Sunday, 26th May, 2024
Lovely day of sunshine and high, fleecy, white clouds. Having setup our new iPads, we are taking one of the old iPads up to Surrey for P who has smashed the screen of hers. I’m trading one in for around £300.00 and we are forgoing the £300.00 we could get for the second one by giving it to P.
The drive up on a Bank Holiday weekend could have been a nightmare but it proved remarkably easy. It is a beautiful route through trees and wild flowers, through farm land and natural vegetation.
P’s original iPad had a cracked screen which was dangerous to use but was going to cost £200.00 to fix. Better to help out so that’s what we did today. It took about half an hour to copy old to new and wipe old clean. That went in the bin and the new one was tried out immediately.
Just to test the new iPad was identical to the original, we walked P through her normal routines. She is 86 and partially sighted so her determination to keep up with technology is admirable. I know lots of old, wrinklies who are scared of smart phones never mind iPads. She likes to Facetime/Video Link her daughter in Florida each day so I needed to check that it worked.
Florida is 5 hrs behind us but it was 11.30 am in UK so she tried it and it worked. A bleary-eyed, half asleep face appeared in the darkness of her bedroom to confirm it had worked although, I have to say, she did sound a bit grumpy. I don’t know why.
At least I know P can do the things she wants to on a good quality machine. It may well become increasingly a lifeline to the real world as she becomes tied to her home by frailty and other conditions. At least C is back to good health and happy with the world.
Of course, yesterday afternoon was lit up by Man. Utd. winning the F.A. Cup and destroying their Manchester rivals. Today it’s all about Leeds Utd.’s attempt to bounce back into the Premier League.
Monday, 27th May, 2024
Nice day but it is a Bank Holiday. Hate Bank Holidays. Well, there are no Banks anymore and it just means more people are milling around instead of being imprisoned in schools and places of work, leaving the world to the young at heart like me. I’m going to argue for Bank Holidays to move on line like the banks.
I wonder if I’m too late for someone to put that in their manifesto. After all, if you can work out something as mad as the Tories Teenage Dads’ Army on the back of a fag packet in an afternoon, you could definitely abolish Bank Holidays. Since the election was called in the rain on Thursday and Sunak went into Wales not knowing they had been knocked out of the football championship and was photographed in front of an Exit sign and then went on to Northern Ireland to be photographed in front of the Titanic Museum.
The Tory MPs must have that sinking feeling. Certainly the electorate have. Polling this weekend puts Labour on 44% and Tories on 23%. If we can just get the Reform racists into full stride and the perfect storm will be on. With a few more seats picked up in Scotland, we will be home and dry. (What does that mean?)
What do you think about electric cars, Dear Reader? Mine is hybrid and I’m very happy with it. I can drive 500 + miles a day across Europe and not worry. The thing is that the majority of my journeys in Retirement are under 20 miles. It would be useful to have a plug-in electric to do those journeys as an additional facility. What do you think about a cheap and cheerful, bug-eyed all electric in garish yellow so they can see us coming?
I want to introduce to one of my current favourites in the garden – a Houttuynia cordata ‘Chameleon’.
It is incredibly easy to grow – well at least down here it is. It is wonderfully colourful and vigorous and keeps going from the last frost until the first frost – sort of March to November. It grows and thickens out rapidly, can be dug up and split with individual pieces potted on to make as many ‘free’ plants as you like. And it looks spectacular in the sunshine. Its flowers are negligible but the leaves really compensate.
Tuesday, 28th May, 2024
Rain over night. Dry and warm now. A morning of newspapers and political speeches … and tidying the Office. Good speech from Rachael Reeves, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor and former Bank of England executive. She spoke at the Rolls Royce establishment in Derby – just a stone’s throw from where I was born.
Ironically, a property was featured in The Times yesterday in my home village of Repton. It is a beautiful house Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1907 and sits in just under 5 acres. The price is a mere £3.5 million which seems quite modest now.
In the 1970s, I used to almost live in the Manchester Business School on Oxford Road. It seemed quite a go-ahead place springing out of shabby surroundings. This morning, I read in the M.E.N. that it was the centre of police activity as students were barricading the exam centre at Manchester University in pro-Palestinian protests.
It is good to see Gen.Z getting involved in political campaigning again. They have been far too quiet for too long.
Ironically, Delta Polling issued a recent piece of research on changing views about rejoining the European Union. Unsurprisingly, every age group other than mine would vote overwhelmingly to Rejoin Europe and it is embarrassing that the wrinklies can’t see it. It does tie in with the Labour Party’s desire to expand the franchise to include 16 years olds. This is the way we will get , modern and more relevant policies introduced.
We Boomers have to resist this downward drift of aging as long as possible and keep our eyes on the Future. I’m hoping that I will be well into my 80s before any thought of the Tories return will be even mooted.
Wednesday, 29th May, 2024
Lovely, warm and sunny morning. My wife is preparing everything for a trip abroad … and that means she is preparing me. New clothes. Haircut. Travel documents, Euros …. oh, god!! All I’m interested in is the General Election at the moment. Well, on reflection, not all I’m interested in but …
The panicking Tories suddenly try to buy the grey/blue-rinse vote with a Triple Lock ‘Plus’ wheeze that will save each pensioner literally 28p per week and then near as dammit propose to reintroduce conscription which is universally derided and the next day a major YouGove Poll shows the gap actually widening when all experience teaches us that polls tighten over the campaign. You couldn’t write it better.
Down to the beach this morning, forgetting it was Half Term. Quite a lot of Kids but managed to avoid most of them. Lovely and warm on the seaside with no wind and plenty of sunshine. The smell of the ozone is wonderful.
There has been some talk of a staycation revival but it won’t persuade me. I am going to Europe at the very least. Two trips to Greece – June and August – plus a drive through France and Italy in July. Who knows where we will go afterwards. We live near a coastal town and we recognise it is less dynamic than it was. Even Brighton can look fairly shabby. I drive past groups of tourists and think, Could you not find somewhere better?
There have been quite a few newspaper articles recently highlighting the dilapidation of North Wales coastal towns – places where I was taken on holiday. Rhyl, Prestatyn and Llandudno have been particularly highlighted. Rhyl was called ‘Manchester-on-Sea’ and described as “one of the most disgusting seaside towns on Earth.” As a child, I was taken to Colwyn Bay and Abergele. I went once to Anglesey and even that is now more seriously threatened than ever with a nuclear power station. Not my choice of relaxing sunshine spot particularly as it rains so much.
Thursday, 30th May, 2024
Up at 5.00 am. Why? Because my wife couldn’t sleep, obviously. It was warm and grey. By 5.30 am, she was back in bed sleeping and I was wide awake and drinking coffee. Well, I don’t need a lot of sleep anyway. Going out for blood tests this morning prior to meeting the oncologist next week. It is a PSA and Testosterone test to reveal how successful my radiotherapy has been. A little nervous about it but there is nothing I can do. The testosterone is working but who knows about the prostate?
Can you remember what you were doing 15 years ago, Dear Reader? Were you busy? Happier or Sadder? Richer or Poorer? How much has gone under the bridge in the last 15 years? In this week, 15 years ago, we were just about to put our stop-gap property that we had bought to free up capital to fund our Greek house build on the market with the intention of moving South. When I consider how much has happened since then it is quite amazing and suggests that there is so much more to come before our 90s.
It will be 40 years ago this summer that we bought my favourite house set in an acre of garden which was itself set in a Conservation Area. Helme in Meltham was a delightful place to live and I could have happily stayed there forever but it is important to move on and to gain new experiences. We were there for 16 years and that is long enough to get stuck. Our Greek plans forced our hand and I look back without regret.
If you’d spent a few years doing this in your own designed home on a Greek island, Dear Reader, you wouldn’t regret it either. Everyone should have that experience in their timeline. It was a wonderful time which I would never change.
The houses are just markers in time. It is what came between that is important and I use these markers to help me reflect on my past. I spent time talking to an old College friend yesterday. We first met 55 years ago and haven’t had much contact in between. It is amazing how easy it is to bridge that gulf of time and place. We pick up fairly comfortably although our lives have diverged markedly. I suppose that’s why we became friends in the first place.
Friday, 31st May, 2024
Good Morning, Dear Reader …. and it is a good morning even though it is the last day of May 2024. My Dresser is currently obsessed with clothes and making sure everything is washed and ironed prior to packing for travel.
My obsession is gardening. Even though things are about two weeks late this year, Green Beans and Potatoes are flowering. Yes, I know, Hold the Front Page. To gardeners, these are signs of health and fruitfulness even though the flowers themselves are fairly insignificant.
Looked at closely and in isolation, these tiny flowers become beautiful in their own right. More importantly, they mean lots of produce to come soon. They also mean I can go away and not worry about them. They will just carry on carrying on happily in the sunshine.
It’s Friday so I will be cutting the neighbourhood lawns and, because it has been a strange season so far, I will be spraying them with Iron Sulphate (FeSO4) to give them a green-up boost. The plants we put in are coming into strong bloom and the area is looking cared for.
Some people wonder why I do it. You may wonder that, Dear Reader. Actually, it is an example of enlightened self interest. It does cost me a few hundred pounds a year but I enjoy exercising and being out in the sunshine with a sense of purpose. I like to drive into my street and think, Yes, this looks good. and I want my neighbours to do the same. They are grateful for my efforts and you never know when I might need their support. It is a win all round.
We’ve had great news this morning from our local newspaper – Sussex Express – which tells us that Labour are strong favourites to take both Worthing seats according to latest polling which also suggests Chichester will desert the Tories for the first time in 100 years. In our constituency, we will be sweeping away the Father of the House. Peter Bottomley is 79 and was first elected in 1975. Time for a change. Time for Dr Beccy Cooper.
Saturday, 1st June, 2024
JUNE!!! Time moves on. Hold it there. Summer has started. Lovely weather. Optimism. Grass thickening. Garden growing. Starting to flower well. Promising to ‘fruit’ well. Looking lovely. Demanding attention.
European trips about to begin. Movement, travel, challenge, foreign road signs, restaurants, cooking, people. Romance languages of Greece, France, Italy, Spain to listen to, to struggle with, to attempt to embrace.
Friends in the North to visit soon. Memories. Friendship. Grimy, stone buildings. Moorland space. Sheep. Rain & cold. Warm feelings. Rosy memories.
Sorry, Dear Reader. Don’t know what happened there. Suddenly fell into a stream of consciousness. Still, it’s good to do different things at times isn’t it. If you can’t do them in your 70s, when can you? My wife woke up this morning and said, We should be spending money. We should be travelling and spending money. I must admit, I thought we were but she thinks we are saving too much and not enjoying it enough. It’s going to take some effort to turn that super-tanker round in my mindset but I will think about it.
Don’t like to rain on your parade, introduce a note of realism into this euphoria of sunshine but there are less than three weeks until we start to go downhill. Two weeks on Thursday is the Summer Solstice, the Longest Day. From that point on, daylight gradually shortens, growing time is reduced, Winter draws on. We start to look for sunshine elsewhere in the world.
This morning, we are looking for problems. We have been in this house for 8 years. Even two, old codgers, would find it difficult to keep a new house looking ‘good as new’ over that period of normal living. We have always practised high level maintenance.
Pristine is the word my wife uses for how she wants her house so guess what happens. The house is kept pristine. This morning, we are doing a building check. Anything which is not pristine will be listed, recorded and addressed. Quite a bit of it will be dealt with by her – grubby finger-marks on the wall or door will be painted out, a peeling garage door step will be stripped, sanded and repainted but not by me. somethings will need outside help. We have an excellent multi-job, repair firm who we’ve used before.
Outside, some baseline repointing is needed after new patio flags have been laid and old ones pressure washed. My wife could do that but it would take her quite a while and who would cook my Supper? Some mastic grouting in one shower room needs replacing. A couple of soft-close kitchen cabinet hinges need replacing. Nothing is major but a list of these jobs aggregate to make less than pristine so have to be fixed.
An update for those who are as daft as me about politics and I’ve just been talking to my neighbour who says, They’re all the same as each other, John. I don’t normally beat women up but I made an exception this time. Labour will be different. There may be no money but they will give it to the more deserving. Hopefully, they will give your money to me. I am more deserving. The big prediction for my constituency which has been Tory for 100 years is Labour chance of winning = 70% / Tory chance of winning = 30%. I was looking at a red wall, Manchester constituency and in M24, Labour chance of winning = 66% / Tory chance of winning = 14% and Reform = 12% chance of winning. It’s all going the Left way.