Sunday, 22nd May, 2022
Week 700. Week 700! Can hardly believe it. If you have been with me since the start of this journey …. hard luck. I have had to live that life. You haven’t. Almost 13.5 years of my life recorded daily.
Last night I was reading in the Lounge prior to watching something on television. We were switched to BBC2 and a programme about Céline Dion was playing. I must admit I know less than nothing about her other than she sang the gut-wrenching song in the film, Titanic.
In the 1970s and 80s, I was good friends with David, Head of English in my school. He was an extremely intelligent but highly strung man who took his life very seriously. He lived with his wife, ‘Tricia, a lecturer in English Lit. and their son, Richard, in Stockport. We would have Dinner together, play sport together, write poetry and share it with each other. I learnt that David’s mother had committed suicide when he was young and, not surprisingly, it had haunted him for ever since.
Every night in my dreams
I see you, I feel you
That is how I know you go on …
Eventually, David had a mental breakdown, attempted suicide himself and was committed to a stay in Stepping Hill Mental Hospital. He was there for months and we went to visit him. They were difficult and moving meetings. Eventually, just before he was to be released, David walked out of the hospital, made his way down to the local station and threw himself under a train. I remember how it rocked the school community.
Far across the distance
And spaces between us
You have come to show you go on
For me, to experience such an intelligent, sophisticated and poised man do something so insane was a shock to my sensibilities. I’ve always imagined committing suicide was akin to drowning, being sucked down beneath a sea of uncontrollable sadness and despair. The Celine Dion song from Titanic always reminds me of this. I was 41 years old when David died. When I review what I’ve done in the past 30 years and how much he has missed, it hardly bears thinking about. Tragically, just 5 or so years later, his lovely, tall, willowy and intelligent wife died of breast cancer at the tender age of about 55.
Love can touch us one time
And last for a lifetime
And never let go ’til we’re gone …
And here I am, 30 years later walking out into the warmth of the strong sunlight …. hearing that song in my head and thinking of people we have known and lost. There is a screamingly unbearable feeling in the erosion of time. Rebecca-Jane would have been 50 this year.
Monday, 23rd May, 2022
The ravages of time … This little girl is 75 today. Not sure how old she is in this photograph but I guess around 4 – 5 years old so circa 70 years ago. Happy birthday to old Ruth. Hope she has a lovely day today.
I have been obsessed with time most of my life. Like so many of us, in early age we long to be older. In older age, many long to be younger. Not me. I have enjoyed each age for what it was. I just want to live forever and enjoy each subsequent stage although I do look back with regret at not being able to touch old times just once more. But then, I am a sentimental, old fool.
A warm but grey morning. Did a 6 mile walk early and the rest of the day will be spent gardening and in the gym. I’m still having to be a bit careful at the moment not just because of my surgery which is still sore, tight and swollen but because of a recent mistake I made.
One of the post-operative pieces of advice I was given was to use laxatives for a while so as not to put strain on the internal and external stitching. They sent me home with a liquid dose and my wife bought some more. Being a research student – I have a Masters Degree in Research – I usually read things carefully but I am impulsive to act. I was given this bottle of laxative liquid which instructed me to take 5 mls daily. I had no idea what 5 mls looked like so Pauline gave me a kitchen measuring spoon.
Unfortunately, the spoon was double ended with 5mls/15mls measures. Guess which one I filled. Life has been ‘interesting’ for while since and I haven’t wanted to stray too far from home. When you get to the bottom of it, it’s certainly a moving experience!
Tuesday, 24th May, 2022
Beautiful morning with lovely, blue sky and sunshine – a little cooler than yesterday. Woken with Chopin playing quietly and slowly in my head to accompany Time’s winged chariot …. irresistible.
It’s funny how the memory moves in parallel but separately from the consciousness. Chopin is the film score against which a busy day is carried out. I am ‘officially’ allowed to drive today – 2 weeks after my operation – and actually allowed to drive my wife to the Beautician’s. Asda, Sainsbury‘s, Boots, Rustington Greengrocer’s. I wonder what Chopin will make of all that!
I have to complete the copying across and set up of our new smart phones. And then there is 10 miles to complete for the 7th consecutive day. I’m going to do that in the gym today because a thunderstorm is forecast. Netflix will be red hot today with 2 x 90 mins sessions on the treadmill.
I am going to be watching Michael Gambon in The Last Witness. It is a British-Polish thriller which is rather appropriate to follow the Polish composer, Frédéric Chopin. It is based in historical fact which appeals to me.
The plot involves a young, ambitious journalist who risks love, career, and ultimately his life to uncover the true identity of an Eastern European refugee and his connection to the British government’s collusion in the cover up of one of Joseph Stalin’s most notorious crimes. In 1990, Soviet President Gorbachev admitted that the Soviet Union was responsible for the murders of Polish prisoners of war in 1940
Finished my evening by pounding the streets to complete my target after a day of sunshine, thunderstorms and hail. It felt good to be out, alone with the birds in the late evening sunshine and the fresh, sharp air. My skin was alive and my body felt fit and strong. This is how we should feel at 71!
Wednesday, 25th May, 2022
Cooler and grey this morning. I’ve decided that I will walk on the treadmill today but I’ve got quite a bit of Office work first.
The old phones have been copied, cleaned up, put back in their original boxes with paperwork and then sealed in padded envelopes for posting off. The new phones have to be registered on our Bank’s website where we get free and comprehensive insurance cover as part of the ‘perks’ with our account. We get ‘free’ worldwide travel insurance, executive airport lounge access, car breakdown cover, home emergency service and concierge booking of tickets.
Now she’s got a new phone, Pauline needs (wants) a new iPad. I have the big, ‘Professional’ one with keyboard. Pauline prefers the smaller and lighter ‘iPad Air’. There is a new model out which is far superior to the one she’s had for the past 3 years. She uses it a lot to video conference her family and friends and this new model has a vastly improved software setup for that called Centre Stage so, even if you move while talking, the camera follows you and keeps you …. centre stage. It has
- Cinematic video stabilization
- Continuous autofocus video
- Front & Rear cameras
So much has moved on over the past 3 years that almost every aspect is improved. Of course, she will need a new casing to protect it.
The one, interesting thing about this purchase is the lead-in time. If you want a new car the lead-in time tends to be around 6 months. A new iPad will be at least a month. Want French-style salad at Sainsburys – wait a lifetime!
Can you imagine being abandoned as a baby. Watched a heart rending ‘Foundlings’ edition of Long Lost Family today. Suited my mood. Overwhelmingly sad. The significance of suddenly discovering your parents’ faces is absolutely earth shattering. Imagine being the parents forever wondering about their child? Absolutely unbearable and yet utterly life-affirming!
Thursday, 26th May, 2022
Quite a grey but warm morning which brightened up as the day unfolded. We had to drive into Worthing to pick things up from Boots. What an old fashioned shop that is. It meant driving along the beach road. Always pulls me up short that I live here. How did I end up here?
Back home, we did our walk and then had lunch outside in the garden. It was lovely and warm.
I feel fully recovered from my operation although the scar is still quite fiery, swollen and sore but I am not allowed to fly for another month. Apparently this is because of potential blood clots. I am on life-long anti coagulants but my wife insists I follow the guidance. We will probably drive to France soon and might even nip up to the North to see people before we start travelling again. Normally we go in October but we might just surprise them instead. With an energy crisis, October might just be a time to go somewhere warm.
Google gave me a 5 year travel map plan this morning. It features our 2017, 6 week drive through France and Italy and stay in Tuscany. It features our 2018 drive down to the Dordogne where we stayed for a month in Saint-Sauveur near Bergerac. It features our annual stay in Athens in the Autumn and our bi-annual stays in Tenerife in the Winter. It features our month in Florida last March and our excursion to New York. It also features our trips to Yorkshire/Lancashire each year. This is what life is for: exploring our world.
Friday, 27th May, 2022
A really busy day that started at 6.30 am. Up to a beautiful morning that developed into a really hot and sunny day. Out for an 8.30 am hair appointment down near the beach. I parked up and walked to the promenade.
Lots of people were enjoying the delightful scene. The colours were to fall in to in their richness. Not even an off-shore breeze today just delightfully warm. You really should have been here.
I had an hour to kill while Pauline was being coiffured. A short walk to the beach and then a lovely amble down the promenade towards the pier. Everywhere, joggers, cyclists, scooters, dogs on long leads and old couples enjoying the sea air.
We had to be home for 12.oo mid day. An ONS Covid tester was arriving for a PCR and an Antibody test. The tester was a beautiful Brazilian girl who sat in the sunshine of our garden while we did a nose/throat swab followed by a needle puncture of our fingers and squeezing out a phial of blood to be tested for antibodies. The figures in our region were very high a month ago but have crashed in the past few weeks. They are predicted to rise again soon.
After that, we had lawn cutting to do plus potting up and planting out herbs. Amazing how long these jobs take. Also, incredible how the lawns know they are going to be replaced in the next month. They have never looked better than they do now. We sat outside in the warm sunshine to eat prawn salad with crab and avocado for our meal. Absolutely lovely. You really should have been here to share it.
Saturday, 28th May, 2022
End of the week; almost end of the month; nearly end of the year’s development. Just over three weeks and it is all down hill. June 21st is the longest day and then … it gets increasingly shorter towards Winter.
Chatted to Kevin who is on his way to Alicante for the 3rd time in the past couple of months. Leeds – Alicante costs an average of £85.00 return. Cheaper than Leeds – Manchester on the train. Mind you, he did say that economic cuts had meant they weren’t allowed to actually land. They were given parachutes and encouraged to jump.
Bit of a non-news day.(When is it not?) Walk in the sunshine. Woman comes out of her house and says, You are good! Must admit I’d rather be bad but it’s nice to find someone notices the effort. Had to sort out some lighting for the development of the back garden which is imminent. We need 7 down-lighters to be mounted on the perimeter fence. These are very adjustable so need to be ordered in advance of the electrician’s visit. The electrician has to do his work in advance of the garden redevelopment.
Our new phones have an e-pencil built in. It provides people with fat, insensitive fingers like mine more delicate control. I’ve been learning how to use it today.
A trip to the Garden Centre has provided us with flowering plants for the patio pots. Impatiens, Osteospermum and Tagetes. They will provide a colourful display for a large part of the Summer.