Today was an interesting day as it turned out. Meg and I treated ourselves to a special little extra at breakfast as we added some chorizo that we had left over to our breakfast poached egg and this made it extra special. When we eventually got to town, we picked up our newspaper and then navigated toward the park where we bumped into one of our park regulars and we had an interesting chat this morning about the friendship groups (and the parties) in which we had participated when we were so much younger. We were all getting a little bit cold so we bade each other farewell and headed home for lunch. However, we had a special little mission to undertake because I needed to make a trip to the one and only Radio/TV and audio shop in town to see if I could get some advice, and possibly even purchase, an aerial of the correct type for my newly acquired little music centre. I had taken the precaution of taking a very detailed photo on my iPhone on the type of aerial connector on the back of the music centre as I felt that if I had tried to make a guess and purchase something over the internet, this would probably be the wrong thing so I needed to seek some advice from a really knowledgeable person. Fortunately, the technician on duty in the shop upon looking at my photo immediately recognised what I needed and was able to supply both it, and a more specialised little adapter, the two of which should work together to give me a functional aerial. This turned out to be an ‘Indoor FM VHF Aerial FM Radio Hi-Fi Dipole Flat Ribbon Antenna’ and I also had supplied an extra little adapter which screwed into the aerial fitting on the back of the music centre and also accepted the new cable. I was very pleased to part with my £5 as I was assured that that it ought to work absolutely correctly. As soon as I got it home, I put it into the approximately correct position and found that it gave me a good signal. By hook or by crook and with a not very helpful manual, I managed to get the DAB+ to locate ClassicFM (whih is nearly always all that I would ever want) and then left everything whilst I went off to cook a lunch of chicken legs.
After lunch, I set to work getting the aerial installed. My music centre is on a work surface in the kitchen immediately next to a power supply and a tall kitchen cupboard. As the aerial is a ‘T’-shape, I figured that I could put the ‘T’ section on the top of the kitchen cupboard where it could occupy two sides, here it would be out of sight if not out of mind. Then, in order to keep the whole thing stable, I used some ‘map’ pins to make sure that the cable did not stray from the top of the cupboard surface and then had to turn my attention to the vertical section. Again, I used some map pins of an unobtrustive colour to hold the aerial in place but the trouble is that the ariel had a few slight kinks in it and getting the map pins into position was not easy and I could only manage the slightest of taps from a very lightweight hammer. Having got the ribbon antenna vertical in the corner formed by the back wall and the cupboard side, I them prettied it up with some masking tape to make the whole thing look as neat and unobtrusive as possible. Obviously, I had ClassicFM playing the whole time during the installation to make sure that the signal did not degrade with any change in position and when I had finished, the whole was firmly in position and fairly (but not very) unobtrusive. At least using the masking tape which was the same as the wall colour was an improvement on the bare cable. I must say, I was absolutely delighted with the quality of the sound I was getting from ClassicFM broadcast on the DAB+ system. When the installation was complete, the presenter of the ClassicFM slot played an excerpt from Mozart’s Clarinet concerto and I also played the same using the Pure radio that I had on the opposite wall – this gave me the effect of sound coming from three speakers and was incredibly good. So I was very satisfied with the late morning and afternoon’s work.
This afternoon, whilst idly looking at the TV transmissions, I realised that ‘Dr Zhivago’ was being shown – this was ‘our’ film and I think that Meg very much identified with Tonya played by Geraldine Chapman at the time (and had a very similar hair style). Of course, the film is very emotionally compelling as Yuri Zhivago is torn between the two women of Tonya (Geraldine Chapman, a brunette) and Lara (Julie Christie, a blonde) I only saw about the last third of the film as we missed the first hour and I was busy with my aerial fixing for the second hour but I really enjoyed the snatches of it that I managed to see (for the umpteenth time, I think)
© Mike Hart [2022]