Sunday, 24th December, 2023
A dark and dismal day … but incredibly warm. We have been 14C/57F all night. It is the day before Christmas and the time to bring out all the timeworn topics that seem to populate our culture. A programme about mistletoe, holly & ivy and wassailing, the Christian ‘story’, singing carols and about belief. I have to be honest and say, I don’t buy in to any of this.
This morning at 6.00 am, I heard the main reason why I don’t have faith. The central tenet of the philosophical theme this morning: To believe, first you’ve got to want to believe. This is the first principle of the snake oil salesman. Sell them something they want to believe and you will get them eating out of your hand. It is how brainwashing works. You have to get people to suspend their disbelief, their scepticism, their rationality.
Once you’ve done that, almost anything is possible. Virgin birth? No problem. Happens all the time. God made human? They’re talking about me! Water into wine? Have you tasted some supermarket wine? Today’s programme addressed exactly that problem. It addressed it head on. There are two types of truth, it asserted. There is empirical truth like to say, I had Breakfast this morning. But then, there is eternal truth which goes so much deeper and requires …. faith to believe it. And I don’t. So you see, Dear Reader, You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.
A postcard from our village circa 1955, a time when the world was less questioning of Faith and Authority and the connection between the two.
This from 1968 at Grammar School when faith in God and service to Country were still the principle currency even though Wilson was in power with a campaign to harness the white heat of technology. The world was once populated with Beautiful People.
There is a tendency for people, as they get towards the end of their lives to turn (back) to Faith. Like some insurance policy, they begin to hope for a Life after Death. I was particularly proud of my Mother-in-Law who, even though she was 96, didn’t succumb to fairy tales in which to seek comfort. She was a realist and a fighter to the end.
It is gratifying for me to see church attendances plummet, those identifying as Christian fall into the minority and the monarchy under question more than at any other time. The last series of The Crown on Netflix finished with the royal family themselves believing that they would not survive much longer. I’m planning for President Corbyn!
Monday, 25th December, 2023
Happy Christmas to all my readers. I have to admit, I don’t really feel too celebratory this year. Is it age and loss? Who knows. I know Pauline woke up thinking about her Dad who died 62 years ago. Amazing how things are triggered. I just woke up thinking.
Onward and upward. Got the M25 to enjoy this morning. Just about to load the car up with enough food to feed the 5000, wonderfully wrapped presents for the family and the Kitchen General’s instruction sheet.
I will spend the day as dogsbody … so no change there. Just had Christmas greetings from most of the neighbourhood, from lots of family members and friends around the country. All has a sad sense of remoteness, distance, loss.
See you on the other side ….
Lovely drive up to Surrey. Even the M25 was deserted. Chef had done so much preparation and everything that could be prepared in advance had been and packed into boxes and the car’s fridge so, when we arrived, we were greeted with glasses of Buck’s Fizz and bacon sandwiches for breakfast.
M&K are lovely company to be with and envelope us in their family scene for the day. M, looking lovely in her Christmas Onesie, K on his mobile checking his pension scheme, David making Buck’s Fizz and James eating all the sausages and that just leaves C&P to adorn the furniture.
The meal was absolutely the best chef has made in the last 45 Christmases. The menu …
- Mushroom Gratin with Garlic Bread
- Turkey with Sausage-meat & Apricot Stuffing
Bacon wrapped Sausages
Roast King Edward Potatoes
Parsnips roasted in Sherry & Honey
Green Beans with Garlic
Herby Baked Carrots
Cranberry Sauce with Orange & Cinnamon - Christmas Pudding with Double Cream Custard
Lemon Cheesecake with Raspberry Glaze
Tarte aux Pommes with Cream
It was simple but Chef did a magnificent job of organising, sourcing, preparing, cooking and presenting the meal and was roundly applauded. Because I was allowed to drink wine, chef had to drive us home on a dark, wet night. She was tired after that so, to reward her, I opened and poured the champagne as we came down from the day.
Tuesday, 26th December, 2023
Nice bright and warm morning. Actually got up quite late. Don’t know why. Just managed a glass of fresh orange juice and a cup of Yorkshire tea.
Chef never rests. Already the remains of yesterday’s turkey carcass are being put to good use as stock is being made outside in the pressure cooker.
Boxing Day is always a bit of a non-day. Traditionally, we would spend it at the beach. Even in Yorkshire, we would either go to Scarborough/Whitby or across the Pennines to Formby or Fleetwood. Now we visit the beach so regularly, the urge is not quite there today. I’m going in the Gym instead. Before that, I have been trying to decide where to put a present from M&K yesterday which they brought, ironically, from America.
I’ve decided that I’m going to find space for it in the Office next to the sale sign for our Greek House. Seems appropriate.
Before anything else, Lunch is served. I’m having cold Christmas Pudding with cold custard … mmmm.
Wednesday, 27th December, 2023
It’s Wednesday! Strange, I was wondering. Don’t you just hate the break in normality? I do. It was weird having no newspapers on Monday. No political programmes yesterday. What to do today on a Wednesday? Well, my big job today is …. cleaning the Gym. I’m not big on cleaning but you have to help out, don’t you?
For a year or two as a teacher, I used to take Assembly every day. When I started, I would sit at home the night before and think for ever about what subject I could talk on the next morning as I presented some little homily of morality or self-improvement to start the kids’ day. I can clearly remember panicking some nights in the early years because nothing would come to me.
Experience changes everything doesn’t it, Dear Reader? Soon, I became so relaxed that I wouldn’t even think about it until I was in the car driving to school. Later still it would be over a cup of coffee in my Office before school started that I turned my mind to the subject. In the end, it was as I walked up the steps onto the stage from which I delivered the address. The job I did eventually just generated the topic to the point where I had too much to talk about. I really got to enjoy it.
In just the same way, I wondered if I would ever have enough material to maintain a daily Blog. At first, under the strain of work at work, it felt like a struggle which I could only address occasionally. Soon I began to see it as an outlet for the internalisation of life. In Retirement, it has just formed a vehicle for reflection and self management. Rarely do I get up and think about what to write. It just presents itself naturally. Yes, I know, it comes over like that.
Of course, I designed my own Blog with its own Links to please me. If others read it, they have to take it in that spirit. Often people contact me and tell me I should write something like a book or submit articles for a magazine. There are certainly lots of people out there who think they can make money through their Blogs although I’m not sure if they actually do. I think I’m going to have to attract some advertisers. To do that, I’ll have to make it a lot more juicy, salacious, provocative. I’m sure I can do that. The past made present and projected into the future. The Blog of a Time Traveller. Now that sounds like a niche that could be monetised.
Thursday, 28th December, 2023
Beautiful morning – warm and bright. British Gas must think we’re abroad because we’re not using the heating at all. The Cleaner woke me up to announce that Spring Cleaning would start to day. I have decided to hide in the Gym.
Cook is getting very excited. She has always wanted a food dehydrator and often toyed with buying a dedicated one. Now her new pressure cooker / steamer / air fryer / yoghurt maker / grill & roast /dehydrator has opened up so many new possibilities. Last night, fruit slices were dried over 8 hrs and came out like …. dried fruit. Oh, we did have fun!
First thing on the radio at 5.00 am was an item about the weather in Greater Manchester last night. A mini tornado with roofs being torn off houses and trees blown over. Stalybridge was the epicentre apparently. Lots of friends live near and I’ve been contacting some of them this morning. Kevin sent me a picture of how I feel and Little Viv sent me a photo to reassure me she was still alright.
North Yorkshire is cold with floods. My friend, JohnR, posted a video of the floods in Catterick this morning. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it. North Wales & North West England has gales. When M&K were up in Oldham last week, they couldn’t believe how cold it was. Mind you, they were just back from Florida and now they’re off skiing.
As Chef drove me home from Surrey in dark and dashing rain, she had the joy of a warning symbol popping onto the screen with a chime alert. I have to say that I never check anything on the car apart from washer bottle and fuel. Tyres are monitored automatically.
It says a tyre has fallen below optimal pressure. Chef immediately started to worry and was preparing to pull over and get out into the rain to check the tyres. I told her not to even consider it unless the steering felt wrong but to get us home and we would deal with it next day. It didn’t help her confidence but we got home safely. Yesterday, we checked every tyre and found one had lost just 2psi on default. That’s all it takes.
Friday, 29th December, 2023
Big day today. Appointment with the oncologist to get the results of my cancer treatment. Well, it was a big day in my mind at the outset of this process but it has been going on so long and things have happened on the way that I am rather giving up the will to live or that’s how it feels at the moment.
Changing the subject completely, have you heard of The Clash or Black Sabbath. I didn’t know of the first and I’d hazily heard of the second. A girl from Manchester who I knew in a former life and who is going through a very difficult time, contacted me and asked me if I knew how to get in contact with a former colleague. I didn’t but I learned that he had a famous cousin who was the drummer with a Punk band called The Clash and had also played with Black Sabbath for a few years. He had been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
I did some research …. because that is what I do. Nobody escapes if I want them. I contacted the former Clash/Black Sabbath drummer who is now a Chiropractor in Essex. I will hear from him in the next couple of days or I will be phoning.
At 10.00 am I was with the Oncologist. It turned out to be a substitute and she was Sri Lankan but on the South Coast via Manchester and Oldham. She had family in Oldham but had worked at Christies in Manchester.
She was a lovely girl but I found her quite hard to understand. I discovered that my PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) was just 0.29 set against 7.5 prior to the treatment. I also learnt that I would be checked every 6 months throughout my life with PSA tests just as I will be tested every two years with colonoscopies. How lucky am I?
The number of people who have checked in with me since I got my results is quite humbling. It took me an hour to reply to everybody when I got home. Friends, relatives and neighbours showed touching concern and mutual delight. And yet, I have a strange sense of anti-climax. I remember the last day of a school year when the car would be packed ready for travel. We would close school about 1.00 pm. get in the car and drive to Hull Docks. Drive on board the P&O Hull – Zeebrugge ferry and go to our cabin where we would order a drink. Just when you would expect relaxation and anticipation of 6 weeks freedom to kick in, I would be bathed in a wave of anti-climax. Not until the next morning when we drove off into Europe did I feel like life had re-started.
Been a strange day all round. Drove to Sainsburys via the coast to get a snack for a celebration Lunch along with a bottle of Fizz. Bit of a shock at checkout when the bill came out at £263.93. When I checked, it included a slice of Peppered Steak costing £211.11. When I pointed that out to the cashier, she just laughed and said that was happening regularly. She removed the steak item and all was well.
Saturday, 30th December, 2023
Just gone down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky …. We are celebrating our 45th Wedding Anniversary and there is no better way to do it than to walk in the sunshine with the sound of the waves crashing on the pebble beach. Quite astonishing to think it is 45 years since that day and to review everything that has followed from it, the things we have done over that time, the happiness and sadness of that span of time and there has been plenty of both.
On reflection, yesterday was a good day, a releasing day that will allow us to plan to travel, to meet people to revisit past times and forge new friendships with new places. That is what life is ultimately about. This morning I have heard from dozens of ex-pupils, 40 friends and relatives who don’t mention me but say Pauline looks just the same as ever and taken a phone call from my past in North Wales.
David Beasley was widowed 3 years ago and sounded terribly lonely. Now, at the age of 82, he has a new girlfriend and and sounds as if he’s 32! It was delightful to hear him keen to talk about new love for an old girlfriend and the plans he hoped would come to pass. Hope springs eternal just like the sea offers eternity!
As a present to each other, we are going to order DNA test kits from the Ancestry organisation to trace our origins.
To finish the day, we are going to watch a movie – Sheridan Smith in The Castaways and binge on a homemade, seafood pizza from Pauline’s new, pizza oven.
The Black Sabbath drummer has come good with the address of my ex-colleague and everybody is happy. Didn’t even need a DNA Kit for this.