Sunday, 27th April, 2025
Beautiful morning of clear blue skies and warm sunshine. Should be running in the marathon today but haven’t got anyone to run with. Have to do my daily walk instead. The Seasons change but remain in an eternal pattern and the theme today is summed up in the old addage:
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose ….
Literally, it means that the more things change, the more they stay the same … The older one gets the more true this appears. I see it in myself. I sometimes hate it in myself. It can be so difficult, impossible to shake off one’s past, one’s early life.
I hate aphorisms and I don’t want to bore you but T.S.Eliot quotes are different. I know I have quoted Eliot’s line from the Four Quartets many times before but I am increasingly reminded of their relevance. When I look at myself and my life, I have changed a lot but, at core, I have hardly changed at all.
In my youth, I was always running everywhere. My brother road his bike and I ran at the side. I captained the school athletics team in the summer and winters were dominated by rugby where I played on the wing. I loved ideas and words both of which dominated my degrees. I loved travel. Here I am at the age of 74 with my days dominated by exercise and reading & writing and travel. I hated to let things go. I always have to revisit them. Here I am now shoring up my memories by Blogging as Eliot was doing in The Wasteland.
And yet, I have always liked new things and been a bit of a risk taker. I like to make things happen. I have a tendency to be the Aries that I am and to ram through blockages to ambition. I don’t like to take No for an answer and that can lead me into trouble which I repent at leisure. But, I never learn. I do it all over again. There is always a new opportunity or new beginning ahead …. until there isn’t.
And, of course, there is one constant in everyone’s life that changes everything. Mum died 17 years ago today. It is an event which none of us can avoid how ever hard we try.
I would give anything to go back and see her one more time and, if you’re old enough, I’m sure you would too, Dear Reader. Mind you, I wouldn’t have gone yesterday. She would be totally absorbed in the funeral of the pope and she wouldn’t have welcomed my contributions from the sidelines.
This photo was taken after Dad had died and on one of Mum’s rare nights out. She is in the black dress at a Dinner-Dance with her best friends, Herb & Nellie Deacon and some other woman I don’t recognise. So, it must have been about 1966/1967 – the years I was touring Southern Ireland and Scandinavia, exploring my freedom before I left home for the last time.
Monday, 28th April, 2025
A gorgeous morning opened unusually for me. It is just 8 weeks, by the way, to the Longest Day and the tilt becomes all downwards again. However, the morning started at 5.30 am with a Whatsaapp from my sister, Jane, about the photograph I posted yesterday and the mystery woman in it. It soon spread to a chat with Bob and Catherine as well.
Learnt something interesting about my mother this morning after all these years. Jane told me that the other woman apart from Mum’s friend, Nellie, in the photo was Agnes. Agnes & Effie were Nellie’s sisters. This is Agnes. Mum used to go on holiday with Agnes – they were really good friends. Sadly Agnes also had cancer & died. Both sisters asked Mum to ‘look after’ Effie who Mum didn’t particularly like! But because she’d promised them she would, she took Effie shopping most weeks & drove her to church etc. After both Mum & Effie were widowed & as they both got older they used to take it in turns to ring each other every day at 7pm – to check they were still alive & to ensure they each spoke to one person at least that day.
It is interesting to know of a life that went on outside my experience. I knew nothing of this but it illustrates how exposed Mum was in later life. It was largely of her own making, of course, but it was still suffered. And all this time I thought I was unusual waking, acting, reading, writing, thinking early in the morning. I’m not at all. Jane and Bob were doing the same. I probably woke Catherine up but that was good for her.
The BBC R4: Today programme comes on at 6.00 am after a really interesting Farming Today programme which was all about Pulses being grown in UK. Did you know that the majority of all Pulses – peas and fava beans – are grown for animal fodder? No, I didn’t. Seems such a waste. I love Fava Beans in a salad. It is a favourite on a Greek menu (Φάβα) and so nutritious and healthy.
Anyway, my mind soon moved on to an interview with Stephen Kinnock who is a Health minister in Social Care. He was extolling the coming digital revolution in the NHS which would bring huge savings. Using the NHS app meant all the paper missives written, printed, addressed and posted would be done away with. The problem, as so many of us who tried to pioneer the digital revolution have found, is at the margins.
Last week, I had a Medical Review postponed and rearranged for a date I couldn’t make. I phoned to change it and that was quick and easy. Five minutes later, my NHS app showed the cancelled date and the new date clearly. Three days later, I got a formal letter cancelling the first appoinment followed by a second formal letter setting the new appointment. However, within a couple of hours of having a blood test at the surgery, I can see the results tabulated on my app. This is the sort of service I appreciate.
The innovator’s great fear is that some people will fall through the net, not make appointments miss apointments or travel unnecessarily. There are still some people who don’t have smart phones, can’t afford smart phone contracts and are scared of technological change. They don’t have access to the app. I know some of my age who will miss out for that reason never mind the really old people. Even so, it has to happen and the old and younger wrinklies will just have to catch up. May be the Government could put on compulsory courses for them. How to use a smart phone. How to install an app. If you attend these courses and become proficient, you will be allowed to keep your pension. It could be the way forward.
Another way forward would be for Government encouragement of activities like these. All year round in our neighbourhood adults give up hours of their time to train and supervise kids in sporting activities. At the Rugby Club just down the road, on the playing fields attached to the school, in the local parks, both boys and girls from 5 – 25 are shrieking, laughing, puffing and panting as they stretch themselves in sporting activities. Fitness for life is definitely a way forward.
Tuesday, 29th April, 2025
Spring and Summer meet here today. Yesterday we reached 24C/75F. Today we are expecting 26C/79F and tomorrow 27C/81F. These are bonus days. Bikini days. I’ve got mine on. Planting out is going on and beans, potatoes, lettuces, parsley growing strongly. Still Spring flowers bloom in Bluebell Wood …
… but all around the neighbourhood, Chestnut trees are in full blooms as well. These beautiful flower candles light up my walk in the sunshine.
Gardening Day. My Under-Gardener is tasked with giving the hedge its first trim of the season. It is looking luxuriously green and ready to greet May sunshine. I’m doing the more demanding job of mowing but somebody has to do it.
Now the Marathons are done and my neighbour, Chris, is here proudly displaying a medal which he has earned the hard way – getting up at 5.00 am every day and going out running for an hour before breakfast, thoughts are turning towards holidays. We’ve already got trips booked for every month until the end of the year with the exception of September.
Over the last few days, we have been discussing, considering, researching a week or so in Bordeaux where Autumn weather still averages 25C/77F which would be nice. We would fly to make the most of the time and that is quick and cheap.
Wednesday, 30th April, 2025
April closes with another glorious day. True to forecast, we reached 26C/79F yesterday. I was outside walking and gardening almost the whole day and had a bit too much sun probably. Have to wish Kieron in Florida happy birthday. He’s only a spring chicken … if only he could remember it.
Out early this morning to Honda. After 40 years of buying new Hondas without any problems at all, out new, electric-hybrid vehicle is on its second recall.
The first one was for a fuel pump issue which we weren’t aware of and this one is for a power steering problem …. which we aren’t aware of but has affected about 5 CRVs worldwide. They need the car for 3 hours so it must be quite involved.
Drive there and walk back through the woods. It’s an absolutely lovely way to go. The production of Honda has moved back from UK to Japan because of Brexit and that’s where the problems started. If only ..
Walk back 2 hours later to collect the car which has been fully valeted which justifies the recall and then on to the beach. The cafes were packed. The beaches were popular although mainly with the elderly. Retirement is a wonderful thing, Dear Reader. Which beach are you on?
Thursday, 1st May, 2025
Happy May, Dear Reader. April 2025 has gone for good other than in the Blog where it smoulders for ever. Welcome a great, new month. We have to make the most of it. Could be a make or break month. Let’s hope it isn’t break!
For me, May starts travelling season this year – and it doesn’t come a moment too soon. I’m going stir-crazy. Travel in Britain and Europe, movement not stasis is what will come from now.
My Housekeeper is going to the Beautician‘s for a couple of hours. Goodness knows what goes on there. It is like something of the Black Arts to me and better that I don’t know. I have to say she returns feeling very much better about herself and I have to say she looks much better although, in reality, I can see absolutely no difference at all. It is all a game, a dance we do that isn’t worth challenging.
Because it was the anniversary of Mum’s death earlier in the week, I was going through my digital store of photographs. This one came up and got me thinking. It is of my maternal Grandmother (Nanna), Mum, (Catherine) and a girl called Monica. I don’t know who she was. It was 80 years ago, at the end of WW2, in 1945, and Mum was just 22.
They lived in Croydon and were regularly buying and selling houses. In 1955, I went to their (different) house in Croydon in Laburnum Grove. This house in Mount Park Avenue will have been a fairly modest, suburban dwelling which I looked up to find it last sold for £800,000. I think they would have been shocked to hear that.
It always gets me that lives go on without me. How can that be. I’m not involved. Lives spark, light flame intensely and then die out to smoulder in other people’s memories. Here Nanna & Grandad, Lily & James Coghlan are living their daily lives in the 1930s. I think this was them in Brighton.
She was a seamstress and he was a furniture restorer just reading in the sunshine – he, the ‘Dandy’ he was and she, the quiet, unassuming one. Their lives flickered and burned out – her’s all to soon – and now they are the smouldering embers of our family memories.
Grandad and I watched wrestling on ATV television in the 1950s. Nana cooked massive Victoria Sponge Cakes for tea. And here I am, living within a few miles of their origins. I am doing what I said I would do, going back to touch my past. I want them to know that I haven’t forgotten them.
Housekeeper returns – looking radiant and beautiful (she says) – it is 1.00 pm and the temperature has just reached 28C/83F. It feels lovely although something happened to me yesterday which has never happened before. I sunburned the top of my head. My hair is growing finer and thinner and this process has been hastened by radiotherapy. I am more vulnerable now to the strong sunshine but I look ridiculous in a hat. Going to have to walk round with my hand on my head to protect it.
Friday, 2nd May, 2025
Delicious weather continues. The garden is loving it. Everybody’s garden is loving it. Walking around the area is a delight of colour and freshness. The wisteria in every form is delightful and the red, Photinia hedges are a riotous backdrop to green and luscious lawns.
Every other house has some form of wisteria, it seems, but none could compare to the Wisley Wisteria Walk from the RHS gardens in Woking where we used to live. Paired up with the lovely mauve of mophead Aliums beneath is inspired.
It immediately reminded me of Monet’s Garden at Giverny from more than a century ago. It is amazing how well plants do down here compared to our efforts in the North of England. On my walk today, I passed this glorious Ceanothus Tree on the roadside and this elegant Wisteria on a house next to me.
Definitely, Housekeeper-week this week. Yesterday Beautician’s. Today Hairdresser’s. Back home to collect a delivery of new shoes for …. well, not me.
The bad news arrived in the post. Two poor, old, failing pensioner ex-teachers are now expected to pay Higher Rate income tax. I didn’t see that coming. It is the consequence of higher investment rates I suppose even though I am trying to shelter it in tax-free savings but still they’ve got us. Thinking of moving off-shore. Well, one can dream ….
Saturday, 3rd May, 2025
Warm night. Already sleeping on top of the bed. Living in shorts and tee shirt. Behaving as if Summer was in full swing. Warm morning although a little hazy. Currently, we are forecast for little chance of rain for the next two weeks which is a little worrying. We are already hearing rumblings of hosepipe bans on the horizon.
Still, we are going to be away for quite a large part of the Summer so the garden will have to get on with it. On this day 15 years ago, we had driven down to the fishing bay of Faros (Φάρος – Lighthouse). It is a lovely, sleepy place to have Lunch out of Season.
We had been on the island for just 3 weeks and Easter was over. The crowds had disappeared and the temperatures were rapidly rising. Island life was continuing slowly around us. Boulis the shepherd walked his flock up the road past us in the morning and then down the road past us again in the evening. We were cleaning and clearing after a Winter away. Planting and picking. The Lemon Trees were heavy with fruit this year but not always.
We had a favourite restaurant down there and spent a lot of time staring into the calm waters, at the fishing boats and eating the wonderful food.
This morning, I have been out and spent another fortune on plants. Many are for the Public Areas outside at the front of the house. Hope the neighbours appreciate the sacrifice. I’m pleased that I’ve been able to source Basil plants – green and purple. They are essential for our kitchen. I will grow them into a forest of aromatic leaves.