Sunday, 20th July, 2025
Rained over night again. Lovely and warm and the grass is greening back up already. There are hospipe bans in some parts of the country although not in ours. Their introduction so often provokes heavy rain. I don’t think we’ve ever had a ban down here in the 9+ years we’ve lived here.
It’s going to be another very busy week. This morning, by 10.00 am, I had done the Check-in for our flights to Athens, downloaded the Boarding Passes to our smartphones and printed paper copies as back ups. I then drove to Rustington for shopping. My Carer needs new sunglasses. She bought her last pair about 20 years ago in Oldham. Didn’t know they’d heard of sunglasses in Oldham. Anyway, we went to Specsavers this morning. Quite a few pairs to choose from ranging from £70.00 – £120.00. After about 20 mins prevarication, a pair were chosen. When we went to have them fitted, we were told the sunglasses were for prescription lenses only. That saved some money although I think we will be going to Next next.
On to Grapetree for bags of Pine Nuts to make Pesto with Basil from the Garden. Drove home via the beach and sea garden. Lovely colours even if not sunny yet.
Got walking to do, resolving the distribution of investment funds in time for a meeting on Monday morning. On Tuesday, I have an Oncology Clinician Review. On Wednesday, I have a blood test for INR calibration. On Thursday, we are driving up to Surrey to meet up with M&K and to see if Colin has settled into his new accommodation. Fortunately, the weather is set to be lovely this weekend so it may be a bit more relaxing.
Monday, 21st July, 2025
Rain again over night but now dry, warm and sunny. I like this organisation. Had quite an intense evening preparing for my financial meeting this morning. Even so, I had a blinding flash of enlightenment at 3.30 am and couldn’t wait to get up to amend my proposals. Still, I fought the instinct and did a fevered hour of work before going out for a 9.30 am meeting.
My Brother-in-Law, Colin, moves into his new accomodation today. It will be a tricky situation for M&K to manage. While out in Littlehampton, we are going to buy him yet another jar of old fashioned sweets that he loves. We will be going up to Surrey to see him on Thursday and the sweets may smooth the meeting.
Always like to drive past the beach when I’m out and it was looking lovely, lonely and colourful this morning. At 10.30 am, it was sunny, 22C/70F, with fleecy white clouds decorating the blue sky. The smell of the sea was delicious.
Do you remember Premium Bonds, Dear Reader? They immediately remind me of the 1950s. We had some bought for us by our Grandfather. I haven’t a clue what happened to them. Actually Premium Bonds were introduced in 1956 and managed by National Savings & Investments to help fund post-war rebuilding of the country.
The return isn’t guarranteed but monthly prizes of £1 million downwards are awarded each month and the statistics for the likely return make it quite relateable to other Easy Access accounts. I’m going to buy £20,000 worth of Premium Bonds and keep them for a minimum of 6 months. If you follow the Blog, you will find out if the winnings are worth it. One of the reasons why I’m choosing to do this is because all winnings are tax-free and one can liquidise them instantly.
I have tied most of our capital up in Fixed Rate (tax-free) ISAs over one year and two years plus Fixed Rate Bonds over one and two years as well but the latter are taxable and money can’t be withdrawn before maturity. I will be 76 by that time. We have a number of Easy Access accounts but they are taxed so Premium Bonds will be a fun account to run for a while.
Tuesday, 22nd July, 2025
Incredibly warm night. I’m going to be proactive in researching the best air-conditioning units for our house. It’s got to be in by next Summer. My wife is concerned about the aesthetics of them so that will be a central consideration – possibly.
I don’t know what you think of these units, Dear Reader. Personally, I don’t really care what they look like as long as they are not too intrusive and perform their function well.
At 9.00 am, I had a face-to-face meeting with the Oncology Team commuted to a phone call for some spurious reason so that they could work from home. I’d had a 6 monthly blood test and the report was that my PSA was excellent at 0.21 and my Testosterone was back to normal. (I could have told her that.) I will have another test and a full body scan when I return from a month in Tenerife at the beginning of December. My Prostate Specific Antigen level was 7.0 when my cancer was identified. It fell to 0.23 when the cancer had ‘gone’ and has continued to bump along the bottom ever since which is very reassuring.
It is a week since we returned from Spain. I enthused about it in the Blog and wrote that we always treated the properties we rented with the respect that we would our own home. Imagine how shocked I was when I received this Whatsapp message yesterday.
We had to pay the normal, refundable fee as insurance against damages. In this case, it was €150.00. That was the last of my worries. I want to return to the property I really enjoyed it and didn’t want ill feeling. I immediately contacted the Agent who investigated and, within the hour, apologised for confusing us with renters of a different property. The money was refunded immediately. Fortunately, that incident has made our relationship with the company even stronger and will help us in our next booking.
Managed to get a walk in for an hour and then back home to meet the Samsung Delivery. Incredible process. We ordered a new, all singing/all dancing Washing Machine and a heat pump dryer on Sunday evening. It is being delivered today. We even traded in our old dryer for £100.00 which was nice. The deliverers will take it away. On Friday, we have a local craftsman coming to redesign the Utility Room and install the new appliances. He is also going to fit 4 more power sockets because so many household tools are recharged there.
Wednesday, 23rd July, 2025
Spent most of yesterday thinking it was Sunday. Looks like Dementia is really setting in. You will know that the philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard, observed
Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.
and he was right. Our History is just as important as our Future but I was taking it too far yesterday. Mind
I’ve got an Office Day today although a number of other events will fit round it. First, I have to go out and donate another armful of blood for my INR testing. Then the weekly Sainsbury‘s shop. I got caught in an absolute cloudburst yesterday which soaked me to the skin in seconds but means I don’t have to do any garden watering for a few days.
At least it’s sunny here today and, joy of joys, my Travelling Companion has found sunglasses that ‘slightly’ please her at Boot Opticians. Well, they were satsfactory enough to have two pairs for different occasions.
I’ve driven to a shop to return two more dresses that my Carer has rejected, talked to some old friends in Greater Manchester, Leeds and the Yorkshire coast, done an 8 mile walk and my main task today is to renew my Financial Records document. This is a financial parachute for when I die. The last thing I want is for my wife to be scrabbling around for finance or waiting for Probate to move forward with her life when I die. The document tells her exactly what to do in the event of my death to release financial support immediately.
If I am frozen in time, understanding backwards, what must be lived forwards, this photo illustrates my dilemma perfectly. Just 53 years ago today, I was young. Where were you, Dear Reader? Sorry.
Of course, Dear Reader, Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Twenty years ago, I had an Office Day in Greece. I had taken a new computer with me and was installing software and writing Blogs. The weather was hotter. The internet was slower. I was younger but I was doing the same things.
Thursday, 24th July, 2025
Today is a drive to Surrey to visit M&K and then go on to see Colin’s new accomodation in palatial Surrey. It’s a lovely, warm and sunny day so it should be fun. Let you know later.
I have spent a bitter-sweet day in a swanky Care Home costing £2000.00 per week but still a Care Home. The care is desperately needed and the home absolutely lovely but, if you’re the patient, it takes some accepting. M has done everything imaginable to ease the passage from home to care but nothing is easy.
The problem with Dementia patients is that they don’t really know their limitations or not all of the time. C described it as a comfortable prison which demonstrates the dichotomy of understanding. That phrase crystallises the dilemma. In mid-term, patients have moments when clarity of their crisis is obvious but most of the time they are unaware of their own vulnerability. Their loved ones have to take heed of both.
C&K are paying a fortune for the privilege of providing C with restaurant dining that includes a choice of wine but the Care includes the control of restricted movement for those who can’t look after their own safety.
We drove home with existentially heavy hearts. Will this happen to me? Don’t let this happen to me, Dear Reader, I implore you … and yet, what can we do? Meeting our own reality is all. I need to see …
Friday, 25th July, 2025
Another week is drawing to a close. It has been another significant one. This time last week the funeral of my Sister in Law took place. If any such occasion can be described as successful, the day was a success. M&K organised it very well and balanced the events with delicacy and aplomb. I am an Historian and like to record, store the records of the day.
I put up photos from P’s life that featured in displays on the day and M&K have been kind enough to provide me with copies of their eulogies they delivered at the service. I include them here for future reference. Here you can open M’s Eulogy in full and K’s Eulogy in full.
The aphorism: Death is Final has never been really true. I have found the images of history populating my mind all week. They fade over time but they rarely go away and return particularly in anniversaries. The browned and crumbling edges of a Wedding photograph from 1956 remain and deserve record although how many idiots like me will ever look at them is hard to judge.
While going through her Mother’s things – one of the heart wrenching processes so many of us have to do on these occasions – M found a surprising record P had kept in Diary form. Born 20 years later, she might have been a Blogger. A find that delighted me was of postcards we sent from our Greek travels in the last Century. (Just let the cadence and significance of that sentence linger.) The last Century ages us all.
These are experiences that have marked my life. They have made me the old man I have become. I don’t regret a single moment of them although perhaps I ought to. The cards are of a different time – from the early 1980s to the end of the 1990s. From there, internet, email and mobile phones took over.
Each one triggers particular memories and records elements of life’s rich moving tableau. Currently, I am still accute enough to recall those experiences in the glorious fusion of the senses.
We first arrived in Greece in 1981 and in Sifnos in 1982. The last card I posted from there was in 1999. A lot changed in that time. Arriving as a naive, young man trying to learn the language to a buying a farmer’s field and employing an architect to design our house. The island was growing, almost imperceptibly, around us and with us.
At one point, we decided we should see the rest of Greece and started doing time on Sifnos but also staying on other islands as well. We did, Zakynthos (Zante), Kerkyra (Corfu), Naxos, Milos, Andros, Kimolos, Kythnos, Paros, Serifos, Folegandros (featured above), Rhodes, Kos, Symi, Nisyros and Syros
Saturday, 26th July, 2025
Yesterday was a day of renewal. We have been married for 47 years and yesterday I threw out one item from those days. Just as M is realising with her Mother’s things in preparing the house for sale, you just have to be ruthless. Much as you’d like, you can’t hang on to everything.
In the early days, I bought my wife an ice cream machine. Almost 50 years ago they were quite novel and expensive. They were also bloody heavy. I bought this at John Lewis in the centre of Manchester – I think it was Market Street. – and I had to carry it back to the car parked in Kendall’s carpark on Deansgate. I was shattered and sweating when I got there. I nearly hailed a taxi half way. In recent years, it hasn’t been used much other than a Christmas tradition but the facility is nice to have and real, homemade, double cream ice cream makes commercial stuff look pointless. I can feel a new one being ordered.
Yesterday, renewal took another form. We had a fitter in to remove the built in laundry machines, restructure the space and install two new machines. The old ones have been in since the beginning of 2016 without problem. They were still working fine but 10 years is average for those sorts of machines and the latest models are much better so out with the old and in with the new.
The Dryer was traded in with Samsung but the washer has been junked. It is standing by the garage in the garden to be collected by the Local Authority next week. Good service and quite quick response. It is pleasing to find that is available. I took the old ice cream maker to the Recycle Centre myself and said Goodbye to it.
The new machines are hi-tec, controlled from my smartphone and even say Hello to me when I switch them on. I’m going to train them to send me texts at bedtime. They play a tune when the turn off. They are so computer controlled that I am in danger of having to do the Laundry myself. Hadn’t thought of that. Washing clothes brings a frisson of danger! I like that.
One of my adopted daughters from school is 46 today. Hard to believe her kids have graduated from University and it is 30 years since I was driving her to Scarborough for the day. There are some things – people – who are irreplaceable.