Changed plans II

No sooner than the ink appears to have dried on last weeks entry than things appear to have gone into full reverse.

It now appears we ARE going to the Ikklespace picnic as the things around getting a connection to travel with to the venue have changed although I had said at the outset I was prepared to travel the day before if needed.

Indeed in the past that was looking at my notes, journal entries and that, it was exactly what we did and presumably for that very reason, the difficulty of getting a train that would allow me to be picked up around three hours before the start which is midday.

While due to the person not quite knowing what they were doing in the early evening getting from the station to them could involve getting a taxi rather than them picking me up things are not fully inked in, travel itself is so tickets are here albeit needing special delivery to be sure of being here before travelling.

Changed plans

Things for early next month were going to be different in that what had been an institution in the last decade that had been put on hold for personal reasons - the Ikklescape Picnic in the Home Counties - after 2017 were to resume and indeed I had expressed the view I was very much looking forward to attending.

Sundays on the railway are always a funny thing going back to and in part the reason to the days where anything beyond Monday thru Friday was seen as irregular and so people on the railways were never "rostered" just paid more to work on days off even if it was a fairly popular day for travel.

This tends to mean there are less trains running and often starting later plus engineering work tends to be scheduled just to add chaos so a train is replaced with a bus which is often slower.

Seemingly the train I was to have caught while listed in the current timetable of one operator had been changed by another after publication so rather than starting in Manchester, going to Crewe and then on towards Birmingham now went straight from Manchester, Stockport without stopping at until Stafford missing this area out completely.

Given we needed to at this event for around 1 pm and it was three hours drive just north of Birmingham, I needed to be there by no later than 10 and next train would of got their just before 11 which was far too late.

Thus I had to cancel my plans for it as there was no way an overnight stay on the Saturday would fit with someone else's arrangements.

Return to past little life?

Sunday is in this country Fathers day and usually something reminds me on a daily basis I still have one of them so I have a card and that sorted out which has been a bit of miracle given how the heat of the last few days has affected me.

The whole situation around a certain at one time frequent event, those who are involved around it and those I'd normally see in the last eighteen or so months has been messy, emotional, obtrusive even to the point I had for practical purposes resigned myself to not going or unspoken we'd rather people more like x were around or even drip fed rumours and whispering campaigns suggestion you didn't "make the grade" even if I may of said I'd love to attend.

It appears Cinders may yet be going to the ball albeit on straw mat in small space rather than a grand pumpkin pretty much on somebody else's terms but that doesn't matter at you'll be there, less "cast out".

Something of that sort could of been sorted as one place has one room that is never used for it's purpose just a dumping ground and another is so massive you'd get something like an airbed in with tens of meters spare and indeed people have put in other kind of structures and slept in them.

You are left working just why anything like that wasn't even offered given the circumstances that led to be being dropped.

It's a pleasant surprise to be back "in".

Record storage

The one thing you cannot avoid with records is they are big, the 12 inch (30 cm) diameter record normally resides in a 14 x 14 inch square sleeve of some construction or other so once you have a few you really do need to think about storage.

While you could just have them standing sandwiched between something on a carpet, trust me it doesn't take long before that straight pile starts to lean which if you have the misfortune to have any kind of heat nearby will warp your discs.

Traditionally storage tends to be some sort of variant on cubes that might hold some fifty or more discs depending on how thick the outer sleeves and the spine width might be, a big firmed fixed to the wall unit or those flight deck cases you see with locks and handles.

Another approach from the past especially when it came to 7 inch (18 cm) singles was a wire hanger with slots and that idea has come into vogue with a unit that claims to hold over 40 lps using thicker quality coat hanger wire which is coated with slots between which you place your lps.

As with compact discs, odd ball packaging such as box sets of various shapes and sizes just don't work with systems that assume regular dimensions so whatever you get you'll always have "box set corner".

If you have only a relatively small number that may be on a unit or on the floor ideally well away from radiators a unit like this one I bought from Analogue Seduction might be just the ticket to tidy them away or be a place for your most "on rotation" discs near your turntable.