Sanders Blog

Sunday, 24th February, 2019

Late February going on early June. Blue sky. Strong sunshine. A temperature of 16C/61F. Optimism everywhere as mowers chug, edges are cut and soiled is turned over. We just couldn’t sit inside. We went to the beach around 10.00 am. Strangely, quite a few others had thought of doing exactly the same thing. Dogs were trotting, children scooting, Mums & dads were biking, Seniors were strolling, all basking in the rays of renewed Life.

We walked for about 30 mins towards Lancing and then turned heel and walked 30 mins back. By the time we were leaving the coastal promenade and walking back across town to Waitrose carpark where we had left our car, the number of people out enjoying the air was incredible. I still can’t put my finger on what the precise attraction is of sea and beach but it is surely elemental. Pauline becomes a different person as she walks there. It stirs childhood memories or female, tidal movements. Who knows. I don’t question but go with the flow.

Monday, 25th February, 2019

The last week of February, 2019 is starting just fine. Long may it continue. Greece, on the other hand, has again suffered bad weather and lack of island transport as boats are tied up because of strong winds.

This morning, I have revelled in the warm sunshine so much that I have cut the lawns for the first time in weeks. It felt good to be doing something so optimistic. Orthodox Easter is April 28th, a week after Catholic Easter this year so the Greeks have just 61 days to prepare. First, the weather must dry up, warm up and brighten up. Paving will need to be painted. Buildings will need to dry out with bedding put outside to air. Maybe whitewashing can start and be finished during May. Most important of all will be fattening the lambs for slaughter. We’ve hardly eaten lamb since we left. 

Today, Sifnos has experienced a high of 11C/52F. UK has experienced an all time high of 21C/69F which is a record for  highest temperature in February. Swimming outside today was like being in Tenerife or Sifnos in late June. Absolutely delightful! It can’t last, of course but we will enjoy it while it does.

Today is officially the hottest February day on record in Britain as the temperature reached 20.3C in Ceredigion, west Wales.  

Tuesday, 26th February, 2019

The days just get better and better so much so that one is in danger of being lulled in to a false sense of security. Yesterday I cut the lawns and today I am feeding them but it could just as easily change in a few days time and turn really cold. Certainly, the garden centre where I went to buy my lawn feed was optimistically pushing Springtime products but there were few customers. We were reading 13C/56F by 9.00 am and the sun is strong in the sky. It just puts a little extra lightness in one’s step.

Unfortunately, we heard this morning that the lightness had gone out of one of our acquaintance’s steps last night. The husband of one of my Assistants at school died last night. Harry Taylor was also a Woodwork teacher in school in the 1970s -’80s. His wife, Norma, was my Assistant for a while. Harry had a terrible accident which debilitated him and, eventually, caused his early retirement. Up a ladder at home, he slipped and fell from a height causing him a brain injury and a stroke. He was impaired on one side of his body and, although he tried to carry on teaching, it eventually proved too much and he retired early. Harry kept active and did small woodwork jobs for people.

When my Mum died, I inherited The Richard Chair which I have featured here before. It was made by my Grandfather at the end of the Nineteenth Century, I think as an apprentice piece. Each first male in the line has Richard in his name. My Grandfather was Richard Watthew Sanders. My Dad was Eric Richard Sanders and I am John Richard Sanders. My brother, Bob, has a son with Richard in his name and the chair will go to him.

I remember Dad sitting on this chair at the head of the dining table for the years of my childhood. My Dad died in 1965.  The chair stayed with my Mum until she was selling the family home and I took it over. It was a bit the worse for wear and I asked Harry Taylor to refurbish it. He did an excellent job and it will, hopefully, survive another century which is more than can be said for Harry.

Absolutely delightful in the outside pool this afternoon with a temperature of 18C/65F and people not swimming but sunbathing in the beautiful light. After 70 mins in the gym, of course, we did our 30 mins in the pool as usual.

Wednesday, 27th February, 2019

The penultimate day of February, 2019 has been absolutely glorious. Hot, sunny and gorgeous. For some weird reason, Pauline & I had the outdoor pool to ourselves. It felt like we were back in Tenerife. We are doing 100 mins exercise each day for at least 5 and usually 6 days per week. We manage 600 mins or 10 hrs per week now which is not bad as we hurtle towards 68 years old. Must keep it up.

I had an enjoyable morning before PMQs writing a piece for an old friend who I haven’t seen since June 1972. He asked me to record the books that have influenced my life and I have spent an hour or so trawling through my collection. I don’t normally indulge in such sentimental trivia but it is nice to reach out to a shadow of my past.

I have spent a life time trying to educate myself and these, two books illustrate two strands of that attempt. The Arts and Political Philosophy represent the twin enthusiasms that I’ve followed. Of course, they are not mutually exclusive and often the latter can be better understood through the study of the former. Having taken my B.A. and my M.A., I was asked if I wanted to commit another 2-4 years completing a Doctorate. I would have loved to have gone on to that but the thought of meeting so many demands was ultimately too daunting. I don’t regret it now. In fact, the Degrees I achieved mean little to me now but the ideas and the experiences will inform me until the end.

Thursday, 28th February, 2019

Interesting day of sunshine and showers and a few degrees cooler than of late. We have done our weekly shop by visiting Asda, Sainsburys and Tesco. Nice to see Asda‘s new petrol station is now open and offering Unleaded at 6p per litre cheaper than any other outlet. It will become our regular for fuel now.

I was at Ripon (CofE, All Women’s) Teacher Training College between 1969 – 72. I didn’t do any work. Literally didn’t do any work. The country was desperate for English teachers and I filled the bill. They begged me to take a job and I duly obliged. Although I did no work, I began to learn a little about the real world, the opposite sex, different social classes, different geographic locations, a little bit about the meaning of money and how to order my own life rather than have it ordered for me. I reacted rather like a newly released prisoner who has spent decades being told what to do every minute of the day, released in to freedom and stumbling through a newly discovered decision making process.  Intellectually, I started to grow up.

My English Lit. tutor was one David MacAndrew. He was a quietly spoken lover of and writer of poetry. Actually, his poetry was dreadful and pretentious but he introduced me to published poets and publishers of poetry who would influence me for years to come. In 1970, David introduced me to the work of a Cumbrian poet, Norman Nicholson and then introduced me to him in person. We did a joint poetry reading in Leeds Town Hall.

On the occasion of David’s death, I am reminded of a poem from Norman Nicholson’s collection:

Friday, 1st March, 2019

Happy new month although it feels as if we have left Spring weather behind with a temperature of just 9C/48F and grey skies.

Out early this morning because Pauline has a hair appointment in town. I have the luxury of an hour in a coffee shop with my iPad which feels wonderful. Doesn’t the weather change one’s perception of the world? The whole area felt slightly depressing and sub-optimal as the new, terminology would describe it. Everywhere feels damp and chillier and, consequently, down at heel.

We have done 400 minutes exercise at the gym/pool this week and are feeling fairly stiff. We took the decision to give ourselves a day off today. It feels absolutely  terrible but we have stuck to it and just done a bit of shopping instead. Hopefully, we will go back to work tomorrow.

Saturday, 2nd March, 2019

We get restless feet after a week or two at home. It’s been almost 3 months this time since we went away. We are going shopping in France next week and we have got a trip to Yorkshire to meet friends at the beginning of April to coincide with the 10 year anniversary of our retirement from work but, we are struggling to commit to the plans we have been talking about for this year’s foreign travel. You’ll probably know why and, if you don’t, The Times this morning would have reminded you….

Of course, it’s not just Easter for most of us. Will we have new driving (Green Card, etc), passporting (Ours have less than a year to run.), health & insurance problems (No reciprocal cover through EHIC)? Will we have exchange rate problems? The Greek watchers and government have sort to reassure travellers and expats but even they certainly can’t be sure of Healthcare provision for Greeks never mind travellers. They certainly can’t be sure of exchange rates going forward.

Our new car, which has almost a 20 week lead-in time is manufactured in Japan. What will trading arrangements be like if we actually leave the E.U. which has a trade agreement with Japan but we don’t? What will the exchange rate be nearer to delivery time? Fortunately, although we had to put down a deposit of £1000.00 / €1162.00, we have a withdrawal clause in the event of increased cost. Just a 10% increase of £4000.00 / €4648.00 is substantial and might make us think again.

Sunday, 17th February, 2019

Started this beautifully sunny and mild morning optimistically We’ve booked a trip to France in early March. Looks like we will have to be in London for the penultimate weekend of March and are planning a quick trip to Yorkshire in early April. If you keep moving, you know that you’re still alive and that’s the deal. On this day 10 years ago, I wrote: Early off because we have a very busy Half Term week ahead. Today I say, What is Half Term?

We are also setting in train plans to trade in our ‘old’ car in exchange for the latest, all-wheel-drive, petrol/electric hybrid, 2.0ltr model. We were told it would be in the showrooms by early February but only the smaller engine 1.5ltr  has arrived so far. Honda are trying to entice us with

What they don’t realise is that these things will make absolutely no difference to people like us. A good purchase price allied to a good trade-in price will be the substance of our decision. For many years we have received ‘free’ servicing with our cars as well as ‘free’ emergency cover with AA and European Green Card Insurance. We have never had an MOT on any car because we never keep them long enough. Who has to pay for interior mats these days?

Off to the Health club again. Hope everyone else is out enjoying the sunshine by the sea so we have the facilities to ourselves. Griddled tuna steaks for our meal when we get home. Who needs Half Term when you’ve got a lifetime of self-indulgence like this?

Monday, 18th February, 2019

Contacted our local Honda Dealer to ask when the CRV 2.0, Hybrid, All Wheel Drive, Automatic would be available to purchase. We were shocked to find that, although they had a lower level model available, the one we wanted would not be available until June. Just as we were absorbing that disappointment, the news began to break that what Brextremists had been dismissing as Project Fear had become Project Reality. Honda announced that it was closing its Swindon Factory where the CRV is manufactured and moving back to Japan after 35 years in UK.

Of course, Brextremist are already scrambling to deny its connection to Brexit but you only have to look at the facts. Margaret Thatcher enticed Honda to UK by promising them an easy gateway to the European market. In the past couple of months, the EU has signed a huge trading agreement with Japan which means they don’t need the UK as a gateway even if we Remain. Swindon voted Leave and now cannot feel aggrieved that they have shot themselves in the foot. We await Toyota in Derby next.

Tuesday, 19th February, 2019

Happy Birthday to my brother, Bob who catches me up today at the age of 67. Of course, I look a lot younger but he’s had a much harder life than me. He likes cold weather and snow. he likes walking in the Lake District. All of these things make one age prematurely. Let’s hope he has a few more years left in him. He really seems to be enjoying his retirement. It is certainly one scary thing to be hurtling towards announcing that we are 70.

I have searched for a new car on Carwow and already had one good offer from only 40 miles away in Bracknell. I’ve had my car priced up for trade-in at £20,200.00/€23,265.00 and the new one is offered at £37,100.00/€42,725.00. This is a fantastic deal so I will be following it up tomorrow.

Lovely time at the Health Club in spite of the fact that it is Half Term and there are a few kids let in during the afternoon. Just nice to get the exercise done in lovely weather.

Wednesday, 20th February, 2019

Gorgeous, warm and sunny day with lovely, blue sky. Before PMQs, I have had some ‘stuff to do’. We want to visit our friends in the North so I booked 3 nights at a hotel we have used for years – Holiday Inn, Brighouse. We used to be members of their Health Club for a number of years and we have made the hotel our base when we return to Yorkshire over the past decade. They have a couple of Suites and, because we don’t go more than a couple of times a year, we always book a suite. It has a large bedroom with TV, a lovely bathroom, a large lounge with TV and a dining area with drinks-making facilities. It gives a feeling of home-from-home.

Now, I forgot to mention that I’ve had a heavy, head cold for a few days. When I’m like this – which is very rare nowadays – I am absolutely dozy. I usually ask my wife to drive because it’s safer. Today, I was just printing out my confirmation of the hotel booking – 3 nights with breakfast for £491.00/€565.00 – when I realised that I had booked the wrong month. I am, fortunately, an IHG member and phoned the helpline who immediately rebooked the 3 nights for me and the bill was reduced to £390.00/€448.00. Good result. No idea why the previous week was so much more in demand.

Just as that process was finished, the postman pushed a small parcel envelope through the letterbox. A couple of days ago, as the cold was at its height, I ordered a new phone cover for Pauline. Today, it arrived and … it was the wrong one. We both have Huawei P2 Pro smartphones. I ordered a cover for its smaller, sister model. I have to re-order and let Pauline drive tomorrow.

Thursday, 21st February, 2019

After yesterday’s dozy debacles, they were compounded by a phone call from my bank’s Fraud Department doing a ‘routine check’ on our credit card purchases which I didn’t notice had come through as a text on my phone and resulted in our account being ‘temporarily frozen’. By the time I noticed and had it ‘unfrozen’, the IHG booking was showing ‘Payment Declined’. When I rang them, they said they knew me well and would take payment when I arrived at the hotel, thankfully. Just as a coda to these events,  this morning I ordered another ‘wrong’ replacement case before cancelling and reordering the right one. Pauline will still be driving today. I am trying to buy a new car today so let’s hope I choose the right one……

………… Well, I didn’t even get the chance to buy the wrong one. The supplier didn’t even bother to phone me back. I have a feeling that I’ll be having a sharp word tomorrow before visiting another dealer.

One thing I have found out is that the interior wood trim which they must think enhances the car but reminds me of the 1950s can be replaced by polished metallic finish at an additional cost of £375.00/€431.00. I think I’ll have to pay it.

Friday, 22nd February, 2019

This morning, we found that the new car is no longer made in UK but in Japan and we can’t have one until the end of July. We’ve ordered it. We’ve chosen to have the wood trim removed. We’ve ordered it from our local Honda dealer where we bought the last car because nobody has a new, hybrid model of the level we want. They will not be in the country at all until late July. The Dealer assessed our car and gave us a good trade-in price which takes in to account another 4 months of driving. We also have all the other ‘incentives’ I listed on Sunday including free servicing for the next 5 years which is useful to have banked.

It is a mild but quite foggy morning. Because we were early in our meeting at Honda, we went a little further into the Marina. It looked so different in this ghostly light.

The fishing boats were late in – perhaps because of the fog – and the fisherman’s shed  stood waiting for the catch to sell. It all looked a little depressing and uninviting as seaside resorts tend to in Winter. This afternoon, the fog lifted, the sun beamed out and the temperature rose markedly. We decided that we’d been to the gym a great deal in the past two weeks – only missing 2 days – so we decided to relax and plan some time away in the sunshine.

Saturday, 23rd February, 2019

Chalk & Cheese – yesterday and today. Yesterday, dark, damp and foggy. Today, bright, sunny, blue sky, Mediterranean. It really does feel like Spring is coming although it could be a false dawn. The grass is certainly growing. I will be cutting, feeding it and reseeding areas in the next few days. It’s not looking to bad but some spots are decidedly thin.

Having sold the car yesterday, I cleaned it today. Wrong way round, I know but it needed it and we won’t be exchanging it for another 4 months. Full valet including treating leather seats, steam cleaning carpets and pressure washing the outside with wax shampoo took two hours. Before that, I had unstacked the dishwasher and hoovered the house top to bottom. A ma’s work is never done. After it we did more than two hours at the Health Club by which time I was almost out on my feet.

Sunday, 10th February, 2019

Another grey and damp day and not desperately warm. Football, Rugby and newspapers indoors. I’ve never understood those who choose to jostle with crowds of other people to queue in inclement weather and pay through the nose for an unsatisfactory view of a match I can watch in close up and glorious technicolour in the comfort and seclusion of my own home. There are people people and there are the others. I am of the others.

Today, I am producing two digital birthday cards for the coming week. My favourite is for my brother-in-law, Kevan. I’ve managed to snatch a photo from Facebook and dress it up for the occasion. Hope he likes it. It is becoming a real dilemma these days – whether to use email as we do every day or to stay traditional and post a card. We debated it at Christmas but came to the conclusion that it looked too cheapskate to just use email and a number of our older friends don’t use it anyway. Only Ruth did it this year but you can see it coming.

Fantastic England rugby against France. It is only Half Time and England lead 30 – 8. Jonny May has a hat trick of tries that made the French look slow. I’ve now got a real dilemma – watch the second half of the rugby or the first half of Man.City v Chelsea. Problems, problems and Pauline is calling me to eat roast cod loin with garlic fan tail prawns and salad. Fortunately, she won’t mind me watching one of these while we eat but…which one?

Monday, 11th February, 2019

A beautiful day which starts off with attention to services – all three bins out for collection, Recycle, Garden Waste & Black Bag – over the space of about 3 hours. Next, haircut. It used to drive me mad when I was working but now, I love to get rid of all that curly excess. And it’s free! Finally, out to the garage to tidy up the ‘loft storage’.

Every time we buy something, I am restrained from my automatic instinct which is to tear open the packaging and start assembling/using the item without reading the instructions or consideration that it might not be suitable/workable. Pauline is my conscience and ‘control’ and I am advised to open the packaging carefully and then store it in case the item needs to be returned. Consequently, our garage loft space is absolutely full of empty, just-in-case, cardboard boxes which sit there for months and sometimes years.  

I have written before – maybe because of my rubbish clearance obsession – that West Sussex waste disposal services are fantastic. Our experience has got better the further south we have moved. Huddersfield was terrible although claimed to be wonderful. They had built a power generating unit in their waste disposal site but access for Council Tax payers was awkward and time consuming. At home, collections were every fortnight but now have moved to every three weeks. I actually bought a bin-rammer which helped me ram the waste more compactly into the bin so that it took up less space but made the bin so heavy that I could hardly wheel it out.

In Surrey, Council Tax payers were treated like the enemy as they were continually threatened over recycling their waste and collections were every fortnight. Here in West Sussex, our Black Bin is collected every week and our recycling and garden waste every fortnight. The household Waste Recycling Site is staffed by the most delightful people who actually help you empty your car and guide you to the correct dumping bins. Waste Paradise!

Tuesday, 12th February, 2019

As one gets older, the figures that have illuminated the tableau of one’s life begin to fall off the conveyor belt which is our time continuum. So it was with Kennedy, with Martin Luther King, and with Mandela on the World stage as with Harold Wilson, Barbara Castle, Tony Benn, Dennis Healey in the British sphere. The poets, Norman Nicholson, Ted Hughes and Philip Larking figured highly in the tapestry of my 1970s as politics and poetry were interwoven in my development and formed a significant backdrop to the events of my 20s.

Today, we hear that Gordon Banks, an iconic figure from my teens, has fallen off the conveyor belt of time. At the age of 15, on Saturday 30th July, 1966, I was standing on a platform in Derby railway station. It was hot and sunny and we were listening to The Shadows (I think it was Foot Tapper) and then on to the World Cup Final. The names from that day will ever decorate the memory in contemporaries’ minds. Gordon Banks will feature brightly in that scene.

The kitchen is smelling so Greek this morning. Pauline is making Ginger & Cinnamon biscuits. She has such skill that she knocks them up quicker than I could drive to Sainsburys to buy some and with so much better effect. Of course, I’m not allowed to eat them but I am permitted to sniff the air!

Wednesday, 13th February, 2019

Another beautiful morning. Not very warm yet but warm enough that the outdoor pool will not be visibly steaming in the sunshine. This week has seen that change. Birds are singing optimistically, crocuses and even some daffodils are flowering enthusiastically.  

Isn’t this so emblematic of life that, yesterday, I was writing about lost figures from the past and, today, we are looking forward to the Spring. Life is in constant flux but, as one gets older, longing for the next season incorporates a wish for bringing the inevitable closer. Officially, the start of Spring this year is Wednesday, March 20th – 5 weeks away. I, along with the birds and bulbs, will enjoy early Spring weather as I swim in the sunshine.

Meanwhile, Greece is still very much in the grip of Winter. Force 10 winds, snow, driving rain and ferries tied up are not so inviting are they? Many parts of central and northern Greece lie covered in a blanket of snow today as a new cold front holds the entire country in its frigid grasp. There are no ferry services to the Cyclades but, at least the beaches are not crowded.

I’ve been busily badgering BT (not easy for me to say) about my broadband speed. Two weeks ago, I had an engineer come to see me about my broadband speed which is 32 Mbps Download & 11 Mbps Upload. When I complained, they told me that I should be getting a minimum of 44Mbps and I had a personal conversation with my engineer’s Line (Get it?) Manager. He assured me he would work on it and I should contact me in a fortnight. Today I phoned him and he told me nothing had yet been done and I should phone him … in a fortnight. I will.

Thursday, 14th February, 2019

Thursday has opened cold but beautiful with clear, blue sky scored by airplane tracks and strong sunshine. It is shopping day. Central in our shopping nowadays is the excellent wet fish counter at Tesco. We have become friendly with the head fishman. He has certificates on the wall behind his display which is always attractive. Because we spend so much with him each week, he is very amenable to special requests. He supplies us with newly delivered, ‘joints of Tuna’ which we can cut into our own steaks. A joint provides about 6 huge steaks and will cost us about £34.00/€38.50 which is quite economical.

In the past week, Tesco announced that it was closing its fish counters at Tesco Extra stores – the largest stores where specialist counters ought to be a real attraction. It seemed madness. Tesco’s reasoning said that consumers are not shopping for ‘specialist’ delicatessen-type goods including wet fish and were rather favouring pre-prepared, pre-packaged items picked from shelves. We were disappointed at that news and resolved to write to Tesco management. This week, our fishman told us that they had been called in and reassured that their counter would remain. That’s one strong vote for Remain with one more still to go. We’ll get there!

Friday, 15th February, 2019

Another gorgeous day that has reached 14C/57F with clear, blue sky and strong sun. Similar weather is forecast for the next few days and we are beginning to think we will need sun-screen on for swimming and that is something we haven’t said since November when we were in Tenerife.

The waves of Brexit-crisis are crashing around our ears and we have reason to be unsettled but not half as much as all those ex-pat Brits living in other European countries.

I was surprised to find that Greece only has about 15,000 ex-pat Brits but I wasn’t surprised that Greece is one of the least prepared EU countries to offer advice to them. This comes from an English Language, Norwegian Newsletter:

GREECE

Greece has been quiet on whether it will create legislation to allow more than 15,000 Brits who live in the country to remain should the UK exit from the European Union (EU) political bloc on March 29th, 2019, without a deal with the EU. As at February 6th 2019, Greece has made no announcements on UK citizens rights after Brexit.

According to the Living in Crete website, the British Ambassador says: ” The UK has unilaterally committed to protect the rights of EU citizens in the UK in the event of a no deal scenario, and want to see our EU Member States do the same. My colleagues at the British Embassy in Athens and I have been in frequent contact with the Greek authorities, including at the highest levels in government, to share details of our offer and to press for reciprocity for UK nationals in Greece.”

The Local Europe AB

There are already many threats to UK travellers including

• immediate loss of Mobile Roaming
• immediate loss of EHIC reciprocal medical services
• immediate requirement to have European Driving Licence
• pre-booked ferries & flights threatened with removal or repricing

Saturday, 16th February, 2019

A grey start to the day and just 9C/48F but set to get a lot warmer before I make the (semi) naked trek out to the pool. We are certainly moving in to easier times. My job today is to prepare our meal for this afternoon so that it is ready when we get back from the Health Club at about 4.30 pm and starving.

My dish starts with two onions, four carrots, four sticks of celery and a bulb (yes, bulb) of garlic all roughly chopped and sweated off together. I am using one of the large, heavy, cast iron pans we bought almost 40 years ago – bright orange, Le Creuset ones. We don’t use them so much these days because they are so heavy but they are perfect for this dish. We have a large, heavy duty, cast iron trivet-topped, gas hob which can take such a heavy skillet and I sweat the vegetables off on there and throw in a packet of fresh sage roughly chopped. I also brown off two (French) duck legs and six pork sausages cut into pieces on this hob.

The meat and the vegetables are joined by haricot beans, chopped, plum tomatoes and a bottle of red wine and the whole thing goes into the oven to cook slowly for around 2.5 hours. Anything we don’t eat will form the basis for soup which we eat a bowl of each day before we go out to the gym. It is always home-made by Pauline. In fact, the one thing we will have eaten in the past couple of months that is not entirely home-made is the pork sausages in the cassoulet. We have and do make our own but not on this occasion and it does feel a little treacherously inconsistent but we all have to live a little bit dangerously.

While I was preparing the meal, Pauline was making another batch of ginger & cinnamon biscuits (She wasn’t totally happy about the last lot.) and making 4 loaves of wholemeal bread for herself.

Sunday, 3rd February, 2019

Beautiful morning with clear sky and strong sunshine. Started off cold at 1C but rapidly warmed up until we reached 8C at mid morning. I must admit, I much prefer the milder conditions that are forecast for the weeks ahead. My brother, Bob, who is weird, goes around celebrating snowfall. He actually volunteered and spent 3 years of his life in the Antarctic as part of the survey team on South Georgia. It takes a specially weird type of person to want to do that. However, he has become a really good photographer of landscapes.

It is the sort of thing I once had pretentions to do but, like so many things, I didn’t want it enough to put in the time. I think Bob gets up early and goes out on his own looking for places and scenes to photograph. It does need some dedication. I am dedicated to may things but photography has turned out not to be one of them.

Braised pheasant for our meal tonight. Now that’s something I could dedicate myself to although my enjoyment will be narrowed somewhat because of the alcohol ban. Pheasant and red wine are a match made in heaven but I am on a dry few months. I did the whole of January alcohol-free and then celebrated with a bottle of claret. I am now doing the whole of February alcohol free and then will take it month on month. I would like to get through to June with just 6 bottles of wine. I can do it but do I want to? We’ll see.

Monday, 4th February, 2019

Horrible cold, grey, wet morning. The bins have to go out – in this weather? My mind immediately turns to where we can go to find warmth and sunshine. We are stuck at 7C/45F. Tenerife is currently 22C/70F and sunny. That would do. If things don’t pick up soon, we will have to do something.

Greece’s National Meteo Service  has issued a Red Alert warning of extreme weather phenomena – heavy rainfalls, powerful storms, hail-falls and snow. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it? You wouldn’t go looking for warm sun there. Actually, British Holiday Companies are reporting strong bookings for Summer travel although with an increased bias away from Europe possibly because of Brexit uncertainty. Turkey is a big winner, apparently, although it won’t be with us.

When we go to the Health Club, we are always amused that people paying to exercise try to park as close to the front doors as they can possibly get even if it means cramming their car into an unacceptably small space. We always park as far away as we can across the huge carpark so we have a long walk in and back. We regretted it today as we scurried the 200ms in driving rain and cold, blustery winds. It was actually 9C/48F but the brisk breeze made it feel freezing especially as we were only wearing shorts and tee-shirts.

Tuesday, 5th February, 2019

I try to be honest in my Blog. If I cannot be blunt with my thoughts here, where can I be. I lay myself open to ridicule and humiliation. One of the ‘problems’ I have is being a slave to routine. It can have a positive spin because I am driven to complete tasks without questioning and to adopt life-enhancing activities even when I don’t feel like doing them. However, Pavlov’s dogs and I have quite a bit in common. I don’t know if it has got worse in older age or just that I have more time to observe, acknowledge and reflect on it but it touches all areas of my life. I have ordered routines when I get up in the morning. I have ordered routines before I go to bed at night. I have very ordered routines when I have a shower whether if I am in the gym or at home.

Aside from Daily ordered routines, I have monthly and yearly ones as well. On the first day of each month, I take and record certain statistics from the previous month – gas & electricity consumption for example. At the opening of the new month, the filter on the water purifier has to be changed – a spill over from our time in Greece. Also, at the opening of the new month I update my home web pages which are my default pages and links on all my browsers.

I won’t bore you any more by listing examples of my annual routines but they exist and bind me in. Of course, many would describe this as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder but I find that too medicalised and official. They’ll be describing my forgetfulness as Alzheimer’s next.

Wednesday, 6th February, 2019

Another grey day but incredibly warm – 11C/52F at 7.00am. We were out by 9.30am for a trip to Worthing on Sea on open market day. It wasn’t very inviting for shoppers who were greeted with grey sea skies shrouded in sea mist. It isn’t the most exciting light wherever you are but seaside towns seem particularly depressing and sad in this weather – perhaps because we associate them with holidays and sunshine. The streets, buildings, outdoor stalls all had a mantle of dampness. The seascape was heavily redacted by mist.

We had saved a number of tasks until we went to Worthing so did a brisk walk across town to visit M&S to spend a voucher Pauline had received for a Christmas present. Wilko‘s and Waitrose were also on the list and then a drive to B&Q. The whole trip had to be completed in time for PMQs with the Politics Live programme starting at 11.15 am.

Lovely to see the Brexiteers, who have spent years slagging the European Union off, screaming blue murder when the compliment is returned by Donald Tusk. The more the Brextremists are alienated, the less likely they will be prepared to accept May’s deal and the more they will demand No Deal. Political paralysis is what will lead to a second referendum on May’s deal or Remain which we are working towards. We need to be expanding the referendum electorate to include young people and expats who it will affect most. I really can’t understand how an ex-expat and lover of Greek Island life can favour UK’s severance from Europe and the loss of so many privileges/facilities that their expat friends rely on/enjoy. There must be a logic in it somewhere.

Thursday, 7th February, 2019

Out early on a wonderfully bright and sunny morning but one which felt much colder than its 10C/50F because of a strong and biting breeze. Shopping Day – when isn’t it? Asda for bananas because they are the best quality of all the supermarkets and then Tesco because of habit and they have a petrol station. The price of petrol today is 1.18.9p/€1.35 per litre but, because of our spend, we get a 5p/€0.57 off per litre voucher. Filling up only every fortnight, we’ve got six weeks of reduced bills to come. Generally, however, Asda petrol stations are the price leaders by some way and, after a long battle with local residents, Asda won their fight to add a petrol station to the carpark. We are absolutely delighted and found it developing well when we went shopping this morning.

Another thing which persuades us to do our main shop in Tesco is the savings vouchers we accrue each week. Today, our £100.00/€113.60 bill was reduced by £16.00/€18.20 as we cashed in last month’s vouchers – a saving not to be sneezed at.

We like to do all our shopping with a hand scanner. It is so much quicker and more controlled. When it comes to Checkout, I pay with my phone using Tesco Pay+ app which is so convenient and that is where the financial vouchers arrive as well so there is no paper involved at all. In Asda, we do the same but pay with Google Pay but that is limited to contactless limit of £30.00/€34.08 which makes it less useful. However, the ability to do the whole shop without human contact is delightful.

Friday, 8th February, 2019

Out early on a mild but grey morning. We were going to Rustington to collect my new glasses. It comes to something when that is the highlight of the day. Rustington is a town centre dominated by the older shopper.  Old people congregate in groups, standing around blocking pavements and shouting, What? at each other as they adjust their hearing aids.

Today I was collecting two pairs of long sight glasses and two pairs of reading glasses. Total price of £316.00/€361.00 feels reasonable and they will last me a couple of years at least. The previous two pairs will be stuck in a cupboard just in case – just in case what? I have no idea but it seems profligate to throw them away. The two pairs that I had been keeping ‘just in case’ can now be thrown away. The emotional attachment of four years ago has been weakened enough for that. The reading glasses are just replacement lenses because Specsavers no longer stock the ‘half-moon’ frames that I prefer. May have to keep these going for a few more years until they come back into fashion.

When we bought our new house in March 2016, we opted for a ‘upgrade’ kitchen mainly because we wanted a wine cooler and a swan-necked tap and a double oven. (Oh God!) As a result, we got things we didn’t really want which included one real shock when we moved in. The plinth at the base of the kitchen cupboards was illuminated a la Blackpool.

Today, one of those lights failed. One of the few things that aren’t covered by our 5-Year Warranty are light bulbs. We were going out near an electrical shop so I thought I would take this failed one with me to replace. Having checked behind the plinth, I looked this light (which came on a plugged lead) up on the internet.

This is it so I phoned the manufacturer but the company wouldn’t sell us any. The line has been discontinued although they have some still in stock. They sell to Trade only. Like so many new house developments, our kitchen was supplied by Symphony. We phoned them. They said they could sell us a pack of 4 for the amazing price of £126.00/€144.00. They are solid-state LEDs and really shouldn’t have failed at all but we had little option but to purchase them. It does go a bit against the grain though.

Saturday, 9th February, 2019

After 5 hard days of activity including 5 consecutive sessions at the Health Club, we have decided to stay at home for the weekend. Football matches, Rugby matches, newspapers and political programmes will dominate. The weather has actually been quite warm and pleasant. We griddled tuna steaks outside in the garden for our meal. As we went through our day, we carried sad and heavy memories of our past lives with us.

Today was the memorial service of our first headteacher who died at the end of December. John Gillespie was a interesting man. He had taught at Gordonstoun School and then, having married a young cellist from that school, he moved on to become Head of an International School in Nigeria. Tragedy befell them when his wife contracted polio swimming in infected water out there and they returned to England where John got a Headship in Oldham of all unlikely places.  

Not to be defeatist, he and his severely handicapped wife, threw themselves in to all the cultural activities which they so loved. John was an avid amateur actor. His brother was a professional actor. John became an important member of the Saddleworth Players and remained so for almost 50 years. With his wife, he also set up the Saddleworth Concert Society in which both of them performed. His wife, Ruth, died about 10 years ago. John Gillespie died last December aged 92. It seemed a long way to drive for a memorial service but we carried thoughts of him round in our head all day.

He finished teaching in 1984 and had a long and rich  retirement of 34 years. As we approach our first 10 year anniversary of laziness, another 24 would not go amiss. Just think of all the travel we can do in that time and all the new cars. Will we still use cars in 2043? Will we still be in the EU? Will global warming have brought the Mediterranean to us by then? It seems so long off but we know it really isn’t.

Sunday, 27th January, 2019

Lovely, sunny day and reasonably mild. Political programmes, Sunday papers, trip to the gym and home to slow-roast chicken with sage & onion stuffing. Lovely day in prospect. Especially lovely if you’ve got someone wonderful to share it with. We must remember those who don’t. 

Apart from all of this and while Pauline is steam cleaning the floors, I am continuing with my long term task of digitising the contents of all our old photo albums. It is an emotional journey for softies like me. I am half way through our first album after we got married and covers the years 1997 – 1981. So far, I have backed-up 26Mb of photographs to memory stick and the Cloud. Pauline is concerned that there won’t be enough room and I am having to reassure her that we could live to be 100 before we use up all our storage space.

I have long been a fan of Cloud storage because it fits with a travelling life style. I used to have a portable, back-up drive but found it a bit too cumbersome. To be able to pick up and work on files anywhere in the world is just right for me. I moved on to Microsoft‘s offering called OneDrive which gave me a terabyte or 1024 megabytes of storage for free. When Microsoft began charging ‘rental’ for MS Office, they reduced the ‘free’ storage to 50mb which is nowhere near enough and charge £60.00 per year for the 1tb. Fortunately, I pay for BT Broadband and get BT Sport and 1tb cloud storage ‘free’ plus free access to all the BT wi-fi hubs around Britain and that is what I now use.

Monday, 28th January, 2019

Glorious morning for putting the bins out at 7.00 am – blue sky, low sunshine, crisp. Could be an interesting week.

I am continuing my project of digitising our photographic record of the past 40 years. It is quite an emotional process which, last night, was interspersed with watching Call the Midwife which always makes me cry followed by Les Misérables which is just a laugh a minute. What is so scary is the difference and distance between 1979 and 2019. I am sitting in our Home Office with a framed certificate announcing that I was awarded my BA English 40 years ago in 1979 and my MA History 30 years ago in 1989. What seemed so important to me then really doesn’t now. I have subsumed that experience long ago.

It is hard to fully accept the passage of time. Actually, this digital project is quite helpful in that respect. Looking back through the tunnel of time, things have changed so much. I was born in 1951 and began Grammar School in 1962. By 1969, I was accompanying my girlfriend to the contraception clinic so she could get her free supply of pills. To see these developments depicted in Call the Midwife is rather like watching another world. It is a force of intellect and imagination to draw oneself to accept that it is my history. What it does underline is there was no Golden Age. There is nothing I would long to go back to. I feel so lucky to have survived it and I do not yearn to be young again. I love the age I am. I can be open, honest, blunt and unrepentant, scruffy, unshaven, unwashed, over fed and drunk. I can be whatever I want to be. I can even walk on walls.

Tuesday, 29th January, 2019

Had to be up early this morning and there was a slight hint of frost on the roofs. Crystal, clear morning with the sun rising in a cloudless sky. It is really noticeable that the sun is rising much earlier now and that gives us all hope.

Had to be up early because we have a telephone engineer coming between 8.00 am – 1.00 pm – an awkwardly wide time frame. The occasion of his visit is a response to my concern about my broadband speed. It shouldn’t worry me. Back at the opening of this century, I had just moved from dial-up to twin ISDN lines (a pre-cursor of Broadband) and I was receiving under 2 Mbps. Today, I am receiving 32 Mbps Download & 11 Mbps Upload. I really don’t notice any incapacity. However, I keep being bombarded by BT with invitations to take Ultra Fast Broadband with speeds of 100 Mbps. This is fibre to the house which we don’t have. Before we moved in and before the road surface was complete, I wrote to BT and asked them to contact David Wilson Homes in order to co-ordinate fibre-to-the-door broadband. Neither party did so. Two years later, most new homes are being offered that service.

In addition to that, our ‘Contention Rate’ (the sharing of broadband width in an area) is going up all the time as new builds come on stream and need broadband and the demands we are placing on our broadband is increasing exponentially with not just one PC per house but many and tablets, smartphones, smart televisions and the onset of the ‘internet of things’ meaning I can control so many actions in my house – lights, heating, blinds, fridge, even my toothbrush over the net. I have Superfast Fibre Broadband from BT. This is fibre to the street cabinet and then old copper from there to our house. According to BT, this service could yield 67 Mbps but, when I enquired, they said in our area, we should expect 44 Mbps.

Still falling 25% short of that, I complained and a ‘next day’ engineer was despatched. Wayne arrived at 8.05 am and checked my phone line and the street cabinet and pronounced it ‘full’. It needs extra fibre capacity installing, Wayne announced. He gave me his manager’s personal office number to phone to have further discussions. And that is what I will do.

Wednesday, 30th January, 2019

The penultimate day of January has been a gorgeous, Spring-like one with blue skies, strong sunshine and moderate temperatures. We had woken at 7.00 am to a light touch of frost on the roofs but it was gone within an hour and forgotten.

On social media, people from our old stomping ground, the North of England, were posting pictures of a very familiar scene. Winter on the Pennines means almost invariably snow at some time and so it was today. Manchester and Liverpool airports were closed, the M62 was hazardous and the exit road we would have taken to our school was almost impassable. Schools across Oldham were closed and work journeys made extremely hazardous.

We remember these conditions only too well although it is 10 years now since we had to experience them. We certainly don’t miss them. In fact, we have hardly seen a sight of snow since we left West Yorkshire and that is fine by us. Snow is not unknow here. About 10 years ago, apparently, they were snow-blocked for a while. However, temperatures are definitely moderated by proximity to the sea and we bask in the warmth of that. We have been warned that we might get a bit of snow tomorrow but we’ll believe it when we see it.

Today,  I went shopping in my shorts and tee shirt, the outdoor pool was popular at the Health Club and we came home to griddle tuna steaks in the garden. We wouldn’t have been doing any of that in Huddersfield.

Thursday, 31st January, 2019

Well, January is going out with a bit of frost this morning. We have done our weekly shop by visiting Sainsburys and Tesco. If you include a tank of petrol, our outlay is around £200.00. Tesco was absolutely packed. We couldn’t decide whether the old people were stocking up in the event of heavy snow or the crisis that could be Brexit. Lots of tinned food flying off the shelves.

It is cold but not Northern cold. We have reached 7C/45F this morning. I am in my shorts and the sea breeze is a little chilly but I’m tough. On this week 10 years ago, we had just completed our final ever Ofsted inspection and I was preparing to visit a cardiologist for a heart scan which ultimately revealed my atrial fibrillation. I was also posting a montage of my Mum who had died 9 months earlier and whose memory had been evoked by a play on television. Heavy snow was forecast for tomorrow as it is this year and our retirement was just a couple of months away although we didn’t really know it at the time. How much has happened since then January 2009.

Friday, 1st February, 2019

Just to emphasise that we have entered February, it decided to give us a dusting of snow overnight and the world came to an end. This morning the world was covered with, what Northerners would call a heavy frost but closed schools and offices down here. Bus time tables were cancelled and train timetables altered. Some commuters thought Friday was a good one to stay at home.

The man across the road asked me to collect any snow there was on my drive so his little girls could make a snowman. I suggested he took them to Yorkshire. On this day 10 years ago, heavy snow was falling in West Yorkshire and transport links were genuinely blocked or extremely hazardous. If UK ever Brexits, all of these weather conditions will be exported to Skiathos under a bi-lateral, free-trade agreement which will see hot sunshine proliferate in England from October – May. The Health Club was packed as so many had decided it was too difficult to get to work but they might just make it to the David Lloyd Club.

Saturday, 2nd February, 2019

A beautiful, bright, sunny morning. Still cold but all the signs of snow and frost have gone. Bring on the Spring! Actually, we are going to have a couple of days off from exercise. Pauline is re-waxing the dining table top (3 coats), making chicken stock in the garden, making a dozen salmon and cod fishcakes for the freezer, changing the bed, doing the washing and a bit of ironing, cooking whitebait with three salads for our meal, marinating a pheasant for tomorrow’s meal while I watch some sport and read the papers. It’s this division of labour that makes our marriage so stable.

Watched England destroy the Irish backstop in a thrilling rugby international. I also watched a couple of enjoyable Premier League matches and a bit of the test match from West Indies. When I got stiff from sitting in the Lounge watching sport, I ambled over to the Office and researched Dash-Cams for our new car which can’t be far away now. I know I’ve written about this before but it is becoming more imminent. For a year or two I’ve thought of getting a Dash-Cam but have been put off by the idea of trailing wires cluttering up my car. I spoke to Honda about it when I enquired about the new car and they assured me they would hard-wire one in so I wouldn’t have to worry.

I spent an hour or so researching models and reading reviews and, finally, decided that the Nextbase Duo HD Dash Cam (£150.00/€172.00) would provide all the facilities I would need without breaking the bank. It fits just below the rear view mirror and features two, HD cameras – one for forward recording and the second, zoom one, looking back through the rear screen. Both have night vision. Both record simultaneously. Recording begins with the engine on and ends with the engine off. Although the unit uses a micro SDHC memory card which can be read straight into a PC, there is an app to produce immediate download wirelessly to a smartphone.

To a tech junkie, gadget man like me, it all sounds like heaven. I am obviously going to satisfy an urge I’ve been mulling over for ages. I was watching a video review of this particular model. The presenter listed all its admirable facilities and tried to clinch the recommendation by listing the reasons why I might want one. He managed two. It’s useful in the event of an accident and it might save you some money on your insurance premium. Is that compelling enough? I am determined to buy Pauline the best Dash-Cam I can find.

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Sunday, 20th January, 2019

Up early on a gorgeous but quite chilly morning. 2C/36F outside at 7.00 am and it is still only 3C/37F in mid afternoon. Still, no frost and beautiful sun. Our back garden feels almost Mediterranean.

Currently, we are re-waxing the top of our dining table in the kitchen. Having stripped the old coating, and not applied the new, we needed a table cloth temporarily. Out of a drawer of table cloths we drew this hippy-chick cloth from the 1970s.

It was given to us 40 years ago as a wedding present by my hippy-chick, baby sister, Skinny Liz and I have always kept it. It was for another time when penniless, young newly weds could only afford half a table. I have requested a replacement cloth but not received it yet. 

In spite of the cold weather, I ventured out to clean the car ready for visiting Honda tomorrow to discuss changing it. Always beneficial to have a well valeted car valued rather than a filthy one. It is in excellent condition and only 2.5 years old. We’ve done just 20,000 ml/32,000 km and there is little sign of wear & tear. Webuyanycar value it at £20,000/€22,700.00  so I will want at least£21,500.00/€24,400.00 in part exchange. This will leave me finding about £17,000.00/€19,300.00 to replace with the new hybrid. We’ve always tried to pay cash rather than borrow. It sets us up with the discipline of saving for the next one by borrowing from ourselves.

Monday, 21st January, 2019

Chilly but bright and sunny start to the day. 1C/34F at 7.00 am which rocketed to 2C/36F by mid morning. Actually, we did reach a balmy 7C/45F by mid afternoon when we were returning from the Health Club.

Last Wednesday, two days after she spent the day in hospital. Pauline requested an appointment with her doctor to discuss the findings of the investigation and arrange some follow-up medication. This was January 16th. She was told that the first appointment would be February 25th – a wait of nearly 6 weeks. She could have seen a locum earlier but she wanted her regular GP to discuss serious and intimate circumstances. Today, she has been offered a telephone consultation next week as an alternative.

Today, Robert Peston tweeted this:

Just two minutes after my GP surgery opens, I am already caller number 28 in the queue to speak to a receptionist – who will tell me the next appointment will be a month away. The gateway to healthcare here is shut.

We are probably suffering because we have chosen to move to a swiftly expanding community which favours older people because of its climate but makes disproportionate demands on its Health Care services. This is why we major on exercise by regular trips to the Health Club. We are working in the belief that, if we keep moving, we can’t be caught by ill health. Probably nonsense but one has to try.

Tuesday, 22nd January, 2019

Cold, bright start with lots of lovely sunshine all morning. We began to see reports of snow fall in our old haunts around the Pennine ridge from West Yorkshire to Lancashire, from Huddersfield to Oldham. Ex-pupils of ours were posting experiences of their children getting to school and it brought memories flooding back. We don’t really remember many years in the 37 we worked in schools when we didn’t have winter disruption.

Within a week of this 10 years ago, we were closed for 4 days firstly because staff couldn’t get in and, subsequently, because the huge campus environs were incredibly dangerous and it took our 4 man site team all that time to clear the snow and ice. Today, if we had been driving home over the Pennines, we would have been confronted by these conditions – snow, fog and an accident that led police to close two lanes.

It just so happened that our school closure ten years ago coincided with my diagnosis of atrial fibrillation which has condemned me to taking daily doses of rat poison for the rest of my life. Over those ten years, I have tested my INR every fortnight by drawing blood from a finger. I have managed to keep my INR between the levels of INR =2.0 – 3.0 most of the time. Unfortunately, jabbing a needle into your finger every fortnight leaves the tips very sore and piano playing almost impossible. I couldn’t play one anyway.

Wednesday, 23rd January, 2019

Out early on a cool morning without any frost. We were going to Rustington for Pauline to spend an hour at a beauty parlour to have a face lift Facial. I went to have my biennial, ‘free’ eye test at Specsavers and to look for some new glasses. I turned up at Specsavers on ‘spec’ and got an immediate appointment. My test was said to be ‘perfect’ despite being blind in my left eye but it was ‘recommended’ that I buy new glasses. I have no idea why.

Actually, I had already decided that I wanted new glasses even though I have three pairs of Distance and three pairs of Reading glasses at the moment. They’ve taken quite a battering over the past two years and are chipped and misshapen. I like very light, delicate and inobtrusive face furniture. When one is as gorgeous as me, one doesn’t want anything to obstruct or detract from one’s gorgeousness. They seem to have gone down in price over the past two years and this price is for two pairs not one so only £84.40/€97.00 per pair.

I have worn glasses since the age of 7 and have been effectively blind in my left eye since soon after birth. My life has been littered with mistakes but my first one in my first days was to drop the use of my good eye and rely on the use of my short sighted one. For most adults, the muscles controlling the focal length slacken with age and worsen their sight. The change in my focal length has improved my sight. I have to wear glasses for driving but I wear them for very little else. Much of my reading is done with glasses but I can manage pretty well without them. I’m beginning to think it’s more habit than need most of the time.

Thursday, 24th January, 2019

Cold this morning at 0C/32F with a bit of frost at 7.00 am although it was soon dispelled by the time we drove out 2 hrs later and we reached the dizzying heights of 8C/46F by mid afternoon. A round trip of Asda, Sainsbury’s, the Post Office Main Depot to collect an undelivered parcel and then Tesco took just 2 hrs. Homemade Turkey soup and the Daily (Brexit) Politics / Politics Live.

As predicted, the David Lloyd Health Club has suddenly got busier. Start of the New Year with fitness resolutions allied to highly advertised short term memberships which can be cancelled after 3 months has brought about this sudden increase. Fortunately, as we know from experience, most resolutions don’t even last the 3 month trial and the newbies drop away quite quickly. This is why the 3 month trial is important. Many clubs expect a 12 month commitment which can be pricey if you stop going after a few weeks.

Pauline & I pay £1825.00/€2110.00 per annum for our joint membership. It might sound a lot but it is quite economical when you consider that we go 5-6 times per week for about 3hrs. Allowing for a couple of months abroad each year, we use the club for around 260 days per year. That is 520 person/days at a cost of just circa £3.50/€4.10 each per day. Our attendance has become part of our life routine as we intended it should. We always said we would use it as a replacement activity for work. I have to say, it’s much more enjoyable and rewarding.

Friday, 25th January, 2019

Friday already. I wish I was working then I could have really enjoyed it. As it is, we woke to a warmish but foggy morning. We think this is the first fog we have seen in three years here – if you don’t count Brexit and, unfortunately, I do.

Out to Rustington to visit Specsavers again. I have decided to pick two pairs of distance glasses and two pairs of reading glasses. Having researched on-line, I realise how cheap Specsavers are compared with the limited number of alternative choices. The sorts of frames I want are £390.00/€450.00 per pair at Boots and at least £200.00/€231.00 at VisionExpress. Today, I bought two pairs of long sight and two pairs of reading glasses for £316.00/€365.00 total. Even I can see the value in that.

It was 13C/56F as we drove to the gym this lunchtime. It felt like mid-Summer after the past few days. As we drove home, we went past a couple of BT Openreach vans. That is not unusual because, as new homes become available, so their phone/broadband needs to be connected to the street cabinet. However, Friday evening and BT Openreach are not good combinations. As soon as I got through my front door, I checked my hub and was relieved to find it working.

We ate roast salmon and salads. I wanted to show Pauline a video clip on Twitter and, as she watched it, it froze. My worst fears were confirmed as darkness closed in at 5.00 pm on a Friday evening, my broadband had been unplugged down the road. This has happened before and I spent an impossible weekend without it.

I shot out of the house and sprinted down to where I had seen the engineers. They were still there huddled around a hole in the pavement full of a bird’s nest of wires. They knew before I spoke why I was there. Often at the end of a long week and desperate to get home for a rest, they pull one plug to accommodate the new one knowing they can sort it after the weekend. I’ve learnt the hard way. They quickly re-plugged me in and I came home a happy boy.

Saturday, 26th January, 2019

Pleasant and mild start to the morning – 10C/50F at 7.00 am and the mornings are rapidly becoming lighter. Certainly no heating needed today. Still basking in the enjoyment of Man Utd’s win over Arsenal last night. Off to the gym ourselves this afternoon.

Early post through the door is not post at all but the latest and last copy of Yellow Pages being delivered. I looked it up and found that Yellow Pages originated in Wyoming in 1883 when a printer ran out of white paper and completed his print-run with what he had left which was yellow. The concept caught on and spread across the world. It took another 83 years to reach UK where it was first produced just down the road in Brighton in 1966. We haven’t won the World Cup since and now we won’t be seeing any more copies of the Yellow Pages.

It won’t worry me. They go straight from the Hall floor into the recycle bin. I haven’t felt the need for one for 20 years. BT sold the Yellow Pages for £2.1bn in 2001 which now looks pretty good business. As an early adopter of on-line searching, it quickly became obvious that this would be the way to go. I rather worry nowadays that I have usurped my need for memory by adopting a Google-brain but we can’t go backwards. The problem is that there are still the dinosaurs and the elderly who unable or unwilling to move on and become severely isolated from the society around them. I had the same problem in Education as we rapidly moved curricula on-line when we had a number of households who didn’t even have computers never mind access to the internet. Eventually, of course, everything catches up but I am naturally impatient.

Sunday, 13th January, 2019

A warmer but still sunless day today. We have been around 11C/52F all day. The additional warmth was just as well because we’ve had the patio doors open most of the day to stop us suffocating. We have been sanding the large, reclaimed wood table top prior to re-waxing. I bought a flat bed sander recently especially to do this job but I proved useless at doing it just as I am useless at every practical job known to woman.

I got the sander out of its case the other day to get to know it and how to fit the parts together.… but I couldn’t for the life of me find out how to put it back in its case afterwards. My wife stood over it for a couple of minutes, slotted everything back into its custom made case and snapped it closed. I just carried it to the garage.

Obviously politics and newspapers were my main feature today. We are all preparing for a big week of debate and cliff hanging. Certainly not going to book any trips or even flights until everything is clearer. Europe could be missing quite a few UK tourists if the uncertainty persists not to mention the agony of ex-pats over their legal status and healthcare arrangements and the effect of a plummeting pound on their pensions, etc..

This morning, I decided to get the job done. I got out the sander (but took photos on my phone so I could remember how it should go back) and fitted a sandpaper sleeve on it, switched on and panicked. I immediately saw me destroying the table. I did a little strip and seemed to get nowhere in making a difference. I tried a piece of sandpaper on a sanding block which had some effect but I looked at the size of the table and thought I couldn’t do all that. I called my wife. She picked up the sander and started. I watched for a couple of minutes and then wandered off to read the paper. Two hours later, Pauline had finished and was emptying the dust bag which was bulging. I cooked – our usual role reversal.

Monday, 14th January, 2019

After 8.00 am Dentist/Hygenist appointments, the morning has involved small, house jobs. A plumber called on ‘snagging’ duty and we turned our minds to finding a wood satin to finish off our reclaimed timber table top. We went through all the main retailers and found nothing appropriate. I spent some time on the web researching it and found the best solution on Ebay of all places.

We bought this table, which is made from reclaimed wood, in Manchester although it was imported from Lithuania. It is 2.2 metres x 1.2 metres and very heavy. It looks like Antique Pine is the colour we need to bring it back to original although Light Oak is another possibility. I’ve ordered a couple of Test Pots to try out before we buy enough to do the whole thing.

Tomorrow we face the next big test when I take Pauline to hospital for the third time in a week. We have to be there for 7.30 am so it will be an early start out at 6.30 am for Chichester. We don’t know what time the morning rush hour starts around here. We can’t afford to be late although her operation could be any time during the day.

Tuesday, 15th January, 2019

Up at 5.30 am on a fairly chilly morning. Out by 6.15 am and off to Chichester Hospital. It is a very pleasant place under other circumstances. At least driving in at 7.00 am is very good for parking. I am going, with Pauline, up to the ominously named Treatment Centre where we have to report to the Pagham Suite for 7.30 am. Pauline is nil by mouth since midnight and already thirsty. She is being operated on by a Consultant Surgeon who is renowned for packing lots of operations in to her 2 days per week at the hospital and for setting a patient order but changing it many times paper day as she sees fit. Initially, we have been led to believe that Pauline will be seen in the morning.

To say I am geographically challenged is a massive understatement. I could lose my way in a cul-de-sac. Hospital corridors are the height of nightmare to me. Pauline is far more concerned that I will get lost and never find her again than she is with her operation. This will be the fifth time I have walked from the carpark to Reception to the Treatment Centre to the Pagham Suite and, although I know all the names, I am no clearer how the places are linked than I was the first time. I take pictures on my phone as we walk to serve as aides memoire for my return.

Up at the Pagham Suite, we learn that Pauline is 5th of 8 and will probably be dealt with in mid-afternoon. Spirits fall a bit because she is not allowed even a sip of water. At around 9.00 am, Pauline meets the consultant who says that, having read all the notes and reviewed the scans, she doesn’t think she needs to operate at all. Spirits soar. The consultant says, however, she will need to undertake further investigation to be sure and that will mean a General Anaesthetic. Spirits sink a bit although it could be much worse. Pauline is put in hospital gown and slippers and I make a discrete retreat, following my original ball of string from the Pagham Suite to the Reception where there is a large Costa Coffee and a table for my iPad.

Today is a big day all round. The Politics is all. By 12.15 pm, I am fully ensconced in the Daily Politics programme on BBC2. All thoughts of PAULINE are gone. The excitement is almost unbearable. Who knows what will happen? I decide to write my Blog to fill in time. By 2.30 pm, I get a text to say she is in Recovery but has to give a urine sample before she can leave. I happen to be in the toilet at the time and text back offering to give one for her. She texts back to say she doesn’t think it is feasible. I go up to the Recovery area to wait for information and instructions.  

Pauline comes out, looking very white and shaky, at about 4.30 pm to tell me that nothing untoward has been found and she is completely healthy. We embrace. The relief is incredible. She then says, to cope with the invasive procedure she has undergone, she has been prescribed some medication which the hospital pharmacy is providing. It has been ordered from the ward but it will take 1 – 1.5 hrs to arrive because they are so stretched. At this stage, we have been there for over 9 hrs and are both rather tired. Eventually, Pauline tells them that she will cope tonight at home but return tomorrow to collect it. That is how we leave it.

Drive home on a crest of relief. Normally, we would open a bottle of champagne and toast the future. We are not drinking alcohol until July and Pauline can’t drink for 48 hrs anyway so a cup of tea is ordered. We settle down to watch the speeches prior to the Meaningful Vote in Parliament and the vote. The Government, in general and the Prime Minister, in particular, suffers a defeat by 230 vote – the most crushing defeat in modern, British history. The government is in total disarray. The opposition has put down a Vote of No Confidence which they will lose because the Tories know they will be slaughtered in an election so the next Referendum gets closer.

Wednesday, 16th January, 2019

Recuperation Day. Pauline is feeling sore, uncomfortable and still rather tired after her experiences of yesterday. She still looks very pale and drawn. It isn’t too surprising considering the effects of a general anaesthetic. We decided to stay at home. I didn’t go to the gym but followed politics instead.

I have continued my task of digitising our photograph library. It runs to many hundreds of fairly dreadful snaps which would mean little to anyone other than us. However, it is evoking many, sentimental memories because those times are gone and will never be reclaimed. I thought I would cheer Pauline up by showing her how slim and young she once was but she didn’t appear very enamoured. I don’t know why.

Thursday, 17th January, 2019

To distract from the flailing around of the political classes over a failed Brexit, right wing news organs are trailing an environmental/public health issue. The Planetary Health Diet is something they have dug up from a Swedish University research project. It suggests that humankind which, for as long as one can find in research, has lived on a meat and dairy products diet integrated with plant food, should become mainly vegan. Suddenly, the exhalations of animals is unacceptable and threatens our planet’s climate. I can barely contain my incredulity.

Climate change enthusiasts told us that we would have to stop driving, flying and conducting our life as we prefer. Energy generation was said to be to poisonous so we should find ways of depriving ourselves of that facility by grossly reducing our consumption. We should deprive ourselves of the facilities that modernity affords us. I always thought that this was putting the problem the wrong way around. If the combustion engine or the jet engine was the problem than science would have to react and come up with something else. If coal fired or gas fired  power stations are bad for our environment then science must offer something else not deprive humanity of energy.

And so it has been. Now renewable energy solutions abound. Although no one could sensibly argue mankind should go backward by rationing heat and light or road and air transport, scientist are well on the way to solving the problem. Wind and  solar generation are already making a considerable contribution. I would happily have bought a new house with its entire roof covering made out of solar panel/tiles. Why wouldn’t one vote for ‘free’ energy. In just the same way, the scientists must come up with solutions to the downsides of meat & dairy diets not the consumers.

As it happens, Pauline & I have made great strides towards such a diet anyway. We never and I mean never buy ready made food. Everything is cooked freshly by us. Our daily consumption consists of mainly fish and shell fish, some chicken and the occasional game – pheasant and rabbit. We eat at least 10 portions of fruit and vegetables per day and our shopping trolley is full right from the outset at the supermarket which starts with fruit and veg.. This hasn’t happened for any, principled reason other than we fell into the pattern and find it hard to break away. A couple of months ago, we had some red meat out of curiosity and both agreed we had moved on from that and wouldn’t return.

We feel incredibly lucky to afford our diet. Today, we bought two cod loins, 2kg of fantail prawns, four sea bass, two smoked salmon fillets and two packs of chicken fillets. These are incredibly healthy items but they are not cheap. We put in our trolley a cauliflower, a head of broccoli, a large bag of rocket, onions, celery, eight, large peppers, eight packs of cherry tomatoes, a pack of pears, four packs of black grapes, two packs of button mushrooms, a fennel and sixteen, large, sweet oranges. We will almost certainly shop again for veg before next Thursday.

This sort of diet would get formal approval but is just not available to the poor who find themselves falling back on cheap, salt-heavy and sugar-rich, ready-made meals, starchy fillers with little, quality protein. Then, we wonder why whole swathes of the population suffer more illness and die earlier than they should.

Friday, 18th January, 2019

A chilly morning at 3C/37F which eventually rocketed to 4C/39F although we had no frost at all. Off early to Worthing to take Pauline to have her hair cut. She is feeling much better and we are trying to boost her. She has done two, light gym routines in the past couple of days and we will book her in for a beauty treatment soon. I enjoyed a quiet hour in Starbucks with my iPad. The wi-fi provision is so much better nowadays. I was able to multi-task as if I was at home.

Pauline met me at the coffee shop by 10.00 am and the sun had started to shine across the sea. It felt so cold that even the dog walkers and joggers had stayed at home. There is something serenely beautiful about a deserted seashore. In the breeze, however, it felt so raw that I didn’t stick around long enough to explore that concept this morning.

Saturday, 19th January, 2019 

As the week closes on a grey, damp and rather depressing morning with the temperature hovering around 4C/39F, it is important to have optimistic things to hang on to. I’m at the point of ordering my new car and that is always enjoyable. Because the new car is a brand new model, I am doing some research about it. It comes in four model levels from the basic S to SE, SR & EX. We have driven EX models from the outset in about 1998. The new one will be about the 5th version and about our 13th new CRV. We have always driven Automatic Petrol models and this will be our first Hybrid.

The new hybrid uses petrol and electric intelligently. The battery isn’t a plug-in but is recharged by driving the petrol engine. It also draws charge from braking. The result is that the engine is said to be very quiet and starts off in electric mode. As speed builds up, the petrol engine kicks in and works in tandem with the electric drive which, eventually is dropped altogether as one hits cruising speeds. The result is greatly increased fuel economy. Currently, I only get 23 mph on short run driving and 32 mph on long drives. The hybrid tested by motoring journalists have obtained 53 mph particularly in short run driving because the electric drive is mainly used.

The new CRV features CVT or Continuous Variable Transmission which means there is no gear shift sound. Currently, my automatic tells me it is shifting up and down albeit quietly. The new car has no gear lever but just a row of buttons. That will take a little bit of getting used to. It can be driven in Economy, Electric Drive & Sport. Currently, I have Economy selected permanently and really see no difference in performance. The new CR-V seamlessly selects the appropriate drive mode.

Apparently, they are available for pre-order only at the moment so there is no rush. With such a new model, I am unlikely to be able to negotiate much of a discount even though the car market is very subdued at the moment.

Sunday, 6th January, 2019

Another grey morning although rather warmer with 4C/39F at 7.00 am and reaching 10C/50F by mid afternoon. Newspapers, political programmes and discussion this morning. Trip to the Health Club and pounding the jogger this afternoon. Home for roast salmon and salad.

Soon after we got married at the end of 1978, I became really interested in photography. I can hardly believe it now but we started with a Polaroid camera. Many of you will not even have heard of it but it was big, boxy, quite heavy thing that contained the film and developer for about 12 photographs which came out, nearly fully developed from the front. As it came out, one had to wave it around in the air for a few moments before the picture magically appeared before our eyes – often to great disappointment as we noticed the subject’s head was missing. However, they provided almost instant gratification.

Of course, serious students of photography, at the time, wouldn’t take polaroid seriously and, by 1981, Pauline had bought me a Single Lens Reflex camera which was much more respectable and open to manipulation. It was a Ricoh KR-10 and it felt, at the time, as if it cost an arm and a leg and extra lenses were enormously expensive but, if I was going to be a serious photography student, it was necessary kit. I remember that we would get up early and walk in the countryside around our area and particularly the woods in order to find interesting pictures.

Of course, unlike the Polaroid, the SLR had rolls of film that had to be developed. I took them to a local shop at first and then used a send away and return service. Whichever choice was expensive and long winded. I did B&W and colour photography. I even considered developing and printing my own. We had a dark room and all the equipment in school but I never got round to it. I have no practical abilities at all. Our bookshelves began to groan with hundreds of albums of small prints.

Eventually, of course, we all moved on to digital photography. School bought me a Digital SLR – a Canon EOS 30D – which cost £750.00 in 2003. I absolutely loved it. It coincided with my designing and building websites and with the building of our Greek house. It was invaluable as an illustrator of the former and a documenter of the latter. I manipulated my own pictures with Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Fireworks almost entirely in web quality.

At Pauline’s request, I’ve just started to digitise the Polaroids which go back to 1979. They have survived remarkably well although we wouldn’t claim they were ‘good’ photography. Polaroids always had a tear-off strip so you could write a record of the event. Always useful after 40 years.

Nowadays, of course, my smartphone has a two camera lenses which both provide double the megapixel quality of my old Canon DLSR standard lens. It is much easier, lighter, and convenient for someone who no longer pretends to be good at photography. You should see those photographs taken by my brother who is talented and really takes it seriously.

These are the photographs of Bob Sanders. I’ve stolen them without his permission but he is my little brother. Like so many of his, they really appeal to me. I could have done better, of course, but I haven’t got the time.

Monday, 7th January, 2019

Big day today. Taking Pauline to Hospital in Chichester for an investigation. Lovely drive down the 15 miles  then quite a problem finding a space in the carpark.  Lovely hospital which greeted us as if it were a shopping centre. Lovely people with excellent organisation and lightness of touch. We went up to a waiting area where only one other couple were sitting. We were there for a couple of hours and, unfortunately, it wasn’t successful. Pauline will have an operation next week but we have to go back again this week for pre-operation preparations. We are both very disappointed but resigned.

When we got home, I cooked roast duck breast with braised celery and garlic mushrooms. We also had our first taste of the salmon gravadlax that we have been curing for the past 48 hours. It is absolutely delicious and a real success.

Tuesday, 8th January, 2019

Today has opened slightly warmer and sunnier at 7.00 am. We learned today that this has been the greyest – or least sunny – January for over 90 years. Today, 6C/43F with largely blue sky and weak sunshine feels like mid-summer. This is in stark contrast to Athens which is blanketed in snow this morning. Bit of a shock if you’ve gone there for a short break.

We have a plumber coming round this afternoon so we won’t be able to go to the gym. Quick shopping trip out. Good to be out under brighter skies. We are so lucky to have found this lovely village to spend a few years in.

We ate some of our home-cured Gravadlax for lunch with tomatoes and celery. It has been cured for about 30 hours in the fridge and I have to say that it is absolutely delicious. I suspect it will become a regular in our diet and I may well move on now to smoking salmon out in the garden.

Wednesday, 9th January, 2019

Up early on a gorgeous morning of blue sky and sunshine. The window cleaners arrived at 8.00 am and relieved us of £18.00/€20.00 in a swap for some water on our windows. An hour or so later, we were driving the 15 miles/24km to St Richard’s Hospital in Chichester. It was a quiet and enjoyable drive through lovely countryside. It is our second visit this week. Today, it was a pre-operation meeting in which Pauline had to provide two samples of blood, fill out a sheaf of forms and was measured for her height, weight, BMI and blood pressure. We were there for almost two hours.

While waiting in the consultation area for Pauline, I watch BBC’s Daily Politics on my iPad. One of the fantastic things provided in hospitals now is strong wi-fi for all. I love it. If my router ever goes down, I’m going to break a leg. Anyway, we will be back on Tuesday for the operation and, hopefully, that will be an end to it.

After this, and having driven home, we couldn’t face going to the gym. Fortunately, exciting times were lighting up in the House of Commons and we sat, entranced, as the Government were writhing on the wrack of Brexit, flailing around, attacking the Speaker, attacking the Opposition, attacking members of their own party and, ultimately, losing another vote which will bind their hands and make their plans nigh impossible.

This tug of war played out across the Tory Party is just the latest edition of a perennial battle over Britain’s Trading relationship with Europe and the rest of the world. If you know your political history, you will remember that much of this was prefigured by the Balfour government a century ago and its policy of Imperial Preference. As a result, the Tory Party were decimated in 1906 General Election. Nothing good will come of it now either for the country or the Tory Party. On the day that the Brexit result was announced, I said that the Irish Border would be the defining element and so it has proved.

Thursday, 10th January, 2019

Almost three years since we moved in to our new house, we still have small, ‘snagging’ jobs cropping up. When we bought, we were given a 5 Year Warranty. Only 6 months later, the buyers of the house across the road from us were given just a 2 Year Warranty. For them, all snagging responsibilities are theirs. For us, all arising problems are swiftly and freely dealt with by our builders. How lucky was that? Today, two more small snags were sorted out and a building resettlement requiring replacement floor tiles in one of the bathrooms will be sorted out tomorrow. For this reason, however, we have been confined to the house with workmen coming in and out all day. It’s very tiring!

Because we were housebound, I was able to indulge myself in the excitement of parliamentary politics which formed the backdrop for everything I did today. I am enthralled by the fireworks of the current, political scene. How wonderful that we have a strong and experienced Speaker of the House who has the interests of backbenchers at the heart of his deliberations. While I was listening, I was reading, Tweeting, Face-aching and continuing my long term scanning of our considerable library of photographs going right back to our wedding in 1978.

I am up to 1979 and it was a time when we had nearly gutted our ‘coaching house’ home, put in a new damp course, new gutters, opened up the fireplace in the lounge and built a new one ourselves with local stone, laid Quarry tiles in the hallway and decorated throughout the ground floor. It was the sort of thing that newlyweds dream of although, at the age of 28, we were not spring chickens.

As I hurtle close to the great age of 68, like so many of us I begin to worry about failing powers. I have always had a horribly selective memory. I can remember all sorts of things that I consider important but not where I left my car. I can remember Kierkegaard’s theory of Existentialism but I can’t remember the name of this vegetable. I love it but I can’t remember its name however many times I’m told. Fortunately, I know that this is not a new thing for me. For all I know, it may be experienced by most people but I have always had an inexplicable word-blindness about certain words. I can never remember the name of Capers, for example. Oh, I just have.

I cooked this afternoon, roast chicken thighs on a bed of fennel slices accompanied by baby sprouts with lardons of pancetta. Could be a windy night!

Friday, 11th January, 2019

It was a windy night in Greece at the end of a unpleasant few days of weather. Snow, freezing rain and strong winds which led to school closures and ferry cancellations.

Here, a slightly warmer and brighter start at 9C/48F as we went outside at 7.00 am. We have a blind man visiting this morning. After being so pleased with Hive, on-line control of our lights and heating, we are going to install automatic blinds which can be controlled in the same way. We had looked at three or four different companies and had intended to make this the first of at least two estimates.  The consultation was thorough, useful and answered all our queries and, as we do so often in these situations, we signed up for the process there and then. Appeal will relieve us of around £1,300.00/€1,460.00 and deliver blinds made to measure in Bristol within about four weeks.

Saturday, 12th January, 2019

A grey and slightly damp start to the day. We really do need some sunshine. On this day ten years ago, I wrote in my Blog: It has been wet, windy and dark all day. I long for my house on Sifnos.

Do you ever think about dying. The common response to that question is recoil. What on earth is he talking about? The suggestion is, that even thinking about it, will hurry it along. The feeling that life is for the living and we should let death take care of itself. Enjoy yourself. It’s later than you think, as the song goes. That view is anathema to me.

I am a planner. I constantly want a handle on my life. It is mine, after all, although I accept that I have sub-let it to my wife. I love my life as well as my wife but things cannot be harmed through preparation. Readdressing these thoughts was provoked by a series of podcasts by Joan Bakewell – formerly known as The Thinking Man’s Crumpet – as she moves in to her mid-80s.

I don’t know if I mentioned this but, I do not believe in a god or an after life except in memory. For a long time, I thought I favoured burial because of its historicity. I like researching gravestones in graveyards and the people buried beneath. Cremation has always struck me as an obliteration of history akin to burning books. I quite liked the idea of someone in the distant future finding my headstone and wondering about my life. At the same time, I couldn’t really conceive of been sent off with the traditional funeral service with all that entails. I can’t imagine anyone would want to attend it and I wouldn’t want them to be inconvenienced by it.

At the same time, increasing age brings all those things that younger lives eschew – reviewing events from the past, researching origins, reconnecting with past relationships, considering the future and the concept of posterity creeps in there. If you don’t believe in life after death, the possibilities of posterity are limited. There is history, historical evidence and records but, for people like me with no offspring, there is little else. For that reason, some people discover the value of a belief in the eternal but an invented comfort blanket really doesn’t do it for me.

I found myself turning away from burials towards cremation purely to give my wife less hassle when she is grieving. I don’t want her to have to maintain a grave or even feel the need to visit it. Our local crematorium offers a pre-paid cremation plan which costs £5,000.00/€5,600.00 for the two of us how ever long we live and wherever we are when we die including abroad. I also think I could solve the ‘posterity’ requirement by having my ashes put in a hole over which a tree sapling would be planted.

Anonymity with continuity appeals to me. It will be just my luck to have some starving animal graze the life out of it before it gets going but it will all be part of the cycle of life. Philosophical to the end! Sorry if this is too depressing for your weekend but you will thank me for it ultimately if you have a plan in place.

Sunday, 30th December, 2018

40 years ago today, everything was ready apart from the weather and the council workers. For weeks, Pauline had been preparing and freezing food. Some had to be left until the day before. A groaning table of roast meat joints – ham, beef, pork, etc. Home made bread and relishes. Home made sweets – trifles, cakes, etc. It was going to be a ‘homemade’ wedding for a home-loving couple. The taxis were booked for the Registry Office and the Church was booked for the ‘Blessing’ which was only arranged to satisfy my Mother. We were being married at Huddersfield Registry Office. The ‘Blessing’ was at Meltham Mills Church in West Yorkshire, 100 yds up the road from where we lived. The reception was in our small, coaching house in Meltham Mills.

Our families were coming from across the Pennines from Lancashire and up from Derbyshire plus many from West Yorkshire. My Best Man, Kevin and his wife, Christine were coming from Leeds. As the day opened, we knew there could be a problem. Heavy snow had fallen over night. Not unusual in this Pennine region but it was combined with strike action by the road clearers in our area. Pauline’s Mum phoned and tearfully explained that they would try but they didn’t think they could get across the Pennines.

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Of course, everyone got there. The day was wonderful. I absolutely loved it. Pauline looked radiant and adorable and we collapsed at the end of the day, exhausted. I remember, I got up in the middle of my wedding night to finish the trifle which tells you all you need to know about me.

The ensuing years have been packed with incident including a life-changing car accident but we both look back across the time with enjoyment and a tinge of emotion. We are so grateful for the time we’ve had together and are both hungry for many more years to come. Next job is to plan out 2019!

Monday, 31st December, 2018

Although we don’t stand on ceremony or overdo the marking of anniversaries, yesterday did feel quite an emotionally charged event as we reviewed photographs of our Wedding Day 40 years into the distant past. I have no hesitation in saying that it was the best day of my life either before or after. It is one I hope I will never forget. I hadn’t realised but Pauline has been concerned about the degradation of our wedding photographs over this period of time. They were largely taken by my Brother-in-Law, Kevan, and very grateful we were too. Our wedding was done in a homely fashion and on a bit of a shoe string budget although it was no less magical for that. Yesterday I spent a few hours digitising the album and ‘recovering many from the ‘sepia fade’ of time. In doing so, it evoked so many memories.

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The improvement is quite shocking and so shocking that I’ve now been charged with doing the same to about 2000 other photographs accumulated over the past 40 years. It is another life sentence but one which I am happy to serve.

Our Anniversary meal was home made just as our Wedding meal was. We ate it alone and reminisced as we did. It was absolutely wonderful from the Starter of Scallops Meuniere to the Main Course Langoustines in Garlic Butter & Tomato & Broccoli Salads to the Sweet of Raspberry Pavlova. The meal was accompanied by what many would consider a wholly inappropriate wine – a Rioja Grand Reserva 2012 – but it was wonderful not least because it was a present from our dear, West Yorkshire friend, Margaret. Cheers everyone.

We are looking forward to 2019 and to another 40 years of marriage. If we make it, we will be 107 but why not? This afternoon, we are off to the Health Club for the start of the rest of our lives. In the meantime, I am continuing to firm up travel plans for the next 12 months. See you in the New Year.

Tuesday, 1st January, 2019

A cool, grey start to the day. We didn’t get to bed until 1.30 am after a bottle of champagne and nibbles. We were up late. It was nearly 8.00 am before we rose to the uninspiring sky. After orange juice, tea and coffee, we drove out to East Preston by the sea followed by Rustington and Broadmark Beach. The temperature had reached 11C/52F but the light had that grey, watery quality so reminiscent of this time of year.

The beach here is steeply sloping pebble/shell down to a sandy fringe. The light was struggling to break through the moody clouds. Except for a couple of dog walkers and their dogs, we had the place to ourselves. Even the seagulls had deserted the shoreline. It certainly wasn’t warm and we didn’t stay long but, as usual and under protest, I forced Pauline to pose for a photograph.

We drove home to have a cup of coffee and get on with the work of the new year. Pauline had ironing to do and I had football to watch. Of course, because I like to push myself, I did some newspaper reading at the same time.

Of course the new year has led to us making some resolutions. We are going to try a few months – maybe 4 or 5 – without alcohol and to reduce our calorie intake. We are going to increase our physical activity a bit to do about 100 mins per day for 6 days a week. We are going to complete a list of small ‘snags’ around the house which don’t warrant getting the builders back for. These are slight fill and paint touch-up where final resettlement has left a small gap, for example,  under the skirting board or at an internal door surround. We are going to do about 3 months travelling getting to Malta, France, Spain, Greece, Canaries plus West Yorkshire, London and Dorset. 

Wedesday, 2nd January, 2019

I have an addictive personality. I have written about this before. I can get addicted to anything. The trick is to avoid addiction to things which are bad for me and get hooked on things which are good for me. I got addicted to cigarettes in my youth and didn’t manage to shake it off until October 14th, 1985 at 9.00 pm. – some 15 years later. In the last ten years, I have become addicted to exercise – something I have rediscovered from my youth. In the past three or four years, I have broken my addiction for meat. My wife will tell you that, for most of our married life, I didn’t consider we had eaten a meal unless a roasted animal had featured at the centre of it. I also didn’t eat such a meal without a bottle of red wine to accompany it.

My addiction, actually, is not true ‘addiction’ in the substantive meaning of the word. Maybe, the smoking was but, otherwise, it is the ‘habit’ which catches me. I get ‘addicted’ to the processes in my life. It is what makes me such an annoyingly strange personality. You probably do some of this yourself. I bet you and your partner sleep on specific sides of the bed and have done the same throughout your married lives. I bet that seating arrangements at your family meal table are long adhered to. You sit in the same place day after day. I, however, take it to another level. At the Health Club, I like to use the same jogging machine (There are about 40.), the same cycle (There are about 60.) the same shower (There are about 20.), etc. I always put my swimming shorts through the ‘spinner’ to dry twice each lasting 10 seconds.  I know these ‘addiction’ are weird but fairly harmless. 

Of course, being addicted to red wine with my meal leads to charges of alcoholism. I am not blind to that and I have questioned myself. I don’t believe it is the ‘chemical’ of wine to which I am addicted but the expectation I have as I approach a meal. It is all in my head and not my belly. It is breaking the routine which I find hard. Cigarettes were my social prop as a young man and it was that I found hardest to kick. I don’t intend to give up alcohol but to assert my self discipline and not drink any for a few months. What I can’t give up is my addiction to fish in general and salmon in particular. I love roast salmon and eat it at least twice a week. I love smoked salmon and eat it regularly but is is so expensive for such a small amount that I resent buying it.

I am going to have another attempt to produce my own at home. I am going to start with Gravadlax which is not smoked but salt-cured salmon. We have tried it once before many years ago but didn’t really have time to take the process seriously enough. In retirement, we’ve time for anything and everything we like. Cured fish is probably healthier than smoked anyway but, if this fails, I will buy a home-smoking kit like the one above.

Thursday, 3rd January, 2019

A cold night but, living on the coastal fringe, we escaped any frost. It was only 2C/36F at 7.00 am and didn’t get above 9C/48F all day. We had a fairly standard day planned out with a trip to the Health Club later in the morning. However, events intervened. I won’t go into details at the moment but, suffice it to say, we had to cancel our trip and rearrange a host of future arrangements as well. Ultimately, we did one hell of a lot of shopping. Nothing new there.

We went out to M&S by Worthing Pier to collect some of Pauline’s order of clothes. The store was remarkably busy although I did notice that the longest queue was at the Returns desk. We went on to Tesco to do the weekly shop and then Screwfix to pick up a flatbed sander I had purchased. Don’t ask why but it will probably decorate the garage shelves for most of its life. I’ve bought it for one specific job so I went cheap. £55.00/€61.00 for the sander and sandpaper belts.

The dining area of our kitchen is south facing and can get very bright and hot. The leather dining chairs are in danger of premature fading. We have venetian blinds throughout the house but have decided to install added protection on these 7, floor to ceiling, glass panels. We have asked the blind man to call with a view to having electrically operated, automatic blinds which we can control over the internet via our smart phones and iPads. The motor will be programmable. Individual blinds can be opened/closed/partially/fully many times a day and the power will be supplemented by a small, solar panel. Don’t you just love gadgets?

Friday, 4th January, 2019

Went out early on a cold morning which started at 1C/34F but had doubled to 2C/36F by the time I arrived at the Municipal Waste Tip, in my shorts and tee-shirt, to drop off my old pressure washer. New Year and out with old; in with the new.

Actually, it’s a lovely, sunny morning. No gym again today because I am going for my annual eye test. It takes about two hours and involves two lots of very strong drops which means Pauline has to drive. The clinic is down near Littlehampton Beach and, after a couple of hours of strong eyedrops to expand my pupils for the camera, this is what the beach looks like:

The light is intensely painful on my eyeballs and I have to be led by the hand to the car. The most annoying thing is that I can’t read or write for another hour or so but it is all necessary. I only have the sight of one eye and have had since birth so I need to be extremely careful of the other one. Although I no longer need medication for Type 2, I am still considered that by the NHS and provided with all the services to keep me in check. I am extremely grateful for all of them.

Saturday, 5th January, 2019

Another chilly day but without frost or snow unlike Greece where snow has fallen today. Haircut day for me – in the kitchen. Feels great when it’s done. I love post and as soon as it comes through the box, I run to get it. Pauline allows me to open all post addressed to her as well as my own. Today, we received a Christmas card featuring heavy snow – the first we’ve seen for a few years. It was from cousin, Sue, in the Dordogne although she drove to the Algarve for New Year and looks very happy there.

I bought our current car by using CARWOW – an online, new car broker. It just rebalances the power structure between Dealer and customer. So often, over the years, we have gone to buy a new car and felt almost like supplicant wanting a high trade in price to match low, new car price. For many years, we traded in and bought new every year. We used the same, Honda dealer who had also serviced the car and the price difference between old and new was marginal. I became addicted to the smell and feel of new cars. 

Since retiring, we have kept the car longer although we’ve never had to have an MOT. The current car is 2.5 years old and has done just under 20,000 miles/32,000 kms. There is a new, hybrid model coming out and, today, I received an email to inform me that it had arrived. On CARWOW, I have already received 2 offers from dealerships which would save me £2000.00/€2233.00 or 5% on RRP. I think I can do better than that because we know that the market is currently quite depressed. That is the power of this method of purchasing. I just have to play a waiting game for better offers to roll in. I can decide how long I’m prepared to wait. (Not long!)

Sunday, 23rd December, 2018

A very wet and grey morning. All my political programmes have finished for the festive period – just one of the reasons why I hate Christmas. There are many others. However, one benefit is hearing from people from my past who get in touch at this time. So many lives that touch in crossing and move on. Yesterday, I also heard from my fairly reclusive brother, Mike, for the first time for a couple of years. That was nice.

Pauline is preparing things for the ‘family’ Christmas meal. I’m contemplating my navel (when I can find it) and wondering why the hair on my chest, etc., is going snowy white but the hair on my head is not. I’ve always had a strange body but that is unfathomable. Perhaps I’ll have to look around the changing rooms at the Health Club this afternoon to see if I am ‘normal’. I won’t hold my breath. I’m a bit shocked to find that the Health Club will be closed on Christmas Day. They’re giving the staff a day off! What am I paying my fee for? What is the world coming to?

As we left the Health Club this afternoon, the temperature had reached 13C/56F although still fairly grey. We felt good after our 6th day of exercise out of the past 7 and drove home to a meal of smoked salmon and prawns with salad. It was wonderful and I ate too much. Have to work harder at the Health Club tomorrow.

Monday, 24th December, 2018

Time is a strange thing and it plays havoc with the human mind. On Saturday, a tsunami engendered by the eruption of volcano Krakatoa hit the Indonesian islands of Java & Sumatra. People around who heard the news, remarked that it was even more shocking happening in Christmas week. Although I don’t really think that, I understand the sentiment. It really can’t make drowning in a tsunami any worse if it coincides with others, elsewhere, celebrating. However, media reports included a reminder of a previous tsunami which devastated Sumatra at just this time of year. What was really shocking for me was that it occurred 14 years ago. I remember it well.

Setting aside both of those tragic events for one moment, let’s concentrate on me! 14 years ago, I was only 53! As far as I knew at the time, I had another 7 years to go until retirement. Our Greek home was not quite completed. I would not be diagnosed as Type 2 Diabetic nor suffering from Atrial Fibrillation for another 5 years. Our Mums were still alive. We would move house 3 times. I would lose 10st. in weight and start to get fit again. We would buy 5 new cars, visit 7 different countries and I would start this Blog.

14 years ago! I can see it like it was yesterday. I remember sitting in Pauline’s family’s lounge trying to avoid the jollity of Christmas, reading a book about political philosophy on my iPad and glancing at a television report about the devastating effects of the tsunami. People affected were starving and homeless at just the time we were filling our faces with food and drink.

How can so much happen in 14 years? What it does teach one is the difficulty of projecting forward 14 years and predicting what will have happened. The one thing we can be certain of is that we will both be 81 if we survive. Now that is seriously scary. And just think of 14 more Christmases to get through!

Tuesday, 25th December, 2018

I was brought up in a Roman Catholic household. I objected, made it clear that I didn’t believe but it was insisted that, unless I complied and genuflected, there was no future for me. I hated it but acquiesced. From the day I left home in October 1969, I rejected the nonsense of organised religion and became a fierce opponent of it. Long before I left home, I was convinced that the Roman Catholic Church was a weird and sinister organisation but it wasn’t until later in life that the edifice truly become crumbling down. The scandal of Paedophile priests and the Magdelane Laundries are just the tip of a shady and selfish organisation more caring for its self than its followers.

My Mother fervently believed that it was her, God-given mission to bring up her children as practising Catholics. She even enlisted nuns to cajole my brother and I to attend a Seminary in an attempt to encourage us to train as priests. All 7 of her children rejected this and it was predictable. Nobody with a brain gets bullied in to believing anything. In fact, if you are pushed one way, the natural reaction is to go the opposite. And so it was.

How much of my early life was wasted in the meaningless symbolism of a failed belief system? The Sunday morning masses? The nightly prayers? The barmy rituals of Fish on Fridays, Fasting for Lent, daubing burnt palm leaves on the forehead for Ash Wednesday, manufactured sins to be ‘confessed’ on Sunday, etc.. Remembering makes me shudder and that is not how one should recall one’s childhood. I remember reading James Joyce’s A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man in my teen years and being hit between the eyes with such an epiphany of understanding. I was not alone! Stephen Daedalus, aka young James Joyce, was rejecting the Catholicism of his Mother and his Country. He was rejecting the narrow and cramping beliefs of Southern Ireland. On his Mother’s deathbed, she begs him to reaffirm her beliefs and he repeats the refrain of Lucifer, Non Serviam. I swore there and then to make those my watchwords.

Christmas was a ritual in itself. An Advent calendar and the setting out of the Crib were pre-requisites. The crib, which Mum had brought from her own childhood, was laid out in the Lounge or ‘Front Room’ as it was known. The Front Room was somewhere that children were not allowed apart from highly controlled, special occasions. Otherwise, it was Mum & Dad’s private space. They had their own ‘Parker-Knoll’ arm chairs, a polished beech wood radiogram sitting on a polished walnut, splay-legged ‘occasional’ table and an inglenook fireplace now housing the latest, coke-fired stove. Bookshelves with copies of Art History books, religious-based fiction and reference books stood against the wall. Christmas Eve was always marked with the festival of Carols from Kings College, Cambridge and Christmas morning began with an early walk up to Mass before walking home for breakfast and presents.

My sister, Skinny Liz, tweeted today a picture of the crib that had come from Mum’s childhood to our childhood in our family home. Obviously, Liz had snatched it like some ‘ruin-bibber’ (Philip Larkin’s description) of her past. It works. I was quite shocked how much those paltry, plaster figures evoked emotion in me. I found myself weeping for a lost time I once longed to leave and now can never retrieve. At least Catholicism, organised religion in general, is all but beaten in the developed world. I will not live to see its total abolition but feel confident of its complete eradication – like polio and malaria ultimately.

Wednesday, 26th December, 2018

Our 67th Christmas has passed. Actually, we quite enjoyed yesterday. We were up at 6.00am, tea and juice and then packing the car with food for 9 people. Drove to Surrey taking about one hour on surprisingly busy roads for 7.00 on Christmas morning. Pleasant, warm day. Well, actually, we left Sussex in 8C/46F and drove to 0C/32F in Surrey. Pauline & I quickly began to prepare the turkey and the day began.

We all exchanged presents. The children are children no more. They are young men and have all grown bigger than me. I used to beat them all up. Now they all bully me. I still try but come off worse. They went out to play tennis at the Nuffield Health Club while we completed the cooking. At 3.00 pm, we sat down to a meal of:

Starter – Anti Pasti

Prosciutto, Bresaola, Parma Ham, Pancetta, Mortadella, Salami, Smoked Salmon, Olives, Artichokes, Baby Peppers stuffed with Mozzarella, Cherry Tomatoes stuffed with Humous. All accompanied by Rocket Salad and home made Chive and Parmesan bread. Might have slightly overdone it because everyone needed quite a rest before the main course.

Main Course

Turkey with Sage & Onion Stuffing plus Sausage Forcemeat Stuffing. This was accompanied by King Edward Potatoes roasted in Goose Fat, Roasted Carrots , French Beans with Garlic, Baby Sprouts with Bacon & Chestnuts plus Gravy and Cranberry Sauce.

Sweet

Pauline’s Christmas Pudding with Double Cream Custard  and/or Lemon Meringue Pie plus whipped cream.

Anyone who was hungry after that must have hollow legs. Even though I didn’t feel that I ate so much, I felt ‘stuffed’ for the rest of the day. By 7.30 pm, we were just leaving the Dining table and thinking about packing up the car. The drive back was reasonably quiet and we were home for 9.00 pm. We live in quiet, anti-social isolation and spending a day with other ‘people’ is extremely tiring. We had an early night. Only 12 months until our 68th Christmas.

This morning, we didn’t get up until 8.00 am. We spent the morning festively re-organising the garage and then went to the Health Club to work yesterday off. Our meal today was leftovers from yesterday’s starter. Never let me look at food again!

Thursday, 27th December, 2018

Supermarkets after Christmas are great places for bargains. Today in Tesco we bought two, huge salmons for £13.00/€14.50 each. I bought two, large packs of smoked salmon for reduced price. I then went to collect another Christmas present – a pressure washer from Halfords. What more could a man want?

I’ve had umpteen pressure washers over my adult life and I always mistreat them and find myself replacing them fairly quickly. The most recent one was bought 3 years ago as we moved in here but the pressure hose has almost burst and needs replacing. Halfords have a reasonable one for £160.00/€180.00 so I bought it. Now, of course, I’ve got to clean the car. I wonder how many times I could have had it cleaned by somebody else and still have saved money. Still, the exercise does me good.

The Health Club was quite busy today as people worked off their Christmas food. As regulars, we soon get to know regulars. Today, there weren’t many people we recognised. The turn of the year is always the time when reluctants come out on a mission. It doesn’t last long for many. We look forward to them all going back to work and education and leaving the facilities to the old wrinklies.

Friday, 28th December, 2018

Well, I opened the box of my new, Karcher pressure washer this morning. Taking 25 pieces of plastic and metal out of the plastic wrapping, I thought I had better read the instruction booklet. I couldn’t. There were some incredibly badly drawn diagrams and some unintelligible text in Arabic.

Three cups of coffee later, my wife had constructed it. I, proudly, took it out to the garage. Exhausted, I decided to try it out tomorrow. Today, I went on line, with my fourth cup of coffee at my side, to register my new product with Karcher and to set up the 3yr warranty.

That done, I set the pressure cooker up in the garden to produce stock from the turkey carcass and to drive the local cats mad. It will all be done by the time we go to the Health Club.

The gym was full of people working Christmas off. Adverts suggest new members might like a cheap. three month starter membership to attack their resolutions. The club, of course, hopes they will stay and pay their £1200.00/€1335.00 per year on an annual basis. In our experience, it increases every January without fail. Once you’re hooked, you swallow the increase and move forward. For many, however, the first throes of ambition fade and April sees a quieter period. Our membership is off-peak because we don’t need the busy time of post-work. Even so, it still costs us £2000.00/€2230.00 per year for a couple.

Friday, 28th December, 2018

A grey and uninviting morning. Having done 10 of the past 14 days at the Health Club, we decided to take the weekend off. We have a special celebration on Sunday which we will mark by going for a walk by the seaside early in the morning. Today, I celebrated early by valeting the car including using my new pressure washer. What fun!

Pauline had the pressure cooker up in the garden to produce more stock from the turkey carcass. It’s getting to the point where we haven’t enough storage space in our freezers for all this stuff. This evening, I watched Liverpool thrash Arsenal and boost their hopes of winning the Championship for the first time in 27 years. That would be good to see.

This time, 40 years ago at 11.30 pm., I was polishing Pauline’s tan boots ready for her big day tomorrow. ….