Sunday, 17th December, 2023
A mild, windless but grey day. Looks like we’ve got a dry week ahead. Our electrician is coming round tomorrow to work on our garden lighting so dry weather is important. We have a relatively quiet week ahead although I will be giving pints of blood on Friday from which my PSA and Testosterone levels will be assessed prior to my summary diagnosis at a meeting a week later with the Oncologist.
Of course, there will be lots of trips to Sainsburys and Waitrose this week as Chef ensures everything is ready for her catering experience in Surrey in a week. It seems impossible to go through the doors in the supermarket and emerge without spending £150.00 at least 3 times a week at the moment. How we do it I don’t know. Where we put it I don’t know.
Well, chef wasn’t satisfied with her Christmas cakes so they had to be produced all over again. A ‘trial’ Turkey had to be cooked to produce the perfect stock for sauce on the day. Stuffing had to be ‘trialled’ in order to decide which one would be served on the day. So, I suppose, Christmas is being funded twice this year but, it gives chef pleasure to experiment and get things right so why should I complain.
Someone in our village drew our attention to this local advert which rather puts us to shame in our self-indulgence. How wonderful, though, if you are hard up, to have this opportunity although I would like to see what you get for it. Our ‘trial turkey’ cost £28.00 on its own.
Christmas is always an awkward time when there is no politics to be involved in and I am scabbling around for things to entertain me. In the Gym, I’m only about half way through the Spy Drama series, Spooks. I am absolutely hooked and don’t notice the exercise at all as soon as the drama comes on. In fact, I get so absorbed, I am in danger of falling off the treadmill at times.
In the evenings, we try to watch some things together in the Lounge. Currently, we have two things on the go. On Netflix, we are watching the last series of The Crown. As a republican, I was shocked to find I love this. After all, it is our history and it does rather bring the Royal family’s dirty linen into view. Unfortunately, I was shocked how moved I was in the latest episode and I almost felt sorry for Charles. I must be going gaga!
Actually, it was the drama of any parent with their obnoxious and recalcitrant teenage child. Just a phase to be borne. No one escapes growing up just as none of us escapes growing old … and wrinkly.
If you can get a subscription into Apple TV app on your television if only for a month, one of the best drama series I’ve seen for a long time which is suddenly being raved about all over the media is available. Slow Horses is the most unlikely Spy Thriller starring a scruffy, unkempt, unhygienic Gary Oldman.
It is brilliantly and a little alternatively acted although it takes an episode or two to get really involved. It is well worth the effort. Series Three is just in the process of being released but there are two, earlier and essential series to watch now. I recommend it to you.
You may notice that I am also starting to assemble a list of podcasts on the right hand column of the Blog. They are all political discussions but I find them absorbing to listen to.
Monday, 18th December, 2023
Two workers here this morning – window cleaner and electrician. Windows cleaned for Christmas (What am I saying?) and the garden lighting has shorted after a bout of rain. Looks like some has got in to one of the fifteen junction boxes on the fences. Both lads are really lovely people trying genuinely hard to do a good job. I don’t begrudge them anything they charge me for the work. Actually, our window cleaner has charged us the same fee of £18.00 since we arrived in this house 7 years ago. Little Daryl, the electrician, hasn’t billed us for any of the last three jobs. I think he views himself as an agent of Help the Aged.
I’m really lucky to have lovely, generous friends. They have helped get me through the past year. We are all similar ages. Many of us talk most days – just chit-chat, daily detail, inconsequential stuff but what has come out more than anything else is that so many things affect us all. The ‘freedom’ of Retirement can soon and so easily become the ‘desert’ of freedom from work.
Although I don’t know what the verdict will be at the end of the month, the symptoms of the treatment are suddenly showing signs of improvement. It suddenly dawned on me over the weekend when I read an article about a new drug called Veozah being formally approved to prevent menopausal hot flushes. Typical, I thought after I’ve suffered them for months. Then I suddenly realised, I hadn’t experienced a bad episode for days.
Also, and I hesitate to observe it publicly but, there are hints of my libido returning. When I was tested a couple of months ago, my PSA had fallen from 7.5 to 0.23. My Testosterone level should normally be in the teens but was reduced to 0.89. I will be interested to learn the result in a couple of weeks because my body says it will be getting back to normal.
The electrician told me he didn’t want paying but he would like a couple of bottles of champagne from my wine racks. We wished each other Happy Christmas and he went off singing. Lovely lad – well, he’s 48. He Home-Schools three kids, is renovating a big, old house and is doing music A Level Music at Worthing College in his spare time. You have to admire someone so committed.
Quite a few newsletters arrive in cards at this time of year and it’s always good to catch up. Unfortunately, one shock announced the untimely death of one of Pauline’s Assistants when she managed the School’s Pastoral system. We haven’t seen Trevor who was a couple of years older than us and from Rawtenstall in Lancashire since 2007 although we usually got a card from him each year. Today, we heard that he had died which, at 74, is something of a shock.
Tuesday, 19th December, 2023
Depressingly dark and very wet day. Really gets to me. Need people and and contact to keep me sane. Christmas is a time when the jungle drums of news bring contact with friends across my timeline of life. I don’t let people go however much they want to hide. Yesterday, I wrote about about Trevor, one of Pauline’s workers, who died a couple of weeks ago
If you know me, you will not be surprised that I followed up this news with some research. It is what I do. Nobody’s secrets are safe. Nobody hides for long. Trevor, was borne in 1950 and was almost exactly a year older than me my web information tells me. He hit the local news headlines last year when he went to a football match and collapsed. It was reported in the Lancashire Telegraph.
Trevor had obviously suffered a heart attack in about the safest place – a football ground staffed with medical specialists. I then found this from just over a month later and Trevor, looking extremely ill to those who knew him, was back at the football club.
I shared this information in the jungle of ex-school workers and, in doing so, received lots of interesting and sad news. Julie from Dukinfield told me about her husband, Steve, who is 73 and was an PE teacher in my school and is now in a Dementia Care Home. That change has happened over the past 12 months. Steve had been a Man. Utd apprentice but failed to make the first team and struggled to cope with rejection. I know how he felt. Julie’s Mum is also in Dementia Care and her Daughter-in-Law has been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer of the spine. She is in her mid-30s and has two, small children.
Must admit, I suddenly started to think how lucky I was and how important it is to embrace the ones I love more closely. Hard luck ones I love!
Wednesday, 20th December, 2023
The year is drawing rapidly to a close. As I said yesterday, lives are slowly fading into the West. At 4.00 am this morning, I learnt that the Japanese revere the ornamental Blossom of trees because it reminds them of the transience of human lives.
I often said, I wouldn’t plant a Japanese Flowering Cherry because most of the year it was boringly plain and blossom was so short lived. Now, I understand.
Yesterday the fields were only grey with scattered snow,
And now the longest grass-leaves hardly emerge;
Yet her deep footsteps mark the snow, and go
On towards the pines at the hills’ white verge.I cannot see her, since the mist’s white scarf
Obscures the dark wood and the dull orange sky;
But she’s waiting, I know, impatient and cold, half
Sobs struggling into her frosty sigh.Why does she come so promptly, when she must know
A Winter’s Tale – D. H. Lawrence
That she’s only the nearer to the inevitable farewell;
The hill is steep, on the snow my steps are slow –
Why does she come, when she knows what I have to tell?
Went down to the Fish Market this morning. The beach was rather cool and unforgiving. The sea had run away and the beach was largely deserted. There is a raw edge in the wind although the temperature has not gone below 10C/50F for three days and nights. Quite remarkable for the last week of December. Beginning to wonder when we will need to put the central heating on.
Out for a walk this afternoon, the breeze is freshening and the 11C feels colder. Walked faster to compensate. Going to finish off in the Gym where it’s a lot warmer.
Thursday, 21st December, 2023
A lovely warm and sunny day. Celebrated by visiting the local tip. The house and garden is heaving a huge sight of relief at ridding themselves of so many items surplus to our requirements – an old sewing machine, an old kitchen bin, a rarely used barbecue, huge boxes in which their replacements arrived, etc..
I love a good clear-out with the potential for starting again. The people who staff our tip are lovely and go out of their way to help. This morning a Romanian girl in Council uniform but with make-up as if she was going out Clubbing leapt up to help me by carrying boxes of stuff to the appropriate bins. Made me feel old, Dear Reader.
When I got home, I found a letter had arrived from the Department for Gastroenterology at Worthing Hospital confirming that they would invite me for a colonoscopy in February. Just shows that if you are prepared to write to people and make a cogent case then the NHS takes you seriously and provides what’s required. I now have the Consultant’s phone number and email and he can’t escape. I will use this link for the next 30 years. I never let go.
As a result of hearing about the sad death of one of our former collegues and the decline into Dementia of another, I have been banging the jungle drums and, already, the network has risen up in support. I have been contacted by wives this morning reporting the waves of support they are being offered and thanking me for raising the news in the community.
Apparently, there is something called Storm Pia hitting the North of England today. The local newspapers featured this in Sheffield and this in Manchester. Flights were being cancelled in Manchester and advice was not to travel.
So often it is the coasts that get high winds. It is nice to be the exception this time. Before using the Gym, I am cleaning it this afternoon while my chef is curing a side of salmon for smoked salmon salad at Christmas – Stage 1 wrapped in coat of salt, sugar and dill, wrapped in cling film and weighted down on a tray in the fridge for 24 hrs. This will removed a lot of moisture from the fish. Meanwhile, my seamstress is turning up 4 pairs of trousers for me. I think I’m shrinking!
Thursday, 22nd December, 2023
After the longest night of the Year, a gorgeous day of blue sky and long, low, sunshine. Had to go to Sainsburys. Mistake! It was very busy. I love people …. but I don’t love them that much.
I had a dear friend who died about 25 years ago. He was a teacher in my school. He taught me so much about the job and about life. Sam was a wonderful human being. He was also an international Rugby League referee. He helped me from the early 1970s when, as his Assistant, I was going through very difficult times. It is something I will never forget. Sam’s wife, Pat, was a P.E. teacher at Bluecoat School. Today I learnt that she is in a Care Home. Sam’s daughter teaches at Hulme Grammar and contacted me this morning.
People are important. Pat is clearly very unwell. I must get up to the North to see her. I have contacted her at the Care Home this morning. Sam would be so proud of his son who trained as an accountant but who I have traced on Linkedin. He has obviously become a business leader. Until recently, he was Chief Exec. of Homeserve.
My friend, Julie, in North Yorkshire, lives alone but is with her family for Christmas and looks so much happier to be with others. She is with her son and daughter-in-Law.
Christmas, as a religious event, means absolutely nothing to me. In fact, the whole thing means very little but, the whole people-thing really gets to me and underlines our timelines, our distance, our value and our loss. It has taught me so much in recent times about how much I need that contact after decades of telling myself that I don’t.
I thought I would place on record for friends to access the young people – now all in their 70s – who were in my College Year. I just regret those who were missing on the day.
Friday, 23rd December, 2023
Why does the world go mad for the sake of a couple of days? I was up exceptionally early – too early to face anything apart from a glass of orange juice. It was so dark outside I had to put the garden lights on. Fortunately, they have been ‘repaired’ by our electrician recently.
Before 7.00 am, I was driving Chef to Sainsburys ‘to beat the crowds’. All the produce for a Christmas meal has to be ‘the freshest possible’. Shiitake mushrooms are on the Starter menu. Anyway, I won’t trouble you with this nonsense other than to say, the shelves were very sparsely stocked – hardly any Lettuces, absolutely no Skimmed Milk. What is the world coming to?
Received a lovely Hamper of produce from a farm shop about 5 minutes away from where we lived in Huddersfield. Bolster Moor Farm Shop was a regular for us 20 years ago and memories of our former life flooded back.
Our lovely next door neighbour, Dee, stopped by as she went out on her walk. She has just flown back from a few days in Germany visiting her parents. It was nice to hear her say that they couldn’t be bothered about Christmas. They aren’t going to do anything special although she would like to spend it in the sunshine in Dubai where her daughter is. I could quite happily join her but my wife will not go to a country where women are considered second class citizens.
I’ve been driving Hondas for almost 40 years. We bought a new, Honda Accord in 1984. It cost £7,500.00. I remember being delighted to have an automatic gearing and air conditioning for the first time although certainly the best thing of all was anti-lock brakes.
We have been buying new, Honda CRVs every couple of years for just over 25 years. Every new model brings new facilities and new procedures. I always start off with the best of intentions when I drive the new car home. I take the 500 page Users Manual into the house and sit down to read it. After 20 mins, I just want to get going and expect the cars accessories and procedures to be intuitive. They are not always and, by the time I am trading the car in, I am getting to grips with some of the least obvious changes.
We’ve had this latest model almost 10 months and I feel quite confident that I know everything about it …. well I did until yesterday when I spotted a a Headlight Symbol with an ‘A’ in it on the dashboard. ‘A’ for Automatic? Well, yes. ‘A’ is for Automatic High Beam – Well, yes – but it is also for Active Cornering Lights.
Apparently, the car’s camera takes the view of on-coming traffic and automatically dips the lights at the correct point but also the lights read the turning of the steering wheel and actively focus the lights on the corner the car is turning into. Well, I didn’t know that.