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Nina's Blog - Sunday 21st September 2025

Sunday 21st September 2025, 09:47

The sun is shining but the forecast says that it's only 10 C and won't get warmer than 14 C here today. Perhaps I should wear a warmer dress.

I think I might go and visit the Swindon STEAM museum. Haven't been since it moved from Emlyn Square in 2000.

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ninalanyon · 61-69, T

Sunday 21st September 2025, 12:50

In the Glue Pot having a pint of Hopback Crop Circle. Quite nice. No WiFi

I took a bit of a roundabout route to the museum. Walked along Rodbourne Road taking pictures of the murals in the side streets and eventually found my way to the Even Swindon Working Men's Club where I used to go with my paternal grandparents on bingo evenings.

There was a man of indeterminate age standing in the doorway so I said hello and that I was pleased to see the old place was still standing. He replied that yes it was still hanging on. I walked further along Rodbourne Road towards Cheney Manor trying to remember where my paternal grandparents lived but I couldn't place it.

Along the way I noticed a craft beer bar called Rusty Garage. It's not open today but perhaps I might try another day.

When I got to the museum my mood was so low because of yesterday's email and also the sadness that results sometimes from revisiting old haunts that I decided not to go in and went up the stairs to the café which was even more depressing so I left and headed for the Railway Village.

The conversation that I'm eavesdropping on here in the Glue Pot is all very literary, Dostoevsky, Conan Doyle, Victor Hugo, etc Plus discussions about how to find the best translation.

The Glue Pot is a very comfortable pub, big windows giving lots of warm natural light, plain unvarnished tables and benches, good and interesting beer, and interesting conversation. It used to have a bit of a rough reputation but it might have changed decades ago for all I know.

Perhaps my home town isn't wholly dreadful after all.

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22Michelle · 70-79, T

@ninalanyon It's sad when you see your hometown going downhill

ninalanyon · 61-69, T

@22Michelle Yes, and all the more so when it seems inexplicable. In the sixties and early seventies the town had excellent schools a forward looking local council, the relatively new M4, a great sense of egalitarianism and solidarity, some high tech industry moving in as well as Burma-Castrol's headquarters.

I don't know exactly when it all started to fall apart but Thatcher didn't help.

22Michelle · 70-79, T

@ninalanyon I haveca similar problem with my home town bring Aberdeen. The "oil capital of Europe" is looking distinctly run down thesecdays. After the 1970's, 1980's, and part of the 1990's where it still seemed to be booming it's now falling down. It wasn't helped by Westminster Government's who just didn't invest in what was, and could still have been, a dynamic area. As ever the only successful area that gets Government investment, and the only unsuccessful areas that get investment are in London.

ninalanyon · 61-69, T

Sunday 21st September 2025, 15:11

I sometimes wish that I were more ruthlessly self centered. Then setbacks, loss, and the consequent sadness would be easier to bear. But I'm merely ordinarily self centered and fragile.

Just before getting to a café went to the loo in the Brunel Centre, decades ago it was a shiny new shopping centre, now all the big shops have gone and it's just tawdry. It is clean though.

While I was sitting on the loo I listened to the background music. It was a version of I shot the sheriff. This line resonated with me: Reflexes got the better of me. In my case not a shot but a careless hug that left my sister in pain and was the last straw for her.

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22Michelle · 70-79, T

@ninalanyon So things did not go too well. I know you've said before your sister could be difficult, and having a cancer diagnosis couldn't have helped. Whether your coming out was also a negative is perhaps something to consider.
That you were careless in hugging her and causing her pain is regrettable, but really shouldn't signal an end of your relationship, well not unless she is looking for that to happen.
If it was me I'd message her apologising for the carelessness, wishing her all the best and leaving things in her basket. She may come round as she adjusts to her condition, but nothing is guaranteed. It may be that messaging her partner and opening that channel of communication. Tell him you understand she may not want to communicate, but you'd like to updated on her condition, to know if you're needed in any way. And then just leave it at that, give them both some time. If you're going to be excommunicated then that's their loss.

ninalanyon · 61-69, T

@22Michelle The hug was just the last straw. I can see now that my own behaviour over the last couple of years has been more antagonistic than it should have been. In my efforts to get her to live a better life I forgot, neglected, to have compassion for her. And I was on occasion simply careless, left things where they should not be so the dog chewed them, or worse ate them, etc. I should have pulled back from these efforts when it was clear that I wasn't helping, but instead I simply became more insistent.

The email came from her husband's address and I replied with an apology so now we all have the same information. I'll just leave it for now, for the foreseeable future in fact. We were never especially close and I think that our slightly increased closeness in recent years has more to do with the lack of any other close family than any inherent wish to be closer.

If I were to be brutal about it I suppose I could say that there is even a positive side, not exactly a silver lining in this cloud, but a slight positive nonetheless and that is that I'll never again have to bite my tongue when I see the piles of junk obscuring the furniture in their house.

And lastly thank you for a thoughtful comment.

22Michelle · 70-79, T

@ninalanyon Sometimes family members just don't on and that kind of thing just seems to get worse and worse. My late aunt and her three children had an ongoing battle for decades. They seemed to swap sides every so often. It never stopped. My aunt and one cousin are both now dead. The two left are now barely on speaking terms, but that's a massive improvement. Quite why they kept falling out was, and remains, a mystery.

ninalanyon · 61-69, T

Sunday 21st September 2025, 15:31

Some pictures taken on the way from the Travelodge to the museum.

The Pattern Store stood empty for a long time. Eventually it was turned into a restaurant, I don't remember if it was used for anything else earlier. But that closed down and now it's a church.

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ninalanyon · 61-69, T

@SpudMuffin Apparently it was bought by the Anglican Diocese of Bristol in 2018: https://www.mfryer-architects.com/the-pattern-store

SpudMuffin · 61-69, M

@ninalanyon interesting. I don't know of many new churches these days.

ninalanyon · 61-69, T

@SpudMuffin Quite a few of the newest are small and unobtrusive in converted business premises.

A lot of the newer churches are set up by smaller sects, often immigrants or minorities. See https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/inside-the-fastest-growing-and-shrinking-churches-in-the-uk/

And

Janie Cronin moved with her husband from London to Rochdale to start a new church. She could not get the statistic out of her mind that there is no-one under the age of 18 in any of the churches in Rochdale. The church is now up and running, in spite of lockdown, and is known in the area as ‘the red hot church’ because it meets in the premises of an old ‘red hot chilli restaurant’. It is early days, but it is attracting young people, and many who were not previously going to church.

https://ccx.org.uk/content/church-is-growing-church-of-england/

ninalanyon · 61-69, T

Sunday 21st September 2025, 15:20

In Kitchen on the corner having an acceptable mocha and a pleasant sausage roll.

I think this café must have had a different name last time I was here. It looks the same but the name is unfamiliar. Or is it that I simply didn't notice what it was called last time?

ninalanyon · 61-69, T

Monday 22nd September 2025, 08:45

Pictures of Rodbourne murals that I didn't get around to posting yesterday.

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