Sanders Blog

Sunday, 16th November, 2025

Gorgeous day all round. Up early and political interview programmes before setting off for a longish walk along the coast for 6 miles. My feet were sore at the end of that. My fellow traveller was skipping because she had bought a new sun-dress en route. I had allowed it because I beat the vendor down from an exorbitant €25.00/£22.0 to €20.00/£17.60. I could almost afford that.

I sat outside the shop watching a mad English man taking his life into his hands in peril over the sea. I don’t think you would do it, Dear Reader, even if you could manage lift off. I certainly wouldn’t.

I staggered back through a hot sunshine of 27C/81F, sweating profusely and in need of a rest. I opened an ice cold bottle of White Rioja to drink with cheese and biscuits for Lunch along with the Scotland v Argentina Rugby match. The UK’s tax on wine is quite disgraceful. This bottle of wine costs me just €3.50/£3.10. In UK, it would cost me double that at least.

Anyway, moving on to better things. The weather is delightful and the nature around here is wonderful. I love plants and trees. I love to see plants I can’t grow in UK. The climate here is so flat and benign with no massive highs and, more importantly, no lows that most things do well.

Our home in Greece was inundated with Oleanders. They were so common, we almost considered them weeds. Greeks did plant them as hedges but they needed minimal attention. In fact, a neighbour on the South Coast now is growing them successfully.

Then I came across this gorgeous shrub which Google Lens told me is a Thevetia Peruviana which I later found is a South American, yellow Oleander.

I was shocked to find that a tree growing outside my apartment is actually a Papaya Tree. Never seen one before and only saw this one when a papaya fell and nearly hit me on the head.

I can see the Headline in the Daily Fail – British Tourist Killed by Papaya on Tenerife. Anyway, Dear Reader, you’ll be relieved to know that I lived to eat it.

Sunday, 9th November, 2025

A new week. Starting my second week abroad. Only 3 more before flying home. Only 4 more weeks before I start Year 18 of the Blog. Only just over 6 weeks to Christmas. Only ?? years left alive. Oh, take me out and shoot me now!

‘Tis the Season to be Jolly ….

And so it is, just like you said it would be. Life goes easy on me …. most of the time. Got my exercise to complete again today. Got to find somewhere new to explore. Preferably somewhere without crowds of people.

Walked kilometres through massing throngs of scorched and tattooed bodies under hot sunshine down to and around the Marina. So many lovely views scarred by Kiss-me-Quick boat trip kiosks and All-you-can-Drink beach bars.

I got back tired and sweaty, had a gorgeous swim in the pool which is permanently heated to 25C but is almost constantly deserted before settling down to watch Man. Utd. draw in the football and England win the Rugby. A good day all round ended eating Supper outside on the patio in the balmy warmth. That’s how life should be and it should involve nice people.

Weird but enjoyable was receiving a photo across 2,700 miles and 53 years. Old friends in a different place at a totally different time. There are times when I miss youth.

Monday, 10th November, 2025

Another glorious morning. Instant 22C/70F with lovely sunshine. That is what I am paying for. Breakfast with BBC Radio 4 Today outside in the warm air. The washing machine is humming away and all (most) things are well with the world. Fresh orange juice, coffee and home made muesli complete the picture.

I’m reading the Press while taking in the radio news. We are sitting in a quiet, gated community in Costa Adeje on the Southern Coast of a lump of rock just off the Western Sahara in the North Atlantic. We have rented properties here during November – February over the past 10 years and the weather is one of the most reliable and predictable elements. Yes, there have been blips. We had one November with 5 days of cool rain but that really was the exception and, when I say cool, I mean it dropped to 18C/65F which is not cold. By contrast, our Home in England this morning is 14C/57F and raining.

The reason why I bring the topic up at all is because I was shocked to read in the media this report about events on the North Coast in Playa del Roque de las Bodegas:

It just shows up the contrast between the North and South of the island which is well known but this was particularly dramatic. In the South, we have had absolutely no sign of it other than characteristic cloud falling down over the mountains.

Had a Senior Moment today. Quite shocked me. Went swimming this afternoon in the pool here. We were the only swimmers and we spent 30 – 40 mins pushing ourselves up and down this kidney-shaped, comfortably heated swimming pool. I strode out of the pool feeling like a giant of fitness, put my hand in pocket and …. pulled out my phone. It was understandably dripping with water.

It appeared to be still working when I looked at it but I was fearful for its long-term health. I walked swiftly back to our apartment and patted it dry with tissues/kitchen roll and plugged it in to recharge. It immediately shrieked at me that there was water in the mechanism and it could not recharge. At that point, my Assistant took control with a hairdryer on cool and a steady hand for 20 mins. I plugged in my charger and all was well. I was back in touch with the world. Ah ….

Tuesday, 11th November, 2025

A nice, warm morning with a few, fleecy high clouds. We are told that we could have some rain tomorrow afternoon which will make a change. I may be walking in the rain. I will have to put my mobile in a plastic bag. Miraculously, it is still working. It is only supposed to be ‘splash-proof ‘ so I have had a lucky escape. My smartphone, as my wife points out, is an extension of my arm. I do spend my day talking to people on it where ever I am in the world.

While we are away, I monitor our Sussex home remotely – the temperatures upstairs and downstairs in the house, the lights at night time, the security cameras, the temperature in the Gym because of the sensitive equipment, the forecast for the days ahead so I can adjust each of these. I read the local news through media and Blogs to see if there is anything I should be doing. Rather liked this photo taken down near the Community Centre in a park I walk through each day back home.

One of the things I’m trying to manage at home is how to receive parcels while we are out. I don’t want to burden our hard working neighbours so I’m going to install a parcel locker to the side of the front door. It has an initial cost, of course, but should be functional, effective and durable. It also needs to swallow multiple sizes of parcel.

It will need a little man to come in and install it but should last as long as I do. The cost will be about £200.00 so well worth the effort. At least I will obviate articles like this in The Times this morning.

Wednesday, 12th November, 2025

Well the weather forecast said we could expect rain today. As you can imagine, it is gorgeously sunny and warm. Because of the forecast, I went out early walking. Six miles in the sunshine is just a delight. Explored a new area with quality restaurants and clean, attractive coastal paths. Dare I say, it is a Middle Class enclave. Of course I dare say. I’m 74. I say what I like!

Had to get back for 11.15 am and PMQs on BBC2. Fascinating times in politics at the moment. I can’t get enough.

If I was to worship a god, which I don’t, it would be Tim Berners-Lee. He invented the World Wide Web in 1989 and published his first full web page in 1991. I accessed my first internet page just 4 years later. It was one of the most exciting moments of my life. (I did say ‘one’, Dear Reader.)

Almost exactly 41 years later, I was reminded of it all this morning as I woke up on a rock off the coast of Africa and received a message from my Surgery some 3,572 km away. My NHS app alerted my watch via my phone via the WiFi that I was being invited to a clinic.

I smoked cigarettes from the age of 14 – 1965 – and, as in all things, smoked to excess for 20 years. I have often wondered how my girlfriends coped with it. They certainly never smoked. I was smoking 40 cigarettes a day until I gave up on November 11, 1985. I was delivering a Research Paper on Labour Aristocracy  to a Masters Degree Tutor Group at Huddersfield University. At 9.00 pm that night, I pledged to give up and have since never smoked anything more than a piece of salmon.

This morning, 41 years on, I received an invitation via my NHS app from my Surgery to attend a Lung Cancer Screening. Quite surprised but pleasantly. It sounds an excellent service. As soon as I get home my willy and my lungs will be checked for signs of cancer. I will then go on to have a whole body scan in addition and one that will concentrate on my prostate. This is fantastic by the NHS and I am very grateful

At the same time, the internet and the NHS are combining to allow me to order Repeat Prescriptions for my neighbour to collect tomorrow and, this morning, I tested my INR and sent the result to Worthing Anti Coagulation Unit who will reply with medication levels and the next official test date. This is the future of Health Care provision and it is wonderful.

I should have been in Leeds this Lunchtime meeting old friends from over 50 years ago. Instead I am here off the African Coast. I don’t apologise but I do regret. I am going to organise my own reunion soon. It will be enjoyable.

Just been for a lovely swim to complete the exercise for the day. The pool was empty apart from a friend of mine. She’s so small, you can hardly spot her. Swimming is a wonderful way to relax after a long, sweaty day.

Thursday, 13th November, 2025

I woke up at 5.45 am thinking I was having a heart attack. I had a dreadful pain where I thought my heart was. I may have slightly Hypochondriacal tendencies and I may be subject to mild bouts of panic but my Dad died of a heart attack and I am always wary of the signs. It suddenly struck me that I was abroad, wasn’t completely clear about how to get assistance or even the exact address of where I am living at the moment.

I did what any man would do in these situations, I woke my wife. She immediately pointed out that wasn’t where my heart is. Apparently, it’s on the other side. Who knew? She also pointed out that I was doing a lot more swimming than normal and had probably strained a muscle. Suddenly, it all became clear. I wasn’t going to die … well not at that precise moment. I wonder what’s for Breakfast.

As we get older, these are serious considerations in travelling. It had a serious bearing on why we left Greece. One of the first things I do in arriving at a destination is check out the emergency Medical Facilities. Fortunately, I found two ambulances parked outside this Doctors’ Emergency Surgery just a short walk from our apartment. A quick photo and the number is added to my contacts.

Of course, we are never without Worldwide Medical Insurance which comes free with our bank account and I always have an EHIC (now GHIC) card account although I’m never sure why because it rarely works when you really want something. It was a European Heath Insurance card which never actually worked in Greece. Their system is so poor that they always demanded upfront payment. After Brexit, the Tories cobbled together an even more useless replacement that was so Global it wouldn’t be entertained in USA.

In emergencies, you really do have to look after yourself. Local Authorities are not reliable. You know here on Tenerife today, all schools are closed. The weather is forecast to be powerful winds with torrential rain which is why it is actually warm and sunny with blue skies and not a hint of a breeze. The kids must be loving the day off.

Friday, 14th November, 2025

Absolutely glorious morning – Life affirming & Existence lengthening. The bad weather forecast for yesterday just didn’t happen. We had a lovely day and a long, warm evening. I drank too much wine and slept like a log. Up at 7.00 am and on with the day.

Today’s project is to look at a new, rental/purchase property bit higher up the mountain from here – away from the tattoos and motability scooters. It is only about a mile or so walk but that mile should make all the difference. The place we are in this year is fine but, once out of the gated development, the environs are less than perfect. I want to retreat to more rarefied air.

There was a wonderful and I found utterly moving article in today’s Guardian about Photobooths and their decline in the light of digital photography. Photographs are some of the most frightening and moving objects in people’s lives. Sometimes, I feel that only applies to me but the sensation of time stopped reclaims old time while emphasising its movement. Looking at an image of the past in Lines On A Young Lady’s Photograph Album ….

In short, a past that no one now can share,
No matter whose your future; calm and dry,
It holds you like a heaven, and you lie
Unvariably lovely there,
Smaller and clearer as the years go by.

The Whitsun Weddings – 1964

Philip Larkin had it perfectly as with so much from my early years. Time cannot be reclaimed however much we improve on it across the years. There is a thought to carry with you over your day, Dear Reader.

Saturday, 15th November, 2025

Half way through the month and half way through my time away. Life goes on, Dear Reader. What did I do yesterday? What am I doing today? What would I be doing in UK? The answer in all three cases is walking, walking and walking.

In UK, I would be walking in 13C/55F of misty drizzle. Here, I am walking in 25C/77F of gorgeous sunshine. Yesterday, I walked up to a new Development called Atlantic Homes. They have properties for sale and rent in the first phase which I featured yesterday.

I hadn’t realised that there is a huge, new second phase currently underway. It is certainly looking very interesting. I went in to the Sales Office of the Building/Marketing company, Viqueira, to get my name on the email Information List for when Phase 2 is completed this time next year.

In the meantime, I have rented an apartment in Phase One for 4 weeks in November 2026 to get a feel for it and be on site when the new ones are due to be released. The Development is up, away from the tattoo brigade. There isn’t a cheap paella restaurant or an All-You-Can-Eat Chinese in sight. It is an area to sit back in and breathe out.

This afternoon, I am at Twickenham watching England play the All Blacks. By Half Time, it is a wonderfully balanced game separated by just one point. Life can be wonderful, Dear Reader. Come over and share it with me.

What an afternoon. My wife cringed with extreme embarrassment as I roared on England as they destroyed the once mighty All Blacks. I’m sure the people of Tenerife were ecstatic.

Sunday, 2nd November, 2025

Week 880, Dear Reader. How many of you could keep it up that long ….. to coin a phrase? Almost 17 years. Mind you, I’ve been waiting a lot longer for some things. I never give up!

Hold on
I’m coming ….

Up at 4.00 am and Check-out by 5.00 am. Through to the Executive Lounge and Breakfast. Down to gate at 7.00 am. First on with Speedy Boarding and settled in to Extra Legroom. Watched a Drama downloaded from Netflix – Life Begins. It amused me and kept me engrossed for just over 4hrs of a boring flight.

I even missed an in-flight drama in which there was a call for A Doctor on Board. A doctor and a nurse volunteered and the patient was stabilised at the back.

An emergency ambulance met the plane on landing and we were all held for ten minutes while the patient was removed. Why he couldn’t have been stuck in a body bag and barrowed off, I don’t know. Anyway, Tenerife Sur Airport was quiet, comfortable and welcoming. We stopped for Baguette and a coffee before seeking a taxi and contacting our property manager.

It was 29C/85F. In contrast, Greater Manchester was 7C/45F and our home village was only 14C/57F. These disparities justify the cost of what we are doing. We are buying that contrast at an economical price of £1,350.00 per week.

We were met on arrival by Eric, the property Manager and walked through the facilities of the gated Development and those of the property itself.

Outside the Gates it is certainly more Chavvy than we would choose but inside it is as the name says, an Oasis of calm. Hardly anyone was near the pool and will not interrupt our Health & Fitness in the Sun Campaign.

Had to go back out to the Chav World where people were assembling in ‘Irish’ Pubs to watch Live Football. People were ordering Suppers from Indian Menus and the smell of Curry pervaded the warm air. I bought wine, cheese and tomatoes for an evening snack to be eaten when we had settled in to our new home properly. I watched some football and got on with Week 880 of my Blog.

Monday, 3rd November, 2025

Woken up ABROAD!!! Nearly fell through the patio doors going to the toilet in the dark. I need a dry, old stick to guide me. They exist, Dear Reader. The weather here is a sultry 29C/84F and sweaty.

Anyway, one of the reasons for this for this trip is to break out of comfortable routines and challenge ourselves to the discomfort of change.

I never go on holiday. I just move my life to another location. My job is to install and ensure communication systems. The internet is great here and I have connected up laptops, iPads, smartphones, Kindles, etc.. The TV is a piece of work in itself and has taken 24 hrs to establish all the UK Channels plus Netflix, Amazon Prime and Apple TV. I can watch sport on my laptop. You definitely don’t come to Tenerife for the culture.

It sounds incredibly snobby – ok, maybe it is but I don’t apologise. I am walking past old people shuffling down the road with their copy of The Daily Fail to get their Full English Breakfast accompanied by the strains of Rod Stewart. They are covered in tattoos. People who I would pass in the street in London wearing a suit and think they were accountants. Here they are Wings of the Dove on their chests. Wrinkly old ladies expose their bottoms to display hearts for ex-lovers. Where are these people from? What are they thinking? In the Supermurcado, there was also a girl walking round almost naked apart from a G-String. What are they doing? They’re not in Rochdale now!

I am buying Supper of Smoked Salmon, Anchovies, Manchego cheese and biscuits with tomato and cucumber. Delicious. I am blotting out the Steak & Chips, Chicken Tikka Masala, Chinese Banquet offerings on my walk. Back inside the Gated Community, sanity prevails. People look half sane. The ones who have heard of Farage have rejected his conceit. They wanted to be in Europe not restricted to a bit part by Brexit.

I have to be upfront. These people are not ‘my’ people. They never have been and I have always seen them as an underclass who were deserving of my charity. Currently, the Right Wing, anti-establishment, protest class are asserting their ugly values. It won’t last but it will make us think more carefully about social control. We really shouldn’t have to live in gated enclaves like this with the Barbarians at the door. This is not how life was meant to be.

Tuesday, 4th November, 2025

A warm, even humid night. The alarm on my phone is set for 5.45 am and I immediately set it to play the radio – BBC Radio 4 – Farming Today followed by the Today programme. Of course, this morning it was all about the Chancellor ‘rolling the pitch’ for tax rises. An hour later, I watched that speech on Sky News.

These are routines I would be following back in UK in West Sussex and it doesn’t seem unreasonable these days to halt them because I am abroad. How times have changed. In my early days, the best I could hope for was to queue for hours outside a little wooden shack on a Greek island for a two day old copy of The Times. No mobile phones. No internet. No BBC radio or UK television. Isolation. Goodness knows why I persisted with it. I am a News Junkie. I have to know what’s going on in the world.

It is why I now ensure that all these services are available in an place I travel to. Of course, it isn’t always straight forward. The say, Free Wi-Fi available but I have found it can be so slow as to be almost unusable. Here it is genuinely superfast. That makes all the difference and can cover up for a multitude of other weaknesses. If it came to it, I could get all the News Channels on my laptop. At one point, I thought that is exactly what I would be doing.

Eventually, after struggling with three separate set top boxes, three separate handsets and three separate languages, I managed to squeeze out of the system all the UK channels BBC/ITV/ Channel4/ Channel5/ Sky News. Then, after a severe bending of the system, I managed to establish my Netflix / Amazon Prime and Apple TV accounts.

If you go away for a few days, these things are not important but moving your life for a month or more means getting to grips with the washing machine and dishwasher and buying products for them. Just simple, initial provisions like soap and toilet paper, kitchen towel, washing up liquid, fly spray, etc. has to be bought in. Security, and emergencies have to be prepared for. How do you deal with a power failure? Where do you put the rubbish? Where do you buy food and how do you get it home? All of these ‘challenges’ are why I like to do this. If you sit at home in comfortable familiarity, time just passes you by. The challenge of building a life in unfamiliar surroundings keeps the mind alive.

The local newspaper tells us we missed the new, European digital entry system by 6 days. The also tell us that we are going to experience an unusual heatwave of 34C/93F over the next few days. Call that a heatwave? They don’t know the meaning of it.

Wednesday, 5th November, 2025

I am one sad, old git! A fortnight before I came away, I kicked a steel chair leg in bare feet and broke my little toe. Who knew that was important for walking? It has been incredibly painful since and, although I am forcing myself to do my walking, it is recovering very slowly. Yesterday I spent sneezing violently all day and this morning I have woken up with a heavy head cold. I haven’t had a cold for at least two years. I really must get a grip.

Warm weather makes a streaming cold just stream more and it is warm and I am streaming. In fact, I think I’m dying. The temperature didn’t fall below a steamy 24C/75F and, at 10.00 am it is already 28C/82F and climbing. It is on the top edge of what the Canaries expect and higher, heatwave temperatures are forecast. In fact, everywhere we have travelled recently, weather has been more extreme than normal.

It is hard to avoid the involvement of Global Warming … and goodness knows I have tried. I have been on a huge journey over the past two decades from complete sceptic to interventionist to largely accepting. The argument goes – Yes, the world is warming but it has gone through similar patterns across history and this is another of them. Yes, this is a more extreme and extended edition of those historical patterns but we will deal with it. We are an inventive and scientifically advance race which will come up with interventions for our follies.

Eventually, the intellectual deceit cannot be sustained and I have to accept that climate change is a thing, is man-made in large part and needs urgent intervention. I am at that stage. I have two fall-back positions neither of which entail the medieval choices of changing our heating and eating customs, driving/travelling less or not at all, flying less/not at all, etc.:

1. Nothing is beyond our minds, inventiveness and Science. We will come up with solutions.
2. I am 74. This won’t really be a drama until well after my death. To hell with them. Let the future Generations sort it out for themselves.

I can go on reaping the rewards of Global Warming on the beaches of the Canary Islands for the next 20 years and leave others to worry about the future. I have no personal Future Generation to worry about but I like to think of myself as a good person with reasonable morality. I will try, within my parameters, to contribute.

If you are a regular reader, you will know that I bought £20,000.00 worth of Premium Bonds largely for fun but with a serious purpose. I have taken out our maximum ISAs for the year which harbours £40,000.00 tax free and I wanted some Easy Access money which Premium Bonds offer but with tax free winnings. I worked out that I needed to win just £750.00 each year to break even and anything else – like a £1 million win – would be a nice little extra. Well, it is announced on the 1st of each month. October 1st brought £50.00.November 1st has just brought another £50.00 + £25.00 so we have £125.00 up to now from two months. Over 12 months that would hit my £750.00 target and I hope to do better than that.

Thursday, 6th November, 2025

Well, if I thought I was dying of Man-Flu yesterday, I almost did in the night. I was woken gasping for air at 2.30 am, gasping, fighting to breathe and making an ugly, animalistic, guttural noise. Quite scary for my bed-warmer who was jerked out of peaceful sleep to deal with what looked like a life threatening situation. …. As you can see, I survived the emergency and live to wheeze another day …. but, I’m not well.

After yesterday’s Blog, today’s article was apposite. No wonder the place is populated by scores of red-skinned, tattooed and wrinkly, old people shuffling along uneven pavements in scorching sun to the nearest Irish Pub where they watched the ‘match’ on the big screen last night over a Guinness or three and just happen to advertise service of breakfast this morning. They can pick up their copy of the Daily Express or Mail on the way to be shocked about UK immigration figures over a Full English. And soon they can enjoy A Vision of Elvis. What more could you want?

Well, I am trying to think myself healthy. I’m sure optimism and determination will do it. Pauline, on the other hand, is committed to over-the-counter, Farmacia potions. I was told I needed Lemsip to soothe and help me sleep. The Canarian alternative is half the strength for double the price. This pack of 10 sachets cost me €12.00. Next time I’m trying witchcraft!

I’ve said I rarely get a debilitating cold like this but, amazingly, I’ve just looked back to my records from 10 years ago and on this very day in 2015, I wrote that I had just come down with a heavy head cold – the first in 7 years. And where was I? Spending the month of November in Tenerife in Los Gigantes. Got to stop doing this. It’s too unhealthy.

Friday, 7th November, 2025

Had a slightly more comfortable night and feeling a bit better this morning. I knew you’d be worrying, Dear Reader. My wife has even cancelled the Hospice place, reluctantly. I am still not well but I live to feel ill for another day.

I am being given healthy things to eat to build up my strength and fight infection. Salmon and Green Beans for Supper last night. Freshly squeezed Orange juice and chilled fresh Papaya for Breakfast. This is one of the joys of Mediterranean/Canarian travel. You can get papaya in UK but it is always expensive, under-ripe and rather bland. Here it is cheap, huge, very ripe and dynamic.

I have orange juice freshly squeezed by my Housekeeper every morning in UK but here, and in so many continental supermarkets, they provide a juicing service. It is absolutely great and the juice is delicious.

This is sounding like one, old person splurge. One of the things that I have to manage is repeat prescriptions for life-saving drugs like Warfarin. Doctors and Pharmacies are tightening up procedures and do not allow them to be ordered from outside UK. They are always ordered online using the Surgery’s online consultation & triage platform called Systmconnect. It is a national system adopted by many surgeries. Unfortunately, surgery services are much more used by the older than the younger Generations and there are still lots of little, wrinkly people who prefer to collect their Daily Express in paper form from the shop and order their prescriptions in person at the surgery.

Anyway, fortunately virtual private networks (VPN) are now so easily available, intuitive to use and cheap to buy that all these attempts at control are pointless. I am in Tenerife but I go through my current favourite – NordVPN which has servers in four places across UK. I can choose which one at any given moment to point to including London, Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow and that’s where I will be digitally until I turn it off.

Currently, I’m in Manchester. It’s dry but cloudy and a chilly 13C/55F although I’m actually in Tenerife where it is a warm and sunny 26C/79F and I’ve ordered my prescription which my neighbour will collect for my return in December. I can safely access my bank account, savings and investments accounts without my internet provider monitoring and scamming me. I could even instantly get around the UK’s farcical age verification pornography sites at one click of a mouse. The internet still represents freedom as it has since I first accessed it over 40 years ago.

Saturday, 8th November, 2025

Tenerife may offer a culture but is utterly sublimated to that of their visitors. As soon as we get out of our gated community, we are greeted by loud signs outside a Café/Bar announcing Full English Breakfast for €9.40 and Dinner of the Day which seems to cycle between dishes like Sausage, Mash & Gravy – Fish, Chips & Mushy Peas, etc. for €12.00.

A short walk to the sea goes past all sorts of Blackpool Sea Front Attractions and the beach is packed and I really mean packed with wrinkled beached whales reading about the failings of post-Brexit Britain which so many of them helped to bring about.

They don’t walk anywhere. They rent the equivalent of motability scooters to drive along the pavements stripped to the waist, cigarette in mouth, from tawdry entertainment to grubby beach bar.

At first I thought that there were so many disabled, old people enjoying the sunshine but was shocked to see them almost knock me over on the pavement before stopping at a bar, parking up and walking in without problem. It is not as if many of them are that old. I would estimate that most of them are years younger than me. Well, most people are, Dear Reader. We used to have a phrase referring to the Lame, Sick & Lazy. I know what I am seeing here.

This morning, I am going to walk a 4 km round trip to buy things to get us through the weekend. Supermarkets are closed here on Sundays. It’s a Catholic thing with echoes of old England which is probably why the Brexiteers come here in such large numbers. While they park up their scooters and pile into the pub with a huge wide screen to watch Tottenham Hotspur v Man.Utd., I will watch it in peace on my laptop.

Tomorrow will mark the end of our first week here. It has been interesting, eye opening and deliciously sunny. Not my favourite place of all time but it is doing me good.

Sunday, 26th October, 2025

Quite a chilly night and we went down to 5C/41F – the coldest this Autumn. I’ll still be walking in shorts and tee shirt as strong sunshine covers our area but the change is noticeable. The house is deliciously warm with sunshine streaming in. No need for central heating yet and off to Canarian sunshine on Saturday.

Even so, we have returned to discussing solar panels again. Wickes, the Builders’ Merchant, have seized the initiative and established a nationwide supply and installation service. Their offering suggests supplying, and fitting 12 x panels plus battery storage with all upfront costs and a 25 year warranty for £8950.00. Under this plan, they suggest a 7 year period to recoup that outlay or almost £1300.00 per annum. Is it worth the disruption? Something to think about and discuss while we are away. In 7 years, I’ll be 81 if I am still alive. (Scream!)

The sad experience from yesterday of the relatively young lady trapped upstairs in a Dementia Home stayed with me all night. I found it harrowing, haunting. It left me trawling through my life, banging on the upstairs window of my past, calling, Help Me! I remember the days when Life was optimistic and positive.

In this week in 2008, I was preparing for my last Ofsted Inspection. All around was heavy snow. Global Warming was a new concept and the climate hadn’t read the reports. A year later in 2009, we had retired and my Mother-in-Law had shingles at the age of 96. It was incredibly painful. We were trying to support her while rejoicing in the knowledge that we were mortgage-free for the first time in our marriage.

The failing bank, Northern Rock, wrote to us to tell us that our borrowings of £270,000 had been paid off. We never borrowed again. Every subsequent property has been bought with cash. Northern Rock no longer exists.

In 2010, we were taking P&C over to have lunch at Ciao Bella in Huddersfield. The restaurant is no longer there. Weird to think that P is now dead and C is in Dementia Care.

A year later, in 2011, we were moving in to our Duplex Apartment in Surrey and starting on the next 5-year plan. In 2012, and as a sign of the inability to let my past go, we were preparing to drive up to Huddersfield to take delivery of our new car. A year later, in 2012, we were organising the payment of a large power bill in Sifnos – emphasising the ongoing responsibility of foreign ownwership.

By 2014, having sold our Greek home, we were out, loking for a new property in Sussex and, a year later, in 2015 we had bought off-plan and were down in Sussex talking to the Developers about our individual requirements. We had to live with garden furniture in the kitchen and a lack of wardrobes in the first year but, by 2016, we had new wardrobes fitted by an Oldham company in every bedroom and we had our Dining Table and chairs at last from Manchester.

By 2017, we were really settled and ensconced in David Lloyd Health Centre where we spent every day using the outdoor pool come rain, cold and shine. We haven’t been back since the pandemic.

By this week in 2018, we were preparing to fly to Tenerife for a month in the sun and spending our first night in Gatwick Sofitel. Guess what we’re preparing to do this week – preparing to fly to Tenerife for a month in the sun and spending our first night in Gatwick Sofitel.

And so it is, just like you said it would be. Life goes easy for me ….. most of the time. And so it is. The shorter story …. But, Dear Reader, through this veil of tears we can never rest on our laurels. Life is constantly in flux and we must prepare ourselves for change. Are you ready?

Monday, 27th October, 2025

Glorious day but a sad one as well. It is 15 years ago today that my lovely Mother in Law’s funeral took place. I wrote and delivered the Eulogy and nothing has ever been easier to write. I had so much to say. She was such a lovely woman and I remember every moment of the day.

Actually, I have been unable to exercise for a couple of days because I have injured my toe in one of my regularly ‘accidents’. I kicked a table leg (accidentally) with my bare foot and it is screamingly blue and painful so I am resting it. I have some time on my hands and I have asked for some help from my old friend and ‘official’ Oldham Historian, John, with a search on a document that came up out of my recently deceased Sister in Law’s effects. It was a reference written for her husband, Colin, by her Uncle, John James Barnes in the 1960s.

Jane’s daughter and Pauline’s sister, Phyllis, died a few weeks ago and her husband, Colin, is in a Care Home. From Phyllis’ effects came a Reference for Colin in the 1960s written by John James Barnes – the brother of Phyllis and Pauline’s Dad. He had died in 1967. His ‘Carrier’ business was based at 2 Solomon Street, Oldham which no longer exists.

I have been able to trace Pauline’s family back to 1759 through the Norfolk branch which originated from Norwich. They moved to Oldham in the 1850s when the Cotton Trade of Norfolk collapsed and that of Oldham and other Northern towns was booming. It is a fascinating tale worth telling and I am going to work on it over the Winter wherever I am in the world.

It will mean spending some time in Oldham, searching out and meeting people which could be fun, Dear Reader. First, I am enlisting the help of the guru of Oldham’s Local History Centre who has been teaching Oldham History for what seems like a lifetime.

John has access to all the Local History Community Centre‘s archives – maps, trades and professions records, movers and shakers from the past, etc. I have a feeling that, when I go up to see him on my return from Tenerife, he will have done a lot of the leg work for me.

Tuesday, 28th October, 2025

Must wish my Greek friends and readers Happy National (Ochi) Day. Today is the day in 1940 when the Greek Leader, Metaxas, bravely chose to defy the the Fascist advance of Mussolini and the Nazi forces of Hitler and to deny their forces access to Greece. He said, No (Ochi) and became an instant hero of proud Greece.

Today is like a Bank Holiday on steroids and Greeks take every opportunity, outside tourist time, to whoop it up. Anyway, enjoy yourselves and drink a glass of Metaxa Brandy or three. We know that, even though it is warm and sunny today, you will be dressed for skiing in the snow and shivering as if the Ice Age had arrived.

I am not so brave. If only I had the Metaxas spirit. I will jet off to the sun at the weekend a month of warmer weather before returning to a number of medical procedures. Within a couple of days of returning in December, I am having a ceramic crown 3D printed to fit my broken tooth and fitted all in the same morning. I have managed to negotiate the price down from £1000.00 to £750.00 but the price will still hurt more than the procedure.

Next, I expected to have a PSA blood Test and a full body scan prior to meeting the Oncology Team at Worthing Hospital for my Annual Review. Yesterday, I received a phone call which I thought at first was a ‘scam’ telling me that I had to go for a Cystoscopy at the Urology Department. I had to ask her how to spell it so I could look it up and, as you’ll see from the diagram, I rather wish I hadn’t. I am considering sending my wife instead.

Been down to the Marina in the sunshine to take my mind off it. This is Oyster Pond near the Marina where kids sail little boats in the Summer and old men sail them in the Winter. It’s Half Term so the Funfair is open which is where the kids are today.

Wednesday, 29th October, 2025

I used to teach kids the word Coincidence when I was English teacher in my early days by talking about the man who walked to work each day down the same road past a row of terraced houses. The couple who lived at No 43 were very poor and couldn’t afford to maintain their roof. Gradually, it got worse and things began to slip until, one day just as the man was passing, a slate finally gave way and hit him on the head and killed him.

Two incidents coming together to produce another event. Incident 1.:The man walking past No.43. Incident 2.:The unmaintained roof slate making its final slip. Event: Dead man on pavement. Who doesn’t like a bit of slapstick? And it helps to keep the word’s construction and origin fixed in a little mind.

Coincidences are everywhere and make the world seem a little more integrated and coherent. I find them fascinating and they almost seem to replace the need for some fanciful Spiritual Being or god in that they give the world meaning even if it is illusory. I think I have told the story before of my Brother setting out on a three month voyage to the island of South Georgia in the South Atlantic near the Falkland Islands to work on the British Antarctic Survey.  One of the first people he met when getting there was our next door neighbour from our small, Midlands village. What are the chances?

I’m sure I’ve written about one of the most extraordinary coincidences in my own experience before and I apologise if you read it. Almost 55 years ago I left my College Digs where I had been treated wonderfully by the owners – Mr & Mrs Boyd – who rented out the top floor of their house and acted almost as surrogate parents for two years. That was 1971. I didn’t see them again before I left College and the area. Fast forward 20 years and I was attending a conference in central London, rushing to get a tube train from my hotel and pushing through a crowded underground queue when who should I see but Mr & Mrs Boyd.

Suddenly the world becomes smaller and more integrated. Lives become increasingly interlinked and less fragmented. So it is with memories where distant times meet coincidentally. There was a school in the Oldham Authority called Fitton Hill that closed because of cost cutting 35 years ago. The teachers were re-placed around the Authority and four came to my school. I felt very sorry for them because it wasn’t a comfortable thing for them. The photo above came up in something I was reading this morning joining these two times in history in my thoughts.

I didn’t know many people in this photo personally but of those I did/do know two are dead. One became a deputy Head at Hathershaw and was a well known local actor who worked with the Oldham Coliseum. One became Pauline’s Deputy, retired before us and I then found reported in a Lancashire Newspaper as having halted a Blackburn Rovers League game when he suffered a heart attack on the terraces and had to be resuscitated but later died of a second attack. Another was educated in Northern Catholic College where the monks were found to be paedophiles, subsequently separated from his wife after taking numerous lovers and then emigrated to Canada to escape the scandal.

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

T.S.Eliot

There are two or three others – a woman who taught pottery and two men who became chain smoking peripatetic music teachers. Where are they now? How are their lives developing? Will I ever see them again? Will there be a coincidence? Do they remember me? Do they wonder how my life is going? Who knows.

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.

The Four Quartets: Burnt Norton – T.S.Eliot – 1936

All I know is that I will revisit as many connections from my past as I can and the Past will become the Future, Dear Reader.

Thursday, 30th October, 2025

Quite cold last night. We went down to 5C/41F before sunrise. That’s quite cold for down here. All the outdoor tomatoes have been picked and the plants cleared away before we leave although I am still eating them and will do until I leave on Saturday. It is sunny here today but there is an edge on the air now. A month in the sunshine and the temperatures in Tenerife are forecast to hover around 27C/81F during the day and 19C/66F at night time. That’s worth a few thousand pounds, Dear Reader.

Never let it be said that I am a boring creature of habit but, this week ten years ago I was setting off for a month in …. Tenerife while we waited to move in to our new house in West Sussex. On this occasion it was in a 5* Hotel. It was great. We stayed for a second month in the January as well. We really enjoyed it but hotel living for that length of time was too ‘regimented’ for us and next time we rented our houses with pools.

And so it is. The shorter story … we are renting a duplex apartment with pool for the month. I can continue my life – walking, writing, reading, tweeting, Blogging, eating great quality home cooking, swimming without restriction, etc. …. No love, no glory.

I’ve just been to the Hairdressers. Yesterday it was to the Beauty Clinic. Neither for me, I hasten to add. I am beyond redemption. Pauline has been preparing herself for her holiday in the Canarian sun.

Friday, 31st October, 2025

A grey day befitting of the date. I’d like to say I don’t believe in ghosts any more than gods but I have so many that haunt me every day that it wouldn’t ring true. I, perhaps, am unsually haunted by the past, by my past. I see it in images however blurred and hear it in the cadences of poetry and song, in the sound of people’s voices that linger over the years and remain the same.

They knew, as I,
Those living ghosts who cannot leave their dreams,
And in years after and before their death
Return as they can, and with ghost’s pleasure search
Those several happy acres, or those rooms
Where, like unwilling moth, they collided with
The enormous flame that blinded and hurt too much.

Philip Larkin – Ghosts

Mine is not a children’s Trick or Treat but recognises end of life significance and urgently researches those several happy acres, colliding with the enormous flame that hurt too much.

Talking of living ghosts who cannot leave their dreams, it is the College Reunion in a couple of weeks. I haven’t been able to bring myself to go yet. I’ve suggested they re-locate to Tenerife and my kind friend, Kev, has said that it would be a great idea. I’m still waiting to hear whether it will be worth it.

I would like at least to send them some sunshine but, before I go away, there are plenty of things to do in the Present. The automatic lights couldn’t be set before the clocks went back so that has been one job this week. I actually use more lights when away than at home but it is worth it. Then there is the ‘old people’ stuff like Repeat Prescriptions to collect and our next door neighbour has been asked to do that.

When you go away for a lengthy time, simple things like dustbins can’t be left to putrify so a trip to the local Tip is booked for today. I am going to Check-in online to our hotel at Gatwick in advance. I have contacted the Manager of the property we’ve rented to confirm that the flight is currently on time but landing might be delayed by the new Entry/Exit System for the Schengen Area.

At 3.00 am last night, I was woken by this message from Easyjet which was good of them, wasn’t it Dear Reader. We tried to anticipate this process by a quick trip to France last week but we were thwarted by the Le Shuttle not being ready for it yet. We have to hope that Tenerife isn’t either or we could be in for a long queue. Fortunately, we will have four weeks to get over it.

The need now is for sun and warmth. I run the risk of being accused unadventurous by returning to cheap and cheerful Tenerife. A month will cost us an additional £5000.00 over and above normal living expenses.

I often look at and reject alternatives – Marrakesh is warm but not the Mediterranean culture I love. Cape Verde is a possibility but it is over 6 hrs away and has crude infrastucture. Sharm el Sheikh would be a rich alternative in Egypt but, somehow, I don’t fancy it. To be honest with you, I’m not bothered about the culture. I just want to shift my life to warmer places and carry on without a fuss. The Canaries are fine for this.

Saturday, 1st November, 2025

Another day, another month, another trip. New November, Dear Reader. Enjoy! It has opened beautifully here with strong sunshine and a clear, blue sky after an incredibly warm night which hovered around 18C/65F. The nights won’t be that much warmer in Tenerife over the next month. Mind you, the days are going to be 27C/81F which is why I will be there.

The house is sparked into life as my Housekeeper charges (glides) round organising. After coffee, I am instructed to empty, clean and lay to rest my coffee maker for the next month. The fridge is being emptied of perishable items – mind you, not many were allowed to linger there over the past few days anyway. To a woman who never wastes anything, throwing away a carton of fresh orange juice and a an unopened box of grapes is a painful anathema but it has to be done.

Housekeepers plan and prepapre things to every minute detail. I must admit, it takes the pressure off me. I have just prepared all the electrical/computer items for travel and the remote security systems. That was tiring enough.

We won’t be back much before Christmas so we’ve already been facing the annual dilemma – digital or analogue, cards and newsletters or emails and Whatsapps. Of course, the former has largely won out again. There are too many people on our list who would be disappointed or nonplussed by an email so 60 cards have been purchased and stored. The newsletter will be put together in an idle moment while away and printed out in December.

So now, all that remains is to put our luggage in the car and to drive to the Gatwick Sofitel Hotel. It’s part of the Accor Hotel Group of which I am a member. We fly early tomorrow morning and the warmth begins. Of course the dilemma will only follow us. Postcards or not postcards? That is the question. I have some little friends who love them and I wouldn’t want to disappoint although most use Social Media and will stay in touch that way. I have to keep telling myself not to use emojis from abroad. EE charge me more than £1.00 a time. Nobody’s worth that, Dear Reader!

Happily settled in our room in the Sofitel – fairly modest but we’re only here for ma few hours – and I am already working out how to connect my iPad to the TV. A few glasses of wine and I couldn’t care less about anything.

We’ve used this hotel many times. It makes early flights much more relaxing.The car has a wonderful spot in Long Stay and we can forget everything for a while and concentrate on enjoyment. I just wish I could share it with you, Dear Reader.

Sunday, 19th October, 2025

It is 15 years since I left a dark and damp, run-down North of England. It felt a progressive, forward step into the sunlight to be moving to Surrey. It was certainly warmer, drier and sunnier and much more expensive. It was, perhaps a bit less friendly and more impersonal but I didn’t mind that.

Each successive visit back to the North seemed to find it more and more depressed and depressing. The weather seemed to be just as awful but the economy seemed to be visibly depleted. Huddersfield, a town I once really enjoyed, was becoming more and more boarded up in between charity shops, pawn shops and betting shops which offered the unemployed and impoverished citizens a glimpse of what they could win.

And then the Tory party got elected with the promise of Levelling Up. There wasn’t a lot of evidence of it although an improved transport/communication system does take a while to install. In Greater Manchester where the superb Labour mayor, Andy Burnham is in charge, congestion charges and a smart new tram system have really got things moving. House prices are on the up and some seem to think the tide of travelling South just may be turning. Who knows, maybe it is time to reassess my position.

Of course, not everyone agrees. The old and curmudgeonly find the move to gentrification not to their taste. Some still look to the fanatsy Golden Age of yesteryear. On Oldham Road, this sign seems to sum it up although it rather went over my head until I looked it up. I soon realised why I didn’t understand. Sankeys was a well known nightclub. Who has ever been to a nightclub, for goodness sake? I, for one, prefer sourdough. However, there are definitely some things I want to revisit in the North and I will.

As the rain pours down over Manchester today, I would still need a bit of encouragement to build a life back in the area. Actually, it would take a King’s ransome.

Monday, 20th October, 2025

Well, something weird happened. A strange co-incidence and I use that word advisedly. I received an email from my cousin, David. I hadn’t heard from him since last December and here he was asking me if I shopped at Amazon. I replied a bit flippantly by asking if the Pope was Catholic. This morning, I had a second email from David’s email address asking if I could help him by email because he couldn’t talk on the phone. He said he had severe laryngitis. Alarm bells started ringing and that was made worse when my wife received two copies of that same email. This was almost certainly a scam but one which had accessed our address books. I’ve had to block David’s email address. If he’d liketo phone me, we can discuss it.

Hotel Wi-Fi is notoriously dangerous. We all take it for granted these days but it was an additional cost only a short while ago. Then it became a privilege of regular customers and now is ubiquitous. It has always been dangerous. All internet access outside the confines of our home router involves danger. It isn’t too difficult to access users’ data – their emails, banking, passwords, etc., on an open wifi feed. That’s why I use VPN.

Just as I was worrying about cousin, David, and his sore throat, the news broke of a compromise involving Amazon internet warehousing services. The internet is the most fantastic development in the past 200 years. It is also the biggest threat.

Well, I say the biggest threat. My (much) older friend, Kevin, has been sent for cataract removal. I have pointed out that Masturbation causes Blindness. He said that inspite of his eyesight, he could read that. I don’t know if it will help.

Tuesday, 21st October, 2025

It hurt but I left because I am thoughtful and kind. It won’t always be like that. I’ve promised myself this will be the last time. Having said that, driving down to the Tunnel was delightful. It was the most beautiful day for a long drive. Clear Skies, strong, low sunshine and increasingly warm temperatures the further South we went. I have promised myself it is the last time. I am too old to let it go on any longer. Next time I will break eggs.

We were hoping that we could go through the Biometric process for the EES but the frustrated staff said it was delayed again. The next chance will be a month of November in Tenerife.

The traffic down was light and we got over to France early. We checked in to our hotel and went out to shop for our meal. As I drove, I was replaying distant memories in my head while listening to the very current podcasts of The Newsagents. the time sped by.

For mid October, the Tunnel was quiet, deserted and desperate. We got on an early train and were off thirty mins early. While we sat on the train beneath the sea, I watched Boris Johnson stonewalling the Covid Enquiry because their forensic questioning went way over his head. his stock answer was, I don’t remember.

Arriving early and with light traffic, we were soon at out Coquelles hotel. Our suite was ready and we settled in before driving down to Auchan. I bought some particular wine glasses there a few years ago and have subsequently smashed two so I wanted to source replacements. Amazingly, 5 years on they were still for sale. Auchan around here is rather at the level of Aldi in UK. The customers are distinctly down market and impoverished. Even so, the supermarket had a vibrancy and a display of fresh fish and vegetables to grace any UK supermarket.

Wednesday, 22nd October, 2025

Glorious morning for a full, hotel Breakfast and a French hotel at that. Oh god, I’m full!! Had to go out for a long walk to feel better.

Wissant Beach Front is lovely on this gorgeously sunny and warm morning. Shorts and tee shirt in France in late October is great. We walked down to the Wissant School of Painters.

They have a beautiful canvas. All they need is naked ladies and there are quite few of those around here.

It is Half Term here and lots of French kids are here with their Mums to run on the sands. It is also Market Day and there is an incredibly busy crowd of shoppers thronging the stalls.

Amazing how many people are keen to buy locally produced products and to support their region. Small scale farming which cannot be cost effective is supported here in a way it is not in UK. I must admit, I am conflicted over the subject. If we saw a failing car maker go to the wall, would we jump to support them? I don’t think so.

Thursday, 23rd October, 2025

What a difference a day makes. After a beautiful day yesterday, the night brought strong winds and torrential rain. The morning has opened dry and bright but breezy.

Breakfast at 7.30 am. Oh, don’t make me eat any more. My body isn’t accustomed to it. Usually, I have orange juice, tea and fresh coffee. Now, I’m eating croissants the size of mountains.

Travelling back through the tunnel under the sea – a weather free environment – this afternoon. The most gorgeous cockerel was roaming the hotel carpark. Unfortunately, I wasn’t up to catching and plucking it but a younger, hungrier man ….

We were at the Euro Tunnel early and given an earlier crossing. Things were quiet. As we queued to board, the rain began again. I have become blasé about import requirements. Nobody ever checks and I have increasing enlarged my quantities. Today, I brought almost double my wine allowance without concern. I actually feel sorry for the workers standing outside in all weathers.

THe motorways were fantastic and the journey home wonderful. I love driving and I enjoyed the trip. Boxes of wine unloaded, wine racks filled, House returned to services for daily living. Going away for a month at the end of next week so nothing is shelved. Suitcases left out ready for refilling with clean clothes. I don’t know anything about that fortunately. What I do know is that the disruption to the routines of daily life really does me good. I’ve got just 9 days until I sleep in the Sofitel Gatwick Airport for a night so can’t get too comfortable.

Friday, 24th October, 2025

Gorgeous morning. Wonderful sunshine and blue sky. I’d only been away a few days but last night I picked another 1.5kg of cherry tomatoes from outside in the back garden. I continue to marvel at this productivity outside at the end of October.

These plants were self seeded from previous years. They are seeds from seeds I bought and sowed three years ago. They are fruiting so heavily. I have had more than 10 kilos of delicious, cherry tomatoes. They are ripening more slowly now so I finish them off on a kitchen window sill but they are really sweet.

The times they are a changing. The tomatoes must slow down soon. In fact, I will grub them up and clean out the raised beds next weekend prior to going away. Clocks go back on Saturday night and the local Bonfire Jamboree on the Beach is set for tomorrow night. Incredibly fast movement of time. We will soon be 75, Dear Reader. How many Tomato Harvests? How many more Bonfire Nights to go? Makes me shiver to think about it.

Down at the beach, the bonfire wood was being piled high by JCBs and the Funfare was setting up again. The material rhythms of the year may have been marked but the weather was warm and bright. The tide gentle and quiet. The beach empty.

The beach is empty in Greece now. The island is largely bereft of tourists who generally look for sun and warmth although a few hardy walkers remain. The funny thing is that, although there a rainy days, generally the temperature is respectably mild. The Greeks, though, treat it like mid winter and dress accordingly.

Saturday, 25th October, 2025

Absolutely gorgeous morning but punctuated by a very sad and disconcerting event. Out walking, I go past the periphery of the posh, new Care Home which was built recently in the beautiful grounds of an old and now demolished historical house. It was bathed in lovely sunshine as I walked past the fence separating its grounds from the Development in which our house sits.

It is an expensive facility which incorporates a Dementia Floor rather like the one that my Brother-in-Law is based in up in Surrey. We rarely see people out in the grounds which are surrounded by a high and sturdy fence and fringed by newly planted trees. This morning, as I walked along the perimeter fence, my attention was drawn by the sounds of a persistent knocking.

I looked up to see a young, old lady with short blonde hair gesturing at an upstairs window. Her hands said obviously, Help Me! Please help me. It was as if she was a prisoner being held aginst her will. It was a heartbreaking gesture. I must admit from recent experience I knew what the problem was. I walked round to the Reception Area and spoke to them. Immediately, I could sense how uncomfortable the Management were.

They were at pains to establish that they knew exactly who the lady was. She was a new admission who was still struggling with her position. Dementia patients are housed on the upper floor so that they can’t wander off and can be monitored. My brother in law, C, refers to it as ‘prison’ and emphasises how he has to ‘follow the rules’. That is the problem with Dementia. One minute you are in the present and acutely aware of your position. Next you are completely lost in your distant past and a danger to yourself. I could see the utter relief of the Management when they realised we understood.

Oh, Dear Reader, will this be me? Will I be gesturing for help from an upstairs window? Will you save me? The thought is unbearable and deeply sad. Is this how life ends? This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper. With a gesture: Help Me!

Sunday, 12th October, 2025

The warm weather continues after a warm night. I think we were double the temperature of the North of England last night. Out early walking as the sunshine began to break through the clouds from last night.

The world is decorated with dying. Everywhere glorious colours of decay adorn the pavements. The sound is lovely as we push our feet through Autumnal debris.

Of course I am in my own Autumn as has been pointed out. I posted the projection of me at 90 yesterday. I will be only too pleased to see that day. Since a diagnosis of prostate cancer, mortality and time scales have been brought much more sharply in to focus. Even though I live in a relatively prosperous area with excellent Medical provision, my cancer was caught early and treated ‘successfully’, it is constantly nagging away at me that the cancer will return. Will it be the shedding of my leaves upon a pavement to be blown away in the next gale?

I was shocked to read last week that men who had received radio therapy and hormone treatment to eradicate prostate cancer could expect to live at least 5 years. Well, 99% of us could. Will I be the 1%? I am receiving excellent monitoring – two PSA tests per year and one full body scan per year followed by a consultation with the Oncology Team at my local hospital. My next one will be after I return from Tenerife in December. As far as I am aware, that will continue for life.

Of course, not only is that sort of treatment really reassuring but it is fairly comprehensive. As this report from The King’s Fund makes clear, poorer areas have less access to healthcare due to a whole series of factors like:

• fewer GPs per capita
• difficulty accessing appointments
• transportation costs
• financial barriers

It may be my own fault if I don’t get to see the promised land of a nonagenarian. I must try harder! But, it will come to us all. I can feel it coming in the air tonight ….

Monday, 13th October, 2025

Grey and mild and that’s how the week is forecast to be down here. We were 14C/57F over night which isn’t fantastic but felt quite warm – if you’re not sleeping out on the streets. The clocks go back in two weeks and the street lights clocks will be adjusted accordingly. I mention that because our local services are excellent here and work like clockwork.

I am sometimes criticised for being a bit of a fly-by-night, constantly moving house and location, not settling into a community. Actually, I think I get to know more about each community I move into than others spending a life time in theirs. I have been on the South Coast for a decade now and I love it. Some who have lived in the village of Angmering for years complain about its continual development, expansion, gentrification. What so many of them don’t realise is that all the world is constantly in flux just differing in its pace.

Yes, you can criticise the Parish Council for not embracing this change. As in so many places, the car has not been easily accomodated and commerce has moved out of the village to the nearby towns but most of us can live with that.

These pictures are of Angmering Village in the early 1920s – just after the First World War when so many of it’s young men died. The streets of our development are named after individual men who died in that war. These people were survivors and had no idea that war would break out again within 20 years. They did not know electric lighting. Just think about that. Their lives were dominated by nature, the seasons and the hours of the day with sunlight and darkness illuminated by candles and spirit lamps.

At the time of these photographs, the residents had not got mains water. They used hand pumps to raise water from underground aquifers and wells. They had no mains sewage systems until the end of the decade. Electric lights weren’t brought to domestic homes befor the 1930s and street lighting wasn’t installed until 1964. Now, the tiny village is struggling to cope with electric cars inspite of the developing bypass.

And here I am. I don’t know for how long. Our 5 year plan has already stretched to a 10 year plan and we are tending to concentrate on travel while keeping our base constant. Who knows, Dear Reader? Who knows?

Tuesday, 14th October, 2025

Warm, grey morning. Have to visit the Calm & Gentle Dentist to deal with my broken tooth. Needed someone to hold my hand.

Rescue me
Ah, take me in your arms
Rescue me
I want your tender charms

I don’t do pain. Fortunately, things turned out well. I saw an emergency dentist who was brilliant. I have a temporary filling which will be replaced with a crown when I return from Tenerife in December. Do you know that it will cost me £1000.00? Can you believe that?

What is there about this bit of engineering that is worth all that cash? I will pay it because it means I will not lose my tooth. After all, Dear Reader, my ongoing beauty is paramount. Also, I couldn’t face living on soup for the rest of my life.

What does help is music. Today I am listening to the soothing music for violin and piano – Lili Boulanger Nocturne pour violon et piano (1911) – peace before the war.

On my walk this afternoon, I walked through the woods for the first time in perhaps a year. All had changed.

On the one side where the old Nurseries which grew salad vegetables for the County were, Houses were already being lived in. On the other side where once the rabbits had once had their playground, a full housing development reigned. Through the centre, the lane still ran under the arches of trees – a pastoral walk for the newcomers to say they are living in a village.

Wednesday, 15th October, 2025

Glorious morning for the mid point of October. The time really is flowing fast at the moment. Beware, Dear Reader! Hold tightly on to the coat tails of each day.

Today would be my Dad’s 110th Birthday. Unfortunately, he missed 60 of those years. He died just short of his 50th Birthday on the 24th September, 1965. I must admit, I don’t miss him because I hardly really knew him. He supplied me with a comfortable childhood until I was 14 years old but he was fairly remote in my memory. I do wonder how my life would have developed if he’d lived but that is just in a pensive moment.

Even so, my Mother loved him dearly and they were a great partnership. I never saw them have a cross word ever. He worked extremely hard in running the business and it took its toll on him. He died of a heart attack in Burton on Trent General Hospital where he was being treated for angina. Now, he would almost certainly have lived. I often think about the things that he missed and how he would have adapted to them. He was practical and embraced early change. He was the first person in his village to build a transistor radio receiver in the early 1950s. He had the first sports car in the village. He was quite early in installing central heating in our house.

Having said that, from what I remember of him, he was fairly traditional and East Midlands, small village centric. He was in Palestine in the army and had clearly travelled but he showed no inclination of venturing abroad subsequently as far as I was aware. I do wonder how he would have viewed the arrival of mobile phones in his 70s and the internet when he would have been around 80. I like to think he would have been an early adopter of electric cars and lorries for his business. Mind you, he did read The Daily Telegraph and vote Tory.

Thursday, 16th October, 2025

Went to bed late and feeling rather sad. Woke at 3.30 am and didn’t get back to sleep until the radio came on at 5.45 am. Those early morning hours are a nightmare for thoughts and regrets. So hard to dispel. Consequently, I didn’t get up until 7.15 am and felt late for everything all morning.

It had been a warm day yesterday and a warm night opening up on a glorious morning. The past few weeks’ wonderful weather has rather arrested the development of Autumn, revived the growth of grass, the hedges, flowers and my outdoor tomatoes. I’ve just found the bed that I thought I had cleared of potatoes months ago are suddenly sprouting …. new potatoes probably from small ones I missed first time round.

Got quite a busy day. Shopping in Sainsburys. Grass cutting before I go away. Flu jabs this afternoon. Car needs cleaning.

No so long ago, Boris Johnson got elected on the shallow promise of Levelling Up a Conservative Party manifesto policy that aimed to reduce the imbalances, primarily economic, between areas and social groups across the United Kingdom. Like so many things under the Tories in general and Johnson in particular, it was said to get elected rather as Brexit was in name only.

Consequently, Rochdale elected a proper Labour MP – a fantastic MP and respected journalist, Paul Waugh. Suddenly, Levelling Up becomes a reality. They have managed to negotiate a development pot of £20m to pour into the lowly, working class areas. I’m looking forward to seeing for myself.

In just the same way, Oldham’s Labour MPs have managed to save the historic and nationally significant theatre – Oldham Coliseum – from closure and reallocation by getting the funding for a full refurbishment. My friend, David Johnson, dead now for 7 years, would be rejoicing.

Friday, 17th October, 2025

Do worry about the medical profession at times. They employ some amazingly low level ability in supposedly high level positions. Still, I suddenly realised yesterday why low level can be quite appropriate for some jobs. This letter in The Times amused me.

My treatment by the NHS has been nothing short of wonderful over the past 50 years or so. Admittedly, I’ve had more call on it in recent years as bits have started to drop off but I haven’t been failed. In an area where residents are screaming about the burgeoning house development and population increase, the medical services are coping very well here.

Each month I complete an ONS NHS Survey which attempts to chart the nation’s developing views of the service. It takes a few minutes and is the least I can do. Other people in my area give up lots of their time freely to help out at the local surgery. Yesterday, when I walked down to receive my annual vaccinations, there were people organising the car park, organising the checking in, the preparation for the doctor and showing people out afterwards. Must have been 15 volunteers involved. Puts to shame some of the highly paid lunatics at the top who struggle to spell and punctuate.

One of the questions on the form each month is: Is your Doctor’s service getting better or worse? Since the pandemic, our doctors have been improving immensely. We are delighted with them. What hasn’t improved is Dentistry. The survey asks questions about that but it stops abruptly after say I have a private dentist service because there is no NHS one available. I have to have a crown on my tooth. It will cost me £1000.00. If I could have it done on the NHS, it would cost me a third of that price.

When you think of the poor, little people out there struggling to afford their food bill each month; struggling to manage their rent each month. How on earth can they afford to find £1000.00 for a tooth? The Dentistry Contract definitely needs redrawing.

À propos of absolutely nothing and only because this page should be illuminated with great beauty and smooth singing, this clip has been recovered from archives by a friend and is from 1971. Sorry about the hair but I had a savage barber!

I’m shattered. Just finished two hours of mowing and two hours of walking. Feels good but tiring. Lovely, warm day at 17C/63F for mid-October. Wonder what it’s going to be in the North tomorrow? Must call in on Mike and update him on his twin sister. When I get back, I will be looking to have my tooth fixed and the local (Brighton) implant clinic will do it for almost half my dentist’s price at £525.00 so I will be going to see them urgently.

Saturday, 18th October, 2025

It always seems to be on a day like today that I debate in my head that burning issue – Burial or Cremation? Which would I want for myself. It is sparked by the fact that my lovely Mother in Law died on this day in 2010 – unbelievably 15 years ago. We visit the crematorium in Hollinwood, Oldham to view the Book of Rememberance and to focus our minds on her for a moment.

It’s not as if we would forget her. There are memories of her around the house and we even have some flowering fuscias with her name in the garden in the garden now but this is a poignant moment every year. We still have such vivid memories of the dash home from Greece to be with her because she wasn’t well and of the hours and hours spent in Oldham Royal with her before the end. It is important to mark that time.

En route to Oldham, I call in to visit my Mum & Dad’s grave in Repton and to just focus my mind once again on the start they gave me to my life. Just as in Youth, we tend to reject our parents’ generation, so the older one gets, the more we recognise our antecedents as signicant in the developments of our lives. You will probably know Gray’s Elegy, Dear Reader.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree’s shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mould’ring heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard – Thomas Gray (1751)

This time of year, the atmosphere is always so appropriate. There is dampness on the ground and dead leaves laying, rotting. There is something particular about graveyards that is evocative of sadness, death, decay but also remembrance. They are a particularly graphic focal point for a visit. They are living and dying History.

And so we turn it back to the present and the living. Cremation or Burial, Dear Reader? As a Historian, I have always favoured Burial but now, as the time comes towards me, I am increasingly moving towards Cremation or not caring at all. I just don’t want people feeling an obligation to visit …. except for coffee.

Sunday, 5th October, 2025

Glorious morning – clear blue sky and strong sunshine. Still and calm. Just as well, because it has finally happened.

I have woken to find myself married to a 74 year old. How did that happen? I thought I had married a young girl.

Actually, the time has aged me a lot more than her. I wonder why. Her Mother always refered to her as My Little Pixie and she really hasn’t changed much since then.

Actually, she may have got a bit fitter in recent times although she has always been sporty. It’s not generally known outside her friendship group but she was a fully qualified Netball Referee. Unlike me, she is incapable of sitting down. She is constantly on the move. It always makes me laugh that although I have to sit down to think, to read and to write and it takes all my concentration, she does it all standing up, while walking and while stacking the dishwasher, while making bread. What normal person does that?

Today, it is my job to produce a Birthday Evening meal. I’m not a great cook so I am going to produce cold, snack food in the form of Mezze (small dishes). Obviously, I will produce these myself.

Birthday Mezze Menu

She’ll need to go on a very long run after all that. Fortunately, on this beautiful morning, we are going to pre-empt that by going out now.

Chosen to go out for a run before the meal. Looks like she might have lost a bit of weight … which is annoying! She was amused that I addressed her card: Mrs P Sanders. I don’t know why.

Monday, 6th October, 2025

Glorious morning. Not a cloud in the sky. Strong sunshine and warm. This is how life should be. This is how you said it would be …. most of the time. Last night was illuminated by an October Super Moon.

And this morning is illuminated by a super, October sun. Going out for an early walk to get the most out of the day, Dear Reader.

Fun but shocking to watch a Conservative Party Conference which is hardly able to get delegates there.

It is shocking how quickly the political scene is shifting at the moment. The 24 hr rolling media, the easy access of social media, the culpability of the main stream media all conflate to promote fringe, unsubstantiated, unfunded, populist policies of people like Farage and Reform.

Of course, the people of Manchester are a strange tribe who are unwelcoming of foreign travellers. They are inclined to adopt aggressive attempts to repel visitors, travellers from distant lands and those of different persuasions. The Labour Government is experiencing its own difficulties at the moment in the nose-bleed-capital of the North of England.

There is a movement that is taking place as a fantastic antidote to the racist, little Englander views of Faragism. It is the Green Party and their exciting new leader, Zack Polanski. He is a Gay Jew neither of which I identify with but he is speaking a full-fat Left Wing agenda that the Labour Party will have to address if it wants to win the next election which I still expect it to do.

Going out for my second walk of the day. In Athens it is 22C/70F and in Angmering it is 20C/68F with the most beautiful sunshine. I wish it on all my readers.

Tuesday, 7th October, 2025

Warm, moonlit night but this morning is rather overcast although sun is trying to break through. I’ve already done a 2 hr walk and am casting around for what else to do.

I have this problem with my left ear at the moment so I’m going to make an appointment at the Sussex Audiology Centre. I have been reluctant because it is liking admitting I am old but facility has overcome vanity at last. Looks a bit scary to me! I have always had slightly weaker hearing in my left ear and it has got worse in the last few years. That’s why I walk on the right of my wife. I have begun to hope it is just blocked with wax. Could be because I’ve stuck cotton buds in it every morning for the past 50 years.

I read of a man who had suffered with hearing loss in one ear all his life. He went to have it looked at in his 60s and they found a glass bead lodged deep inside his ear canal which he had obviously stuck there as a child. When they removed it, his hearing was instantly restored.That is my dream.

I have lots of dreams. Many are still to be realised. I suppose that’s why they are dreams. It doesn’t stop me. I will achieve them all in the end … although restoring hearing may be a bit of a stretch. I remember dreaming for years of building a house in Greece. Tick!

I was reviewing my memory box for events of this day across the years and found these photos taken as I set off to drive back from Greece in 2009 when I was just retired and aged a youthful 58. My wife likes to point out that although I have had 8 new cars in the ensuing 16 years, she is still wearing the same cardigan and shoes. Of course, that’s how it should be.

On this day two years later in 2011, I was 60 and en route back from Greece. Having sailed up the Adriatic; filled up with wine and cheeses in Italy, driven through Switzerland and Alsace and was now resting in the French city of Metz.

The next travels and dreams achieved are nearly here. It’s going to be a good few months ahead … if they can extract that glass bead from my ear. The surgery have just phoned and told me I don’t have to pay £100.00 going privately. They will see me this afternoon. Good job I could still hear their call.

Wednesday, 8th October, 2025

Well, yesterday was useful. Within 30 secs of seeing me the GP said my ear was completely blocked and needed syringing. She had an appointment for me on Friday to sort it out. I skipped out of the Surgery optimistically but slightly deafly. Before I have the procedure, I have to squirt olive oil in my ear twice a day. It’ll make a change from cooking with it.

Apparently, ear syringing can be painful and not without risk but I’ll just have to grit my teeth (those I’ve got left) and get on with it. It feels weird – as if I’m underwater but, if it helps. If this doesn’t work, the next thing will be microsuction. Got to get it sorted out and quickly. It is beginning to make me feel old. Talking about feeling old, I must wish my old friend, Julie in North Yorkshire, happy 75th birthday today. Not sure I should be associated with old people like that but still.

Exactly 10 years ago today, we sold our Surrey property after 5 years in it almost doubling the price we paid for it in 2010. We were astonished and delighted. It was the fifth house we had bought together and represented a strong move forward. That is what life is about in my view – constantly striving to improve and move forward.

I have records of them all on my Office wall and sometimes remember with pleasure the trials and tribulations associated with them all. I had this one framed on the day we left for the last time and as we said goodbye to our lovely neighbours, Nigel who has also long since left and Rosina who is still there. At least it taught us that community living was not for us. We prefer space and more privacy, self determination and autonomy.

I’ve just phoned my friend, Brian, in Shaw, Oldham to wish him Happy 78th Birthday. I love him. He is the most honest, trustworthy man I have ever met. I interviewed and appointed him in 1986 and I couldn’t have found a better man to work in my school. I haven’t seen him in 3 years but I am going back to meet up soon – the moment I get back up North. The instant I put the phone down, I wept spontaneously. I miss those people and those times. They were basic, honest and good.

Thursday, 9th October, 2025

Gorgeous morning. Did an early, 90 mins walk and then drove up to Surrey to meet little M who is over from Florida to see her Dad and keep the plates spinning. She’s lost weight and looks lovely. Even Colin looked better than we’d seen him for a while. He seems to be coping wth his new regime after the death of his wife. He is certainly in a lovely, caring and comfortable place. The property is beautifully appointed. The staff are incredibly professional and attentive. The grounds are gorgeous. In final years, Colin has everything money can buy plus loving relatives. You can’t ask for more.

When we left, Colin was being taken on an outing with other residents to a local Pub. He is lucky he has such a thoughtful, capable and loving daughter. We spent a lovely couple of hours together and then drove home through the afternoon sunshine down a quiet motorway.

You will know the Shakespearean quote that opens with

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,

Well I am that man, Dear Reader and I need your indulgence and support in my dotage. Today, as I prepare for my ears to be syringed tomorrow, I bit a piece of cake while visiting a Dementia Facility and the filling in a tooth fell out.

Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Is this how life ends?

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper?
The Hollow Men – T.S.Eliot – 1927

Am I really going to be allowed to die this way, Dear Reader?

Rescue me
Oh take me in your arms …

On my website today, just to twist the knife, I saw the family who are living in my Greek house. The house we designed and built. Life goes on…..

Friday, 10th October, 2025

I can hear clearly now the wax has gone ….

A warm night and a grey morning but it is a wonderful day. I had an early appointment at the Surgery to have my ear syringed. It happened like magic. Warm water piped deep into my ear and my hearing popped open instantly. Apparently, I had cotton wool stuck down there as well. Now how did that get there?

Anyway, I am reborn. Had to turn the radio down in the car on the way back. Lovely to watch the Nobel Peace Prize announcement particulary because Trump was lobbying hard for it.

The Nobel Peace Prize presentation speech has been carefully constructed by the Norwegian Committee to address Trump’s pressure. Stressing Pro-Democracy and anti Authoritarianism. Referencing not challenging Democratic Election Results and not attacking political opponents. And to think it’s gone to a mere woman. Oh dear, Trump loses to a woman. He’s not going to be happy.

Something rather poignant emerged yesterday when little M gave Pauline a belated Birthday card. Pauline’s sister and M’s mother died only a few weeks ago. Clearing her house prior to putting it on the market, M found a card which could only have been bought for Pauline ahead of time.

It is the epitome of an oxymoron – a bitter-sweet moment to receive best wishes from your dead sister in present time. It is something which she will keep with her for ever. Fancy being exactly the same age as Bob Geldof!

Saturday, 11th October, 2025

You know, Dear Reader, that I am obsessed with time. I always have been. I love, hate, fear, embrace the counterfactuals of time, the competing tides that run fast and slow at one and the same time.

The year is slowly fading out as the nights are cooler and the days shorter. It is not fast or dramatic but gentle, gradual and slow – so slow that it is almost imperceptible. There is generally less sun although it is still mild. This morning I went down to the beach where the shades were of Autumn. I was in shorts and tee shirt to enjoy the mild, sea air.

We are well into October but the garden is still producing. I picked this kilo of cherry tomatoes yesterday from plants outside in the raised beds edging the back garden. In mid-October! The flowers are still bright and profusive although thinner than mid-Summer and not so long for this world. They will probably go in the garden waste next weekend.

The window vents in the house have been closed in readiness. They will maintain the house’s warmth and keep out the spiders and ladybirds which are looking for a warm, Winter place to sleep, to dream, perhaps to die. I’m hoping to not put the central heating on until December when we come back from Tenerife and to live in shorts and tee shirts at least until then if not longer.

My digital memory box threw up this photo this morning. It was taken in Florida on this day exactly three years ago. It is of a lovely family group.

We couldn’t take that photo now for a number of reasons which is a sign of that speed at which another tide of time runs across the slowly changing seasons.

While we are on the subject of aging and the ravages of time, my friend, Kevin, has used an AI client to project me over 15 years ahead into the age of 90. I don’t think I look too bad but I’m shocked at the thinness and colour of my hair.

Sunday, 28th September, 2025

It is a grey, overcast but rather warm day after a warm night which didn’t fall below 17C/63F. Didn’t sleep well last night and have woken tired. Out early to exercise while I’ve got the energy. The lack of sunshine is a bit depressing. Got to raise my spirits by focussing on happier things. Travel is in my mind. Seeing people.

It is the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool and it is at an important time for the Government. I have been a Labour supporter all my voting life. I have followed the history and the principles of Left Wing politics all my intellectual life. I used to think it was as a reaction to my Conservative voting, Daily Telegraph reading parents but the more I have thought about it, the more I see that it is as a response to the Social-Educational-Political milieu of the 1960s/70s in which I grew up.

There have only been 7 Labour Prime Ministers since it emerged on to the political stage in 1900 led by Keir Hardie and formed out of Left Wing groups such as the Workers’ Trades Unions and the more intellectual and middle class Fabian Society and the Methodist Church. Keir Hardie attempted to unite them under the banner of the Independent Labour Party and, subsequently, the Labour Representation Committee.

Like all political parties, Labour has always been a stiched together spectrum of views. Keir Hardie was trying to integrate the more militant Trades Unionists with the more gradualist and cerebral Fabians and the more philosophical Methodists. All wanted to achieve similar aims but in different ways and at different speeds.

Keir Hardie was a Methodist preacher. The British left owes more to Methodism than Marxism, it’s true. Even Corbyn himself is a teetotaler, embodying the values of the temperance movement and he embodies the dilemma – Methodism or Marxism.

It falls to the latest Keir (Starmer) to knot and hold together these relatively disparate groups in order to achieve the common goal of encouraging the social and Liberal Left while opposing the traditional Right and the current populist movements that are emerging so strongly. What has happened, particularly, is the swing from workers to intellectuals from industry to education. You are far more likely now to vote Labour, espouse Socialism if you are a Graduate rather than an Electrician or Mechanic. Labour support has drifted inexorably from Northern Towns to the Southern, Metropolitan Elites. It is this movement that has placed such challenges on both, major parties and given the rabid Right a chink of light to dive into.

Monday, 29th September, 2025

A glorious morning of blue sky and sunshine although there is a hint of sea mist out across the beach this morning. Reminds me of my drive to work each day across the Pennines as I descended through the mist over the moors and into the town.

Preparing the house and garden for cooler times, for Autumn and going away. Signs that time cannot be held back even with hair dye are everywhere.

Just been out for my walk in really hot sunshine. My phone says it is opnly 18C/65F but it feels so much warmer in direct sunshine.

Momentous occasion this week. The car is one year old and will go in for its first Service. It won’t have quite done 5000 miles although a trip to the North of England and another to France will soon put that total up. It’s been a really good car so far. I’m pleased I bought it. Be at least another twelve months before I consider trading it in. Really must move on to a Plug-in Hybrid next time. With so many of my journeys being short ones these days, I would be able to do most of my driving in full electric mode.

In this week in 2013, I was driving home from Greece stopping in Patras on the Peloponnese at the Poseidon Palace, in Parma, Italy at the Hotel Villa Ducale, in Mulhouse, Alsace and Reims near the Cathederal before driving to Coquelles and the Tunnel home to Surrey.

It is experiences like this that I need to get back to. We will be completely static much too soon. Now is the time to move while we still can.

Tuesday, 30th September, 2025

These are lovely times of warmth and sunshine before the Winter comes. We have to enjoy the seasons as they turn through the year. Yesterday, walking down at the beach, you could be forgiven for thinking Summer had returned. Warm and windless with sun shining on the sea and high cloud graduating the sky, the temperature reached 22C/70F

Today, I had to take the car in for its first service. Honda showrooms were gleaming in the sunlight with metal shone to perfection. The service takes about 2 hrs including a complimentary full valet.

Normally I would sit, drink coffee and read the newspapers on my iPad but the day was so beautiful that I went for a walk instead.

All around signs of Autum are showing. The lower sun across the fields that the community is resisting house building on, the Chestnut Trees being one of the first to shed their leaves and this year with a heavy crop of nuts.

I love Autumn in France. I have wonderful memories of kicking through the dead leaves on the streets of Lille in October sunshine. We are going back very soon to renew our experiences.

Really looking forward to going through the Tunnel and registering for the new EES – European entry/exit system as we do. Fingerprint scan and facial scan just as we do going into USA, proof accomodation and financial probity established once will allow us to cross borders quickly and easily on subsequent occasions – for example, going to Tenerife in November. It will allow us to digitise our passports at an early stage. Only 13% of UK citizens do not hold a passport so this process will make digital ID cards the norm as Labour bring them in.

Wednesday, 1st October, 2025

October has opened soft and warm with gentle colours of decay. I’m mowing grass through clouds of dying leaves. Feels a bit like an allegory for my life. Still tidying and reordering the world to suit my view of it.

Got to get the gardening done before Friday when we are said to be hit by gales and rain. At least it will blow the leaves away. It’s good exercise and keeps me in contact with the neighbours. It will be one of the last times this Autumn as I will be away a fair bit of the rest of the year.

Do you remember the observation: Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus. Did you read the book, Dear Reader? I didn’t but perhaps I should have. It could have saved a lot of trouble. It was published just over 30 years ago and was based on years of counselling of couples and individuals, helping men and women realise how different they can be in their communication styles, their emotional needs, and their modes of behaviour.

I have to admit I have never understood girls even though they have almost always understood me far too easily – to the point of embarrassment. An article I was reading in The Telegraph this morning addresses just this topic and says: in recent years, rigorous science has proven the stark differences in how men’s and women’s brains are wired. And it now seems that women are twice as likely as men to develop one of the most concerning of brain disorders: Alzheimer’s. Two in three people living with it are female, and after turning 60, women are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s than they are to get breast cancer, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.

I knew men were the superior species although I’ve always worried that I have quite a lot of feminine traits. But help is at hand, Dear Reader. Women can at least reduce their risk by doing a number of things

1. You should continue to challenge you brain by exercising your intellect – study challenging ideas, follow politics, learn a language, read and write, argue and debate.
2. Make sure you exercise – women are less likely than men to do so.
3. Get enough omega-3s in your diet, through foods such as eggs and oily fish like salmon or mackerel.
4. Look after your mental health.
5. Consider HRT.

If only life was that easy, Dear Reader. I’ve been tasked with sorting out the Tenerife details. Car parking, Flight times, Arrival, Taxi, Apartment Address, etc. Do you know, it turns out to be cheaper to drive and park Long Stay for a month than to take a taxi. Amazing. Going to stay the night at the Sofitel because we fly early.

The only problem is the restaurant is rubbish. Pub meal quality at inflated prices. Anyway, we have a month to get over it. Looking forward to Oldham/Huddersfield + France in October and a month of sunshine in November. People to see and places to go.

Thursday, 2nd October, 2025

Another nice, warm day – bright but not sunny. At 6.30 am, I got a message from Michelle across the road thanking me for all the work I did on the street yesterday – mowing the grass and blowing off the dead leaves, taking up the dying flowers, strimming and cleaning the curbs. That’s why I do it. Not for the thanks but because I remember how stretched I was in a very busy, working week and how grateful I was to come home to find my neighbour had mowed the lawns for me. Now it’s my turn.

Of course, with age, other my turns will come. They’re all dying, you know, Dear Reader. A week ago, an old boyhood hero of mine, Ming Campbell died at the scarily young age of 84. I was a sprinter and my Grammar School’s Athletics Captain when Ming was running in the Tokyo Olympics and was being described as fastest white man in the world. I wanted to be that. Once, 84 would have seemed a good age but not now for a fit man who went on to become Leader of the Liberal Democrats, it feels cruelly short.

Another of those who I looked up to in the late 1960s/early 1970s was the poet, Brian Patten who died yesterday. He was one of the vaguely ‘hip’ Mersey Sound poets who came in on the tide of the Beatles success. I must admit that I haven’t returned to his work for many years but I was shocked to learn that he was only 79 – just 5 years older than me when he died. He hadn’t exactly lived a hard life of manual labour in his more gentle pursuit of writing poetry.

Whatever we do to mitigate our fates, some are just unfathomable. If we exercise and keep fit, we think that must help. If we work with our minds, testing to the limits words, phrases and ideas, we think that will ward off Dementia. If we keep a strong check on our physical health, we think we can can identify and erradicate things early.

I was struck by one more death this week of Professor Graham MacGregor at the age of 84. He was a renowned Specialist in Cardiovascular Medicine and a leading figure in the fight for healthy eating and reducing salt in foods to cut down on heart attacks and strokes. He died of cancer.

We can only do our best. Many of us can’t even do that but we can tell ourselves we are trying. It’s very worrying that intolerance and racism is on the rise across the country. This morning a stabbing/shooting incident has taken place on Middleton Road at a synagogue. Of course, not much good comes out of Middleton.

What is taking place in Gaza under the aegis of a Far Right Jewish government and the direction of a criminal prime minister trying to avoid his day of justice is appalling but Jews living in Machester can hardly be held to account. Unfortunately, the pronouncements of Farage and Trump have emboldened – even legitimised these sorts of crimes – and brought the rabble out of the dark to have their day in the sun. We must subdue them again with decency and tolerance.

Friday, 3rd October, 2025

Today was supposed to be awful – heavy rain and blowing a gale. What is the point in weather forecasting if it is so totally wrong. Warm and dry, I was out walking at 9.00 am and did a 90 mins session without problem. Got home with a number of planning jobs to complete in readiness for our month in Tenerife.

Check-in with our airline opens on-line this morning. I do it early and download Boarding passes from both flights to our digital wallets on our phones. Because I’m old, I also print out hardcopies as backup. I virtually never use them but it makes me feel better. I inform the property managers in Tenerife of our flights and arrival times so they can meet us. The taxi from the airport only takes about 20 mins. I have to make sure I have enough Warfarin with me to cover a month plus a month extra in case of emergencies so I’ve ordered that. What fun it is to be old, Dear old Reader! My annual travel insurance which comes ‘free’ with my Bank Account has been renewed.

Of course some people adopt a Faith as an insurance policy in Old Age. In God We Trust is their faith. My Mother did exactly that but I am shocked how many of my Generation do the same. I have no faith in anything other than myself. I believe in what I can see, touch, prove. I will never believe in fantasy, social construct, desire to imagine an alternative reality, fiction.

I am painfully aware of people who have treated me abominably while professing to be people of Faith, believers in a God who preached Love Thy Neighbour. I am aware of the sensitive and brittle egos under the majesty of their heaven. I am aware of the hypocrisy of a Faith which allows the Catholic Church to persecute the unmarried mothers, of the Jewish Faith which allows the extermination of the people of Gaza, of the Muslim Faith which allows the erradication of Jewish neighbours. Faith is blind and terrible. Only Science, Rationality, Empiricism can form a secure platform for advancement.

I’m going to have to go up and save the people of Manchester who are struggling with the multiplicities of Faith – all believing different Gods which, in itself points up the farce of Faith. My Mum, a staunch Catholic, would not allow me anywhere near a Church of England service. Everyone was struggling to establish the supremacy of their Gods.

The whole process points up the nonsense of the construct. People create Gods to construct an image outside themselves, above themselves to appeal to, to defer to, to rely on. Rather than looking out, they should be looking in on themselves for strength and sustenance. Humanitarianism is the only way. Forget candles to false gods and love thy neighbour like thyself.

Saturday, 4th October, 2025

Gloriously warm and sunny morning after a blustery night. I’m on duty this morning. Pauline has a birthday tomorrow so I am out early sourcing ingredients for a Birthday Meal. It will be Mezze which she enjoys. Lots of small, taster, sharing dishes emblematic of Greece. If you go into a Taverna, Kafenion, Ouzerie and order a glass of Ouzo – the clear, aniseed distilled alcohol drink which turns cloudy white with added water, the waiter will bring you an accompanying plate of Mezze. In that situation, it is usually bits of Feta Cheese, some Kalamata Olives and cubes of Cucumber and maybe some peanuts.

Of course, for a Birthday Supper, mine will be far more extensive but I can’t reveal that too soon. Expectation is all important, Dear Reader.

Its always nice when someone younger than me has a birthday. Gives one a slight feeling of retribution. I’ve been talking to friends across the North of England over the past few days. One in Rochdale who I’m going up to see soon is 85 which makes me feel absolutely great but all the others from my College are one or two years older and, suddenly, they all have Covid. Not a good thing to get at that age.

There are these new strains emerging rapidly and they are particularly virulent in the North of England. Gives me pause for thought about visiting. Hospital admissions and deaths are rising as they tend to do in the Winter months and we are not even there yet.

The football this afternoon is Chelsea v Liverpool. On this day 16 years ago, our car was packed, the ferry was booked and we were preparing to drive back to UK. The temperature was 85F and we swam in the sea. In the evening, I watched Chelsea v Liverpool before going to bed. Life is circular, Dear Reader. What goes around, comes around. It’s happening again today. I will always return.

Tragedy has struck on the edge of a 74th birthday celebration. The steam cleaner has packed up. I’ve had to order a replacement urgently. It will arrive tomorrow. Phew …

The Daily Telegraph featured an excellent Rioja at Aldi this morning. I nipped down to buy a dozen bottles. Only £5.99 a bottle. I’ve tried it already and it’s delicious.

Going out for my second long walk of the day. It’s stayed sunny and warm. The breeze is down. Can’t sit around all day. Man.Utd. are already winning 2.0 against Sunderland and Chelsea play Liverpool later. I have time on my hands. Must keep moving!!

Sunday, 21st September, 2025

Bloody Sunday … again. They don’t stop, do they? A bit like the rain in Manchester and Wales. Anyway, this morning is glorious with clear, blue skies and strong sunshine, warm and wonderful. Unlike in the 1950s, Sundays no longer represent slower times for most people. For the Retired, most days are slower times. In fact, the problem is challenging lethargy by moving around at all.

This article features in the morning’s Sunday Times. I must say it is years since I had a speeding fine. I’ve had two in my driving lifetime. Most young men are in a hurry to get there. With age, we learn to take our time and enjoy the ride.

If anything, the most significant element of driving back and forth across the Pennines each day, back and forth across Europe each year, always in a hurry to get to the next stage for work or pleasure, my eyes were always on alert for police and camera surveillance. I had a couple of speeding camera captures in the North of England and I was once stopped at a Toll Barrier by police as I was leaving France to enter Switzerland. They asked me if I realised I was doing 180km/h on a 130km/h motorway. I told them I was desperate to meet a ferry in Ancona and handed over 70 Euros for their Lunch which seemed to do the trick.

There has been a general toning down of speed limits here in UK as the density of vehicles on the roads has increased. You would be hard put to do the speed limit in many major cities now anyway and it would almost be quicker to walk. Even the little lane I drove up and down every week day for years near my school is going 20 mph. The increased housing and consequent car driving access has to be legislated for.

I no longer speed or even try to speed. I drive almost permanently on the setting of Adaptive Cruise Control set to the speed limit and adjusted to the car in front. With Lane Keep Assist on as well and Automatic Breaking, the only reason I hold the steering wheel at all is because it bleeps and flashes me if I let go for more than 30 secs. Driving is a much more relaxing activity. The roads around us are 20mph limits. The car just reads the signs and sets the speed. I know the Welsh have had a problem adjusting to that principle but, with all that rain, they must be very sad people anyway.

Rain cuts the place we tread,
A sparkling fountain for us
With no fountain boy but me
To balance on my palms
The water from a street of clouds.

Dylan Thomas - 1931

Soggy, Welsh and sad. No wonder Dylan Thomas turned to drink although I don’t think he could drive anyway.

Monday, 22nd September, 2025

The Autumn Equinox was ushered with magnificent skies last evening. The sea and sky across Littlehampton Beach were on fire.

Coincidentally, that Wordsworthian theme of Trailing clouds of glory do we come … was echoed in a photograph from 55 years ago that was sent to me by a friend yesterday. Certainly trailing lots of hair, anyway.

Almost cut my hair
It happened just the other day
It’s gettin’ kinda long
I coulda said it wasn’t in my way…

Well, I didn’t need to cut my hair in the end. It just fell out of its own accord. Trailing clouds of hairy did I come …. On this day in 2009 when I was just 58 years old I was recording the night sky from my Greek house:

Distinct change in overnight temperature is what the garden will be feeling. Although we’ve now got a completely dry and quite warm week ahead, the nights are cooler and the trees, plants, and animals will react and start to turn down, prepare for shut down, look to ensure their survival through the months of Winter. The one thing we are lucky with down here is that the extremes are far less than the further North one goes.

Tuesday, 23rd September, 2025

Another glorious morning – a bit cool but bright, clear blue skies and strong sunshine. It is our long term friend, Little Viv’s Birthday today and we wish her a happy day. She might be tiny but she’s 71 today. Unbelievable!

A big day today. Going to valet the car myself. Lovely day for doing it and I need the exercise. Every new Honda comes with an elaborate canvas bag full of maintenance products – leather polish for the seats, wax shampoo for the paintwork outside and another for the inside, glass cleaner for the windows and mirrors, vinyl & rubber care, wheel cleaner and tyre dresser. You have to be retired just to have the time or inclination to use them all.

I bought my first new Honda – an Accord – in 1984. I found my bag of maintenance products in the boot and my wife had a bouquet of flowers on the back seat. Little has changed with each successive new car but attitudes have. Back then just over 40 years ago, I was busy working, occasionally took my car in for cleaning but had no time to do it myself and, when I took the car in for its first service, I knew it was going to be given a full, inclusive valet by Honda anyway so I didn’t bother myself. The Service Manager actually reprimanded me for bringing in a dirty car. It was bad for Honda’s image he said. He wouldn’t dare do that now.

Down at the beach this morning, Life was busy. No stone unturned. Mackerel cloud was starting to filter over from France. I will take it back with me when I go over shortly.

Wednesday, 24th September, 2025

A grey, overcast and quite chilly start compared with yesterday. It’s not cold but lack of sun makes it feeel so. Of course, living inland makes you far more susceptible to temperature extremes. Living on the coast mitigates those extremes.

The oceans mitigate global temperature by absorbing large amounts of the Earth’s heat, acting as a massive heat sink that distributes this energy through ocean currents and stabilizes climate. Water’s high heat capacity allows it to store and release heat slowly, preventing rapid temperature swings and moderating coastal climates, making them cooler in summer and warmer in winter compared to inland locations.

I haven’t done Geography since O Level in 1967. I knew the basic principle but wasn’t really understanding of the complexities. When you live in the North of England, in general, and on the Pennines, in particular, for decades, you take being cold and miserable in Winter for granted. It is an incentive to move South and to the coast. I was watching people living in Alaska and wondering, Why would you choose to do that? Move to Florida and enjoy your life.

Of course, some people just like the safety of the place they know. Some people live in the same house for most or all of their lives. It is unambitious but safe. I understand that even if I haven’t practised it myself. I belong nowhere. I have my foundations in nothing. I have no home. I am rootless. I have no affinity. I walk alone. It is a lonely, independent journey. Occasionally I regret it but wouldn’t change it at all. We grow through change and ambition, through new experiences and locations, through new ideas and challenging the old. And so it is just like you said it would be …

One of the downsides of living by the sea is that the demographic is much more concentratedly OLD. It is a popular place for people to retire to. Most of the people we come across out during the day are old people. They clog up the shops hunched over trolleys, they clog up the roads peering out for road signs, they clog up the doctors and hospitals desperate for healthcare. They are just there, silver haired and slow. Yes, I know I’m old as well but … not that old.

I love Data and Economics much more than Geography. I listen to a wonderful radio programme that combines the two – More or Less. It is a fact checking data analysis programme which is exactly what I like.

This morning it was examining a statement made by the Governor of the Bank of England about the viability of pensions as the proportion of elderly increased in the UK and across the world. What I found out was that by 2040, almost a quarter of the adult population will be over 65. What pensioners need to remember is that publically funded pensions, health services and social care are not funded out of some already established pot of savings. It is funded by current workers through their taxes. The Faragists who live long enough will suddenly realise why they need immigrants here working and paying taxes or the population pyramid will be so inverted , their very existence will be challenged. Assisted dying will be compulsory.

Thursday, 25th September, 2025

It’s funny how Nature knows the date. How does it know that the ‘official’ start of Autumn has begun? But it does. Suddenly, the nights have got a bit cooler. The skies are clearer. The stars are brighter and the morning’s blue skies are sharper. The trees have suddenly picked up on this and their leaves are beginning to turn from green to yellow with brown edges. One or two are falling and helicoptering down onto the grass below which is growing more slowly now. Even the squirrels are coming out in sympathy and streaking across the road.

The monthly village magazine delivered free to our door features one on its front cover as a symbol of the season. The national psyche still harbours cultural undertones of the harder times in the past when food had to be stored up in the good times for leaner times to come … squirreling it away to get through the Winter.

I live in a community and I have a conscience, I care for people less well off than myself but I’m really not a communitarian. I’ve always had a natural affinity with people who shied away from that style of living, who value their independence and separateness. The Germans have a phrase for it – Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft – Community and (Association) Society. It is a dichotomy developed from Thomas Hobbes through Ferdinand Tonnes and then Max Weber. The village magazine continues to promulgate the traditional Gemeinschaft concept of cooperation. I am still firmly in the atomised Gesellschaft movement. I support in my own way on my own terms. I am not a natural joiner.

I suppose with old age, we see the need more for community and support. We anticipate our infirmity. There could be a time when we need people around us to care. In fact, I see my aging as a a juggler keeping the plates spinning by taking remedial action immediately on my material world maintaining the house and car and on my physical self by addressing health issues as they arise. Keeping at bay deterioration

Eating well, trying to keep fit, having regular health checks just like servicing the car and maintaining house services are all part of the plan. Currently, and I hate to admit it even to myself but, I have a bit of a hearing problem in my left ear. It has always been a little suspect but over the past three months has got seriously worse.

The one thing that my area has is great services for the elderly. Many of them are featured and advertised in our monthly magazine. Hearing deterioration is certainly a feature of aging. Looks like I may be visiting the Sussex Audiology Centre. I’m just happy that this day deep into September has reached 22C/70F with gorgeous sunshine. Reunification is at hand. The world is getting better. Time is cyclical as Einstein would tell you.

Friday, 26th September, 2025

Grey and cool start again. Hope the day turns round as it did yesterday. At least I don’t have to drive to the hairdresser’s this morning. Each morning at the moment, while other people are eating mueseli, I go out into the garden to pick tomatoes. I have picked so many cherry tomatoes from plants which accidentally seeded themselves from past plants that the freezer can’t take much more tomato and basil sauce. Still, it is nice to have.

I finished yesterday’s Blog acknowledging the great Health Services down here on the South Coast. It was ironic because yesterday marked the 60th year since my Dad died in hospital of a heart attack in 1965. He was in hospital in the first place for investigations on his heart. I have always been struck by the irony and angry that systems weren’t in place to save him.

Of course, now a simple stent would have solved the problem of blocked arteries so maybe there just wasn’t the knowledge and/or technology to save him. I’ve found that the first stent was not patented until 7 years after Dad died. Whatever, his death had a resounding effect on our lives, on Mum’s life for years afterwards and on my life in terms of career choice.

It was expected that I would go into the family Building firm – Sanders & Son and I was sent off to evening classes in the local Training College to do a Architect and Estimator module while, at the same time, also doing my O Levels at Grammar School. The original business was started in the 1880s and expanded from coffin-making to general carpentry and then to general building work. It was re-registered when my Grandfather bought out his father’s, my Great Grandfather’s partner and formally registered it as Builders & Contractors. When Dad died he was building numbers of houses and employed about 20 permanent skilled men along with many more from the ‘Lump’ – a form of labour-only subcontracting where workers are paid a lump sum of money for a job, often in cash-in-hand, rather than through PAYE. 

As it was, when Dad died I was just 14 years old and although Grandad stepped back in to keep the business going, it was only until it could be sold to a house building concern in Derby.

I would have been a rubbish Builder anyway although I would have been a good, Man-Manager. I would have been terrible as an Architect and a Constructor but I would have been good as an Estimator and Data Manager. It wouldn’t have been enough although I often thought that combining my brother, Bob’s skills with my own might have made a winning team. Still, it wasn’t to be. I turned to my Mother’s profession as a teacher.

I found that I was a natural educator. I was good at it and enjoyed my ability. I felt utterly at home in Education and in making reluctant kids want to learn. I loved to innovate and bring the age old process of teaching and learning into the modern world of the internet although in the final years I was becoming a bit disenchanted and ready to go. Even so, for many years in my dreams I walked the corridors of my history and continued to talk to and advise former pupils and staff still needing support.

In the past few days, I have been watching the Emmy winning, British psychological crime drama, Adolescence about a teeage boy who murders a girl in his school as he struggles to come to terms with personality development and his developing sexuality. Adolescence illustrates a classic dilemma that one saw time and time again over the years in school. It took me back to my early years of teaching and moved me greatly.

The drama was a slice-of-life style and the school scenes gave me the shivers they were so close to actuality. The poor, caring parents, uneducated but loving, thoughtful, caring people who had obviously worked hard at being good parents but were feeling blamed by the world for their son’s crime. They searched themselves in vain. How often did schools in working class areas constantly under the Oftsted cosh, search their consciences for the source of failure when the system built it in from the outset.

Saturday, 27th September, 2025

The rule is that, as the pips sound for the 7 o’clock News, I have to spring out of bed and get going. Just as I do, I ask Alexa, What’s on the calendar today? She will announce, John, you have four entries on your calendar today and then she will go on to list them and place in text scrolling across the screen. Great, I know how to plan out my day.

This morning, I got a glum, John, there is nothing on your calendar for today. When I was working, I would have rejoiced in having a free Saturday. Now not so.

It is a lovely day. After a warm night we have sunny skies. Might drive down to the beach. Might pick tomatoes. Might check the back garden for jobs. Might …. I hate drift.

I’ve visited Sifnos, Thessaloniki and Athens this morning by webcam. It is overcast and distinctly grey. That is what happens in the dog days of September. I recorded that on this day 16 years ago we lit the log fire for the first time and put on the underfloor heating in our Greek home. The next day, we were swimming across the bay in 30C/85F of sunshine. We had one more week before we left for the drive back to UK and I recorded that I was being forced to eat pork chops twice that week and Bolognese Sauce twice as well as we had to eat down the freezer prior to turning it off for six months.

Anyway, in the here and now, I’ve done a lovely 2hr walk in gorgeously warm sunshine and I’m going in the Gym to move while I watch the football rather than sit as a couch potato and vegetate. I looked at myself in the shower last night and I need to get a grip and work harder. Aging is a terrible thing. If the football is rubbish and it hasn’t been great recently, I’m watching a fantastic dramatisation of the phone hacking scandal that cost Murdoch so dearly. It is called The Hack and is brilliantly carried by Toby Jones as the famed editor, Alan Rusbridger and David Tennant as the intrepid Investigator/Reporter, Nick Davies.

The storyline is cleverly interwoven with Murder of Daniel Morgan, a private investigator who was found dead in a South London carpark with an axe in his head 38 years ago. Officially, the murder is still unsolved although police corruption and phone hacking seem to have been involved as well. The connection between the two stories is that both were linked to the now defunct Murdoch newspaper – The News of the World. It is a story that involves Journalism, Politics and Espionage and History. I am in heaven.

Sunday, 14th September, 2025

Sad Sunday. Never been keen on them. Especially as a child, I hated them. The routine was obligatory Church Service followed by a quite formal and obligatory Sunday Lunch followed by an obligatory Family Outing either driving or walking or both. I have been encouraged throughout my adult lifetime by the decline in formal religion, the opening up of the secular and commercial world into Sundays, making it rather more of a ‘normal’ day.

Only in separation – marriage, and birth,
And death, and thoughts of these – for which was built
This special shell?

Church Going – Philip Larkin, 1954

When Philip Larkin wrote his poem, Church Going, more than 70 years ago, the decline was barely under way. The title is deliberately double entendre. It implies that people are going to church while the church is leaving. And so they are although there has been an attempt to show that there is a resurgence. Recently, we have been told that Gen Z is returning to the church. I am sceptical but it has to be taken seriously.

I’ve spent a career of 40 years in Teaching telling pupils that god doesn’t exist and that they need to face reality. It is to be expected that there would be an equal and opposite reaction. The ‘Tommy Robinson‘ demonstration in London yesterday was ostensibly arguing that Britains should unite and become Christian again while beating up policemen. It always amuses/shocks me how right wing christians rarely espouse Christianity at all. I know of people who are self professed Christians but set out to hurt others in the most un-Christian way. For them, Christianity is more of a socio-politcal construct than a belief system. They use religion as a tool more than a support system.

My shadow is in need of Medical Investigation. Struggling to get the NHS to do it so we are on the verge of breaking our rules and seeking Private Health help. The nearest private hospital in Goring looks the most likely place. We are going to seek help from them. We are certainly not going to be looking for Divine Intervention or the solace of the promiscuous God Squadders.

Monday, 15th September, 2025

Happy Monday after a windy night. Warm and sunny with fast scudding clouds overhead. Out for an early walk where the debris from the night is scattered. In the park, the apple trees are scattered as wind falls.

Unfortunately, it is Bin Day and empty ones are dancing in the road. Well, it is Autumn. In fact, we are half way through September already. You can’t hold back time, Dear Reader, although a lot of us are trying to.

I get my Mobile and Broadband contracts from EE. I have two all-in smartphone contracts which allow me to use as much data, texts and phone calls as I like. I can use it in UK and right across Europe equally. Well, that’s whet I thought. Last month my bill showed one anomaly which was an extra charge for using emojis in texts from Abroad. I got my bill for this month and found another anomaly – an extra charge for phoning Athens from UK.

It feels strange because, when I asked them, they said I could have phoned London from Athens for free. I could phone Athens from Paris for free but I am charged for phoning Athens from UK. It’s not a big cost. I phoned my hotel for a couple of minutes and incurred a charge of 49p but I might have needed a much longer call and I need to find a work around. In the past it was to use Skype. I’ve eventually found a Voice Over Internet Protocol alternative called Yolla.

Out on my second walk of the day through the park and the Autumnal decaying of Nature, I came across this little chap scurrying through the tree’s debris. I photographed it with Google Lens which is an absolutely brilliant (and free) app which allows one to photograph anything and Google will identify it for you within seconds – trees, plants, birds, insects, cars, clothes, anything. Google is almost guarranteed to have a similar photograph in its image database of billions and billions of images.

Google Lens told me that it was called Calliteara pudibunda – a poisonous caterpillar which produces a poisonous moth which is pale in colour hence the name: Pale Tussock. It goes on to give more background than you could ever want. I particularly use it for identifying plants I want to grow. Well worth a look, Dear Reader … and free.

Tuesday, 16th September, 2025

Warm and sunny again but without the wind. Been out for an early walk and it is delightful to feel the sun on my limbs. While I’m walking, I’m tossing a couple of things around my head. I hate indecision and I can’t resolve these two very different but related things.

I have to pay an €800.00 deposit on a holiday rental in Spain next year. The problem is that I’m transferring money to a Spanish company’s account in a Spanish bank. There are two, basic methods I can use:

• IBAN – International Bank Account Number
• BIC / Swift – Business Identifier Code

These processes were every other day occurences when I was building in Greece but I feel so out of the the centre of this now. Maybe it is my age but I am far less confident of filing off £20,000.00 lumps of cash into the ether as I was doing most months 25 years ago.

Anyway, IBAN has done the trick this morning and the 28 night stay is secured in June-July next year. It allowed me to immediately buy return flights but this time to Alicante Airport. We loved Murcia Airport for being small and quiet and easy. Unfortunately, that scale means it has less flights from London each day and the timings just aren’t right for us next year. It will be interesting to see a new airport next year and at least it has an Executive Lounge which Murcia didn’t.

A 4 week stay in Spain will cost me £3,200.00 plus £500.00 for return flights. If I do it twice a year for 10 years, that would work out at something just under £80,000.00. This morning I received an invite from a Developer who has a small block of 8 new apartments in Torrevieja with a communal roof pool for £137,000.00. Property in Spain seems to be so cheap compared with Greece. So, while I am walking, I am tossing that around my head. Would it be cost effective? Am I too old? Would we use it enough knowing there are other places to go?

When I got home, reality bit back. A letter arrived from the Oncology Team in Worthing preparing me for my next set of Blood Tests and a CT Scan before meeting them for a Review at the end of the year. Everything is predicated on remaining alive, doesn’t it Dear Reader?

Wednesday, 17th September, 2025

Disappointingly drizzly and grey this morning. Not that warm either. Good to see we have set the scene well for Trump’s visit. Spending it preparing a guide for a girl to see as much of Athens in a two day visit. Fun but tricky. Google Maps is invaluable but I also took photos while we there in preparation.

I’ve tried to point out ways to move around the capital city, things worth seeing, places for eating and shopping. There is only so much you can do in 36 hours without killing yourself.

Having visited 80 times over the past 40 years and spent the equivalent of about a year and a half living there, my advice to newcomers with little time would be to find a central cafe, order some wine and just sit and watch and listen to the world around them. There is no better way to experience Athens than this.

Won’t be long before we can Check-in on line for our next trip to Tenerife. If the weather continues like this, I will be desperate for warm sunshine by then. First, however, we have some medical issues to sort out. My shadow is still not completely well and we are expecting further investigations. I’ve got my Oncology Review coming up at the end of the year and have to have blood tests for PSA and Testosterone plus a full body scan. They have just contacted me about it.

Thursday, 18th September, 2025

Very warm, grey day when the news is interesting. Today, the Bank of England held interest rates steady at 4% when there was clamour for a reduction and America had prefigured it by reducing their rate under pressure from Trump.

It may not mean much to the masses but it would if they realised its significance. We affluent oldies will gain. We don’t borrow money and pay interest. We tend to invest money and receive interest. Inflation attacks us and we need interest to counterbalance that. Inflation informs our pensions which we have no way to influence.

Triple Lock State Pensions will be uprated by Average Earnings at 4.7%. Teachers Pensions will be uprated by Consumer Price Index (CPI) which is predicted to be 4.0% for September. These are important factors for we poor people. It is important that Pensioners keep up with developing earnings in the real world.

Of course, for we poor Teacher pensioners, it’s equally important to maintain our position. After all, we’ve got our travel to pay for. We have a Juke to insure. Prices are rising and our pensions must rise with them. Fortunately, that’s what Teachers’ Pensions do. Index Linking is part of the gold plating we received to compensate for low salaries.

In these politically uncertain times, Keir Starmer has managed a wonderful American visit reaping £Billions in inward investment. I just hope I live to see the rewards. He is under pressure from his base and Andy Burnham, Greater Manchester Mayor and King across the Water, is being touted as an alternative with stronger left wing credentials. We will see.

If the unsophisticated, uncultured Northerners feel strongly enough maybe his case will be advanced. If Starmer produces the goods, maybe we will stick with the cultured intelligentsia from Highgate. I’m hoping Starmer can make it but Burnham would be an acceptable alternative.

Talking of sophistication, my sister in law is making her first trip to Athens as a prelude to a Mediterranean cruise. I was tasked to find her a hotel for a couple of nights and suggest how she might spend a couple of days exploring. For me, it was quite fun condensing over 40 years of experience into a few pages. I managed to produce a quick guide and fired it off today just as they were setting out for Croatia – which we are told is at an early Greek stage of development.

Friday, 19th September, 2025

Happy Hair Day Friday, Dear Reader. I am home alone and my wife has gone to the hairdressers again. She seems to go a bit more frequently these days. Probably trying too hard. Her hair has hardly changed over the past 50 years although it has always been fine, it is perhaps a little thinner now. Still, at £75.00 a go, it’s cheap compared with the old, Sassoon days in Manchester. I haven’t chauffeured her because I drank wine last night and she has a 9.00 am appointment.

I am outside mowing everyone’s lawns. Summer is well and truly back with blue skies, strong sunshine aand 25C/77F of joyous warmth. The birds are really confused. My huge crop of cherry tomatoes are taking every opportunity to ripen and the grass is green and luscious.

It’s always touch and go with outdoor tomatoes and we are usually left with lots of green ones at the end of the season.This year will be better than most but the slugs are really feasting on them as well.

I remember the ritual at home as a child when the country had just emerged from wartime economy and Dig for Victory movements. We grew large proportions of our household vegetables in our own garden with a waste-not-want-not theme. Mum always ended up making Green Tomato Chutney but I don’t know who ate it. I didn’t.

The end of the season and my mower is showing its age. Over five years old and bought in a time when I had real grass. Now I just do public areas. Will I buy another? The neighbours have said they will club together to buy me a sit-on tractor but that would defeat the fitness effort. Still shelling out £500.00 to help the neighbours feels a bit extreme.

Conversation today has turned to see places that we think we should. Destinations like Venice, Florence, Parma and Bologna were great but we haven’t been to Rome and feel we should. Just a short break of about 4 days would be enough to taste and decide if it merits a longer return.

And Madrid has rave reviews from our friends. Now we have got the Spanish vibe, a few days there and/or Barcelona would be a good thing to do. My 75 birthday in April could be the perfect opportunity/excuse. I think I fancy Barcelona. Any tips, Dear Reader?

Saturday, 20th September, 2025

A very warm but rather grey morning. Every morning starts at 5.45 am with Alexa announcing the time and playing BBC Radio 4. At that time, it is Farming Today. Not a natural interest of mine although it can be fascinating. I remember Margaret Thatcher saying her day began with that.

This week, the theme has been Rural Services and today it was bus services. I haven’t been on a bus for years other than the Long Stay Car Park Shuttle bus at the airport. I drive past people here standing at bus stops and I want to give them a lift. I can’t bear seeing people standing in the cold and wet for hours just because they can’t afford a car. Other than that, I didn’t think about it much until elderly relatives lost the use of their car and found bus services were appalling. They had to rely on taxis just to go to the doctors/dentist at a cost of £9.00 each way.

Down here, we have a Coastliner bus service that links Brighton & Portsmouth and many places in between. One goes every 20 minutes and a day ticket of unlimited travel costs £8.50. However, we would have to walk quite a way to a bus stop and getting anywhere would mean visiting many other places we didn’t want in between. It would be long winded and tiring. I certainly wouldn’t choose it.

This morning, I felt myself really moved by a girl in Hull who couldn’t afford a car. She said she couldn’t even afford the lessons to learn to drive a car and she had to travel from a rural village to Hull to work. The bus was infrequent and, when she finished her shift at 5.30 pm, she had to wait for the next bus which wasn’t until 7.10 pm. Totally unacceptable after a hard day’s work but what could she do? I tried to put myself in that situation and it upset me.

Despite a Labour Government reinstituting subsidies for bus companies to hold down fares it hasn’t encouraged the increase in services so working people can go about their lives. The problem is where to find the money. There just isn’t any to spare.

My eye sight has never been good and it has got marginally worse over the years. Although I am no longer Type 2 Diabetic, I still have Diabetic Retinopathy Eye Screen invitations twice a year at the local hospital. I take them up because my eyesight is so important. I can’t imagine what it woud be like to lose my driving licence because of my sight. My letter arrived this morning.

The day has turned out to be another lovely one. We got some sunshine and 22C/70F of warmth. My Gardener cut the hedge for one of the last cuts this year – well until we return from travels in December. Looking forward to seeing friends in the North and then sunning myself in the Canarian warmth for a month.

Home made pizzas for Supper tonight while watching Man.Utd. v Chelsea. Pauline’s made the dough. I’ve chosen the toppings. I want a Margharita and a Seafood one. That is prepared. The pizzas are in the ovens and take just 6 minutes at 300C. Absolutely gorgeous! And Man. Utd. won.