Sunday, 23th February, 2025
A beautiful morning. I had an empty sadness inside me yesterday. This morning renewed my optimism that all will go well and that I will achieve my ultimate goals. Blue sky, warm and bright is definitely a harbinger of things to come.
………. Blue-eyed May
Shall soon behold this border thickly set
With bright jonquils, their odours lavishing
On the soft west-wind and his frolic peers;
Nor will I then thy modest grace forget,
Chaste Snowdrop, venturous harbinger of Spring,
And pensive monitor of fleeting years!William Wordsworth – To a Snowdrop – 1820
Obviously, the effects of Global Warming have advanced the time of Spring considerably over the past 200 years and the difference between the Lake District of Northern England and the sheltered coastal temperatures of West Sussex contribute but these harbingers of Spring are out here at least two months earlier than Wordsworth’s 19th Century Cumbria.
It is a morning of domesticity. I am having my haircut in the Kitchen after I’ve done a 90 mins walk. I have a live-in Barber who actually doubles up as a Chef and Housekeeper. Chef has produced a huge batch of Meat Sauce for one of my favourite meals – Stuffed Peppers / Πιπεριές Γεμιστές. I think this pan will do 6 meals for two people unless you drop in, Dear Reader.
If you are a regular reader of the Blog, you will know that I have been drifting from Left to Right on the Nature v Nurture debate. The Right tend to argue that bloodline and genes are predominate determinates of generation. The Left tend to deny that and argue that privilege of circumstance is what makes the main difference. Levelling up would raise the Health and Physical Wealth of the less fortunate.
I was brought up in a Right Wing family but educated in a Left Wing milieu. I grew up on the belief that amelioration of Nature particularly through compensatory education was the way to improve the world. In later life, I’ve been alarmed to find how many physical attributes are common throughout my family. Now, the Sunday Times reports research with a re-balancing of that argument. Socioeconomic status – your post code and associated affluence which is all tied into your level of education and cultural choices – is by far the most influential factor on longevity. It doesn’t mean that no poor people live to great ages just that the likelihood is less.
Music for this Sunday morning, while the devout are at prayer, is the Debussy – Cello Sonata which was written at the start of World War One and is guaranteed to make life more enjoyable if not any longer.
Monday, 24th February, 2025
A dark early morning of heavy rain has miraculously brightened up by 9.30 am. It is very warm. I’m tired. I didn’t sleep well. I never dream but I’ve been dreaming. In spite of this, I’ve got to get my exercise done. These are the most important days when I have to drive myself through the crisis.
This week marks 6 months without any alcohol. It is the longest spell I have done since 1973. I would like to say I feel good about it -feel better for it. It wouldn’t really be true. I am pleased to reassert my self-discipline. I’m sure it has allowed my liver to breathe a sigh of relief although my doctor told me last year it was in excellent condition. It has definitely helped me in my struggle to lose weight and regain fitness. Both of those goals are well on target. I have a date in May in my mind that I am aiming for. Another 12 weeks.
I am trying to keep myself occupied physically. Having completed my travel planning and bookings for the year with a few gaps to slot extra bits in, I am turning to the garden over the next few weeks. Soon the lawns will need reviving as they welcome the Spring warmth. Moss killer and weed & feed applied to boost them after quite a wet Winter. I am about to order hundreds of ‘plug’ plants to grow on for planting out.
It is a cheap way to produce hundreds of plants without needing to germinate them all myself. They will arrive at the beginning of April and be potted up into my cold frames. They will go out into the beds in late May to flower all Summer while I am away. My neighbours will get instructions on how to look after them.
Music today is from the Moody Blues – On the Threshold of a Dream: Lovely to See You. Haven’t heard it for years. Sounds dated but I suppose I am. It’s strange but part of me utterly rejects the past for its taint with aging yet part of me longs to dive back into it – to understand it with the perspective of distance. It’s probably quite natural but it fascinates me.
I’m absolutely loving my Gym workout each day at the moment. I can’t wait to get in there. I’m watching an Anglo-American Spy drama over 96 episodes which I resisted for a long time but finally re-tried and it is brilliant. I am utterly hooked.
I find myself completing my routine but forcing myself to go further just to finish an episode. It is really topical and involves Israeli prisoners of war, Al Quaeda, Afghanistan, Russia and a change of American President. What more could you want? I love the irony that I have to subscribe to Disney Channel to watch it. This alone is worth the £5.00 a month subscription.
Tuesday, 25th February, 2025
February is sliding rapidly away. March is marching closer. The Spring is on our doorstep. These are the waves of time flowing back and forth on the beach of our lives, each time getting closer before retreating to reveal our past.
If you are my age, Dear Reader, the death of Roberta Flack yesterday will not have passed you by unnoticed. I was no great fan of Soul Music, as I think it was called, but songs like The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (1969) and Killing Me Softly (1973) are part of the fabric of my youth and so chimed with stages of my life that they will always be significant. She lived to 88 but died of a nightmare illness – Motor Neuron Disease. Nothing in life is simple or easy in the end but we have to bear it.
Energy prices are rising again and we have to bear those as well. Interesting article in The Telegraph this morning about how retirees are escaping to warmer climes to save on heating bills. Now that’s an idea, Dear Reader. What do you think?
About 40 years ago, I went to Cyprus in the Winter to enjoy some extra warmth. I hired a car and explored the southern half of the island. It was interesting and enjoyable but not the Greek experience I had been hoping for. I haven’t been back. The article this morning was suggesting that I reconsider and I will.
Around 1985, I stayed in an almost empty area called Protaras. It is quite developed now. I drove to Larnaca and Paphos. I drove from the sunny beaches of Paralimni up the Troodos Mountains region into heavy snow. I drove to the Famagusta checkpoint to look over the fence between Greek and Turkish Cyprus.
I am already looking for a rental property for the month of February next year in Paralimni, South East Cyprus. One of the first that came up suggests I was always destined to return.
It might be a bit big but would be worth it for the name alone. I will have to invite a bunch of friends … if you are up for it, Dear Reader.
Wednesday, 26th February, 2025
Wet and warm, grey and depressing. What to do with today? I am acknowledging 16 years and 6 months today. It was 16 years ago today, at the tender age of 57, that I learned I had an irregular heart beat. Medically, it is called Atriall Fibrilation. Crudely, it means that my heart stops and starts spasmodically, allows the blood to pool in the ventricles of the heart where it can coagulate and pulse clots around the body causing strokes and heart attacks.
I must admit that, in retrospect, I probably suffered from this for years before it was diagnosed. As an athlete and a rugby player in the late 1960s, I put heart palpitations and and feeling light headed down to pushing myself too hard, being short of oxygen, being muscle fatigued. Looking back, I think it was probably irregular heart beat.
Anyway, for the past 16 years I have been dosing myself each morning with rat poison. I take Warfarin which prevents my blood coagulating and therefore clots don’t form to develop catastrophic consequences through circulation. In rat poison, the doses are so high that the rats ingest that their blood circulation is so fluid their bodies explode.
In human sufferers, dosage is closely controlled by medical experts. Hospitals have specialist Departments of Anticoagulation for just this process. I report to one in Worthing every couple of months. We communicate by email. I am fortunate enough to be able to afford my own testing machine and don’t have to physically attend a clinic which is so inconvenient for most. Even so, from the moment I was diagnosed, all my prescriptions even those unassociated were free. I used to really worry about the condition but these days, I am relaxed and on top of it. I test myself weekly and maintain a spreadsheet which is now 16 years long. I never give up!
Six months without alcohol. I think that’s worthy of at least a round of applause. Now walking a minimum of 8 miles a day but actually nearer 60 miles a week. I’m feeling so much better, so much heathier. I know there are somethings I still need to reclaim and I will but music is back in my life after all this time finding it almost unbearable. Today, I am listening to the magnificent Jacqueline du Pré playing Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor composed at the end of the First World War.
Thursday, 27th February, 2025
Gorgeous morning. A little bit cooler than recently but blue sky and sunshine. Eyes drink in the light. If you haven’t got it, I wish I could share it with you, Dear Reader.
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus is a book written by American author and relationship counsellor in the 1990s. Mars is a sign of bravery, aggression and a quality of being strong. Venus is a sign of love, beauty, kindness. Stereotypes are wonderful aren’t they? And plain wrong. It may have sold books but it doesn’t really inform the science of relationship advice. It is too reductive even if it still has some basis in reality. I can be brave, strong, aggressive but I can also be a soft mess. Over all, my experience is that women are stronger and harder headed.
Retirement can be boring after a while and we all look for distractions. We shop and we travel. I shop for technology and my wife shops for clothes. We meet over food and travel. One of the great things is that we don’t have to actually go to shops any more, the shops come to us and they do …. almost daily. This morning I am going to Saint + Sofia in Covent Garden (by proxy) to return a pair of Venus trousers and reclaim £160.00 for my bank account. All I do is print out a label and good things happen.
Ten years ago, I was shopping in Maplin Electronics for memory cards. Now there is no shop left across the country. They went into administration in 2018 and now only trade on-line … and why not. Work from home is a great idea. All teachers should do it.
My live in House Decorator has been tasked with repainting all the internal doors. After 9 years of life and being pounded with strong sunshine, retouching is no longer feasible so all 8 ground floor doors and surrounds are being totally repainted. She needs a project and there it is. As a result, we have made a trip to Wickes this morning for brushes, rollers, paint and White Spirit and Masking Tape. Over the next couple of weeks the house will be renewed.
My job is to complete my fitness regime each day and continue research for a holiday rental in Cyprus for the month of February 2026. No time like the present and someone has to do it. The one above is fantastic value at just £3,200.00 for four weeks replacing UK winter with Mediterranean warmth. What’s not to like?
To keep me company, I have Pavarotti singing Libiamo ne’ lieti calici from Verdi’s La Traviata. Even my Painter & Decorator is singing along. It is an old favourite with so many opera lovers who pretend they can sing whereas Pavarotti is effortlessly sublime … rather like me in the shower.
Friday, 28th February, 2025
Today marks the end of Winter by the meteorological calendar but we’ve got four more weeks until the clocks go forward. Still, the day is glorious with cloudless blue sky and strong sunshine. My Housekeeper doesn’t care what day it is. For her, it is another day of self-indulgence. A constant round of Beauty treatments, new clothes and, this morning, the Hairdressers. Friday seems to be popular.
Went down to the beach where the temperature was a lovely 14C/57F with the tide gently lapping on the turn and hardly a soul in sight.
You only have to bathe in the warmth, listen to the sounds and watch the mesmerising movement of the sea to know life is worth living. It is really reviving. Came away feeling better about life and more determined than ever to succeed. Not long until May.
All eyes yesterday were on America and the Starmer-Trump meeting. The lawyer prepared well and the egoist fell for the preparatory work. All the media with the exception of the ultra right wing Express had to hand it to Starmer. Even the Murdock Times (above) gave praise.
I’ve got the sounds of the sea still playing in my head throughout the morning. So the music I’ve chosen today is from Fleetwood Mac: Albatross. Delicious chords which so echo the sounds of the sea, the lapping of the waves, the dragging of the shells back into the water.
It is so lovely to live here and have this on our doorstep but it will never rival the Mediterranean for me. I will spend the rest of my life exploring shores heated and exposed by the searing heat and blinding sunshine of Mediterranean skies. I can hardly wait for my next visit.
Saturday, 1st March, 2025
Happy new month, Dear Reader. Happy March 2025 and welcome the Spring. It’s certainly bringing gorgeous, warm – 14C/57F – sunshine and blue skies with it this Saturday. Outside on an early walk, the trees and hedgerows were alive with birds looking for friends with benefits to access the gene pool and extend the species. Flowers and buds on bushes are breaking in the bright warmth preparing for the season.
Music today is the delightful Beethoven: Violin Sonata No.5, ‘Spring Sonata’. It is a time of heart raising expectation and joy to come. And there is joy to come, Dear Reader. Life is rejuvenated and reborn. Let’s hope we are too.
Met our neighbours out walking. They have two girls now aged 18 and 16. Each are doing exams this Summer and the elder one preparing to go off to university in September. When we moved in to our new house they were both at Primary School. It is a shock to reaslise how time has moved on in the light of that fact. It’s a shock for parents as well, of course. It reminds us all how old we are.
I’ve owned Honda cars since my first one in 1984. In that time, I have bought more than 20 of them from new. I have virtually never had a problem with any of them although I didn’t keep one more than two years. Yesterday, I developed a central locking problem on the front passenger door and it has to be looked at on Monday.
Actually, I first found out when my Honda App showed all doors, sunroof and windows were locked with the exception of the passenger door. When I checked that was locked as well. So there is an electrical facility problem which I can’t solve.
For that reason, I am going to give the car a full valet in the sunshine in readiness for taking it in on Monday. I am always reminded that when I took my Honda Accord in for its first service in 1984, the Honda desk mildly rebuked me for delivering such a dirty vehicle. They said they provided every customer with free cleaning kits because their vehicles were their adverisements and had to look good always.
I took that rebuke to heart even though I had given them the princely sum of about £7,400.00 and was rather shocked by their response. I have always tried hard since then.
Well, if you are a Democrat and you didn’t go to bed and get up this morning with that obscene scene palyed out in the Whitehouse last night then perhaps you were not paying attention. It has dominated my thoughts since yesterday evening and it fully justifies the opprobrium heaped on that attrocious, attention-seeking, orange man-baby as he abused the President of a European, democratic country. It was utterly appalling but it has to unite Europe in opposition.
The most astonishing thing has happened. I’ve cleaned the car from top to bottom, inside and out. It is ready for inspection on Monday morning. The only thing is that the central locking problem has disappeared completely. I am amazed. I only cleaned it.