Sunday, 26th January, 2025
A grey morning. Sundays are generally grey. There are the occasional zealots who light candles and believe they are illuminating the world. In reality, of course, they are merely obscuring it, hiding/cowering behind the smoke of religiosity.
If you are a regular Blog reader, you will know I think it’s nonsense and you might as well read the Tarot cards or follow your Horoscope. As I rush forward to the age of 74, look what’s in store for me. Unseen cosmic forces …. Wow! And if you believe that, you will believe anything like ….. an man ascended to heaven.
So, don’t read too much into today’s hauntingly beautiful music choice – Miserere Nostri by Thomas Tallis. It was written 450 years ago in 1575 which is one of the most amazing things about this accomplishment.
You may have noticed that one of the things I enjoy doing is taking photographs. I don’t know why. I haven’t got the skill of my little brother, Bob, who really takes it seriously but I do enjoy it. My wife bought me an early SLR camera in 1982 and it gave me great pleasure as we toured Europe.
I looked back and 15 years ago, I was using a more professional edition – a Cannon EOS SLR – which my school had kindly bought for me. Actually, I bought it for myself and just forgot to leave it there when I left. I remember thinking at the time how expensive it was at £750.00. Now, it would be around double that. I think it was a serious 12mp sensor and I got quite creative with it – even doing some b&w stuff.
Fast forward 15 years and I still have the camera but never use it or the multitude of lenses that I spent a fortune on in a vain attempt to get better. Now, I have a Samsung S24 Ultra smart phone which has a 200mp sensor. Quite incredible. The next generation must-have which has just been launched – the Samsung S25 Ultra – will incorporate AI into its lens technology to allow zoom and scaling beyond belief of the 2010 world.
A bag full of camera and lenses, cleaners and filters along with a tripod is replaced by a single smart phone in my pocket. I don’t have to go out to take photographs just record things I see on the spur of the moment.
I think it does quite well and everything is immediately backed up to the Cloud. I can digitally manipulate them in my Office when I get home. Isn’t Technological Advancement a wonderful thing, Dear Reader?
Monday, 27th January, 2025
This is how it should be. Everyone goes back to work and it is a gorgeous day …. left for those who deserve it like me, Dear Reader. The aroma of freshly baked bread is wafting through the house – taunting me to break my diet. Not a chance. Targets have to be met! Aims have to be achieved. Today is my 159th without alcohol. Just 112 more to go. Ahhh …
Still, the news is full of the 80th anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz so I have a lot to be thankful for. We Boomers never knew the horror of war like our parents. Our deprivations were minimal and threats of the Cold War didn’t come to pass.
Music this morning is the hauntingly beautiful Schindler´s List Theme – John Williams. From the perspective of today, the whole thing feels unimaginable but that is the real risk that survivor warn us about. It gives the lie to those who argue that the past – our History – does not matter and that only moving forward is important. If we don’t reflect on and learn lessons from our past, it has all been for nothing and we run the risk of repeating our mistakes.
We stand on others shoulders. Every generation has something to deal with and we learn from it, develop a collective memory which we pass on through our children or other people’s children to increase the fund of knowledge.
This is particularly true of teachers. I have known some wonderful teachers across the years who have been constantly told they are not worth paying big salaries to – the country can’t afford them – unlike the workers in business, the entrepreneurs, the inventors, etc.. It is conveniently forgotten that all those people started out being taught by teachers. They stand on teachers shoulders and society conveniently forgets that at crucial times. I don’t. I wrote to the significant teachers in my life recognising their contributions and thanking them for it.
These three men from my Training College in Ripon retired long after I left but had all come from war time service and then contributed to countless lives of future teachers. Brian Parker who taught in my Faculty of English had been a fighter pilot during the war – a perilous and normally short-lived profession – but lived to pass on his experiences to another series of generations. Ronnie Kent, whose religion meant nothing to me, was a captivating scat-jazz pianist who would entertain the crowds in the Common Room at the drop of a dog collar. There are some things one never forgets.
Tuesday, 28th January, 2025
Dark and wet start to the day. Going to get better as the morning develops. Just about to book the Spanish trip which makes things better. All the statistics are going in the right direction. My weight is down .. again. My INR, which I currently test every Tuesday, is exactly right at 2.5. It’s gone straight on to my spreadsheet which I started exactly 16 years ago this week. I was only 57 and in my last couple of months of teaching. Momentous times!
I have never been one for fashion but I am bang on trend this time. Prostate cancer is now the most commmon form. It has overtaken breast cancer as the most common type of the disease, after a record 55,000 men had it diagnosed in 2023, up from 44,000 in 2019, analysis by Prostate Cancer UK shows.
Two years on, I am free …. at least for now. It was a life-changing experience which I am not in a hurry to repeat. It disrupted my pattern of life in ways I did not predict. Not least, it insidiously disrupted my fitness particularly with the hormone treatment. It has been a long haul back but back I am and ready to start living life again.
I don’t know if you take your health seriously. I do but I didn’t for large stretches of my life. I was the typical boy. I thought I was invincible. I would live forever and I wasn’t too bothered if I died. It wouldn’t make much difference. I didn’t see a doctor. I didn’t go to the dentist. I ate too much and drank too much. I did give up smoking but reluctantly. I worked hard and the stress of that was rewarded with unhealthy pleasures.
Age finally catches up with everyone. There is time for self-reflexion. Suddenly, I realised that only I could really change the situation. I had to grow up and take responsibility for my own health.
Every time I went for a Doctor’s appointment and I was asked, Now, Mr. Sanders how much do you drink a week? My stock answer was, Why, how much do you drink in a week? I was defensive by being passive aggressive. It feels so much better to be facing that question myself now. I haven’t given up alcohol per se but I have maintained my self discipline and that is important.
Dementia will come to so many of us who live in to our 80s. Professor Tim Spector who runs the Zoe Health Study I have been contributing to daily for the past 3 years has this article in The Telegraph today. It’s basic thrust is that, although Dementia has a genetic element, in large part it can be allieviated and held at bay by diet – largely the Mediterranean diet of Fruit & Vegetable, Fish & Lean Meat + olive oil. That more or less sums up my diet for the past 25 years.
Of course, living in the Mediterranean atmosphere helps enormously. This morning, we rented a house for July just on the outskirts of Torrevieja. It has everything we need – Air Con., WiFi, Pool, Dishwasher, Washing Machine, Smart TV, Kitchen, Large, sunny balcony to eat outside. Walking distance of beach and shops but in a ‘nice’, quiet neighbourhood. We fly out of Gatwick and into Murcia International. Never been there so it will be an interesting experience.
The grey morning turned into a sunny afternoon. Music this morning was an old friend – Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto. I went out for a long walk with it playing in my head. Written in 1809 between the Napoleonic Wars, the music is uplifting and majestic, confident and brave. It made me walk much faster and with more sense of purpose today. It is so good to be back to fitness. It makes me feel so much better.
A session in the Gym before Supper which is Γεμιστές πιπεριές και σαλάτα / Stuffed Peppers and Green Salad. Absolutely delicious. And then on to the next trip to arrange – Southern Tenerife for the month of November. It is the warmest destination in Europe in the Winter. That’s what I need – warmth!
Wednesday, 29th January, 2025
Lovely morning. Major target with my weight reached 3 days early. I had been aiming for the start of February. Off to town and M&S alcohol-free shelves. First, I’m going to listen to the music for the day: Vivo per lei sung by Andrea Bocelli.
A bit sloppy, I know, but great words. If you want Romanticism, you can’t go far wrong with Bocelli.
Vivo per lei da quando, sai,
la prima volta l’ho incontrata.
Non mi ricordo come, ma
m’è entrata dentro e c’è restata.
Don’t things sound so much better and more appropriate in a Mediterranean, romance language? Everything sounds, tastes, feels better in Italian. I have known this song for many years. I know it well. I can more or less sing it in the original. Well, I say sing …. In the car on my own I sound exactly like Andrea Bocelli.
Down at the beach opposite M&S, the sky was still grey with a weak, watery sun trying to break through. Nice and warm but looking wintery. The incoming tide was churning up the sand and reflecting the sky.
Spent a while trying to fix a South Tenerife rental for the month of November. Actually, I seem to be doing it early enough to have quite a bit of choice. This one seems favourite at the moment – £4,400.00 for a month with everything of our requests ticked off. Sleep on it tonight. Act tomorrow.
Thursday, 30th January, 2025
Absolutely gorgeous morning. Cold but bright and sunny with clear blue sky. Had to put the central heating on downstairs this morning. At least I can do that. There are so many in heating poverty and this morning they will hear that water bills are going up considerably because the private businesses owning water (and you have to consider that description and ask yourself who should own the natural stuff that falls freely from the sky) are going to make us pay for all the development that their profits should be used for instead of enriching all their shareholders excessively.
Anyway, the cold outside is nothing to the hardship of a 19th century poet’s garret featured in Puccini‘s La Boheme and I make my music for the morning Rodolpho‘s aria: Che gelida manina (What a frozen little hand.) as he takes the hand of the fated Mimi while he tells her of his life as a poet, and ends by asking her to tell him more about her life. We poets are all the same. It all begins with the hands.
I don’t know what your relationship with sugar is like but mine is non-existent. I divorced sugar at least 15 years ago. Since then, I have relied on Saccharin, Aspartame and Sucralose – all manufactured sweeteners with virtually no calories. It does work but it would have been more helpful if I could have eliminated my need for sweet flavours at all.
As I’ve got older, I have found my preferences moving from sweet to savoury but I still need sweetener in things like Museli, Yoghurt and Coffee. I use a sucralose derivative called Splenda on a daily basis. OK, it has 2 calories per serving. I can live with that but there is some evidence that Artificial sweeteners can alter the gut microbiome, which may negatively impact gut health. I must try again to limit my usage.
The advice for healthy eating is no longer 5-a-day but 30-a-week. Research found that people who consume at least 30 different plant-based foods each week had a higher diversity of microbes in their gut, which may contribute to improved overall health and well-being. I easily do that. Sometimes I do it in a single day. What I am concerned about is that the good microbes of fruit & vegetables are being counteracted by my artificial sweeteners. You have to think of these things, Dear Reader.
Of course, not everyone has their own inventive Chef as I do but I am happy not to go over the top with cooking. I prefer classic simplicity if anything. Wandering through Waitrose this morning … as you do, I noticed their weekly paper available. On the front is an attempt to persaude people to eat fruit and vegetables that just goes a little far for me.
When it comes to cauliflower dressed with pomegranite, I tend to turn off. Cauliflower? Yes. Pomegranite? Maybe. Together? Not really. Still, I haven’t got a closed mind and I’m willing to try it.
Today, I will consume freshly squeezed oranges, a banana, some grapes. In my Museli I will have oats, sultanas, coconut and berries. This evening my Supper will include Green Beans and Asparagus. This is an average day of at least 9 different plant-based foods. I’m going to live forever! I can hear some groans of despair. Stop it!
Friday, 31st January, 2025
A dark, wet morning opening. It will get better. Life will improve. I was only thinking yesterday how the daylight was lengthening. The mornings are lighter earlier and the evenings darken later. As we say goodbye to January 2025, a new world is coming. There are always set backs in the progression and this is one.
I am in my Office searching for sunshine to buy and unashamedly listening to Andrea Bocelli – Sogno (Dream). Coming back to it has reminded me how much I have loved it in the past. I have always tended to the sentimental and Italian just enhances rather underscores the platitudinous lyrics.
While I am in this mood, I should record the death of Marianne Faithfull – a seminal figure from my past. Her father was Major Glyn Faithfull, an eccentric British MI6 agent turned professor of Italian literature. Marianne spent her early years at Braziers Park, an upmarket commune founded by her father in an Oxfordshire country house. In her autobiography, she described it as a “mixture of high utopian thoughts and randy sex”.
Certainly, to a young man with the testosterone-fuelled sap rising, she represented the latter. There were stories of her and Jagger and a Mars Bar that we could only dream of. Her life spiralled in and out of control and featured heroin addiction but to die at 78 must shock our generation. A 74th birthday soon would mean just 4 more left and it is unthinkable.
On another plain entirely but still unthinkable, five years ago, on 31 January 2020, the UK left the European Union. It was an act of blind and wanton vandalism that was shocking in its ignorance.
It is now widely acknowledged that it was a catastrophic mistake which the thinking class warned the unthinking classes it would be. We were told we were scaremongering. All the scares have been well and truly mongered. UK Plc has been harmed in virtually every area of life including the one thing that we were told was driving the vote – immigration. This was mainly because the Tory government told people they wanted to control their borders while knowing we need huge amounts of immigration to support the economy. And nothing has changed.
And after all that, the sun has come out. The sky is blue and walking can start. Happy days, Dear Reader!
Saturday, 1st February, 2025
Happy new month, Dear Reader. Every new month, I set myself targets to achieve. I have given myself a weight loss target and a fitness target which stretch into March this time because Feb. is a short month. There is an ongoing savings and investment target which must be met. The alcohol target – of nil – remains. Funnily enough, there was a whole programme devoted to the rise in alcohol-free wines on BBC-R4 yesterday. Apparently, Gen Z don’t do alcohol at all. They much prefer drugs to blur reality instead.
At least January ended well. After days of searching, I finally decided on a property to rent in Tenerife for the whole of November. It is on the Adeje coast by the beach although it has its own heated pool as well. It’s in a gated community but close to shops and restaurants. Reviews of previous stays are excellent.
Along with the property, I’ve booked flights from Gatwick and, because I don’t want to leave the car in an airport carpark for a month, we will go by taxi and stay in a hotel the night before. I’ve booked Sofitel at Gatwick Airport for the night before and an Airport Lounge for the morning of travel. Nothing like being fully prepared is there, Dear Reader? This time, I’ve used Booking.com which I am a member of and have used many times before. I now have to contact the individual owner with our flight details so they can prepare for our arrival …. in 8 months time.
Music today is … the last one from moody Bocelli (I promise.) – Il mare calmo della sera / The calm evening sea. I have known so many of those over the years on Greek islands in general and Sifnos in particular and I hope there are many still to come, Dear Reader. Long, hot, lazy evenings with the water lapping gently under a starry sky. Sipping a glass of good red wine and nibbling luscious olives, talking, planning, late into the night. Dreaming of good things ahead. Let’s hope there are many, many more to come.
Now I am going out for an hour or so walk which will let me watch the Ireland v England Six Nations match later in the Gym. I haven’t played a game of Rugby since 1975. I can’t believe it was 50 years ago.