Sunday, 13th October, 2024
A cool, grey day. Went down to the beach but it was packed with walkers and there was nowhere to park so we came back and did our old walk round the local park today. It was quite nice to see it again. Haven’t been down there since last year.
Actually, it’s been a morning of revisiting. Thinking about the North of England – Lancashire & Yorkshire this morning. I was looking for a photo of my old village of Helme to show JohnR when up popped a house sale. https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/147755765#
It was bought by my doctor. I had gone to see him about my bad back but all he wanted to talk about was viewing my house. He has obviously retired and wants to downsize now. It brings back so many memories both happy and sad – so many good times and some absolutely terrible ones. We lived in it for almost 20 years while working.
I was really pleased to see that they had kept this door and used it at the entrance to the Laundry Room. It came from my Office as Headteacher back in the 1990s. Solid mahogany, it was installed in the school, which was ultimately raised to the ground, in 1885. It was the original door.
It is this sort of coincidence that really pleases me. The circularity of experience. I need to revisit and retouch the past. It is so rewarding.
Monday, 14th October, 2024
Woken up to rain. Not very inviting! Why does it always rain on Bins Day? Not only do I cut all the grass for my neighbours but I put their bins back because the are out at work. My lovely Bavarian-Australian English Lecturer next door sent me this at the weekend.
Actually, the rain will stop around 9.00 am and the week is going back to …. Summer. It will be around 22C/70F by mid week according to the Met. Office. Still in shorts and tee shirt. Still no quilt on the bed. Still no central heating. Apparently, the day Brits most commonly start using the central heating is 2 weeks away – October 27th. We will see.
Yesterday, I featured the sale of our old house in Yorkshire. We bought it as much for the land as for the house. It was set in about an acre of conservation land. It had neighbours but so far away that it was easier to phone them than speak across the hedge. We wanted to stretch ourselves to our maximum budget – invest to accumulate – with a view to it providing a springboard to bigger properties. In the event, I loved it and we stayed for 16 years only selling it to help us finance our Greek build.
Now in retirement in the South, we live with much closer neighbours. We didn’t spend all our money on a house. We actively chose this. In older age, we need cash in the bank and people nearer to us. We moved to a village. Normally, I abhor villages having grown up in and run away from one but this is the South. Villages are not remaining such for very long.
Of course the older residents are up in arms about that. Isn’t it strange. Old age seems to make us more reluctant to change and accept change around us. I always knew I was odd. Change excites me more the older I get. There is so little life to live and so much to cram into it. Think of all the innovations to come that we 70 yr olds will never see. Will I live to see flying cars, drone deliveries, Universal Incomes, Free Essential Services of Power, Water, Communications, Healthy Life Expectancy of 150? Perhaps not but …. I will try. Got to keep the plates spinning.
Tuesday, 15th October, 2024
Driving up to Surrey this morning on this mild Tuesday morning to visit relatives. My online calendar informs me that it would be my Dad’s birthday. Today he would have been 109. He actually died of a heart attack at the age of 49. What a waste!
Dad was Eric Richard Sanders and Granddad was Richard Watthew Sanders. I am John Richard Sanders. All three of us were pupils at Burton on trent Grammar School. These photos are of Dad in his final years there.
Like me, he was a Rugby player. I’m not sure about my grandfather but Dad was a good player and I think had England schoolboy trials according to legend.
Dad died as a relatively young man. The only upside to that is the fact that he never had to worry about coping with old age. We have been out today up in Surrey accompanying relatives in their late 80s considering buying in to a new Retirement Village Development. It would provide so many services to assist and enrich their final years. Wrap around care includes all in-house needs like Cleaning and Laundry, a Restaurant and a Supermarket plus many other in-house shops. There is a Gym, Exercise Class Room, Indoor Swimming Pool, Hobbies Room for things like Pottery and Art.
It provides Emergency Medical Services, Concierge Services and the community of a large number of similar aged residents. Of course it is not cheap both because of the rich provision of the lifestyle and because it is in the centre of one of the most expensive places one can choose to live in UK.
One of the things all this definitely emphasises is the dilemma of the final years. It starkly sets out that you need to build up a serious nestegg of reserves to soften the difficult end of life decisions. It is all very well living for the moment but there will come a moment when you will wish you hadn’t.
My big take away from today was when I told the Sales Office lady how impressed I was with the properties. She turned and said without a pause:
I’m sorry, Sir, you have to be over 65 to buy here.
I will take compliments like that all day long especially from girls. Checked the mirror as I walked out.
Wednesday, 16th October, 2024
A warm and depressingly grey day. The world is wearing a helmet of darkness this morning. It is soft but depressingly heavy and unwelcoming.
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.T.S. Eliot – The Hollow Men
What will become of us? Our trip out yesterday left more questions than answers. Age is the one thing we cannot run away from. I was confronted by my Future, your Future, Dear Reader, all our Futures. There will come a time and there will come a time ….. when we all have the same dilemma on the path to becoming Hollow Men. How do we cope with age and infirmity …. alone? How do we store up enough cash to prepare for that eventuality without making our last years joyless?
I have always tried to get the balance right and to make enjoyment inform prudence. Building a house in Greece meant making some sacrifices. We sold our large, Yorkshire home and moved to a cheaper house to help fund the building. I borrowed money against my house to provide additional funding for the building. However, ultimately selling the Greek house allowed me to move to the much more expensive South of England and keep investments for the grey skies of Old Age.
Well, the day just got better. The sun came out. The sea was splashed with twinkling blonde dye. The walk along the beach road was accompanied by the music of the crashing waves. This is a lovely, daily walk. It actually lifts the spirits wrapping us in warm and tender love ….
It is lovely and warm. Walking at 11.00 am, the temperature reached 22C/70F and there was almost no movement of air. It felt like the return of Summer however temporarily.
Got to give the car its first clean today. Rain over night brough a shower of Saharan Dust which has dried patchily on the pristine paintwork. It is one of the problems with choosing gloss black. I knew I would have to clean it more regularly.
Thursday, 17th October, 2024
Lovely, warm and bright morning promising a wonderful day. It will be great for walking later. Jobs to do first. It was a warm night for the latter half of October – 16C/61F – and the shorts and tee shirt go on.
I belong to a Whatsapp group of former male students who talk mainly nonsense in the attempt to maintain relationaships over distance and time. People post things all day from all over the country and others pick up on things that interest or amuse them. It is a virtual society. This morning a lad in Knaresborough posted this old football chart and it struck a chord with me.
I am a citizen of Nowhere. I began my life as a Rams supporter. One of my first girlfriends was Peter Taylor’s daughter – the daughter of Brian Clough’s assistant. (Free tickets).
I moved on to support Latics when I started teaching and flirted with the idea of supporting Town when I moved house. As Latics and Town faded, I moved on to support United. After emigrating to Surrey, I supported the Pensioners for a while but now, down here on the South Coast, I am trying to get into the Shrimps who are actually known as the Seagulls. In Greece, I supported Panathinaikos which literally means ‘All across Athens’. Its nickname is πράσινος prásinos, which means “The Greens”.
It was a delightful day yesterday which, I must admit was pleasing after such a poor start. Lots of people reacted to my video clips of the sea on our walk in the morning. You are lucky to live by the sea, they say and we know. We feel lucky. It gives us a constant source of interest. People regularly say that it feels as if they are on holiday when they are here. Of course, I never consider I am on holiday even when I’m on holiday. I just move my life to a different location.
The same prepossessions, routines, interests are involved wherever I am in the country or the world. I still walk, Blog, photograph, enjoy good food, meet interesting people, enjoy language, see interesting sights. These things accompany me wherever I go and now, with all the instruments of the internet at my disposal, I still take my friends, relatives and associates with me too and I talk to them, share with them and learn from them.
Yesterday afternoon, I was talking to a lad who I shared a flat with for a year in 1971. He was admiring my video clip of the waves and saying how he was obsessed with the sea as well. Tolley used to have a house in France but like so many of our age has sold up and retreated to his home in England with his grandchildren. Like many of the group I was involved with, he is an artist. He still paints and he loves to paint the sea. He shared this picture with me from his landlocked home in Leeds.
Friday, 18th October, 2024
Absolutely gorgeous day after the most wonderful night. As I went to bed around 11.30 pm, the garden was in full moonlight and it remained all night. When I got up around 6.30 am, the sky was still illuminated by the moon. Soon after, the blue sky chased the moon away as the sun rose over the horizon. It is relatively warm for this time of year and grass is still growing.
We are having some work done in the garden today so exercise will be in the Gym. It is a day of Remembrance which we would normally mark in Oldham but medical events have delayed us this year. On this day 14 years ago, we were living in a Supported Old Age living accomodation because my Mother-in-Law was unwell and needed lots of support. On this day 14 years ago, she was still in hospital after an incredible operation for a 96 yr old the day before and we were woken at 5.30 am by a phone call that we both instictively knew was not good news.
We dashed to the hospital where my lovely Mother-in-Law died shortly afterwards – 14 years ago today. Can hardly believe the passage of time. We will visit soon to mark the occasion.
We just hope that we can match her resilience having been born in to poverty and hardship. She worked incredibly hard to bring up her family doing fairly menial jobs. She was widowed very young and spent a large chunk of her life as a widow always remaining cheerful. From that basis, her life to 96 was one of triumph over adversity.
The Office for National Statistics recent report into Life Expectancy finds that, of the 10 local areas with the lowest life expectancy, none were in the south of England and Oldham was up there. Just as examples, life expectancy in Hampshire for women is 86 years whereas in Greater Manchester it is 79 years. It might not sound a lot but, when you get there, 7 more years will seem like a lifetime.
I was looking for restaurants in Manchester which we can try when we visit. Today, a newish Greek (Mykonos) Taverna was reviewed in the MEN. Fenix Manchester sounds like a possibility.
Saturday, 19th October, 2024
Unbelievably lovely day yesterday of hot sunshine. We were marooned at home waiting for a Fenceman …. who didn’t turn up. He texted to say that his workers had cut a power line on another job and he was needed there to sort it out. So, for the second time, he was a no show. He will now come on Tuesday, hopefully. Ironically, the sunshine outside was not reflected on the inside for me. I’ve been feeling rather sad and empty for a few days – a bit listless. Must get a grip!
I received a video and photos from one of my former pupils who should have gone to University but wasn’t allowed to originally. Since leaving school, she married, had two kids, started a counselling course, started a counselling business in the Asian community and finally completed the B.A. degree she should have done through Oldham College affiliated to Sheffield University. The graduates processed through the streets of Oldham yesterday in the sunshine and led by a jazz band. Lovely to see but a frightening reminder of 20 years ago.
Fortunately, today is another good day. Very warm and sunny with white, fleecy clouds. Walking by the sea along the Littlehampton Promenade the air was warm and enjoyable. With the sounds of the waves, the shrieking of the gulls, yapping of the dogs and children excitedly whooping to each other. Apart from that, it is a quiet walk which feels like it is doing us good because of the strong smell of sea air and the sun on our skin.
On the right of this photo, you can see the fencing that has gone up to protect the public from the development work which has started. Arun Council has got a £7.2 million regeneration grant to develop the beachside. It will have new toilets and beach showers, new car park EV charging points, new food shops and a waterpark for kids. It’s called Levelling Up.
Really finding my Gym work hard at the moment. I’ve upped my target but I’m not eating enough to fuel the energy to do my routine so I’m having to fight it constantly. I know that is the idea. Less in and more out but I am really struggling with it. Fortunately, I’ve been enjoying a really well written legal/police investigation drama series called Showtrial on BBC iPlayer. It is two series each of five episodes and well worth 10 hrs of your time on the treadmill.