Sanders Blog

Sunday, 14th July, 2019

Can you believe that I’ve been writing this drivel for 551 weeks? More than 10½ years which I could never have imagined when I started. The world was a very different place in December 2008. I seriously can’t believe in the rise of the Right Wing Populism that abounds at the moment. In 2008, all those Brextremists were derided in popular culture as ‘swivel-eyed loons’. Now the fringe is becoming main stream and almost accepted as normal. This is something we need to fight against constantly until they are driven back to the fringes.

Sundays are usually quiet days of Politics & Papers but, today in addition to our usual Health Club workout, there is the Men’s Wimbledon Final (for Pauline), the British Grand Prix (for me) and the Cricket World Cup (for both of us). Of course, we could lounge in the Lounge and just watch everything but it feels so much better to watch while we are exercising. Our Jogging Machines each have their own TVs with all the Sky Sports channels available and so do the exercise bikes. I was able to watch the cricket while Pauline watched the tennis as we worked out. There are even Screens on in the Changing Rooms. The only place where I couldn’t follow the match was in the Spa – Steam Room, Sauna & Jacuzzis/Water Massage.

We are in our 4th year of membership of the David Lloyd Health Club down here. Currently, we have a joint membership which cost £152.00/€170.00 per month/£1824.00/€2034.00 per year. It increases a bit at the start of every new financial year. Suddenly, this week we received a letter demanding …. £250.00/€280.00 per year less for our annual contract. We have noticed that they have been desperately advertising for new members with 3-month contracts (Try before you commit.) but hadn’t realised that they were haemorrhaging membership to upstart, cheaper rivals around the area. Competition is a wonderful thing.

Monday, 15th July, 2019

A pleasant day that felt quite hot and humid although only reached 23C/74F in reality. Pauline’s new iPad Air was delivered this morning and I spent most of the time installing it by copying across the (3 years) old one and then decommissioning it by returning it to factory-default conditions. It is easy to forget how to achieve all these processes because one only does it every few years. Fortunately, I went through it on my own new iPad Pro only days ago so this was fairly straight forward.

My iPad Pro has face recognition as an entry method that supersedes password entry. Even with my face, it works really well. Pauline’s iPad Air has fingerprint recognition which I was rather sceptical about but she has taken to it immediately so we are both happy. We have both chosen 64Gb editions because we save everything to the Cloud and don’t need huge amounts of data on our instruments. Even so, 64Gb is massive in itself compared with earlier

About 3 weeks ago, I posted on my Blog about the tree I had taken a pod of seeds from in Tenerife last November. I had sowed them after soaking in boiling water for 24hrs. They sprouted remarkably quickly and this is the photograph I posted:

Just 3 weeks later, I have 5 trees growing quite quickly. I put 3 outside and kept a couple indoors. These two are taller but less sturdy having struggled towards the light.

Lovely session at the Health Club today. We’ve signed up for the next 12 months so must stay alive to make full use – and for the sake of the trees.

Tuesday, 16th July, 2019

Gorgeous day with lovely sunshine all day. We have sop much to do today that we decided NOT to go to the Health Club. This was a decision we almost immediately changed but not to exercise. Yesterday we met a friend at the club who said she had been offered even better terms than us to persuade us to stay. We are on a ‘restricted hours’ contract as she was. The club had offered her unrestricted hours and still cut her fees. We went in and collared the Manager this morning and managed to secure the same deal. This will help us to avoid the busiest periods particularly at the weekends and we still save on our fees. They have secured our membership for another year. Don’t tell them but we weren’t going to leave anyway.

We have friends from Dorset visiting tomorrow. Jill taught in our school and left in 1982 (37 years ago!!!) We went to her wedding and reception at Hollingworth Lake in Oldham. Ironically, that is where my sister, Lizzie Dripping, went to live for a while. Jill and her accountant husband, Geoff, went to live and work in Blandford Forum near Poole in Dorset 37 years ago. We have seen her twice since we moved down here.

Tomorrow, we will meet again and we are looking forward to it. Pauline has spent the day cooking. We will eat a cold meal of salad leaves from our garden to accompany cold roast salmon with pesto crust, crab meat on radicchio leaves, slices of chicken breast wrapped in Pancetta, rolled and stuffed with garlic butter and Emmental cheese. Our sweet will be Syllabub & Lemon Drizzle cake. While Pauline was cooking, I was cleaning the car and mowing the lawns.

Interestingly, although I haven’t heard from my letters to the MD & CEO of Hoover-Candy, I did receive a phone call from the CEO’s Office from Dixons Carphone. I am getting somewhere. I may not need to use the Retail Ombudsman but I will if necessary.

Wednesday, 17th July, 2019

Friends from 38 years ago called round to see us. They had driven from Blandford Forum in Dorset to have lunch with us. Jill was a PE teacher in our school in 1981 and left shortly afterwards. Her husband, Geoff was an accountant with a large, City Accountancy firm until a few months ago. They have been together since Primary School so know each other well.

We took them for a drive around our area and a walk on our coastline. Then it was back home for a lovely lunch and long chat. Seems genuinely strange to be with someone from our dim and distant past. Makes one feel old.

Thursday, 18th July, 2019

We woke up to light rain. It looked and felt wonderful – warm and refreshing. Everything in the garden will be pleased with this reviver. The lawns are looking splendid, rich and lush. I have spent a lot of time and money on feeds and watered regularly. Ironically, this morning a fencing man came to dig a hole in it to replace a broken fence post. I fixed him with a teacher’s eye and warned him of dire consequences if he ruined my beautiful sward. He took the hint and did a beautifully neat job.

We went to the gym happily. We did our full workout and felt a sense of satisfaction as we drove home. We have almost completed our first 1000 miles in our new car and, although we have acclimatised to most things, we still have to think very carefully before starting off and parking. There is no gear stick or handbrake. Using buttons/switches is still not second nature.

There are also 3 driving settings – EV Electric Vehicle, Econ the most economical combination and Sport which provides more combative acceleration. I still haven’t used the Sport setting yet and, yesterday, I parked the car and left the engine on for an hour because it is so quiet I hadn’t realised it was still on. All of that said, we are really enjoying it and fight for who is to drive. It is particularly pleasurable to fill the tank with petrol. The previous model would hold about 350 miles worth at best. This model holds 650 miles worth which is a real shock and means visiting the petrol station about once a month.

Friday, 19th July, 2019

Today is the end of the School Academic Year and, for many years, we would have left at lunchtime, driven home and then quickly on to St George’s Dock, Hull for a Hull – Zeebrugge overnight trip and then a drive on to Ancona, Piraeus and to Sifnos. It is easy to forget the feeling of those days. Just as one loses the Friday night feeling so the first day of a 6 week holiday rather melts into the mists of time. A young man who worked for me as an IT Assistant back in the early 2000s and who I helped train on the job to become an IT teacher, posted on Facebook this morning:

This was the view that confronted us on this day 10 years ago.

Hull in general and the docks in particular are horribly gloomy but their promise of an exciting journey to come invested it with magical properties. As we sat in the queue with our car laden up to the gunnels and waiting interminably to drive on, we dreamed of cabin, a Buffet meal and a fitful sleep in bunk beds before driving off around 8.30 am on Saturday morning and setting out on the road for the next 14/15 hrs driving.

Saturday, 20th July, 2019

Heavy rain overnight and some thunder & lightning. Athens went much further and had a major earthquake (5.1 Richter) yesterday. Hope the aftershocks are over by the time we fly in. This morning, the sun is out and I am peering through the mists of time. I see Sunday, July 20th, 1969 quite clearly. At 7.00 am, I set off to walk up the village to get a lift to Burton on Trent. There were no buses on a Sunday. I was going to work at the Pirelli factory.

Exactly 50 years ago today, I had left Grammar School and was waiting for my A Level results which were about a month away. I had a holiday job 5 miles away in Burton at the Pirelli Tyre & Slipper factory. Who knew that Pirelli made slippers? Women packed the slippers into boxes which then weighed around 35kgs. Men’s jobs were to hump these heavy boxes around on to hand trucks in sets of 3 which made them so high we couldn’t see where we were pushing them and on to the storage stacks where we had to stack them 4 high. Even for a fit rugby player like me, it was exhausting but it paid and that was why I was there.

For 2 months, I worked 7 days a week for around 10 hrs per day. That summer, I earned £450.00 which may seem a trifling sum of around £1.20 per hour but, to me, it was massive and, in many respects, it was. My first College grant a few months later was only £470.00. The average, weekly wage for an adult worker was around £30.00 for a 40 hr week. Pirelli were offering me unsocial hours on unsocial days and paying extra. I was tired most of the time and I can still smell the factory, a smell of vulcanized rubber and engine oil but I was rich!

As these memories come flooding back, I’m told that it was on this day 50 years ago that man first landed on the moon. I remember very little about that.

Sunday, 7th July, 2019

Today marks 5 years since we sold our Greek property. Hard to believe but the time and the experiences have flown past. It is almost 20 years since the inception of our Greek building project. Today, the Greeks go to the polls and will turn back to New Democracy.

I woke this morning as I do every morning and have done over the past 50 years to BBC Radio4. While I was working and before the iPad was invented, I would get up on a Sunday morning even earlier than I would on a workday. By 6.30 am, I would be out walking or driving to the Newsagent to buy The Sunday Times and The Observer. The entire morning – sometimes the entire day – would be given over to reading them from front to back. Sunday really was a day of physical rest and a retreat into the world of politics if that is not an oxymoron.

These two newspapers give a degree of balance to reporting and following public life but, in recent years, I have added my parents’ choice of newspaper, The Telegraph, to my reading – not because my politics has changed but I have matured enough to accept that it is important to know one’s enemy.

It is fascinating and often mind boggling to read the right wing beliefs, aspirations and subsequent policies. It is a metric against which to measure my own. I also have to admit that The Sunday Telegraph is good for financial investment information and advice although the internet is rather obviating that these days.

At least, these days, I don’t have to go out early as I did often in Yorkshire through thick fog or heavy snow to buy my papers. The cost of The Sunday Times is £2.90/€3.25 and The Observer is £3.20/€3.60 in hard copy. I download mine onto my iPad and Pauline’s, onto my smartphone and Pauline’s and we both access it on our laptops and desktop computers. It means we can access it wherever we are in the world at any time. The Times is behind a paywall access to which cost me just £26.00/€29.01 per month. Just one hard copy of the main two Sundays for a month would be more expensive. The global availability of digital services is the biggest achievement over time.

Monday, 8th July, 2019

Lovely, warm and sunny day. We both just pottered this morning and felt very lazy in doing it. We have done a full work-out this afternoon which restores a bit of self respect but achievement has been low today.

As predicted, Greece’s conservative New Democracy party won Sunday’s snap national election, defeating the ruling Syriza party of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.  The official results gave

The chart above illustrates the seat distribution with and without the 50 bonus seats allocated to the winners. This will stop next time. What will be interesting is how the Centre Right Nea Demokratea can deal with the Greek economy any differently to the Leftist Syriza. It doesn’t seem very likely.

Tuesday, 9th July, 2019

Out early on a warm morning – 22C/70F – to our local PYO farm where we picked 5 Kgs/ 11Lbs of wonderful raspberries in an 30 mins..

We will eat a few with yoghurt and the rest will be turned into jam. Picking them was a delightful activity in itself. The exercise was rewarding and the fruit will be enjoyable.

I live with my iPad Pro in my hands for about 12 hrs per day. My current one is over 3 years old. It is starting to show its age and I need to upgrade it. Apple will offer me £250.00/€280.00 trade in price on a old iPad Pro and the new one costs £969.00/€1080.00. I ordered one from Apple today and it will arrive before 12.00 noon tomorrow. I think we will have to upgrade Pauline’s as well.

Wednesday, 10th July, 2019

I ordered my new iPad at mid day yesterday and it was delivered by 11.00 am this morning. Fantastic service. The cost was £976.00/€1086.00 but Apple have offered me a trade in price of £205.00/€228.00 which I will avail myself of as soon as I’ve cleaned it up. One of the problems, nowadays, is that these instruments are intimately insinuated with connections to sensitive accounts – Bank Accounts, Investment Accounts, Private correspondence files, Email Accounts, Social Media Accounts, etc.. Pauline and I share so many of these accounts that are essential to our daily activities. Currently, we access them across 3 x iPad, 2 x Smartphone, 2 x Laptop + a Desktop computer.

Even our on-line calendars run across all platforms and we cannot live our lives without them now. Pulling all these services across from one iPad to another is not without stress and glitches even though I maintain a book of identities and accompanying passwords.

It took me the whole of the day to get this sorted out and I even cancelled a trip to the gym to provide enough time. At one point, we had a huge panic when Pauline’s iPad which is on my account appeared to be wiped clean. Fortunately, a few tweaks and everything was back to full order. At another point, my new iPad froze because of a change of password and I couldn’t find how to reset it because the buttons had changed. I had to spend time on the internet researching it before I could free-up the new machine. By about 9.30 pm, everything was sweetness & light but I was too tired to complete my Blog which is why I am doing this on Thursday morning. At least I could sleep peacefully.

Thursday, 11th July, 2019

A warm and muggy night ended as a rather humid morning opens. Up early, we were out on a large round of shopping by 8.30 am. First to Tesco for our main shop. Fresh Salmon fillets were available at half price. We bought 3 fillets plus 4, large Tuna steaks and a couple of Cod Loins (No swordfish available.). Home to unpack and then out again to Sainsburys, for Tomatoes, Samphire, and Chicken, (No swordfish available but lots of Salmon Fillets on display.).  Next door for OW/20 Engine Oil for our new car from Halfords. On to Aldi for Smoked Mackerel Fillets and bottles of Greek Olive Oil. On to Morrisons for Swordfish (No swordfish available but lots of Salmon Fillets on display. there must be a glut of Salmon on the market.). On to Currys to pick up the paperwork for our latest purchase of a new Condenser Dryer. Finally, on to the Fisherman’s Hut on the beach. No swordfish available but they can order a joint for us for Saturday.

By the time we got home, it was 11.30 am. Just time for a cup of coffee and watering the potted plants outside in the sunshine before the Politics Live programme started at 11.45 am. Off to the Gym at 1.00 pm and then home by 4.00 pm. We had hardly sat down since getting up at 6.15 this morning. I was shattered. Goodness knows how Pauline managed to cook our meal. This evening, I have to start totally decommissioning my old iPad so it can be despatched for the trade-in price of £205.00. At the same time, I needed to source and buy a keyboard-case for my new iPad to protect it and turn it into a light laptop. I chose a Logitech case for £120.00/€134.00. It makes such a difference when I’m travelling by air. It fits in my leather shoulder bag and is remarkably light. The keyboard is backlit for poor light use and the whole thing provides a strongly supportive casing.

Friday, 12th July, 2019

A hot and muggy night has given way to a hot and humid day. We reached 27C/81F  by 3.00 pm. Everything is growing well. Even in our ‘pot’ garden, we are generating enough salad leaves and rocket to provide salad every day. We are on our 3rd harvest of herbs for the freezer and tomatoes are appearing all the time although not fully ripe yet. The Bell Peppers are flowering and fruiting at last so we live in hope of a good harvest. Two years ago, I received to fig sticks by post.

This afternoon and two years on, we picked and ate our first and most enormous ripe fig I have ever seen. It was delivered by the French fig tree which is now over 6ft tall and laden in fruit. The Brown Turkey is also covered in fruit but is more straggly.

Saturday, 13th July, 2019

This week marks 5 years since we left Sifnos. it is fitting that we picked our first, fresh fig from the tree this week since we left Sifnos. Pauline loved being by the sea and an island suited her just right. Unfortunately, small island politics were not suitable at all and she is happy not to have to deal with the goldfish in their bowl led by the Poison Dwarf. Fortunately, she chose just the place to relocate to. Sussex on Sea is perfect for us.

On Wednesday, I received my new Apple iPad Pro 12.9″. This morning, I received my new, Bluetooth Keyboard Case and the delivery driver sincerely apologised for being 15 mins early. Today, we decided Pauline could not be left out and ordered her an new, Apple iPad Air.

Pauline doesn’t want a keyboard but she does want to use hers for mounting portrait and landscape so she can read books/newspapers plus recipes while she’s cooking. We’ve found an excellent, leather, rotating cover for £16.99/€18.96 which will be exactly right. So, the total outlay will be £495.99/€554.00.

Cheap at half the price. I’ve traded my old iPad in for £200.00 while Pauline is passing hers on to her elderly sister.

Sunday, 30th June, 2019

A warm morning. It is exactly 12 months since we were spending a month in the Dordogne and it didn’t rain in Sussex at all and our luscious lawn died completely. We took the drastic step of completely reseeding it in late September and, 8 months later it is back and even better than before. With an extended period of dry, warm weather on the forecast, I am taking the precaution of watering and feeding it regularly. It is certainly rewarding me for my diligence.

We have now done two harvests of our herbs – Basil (already converted into Pesto portions), Oregano, Thyme, Sage, Tarragon and the cut-&-come-again Lettuce Leaves and Rocket are harvested most days. Cherry tomatoes have set and are fruiting well; bell peppers are flowering and will, hopefully, fruit very soon.

In the front garden, the hydrangeas are beginning to come into bloom. We grew these in Yorkshire but the Sussex climate is something different all together. So many shrubs that just survived in Yorkshire absolutely thrive in Sussex. However, having spent a large part of our married life taking gardening very seriously with quite large gardens, it is nice now to just keep our environment neat and attractive without spending huge sums of money and doing major landscaping.

Monday, 1st July, 2019

Happy July 2019. Enjoy it because you will never see it again. It has started off warm and sunny. Breakfast with the patio doors open and the aroma of fresh grass and tomato pollen wafting in to the kitchen.

It is 3 months now since we used the central heating at all other than the hot water tank being heated for an hour in the morning and again in the evening. I’ve lived in shorts and tee-shirt for the past 3 months although not the same ones, I hasten to add. I haven’t slept under the sheets for the past fortnight and we do almost all our cooking outside at the moment.

The thing about British weather is that it rarely gets excessively hot and, down here, it rarely gets excessively cold. It is the stereotypical Temperate Climate. This time last year, we were living in a Gite (without air conditioning) in the Dordogne. It was warm – hot even. If it had been this year, we would have been melting in 40C+ temperature. I think we are getting a bit old for that.

We ‘managed’ a considerable number of heatwaves in Greece including one, notable occasion in Piraeus when we went shopping for building materials in 44C/111F as we searched the store yards of Leroy Merlin. I was also very overweight and thought I was going to die. Kathimerini is reporting 

a heat wave with temperatures reaching up to 41C/106F is forecast to strike Greece in the upcoming weak. Temperatures will rise as of Monday, July 1st, and remain high until at least Friday, July 5th 2019. 

Rather them than us.

Tuesday, 2nd July, 2019

Today is a wonderful day. Blue skies, strong sun and a convoy of BT Openreach vans outside our house.

BT Openreach??? My first panicky thought was, “Am I going to lose my connection today?” I marched out to confront them. “Good morning, Sir, we are here to deliver fibre connection direct to your doors.”

We had received no warning of this although I did start to make a fuss about our download speed last year. I pay for superfast fibre to the cabinet which is said to deliver 42 mbps download speed. Of course, as our development brought extra demands for connections, the contention rate went up and the download speed went down. This morning, I am receiving 31 mbps download and 11mbps upload. When the fibre connection direct to my door is fed through, I could be receiving 1000 mbps download feeds – more than 30x faster than now. It is almost too fast to imagine!

Wednesday, 3rd July, 2019

When you’re retired, every day is a free day. Today is bright, clear blue sky and sun reaching 25C/77F. Quite delightful without being painful. We were up at 6.30 am and out at 8.30 am to our local (3 mins drive) PYO farm.

In 60 mins, we picked 5kgs of black currants and 5 kgs of strawberries. Pauline will make jam later today.

…. and here it is. Strawberry on the left and Blackcurrant on the right. Raspberry will come later in the week.

Thursday, 4th July, 2019

Gorgeously sunny day that reached 26C/79F. Thursday is shopping day and we visited Tesco, Sainsbury, Aldi and Morrison between 9.00 am – 11.00 am. By the time we got home, a number of our plants in pots outside were wilting in the heat. A good drink revived them and then it was off to the Health Club.

This year, our Health Club subscription costs £1824.00/€2033.00 for the year. In the past 3 months I have missed just 8 days. Attending 76 times each costing us £6.00 /€6.70 for the two of us. To be fair to our club, they are prepared to plough that money back in to development.

We have recently had a major renovation of the showers and changing facilities. The gym is constantly being refreshed with new apparatus and the restaurant is a thriving facility which is progressive and innovative. All of this is just as well considering how much time we spend there. Even so, many others see the facilities akin to a social meeting place whereas Pauline and I use it merely as somewhere to exercise and do not linger outside that.

Friday, 5th July, 2019

A warm morning – 19C/66F by 8.30 am – which has started sunny but quickly clouded over. The forecast is for the clouds to sweep away by 10.00 am and the temperature to reach 26C/79F at peak. The orders of the morning for me are cleaning the car and mowing and watering the lawns. Pauline is making the next batch of jam. Looks like we will be picking raspberries next week now and jamming subsequently.

On this day last year, we were in Limeuil which is situated at the confluence of the rivers Dordogne and Vézère in the middle of a month away in a gite near Bergerac and on this day two years ago, we were in a Hotel in Lyon as we drove through France to Italy. In recent years our cars windscreens were decorated with (annual – £30.00/€33.50 Swiss vignettes (road tax) and in the past 2 years our windscreen has featured the French Crit’Air which certifies the ‘green’ credentials of our car. We have changed model of car and have had to buy a new Crit’Air. It only costs £3.78/€4.21 including postage from France but it avoids a £61.00/€68.00 fine one can receive if caught without it.

As we were leaving Greece in 2014, it was becoming obvious that the looming crisis was ushering in major, political change. Alexis Tsipras and his left wing coalition party – Syriza – were eventually elected and have successfully managed to keep Greece in the EU against the odds but something the huge majority of Greeks wanted. However, the General Election will be held on Sunday and a scion of the Greek, political aristocracy, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, leader of Nea Demokratia – a centre right party – will ride the time-for-a-change wave and be elected to take on the country’s next stage of recovery. Mitsotakis has pedigree – his father, Konstantinos, was PM in the early 1990s and his sister, Dora Bakoyannis, was Foreign minister in the 2000s. For a country which abolished its monarchy, it is more dominated by familial political classes than UK.

Saturday, 6th July, 2019

Bed at midnight last night. Awake at 6.00 am this morning and up at 6.30 am. By 8.00 am, I was cleaning the car while Pauline was cleaning the house. By 9.30 am, we were on the road to Surrey. We were going to visit P&C at M&K’s house. The temperature was warm and sunny culminating in 26C/79F. We stayed from 11.oo am – 2.30 pm and then drove home. The journey each way was a delight. The traffic was always going in the opposite direction. Towards the coast in the morning as we were driving away and away from the coast in the afternoon as we were driving home.

According to recent research reported in Greek newspapers today, tourism to Greece is showing a marked downturn this year. Reduced air arrival data, an average decline in hotel occupancy of 24% year-on-year with lower occupancy rates and reduced prices coupled with 31% of owners expecting a 20% drop throughout the year. These figures will put the new Prime Minister under pressure. The main reasons for this pressure on Greek tourism are to be found in the economic slowdown seen in many countries from which Greece has traditionally drawn visitors, as well as the special case of Britain with a possible Brexit.

Sunday, 23rd June, 2019

A humid day that is reading 25C/77F at 1.00 pm. Cleaned the car of dead flies from our trip to France. The ‘new car’ finish rejected all water and left globules of water running over the surface.

We have a 10-year paintwork warranty and a full pack of wax/shampoo/tyre-dresser/leather treatment comes with it. We have a customer-care kit with two bottles of each treatment. Although I suspect this doesn’t happen any more, in the early days and I mean in the 1980s we were actually reproached by the Honda Dealership for delivering a dirty car for service. They implied that we were letting the exclusivity of the marque down. Consequently, we always valet our car before we take it into the Dealership.

 Of course, we have so much more time now to look after the car. One of the interesting things we noticed in the first week is the tank capacity. Although it is a hybrid, it is mainly run on Unleaded petrol. In previous, models, a full tank would report maximum 320 miles available. As soon as we filled this one, it reported 650 miles available in the tank. Quite mind blowing after 20 years of really poor consumption figures..

Back to the Health Club today. Amazing how hard it is to get back into it after a week away. Still, we did it and felt better for pushing ourselves in spite of the hurt. Incredibly humid evening – still 26C/79F at 7.30 pm. We’ve been talking about having a bedroom fan installed since we moved in but we suspect the ceiling is too low to fit it safely. This suggests we are going to have to look at air-conditioning instead. We will see how this week pans out with high temperatures forecast for a number of nights.

Monday, 24th June, 2019

Strange day of grey humidity and warmth. We reached 25C/77F and had isolated huge spots of rain which didn’t develop. It is, however, perfect growing weather. The potted peppers and tomatoes are all flowering and I am confident of their fertilisation in this weather. The figs are really ‘figging’ and we really look forward to a good crop this year.

We did our Health Club exercise routine and then settled down to start our new project of transferring camcorder tapes into digital format so that I can have a winter project of editing them in a memory bank which can we stored in the cloud. I was going to do this myself and, about 10 years ago, I bought a tape to CD machine to have a retirement project. It has remained in a box in the loft for all this time as I’ve got on with my life. Now, I’ve decided to ask a professional firm to do this for me. I’ve found a company based near Ripon in North Yorkshire who only charge £10.99 per tape. Mind you, I have got quite a lot of tapes but it is much cheaper than I expected.

Tuesday, 25th June, 2019

A very humid day which topped 26C/79F but felt much warmer. We spent the morning involved in revolutionary activity – we were tidying the garage – before deciding it was far too hot for the gym and settling back to enjoy the afternoon outside in the garden. Delighted to find the potted cherry tomatoes already setting fruit. Looking forward to eating them. Pauline will make a second batch of Pesto for the freezer tomorrow as the Basil grows enormously.

We seem to have 20 video camera tapes with the earliest of 1990. Many are records of our time in Sifnos but we were shocked to find that, 27 years ago, we went to Cyprus for Easter fortnight, Andros for Whit Week and Sifnos in the Summer. Anyway, it will cost us £10.99/€1.30 per tape to digitise and £8.00/€9.00 per stick to store. The total will be about £400.00/€450.00. When everything is stored in digital form, I can spend the darker winter months editing them to make useable records of our younger days and storing them in the cloud.

Wednesday, 26th June, 2019

A hot and humid day only reaching 26C/79F but feeling much warmer. We did some work on our shrubbery beds for an hour or so and Pauline made ginger biscuits. All happily domestic stuff. We did our Health Club routine although the gym was hot and sweaty in spite of being air-conditioned.

I was surprised to find that I was featured in the report of the Northern newspaper – The York Press – which was featuring a University of York & St. John’s Honarary Degree ceremony for hundreds of teachers who qualified pre-1980 at Ripon Training College & St John’s York Training College. For months, alumni of those colleges have been getting excited about the event and preparing to meet up again. I have not.

I have no memory of this at all. I love watching cricket but have no talent at playing it. Actually, having worked so hard for my degrees, I am ambivalent about honorary ones being sprayed around but, I suppose, it is the way things are going. It has obviously made these old people happy and who would deny them that? I’ve subsequently been informed that this photograph is framed and on the wall in the foyer of York University. As I told my fellow students, if I’d known, I’d have Photoshopped my hair into less of a wigwam.

Thursday, 27th June, 2019

It was 35 years ago that we bought our first, brand new Honda car. It was an Accord. We were so delighted with the brand that we have stayed with it through some 20+ new cars including a large number of Preludes and CRVs. The current model is our 13th CRV. It was purchased in West Sussex but, for most of our time, we were served by one Dealership in West Yorkshire and one salesman, Chris Woods, who became a personal friend.

From the beginning, every Honda car we bought was metallic silver. We insisted on it. When we bought our first, CRV in August, 1997, we went mad and chose metallic ORANGE. We thought our first Sports Utility Vehicle suited a ‘whacky’ colour and orange seemed appropriate. It was the first vehicle in which we had satellite navigation and the first in which we had charging points which would allow the ‘fridge’ and ‘shower’ to be plugged in. The fridge was really an electric cool-box and the shower was a tank of water with a shower head attached  and powered by an electrical pump. It was intended for those who were beach lovers and wanted to shower clean before driving home.

Two months ago in West Yorkshire, our salesman friend, Chris, finally retired from Honda. A month later, we took delivery of our latest, metallic silver CRV from a West Sussex dealership. Today, we took our 22-year old ‘fridge’ cool-box to the waste disposal tip because we have replaced it with a real Fridge with twice the capacity and temperature capability and a contemporary manufacturer. I contacted Chris with this photograph and news, telling him that the cool-box he sold us in 1997 had finally expired.

I am so hopelessly sentimental that I find myself quite moved by the loss of those times with their associated objects and friendships. Although my current life is wonderful, there is something melancholic about the loss of the time that can never be recovered. Although it is not in the same league, it is almost akin to that desperate desire to meet again a lost love, a deep and significant relationship. And all sparked by the death of a 22 year old ‘fridge’.

Friday, 28th June, 2019

Once again, we haven’t got that Friday feeling. We have been free all day to follow our fancies. We went out fairly early to go to a shop about 5 mins drive away down Sea Road. Pauline was collecting delivery of a new pair of trainers at a ‘Drop-off’ shop. Sea Road leads to …. the sea. We drove on and walked on the edge of the beach for a few minutes. At 9.30 in the morning even on a hot and sunny one as this, the beach was fairly quiet. It was 25C/77F at 9.30 am but we peaked at 29C/84F by late afternoon.

On the way back, we stopped off at Currys-PCWorld to look at new Condenser Tumble Dryers. If you are a Blog follower, you will have read about our dispute with Hoover-Candy over their illegal warranty conditions. We have beaten them down until the point where, although not admitting liability in terms, they are admitting liability in actions by offering us a complete refund for our 10-month-old machine. We looked at alternatives on-line and went to look at it in the metal.

By the time we arrived in the ‘superstore’, it was about 10.00 am. It was totally devoid of customers although about 5 or 6 sales staff stood around and looked at us hopefully as we walked through the door. We had their undivided attention and, within 5 minutes had agreed for them to deliver and install a new machine and remove and dispose of the old machine in a few days time – all at no cost. Now I will pursue the manufacturers over their illegal policy. I will not be doing this for ourselves but for those who come after us.

Hoover-Candy have clearly designed and built a machine that has a serious design flaw. They offer a 10-year parts warranty but excludes an integral part of a condenser dryer – the container for the water that is condensed. It fits in the door and gets – surprise, surprise – very hot. So far, so predictable. However, it’s made of plastic which cracks under heat. Bit of a problem you might think. We have gone through two in 10 months. The company say it is not covered by their 10-year parts warranty because customers have to empty it themselves. They have arbitrarily designated it a ‘consumable’ part and, therefore, not guaranteed it even though the customer is not told of this when they buy. This clearly breaks consumer law under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and I will be pursuing that with the company’s management.

Saturday, 29th June, 2019

A hot and humid day that reached 29C/85F and stayed there for a large part of the day. There was a time when we would have sat under the sun for an extended period developing the body beautiful. It is too late for that now. Actually, we worked outside for most of the morning – I cut, fed and watered the lawns. I also enjoyed using my new, cordless strimmer to do all the edges. Pauline cut back the Basil plants and made two, more packs of Pesto. She was using Purple Basil and sweet, green Genovese Basil. They are both certainly enjoying our back garden. This is the second harvest and we expect two or three more cuttings.

It has been quite unpleasantly warm in our gym recently in spite of the air-conditioning. At the end of our exercise routine, I have lost so much water that I’ve been feeling a bit fragile over the past couple of sessions. It is so warm today that we decided to give it a miss and go for a walk around our development instead this evening. It just confirms what a lovely place we’ve come to live in.

Sunday, 16th June, 2019

There are times that one must be grateful for one’s own life. I constantly reflect on how lucky I am. Pauline says, Not Lucky. We worked hard for this. I suppose she’s right but events constantly underline my view. I was reminded of this by three occurrences this morning: a posting on Facebook, an article in the Sunday Observer and a reminder from my on-line calendar.

A girl who we taught some 30 years ago posted on Facebook this morning that she was feeling depressed. She lives, of all places, in Derby and worked for Rolls-Royce. She has a good job and enjoys it. She has a happy marriage and a young child. Ostensibly, she has little to be depressed about and yet we know that her early life and experiences created in her a residual depression that can never be fully expunged. What a dreadful legacy for a vivacious and energetic young woman!

I was reading an article about the projections for the newish, automatic enrolment pensions which the government forced on employers. They run the risk of retiring on a pension of far less than £15,000.00/€16,800.00 per year, the equivalent of the current national living wage. That’s bad enough but, what struck me even more forcefully was the quoted average national wage before tax is £27,500 and I realised how fortunate we are. Our pension income, after tax, is much greater than double the average national wage before tax. Yes, we did work hard for it but many people out there work just as hard without the same rewards.

Of course, life is not made happy by money. It helps and lack of it can be very depressing. My on-line calendar reminded me that tomorrow will mark the 39th anniversary of an horrific car accident that almost took our lives away. The things we’ve done in the last 39 years  …. more of that tomorrow. (Sorry!) …. Today, we made our first pesto of the season. Even in this relatively cool and damp June, our basil plants are thriving. Glossy, green and juicy leaves when combined with good olive oil, ground cashew nuts, garlic, and lemon juice produce the most wonderfully sweet-tasting, verdant pesto. If you’ve only ever eaten commercially produced pesto, you’ve never known the real thing. They are poles apart.

Monday, 17th June, 2019

A surprisingly lovely day reaching 22C/70F with lots of sunshine. We drove to Rustington at 9.00 am for Pauline’s hairdressers’ appointment and my date with Waitrose Coffee Shop.  

We returned to sit in the garden sunshine with our coffee and decided we had too many jobs to fit in so cancelled our trip to the health Club. Even so, I easily completed my 10,000 paces by mowing the lawns, watering all the plants and hoovering the house.

Today is the day, 39 years on from our car accident. I spent a fortnight in hospital with brain bruising and the best part of 12 months convalescing. So many exciting things have happened to us since that time and we will never forget our good luck. Every succeeding day is a joy not least more than 10 years of ‘playing out’ in retirement.  And tomorrow – France with all the fun that will entail.

Tuesday, 18th June, 2019

Up early on a lovely, warm morning, drink, pack the car, set the automatic lights and off to the Channel Tunnel. Travellers have to be checked in at least 45 mins before driving on to the train so has to be factored in to the trip time. I know that Brexit Security checks have also caused some longer delays so our mindset is already prepared for that too. Fortunately, we have no real deadline today. Check-in at our hotel in Coquelles is not until 2.00 pm so things are relaxed. We have our newspapers downloaded and every thing prepared for a wait. Let’s go!

….. No delays at the Tunnel but plenty of slowing roadworks en route. We were even offered an earlier train but declined. The drive was our first, lengthy drive and it really was a sharp learning curve. Driving with ACC and ILA switched on was akin to a sitting in a driverless car. Adaptive Cruise Control allows one to set a cruising speed but leave the car to adjust that speed according to traffic in front. This feature speeds up and slows down the car according to circumstances. Intelligent Lane Assist and Blind Spot Warning combine to keep the car within the white lines and warn of anything over or undertaking. This actually guides the steering wheel, unless the driver overrides it, and keeps it within the lines which is a slightly unnerving experience at 70 mph on the motorway.

As we drove in to the hotel grounds and carpark, we were greeted by a ‘flock’ (??) Of newborn (hatched) chicks that ran towards Pauline – obviously recognising her maternal qualities. We had specified which suite we wanted and were duly shown up to it. The evening was interesting as we watched the bonkers Tory Party hustings which was followed, quite appropriately, by a massive thunder storm with flashes of lightning, crashes of booming thunder and a roar of torrential rain. Shakespeare would certainly have approved. He may, even now, have staged it.

Wednesday, 19th June, 2019

We thought France, mid-June, new car, no set times or dates, just freedom. We’ll drive down the coast with the sunroof open and the sun beating down on our heads, highlighting and warming the beaches ….. We’ve woken to more thunder and rain from dark skies. We’ve eaten a little breakfast and are now settling down with coffee and newspapers, Radio4 Today followed by Sky’s All Out Politics before we set out into the world. It might have stopped raining by then.

…….. it has and the sun is out, shining from blue skies. the temperature has reached 24C/75F. We drove down the coast to Wissant and walked in the warm sunshine. Quite delightful!

We’ve been here many times before but hadn’t learnt of the Wissant School of Painters featured on the cliff.

It has been a lovely, gentle day of sunshine, walking and I’ve learned something new about the car. For years, as we’ve driven into Europe, Radio 4 reception has faded. We’ve switched to the decreasingly usable Long Wave until Switzerland or Southern France has blanked us out completely. Now, Smartphone connectivity has allowed us to access radio over internet and put it straight through our car radio. It has changed life completely.

Thursday, 20th June, 2019

The morning started grey but, like yesterday, quickly turned warm and sunny with delightful blue sky and bright light. We had a leisurely start to the day. Radio 4 Today from my iPad at ECT 7.00 am (GMT 6.00 am) with a cup of Yorkshire tea. Down for Breakfast before 8.00 am and back for coffee and Sky’s All Out Politics for an hour until 10.00 am. Out into the delightfully warm sunshine.

We took the A16 down the coast through Sangatte, Wimereux, Boulogne, Neufchatel, Le Touquet and then inland to Montreuil-sur-Mer. It is both much the same as so many small, French towns and yet delightful in its provincial charm. We drove down lots of narrow, cobbled streets banked on either side by tall, 3-4 storey 18th/19th century buildings. This is the origin of Les Misérables and it shows. We parked up on the cobbled, market square at the town centre.

My usual way of getting to know a new place is to sit and eat and drink while watching the world go by. I’m afraid that approach has long gone which is a pity because these French, provincial towns are just full of eating and drinking places advertising everything I’m not allowed to have. So it was that we set out on foot to walk around and look and smell but not touch.

One can immediately understand the ‘metalled’ footwear of the past because walking for long on cobbled streets becomes excruciating. If you wanted a symbol of European sentiment and unity, this last scene pictured below, shouted it out to Brits feeling sensitive about their host’s view of them.

We drove back to the hotel in the afternoon to find out about the Tory, It’s a Knockout competition and then went out shopping in Cité Europe. The sunshine had lasted and improved throughout the day and into the evening. Our meal was smoked salmon salad instead of all those calorific offerings shrieking out at us in the town centre. End of a lovely day.

Friday, 21st June, 2019

Beautiful morning to open the Summer Solstice. We are actually making the longest day even longer by leaving France at 1.00 pm and arriving in UK at 12.35 pm.

We left our hotel at 9.30 am and drove down to Carrefour Hypermarket where we plundered the fresh fruit & vegetables mountain. Such wonderful choice and quality at this time of the year.

The fishmonger had a huge 3 kilo chunk of swordfish (Trois kilos d’espadon) costing €40.00/£36.00 which will do for a couple of weeks and is so difficult to source in UK at the moment.

We drove back to the Tunnel Sous La Manche and checked in for a train one hour earlier than intended. Leaving at 12.15 pm, we arrived in Folkestone at 11.50 am thus making the Longest Day even longer than usual.

Saturday, 22nd June, 2019

Lovely, warm and sunny day. We decided to do some supermarket shopping followed by garden jobs. I mowed the lawns and we re-potted the Bell Peppers into bigger pots with a wigwam support of canes. We cut back the sage and Oregano plants for use in the kitchen. Pauline washed, spun and chopped them for the freezer. The cherry tomatoes are in full flower so they were fed and watered. The Rocket was ready for cutting again and we had that for our meal.

A couple of weeks ago, I featured a tree that we found in Tenerife. I brought some seeds back and sowed them recently. Well, today they are starting to show their true natures with secondary leaves opening like their parent tree. Soon, I will have to pot them up and take them outside to see if they can survive a Sussex Winter.

Sunday, 9th June, 2019

For years we’ve bought new, Honda cars. Generally, we’ve ordered them one week and picked them up next. Not this time. We have had about 12, new CRVs in the past 20 years and we’ve been waiting for the latest upgrade model – a Hybrid, All-Wheel drive, Continuous Variable Transmission, Automatic vehicle which obviates the need for gears. It is a step change improvement on previous models.

This model features Adaptive Cruise Control which, if you use cruise control as we do most of the time, is a fantastic improvement. There is nothing worse than setting Cruise Control to the speed limit and then finding a vehicle in front doing a much slower speed. This innovation allows the car to slow down and speed up  according to what’s in front. There is an ‘intelligent speed limiter’ facility which allows one to stick within prescribed speed limits without breaking the law.

There is a facility called ‘Low speed following’ which allows one to set the car to auto when in a slow, queue of traffic. It slows down and stops as the traffic in front dictates and then starts up and accelerates away as the traffic in front allows. That is just the sort of facility that would be useful on the Milano Ring Road.

Often we would hit the Milano Ring Road after 10 or so hours of driving through the night and we were at our lowest ebb. My co-pilot would be at her calmest and I would be pinning my eyelids open. Another innovation – ‘Lane Departure Warning’ would have been very helpful here as would ‘Traffic Sign Recognition System’ which reads road conditions and automatically adjusts the car’s systems to meet those demands. 

Monday, 10th June, 2019

Wet, wet, wet! It was grey and heavy rain. We looked like spending the morning indoors. We received a phone call from Honda to say that our new car was arriving some 6 weeks early on a transporter this morning. We drove down to the dealership and arrived just as our car was rolling off the carrier on to the forecourt. £40, 000.00/€45,000.00 worth of car can look pretty ordinary slicked with protective wax, wrapped in plastic sheeting and in need of pre-delivery preparation.

We had to do the paperwork immediately to transfer our ‘cherished number plate’ that we’ve had since 1997. I bought it for £250.00/€280.00 back then and it is now worth some £12,000.00/€13,500.00 which is rather nice. The new car will be ready by Thursday or Friday so I’ve got to rather hurriedly shift rather a lot of cash from an Investment account in one bank to our Current account in another bank to the Honda dealership’s account in another bank. It used to be done through bits of paper called ‘cheques’ or Bankers’ Drafts in the old days. Now it is done electronically and, however confident one is with the process, moving huge amounts of cash through the ether is a little nerve wracking. The good thing about it is that it can happen almost instantly.

That done, we were able to enjoy the rest of the day by putting in a couple of hours at the Health Club. Home to chicken and salad for our meal and to jeer at the lunacy of the Tory Leadership contest. This country is going to hell in a handcart! At least we will have a new car to drive away in.

Tuesday, 11th June, 2019

Après nous, le deluge! Yesterday was a washout in some regions. Actually, we go off lightly and, this morning, the day opened clear and sunny. We had sun all day and reached 24C/75F as we left the Health Club.

This morning we had to go to our ‘local’ bank branch to do an ‘official’ bank transfer to pay for the new car. Apparently, we are nor allowed to transfer a sum as large as we needed from our home computer through on-line banking. I don’t know how often you go to a bank branch. We haven’t been for about a year. Actually, our home branch is in Oldham which tells you how often we use it. We went in to Rustington which is 2.5 miles away.

One of the things about where we live is that nowhere is far away especially if you have a car. The money was transferred, the receipt confirmed and the car will be ready in a couple of days. We drove home and spent a couple of hours in the glorious weather mowing the lawns, trimming the hedges and generally tidying up. It was delightful and satisfying.

A couple of weeks ago, I featured a tree we found in Tenerife 6 months ago and from which we took seeds. I sowed them in two pots. The first were soaked in boiling water for 24 hrs and the second were not. This morning, those soaked in boiling water had germinated and the others had not. Delonix Regia or ‘The Flamboyant Tree’ is a gorgeous, red-flowering tree of the Med..  We’ll see if it survives in Sussex.

Wednesday, 12th June, 2019

I have never been seriously concerned about climate change and, I must admit, I am not now. I have no children and, as I approach 70 years old, I do not worry too much about the children of the future. Certainly, I am not prepared to turn the clock back on current standards and advances in order to produce a future world of which I will not be a part. As ever, the world will innovate to confront the demands of the world’s climate.

We are told that, although driving, sailing and flying has revolutionised our ability to travel across the globe, we must stop driving, sailing and flying because of threats to the climate. We are told that, although humankind has been a meat eating species for as long as we know, now our meat eating must be curbed/stopped to save the planet. Science is already producing ‘Test Tube Meat’ and plant-based meat substitutes. We are told that fossil fuels which our planet has in abundance should be eschewed because their exploitation is dangerous to the planet’s existence.

I do not support any of those choices per se. Amusingly, however, I find myself falling in to a number of those decisions by accident out of self-interest. I have hardly eaten any red meat for 2 – 3 years. I almost entirely eat fish and chicken. This has absolutely nothing to do with climate change but is almost accidental and an alteration of choice. I have just ordered a  self-charging, Hybrid car. It has absolutely nothing to do with climate change but provided me with fuel consumption which more than doubles the economy of my current model.

The anomalies in the climate change analysis are fascinating. I read an article today which said, Carnival cruise ships produce more sulphur oxide than all Europe’s cars in total. The solution is blindingly obvious – ban all cruising. It doesn’t appeal to me. The thought of being cooped up on a ship for more than a day fills me with dread (sorry Richard). Even so, science will arrive at electrically powered planes, ships, cars, everything and the power will be stored in massive batteries sourced from renewable energy and humankind will look back on these problems and laugh just as we do about early attempts of men to fly. What we shouldn’t be doing is denying ourselves the benefits of progress in order to salve our consciences about the future generations.

Thursday, 13th June, 2019

Last night we heard torrential rain for about 30 mins. We woke to sunshine and a very clean, fresh world. Our garden was certainly grateful for the drink. The paperwork for our new car – transfer of our ‘cherished number plate’ to our new car and the transfer of registration of our current car to our dealership arrived this morning. We also had to contact our insurers to ensure that our new car would be covered from the time we took it over at 5.00 pm tomorrow. 

We decided that we would have a short break in France with the new car. That done, we chose to enjoy the rest of the day by not going to the Health Club but planning a short trip away. We will book a suite in our favourite hotel in Coquelles and go out for day trips along the coast during the days.

Wimereux, Bolougne, Le Touquet, Berk-sur Mer, Dieppe, Honfleur, Deauville all provide interesting stopping off points for lunch or dinner and a stroll.  It will be lovely to put the new car through its paces while we enjoy the coastline next week.

Friday, 14th June, 2019

Quite a demanding day. The weather has been pleasant plenty of sunshine and 20C/68F. We did some more gardening this morning – finishing hedges, mowing lawns, potting up plants and harvesting some herbs. It’s amazing how long these jobs take.

We received confirmation of 3 nights in a suite at our favourite hotel in Coquelles. We booked return Tunnel crossings immediately so everything is arranged for next week. Out on Tuesday morning and return Friday evening. Next, although we are tired from the morning’s work, we decided to go to the Health Club because our bodies regretted not doing the exercise routine yesterday.

Home for a quick meal and then out to Honda for the new car. It was already out on the forecourt when we arrived. The old car is just 3 years old and has done 22,672 miles/36,487 kilometres including a trip around Europe last summer.. We have enjoyed driving it. Admittedly, the fuel consumption is poor. We are driving an automatic with the air-conditioning permanently on. We drive mainly short journeys and average 22mpg/35.5kpg of unleaded.

As you can see, the new car is totally different but looks almost identical. Actually, although this is our 13th new CRV and 4th new model, the latest one is incredibly updated.

Just one, small detail illustrates this modernisation. All our CRVs have been automatics. The early ones had dashboard-mounted gear sticks. Later ones went to the more conventional shift arrangement. The gearing was always one of their pleasures, climbing and descending smoothly and almost seamlessly. We drove almost continuously on ‘speed control’ in order to avoid breaking the law.

The new model has the speed limit projected at eyelevel on the windscreen for the driver to see along with the car’s current speed. It features an ‘intelligent speed limiter’ function which reads the road signs and regulates the car’s speed accordingly. You can, of course, over ride it but why would you – unless you are a boy racer and my days are gone on that score. The new car also has no gears at all. The drive is CVT or Continuously Variable Transmission, also known as a shiftless transmission or stepless transmission. It has no gear stick of any sort. Everything is done via electric buttons/switches. Now that does need some getting used to.

Because a lot of the work is done by an electrically powered engine, it is almost silent. This is particularly true at slow, starting speeds. We are reliably informed that our old 22mpg/35.5kpg will suddenly become 52mpg/84kpg which will be nice.

Saturday, 15th June, 2019

The day started off beautifully but has turned gently damp. It is only 18C/65F which is poor for mid-June but feels quite pleasant. I must just wish my little brother, Bob, happy retirement. He’s only 67 and very healthy so let’s hope he’s got a lot more mountains to climb yet. If he enjoys it half as much as me, he will be a happy chap!

I apologise in advance that my Blog entry is once again dominated by the new car but I have definitely realised that I have so much to learn and understand before we go away on Tuesday. There is so much on-board information and so many settings to adjust. It has taken me all morning just to scratch the surface.

There are those, of course, who say just drive and all will become clear but I love gadgetry and I want to squeeze the maximum amount of pleasure from this machine. After all, we never know how many more there will be for us to enjoy.

When we press the start button, a symbol lights up in the wing mirrors to tell us that the radar sensors are switched on to warn of vehicles in our blind spot when overtaking. Excellent. I’ve always wanted this although I haven’t quite got to grips with the parameters within which it operates. I’m sure I will. The other element I’ve been acclimatising to this morning is the Head-Up-Display which emerges from the dashboard as the engine starts. It’s one of those things you don’t know you need until you have it and then realise it is actually indespensible.

Tried out the ‘Intelligent, Adaptive Cruise Control as we drove to the Health Club this afternoon. It is cruise control but with a refinement which copes with traffic in front that slow one down. The car reads the speed of the car in front and adjusts its speed and following distance automatically. Slight problem this afternoon as we drove down the High Street of our village, encountered a badly parked car and found ourselves being harshly braked to avoid hitting it by the automatic system. This is quite a steep learning curve. I will be sleeping with the handbook for the next couple of nights before we set off for France.

Sunday, 2nd June, 2019

Yesterday we reached 25C/77F and today was just 22C/70F. Even so, it’s been a lovely weekend. An annoying string of events on the timeline, however, was the series of problems with four items of apparatus. My bean-to-cup coffee maker sprang a leak. It is 3 years old and out of warranty. My pressure washer has started playing up with problems connecting and disengaging the lances. It is still in warranty. My iPad has suddenly started closing down without reason. It cost me about £1000.00 about 3 years ago and is out of warranty. Our condenser/tumble dryer, sited in the Laundry, has suddenly started leaking from the water container which collects the condensation. It is 9 months old.

It’s amazing how these things happen. Built in obsolescence is definitely a problem in our increasingly technological age but the tumble dryer was bought from Hoover via Currys has a 1 yr parts & labour warranty plus another 9 years parts warranty. Confidently, we phoned the Helpline only to be told that the slot-in container which collects condensation is not covered by even a 12 month warranty. They offered three solutions. We could buy a new one ourselves. We could go back to Currys and demand a whole new machine. Their final solution was we could immediately buy from them an extended warranty which would mean the water container would be replaced  for free.

I wonder how many people fall for that. They must think we are barmy. When we pointed out that we were sold the machine with a 12 months parts & labour + 9 extra years parts only warranty and that, under the Consumer Rights Act (2015), they were obliged to honour that agreement, the operative went away to consult his Manager and came back to tell us that the decision was to send a replacement part ‘free of charge’ as a ‘goodwill gesture’. By this stage, I had my own goodwill gesture for him. What the ‘helpful’ warranty/service department don’t realise is that these are the sorts of dodgy dealings that I relish addressing ….. but they will.

Monday, 3rd June, 2019

This morning opened on the 5th item to break down as I cleaned the Juicer after my morning orange juice. Separating the base of the jug from the blades of our Bosch, a locking lug snapped off rendering it useless. we’re on such a losing run that I’m keeping tight hold of all my body parts in case something falls off this week.

My tirade via Twitter and email against Hoover has already brought a jittery response. My contact with Karcher likewise. My coffee maker seems to have cleared its own leak at the moment and my iPad will have to be replaced shortly after 3 years of almost constant use.

My wife and I receive a State Pension of about £1,100.00/€1,240.00 every 4 weeks or £14,300.00/€16,110.00 per year all after tax. I can’t imagine what it would be like to live on that pittance. Fortunately, we can treat it as an extra bonus that goes into a savings investment but many have just that to live on. The European Union want the UK to bring State Pensions increasingly into line with the more generous (realistic) member nations. This is how they treat their citizens:

Imagine being a widow pensioner with no occupational pension having to survive on £550.00/€620.00 over 4 weeks or £137.50/€155.00 per week particularly if you don’t own your own house. I know there are supplementary payments but few could really make life liveable at that subsistence level. When a your pension falls below that of Mexico and Chile, you know it is time to do something – and Brexit is not it.

Tuesday, 4th June, 2019

Time has always been an obsession of mine. I think it came from my inability to train my memory. I feel the need to reinforce facts about my life continually in case they disappear into the mists of time. I build a memory board to constantly refer to. These fragments I have shored against my ruins … My on-line calendar stores and repeats events back to me over the years. For example, I know already that a week on Monday – June 17th – will be the 39th anniversary of the most horrific event that has ever happened to Pauline & I. Known as The Great Car Crash, it reminds me that I could have been dead since 1980, at the age of 29, and missed so many wonderful experiences with, hopefully, many more to come.

I was prompted to write about this again by a news report this morning about the battle for Tiananmen Square which was 30 years ago today. I was just 38. Absolutely flabbergasting! I find myself falling into old man’s clichés like: I can see it as clearly as if it was yesterday.

The trouble is that I can and you only have to think about the events of your own life over the past 30 years to realise that distance with some shock. It is important for me to use events like this as a metric for my own existence and, quite fortuitously, I received an item in my newsfeed this morning which recorded the fact that the Beatles split as a group 50 years ago this summer.

I was 18 and about to leave home, go to College and begin the great adventure of life. I was starting out on learning to be a person in my own right. Three years later, as we were leaving College, my girlfriend found herself pregnant and had an abortion. I reflect now, not with sadness but just as an understanding of the metric of time that I could now have a son aged 47. I am genuinely grateful that I don’t and that my life took a different turn

Wednesday, 5th June, 2019

It is only 10 years ago this week that we put our Yorkshire home up for sale. Only 10 years ago this week! We had just retired from teaching and were planning our future. We were back home from Easter in our Greek house on Sifnos and were intending to move south to Surrey.

We were scurrying round, smartening it up in readiness for valuation and marketing. As one does in this situation, we hoped the house would sell in a week and we would be moving out soon after. In the event, not a single buyer came to view the house for 12 months during the downturn and, when they did a year later, we were least expecting it.

Actually, we received a phone call from the Estate Agent as we drove through Italy between Parma and Modena to tell us that a viewing was going to taken place and all the negotiations were done via Skype from our island house. Not only did we agree a sale of the house but all the furniture as well which was a boon. For a few years, I rather missed the familiar backdrop of the Yorkshire / Lancashire moors but that has faded into the mists of time. I wouldn’t go back to live. Life is so much easier in Sussex.

Thursday, 6th June, 2019

Just one year on from yesterday’s memory and 9 years ago this week, we had flown home temporarily from Greece to tie up the sale of our house in Quarry Court, Huddersfield. We left our Greek house to look after itself for a month with our car in the garage and the garden serviced by an automatic watering system.

We were in our final 4 weeks of our Yorkshire home. We had sold it with most of its furniture but, after 10 years living there, much was left to clear out. We had to hire a car to get around. We got that from Enterprise in Woking. I still receive emails from them 9 years on.

We had nowhere to live when we got home from Greece in October. The remainder of our goods and chattels were taken away to storage. The money from the house sale was arranged to be transferred into three, separate Banks for safety and we set off for Manchester airport. At that point, things started to go wrong. Our solicitor informed us that there had been a ‘technical hitch’ in our buyers’ solicitors office. We panicked. We had just cancelled all the house services including the insurance and would be in the air for about 4 hours.

The moment we got to Athens airport, Pauline had to phone the insurers to extend our house insurance for a couple of days until the buyers sorted out their problems. I can still feel the stress of that time. However, we did it and moved ahead. Only 9 years ago and so much water under the bridge. I really do wonder how many more exciting experiences we’ve got to have by 2018.

Friday, 7th June, 2019

Glorious start to the day – RAIN. We have forgotten what it looked like. The lawns are jumping with joy. It has come the day after our area was suggesting that water controls/hosepipe bans may well be necessary this summer because the Winter has been so dry.  

I started the week listing a number of relatively young machines which were already breaking down. I have spent quite a lot of time addressing these problems. Particularly, our Hoover Condenser Tumble Dryer is only 9 months old and the company was trying to wriggle out of its responsibility. When we phoned the ‘Warranty Department’ in Bolton they tried to say that the company had designated the ‘water container cassette’ as a consumable item and not as a machine part covered by the 1 year Parts & Labour Guarantee and that we would need to purchase a replacement or we could take out additional insurance from them which would cover the part. Lastly, they said we could go back to the retailer, Currys/PCWorld and demand a new machine.

As soon as we baulked at these suggestions and pointed out their illegality under the Consumer Rights Act (2015), the Warranty Department decided that we would be provided with a replacement part ‘as a gesture of good will’. That was like a red rag to a bull. I immediately wrote in very strong terms on Twitter and by email to the company’s management pointing out the weakness of their position. This morning a replacement part arrived by post from Milan. Hoover is owned by Candy which is based in Italy. What is important to note is that the company’s policy was to evade their commercial/legal responsibility and it is possible/probable that less articulate, determined, time-poor customers would have been browbeaten into coughing up extra money.

Contrast this with Karcher who received one, short email from me and informed me yesterday that they were despatching a complete replacement by return. It arrived this morning by Parcelforce. Warning to companies – Beware pensioners with half a brain and access to social media!

Saturday, 8th June, 2019

A busy day of strong winds and some rain although warm. We visited Asda, Sainsburys and Morrisons which are all in our locality. Delighted to find that swordfish is back on sale after quite a long period without it. We love griddled swordfish steaks and bought a joint for future use.

Hoover/Candy have contacted me and offered us a chance to return our 9 month old Condenser-Tumble Dryer in exchange for a new one. It is something we may take up although it is hard to see that it will be much improved because the principle parts are the same.

I was reading my Blog from 5 years ago – the summer that we sold our Greek house. On this day, we finished clearing our garden of the Winter weeds which is a far bigger job than it sounds and we ate a meal of roast leg of pork. Pork was always my favourite meat and particularly crackling.

However, that really isn’t what struck me. It is that we haven’t eaten any meat apart from chicken and duck for such a long time – perhaps a couple of years or so – that pork appears as a weird concept. Unusually, as we walked through Sainsburys today, we talked about pork spare ribs. We even hovered over them in the meat aisle and then decided that it was a step too far.

After our daily gym & swim, our meal today was a timbale of crabmeat, some smoked mackerel and smoked salmon accompanied by a green salad and a tomato salad. Get behind me meat! I’m not a Tory cabinet minister feeling the need to confess to drug taking – something which seems to be all the rage.

Sunday, 26th May, 2019

Our EU election is almost forgotten in the popular mind but today sees the majority of the rest of Europe go to the polls. Of course, as EU citizens, we are allowed to vote in any member country but additional registration is required. On Thursday when we voted, many – possibly 1000s – of foreign nationals were disenfranchised in spite of being formally and legally registered and entitled. The cock-up or conspiracy theories abound but The Guardian reports:

The government is facing the prospect of being sued by campaigners for EU citizens in the UK and British nationals abroad who were denied a vote in the European parliament elections.

As in so many other things, the Government blamed everything and everyone else including Local Authorities. That is fairly disingenuous. They were repeatedly warned that it would happen but, like about so many things, they were in denial. They didn’t want to admit the elections were taking place. They don’t want to admit Brexit just isn’t doable. I believe that our Government was culpably negligent. The payback will be the opposition parties uniting with disaffected Tories defeating the executive and forcing a General Election. The price of any voting pact will be the cast-iron commitment to a confirmatory referendum with Remain on the ballot. The only other process I can see being viable is to revoke A50.

Monday, 27th May, 2019

Bank Holiday Monday – apparently. It’s 8.40 am and all is quiet. The workers have turned over and are enjoying the bliss of another day off. Actually, we never did that. Days off were days to be enjoyed doing stuff. About 25 years ago, we went to Venice over this long weekend with an Occasional Day attached. That 4 days around San Marco were an absolute delight and one I would happily repeat. Arriving at Marco Polo Airport around midnight and taking a water taxi through the lantern-lit darkness to our hotel in Piazza San Marco was pure magic.

The culture shock returning from the theatrical backdrop that is Venice to the offices and corridors of our old, mill-town school was defining in its contrast. Of course, you can’t live in a theatre and the economic reality of life reasserts itself.

Last night we stayed up until 1.30 am to follow the European Elections. As we have suspected for some time, the mood for Leave has softened considerably as this BBBC/Press Association release illustrates:

In spite of our late night, we were up before 7.00 am and enjoying the sunny day. Today, on a more prosaic level, we have gone out into the sunshine to try to source some Basil plants.  The Garden Centre is all ready to capitalise on Bank Holiday shoppers in the warming weather.

With 10 basil plants -8 Green, Sweet Basil & 2 Purple or Red Rubin Basil – for about £20.00/€22.70. Over the summer, these plants will provide us with material to produce enough pesto to get us through 12 months plus leaves for mixing with salads.

We will be at the Health Club around lunchtime as we were yesterday and the day before that and every day for the past 51 days – just missing 2 in that time. It is usually fairly quiet at holiday time and the facilities are left to odd balls like us.

Tuesday, 28th May, 2019

Wake to Radio4 Today programme at 6.00 am which is essentially focussing on all things Brexit but with other, interesting topics as well. It is on in the bedroom, in the dressing room and, downstairs, in the kitchen and in the office. It starts on the radio alarm and moves to digital radio via television in all the other rooms. It finishes at 9.00 am by which time real life begins but we have suddenly got hooked on Sky’s All Out Politics which runs from 9.00 am – 11.00 am. By 12.15 pm, it is BBC2’s Politics Live until 1.00 pm.

At 1.00 pm, we leave for the gym where we exercise for 90 mins and watch BBC/ITV News followed by the Parliament Channel which we continue at home over the afternoon. At 6.00 pm BBC News (again) is followed by Local News and then one of the highlights of the day with the brilliant Channel 4 News 7.00 pm – 8.00 pm. The day is topped out by ITV News at 10.00 pm, BBC2 Newsnight 10.30 pm – 11.15 pm and Sky Newspaper Review 11.30 pm – 12.00am.

Throughout this period, I am busy on Facebook and Twitter. The problem is where to make the time for anything else. I’ve got to clean the car. My coffee maker has sprung a leak and I’ve got to sort that out. My pressure washer has started playing up and I’ve got to sort that out. The first is 3 yrs old and out of warranty. The second is 6 mnths old but there is no one nearby to service it. And I’ve got to STOP BREXIT!

This is really becoming overload. Having said that, we do seem to be making real headway on the 2nd referendum. Our fitness regime, although time consuming,  is definitely showing signs of improvement. It just feels like turning up to work each day and our bodies factor in the demands of the routine. Strangely, on the 2 days in the past 52 that we couldn’t get there, our bodies felt lethargic and lacking. Even daily exercise can be addictive.

Wednesday, 29th May, 2019

Up and out early to go to our local Honda Dealership. Just 6 weeks until we collect our new car but we have to have ours Serviced and MOTd. They needed the car for an indeterminate span of time so lent us a ‘courtesy car’. It was a brand new Jazz.  It is always interesting to drive a different car for a while.

We have driven the developing editions of Honda CRV 4-wheel drive, automatics since 1997/8. Powerful engine, large cars with high driving positions, revering cameras have become so standard for us that, to get into something low (standard) to the road with reduced engine power and NO REVERSING CAMERA was something of a culture shock. Just getting to the first roundabout and putting my foot down only to find myself not accelerating away from the on-coming traffic was instructive. What was nice was the ‘new car’ smell. It was that as much as anything which persuaded us to change our car so often in the past.

The other thing we had to do today was to organise the transfer of our ‘cherished number plate’ to the new car. It used to be a really longwinded procedure in the past with forms to be filled out and posted off with a couple of weeks wait before the returned paperwork arrived. Now it can be done online and is almost instant.

Really good to see serial liar, Boris Johnson put on a path to the High Court to answer for his blatant but convincing (to the totally gullible) lie about £350 million a week currently sent to the EU which he said would be diverted to the NHS. It has been a long time coming but is well-deserved and underlines the fact that the Referendum was won on the back of duping the ill educated and poorly informed.

Thursday, 30th May, 2019

Lovely morning. We were out early to do our weekly shopping. Asda followed by Tesco. Home and then made a momentous decision. We weren’t going to the Health Club today. We both felt desperate but decided it was the right decision and got on  with it.

We spent the afternoon in the sunshine of the garden. We potted up 10 basil plants, sowed more Rocket and Cut-&-Come-Again Salad Leaves, cut the lawns, watered and fed the Fig and Olive trees and succession sowed salad and rocket leaves.

We harvested our first Rocket and could immediately tell the difference. Our bought Rocket from Israel was harsh, strongly peppered and strident in its quality. The home-grown, picked young was soft, delicate and lightly peppered. Delightful with griddled Tuna. The Government ‘Health Tsar’ was featured today trying to ‘nudge’ families away from highly processed foods in order to raise health levels and reduce mortality rates. We feel so lucky to have spent our lives avoiding processed foods and embracing fresh, home-made meals.

Friday, 31st May, 2019

We have seen May out with the most beautiful day which you could be excused in mistaking for mid-summer. Warm, sunny and brilliant with green grass, burgeoning hedgerows and cloudless, blue skies. Swimming outside at the end of our workout really felt as if we were on holiday. Actually, as we discussed it, we agreed that we are permanently on holiday. It is certainly impossible to differentiate between different days in different places as we trot through retirement.

My watch app tells me that I have walked 50.2 miles in the past week and 198 miles in the past 28 days. At the end of this month, it tells me that I have walked an amazing 2030 miles in the past 12 months. Can you imagine setting out on a walk of 2030 miles? I checked it out and I found that I could have walked the whole of the drive we used to make from Calais in France to Ancona on the Italian coast and back again and still had another 80 miles to spare.

Saturday, 1st June, 2019

Glorious day to welcome in the new month. We can hear mowers going all around as the workers find precious time to catch up with garden jobs that the real population – the retired or lame, sick & lazy – do during the week. We had an early breakfast in the sunshine and then potted up our tomato and pepper plants.

It’s all just a bit of fun which we’ve decided to do as we’re not going away for any extended period of time until the Autumn. When we first moved here I had real success with cherry tomato plants in pots and I’ve gone back to those. I bought some self-watering planting trays which will hold 3 plants each.

We’ve potted up 3 yellow cherry and 3 red cherry plants plus one each of the ‘bell’ peppers illustrated below. I haven’t tried those outside Greece so it will be interesting to see how they do. With our climate, I can’t see any reason why they don’t succeed but I will let you know. I know you’re on tenterhooks!

 We lived in Huddersfield for 40 years and have lots of friends still there. We go back at least once and, maybe, twice per year to meet many of them. One of our friends is tasked with seeking out a new eatery to meet up and eat in every time. She does it very well but it would be nice to beat her to it sometimes.

For quite a few years, I have followed Blogs from expats in Greece. One such is a lad who lived on Skiathos. I was in Greece reading about the experiences of another Englishman in Greece. I read one day of his plight as he ran out of Yorkshire teabags long before he could return to replenish them. I sent him a box as soon as I got home. I have followed his story and that of his Polish partner – especially through the nightmare that is cancer. Even though he has blocked me on Twitter because he is, inexplicably, a Faragist and can’t take me posting the truths about Brexit, I still follow The Skiathan’s Blog most days in a strange, addictive loyalty.

This morning it paid off because he featured a couple – Judith & Steven Butcher – who had either owned or worked at a taverna on Skiathos but now had returned to UK to open up a restaurant in Huddersfield. The Scullery Kitchen & Bar looks like a good choice for our next meeting in October. I would even like to see Skiathan Man there to dicuss the inevitable defeat of Brexit. It would be nice to meet him after all these years.

Sunday, 19th May, 2019

The Open University, celebrating its 50th birthday throughout 2019, was established by Royal Charter on 23 April 1969. It was conceived by Harold Wilson and its midwife was Jennie Lee. I entered the O.U. community 6 years after its inauguration. I actually believe that it saved me. I left Grammar School in 1969 with a sense of complete failure. I had been fortunate enough to be given all the tools for success and I had shunned them in favour of sport and laziness. While all my peers had swanned off to University, I had been forced to creep, quietly in to Teacher Training.

I was teaching English to A Level in a Secondary School and felt like a charlatan. I had to assuage my shame and Harold Wilson & Jenny Lee gave me that choice. This Distance Learning approach really suited me. I would work a 10 hour day at school and then do a 4 (sometimes 6 or even 8) hour night in my grubby, little bedsit with my books spread all over the place and my Olivetti typewriter on the dining table. I was 25 and thought little of coming home from school, making a sandwich, opening a bottle of wine, turning on my B&W TV for the news and starting on a 5,000 word essay which needed to be posted in the morning as I walked to school.

I look back with amusement and pleasure at the activities I had to undertake – watching television programmes on at 4.00 am on Vasari and Italian Renaissance Art or on British, Romantic Poets and the Rise of Industrial Britain. Sheer madness! My excitement as new units of study arrived: Logic & Rational Thinking, The Philosophy of Descartes, Revolution and Karl Marx. This is what I had been dreaming of!

Finishing the wine, smoking my way through a packet of cigarettes and typing furiously until 2, 3, 4.00 am before catching 2 or 3 hours sleep, getting up, putting my suit on and walking up to school to work another 10 hour day. I had split up with my ex-College girlfriend and had all the time I needed to address this deficit in my life. I felt my self esteem growing as I did these courses although, by the time I completed my final course and received my Degree, the paperwork was no longer important. I had my certificate sent by post. I was already on to the next course – a research Masters Degree in The History of Political Ideas at Huddersfield University.

The Open University influenced the rest of my life. I became addicted to self-improvement, to life-long-learning and to a love for acquiring knowledge. I have tried hard to improve myself intellectually and culturally for the 40 years since I first graduated. If it hadn’t been for the relatively cheap and relatively simple to access Open University system, I really believe I would be a very different person now. Just as I finished my O.U. Degree, I got married, Pauline started an O.U. Degree of her own and then helped me through my Masters. We were both teaching full time but also feeling so grateful and fulfilled.

Monday, 20th May, 2019

The weather seems to have tilted significantly into Summer. We no longer expect shock, cold nights, we do expect plenty of sunshine down here. We don’t expect a great deal of rain. It seems appropriate to plant out without fear although I may give it another week before setting out pots of cherry tomatoes and basil plants. Today, I have Rocket … rocketing away, Sage, Oregano, Thyme, Tarragon, Chives all growing strongly. This morning, we are potting up and putting out Geraniums and sowing cut-and-come-again salad leaves.

I’ve also got a chance now to use something I brought back from Tenerife at the end of November last year. A tree with red flowers and long, green, sheath-like pods which turn hard brown on maturity lined the streets where we had a villa. I picked a couple of pods and put them in our luggage. Today, I took the pod down from the bookshelves in the Office and looked up for the first time what the tree is called. Its name is officially Delonix Regia which is more commonly referred to as The Flamboyant Tree or Flame Tree.

Having looked the propagation of this tree up, I am advised that I must put the seeds into a jug of boiling water and leave them for 24 hrs after which they will be ready to sow. I’m going to try some indoors and some outside. I will keep you posted.

Tuesday, 21st May, 2019

Glorious day, as I suspect most of the country are enjoying. In our sheltered, south-facing garden, the rays are concentrated and increased. It is hard to force oneself to work when relaxation in the sun is calling. Still, we forced ourselves to do a few jobs and a full workout at the Health Club. We’ve missed 2 days in the past 45. We’re still pushing ourselves.

Our village competes in the Britan in Bloom competition. Teams of amateur gardeners can be seen out in all weathers tending to all sorts of bankings, flower beds, woodland tracts, roadside verges. Many areas that look wonderfully ‘natural’ are the result of their hard work.

We were shocked to find that the trees in the Village Square are hard pollarded every Winter but they come back strongly in the Spring as you can see from the today’s photo above.

Wednesday, 22nd May, 2019

Lovely days just keep coming. Blue skies, strong sunshine, 22C/70F temperature, lush, green, striped lawns and complete freedom to enjoy the day. This is how Retirement was meant to be. The only problem on the horizon – well, on the lawn, actually – is a family of blackbirds who have discovered an excellent site for meal time on the newly seeded patch at the back of my lawn. I have become a living scarecrow and I excel at the job!

The lawns are striped because I cut and fed them this morning in between political programmes. It is in Westminster that all the focus is trained on today. Will Theresa Dismay get the chop today or tomorrow. All credibility is gone. Her party want her to leave. This evening, as I write, her Leader of the House, Andrea Loathsome has resigned because she already feels tainted by her cabinet decisions and wants to stand for leader. She won’t get it but ego is everything. There will be more to go soon and the Prime Minister may not be far behind. Exciting times.

Whatever happens with Brexit and I still think Remain has a 50/50 chance of success – maybe better, politics will never be the same again. To someone like me who has lived and breathed politics for the past 50 years since the 1968 ‘Students Paris Revolution’, Harold Wilson’s White Heat of Technology and Tony Benn’s involvement particularly in the 1980s, this is the most glorious time to be living through and, particularly, in retirement.

Thursday, 23rd May, 2019

Gorgeous day for Ruth’s 72nd birthday. Let’s hope she enjoys it. She seems very content with her life. She deserves that because she has obviously worked hard at it.

The beauty of the day for me is VOTING. We went out shortly after 8.00 am to our local community centre/polling station. We were the only voters at that time.

We put our crosses for Remain parties and set off for the weekly shop. Asda and Tesco today.

In Tesco, the fishmonger had Ray Wings. Had Skate before but never Ray so we bought a couple. I think they cost £9.00/€10.20 for a Kilo of fish. Looking forward to cooking and eating that.

I don’t know if it is because we have not been travelling for a while and need a frisson of interest but we seem to be obsessed with the idea of buying a Canary island property. The idea of having somewhere warm and sunny to spend a good chunk of our Winter is currently quite appealing. Rather than pay out large rental fees, maybe it would make more sense to buy and sell at a future profit. We are looking for somewhere with good, local connections, a couple of bedrooms, a pool and sun terrace and somewhere that we can install broadband internet/wi-fi and Sky television reception. We don’t want to spend much more than £200,000.00 / €230,000.00. Currently, we are looking in southern Tenerife.

Friday, 24th May, 2019

The day has opened with joy – but enough about the resignation of the Prime Minister –  blue sky, sunshine and 23C/73F. We have had to make a trip about 10 mins away to the Honda dealership who are supplying our new car. Because delivery has been delayed (Because of Brexit, Honda has closed Swindon and moved production to Japan) until July, we will have to have our car serviced (free) and MOT’d. In the past 40 years, we have bought 30 new cars and only one has been kept long enough for an MOT. This is number 2. We’ve only done about 22,000 miles/35,400 kilometres so there will be no work on it. We won’t even need new tyres but we will have to hand our car over for a day and drive a courtesy car for a few hours.

We are looking in the Canaries for a winter holiday property because, we can be sure of good weather, can get reliable internet provision and British TV. I wouldn’t buy in Greece again. Greece is not somewhere to spend the winter months and is not politically & economically stable enough. It doesn’t provide Health services that people approaching their 70s require.

For months – maybe a couple of years – we have been told that Greek tourism is booming. So often, Greek government statistics are heavily revised and so these are being now. Interestingly, Kathimerini is running an article today that rather undermines the buoyant portrayals of arrivals at the airport. The large inflow of tourists from the Balkans and Eastern Europe in the last 15 years has led to a 30 percent decline in the per capita spending of holidaymakers in Greece over the last few years.

Last year the average per capital expenditure of visitors to Greece amounted to 519.6 euros: Compared to 2005, when average spending was 745.7 euros per trip, expenditure was down 226.1 euros or 30.3 percent.

This was happening before we left. Taverna owners were telling us that tourists were buying food in supermarkets and taking it back to their hotel rooms to prepare and eat. One-step-up-from-camping was depriving them of revenue. Certainly, the eastern Europeans do holidays on a shoestring which takes the Greek tourist industry back to the ‘hippy’ days of the 1970s and isn’t conducive to raising high profit margins.

Saturday, 25th May, 2019

The start of yet another Bank Holiday. I’m sick of them. Does nobody ever work these days? And, it’s a beautiful day of sunshine and 23C/73F. The world feels wonderful. The rest of Europe goes to the polls tomorrow so we have to wait for our results. Early indications are that heavily Remain areas have shown an increased turnout while Leave areas have seen depreciable falls in interest in the democratic process. So win-win all round.

We went out early to Sainsburys and the Garden Centres. I want Basil plants and Cherry Tomato plants for the patio collection. Actually, for the start of a Bank Holiday weekend, quality plants were a little thin on the ground. Hardly any Basil at all. We’ve decided to leave it a week.

Thought I’d clean the car for the last time. I got my pressure washer set up and did a couple of runs through with a dirt-buster lance and a shampoo spreader. As I went to change to a pressure-rinse lance, I couldn’t get it to fit. After 20 mins frustration, I had a strop and gave up. Having calmed down, I thought I would contact Karcher. After all, I’ve only had it 5 months and it has a 24 month warranty. Of course, the helpline unhelpfully told me that they would not be back until Tuesday.

Regular readers will already know that I am not practical. I find it difficult – and this is no exaggeration – to change many/most lightbulbs, particularly these new-fangled halogen ones. I was helped by ‘sealed’ plugs because I had real difficulty changing one of those and don’t get me started on drilling holes or cutting wood because it would quickly become a disaster area. Today was going to be different.

Like so many people who are incapable of DIY, I have a plethora of tools all neatly filed in a large tool box. All have been purchased at a time of stress in the belief that they will bless me with the skill to use them. They don’t. I can’t and they get stored in the toolbox until someone with a bit of skill needs to use one. Usually that person is Pauline. Today, she was cooking. I decided to take charge. I Googled my problem and a man showed me how to fix it on a YouTube video. I thought, I can do that. It had taken the man 3 minutes to remove the connector, refit it and snap everything together again. You will be impressed to learn that it only took me 30 mins with the help from a couple of tools from my box. As a result, I am thinking of going into business ….

Sunday, 12th May, 2019

Another gorgeous morning. They tell me it’s Sunday. I just get up, celebrate the fact that I’m still alive and get on with my orange juice. Really enjoying Sophie Ridge on Sunday on Sky TV. She seems to have arrived at a much better balance than the BBC and the Andrew Marr Show. Interesting to hear the inside story of Labour Party machinations. The Janus head is criticised roundly across twitter. We will not vote for their ‘soft Brexit’ choice. We will vote tactically for Lib. Dems.. I have been putting this out everywhere I can think of on Twatter and also on Faceache.

I am hearing that Corbyn’s stance is likely to be challenged by Tom Watson’s group if he tries to push through a deal with the Conservatives without a second referendum. There are over 100 Labour MPs supporting Tom Watson and his Future Britain Group which would make Corby’s position nigh on impossible.

On a more serious side, we are thinking of taking the new car, when we collect it in early July, out for a test drive along the French coast for a few days. We haven’t a clue where. The furthest we have driven down that coast was to Le Havre. We went in a February many years ago. I remember it was freezing and we sat outside a backstreet fish restaurant and ate the most wonderful, grilled seabass under the warmth of a patio heater. It is an experience that has stayed with me over the past 30 years.

We’ve always wanted to see Le Havre and Rouen so that would be an interesting drive. It would take a couple of hours down the A16 and the A28. A nice hotel for a couple of nights and then back to Calais for a night before increasing our wine stock and driving home.

The new car should arrive on July 2nd as long as the container ship from Japan gets a move on and Prime Minister Farage doesn’t declare war on the Orient before that.

Monday, 13th May, 2019

Sunshine all day and a temperature of 19C/66F. Sun, blue sky and bright light just makes the day feel ‘lighter’ for some reason. That’s one of the things I particularly enjoyed about living in Greece. Of course, there were grey, damp days but the sunshine was never far away. The island we lived on has been establishing an ‘event’ over the past 2 or 3 years which brings people to the economy in that flat time between Easter and Summer.

The Sifnos-Run was held yesterday and seemed to have plenty of entrants. Andrea, the Mayor, was competing again even at his age although he was a young boy when we first met him. We were pleased to see two, old friends popping up in the pictures after the finish.

We first met Margarita and her husband, Nikos in the Summer of 1984 – 35 years ago. We had started travelling to Greece 3 years earlier. Arriving on Sifnos seemed to be the answer that we were looking for. We certainly touched down there at least once every one of those 35 years. We watched little Nikos grow from birth to age 20. Here he is, having taken part in the run, being hugged by his Grandmother with a face showing pride and eternal sadness. We wish them both well.

We are getting on with our lives. There is so much more to see and do. Life on Sifnos was a little restrictive and isolating. We have done so much more and seen so much more by leaving. Today, we got up, opened the blinds to the blinding sun and considered what we would choose to do.  What more could anyone ask for? We chose to go to Asda to buy 3 x 60 ltr bags of ‘potting compost’ and then on to the garden centre, which is 5 mins. drive from the house, to buy some Geraniums.

We chose a premium cultivar Kalliope. Kalliope (Καλλιόπη) or ‘beautifully voiced’ was the lover of Ares, the god of war. She was renowned for her eternal beauty. Just what you want in a geranium! 

Tuesday, 14th May, 2019

I thought I would really miss Yorkshire when we left in 2009 having lived there for nearly 40 years but the feeling soon faded. Thought I would miss Sifnos when we left in 2014 after 30 years there but the feeling has soon faded. After just 3 years, I absolutely love it down here on the south coast.

Today, our village has been bathed in wall-to-wall sunshine and looked wonderful under the perfect blue sky. The flint & brick properties clad in Wisteria, currently stongly in racemes of flower, and the fading Lilac trees mingle with heady blossom of Photinia  and Laurus Nobilis. I cut the lawns, raked them out and cut them again. They are looking lush, shiny and green. By the time I went to the Health Club, the temperature had reached 22C/70F so the air-conditioning was working overtime.

The residents around here have their own Faceache page on which they ask each other for help and advice about various topics they largely share in common. As we are all new to our properties and new neighbours are coming on stream all the time, the in-comers’ pets take time to orient themselves to their new area. Cats, particularly, seem to disappear regularly as their ‘owners’ panic when they don’t come home. At this point, pictures and plaintive messages are put up on Faceache with requests for help.

Today, it was slightly different. A woman in a new property somewhere in the area posted a photograph of a swarm of honey bees that had entered her back garden and formed a nest suspended from her little daughter’s tricycle. She had contacted the local council offices only to be told that someone would visit in just over a week. A quick post on Faceache today immediately brought three offers of help from local beekeepers.

Wednesday, 15th May, 2019

Another lovely day for mid-May. Blue skies and sunshine with a top temperature of 22C/70F. While we were walking out in shorts and tee-shirts, swimming outside and using sun cream, may areas of the Mediterranean were experiencing ….. SNOW! This on Corsica this morning:

The world is really going mad.  As long as it is mad in our favour, I will welcome the changes.

Pauline & I taught in the Lancashire, Pennine town of Oldham for most of our 40 years. It was always an impoverished place and, particularly as the mills closed, alternative jobs were few and far between and an Asian community who had been lured to Oldham by the mill work were gradually left in difficulties as they lost employment. My school drew on a wide catchment area which included one which was listed in the government’s poverty report as THE poorest ward in England. Coldhurst ward has now been replaced as the poorest in England by Werneth also in Oldham and it’s been joined by a 3rd, Oldham ward of St. Mary’s.

The real irony is that Werneth was, during the Industrial Revolution, part of an affluent area of Oldham known as the ‘Grand West End’. In the 14th century, a manor house in Werneth was owned by a family called Oldham. Werneth is based on a coal field which was extensively mined from the early 19th century and, during the industrial revolution, the Platt Brothers were based in Werneth as they designed and built cotton-spinning machinery for the many mills in Oldham and south Lancashire. The tide of history moves in and then recedes. Werneth and Oldham have waited a long time for the waves of affluence to break once again on its streets.

Thursday, 16th May, 2019

A warm and sunny day that reached 21C/70F. Because of a real lack of rain down here, I spent a couple of hours watering the lawns and flower beds. We had gone out to do our weekly shop at Tesco early this morning. Shopping at that time is lovely and quiet and so much quicker.

Back home, the watering took care of itself. Over the years, I have had an assortment of very expensive sprinkler systems but today my apparatus cost £5.50/€6.30 from Argos. It works brilliantly. And while the sprinkler did its job, I spent an hour or so lobbying MPs on Brexit.

The internet and the social platforms – particularly Facebook and Twitter are such instant and democratising tools. As I drive down through the village at 10.00 am, having already skimmed The Times, The Telegraph, The Independent and The Guardian plus half a dozen News Blogs, I see elderly gentlemen returning from the local papershop with their folded copies of The Telegraph in one hand and their dog lead in the other. They are the final, analogue generation.

They received their political information strained through the muslin of formal media outlets – radio, television and newsprint. Apart from writing Letters to the Editor, their ability to influence political events was largely restricted to the ballot box. Now, we are energised and enfranchised by the internet. If a politician speaks on radio or television, I can reply immediately by email or Twitter.

Here, within 5 mins of receiving a Remain Labour email, I was able to respond by circulating my amended copy to every Leave MP in Labour. It basically pointed out that the Janus approach of the party was driving voters away. In the analogue age, any response from me would have taken so long, I wouldn’t have bothered. Now it is a joy. The interesting thing is that it works. Views do change with pressure from people like me.

Friday, 17th May, 2019

Out early on a grey and cool morning. After such a good run of weather, today seems depressingly dark. We were going to Worthing to pick up 3 pairs of shoes. Why we need 3 pairs of shoes, goodness only knows. I have more shoes than space to store them or time to wear them but Pauline is obsessed with buying shoes and when they are not for herself, they are for me. When I challenge her about it she just brushes it off with, Well, they’re cheap and will be useful in the long run. I know I go to the gym every day but I now have 3 pairs of trainers. I will be jogging until I’m 90 just to get full value.

While we were walking through the town, we went down Bank Passage and I noticed a Gentlemen’s Barber Shop. Look at the price of a haircut. I last had my hair cut by a barber in September, 1969 and it cost 10 shillings – £0.50/€0.58 – but £8.50/€9.71! People tell me that this is actually quite cheap but I would need first aid if I had to pay it. My wife is worth so much – as a barber.

Do you remember men’s barbers back in the 1960s? A seated row of men. A fraternity of conversation in a smoke-filled atmosphere with piles of hair clippings on the floor, wafts of clove-scented pomade in spray bottles on the shelves along with ‘Something for the weekend, Sir?’. Old Mr. Coates had the barber’s shop in my home village and the memories of it make me shudder. He was particularly good at ‘pudding basin’ cuts for boys. I’m going to block this memory out!

Saturday, 18th May, 2019

Slightly brighter and warmer today – 16C/61F – but not so exciting. A bit like the idea of Boris Johnson as prime minister! It must be the reason why I am cooking today – comfort food. I am cooking duck cassoulet. We are gradually reducing our stocks of French duck legs & breasts. Soon be time to return for new supplies.

When we do go back to France, it will be in the new car. I was preparing my finances this morning for that event. We have virtually never bought a car on borrowed money in the past 40 years – unless you include borrowed from ourselves. I remember friends in my youth buying cars on hire-purchase. By the time they had paid off the debt, they were going back for a newer car and another long term debt. Basically, a large chunk of their income was deducted immediately throughout their working lives just to drive a car. We always tried to get ahead of that and save throughout our ownership so that we could buy the next. That always put us in the driving seat, to coin a phrase. It certainly allowed us to drive a better bargain on a new car.

I was interested to see that our new model includes Honda E-Call & Emergency Stop Signal. That sounds impressive, I thought. Good for Honda! Then I read that this is a safety system required by EU Regulation. There is no mention of the requirement of our mobile phone having to be present so I’m not really sure of the connectivity here but the chart above describes its modus operandi.

There is an SOS button which one can press manually if the car hasn’t sent the signal automatically. What you can’t do is turn the signal off. Over all, however, I love these innovations. Anything which will make life safer automatically will be beneficial for me. My only question is: What happens if Brexit does go ahead? Will we lose European connectivity? Like most other things Brexit, nobody seems to know.