Sanders Blog

Sunday, 7th December, 2025

What a horrible morning – dark and wet – but at least it’s warm. Didn’t fall below 12C/54F over night. Still, it doesn’t make me want to go out.

Two birthdays to celebrate this morning. The Blog is 18 today. I was only 56 when I started it. It has seen some real lows and some wonderful highs. Of course, by its very nature, it contains much that is ordinary and unremarkable.

If you stick with it, Dear Reader, it will help you sleep although I do try to amuse and to be prevocative at times. If you are a regular reader and you have my sympathies, you will feel my joy and pain, my patterns of life and inconsistencies. In short, you will see an ordinary man laying out his life before you. Hope to see you this time next year and every year until 2051.

The other birthday is that of young David. He is 28 today. Do you remember when you were 28, Dear Reader? A year of weddings and new challenges. Anyway, we wish David a happy day even though it is pouring with rain in London. It sounds like we are going to have a warm but very wet week ahead. So, that’ll be something to write about, won’t it?

At the beginning of the year, I decided that I would trial doing without our landline. We both have smartphones with unlimited calls, texts and data. It seemed over kill to have a landline which just duplicated that service. First couple of weeks felt a bit strange but this morning I realised that it wasn’t even an issue today. Like the loss of High Street Banking, Landlines are yesterday’s technology which we just need a nudge to abolish.

Our contracts with EE for smartphones are up in a couple of months and they will offer us new models. We have Samsung S24 Ultras and I will almost certainly choose S25s or S26s as an upgrade. We will be able to trade our existing phones in for about £450.00 each which will contribute to the new 18 month contracts at about £180.00 per month for the two.

What I could never abolish is this piece of music that makes me cry instantly I hear it. The opening Aria from Handel’s opera Xerxes – commonly know as Largo. It throws me back to 1973 spontaneously and a grubby flat in a grubby street in a grubby town in a grubby world. I am playing it now in my comfortable Office in a comfortable street in a comfortable town in a comfortable world but I am still crying. I have lost so much.

Monday, 8th December, 2025

The morning is dry and fairly bright. Incredibly warm for December. I’ve got an early appointment for a diabetic rhetinopathy eye scan – the last real medical testing of the year. It involves pupil expanding drops so I’m not allowed to drive. My chauffeur is only too pleased to get her hands on the wheel.

This is another fantastic service that I am offered. Every year they contact me and push me to be scanned and photographed to see if there is any change. I always go although I do worry about it because a fellow student who is the same age as me lost his driving licence when deterioration was found in his sight. Anyway, all is well. The feedback was immediate and positive so I get to drive for another year.

The problem is that the enlarged pupils because of the drops means seeing is painful for some hours to come. The sky suddenly feels electric and so painful. Plus, I can’t read or write which is a nightmare. Anyway, now all I have to be concerned about is the body scan report which won’t be until the beginning of February unless they spot an emergency.

After what seemed like an age, I was able to complete my 28th consecutive Christmas Newsletter ready for printing and placing in cards for posting. If you were getting anxious about your card, Dear Reader. Don’t worry. It will be with you soon.

Sunday, 30th November, 2025

It is 6.00 am and I am sitting outside with a glass of fresh orange juice and a cup of tea at a table on the patio. It is warm, humid even but the difference is that the sky is dark and there are myriad bright stars looking down on me.

Travelling home for Christmas. Well, not exactly but we are travelling home. Easyjet have contacted me to say everything is on time which is good news. Going to the Airport. Just 15 mins to Tenerife South–Reina Sofía Airport. Off toMontaña Roja VIP Lounge and then wait to be called. It will come up on my smartphone app. Then we’ve got 4 hrs 30 mins flight home. Already prepared for that with things to watch from Netflix downloaded on our iPads to melt the time away.

Yesterday we signed off this month’s visit by revisiting the property we have rented for the whole of November 2026. It is a 2 bed/2 bath apartment in a newly developed and still developing gated community higher up from the sea.

The area looks and feels nice and will be interesting to try. Hopefully, the 2nd phase will be completed by in the next 12 months and I will still be alive. We will be 75 by then. The price for a month is € 4676.00 or currently £4,100.00. We don’t pay until next October so who knows what the exchange rate will be then.

At the airport, everything went smoothly. Straight through security although my travelling comapanion was randomly tested for explosives. I wasn’t surprised! The flight was right on time and landed early.

It was dark and just 3C/37F as we drove home. We had bought pizzas and fresh milk in the M&S at the airport for Supper. I opened a bottle of Prosecco to accompany the lump of post which had appeared behind the door. I had put the heating on as we left Tenerife and the house felt warm and welcoming as we walked in.

Monday, 1st December, 2025

New day, new week, new month, new season, new country, new house, new bed. At least I’ve got there still breathing. Hope you are well too, Dear Reader. The calendar start of Winter. The first day of December 2025.

Why is it so dark, wet and cold? I was woken at 5.45 am by two alarms. I took time to realise what was happening. Abroad, my phone alarm goes off at that time. I turn it off and then make it play BBC Radio 4. At home on the South Coast, Alexa sounds the alarm at that time, announces the time to me and then automatically turns on BBC Radio 4. This morning both processes happened at the same time.

Abroad, I check my phone for what is on my calendar for the day and what the weather is outside. At home, Alexa announces what the weather is outside when asked and goes on to read out the items for the day on my calendar.

Today, there are 5 items on my Calendar – I use an online calendar which can be read on my computer, my iPad, my smartphone, my watch and picked up by Alexa to read out to me. My Housekeeper can also pick up the same calendar on her devices so she knows what tasks I have set her to complete. Unfortunately, I have had to allow her to edit and add tasks for me to complete as well. Usually, as you would imagine, the tasks are not earth shattering althogh sometimes they are important.

Today, it contains mundane things like Black Bin Day / Window Cleaner Coming but it also includes Renew Car Insurance / Renew Free Carparking Disc / Collect Prescription and Book Airport Lounge (for the next trip). I’ve got a busy week ahead which includes a trip to Worthing Urology Department for a Cystoscopy (Really looking forward to that.), a trip to the dentist to have a crown fitted (Really looking forward to paying for that.) and a trip to the Southlands Oncology Department to have a full body scan prior to my prostate review (Really looking forward to what that might find.).

One thing I have to sort out with some urgency today is a PIR lamp that is mounted above our garage and helps light up when I enter the drive as well as serve as a deterent to thieves. Almost as soon as we went away, our neighbours alerted us that it had come on and stayed on and there was nothing they could do to turn it off. It was on for a month. I have to either sort it out myself or get an electrician to help.

Of course, after a month away from home, there is also the inevitable trip to Sainsburys to restock the fridge and freezer.

Tuesday, 2nd December, 2025

Nice, bright blue sky this morning but a little chilly at just 11C/52F. Still, I’m going out for my walk in shorts. I’m warmed up by the financial largesse that has come my way today. Our bank account has received £220.00 from the government for our heating allowances and Christmas Bonuses. Absolutely bonkers but I’m not giving it back.

The latest Premium Bond winnings are confirmed this morning and we have received this month’s winnings of £125.00 to bring a total of £250.00 for the first 3 months. This means that I am on course for a tax free return of 5.6% which is fine. Of course, I am still hoping to get lucky before I end the experiment. £50,000? £100,000?? £1,000,000????? Now that would be a good return Tax Free.

If these people can do it, I can. Now, what would I do with the winnings? Don’t call me, Dear Reader. I’ll call you … probably.

One of the benefits of going away is seeing one’s own home through fresh eyes. It is so easy to take for granted the places and people and objects around one as familiarity dulls the senses. Out walking today, the area around my house was vivid and fresh, beautiful and vibrant. The grass is absolutely gorgeous – almost good eough to eat.

My car was wonderful to drive back from the airport. I love it and all its facilities and gadgets. I love its silent, smooth comfort, the smell of the leather seats and the quality of the hi-fi. It takes a month away from it to realise. I love my bathroom. The secret of a happy marriage is individual bathrooms. I love my shower. I haven’t found a better one abroad. I especially love my Office. I can’t live without it for too long.

Just to ensure I keep appreciating what I’ve got, I’ve booked lots of time away for 2026. In fact, I’m alreading thinking I must run the future bookings through the calculator of 90 days out in any 180 days. A week in Greece in June. A month in Spain June-July. A week in Greece in August. A month in Tenerife in November. Need to slot 2 or 3 short trips to France in over the year as well. So you can see the dilemma.

I am out at the hospital tomorrow for something that sounds excruciatingly unpleasant but must be faced. Hopefully, there will be no cancer found. While medics check that end of the body, my wife is obsessed with protecting the other extremity. She has bought me some more caps because she says I spend so much time outside in the sunshine walking that scalp damage could lead to a cancer up there. She says that but she has been so surprised that I look good in a cap. I think it’s a sexual thing really!

Wednesday, 3rd December, 2025

Bright and sunny start to the day but it has a looming darkness for me. This afternoon, my first Christmas present of the week – a Cystoscopy at Worthing Urology. I am going to receive a local anaesthetic apparently but I can’t decide what will be worse – having a tube shoved up a tender area or a needle in it first. I may send my wife in instead. She’s braver than me.

I’d rather cancel Christmas altogether than receive presents like this. We’ve come home to Christmas lights everywhere – on people’s houses which I will never understand and the trees of the village green which I can almost accept. The TV adverts really do illustrate the tawdry nature of the event although I have long been in love with Kiera Knightly and her Waitrose advert certainly brings some joy to the occasion.

To take my mind off this afternoon, I walked on the beach which certainly didn’t look like December. I walked on the beach in England in December in shorts and tee shirt perfectly comfortably.

Well the Cystoscopy turned out to be a breeze. Don’t know what you were all worrying about. It might be a camera on a cable up the willy but it’s simple and quick. I had experienced a scary event where I had passed loads of blood. I was terrified of this procedure but it was great in reality. I had a local anaesthetic which was a squirt of liquid and then I lay back and watched them (three girls) explore my bladder and kidneys. The viewing on the big screen was wonderful. Everything was healthy and clear. They said my bloody wee was probably the result of radiotherapy on my prostate. They did say that I had an exceptionally large bladder. No girl has ever said that to me before. I felt quite proud, Dear Reader.

Thursday, 4th December, 2025

Out early this morning to the dentist. I was having a crown fitted. Actually, I was having a crown designed, built and fitted. It was a two hour job. In the past, it would have been a two week job where the mouth was prepared, x-rayed and that sent off to a dental technician to create a porcelain crown which would be delivered back to the dentist and the patient would return and have it fitted.

Now, my dentist does everything herself with a two hour span. The mouth is prepared, x-rayed and that x-ray sent to the 3-D printer which uses diamond cutters on a porcelain block with water jets spraying to keep the process cool. It is fantastic and they were obviously proud of the process. They wanted me to watch my tooth being printed to understand their pride in it. The x-ray machine cost £160,000 and the printer a mere £57,000. It is a considerable outlay. No wonder they charge so much for the crown process. It was lots of work and then the cost of the instruments. I suddenly thought £750.00 was a reasonable charge.

It is the run up to Christmas and although I really am a Bah Humbug Cumugeon, I realise contact with distant friends and relatives is important. You may have not seen me for years, Dear Reader, but at least you’ll receive a card this Christmas. If you’re not a Blog reader, you will also get a Newsletter. There is no escape. Today I am writing to my Doctor from the 1990s. I went to see him about a bad back in 2000. He wasn’t very interested in my back but he did want to buy my house which I had put on the market. I had been in it for 16 years. It was set in an acre of land and in a Conservation area. We had loved it but it was time to move on.

One of the first people to view it was a Huddersfield Town footballer but he was soon transferred to Sheffield United and dropped out from the sale. Then came the Doctor. He and his wife have lived happily there for 25 years but now have sold and moved on. Our first Christmas card this year is from the Doctor giving us his new address in Norfolk, ironically a place where Pauline’s family have lots of connections.

Last week I was writing about the Teachers’ Pension Scheme website alerting me to changes to my tax arrangements. I was also talking about trying to move as much of our savings and investments in to the tax-free shelter of ISAs. It was rumoured that the Chancellor would reduce the amount we could shelter from £40,000.00 ( 2 x £20,000.00) to £24,000.00 (2 x £12,000.00) each year. In the event, she saw reason and kept the larger allowance for over 65s as I suggested would be reasonable.

I was also writing about the much larger tax-take we were paying because investments had been paying so much more over the past 2-3 years. We were informed that we had not paid enough tax and we were charged a considerable back-tax burden. I chose not to challenge it because our unearned income had become so pleasing.

Imagine our delight this morning to be told that we had over paid tax by quite some amount. From this month and before we even receive a pay/pension rise in April, the tax office/teachers’ pensions have informed us that our joint monthly income will increase by £1,100.00 per month or £13,200.00 per year. It beats a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, Dear Reader. Might have to book another couple of foreign trips for next year.

Friday, 5th December, 2025

The moon last night was huge. This December supermoon is particularly special: astronomers say a full moon this close to Earth won’t be visible again until 2042 when we will be 91 years old. We have to be there to witness.

Apparently it is known as the Cold Moon because of the season – according to the Astronomer Royal who lives with me. She is obsessed with celestial bodies which is probably why she married me. The garden was bathed in light all night and there is a trace of frost this morning. Winter really must be here.

My Chef has made three Christmas Cakes – not because we will eat three but just because she can. Two will be given to other people while the third will sit in a cake tin in our house while we diet. Today, marzipan, icing and cake decorations will be bought and her delights will start. This year the theme will be golden and I’ve just had to order these decorations from Amazon. Bah Humbug!

Tomorrow I am having a full body CAT (CT) Scan. If I had bought that Privately it would have cost me about £800.00. This week I’ve also had a Flexible Cystoscopy. If I had bought that Privately, it would have cost abround £2,200.00. Earlier in the year, I had a Colonoscopy. If I had bought that Privately, it would have cost around £3,000.00. I will also have had two PSA Tests at a cost of about £100.00 privately. So, our wonderful NHS has provided me with about £6,100.00 worth of medical care not to mention Consultation fees and it was all free at the point of delivery. And there are mad Right Wing Racists advocating American style Health Care.

Saturday, 6th December, 2025

The end of what has felt like quite a long week which started in Tenerife and has ended in a body scanner in Brighton. Had to be there for 10.00 am but the hospital is near Brighton so set off at 9.00 am in case there was a problem parking. Also, I had to drink a litre of water before the scan and I didn’t want that sitting inside me for longer than necessary.

Hospitals and Doctors’ Surgeries are totally different places since the pandemic which forced them to invoke new controls on patient flows. This morning, I arrived at the carpark at 9.30 am to find it almost empty. Charges for parking had been cancelled and I had time to drink a litre of water and listen to a political podcast.

With my belly sloshing water, I walked down to the Diagnostic and Radiology Department. I saw no one apart from two security guards as I walked through the corridors until I found the waiting area which was completely deserted. Eventually, a Chinese man called me at the Department door. He told me his name which I didn’t really catch and led me into a treatment room. It is at that point that the first of many times in the process I am asked my date of birth and first line of my address and then the cannula is fitted in my arm.

The Chinese man is immediately embarrassed because blood spurts out all over the chair and down my arm over my hand. Are you on blood thinners, he asks. He obviously hadn’t read my notes. Anyway, he cleaned me up and staunched the flow of very, very red blood. I was led into the CT Theatre and lay on the scanner bed. Chinaman once again asked my date of birth and first line of my address and then warned me that the contrast dye was being connected to the cannula and suddenly the warm wash of fluid flowed down from head to foot.

And then just three or so minutes of being shunted back and forth with a recorded voice telling me to old my breath and breath normally again and it was all over. A little Chinese girl appeared to hold my hand and help me off the bed. She asked my date of birth and first line of my address – in case I had forgotten over the past couple of minutes. They forced me to wait 10 mins in a side room in case the dye injection affected my system and that was it – all over for another 12 months. I walked out and still didn’t see another human being until I got to the carpark and a woman was just parking. It is hard to understand.

So, this long week has gone from Tenerife – Gatwick on Sunday to Cystoscopy at Worthing on Wednesday to 2 hrs of Dental work on Thursday to CT Scan today and I have just been phoned to ask me to go for my annual Diabetic Eye check on Monday. I am either a complete basket case or I’m going to be very, very healthy.

Back home, it is my job to do the paperwork – to turn my mind to Xmas Newsletter and Card List. We still can’t allow the post to go. All year, I am texting, emailing, Whatsapping, Tweeting, Blogging, etc but Xmas cards and newsletter are a tradition that I can’t quite let go of. We used to send around 70 cards each year. I think we will be down to around 50 this year. Death is very final, Dear Reader and age has meant some people not keeping up with the digital world. If you can believe it, a few people don’t read the Blog. So, I produce a newsletter and have done since at least 1997. I have copies going back that far and I wrote informal ones to individuals before that. I get lots of newsletters back and enjoy reading them.

Yesterday, out of the blue we received this huge book. It spoke to both of our interests and looked as if it was a spcifically chosen present but without any acknowlegement or message. It is fantastic with wonderful Spanish meals we will definitely cook. Who sent it? I have no idea. I do know that it would cost me £35.00 to buy on Amazon. If you sent it, let me know because I love it and would like to say thank you.

Sunday, 23th November, 2025

It always amuses me that, when I move my life abroad for a month or so, I have to establish similar patterns to the ones I have at home. I have watched the Sunday morning political programmes. My Housekeeper is washing bedsheets and drying them in the sunshine. Today is especially hot and sunny. We are 28C/82F. In UK, it is my job to take the Refuse out. We have 3 bins lined up out of site down the blind side of the house – a green one for Recycle, a black one for General Rubbish and a brown one for Gardening Waste.

The Recycle rules are so arcane that I find them too ridiculous to take seriously. Jam jars have to be washed clean whereas Bleach bottles don’t. Different kinds of toothpaste tube are treated differently. I’m a man and cannot be bothered with that. My Housekeeper takes it all so seriously that I joke she wants to wash and iron everything before throwing it away. It’s a nonsense.

Here on Tenerife, I throw away rubbish every morning in communal bins and there is no Recycling at all. You find this on mountainous islands who fill craters with their rubbish for decades until they realise space is finite and rubbish is toxic. In mainland Spain, Recycling Hubs were everywhere and it is nice to have a holiday from it here.

If it wasn’t for people in general and tourists in particular, Tenerife would be beautiful. It has a wonderful climate that allows them to grow so many fascinating plants and so much of their own food. It has a beautiful shoreline, breath-taking mountains and wonderful skies.

Walking today in the hot sunshine has been down and around the busy Marina where Sunday crowds are queueing to get on excursions to watch Dolphins, to go fishing or deep sea diving. Most just want to chug across the water to the always visible island of La Gomera. I will not be joining them.

Monday, 24th November, 2025

Three years ago we were in Florida with high expectations of life. Then life bit back. One day I was walking 10 miles a day. Suddenly I was ill. The next day, I couldn’t walk at all. I had contracted Atypical Pneumonia or Legionnaires Disease. I had to fly home early and went through a month of tests before a successful diagnosis.

Sometimes good can come out of bad, fortune from misfortune. My wife takes medical health incredibly seriously. It was 40  years ago that she insisted I went to my female Doctor to ask for a Prostate check. I regretted it immediately as a finger was inserted unceremoniously but I was pronounced clear. Fifteen years ago, my wife sent me to my male Doctor with the same demand. He said, I get up in the night to pee as well. It means nothing. and he refused me the test. To be honest, I was quite relieved.

Three years ago, on the back of my Legionnaires Disease tests which involved lots of blood and urine samples, my wife casually requested that I be tested for PSA or prostate health. That started a process which undoubtedly saved my life. I was found to have two cancers in my prostate. One was fairly benign and slow growing. The sort which says you will die of something else long before this kills you. The other was an aggressive, fast developing tumour which would have broken out and spread to my bones within the year.

I had 8 months of Hormone Treatment to shrink the prostate and deny the tumour sustenance and a month of Radiotherapy to destroy the tumour – hopefully for good. After my last session on the Radiotherapy bed I was bursting because of the water you have to drink and retain. I thanked the nurses, rushed to the toilet and broke down in floods of tears. It was the most incredibly emotional moment when the dam burst in more ways than one.

I have stayed cancer-free so far. When I go back to UK next week, I will have a PSA blood test – the second this year. It will be followed by a full body MRI scan – the second since the end of my treatment. Hopefully, my Oncology Review will be good news but there is always that niggling doubt. Has it returned? Was a small bit missed? Do I have a natural proclivity to produce cancer? And it is suddenly hitting the news on a regular basis. David Cameron is the latest survivor who was saved by his wife’s insistence. I certainly wouldn’t allow myself to be denied again.

Tuesday, 25th November, 2025

Another cloudless, blue, sunny sky to greet the day in this last week of November. Lovely backdrop against which to live one’s life. Pity you didn’t come with me, Dear Reader. Still, we can’t have everything. Yesterday’s walk took me past the beach, busy with sun worshippers.

Turning back to the mountains, the sky was very different. It is easy to forget how close to Africa we are and yesterday the winds brought the North African coast drifting across the Canarian mountains.

The Sahara sand was gritty in my mouth as I walked and the mountains hazy with the sandy air. The best solution to sand in the mouth, of course, is to rinse it with cold, white wine and my Housekeeper insists on crisps to accompany that.

I am not a fan of crisps but she is and says the ones she is getting here are probably the best she has ever had. Being a Home Economist and cook, she analyses everything she buys. She wants to know what type of potatoes are used and what oil they are cooked in. If it’s not on the packet, I am set to find out on the web.

Not only are these crisps from Mercadona just their own brand but very cheap. They are fried in Olive Oil which impresses my Cook but I can’t find the potato type. Still, even I enjoyed a few.

This island is so reliant on English tourists that you could be forgiven for thinking it was UK in the Sun. So much of the commerce panders to the Brits who want the sunshine and cheap prices – Beer at £1.76 per pint for example – but don’t want to engage with foreign culture like foods and language. The Specials Board at Old Bob’s Meet & Eat proudly advertises Sausage, Mash & Gravy for €9.00. You can’t get more Spanish than that! Well, you can. You could spend your evening in Paddy’s Pub or The Kebab Shop.

Shops here are advertising Black Friday Bargains as if they are on Oldham High Street. I don’t know if you fall for it, Dear Reader, but this old man with an eye for a bargain knows a con when he sees it.

Interesting article in The Times this morning about the nonsense that is Black Friday. The consumer group, Which, have been monitoring prices for months leading up to it and found bargains, as we suspected, are not bargains at all. A large majority of items were cheaper before the sale. John Lewis are one of the worst offenders with Black Friday deals that are no better, and often worse, than prices available at other times of the year.

They feature this robot vacuum cleaner. We have two of exactly this model – one upstairs and one downstairs. It is £50.00 more in the sale than it was prior to it. This is the Farage of consumerism. Do not believe what you are being sold.

Wednesday, 26th November, 2025

A cloudy start to the morning. Actually makes quite a nice change. Still 22C/70F and very comfortable. The North of England was a bone chilling -3/27F over night and even the South Coast went down to 3C/37F.

Most visitors here come for one thing – the weather and when it is underwhelming they look a little sad and lost for things to do. There are two, basic responses. The first is to run for a bar. You actually see people here with a Full English Breakfast and a pint of beer. Can you imagine it? The other response is stoicism. We’ve come to sit on the beach and that’s what we’re going to do, come what may.

My life just continues in its normal pattern. Wake at 5.45 am to listen to BBC Radio 4. Up at 7.00 am for fresh orange juice and tea. Start Blog and talk to friends across the world. Go out for 8 mile walk. Here, I have added a 30 mins swim as well.

Get home in time to watch political programmes at mid day. Today is extra special because of the Budget. Very exciting … although I am aware that to many this is as mad as drinking beer for breakfast. I have been working hard all year to mitigate the effects of today’s Budget on our Finances.

Particularly, I have been sheltering our investments/savings in tax-free units. This has mainly involved moving to ISA wrappings. Over the past few years, we have been able to put 2 x £20,000.00 or £40,000.00 in each year and that is what I’ve been doing. It is well trailed that this will be reduced to 2 x £12,000.00 or £24,000.00 per year from now on.

Apparently, the intention is to nudge us in to investment in stocks & shares. They are risky investments and it is unlikely to work with me. At the age of 74, I don’t have time to wait for a bounce back from a market crash which could take 10 years to recover. I did that in my 30s & 40s but not now. I can’t wait until I’m 84 to access my money.

It is a small world. As I sit on a rock just off the North African coast, I have reordered my prescription back in Angmering, reported my INR reading to the Anti-Coag. Clinic in Worthing and spoken to a lad from Rochdale who is threatening to drop in on me here tomorrow. Dave Roberts is a figure from my long distant past who is on his 5th cruise of the year. He is away from home more than I am. Mind you, if you live in Rochdale, maybe …

Watched the first 3 episodes on iPlayer of the BBC Dramatisation of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s 6 year imprisonment in an Iranian Jail last night. Prisoner 951 is extremely powerful and moving, a drama of unjust separation and longing which the BBC does so well. Can’t wait to watch the final episode tonight although first there is exercise.

Thursday, 27th November, 2025

It is a lovely day. Another lovely day. I should embrace it fully like every other new day but I am feeling sad. It’s my own fault. I am too sensitive or too self indulgent. I’m also really ashamed of myself. I didn’t do my exercise routine yesterday – out of choice. I did a short walk and a swim and that was it.

Instead, I watched the final hour of the Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe story dramatized in Prisoner 951 on iPlayer. It was incredibly moving and upsetting. The obscenity of the Tory government in general and Boris Johnson in particular made me mad but the strength of the beautiful girl locked away for 6 years made me sad. The separation and the longing I found hard to deal with and yet, I always have.

It’s strange and ironic how life comes up to bite when we are most vulnerable. My memory Box chose today to do exactly that. Only a limited number of people will know the sadness of the photo above. It was taken in 1971. Within the next year, the lad on the left was dead of cancer. The lad on the right was embarking on a comfortable career that saw him become a Primary School Headteacher for 30 years. Not sure about Bob’s girlfriend.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was imprisoned in a hell hole and lost 6 years of her life separated from her young daughter purely because the British Government had refused to repay the Iranian Government £400 million which they legally owed. They paid it in the end and she was released but they allowed her suffering to go on so long. Bob, through the whim of Fate had no life at all whereas Peter has prospered and is enjoying a comfortable retirement. These are unbearable disparities that have no explanation in logic.

Today is the 45th Birthday of Martin – my Brother Bob’s son. He has a son aged 45! How old would my daughter be now? Nazanin was separated from her young daughter as her breasts still leaked and then dried up. The pain was intense. It is life changing. Even though she is now reunited with her family, the rebuilding of a life together is painful and slow.

Life is so precious and fades away so quickly. My Memory Box really went for it today and gave me these two photos in Time. On the left is Pauline’s Auntie Florrie who lived in hardship in Oldham all her life. Trying so hard to be her best she presents herself against the severity of the impoverished and fading stonework of Lancashire streets. She was born in 1906 and died in 1995. Thirty years have passed and who thinks of her now other than a glancing moment in an album? On the right is Pauline’s sister who was born in 1937 and died just six months ago. Currently, her memory burns brightly in our eyes but will gently fade if we are allowed to age.

And so it is
Just like you said it should be
We’ll both forget the breeze
Most of the time ….

And so the tears flow.

Friday, 28th November, 2025

Money, Money, Money …. Don’t you just love it? The sun is up, the sky is blue, the day is waiting here for you ….. Woken up much more optimistic today.

The Budget pleased me. The Right Wing media had been speculating and screaming for months about what the Chancellor would do to hurt people. They did few of those things. I was pleased to see the regulation of and tax on Landlords which is long overdue. Having said that, The Landlord Zone itself admitted most of its fears were not realised. I was especially pleased to see that State Pensions per se will not be taxed even though the Tory tax bands are being held for three additional years. That was how the Tories did it and now they complain that Labour are doing the same. Fiscal Drag, as it is known, will cost me money but I accept it with good grace.

I was delighted that my fears over cash ISA’s were addressed. Recognising that older people cannot afford a market crash in stocks & shares, those over 65 can continue to put £20,000.00 per year into a tax shielding ISA whereas the young ones are restricted to the predicted £12,000.00 amount. The sprogs can still save £20,000.00 per year but £8,000.00 of it has to be in Stocks & Shares. So, in April 2006, I can salt away another £40,000.00 assuming I can save it which will largely depend whether I keep this car or change it.

I can’t decide on the Child Benefit Cap. Of course it is right to lift children out of poverty. No child in a relatively rich country like ours should live in poverty. However, I’m not absolutely convinced that I should be subsidising people to have kids. I don’t even like kids! I can see the case for the State safety net to be available if parents of kids fall on hard times but should it go to parents just for being parents?

I have written before that I was born on a bitter-sweet day. It was 1.00 am on April 6^th, 1951. It was bitter because, as my Dad never failed to point out, 65 minutes earlier and he would have been able to claim back child tax credit for the whole of the previous year of 1950. Sweet because, although my wife is younger than me, she receives the Old State Pension, I am able to claim the considerably higher, new state pension.

Last year we started to pay a hugely increased tax bill back-dated by two years because our savings and investments had started to pay big dividends after years in the doldrums. We didn’t challenge it but just paid up. It was too difficult to calculate across multiple investments and multiple years. Today, The Teachers’ Pension Scheme, which seems to learn first, have advised us that we are going to have quite a bit of that tax returned for overpayment. I will also have sheltered more cash as well so let’s hope that will bring some more relief.

Saturday, 29th November, 2025

Last full day of the 28 here. I shall miss the warmth. I shall miss the landscape. I shall miss the swimming. I’m looking forward to driving my own car again. I’m looking forward to seeing home again. I’m looking forward to sleeping in my own bed again. Only this morning have I turned my mind seriously to the arrangements for leaving. My Housekeeper has been preparing for quite a while. She hates waste and has been managing and running down food since last weekend.

Today, I’ve booked the taxi, signed out of all my TV accounts – Netflix, Apple TV, Amazon Prime, etc. There was a little scare yesterday when news arrived of a problem with Airbus planes being affected by solar activity but this morning we learnt that it had been solved by a software update and our airline – Easyjet – had completed that process so our flight wouldn’t be affected. We will leave here at 9.30 am tomorrow because we’ve learned that there is some knock-on effect of the new entry/exit system. At least we don’t have bag-drop to go through so we can go straight to the Executive Lounge to hide from the crowds.

The data from the month will be 225 miles walked and 14 hours of swimming done. 56 showers 28 shaves and 28 Blog posts completed. Incalculable hours of political podcasts listened to and newspaper articles read plus one or two bottles of wine opened and emptied. My Travelling Companion reads lots of politics too. She listens to many of the podcasts I do but reads books of Fiction which I never do. Her Kindle is with her all the time and she always has a book on the go.

It is one of the most extraordinarily resilient computers I’ve ever seen. First arrived in UK 15 years ago and, although she has had a number of newer ones all still work fine. When I can’t use my iPad or laptop in the sunshine, the paperwhite screen of the Kindle remains crystal clear. When I struggled to get an internet connection of a Greek island, the Kindle continued to connect and download new books via an inbuilt and free mobile connection that comes with the purchase. It is small enough to put in a bag just like a paperback and it can carry hundreds of such books at a time in its store.

The last time I read a work of Fiction purely for pleasure as opposed to study was back in Primary School. I’ve read lots of books but they have been Faction – History, Politics, Sociology, Philosophy, Biography, etc. More often than not, my books have notes in the margins and circles around passages I need to quote later. In other words, I read with a purpose not just for entertainment or escape.

I was reminded of this at 5.30 am this morning when I listened to the latest News Agents Podcast which centred on Salman Rushdie – a controversial and political author of novels none of which I have read in its entirety. I have read extracts for information but nor for escapist pleasure. Fascinating man who holds quite similar views to me in many ways. The difference is, he has spent the last 35 years under a death sentence although, I suppose we all have in a less dramatic way.

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.

Monday, 17th November, 2025

The start of week 3 here is …. blue sky, strong sunshine and 24C/75F. Time is passing though – as Bum-Face will tell you. He is 22 today. Can you imagine it, Dear Reader – only being 22! So many years of joy, pain and suffering to come. All that living. He might even learn what Palindromic means before he’s 101.

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Daniel. Hope Florida is treating you well and that you graduate soon. I can still picture your chubby cheeks 22 years ago.

I can still picture this little band of waifs and strays from 1971. I can see them all so clearly 54 years on – here on an Art Trip to London. They look arty don’t they? It was posted on Social Media yesterday by some nostalgic soul – Christine Barnes.

So that’s 22 years ago and 54 years ago remembered. Now a lovely photo for me of a brand new school built 127 years ago. No, I wasn’t there but I was headteacher of it 90 years later. Topical events at the time of its opening include the first fatal UK car accident,  Harrods department store in Knightsbridge installed the first escalator  and the opening of the Tate Gallery.

The building wasn’t quite as clean then but, as a testament to the quality of its building, all the windows, all the doors, external and internal, all the built in book cases, the parquet floor, the railings – everything was the original from almost a century past. When we finally vacated the building and it was demolished, we allowed members of staff to remove them for use at home. I took my huge, oak Office door which became the back door of my then home in the country.

In past trips to Tenerife, we have tended to rent properties near Siam Mall – a shopping centre with reasonable facilities. This time, we are about 25 mins walk away so, in keeping with my tradition of always going back to touch my past, we are walking there today just for the memory.

Tuesday, 18th November, 2025

Was woken up in the middle of the night by an alarm on my phone warning me that the temperature in the Gym at home had fallen dangerously low for the delicate equipment. I have a thermostatic wall radiator but it is basically a single skinned garage and is difficult to heat adequately. We’ve had the roof insulated but didn’t go on to do the walls so it always will present some problems.

I don’t like to allow the temperature to fall below 7C/45F at any time and I have a wifi-controlled thermometer which alerts me of that. I then have a wifi-controlled backup radiator which I can activate to give the room a boost. That’s what I was doing at 4.00 am this morning.

Our insurance policy says that the house should be kept at a minimum of 15C/57F for safety of services. That is what both upstairs and downstairs zones are set for. We have wifi controls which allow us to monitor and intervene if necessary from anywhere in the world but it seems to be fairly self regulating.

It all really appeals to my sense of control of the world around me. I love it.

The list here which only shows the first list of rooms, doesn’t refer to individual heating. They are controlling the lighting and the heating and cooling of the Gym. You can’t see it on this first page but I have a fan next to my seat in my Office. Although it is easier just to reach out and switch it on/off manually, I have to use the control on my phone to get full satisfaction.

Outside here this morning, it is a cool 22C/70F. In my village on the South Coast of England, it is just 5C/41F and in the North of England, my friends from Leeds and Rochdale inform me, the temperature is an unpleasant 3C/37F with light, wet snow falling. Decisions, Decisions!

Anyway, enough of that. After being woken by the heating alarm, I listened to a political podcast about the Labour government’s new immigration policy. It fills me with sadness and sheer embarrassment. A sense of shame that a Labour Government, a Labour Government could stoop so low, so low as to find the lowest common denominator. It is one of the most disgraceful things I have heard in all my time associated with them.

To see a South Asian Home Secretary pulling up the drawbridge behind her as so many immigrants here would like to do to protect their own positions is utterly distasteful and disgraceful. You would think finding her policy being applauded by Tommy Robinson and supported by the Tories and Reform would give her pause for thought but the Overton Window pendulum has swung dangerously to the Right and deporting long established migrant families at a whim now seems acceptable. At this rate, I will be voting Green next time.

Wednesday, 19th November, 2025

Another gorgeous morning. The first walk of the day will be with a purpose. Shopping for food and wine at the local – couple of kilometres away – Mercadona.

It is a fascinating experience. Quality is quite good. Some things like wine and fresh orange juice are cheaper while meat and fish are a bit more expensive. Over all, it is very similar bill compared with Sainsburys. We think we are buying top quality sides of fresh salmon at home but I think the salmon we are buying here is slightly better if anything.

Of course, I don’t really drink but the wine is cheap and really good. It encourages me to drink too much – obviously drowning my sorrows, Dear Reader. At the moment (not exactly this moment because it is 9.30 am) I am enjoying this red wine at the enormous cost of €3.50/£3.10. It is a simple, soft, tasty Tempranillo wine which I can drink with fish or meat or cheese unfortunately.

Still, no wine until two, long walks and a swim have been completed so that is the discipline for the day. Actually, walking here is delightful. It is cold this morning back home at just 5C/41F. I think I would be pushing it to go out in shorts and tee shirt today. Snow in the North is unlikely to be seen on the South Coast but neither would we be seeing temperatures of 25C/77F which prevail in Tenerife.

Thursday, 20th November, 2025

While we were working, Pay Day was the 20th of the month. This morning it is State Pension day. There is something quite uncomfortably ironic about waking up in the warmth and sunshine of the Canary Islands to find someone has put money into our Bank Account knowing I have left fellow citizens struggling to make ends meet back in UK. Particularly at the moment with arctic air covering UK, keeping warm and affording to do it could be a matter of life and death. I know some little, old, wrinkly people who will have the heating on all day.

I received this photo from a girl in North Yorkshire first thing this morning. She is clothed in multiple layers and keeping her log burners going to stay warm. It sounds hard work to me. Life should not be so challenging particularly as we get older.

We need and I am lucky enough to be able to afford not only to heat my home and escape to the sunshine but eat good food which is so important in maintaining health. I was thinking about exactly that this morning when I read an article in The Times. When I was young in the immediate post war decade, things like chicken and fresh salmon were considered luxuries. Apparently, Britons ate the equivalent of just one single, small fillet of salmon a year. Of course, then it was all caught wild and was much less readily available.

These days, I eat roast salmon twice a week. A large side of salmon will provide 4 meals for two people and cost about £26.00 per kilo which makes each meal for two cost about £6.50 – amazingly good value. It is almost always farmed salmon which we buy from a specialist supplier. Because it is farmed, there is a continual and consistent supply. Usually, it comes from Scotland.

Having said yesterday that I thought our Tenerife supermarket was more expensive for fish, I now know I was wrong. The side of really delicious salmon we bought yesterday to be eaten with asparagus and green beans is Norwegian and cost just €21.00/£18.50 per kilo. I couldn’t live in Tenerife permanently but it would certainly be cheaper. It isn’t cold enough to need heating and not so oppressively hot as to need air conditioning very often.

The salmon I ate yesterday is protein which the body converts to maintain my muscles. Body building is even more important at my age. That’s why I am now going out for a long walk to assist that protein in maintaining my muscle strength. Must put my sun cream on first!

Friday, 21st November, 2025

A lovely sunny and warm Friday morning. Blue sky with a touch of high and fleecy white cloud. Going to be a good day. At 8.30 am, it is 22C/70F here. At home on the South Coast it is only 3C/37F which has alerted me to turn the Gym heating on. In Greater Manchester, it is currently a bitter -3C/27F. That’s why they all wear woolly vests. Do you remember vests, Dear Reader. I haven’t worn one since the 1960s. Of course, before central heating those sorts of garments were needed.

I suspect they’re never needed the here unless it was to absorb sweat in the Summer. Not really sure they actually have a Summer as such here either. November is their busiest month. There is something rather incongruous about their rush to put up Christmas lights in November to attract people out at night when they have spent the day walking down subtropical avenues like this.

I find the former tawdry and the latter delightful. I must admit, I have never seen Blackpool Lights but I suspect they feel more ‘right’ in Winter weather.

Saturday, 22nd November, 2025

Slightly cooler morning – only 23C/73F but I’m pleased to see things are warming up in UK again which is nice. Just coming to the end of our 3rd week here with one more to go.

Gen Z is the digital generation which is generally considered to be born between 1997 – 2010 although this end stage is extended by some guides. In the UK, this generation started with the Blair Labour Government whereas the next generation – Alpha – is generally considered to have experienced the Covid Pandemic in part of its schooling. Apparently, Gen Z don’t even know what going out on the pull means and, when they are told, they are horrified. Them and me both!

We are all products of our Age. I am a child of the 1950s & 60s. My generation was breaking away from the wartime austerity of our parents and asserting liberty from the life controlling strictures of morality and religion. As such, we were at war with our parents’ generation and that is exactly as it should be. We Boomers (1946 – 64) were into sex and politics, smoking and drinking.

As you will probably know from Larkin’s Annus Mirabilis:

Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) –
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles’ first LP.

Ultimately, we were into serious pursuit of education and careers, material wealth and financial stability. We bought houses, had children, became respectable. We eschewed the church and looked to spend the post-war peace dividend on enjoyment and travel.

Generation X – born 1965-1979 in the Labour Governments of Wilson and Callaghan – reacted to their Boomer parents’ generation’s commitment to Lifelong Careers by seeking more work life balance for themselves. Gap years, alternative lifestyles, working when they have to but chilling when they don’t. I meet them all the time now and they infuriate me. We have/had the most lovely electrician who would come out at the drop of a hat and do an excellent job and then forget to bill me. When I follow him up, I’m told he likes to ‘help the old people’. He’s in his late 40s himself. His kids are home-schooled. Now, he isn’t available at all because he’s too busy doing A Level Music at College and living an alternative lifestyle in a ‘camp in the country. What sort of Adult life is that?

At 6.00 am today, I was listening to two widely disparate generations coming together in the joy of political discussion. Lord Ken Clarke – 85 and born into the wartime generation known as the Silent Generation because they were expected to be seen and not heard. His wife died 10 years ago and, although he attends the House of Lords, he is a sad, lonely and as you can see from the photo a rather shambling old man. (Is that how we all go out?) The young man interviewing him is Lewis Godall former Sky and BBC Newsnight political correspondent but now one of the Newsagents Podcast. He is just 36, recently married and is a Millenial. When you have a shared interest, the generations melt away.

Millennials, also known as Generation Y, are the demographic cohort born roughly between 1981 and 1996, a group dominated by the Thatcher years that reached young adulthood around the turn of the millennium. This generation is defined by their upbringing in a digital world. They are criticised for being too in to their ‘screens’ and social media but largely by the older generations who struggle with the digital world and criticise what they are afraid of and argue that we should be encouraging paper book reading.

I just love Gen Z which would be my grandchildren if I’d had a child of my own. I don’t love them because I agree with them but because they make me laugh. I think I would have been a very indulgent Grandad. Gen Z don’t drink alcohol and they don’t have much sex. What the hell is wrong with them – I would be asking them? Two of life’s greatest pleasures and they really don’t indulge. They can’t afford alcohol and have nowhere to have sex privately apparently. I could advise them.

According to this, there are two things about Gen Z that really chime with me from the chart above. They both come from my time teaching. Tech Savvy – Have a question? Google it. I used to sell the internet to kids in the early stages by challenging them to ask me anything I couldn’t find an answer to within a minute. I never lost and they have grown up believing that the digital world means anything is possible. The other thing is attention span. I have a concentration endurance span that is so long, I can cut off the blood supply to my legs sitting working. According to this their attention span is just 8 seconds. We pandered to that in schools with multi-part lessons to keep them interested instead of pushing them to persevere. I always argued that we were doing them a disservice.

I’m going out on the pull now …. with a shopping trolley.

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.