading a film magazine and me reading my family history magazine. I reserved the last section of the journey for looking out of the window and enjoying the coastal views, I love the section around Dawlish where the track runs so close to the sea that the waves batter the trains on rough days. Some very rowdy football fans joined the train at Newton Abbot, but they were at the other end of the train and they didn't bother us. When we arrived in Plymouth the police were there in considerable numbers, they took the fans off the train and out of the station with the minimum of fuss, it was a bit scary but it was a very well organised operation.
We delivered our Christmas presents and had a happy few hours in Plymouth before heading home again. The journey home was not exactly tranquil. Some rowdy foul mouthed people travelled back as far as Bristol Temple Meads, they had been to Plymouth to see Argyle play Bristol Rovers and while perhaps not drunk enough to fall over they were far from sober and still drinking (they brought a huge pack of cans onto the train). It made the journey very unpleasant.
I managed to wrestle the Rail magazine away from Robbie. I have to admit that I enjoy reading the 'fare dealer' column by Barry Doe. I always have to read it more than once because it makes my brain hurt, but I have the sort of mind that enjoys that sort of detail. I was in my element this week because it seemed as if Barry Doe had taken over the magazine, as well as his usual column he popped up in various other places. His contribution included a whole page criticising the Cross Country timetable. I am not sure that he intends his writing to be funny, but he had me laughing out loud much to Robbie's annoyance. He is not a fan of Barry Doe, but I am unable to share his opinions with you because it would almost certainly get me sued! Robbie had one of his famous rants which lasted all the way to Cheltenham Spa, I bet Barry Doe's ears were burning! To be fair he made some very reasonable observations about the timetable and I am sure by next time it will be more user friendly. I have to agree when he says that 'green on green looks worse than it sounds' hopefully next time they will choose colours that don't induce nausea. To be fair to Cross Country if the nit picking about the timetable is all he can find to criticise Cross Country are not doing so badly. I think they have made a fairly good start all things considered.

Colour-blind 09.12.07

As I was driving out of the shopping centre car park on Friday I noticed the colour of the colour of the car in front of me - pea green. It was fairly new and it looked immaculate, clearly it was well looked after, but one nagging thought wouldn't go away - who would choose to buy a pea green car? Even if the present owner didn't buy it from new, someone must have done. I find it hard to believe that anyone would decide to spend such a large sum of money on a car and then insist that it absolutely had to be pea green and nothing else would do! It is a very suitable colour - for peas, but I am only aware of one couple who selected that colour for a mode of transport, and the owl and the pussycat were such an ill matched pair that nobody would have noticed their boat.
Perhaps the car was bought by an exhibitionist who would do anything to get noticed, but even that is a bit of a stretch of the imagination. Even an exhibitionist would not choose such a diabolical colour for a car. Imagine the marketing strategy, did they offer a substantial discount on the purchase price in order to make pea green the 'new black', or were they aiming specifically at the colour-blind market? Oh well, I guess I will never know, it is just one of life's unsolved mysteries.