Sunday, 10th December, 2023
If there is an illustration of my strength to persist, refusal to give in, to not let go, to not be rebuffed, this is it! The Blog is now opening its 16th year. It has surprised me. If you stick with it, Dear Reader, this year will reveal much of past and present, of interest and embarrassment, of pain and pleasure, of sadness and happiness, of loss, betrayal and retribution. What have I got to lose? At the age of nearly 73, there is little to lose. Tell the truth and tell it like it is. This will be the motto informing Year 16 of the Blog.
In that vein, my book, which has been rumbling along in the background, is going to be a dramatised autobiography. I have quite an interesting, romantic, dramatic story to tell. At last, I feel able to tell it openly and explicitly. I am going to spend the next few months working that theme up. It will benefit from history which is my forte. Going back to the 1950s, at last, I feel I have thrown the shackles off enough to take risks with the narrative.
I do spend a large chunk of my time in two places on my own – the Office and the Gym. My Chef/Housekeeper spends her time in the Kitchen, the Utility Room and the Ironing Room. When we analyse it, we spend more time apart than we do together. No wonder she’s so happy!
The conservatory doors have been open a lot recently as Spring has arrived. The song thrushes have delighted us with their shrill songs as they anticipate breeding season. Shrubs are bursting back into flower and bees were optimistically exploring the garden this morning.
Greece and Northern England have been experiencing Winter conditions. Two past lives that seem so far away and yet still so close. Backdrops for a story.
Monday, 11th December, 2023
A beautiful, warm day of blue sky and sunshine. Outside in the garden, chef is making turkey stock to tantalise the local cats and save our house being permeated with the smells for the next week. Well she managed to do one batch and then the pressure cooker, which is about 20 years old, finally stopped performing. We have to collect a new one this afternoon so work can continue.
Well, I thought that would be it. It came with a 10 year warranty. Pauline would be 82 before she needs a new one. Unfortunately, Chef got it home and decided it was rubbish. It’s going back tomorrow and the search is on for a replacement. I’m in the Office, monitoring the Covid Inquiry and writing my Christmas Newsletter which involves reviewing the year of the Blog as an aide memoire.
Lovely Margaret in Marsden, West Yorkshire has sent us Christmas presents – a hamper of wines and cheeses and biscuits from a local farm shop and a book especially for me.
It’s certainly nice to have got rid of him. The colour comic readers have moved on to ‘small boats’ and Nigel Farage in the jungle and other serious, political issues.
Tuesday, 12th December, 2023
So warm today. I’m going to have to go back to shorts. The neighbours are sick of me going out naked anyway. Had to take my wife to the Beauty Clinic first thing. She’s having a ‘Facial’ and not before time.
I am just the chauffeur. Parking is so difficult because the service is so popular. I just don’t understand it. Can you imagine having this done to you, Dear Reader, …. how ever much you might need it!
Fresh from her hydradermie, or whatever they call it nowadays, Chef has chosen a replacement pressure cooker which is going to cost me £250.00!! Let’s hope it is worth it.
Apart from exercise my instructions are to print the Newsletter and print the labels for Christmas Cards. I can’t even write my own name nowadays never mind write Happy Christmas. It is weird but I never use a pen only a keyboard. I am exposed as an idiot immediately I try anything normal.
Chatted to JohnR this morning. He never stops and is constantly doing good works with disparate groups of people around the North of England. At the weekend, he was organising a carol concert at Fountains Abbey and the next day entertaining a disabled member of our College men’s group in Morecambe. He puts me to shame.
A couple of days ago, he was entertaining a couple of old girls from 50 years ago. I don’t know where he gets his energy from.
Well, I’ve hit the jackpot with the latest pressure cooker as I might have hoped from its cost. It is really so much more because it steams, dry roasts, bakes, dehydrates and even makes yoghurt. My chef is positively orgasmic with its facilities. There’s always a way!
Wednesday, 13th December, 2023
Very mild but grey day. Our diaries are completely empty although we didn’t manage to get the Christmas cards completed yesterday so that is the main job. I love doing Christmas cards. Well, that’s not quite true. I love communicating with people and getting things back but I do employ a writer to … write the cards and I do employ a licker to …. lick the envelopes. I employ a stamper to … put the stamps on and give me alcohol to get over the shock of the price of postage.
My job … man’s work is to produce the address labels. I merge a database of names and addresses into two, separate printers. I use a laser printer with label sheets for the majority and a separate label printer for individual ones. Of course, the production process is a thing of beauty as you would expect.
The world is rather bleak at the moment. The shoreline is empty and forbidding. Even the gulls are flying solo. Can you imagine the desperation required to launch out in a rubber dinghy on this sort of day and this sort of sea? Even the Good Samaritan would blanch and yet there are so many, ‘so-called’, Christians screaming, “We’re full!”
Thursday, 14th December, 2023
A grey morning and not warm. We actually went down to 3C/37F. What is happening? At least we didn’t need central heating. If anything, the house is too warm. Got a series of Office jobs to do today and expecting a phone consultation from a Worthing Gastroenterologist. It is almost two years since I had a colonoscopy and the consultant advised me to repeat it after two years.
I copied in my GP and she obviously followed that up because I was walking through Sainsburys on Monday when I received a call to arrange this consultation. I thought it was a scam at first because I am getting so many of those at the moment. There’s nothing worse than being pestered with texts and calls is there? I’ve had so many, I’ve developed quite a hostile response. I was about to launch into one of those when I suddenly joined up the dots and put on my natural charm. Rather than pay for a private procedure, I am going to push for one on the NHS which I’ve paid for already and spend the £2500.00 on something more enjoyable than a camera up the bum!
Chatted to Kevin this morning about how old we are. He’s as obsessed as I am. Julie sent me a homemade card which she said featured the Boat of Garten. I couldn’t see a boat so I had to Google it. Turns out Boat of Garten is a Scottish village. Weird people the Scots!
I am now just two weeks away from hearing the results of my cancer treatment. Getting a little nervous. Perhaps it will mark the end of a chapter and Health Bulletins can be abandoned. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Had a card from my doctor in Yorkshire who bought our house in the delightful conservation area village of Helme. He still lives in Slade House 23 years after we left it but one of his sons has become a doctor and he tells me he is working just a few miles away from us in Hove. Have to look him up. Never know when you might need a doctor.
Looks like I’m £2,500.00 better off tonight. Received a phone call from Gastroenterology to say I could have an NHS colonoscopy in February after all. Really good people.
Friday, 15th December, 2023
People or places? What is important to you? Be surprised if the majority didn’t go for people but I’m always surprised how strongly people express pride in place. I was listening to a discussion on the radio this morning about people’s pride in Great Britain, in the Monarchy, in the Union Jack and in the National Anthem. I take no pride in any of these things. They are complete anathema to me. They are jingoistic symbols. They also betray any understanding of the English language.
Pride is a feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one’s own achievements. Nationality and symbols of nationhood are no achievement of mine. If they are an achievement of anything, it would be populist jingoism and insular self-interest. For me, it is people who make the difference even though I love places, different places, exploring places. I will leave the nationalist symbols to the Mail/Express readers of a fading generation.
I have no idea why I live in Worthing. I just turned up here and settled down 7 years ago and I love it. That doesn’t mean that I don’t want to experience other places. I do but I love being here. I was fascinated to find my preference confirmed in a recent newspaper article which found that Worthing was statistically the best place in UK for longevity. We have more centenarians than anywhere else. I want to live to 100 and I’m staying here … for now.
I was interested and a little surprised to find that the city of Chester had been voted the Most Beautiful in the World ahead of Venice. Chester is lovely and I have nice memories of it but I wouldn’t have thought it would ever challenge somewhere as spectacular as Venice. That would take my vote every time. You would have to go a long way for me to beat Bologna or the gorgeous Lucca.
Maybe I am attracted to the unfamiliar, the sound of a foreign language and the challenge of a foreign culture. Maybe I am too familiar with the stereotypical Elizabethan architecture that begins to look a little too ‘tourist plastic’ to be true.
If I was to choose a photo of Chester, there are many things other than the shopping area that I would go to like the banks of the River Dee. But none of these places mean anything without people and nowhere is more important.
It’s 3.00 pm on a grey, wintry afternoon and I’ve still got my Gym work to do. Going to force myself now … well, after I’ve cleared a backlog of 377 emails. That’s nothing. I had 465 yesterday.
Saturday, 16th December, 2023
A grey and rather damp morning. Finding it hard to motivate myself. Suddenly the post bursts through the letterbox and I jump into life. I open all post, like some demented secretary, whoever it’s addressed to. There is no privacy in our house. I like hearing from people. Before the post arrived, I had contacted 11 friends and family on Whatsapp and another in France on Messenger, one in America on email and one in Lancashire by text.
Before all that, I had chauffeured my Housekeeper to the hairdressers and returned to my Office. Most people contact me almost instantly although some are not quite awake and some don’t know what to say. Some think they need something clever to respond and take there time over it. I just like the back and forth of communication.
That’s why I like Christmas cards. I like sending them around the country and around the world – to America, to Australia, to Greece, France, to Scotland, to Wales, to Ireland and, of course around England.
This morning I heard from Boston, Masachusetts, from my boyhood friend, Jonathan who has lived there since 1971. He is mad keen on boats which is one reason why Boston appealed to him. He tried to get me interested in Sailing. He was entirely unsuccessful, I’m afraid. I nearly sank us just as I did on the River Dee in a row boat with another friend. I also heard from my old Grammar School friend, Jonny, who has lived in Arras, France 1970.
We have exchanged the same card with our friends who have lived in Edinburgh and lectured in Art at the University there since 1976. One of them is retired an the other is still working in 3D design and printing of jewellery. We last saw them when we went up there about 5 years ago.
Christmas is one of those events that links people and places, activities and memories across the years. This morning, with hair newly cut, Housekeeper has been finishing the cakes. She has only made three but the main two are for members of the family.
These cakes will be taken up to Surrey. One will be eaten there and the other may last long enough to make it across the Atlantic to Florida. These Christmas preparations have punctuated my Decembers for the past 45 years.