Sanders Blog

Sunday, 20th April, 2025

I suppose I have to wish you all Happy Easter although I don’t really know why other than convention dictates. Like Christmas and other religious festivals, it is reduced to consumerist activities.

Chocolate is the function of Easter and barbecues. Neither look likely for me today. I am not allowed chocolate and I’m not that keen on it anyway. The morning has started off with light rain and, although it will improve during the day, it is not looking like barbecue weather. We have always made it the one time of the year when we ate Roast Lamb but not today. It will be salmon instead.

Of course, we spent so many Easters in Greece – every single one from 1998 / 2014 – where Πάσχα (Pascha) is bigger than Christmas and spit-roast lamb was obligatory. It dominates cultural life across the country, the media and on the island where people come together. I don’t know how many actually believe but the tradition is very strong and bonds people in a common cause.

A lot of it is bound up in food. Meat-free Lent is still observed by many. On Sifnos, the Revithia Soupa or Chickpea Soup which is served every Sunday symbolises this abstinence. Easter week sees endless carcasses of slaughtered local sheep in white shroud bags being delivered to every household in time for the spit roast outside in the inevitable sunshine. Looking at it now, it turns my stomach. Fatty, oily meat served with chips. No! No! No!

Monday, 21st April, 2025

A cool, grey morning. Bank Holiday – I can’t be doing with them! I sometimes think I’m odd. (Don’t answer that!) When I’m in a calm and successful routine, I have to check whether a shop is open and what time. I have to wade through throngs at the beach – although not this morning.

I actually wanted to go to a Bank branch for the first time in months and they are all closed. Why aren’t people out working? Actually, I don’t really go in for celebrating events – birthdays, national days, etc.. I prefer the routines of daily life partly because I don’t go to work and need a rest or a change. Some people around me really throw themselves into these national holidays and I find myself questioning my rationale.

And then I realise that I am not alone. This morning, I stand side by side with …. Boris Johnson’s sister, of all people. Rachael Johnson’s old article in The Telegraph echoes my preference for routine. People have told me in the past that I should mark every significant land mark because it graduates the timeline but I think I do that every day in different ways.

I mark time in my own way. Just 15 years ago this week, having driven from Huddersfield via Hull-Zeebrugge to Ancona-Patras and Piraeus-Sifnos, we were unpacking the car of all sorts of stuff we needed for 6 months away including a flat screen television, a large supply of French and Italian wine picked up en route and a glass fruit bowl our dear friend Viv had given us for Christmas. In it we put lemons we had picked from our trees.

As soon as Easter celebrations were over, we settled into the familiar way of life which involved all the normal things of living anywhere but with a Mediterranean twist. Trips to the Bank of Greece are made all the more homely by knowing everyone who works there next to the pottery shop whose pots adorn the outside of the bank. Buying and cooking Octopus (Χταπόδι) to eat with salad outside under the pergola. Tending the garden and clearing the weeds from the flowering shrubs. Walking and swimming in the increasing heat.

This is how I celebrate and mark the passage of time. It may be anti-social but I don’t need national landmarks of time to do it for me. Anyway, I’ve given myself a good talking to and now I’m going in the Gym to do some Stength Work. I have to use this rowing machine every day and I will!

Tuesday, 22nd April, 2025

Out early on a lovely, morning. I’m going for a blood test. Occasionally, the hospital ask me to have a surgery test to set against my home test to validate the calibration of my own machine. I don’t complain although it is a bit annoying. I’m retired and have the time. I appreciate their concern. Anyway, the result has come back on my Health app within 2hrs of my sample being sent to the Lab for analysis and we are just 0.1 apart. I passed the test.

From the Surgery where they took blood out, I drove on to a Bank branch near the beach where I could pay cash in. I have never done this physically before.

There is a rank of automatic teller machines which accept wads of notes, rapidly counts, sends to my account and prints a receipt all within 30 seconds. The last time I paid cash in physically, it was to an real person across a counter. Today, the irony was that a real person assessed my age, decided I was too old to do it on my own and stepped forward to personally take me through the process. Actually, without him, I could have read the instructions on the machine and done it for myself but I didn’t want to spoil his moment.

I never have real money. I have never held a modern note. Today, they felt like ‘toy’ or Monopoly money – plastic, light and unreal. What was wonderful was to put a wad of £1000.00 of mixed denomination notes all into the same slot in one go and see the machine instantly count and recognise their different values, reporting the total in the blink of an eye. It even got the total right first time. It’s not a process that I would do on a regular basis but pleasing none the less.

I am still dieting, exercising and staying alcohol-free. It is becoming such a way of life that I am afraid of stopping. I am actually addicted to my eating pattern and particularly this alcohol-free wine. Had to go to Tesco this morning to buy in some more stock. I have done this since August 27th, 2024 – almost 8 months. I will have a break when I travel in May, and then again with each trip over the Summer. Otherwise at home I will try to keep it going.

I am just trying to keep Life going. Everywhere we are reminded how fragile it is. This morning I learnt of a lad who was in my College but two years younger than me had died aged 71 of Acute Myeloid Leukemia – cancer of the blood. He only learnt recently that he had it. Symptoms usually develop over a few weeks, not months or years so there is little warning and so little time to prepare. I am notoriously a planner. There are some things I must and will do before I die …. unless I get knocked down by a bus tomorrow!

Wednesday, 23rd April, 2025

Had a terrible night of turmoil. Woke up at 4.00 am thinking of people dying before me. Mad, I know. The rain was heavy over night. May be that woke me but I put the radio on, couldn’t concentrate and turned it off again. Told myself to get a grip but ignored myself and continued to toss and turn.

This morning the sun is strong and warm. The garden is washed clean and the sky is blue. I can’t go out yet because Parcel Force are delivering my new coffee maker and Evri are delivering my new (smaller) shorts and tee shirts.

As I was writing that last paragraph, it arrived. How exciting! Fortunately, it is wholly intutive to assemble and I have it up and running within minutes. The coffee is wonderful. Two Cappuccinos so far and they are wonderful.

Everything is growing well now. All the seedlings are potted up. The lettuces and parsley sown in the beds is all coming through. My under gardener has sorted it all out for me while I play with my new coffee maker. Now going out for a walk in the sunshine followed by a good Gym session.

I have been watching an American Spy/Secret Service drama called Homeland for what seems like forever. Actually, I am on the last 5 hours out of a total of 96 – 8 series x 12 episodes. I have loved it and looked forward to my time in the Gym for this alone never mind the workout. I am going to miss it. A lot more of the exercise will be done outside for the next 6 months but I’m going to try the British drama – Succession – largely thought to be based on the Murdoch Family machinations – to help me.

Thursday, 24th April, 2025

A nice, warm morning. Out early to do shopping. We had an appointment at Honda tomorow which has just been cancelled and I had a medical which has just been cancelled and rearranged from a day when I will be flying to Thessaloniki. Had to rearrange them both hurriedly.

My little brother, Bob, who is a seriously good photographer in retirement, has just had a third article published in the Royal Photographic Society magazine DIGIT. Good for him. You can read it here.

For many years while I we were working, we had private medical insurance through BUPA. I dread to add up how much it cost me because I never once used it. For me, it was an insurance policy alone. My wife used it a few times and most frighteningly when she found a lump developing in her arm. I remember, I had to drive to Birmingham and stay over while she was being treated for what turned out to be completely benign event. She had a couple of other operations in Yorkshire under the scheme as well so she might have just broken even in a cost-benefit analysis.

These projected costs per person don’t take into account existing conditions. I have atrial fibrillation, and diet-controlled Type 2 diabetes. I will always have prostate cancer on my history. My Bupa rate per year would be at least double the suggested cost. We would be paying out at least £750.00 per month/£9,000.00 a year. If the NHS can’t help us in a reasonable time frame, we will just buy a private treatment.

In retirement, the BUPA scheme has proved too costly to justify but the NHS service here is very reassuring. I am lucky to know that, if I need to buy a procedure, I can afford to buy it privately. Health spending per person in the UK is about £2,000 a year up to the age of 45, then starts to escalate. By age 85, the average cost is £13,000 a year. The only thing that would make me go privately would be time. Life is short at our age and I can’t afford to sit around waiting for treatment. A College friend waited two years before he got a hip replacement. Another waited that long for a cataract replacement. I will not put my life on hold for two years at this stage. Feels immoral but needs must.

Friday, 25th April, 2025

Gorgeously warm and sunny morning. This week is ending as the new week promises real Summer weather. Friday already. Going to be busy again. Before that, I’ve been playing with my new coffee maker. So much to learn. I have bought the beans I like and set the grind to the coarseness I prefer.

I bought these ‘cool’ double-wall coffee glasses – a set each for Espresso, Latte Machiato and Capuccino. Of course, they make the drinks taste even better.

I’m starting to work my way through all the different drinks available automatically. There are 12 different hot coffees. So far, out of Espresso, Caffe Latte, Latte Machiato, Capuccino, Americano and Flat White, the Latte Machiato made with skimmed milk is my favourite. I like a light sprinkling of chocolate powder on the top. Got to control how many I drink in a day.

My old coffee maker is going to the Tip today along with so many boxes from recent purchases. I tend to keep them all until I am happy with their performance and then throw the packaging away. My coffee maker has a 2 year warranty which it ought to do for a £750.00 purchase. It will need its box retaining for that. The Gym roof is packed with empty boxes from warrantied purchases. Gradually, they get weeded out and off to the Tip. I am going on to the Garden Centre after that and then walking. See what you’re missing, Dear Reader.

Still going hard at the fitness. Still covering over 8 miles a day. still doing a Gym session each day although my 96 hours of Homeland is coming to a sad end. I have just 10 mins left. I am a hopeless romantic and I am finding the ending unbearable. Of course, it takes my mind off the pain of the effort. Not so long ago, I was at the Athens Marathon which is held in October so the temperature is a little less energy sapping.

On Sunday, both London and Manchester Marathons are being held when the temperature may just be hotter than Athens this year. Bring your shorts and tee shirt, Dear Reader. I’m wearing nothing more until the end of November this year. Mind you, I will be in the Canaries for the whole of November.

Saturday, 26th April, 2025

I went to bed and have woken up feeling incredibly sad. I am sad about time and separation. Someone told me once that self pity was very unattractive. It was said deliberately to hurt me but I’m sure they are right. I think I am feeling self pity as I survey the disappearing time. It is almost the end of April and 2025 is hurtling along. I am 74 …. rising 75. Tomorrow, my Mother will have been dead for 17 years. I feel as if Life is passing me by. Sorry.

I was born into a nominally Roman Catholic family or so it felt at the time. Actually, it wasn’t really referred to (I now realise deliberately) but my father was not a Christian. He was a member of the Free Masons – a fraternal organization with a long history, tracing its roots to medieval guilds of stonemasons. He would put on his black suit and shiny black shoes and his long, black coat and go out once a week to the Lodge for meetings and rose to become the Lodge Master as his father had before him.

I found out that Freemasonry is not a religion, and while members – only men – are required to believe in a supreme being, the specific faith is not mandated. Dad did not go to church. In fact, the trappings of Masonry are archaic and quite scary if looked at too carefully. Secret words, weird dress and symbols, secret handshakes.

Of course Roman Catholicism is just as weird. Ceremonies where they chuck ‘holy’ water over you, blow stinking incense smoke over you, chant nonsense songs with you and talk to non-existent beings has got to be insane.

Talking about insane, I remember once being with my Mother in Derby where we came across a tramp with dishevelled hair and long beard – looking more like Jesus than Jesus. He was talking to God. Because it was in the street, my Mother tutted and crossed the road at such signs of madness but couldn’t see the irony in her response. Roman Catholocism died with my Mother for me and my brothers and sisters.

After I’d left home, I would phone my Mother twice a week not because we had a close relationship. We didn’t. She always made it clear what a disappointment I was to her and what a failure she saw in me. I did it because I felt a sense of duty and responsibility after her difficult life following my Father’s early death. Those phone calls were rarely easy and often combative. I liked to discuss politics – she was a Tory – and religion. We argued about both constantly. One remark stayed with me. I tried to persuade her that the whole thing was a social construct and she replied, Why would you want to deny me comfort in dying? as if she knew it was nonsense but needed something to cling to beyond the grave – another life. A tacit self-delusion

That uncomfortable blend of right wing politics and religion is found in Rome this morning. An essentially left wing man is being buried and his successor elected. Sounds like politics doesn’t it? Actually, it is a religious leader. Pope Francis was a man of the people, of the under dog, of the poor and yet we hear that the Roman Catholic church wants to retrench and become more structurally tradional again. Particularly, we hear that Trump & Vance are lobbying for a pope in their image. Whether they manage that or not will have huge consequences for the dwindling number of Roman Catholics in the world.

For me, all religion will remain a nonsense. I will not look to some imaginary being to raise my spirits. I will wallow in the sadness of self pity what ever it looks like.

Sunday, 13th April, 2025

A very (relatively) warm night. We didn’t fall below 13C/55F. This morning is lovely. Out walking early in the sunshine. I ought to do this more often. Spam burgers out & walking in. Haven’t been down to the beach for a day or two. Yesterday, it looked absolutely idyllic.

Sometimes people ask why I should go abroad … but then, of course, we don’t get the searing heat that I so enjoy. I will get that in Greece in June and August. I will get it in Spain in June. It’s still agreat view on a sunny day, Dear Reader.

Out walking early because I am driving up to Surrey this morning. I’m fitting up a new TV box for an elderly couple. Unfortunately, school holidays in Easter week on a sunny morning will bring out the motorists and we already know that there is a motorway works closure causing trouble en route so it could be frustrating. I won’t even notice. I will be deep into the lates polical podcast from The News Agents.

Meanwhile, people on our Greek island continue to follow the time honoured rituals in preparation for Greek Easter. Each year, the women of Kamares come out to paint the lines between the flags of the pavements giving them their characteristic look. When the crowds disembark in the port in the background, everything will look cared-for and pretty. The men will be slaughtering the lambs and preparing the spit barbecues for the roasting celebrations.

Monday, 14th April, 2025

Another warm night and another gorgeous morning. Please don’t let it end … ever. Got a busy day ahead and I think that is important. Keeping busy, having stuff to do is important in Retirement. Exercise is certainly helping with my health and especially with my Blood Pressure.

At breakfast this morning, my Nurse took my Blood Pressure with this result. The challenge is on. Aged 74, can you beat this? All photos welcome …. The little heart at the top indicates Atrial Fibrillation and that is my weakness.

This morning I’ve got walking, lawn raking and car cleaning. This afternoon I’ve got patio cleaning and Gym work. I know, you’d find all that too exciting, Dear Reader. Well, you lie down and I’ll just get on with it quietly in the background.

Talking about quietly in the background. Have you ever listened to BBC Radio 2? It used to be known as the ‘oldies channel’ and I have never knowingly listened to it. I did today. It is dreadful. I really suffered but I was taking one for the team. Dee next door contacted me to say Michelle across the road was going to be on Radio 2 this morning to celebrate her 50th birthday. Dutifully, I found Radio 2 to hear Michelle talking about her favourite music over her 50 years. I can honestly say I had no idea what she was talking about – poor child. Still she has widened my experience even if it was a stretch too far.

Good to see the House Price movement is positive after a period of retrenchment. It is a sign of an improving economy when house owners feel more confident of their assets and see them as worthwhile investing in. The Labour Government are starting to turn the supertanker round in spite of the Tory Press machine’s head winds. Rising asset prices mean people are more likely to invest to improve which, in turn, fuels the economy. If I wasn’t so happy here, I would consider another new house with all the innovations of the last decade that would be included now. Who knows? Maybe …

Tuesday, 15th April, 2025

It rained over night and that was wonderful, much needed. Grey and warm this morning. Today is National Vent Opening Day – well, I’ve unilaterally declared it. With no prospect of any more cold weather and certainly no frost until November/December and no need for central heating, the trickle vents on all the windows and doors which have been closed since last November can now be opened.

My friend would sleep with the windows open all year round. I’m more fragile and prefer the warmth. Actually, I have found that I feel the cold a lot more since my radiotherapy treatment and I recently read that was a common response.

Life is full of challenges and data records. I am beset by them every day. From the moment I get up I am challenging myself to do better. I constantly feel a failure who has to improve. I could list my failures but it would be too painful. I prefer to focus on successes.

This morning started by being weighed. That’s OK. My shaver reports the quality of my shave. That’s OK. At breakfast, my blood pressure is taken and that’s OK. On Tuesdays, I test my INR (blood coagulation) and that’s OK. During the day, my watch and fitness app on my phone will be monitoring the distance I have walked, calories burned against calories consumed and … that’s OK. And yet, I still feel a failure. OK is not good enough.

Schools used to be damned with the faint praise of Satisfactory by Ofsted. My school was pleased to be so damned. Then, my data challenges were pupil numbers, exam results, attendance rates, etc.. Never felt more than OK. Why can’t I achieve Outstanding?

Do you know what this is? It is data from the last century. They used to call them cheques. I don’t have a cheque book and haven’t had one for years. The other day, our Investment Bank demanded two forms of identity and a cheque in order to open a new ISA account. My Accountant had to rummage through a filing cabinet to find one. Not only have I not used a cheque book in years but I seem physically incapable of signing my own name now. I have digital copies of my signature which I insert into letters these days.

On Sunday, someone gave us a cheque to pay into our account. The last local bank closed down a few months ago so what do you do with a cheque? Well, it is so easy now. I just open my Banking app on my phone. It automatically scans the cheque and credits it to my account. Why hasn’t it always been like this? We even pay our window cleaner digitally. Who needs banks?

Wednesday, 16th April, 2025

Nice morning but a bit breezy. Gardening today. Things are growing so fast including the grass so I have to deal with it while I am here. This year, of course, is a year of travel. I have only been to Spain (proper) once and that was a delightful trip to Valencia. This year, I have rented a property in Torrevieja for July. We are flying there this time but, if we can establish a property we like, next year we could rent it for longer and drive there. That is the aim.

Ironically, there was an earthquake in Spain on Tuesday and it hit … Torrevieja among other towns of Murcia. Actually, it was only 2.8 richter but it shook the residents. Anyway, Spain feels quite a way off at the moment. Before that, I’ve got trips in May including one driving to France. Just been looking at places to re-explore.

Thinking of spending a day in Boulogne mooching about the shops. I like the fish market on the docks and the Philippe Olivier cheese shop but there is a lot to see elsewhere.

I know it seems to include food markets but that is what France is so good for and I am starving! It will be great for walking too as long as the weather is fine.

Fifteen years ago today, I was driving on the Autostrada del Sol from a hotel stop in Modena and setting off for Ancona port, past acres and acres of fruit trees – pear blossom looking and smelling wonderful and on to an Anek Lines ferry to sail down the Adriatic to Patras. Happy times.

Been a gorgeously, warm and sunny day. Met my lovely neighbour out on my walk. We talked about her deciding to finish teaching now in her early 50s and how they looked forward to paying off their mortgage and spending more time in Europe travelling in non-holiday periods. I’ve just been telling her how to access the Teachers’ Pension site to get an estimate of her pension and Lump Sum. I had forgotten how little I knew about my pension until a few months before I left the job at the age of 57.

Thursday, 17th April, 2025

Glorious start to what is going to be a wonderfully warm and sunny day. The blue of the sky is delicicious. The green of the new leaves on the trees is luminous. The sunshine is to be drunk in by the eyes. I might be 74 but I am free to do what I want, when I want and I will.

Rather buoyed up by the data from the IMF reported in The Telegraph this morning although I realise it has a political slant:

Of, course, the slant is to encourage people to continue contributing to the economy after the traditional retirement age of 60-65 but, for a man who retired at the age of 57 and has been playing out for over 16 years now, it gives one pause for thought. Of course, it is not life span that is important but healthy life that counts. Yesterday, a report released said the data suggested people in the more prosperous parts of the country lived 19 more healthy years than those in the poorer parts of the country. That’s a huge disparity but is dictated by poor housing, poor diet, more stressful financial security and employment, less easy access to the Health Service.

Intellectual strength is important and it is amazing to see the finding that cognitive function of 70 year olds today is equivalent to cognitive function of a 53 year old just over 20 years ago. That is is incredibly fast development. I really try hard to keep working on, thinking & reading about, learning new ideas; keeping my mind open to change.

I do worry about the old people I see shuffling out of the newsagents (who buys print newspapers these days?) with a rolled up copy of The Daily Fail or the Daily Regress under their arms so they can browse the pictures and the huge, simplistic headlines which challenge no one intellectually at all. That is their attraction – ‘readers’ don’t need to think for themselves. They are told what to think.

Are you shocked when you look back how far you have come, Dear Reader? My wife was a keen ice dancing fan for years and particularly got hooked in the era of Torville & Dean winning the Olympic gold medal with a dance to the music of Ravel’s Bolero. This morning it was announced that they were making their retirement tour. I’m surprised they can still do it. They are aged 67 but 70 is the new 50. It was February 1984 – 41 years ago. We were still just 31, Dear Reader. How time has flown along. Time to reclaim it!

Been down to the beach to buy fish. You need a mortgage now to do that. We had 2 kilos of Swordfish, 2 kilos of Tuna, Cod Fillets, Wild Sea Bass Fillets and a Kilos of Prawns. Nearly fell off my feet when it came to £250.00. Still, good, healthy food contributes to a long life … with luck.

Friday, 18th April, 2025

A bright, sunny but quite chilly morning of remembrance. Memory is always a mixture of happiness and sadness. I noted that 16 years ago today, we were flying back from Athens after an Easter holiday on the island. They were times of optimism and happiness. They are gone.

Memories are sad, aren’t they Dear Reader. The joy of the past is sharpened in its loss as life continues without it. Everywhere was a different place 16 years ago and everyone was a different person. Things have happened since then that cannot be unhappened, said that cannot be unsaid and done that cannot be undone.

In my beginning is my end. Now the light falls
Across the open field, leaving the deep lane
Shuttered with branches, dark in the afternoon …

T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets Part II: East Coker

Where will we be in another 16 years, Dear Reader, I at the age of 90 and you? It is almost unimaginable. And yet, I want to know. Only 16 years to 90.

Just been out to sell a £1000.00 of US Dollars which we’ve been holding in our Travel Bag for about 3 years. We’ve finally decided, like so many other Europeans, that we can’t face Trump’s America. The number of European travellers visiting the US has fallen sharply as political and economic tension and fears of a hostile border under Trump threaten the world’s most lucrative air routes. In spite of the imperative of Realpolitik, we are increasingly expecting our Governments to be more muscular in their dealings with the U.S..

We have reports of people’s Social Media accounts being checked and them being excluded because of adverse comments about Trump. Certainly, two reported Journalists have had that experience. We know that Canadians are savagely retrenching with some selling second homes in the US and repatriating their cash.

In the meantime, we have the awkward problem of how to get a wad of Bank Notes into our account. We have so few Bank Branches available now it is a problem. Checking, I find that we have one branch in town still or I can pay it in via the local Post Office.

Saturday, 19th April, 2025

Quite a grey start to the day which is disappointing. I woke up at 5.30 am and felt disatissfied, at a loss, without purpose. I hate it. For the first time for quite a while, I don’t have a list of tasks to pursue and get done. It is an uncomfortable feeling. I find myself inventing things to do. I am going to clean and tidy the Gym. I use it every day and, because of that, familiarity masks the grubbiness and untidyness.

I’ve had a hankering for a new coffee maker for quite a while. I have been able to keep it at that until now because there’s nothing wrong with my curent one and its replacement will cost me about £750.00 which I begrudge. I like bean-to-cup machines and have been using them for the last decade.

Currently, I have this silver De’Longhi Magnifica which I’ve been using for the past 5 years. It has a milk frothing wand. I want this black De’Longhi Rivelia which automatically integrates milk frothing according to the selection of coffee that you chose from the menu – Espresso, Cappuccino, Lattemacchiato, etc.. In fact, there are 16 different hot and cold coffees it will make automatically.

In that time, I’ve owned so many coffee makers as technology has improved, moving from early filters to Bean-to-Cup machines with separate milk frothers, wand milk frothers so integrated milk frothing and dispensing will be an advance. You can still manually adjust the coarseness of the bean grind and the strength of coffee delivery to taste. I buy a an Italian roast, strength 4 bean. Particularly at the moment when I am restricting calories, drinks are very important. I only ever use fully skimmed milk and have done for 40 years. I also drink instant coffee but I’ve decided to phase that out and drink less but better quality.

We all spend our money on different things. My lovely next door neighbour sent me this photo of her birthday present. She had a facial which had, as she said, some gold in it. I checked and the claim is that gold has various benefits for the skin, including slowing down collagen depletion and preventing sagging. You know you need it, Dear Reader. I think I’ll order that coffee maker!

The sun has come out so time for a walk. The exercise routine goes on in the background whatever I’m feeling. There is always pain, Dear Reader. There is always pain. …. I can tell you my Gym work hurt and was real mind over matter today after a lovely, warm walk around the parks. We reached a comfortable 22C/70F this afternoon which softened the pain. This type of weather really does encourage sharing and indulging.

Sunday, 6th April, 2025

We are 74 this morning. It is not a good situation. 74 is a distinctly scary number. I woke at 4.30 am to find Birthday greetings on my phone from two, lunatics in America. At Breakfast, I was given a card by my Carer. She thought I wouldn’t realise it was the same one I gave her last October being recycled. Effectively, I bought my own birthday card. That is the watchword of my Carer – Thrift in Everything …. unless she is looking at Clothes Brochures.

Talking about thrift. I moved a significant amount of money – £40,000.00 yesterday from one financial institution to another. As a sign of the times, I did it at the click of a finger print from my phone. It still feels a significant and edgy thing to do. I needed it to repatriate funds for new ISAs in a couple of days time. It didn’t arrive immediately as one would like for easy assurance. The original account said it could take up to 24 hrs. Then, I did do it on a Saturday. Would it show on a Sunday? At 4.30 am, I woke up and checked my phone. It hadn’t arrived. In fact I was told my account was being upgraded. Wonderful.

Gorgeous day outside. Going out for a walk to start the day. Before that, I received lovely Birthday wishes from lots of my old College friends around the country. It included people I don’t talk to very often. Kevin Sellers in North Scotland. Derek France in Skelmanthorpe, Heather Mellows in Cambridge. At times like this, you realise who your friends are. Nice messages from my Brothers and Sisters in Yorkshire, Ireland and Berkshire. Lovely wishes from my neighbours here. How lucky am I to live in such a wonderful place?

Just as I am about to start on my walk, a ping informs me that £40,000.00 has arrived in my account. Phew …. the day can develop happily. As we walk, we see many regulars out doing the same or working in their gardens. It always surprises me how certain plants / shrubs are particularly popular or do especially well in certain areas. Here Photinias (a Laurel derivative) are very popular and successful. Photinia Red Robin Hedge is everywhere and beautiful at this time of year.

Wisteria is popular and very successful in our warmer climate. Usually, it is the traditional, blue, mauve coloured flowered one. On our walk, one man has a wonderful display of this white Wisteria climbing his walls. I asked for a seed pod to try and grow my own. I wasn’t successful but today he has offered to root a cutting for me. I haven’t told him but I will give it to my next door neighbour who loves her Wisteria.

One couple who we see regularly stopped to talk today. He had recovered from cancer just like me. Today they were coming back from Covid-19 Spring Boosters which are available at Angmering Medical Centre for over 75s.

We had told them that we retired 16 years ago and today I said I was 74 so couldn’t have the jab. They genuinely said they thought we must be in our early 60s which was nice. Certainly Pauline could pass for that if not me.

Warm sunshine makes all the difference to walking. This morning, we are 22C/70F which is warmer than Athens. I love it. Come and share it, Dear Reader. Sun is good for the skin and the soul …. if you’ve got one.

Monday, 7th April, 2025

Already 74 years are bedded in and advanced by a day. Nightmare! This once young man is no more. Too dramatic, Dear Reader? Maybe but probably only because you have got there before me.

I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

By T. S. Eliot

I woke up thinking about it this morning. The house and the bed were too hot. Cremation was all around … and yet, even at 5.45 am, sunshine was striking through the blinds. We are going to be a support unit for even older people than us. This morning, early, we drive up to Surrey. It is the most glorious journey through newly minted hedgerows along freshly carpeted roadsides under deliciously, clear blue skies warmly lit by a rising sun.

An hour or so of enjoyable driving up to Byfleet in Surrey. Collect P&C and off for another 30 mins drive to Ashford Hospital effectively in Staines on Thames near Heathrow Airport. Planes were taking off and landing all around us. Fortunately, P has a Blue Parking Badge so leaving the car was quick and easy. They disappeared into the bowels of the hospital and I had about 90 mins to walk in the sun. I did exactly that around the huge hospital carparks and those of the mega-Tesco store next door. I covered 6 miles in that time.

The wounded soldiers returned from the hospital to be driven home. There was a problem with their TV which I attempted to sort out. It looks as if their Freeview box is failing and I’ve identified a new one to replace it. I will have to drive up next week to fit and configure it for them. They are probably the last generation to be rather uncomfortable with digital technology although I know some stragglers from mine.

The drive home was equally enjoyable and remarkably quiet … probably because it’s school holidays. Back home, my first thought was for my seedlings out in the coldframes being attacked by the savage sun. I opened them up to breath the air and my under gardener watered them. Then out for an hour’s walk before Supper – fresh Tuna Steaks griddled outside and eaten with a fresh, green salad. Delicious meal. Delicious day, Dear Reader.

Tuesday, 8th April, 2025

What a lovely morning. Hope it is with you, Dear Reader. Blue sky and strong sunshine really makes me want to be up and out and exercising. You? Actually, we have appointments at a Health Clinic – Our Future Health.

It is our contribution to the future health of our fellow citizens. We have to give a blood sample, be weighed and have our body dimensions measured and recorded. There will be a follow up and a scan and we will get DNA information and ongoing monitoring.

Fifteen years ago, we had been retired for a year and were still feeling strange about getting up, opening the blinds and thinking, I am free to do what ever I want today. Actually, it was Easter Holidays for those going back to work. We were in the final days before driving to Greece. We had a new car – the latest iteration of the Honda CRV. In the last few days before driving off to Hull Docks for the trip to Zeebrugge, the boot looked like this:

All the essentials for 6 months in Greece which we couldn’t fit in to the car for driving over was packed up in boxes and sent by Post Office parcel rate. It was actually very cost effective. I noted 50 kg cost £120.00 to get there and these parcels would arrive on the island about the same day as we did.

This year we are not driving but flying to Greece twice. In June, we will be in Thessaloniki and, in August, we will be in Athens. Actually, yesterday a friend from Saloniki posted this interesting weather which contrasted sharply with our blue skies and sunshine. By the time we get there, it will be roaring hot!

Wednesday, 9th April, 2025

Bad night. Couldn’t sleep. Up at 4.00 am and watching Arsenal beat Real Madrid by 3 fantastic goals on replay. Back to bed for an hour and listening to The Rest is Politics Blog. Fell asleep and didn’t get up until 7.30 am. Late. Got to be at the Bank by 9.00 am to open a new ISA. Nice morning and warm and sunny. Later I will go down to the beach to look for a false leg that someone posted they had lost there. Usually, there is plenty washed up over night although I haven’t seen legs recently.

Going out to fix new ISAs as quickly as possible. I’ve been researching them on and off for days. Thought I knew exactly what to do and then … Trump happened. The whole market was destabilised and all the deals I was seeing were pulled over night. Yesterday, I spoke to an investment bank customer manager who told me they had no offers left at all. They had all been pulled off the market.

I decided that I would just have to cut my losses and take a High Street offer at Nationwide B.S. Strangest thing happened. Just as we were going out of the door, the investment bank phoned and said they were prepared to make us an offer because we were existing investors. I have a number of ISAs with them at 6.05%. They offered me a new one at 4.37% which is good for the existing market.

So we went out to see them in Littlehampton. At this rate, £40,000.00 over 2 years will make £3,572.00 but, because it is tax-free, that is the equivalent of £4,287.00. So, just over 5% in actuality. It’s not brilliant but better than a poke in the eye.

Walking back to the car in beautiful sunshine through this quaint, little seaside town, I realised how pretty it is. It took us past a Lidl supermarket where they were advertising Greek olive oil. Just tasted it. From Chania, Kriti, it really is good first press, extra-virgin and costs just £13.00 per litre. I could be spending my investment income on it.

When I retired 16 years ago, I told my Carer that we weren’t going to fall into the Old Person Sydrome which includes the tenets of:

It’s not like the old days.
I don’t do on-line / technology.
I’m too old for that, too old to learn new things.
I’ll be dead by the time that happens, thank goodness …
I don’t know how I found time to work.

Well, I heard myself say this last one today and berated myself for saying it. Life is very busy at the moment and I should be grateful for it. Busy is good. New things are good. Being tested is good.

Thursday, 10th April, 2025

A cooler more over clouded morning start. Lawn mowing day. Seedling repotting day. Walking day. It’s hard to cope with the excitement. Now the Finances are sorted out for a few months, that can all be put to the back of my mind although the next period of frenzy will be in July when another large tranche matures and needs reinvesting. Unfortunately, the likelihood is that interest rates will have fallen by then and returns will be much reduced.

I’m champing at the bit for travel but I’ve got to wait until next month. This day fifteen years ago, we had just arrived at our Greek house. My chef had made a batch of bread. I had got the essential services – satellite TV and internet reinstalled, the over-winter bills were paid and things for the core of life were in place. We drove out to the pretty, fishing village of Vathy (Greek for Deep which it is.) Lovely Taverna there for Lunch. Lunch? What is that? Nowadays, Lunch is for wimps!

I miss the long drive as much as anything. This time in 2011, I was driving around Lake Como and on to the Milan Ring Road. Everyone said what a nightmare it would be to drive in Italy. I loved it. Usually, we would set off to get to the island before Greek Easter which is often on a later date than UK Easter. This year, they both arrive on the same day – April 20th – so we would be leaving this weekend.

The place to be today is Greater Manchester – 3C warmer than us. I’m hoping the Labour Government will quickly reverse that outrage. The sun is out here and we have set up our new, cantilever parasol. We constructed it from the Chinese-manufactured box and ignoring the lunatic instructions in under 20 mins and without threat of divorce which augers well that we will get through to Supper …. out in the garden under our new parasol.

Friday, 11th April, 2025

Gorgeous start to the day and a lovely, warm and sunny day in prospect – in fact, the next two or three days. We actually need some rain and there is none in prospect until Tuesday.

Out early for Part 1 of my annual, medical review. Lots of samples of data this morning. Blood, urine (proud of my specimen), weight, height, blood pressure, heart rate, etc. The resuts will appear on my NHS app within two days and then I will be invited in for Part 2 to review them with my doctor. Great service.

I have been medicated for Atrial Fibrillation since 2009. I take warfarin blood thinner daily and test myself weekly. I also have a statin and a blood pressure tablet. When I was travelling to Greece for 6 months, my doctors (Yorkshire & Surrey) broke all the rules and prescribed 6 months of medication a prescription so I manged the time. Actually, at that time, 2 months was the maximum prescription one could ask for.

Now, National Guidelines have halved that period. We are no longer considered responsible adults. Apprently, there have been incidents of people over medicating so all people have to be restricted. It’s a nonsense. I am going to be travelling a lot this year and need have a store of medication to take with me. I will have to argue that case this morning. I have been on this diet, exercise and and no alcohol regime for almost 8 full months now. My data will be excellent and I will receive plaudits for once. Nice to look forward to a Medical.

Lovely lady saw me and we chatted for about 20 mins. She talked more about her diet, her attempts to cut out alcohol and to reduce her cholesterol than mine but I didn’t mind. She was extremely flattering about my weight and fitness improvements and said she would send off urine & blood samples to the Lab and I would be contacted in a few days. I left and drove out of the car park thinking about the blood and urine samples being tested. Suddenly, it hit me. She took my urine sample and we joked about its purity. I suddenly realised, she hadn’t taken any blood.

I was about to turn round when the car phone rang and it was her feeling rather sheepish. I drove back. She took two phials of blood – so I’ve donated 4 this week already, almost an armful – and I went on my way happily out into the glorious sunshine.

More grass cutting today. A bit of overseeding to do where bare patches show. The cold frames are bulging so I will soon have to move things out. It’s looking as if I will be able to safely now. Not much chance of a frost on the west Sussex coast in mid-April. Two dozen Green Bean plants will go out today. I’ll be eating them by late June and successive sowing will take them through the whole Summer. I eat them three times a week at least along with Asparagus but that is more challenging to grow in a small space.

The Green Beans are planted out. Lettuce is sown – 4 types which will mature at different times over the Summer. I cut the neighbour’s lawns this afternoon in scorching sunshine. The grass hasn’t done very well over this dry Winter and I am struggling to make it look good for them at the moment. I really don’t want to let them down. Looks like I’ll have to make more effort.

Saturday, 12th April, 2025

Another gorgeous morning after a warm, moonlit night. Actually, it will be full (pink) moon tonight. Last night, we didn’t fall below 12C and it is already very warm at 10.00 am today. Not a day to go down to the beach with school holidays and beach weather combining on a Saturday.

Blood Test at 9.30 yesterday morning. Results were sent to me through my Patients Know Best app just 5 hours later. What a fantastic service from the NHS. It is exactly the way forward. Digital reports from a very human service and all ‘free at the point of delivery’. It is interesting that I will be reading and interpreting them days before my clinician.

In general most of the 15 separate tests are very pleasing and positive. Particularly, my Cholesterol levels are excellent. There are just three readings which are out of range:

• Neutrophils count
• Lymphocyte count
• Tryglyceride count

Like most of the others, I had no idea of their significance and had to look them up. Neutrophils are a type of white blood cell that play a crucial role in the immune system and low Lymphocyte count, also known as lymphocytopenia, in a blood test can indicate a weakened immune system. Both of these readings are intimately connected to the effects of cancer treatment. It is now just over a year since my treatment ended and I had hoped that my immune system would have recovered by now.

The third out of range reading is low Tryglyceride count which I am told are not usually a cause for concern but can be as a result of a low fat diet, nutritious eating or even fasting – so I plead guilty on each of those points. Over all, my results are not too bad for a 74 year old although I must seek advice on how to boost my immune system.

Our lovely neighbour across the road, Michelle, is going to be just 50 next week and is partying tonight. I expressed my surprise that she was still only 49 but she seemed to cope with it. She does occasionally check that we (the old people) are alright which is nice of her. One day we might need it.

Sunday, 30th March, 2025

You can’t stop time, can you, Dear Reader? The warp and weft of time gets faster with age as we hurtle down the escalator of Life. The seasons arrive unexpectedly quickly. Clocks have gone forward this morning. Bedrooms light up more quickly as sun floods through the blinds. Daylight times are gradually lengthening and plants drink increasing sunshine and push towards the sky. Thoughts turn to shorts, living outdoors and travelling.

Out of all the time displays in the house and I’ve just quickly counted 21 different screens, only two now need manual adjustment – the oven and the coffee machine. Everything else is internet connected or radio controlled and updates over night automatically. Happy British Summer Time (BST), Dear Reader.

It is the most beautiful day – which eventually reached 19C/66F down here. Today is a day of worship. Some people go to church. I worship the sun. Out for an early work and then gardening. Actually, I’m feeling weak and lacking in energy so the whole process will be a real effort – a case of mind over matter – but it has to be done.

It is Mothers’ Day or Mothering Sunday as it used to be known when I had a mother. It shocked me to realise that I haven’t seen my Mother for just about 17 years. She died on the 27th of April, 20o8. I wouldn’t pretend that much was made of the day when she was alive but it does provide a focus in retrospect. I don’t think about her so much now. She had been a constantly reproving influence in the background. I would phone her at least once a week thoughout my life away to ensure she was alright but usually left with a feeling of her disappointment in me. It was never more than my feeling of disappointment in myself.

My Mother bequeathed a life-long burden of the sense of Original Sin which has haunted me throughout my life. Even though I rejected Christianity generally and Roman Catholicism specifically long ago, the Jesuit burden remains. I resent it and have resented it throughout. It has made me atheist. Of course, she also bequeathed me a love of words, of language which has stood me in good stead throughout my life. I love the sounds, the feel of words in my mouth. I love the power of words to define and describe ideas. Words and Ideas are life itself.

Out walking in hot sunshine with bulbs, shrubs, trees bursting with new life everywhere. It is an exciting time for the living. This makes it even harder to reflect upon the dead. And then I walked past this magnolia – almost going over now but beautiful still – and remembered that it was Mum’s favourite shrub. She had a huge, white flowered one in her final garden and was always talking about it at this time. I suspect it was an echo of her childhood in London where they are ubiquitous.

Monday, 31st March, 2025

Gloriously clear and starry sky last night which has given way to a morning of clear, blue skies and sunshine and will for the week ahead which will also see a new month arriving. Everything is bursting, growing celebrating the light and increasing warmth. Today is definitely gardening day.

I am planting herbs this morning – French Tarragon, Ligurian Sage, Tuscan Rosemary – and sowing Parsley seeds – both English Curled and French Flat Leafed and some Red Leafed Lettuce. I’m also going to try some propogation of favourite shrubs. For example, a shrub which shines all Winter and Summer is Euonymus fortunei ‘Emerald ‘n’ Gold’. It grows very well along my Drive. I’m going to propagate some soft stem cuttings over the next few weeks.

Always an optimistic time for gardeners. I’ll soon have to get my Hedge Trimmer woman back to work, when she’s finished all the weeding. Wickes are delivering a load of Topsoil/Compost this afternoon so my walk and Gym work has to be done early.

The one downside of lovely, warm weather is that I associate it with the Dancin’ in the Street syndrome – warmth, food, wine and relaxation – not with discipline, denial, exercise and pain. My head has to fight it all even harder than usual. As the Summer arrives in the garden, my fight will be so much more demanding. Still, Non Desistas Non Exieris – Never Give Up Never Surrender.

Tuesday, 1st April, 2025

Happy April, Dear Reader. Embrace the Summer. Enjoy the new month. March 2025 has gone for ever other than on the Blog record.

And what a day it is. Had to take my Housekeeper down to the surgery for a blood test. They established she still has some. Continued on to a hot and sunny seaside.

Down at the beach this morning we saw less people than we could count on our hands. The tide was out and so were the holiday crowds. What a beautifully peaceful place it is on a Monday morning when everyone else is at school and work. Work? Do you remember that, Dear Reader? It is becoming an increasingly faded memory for me. I was actually Headhunted on Linkedin yesterday but I didn’t give it much consideration.

We say it so often but it is like being on holiday when we walk in the sunshine down here but just a few minutes from our house. It’s a lovely feeling. You should come on down, Dear Reader, and experience it.

Talking about holidays, we have four flights booked this Summer out of Gatwick Aiport where one of the bugbears is and has been for some time Airport Security procedures. Really annoying having to restrict liquids in our bags and electrical items in carry-on bags. Really annoying and slow having to take out laptops, iPads, smartphones and send them all through the scanners separately.

Well not anymore. Gatwick has installed the newest generation scanners which mean none of that nonsense is required. London Gatwick Airport’s new CT scanners allow passengers to keep liquids and electronics in bags, improving security and passenger flow and letting us get into the Executive Lounge quicker and less stressed. I must admit I am looking to flying again. Thessaloniki in June is the first flight so lots of hard work to do before then.

Going out for a second walk in the countryside now because the weather is so wonderful. I’m also moving French Bean plants, which have grown 6″ in a week, into the cold frames. Not growing taller but older is old friend, Christine Dagg is 74 today. We wish her Happy Birthday and rejoice in the fact that she’s looking even more erotic than we remember her in the late 1960s. Kevin’s finally replaced his stolen car after three months so he will be able to take her out to celebrate.

A footnote: March 2025 was the driest March since 1961 when I was just 10 years old. This afternoon, we have hit 20C/68F on the South Coast and it feels glorious. You really should be here, Dear Reader!

Wednesday, 2nd April, 2025

The gorgeous days just go on. Today is a very busy one. In the garden, I’m planting potatoes. Don’t know why because I don’t eat them but my Carer does so there’s a cue. I’m sowing lettuces for me. The Green Bean plants have gone out into the cold frames to enjoy the sunlight.

The car needs a full valet so that will take a couple of hours and I’m going to finish it off with a long-term, silicon spray coating for a showroom shine. I’m fitting a corner shower caddy in a shower which has hardly been used since we moved here but, apparently, needs it. I’ve got another big day of exercise to fit in. And so the days go. Everything changes. Everything remains the same.

After a plateau period, my weight is suddenly dropping fast again. I have been on this current course for 198 days or just over 7 months now – without alcohol, on 1500 calories a day and walking 60 miles a week. It is working but it is beginning to feel like a long time. Just trying to keep my head down, keep going, keep measuring my stats.. I’ve got an Annual Health Review coming up soon so I’m looking forward to that report.

Our house is Band F for Council Tax. I looked up what Band F house price applies to and it was/is properties valued between £120,000 – £160,000. As our house would sell at 5 x that price, you can see how outdated this system is. The problem with changing it is illustrated by the fact tht it was rushed in by Thatcher who feared being deposed by the Poll Tax riots and it has never been readdressed. Even now, voices of dissent are feint because of the political dangers.

What is possible is taxing the ‘nominally’ rich second home owners. After all, no one needs a second home even if they aspire to it. They are doing it in Wales with large, new second home taxes which seems to be answering the problem. The local complaint has been that outsiders buy up properties thus inflating prices so locals cannot afford to live in their own area. Large, new council tax premiums are encouraging/forcing second home owners to put properties on the market in large numbers. Lots of properties for sale has reduced prices and locals can suddenly afford to buy them. That’s the way to go.

If my friend, Julie, who has just gone through her third bout of breast cancer can remain optimistic, anybody can. I am definitely looking forward to happy times – travelling, meeting up with old friends, enjoying the sunshine and the growing crops, eating and drinking for a while and staying fit and healthy for a long time. We’ve got to do it, Dear Reader. The temperature is 21C/70F in our back garden this afternoon. Come on down!

Thursday, 3rd April, 2025

Had a bad night. Woke up fed up. Don’t know why but I was tired and grumpy. I am in a fractious, fighting mood. I am just as fractious and critical of myself as anyone else. It is a beautiful day outside and my mood is in direct contrast to that so it doesn’t always work, obviously. Even so, my advice is: Don’t cross me today, Dear Reader.

I think one of the reasons for my bad mood is the day. It reminds me how old I am. Today marks the 16 year anniversary of my Retirement. I walked out of my school for the last time on April 3rd, 2009 and I haven’t been in a school since. I have no intentions of it either.

There are some things and people that I have to see again but schools aren’t on that list. Hard to believe, though, that I haven’t worked for 16 years.

A gardening day although I’m going to the beach for a walk first. Today I will be planting out some potatoes for my Housekeeper who loves new potatoes smothered in butter.

Potatoes are so easy to grow. I bought a new (to me) seed potato called Cassablanca. They have been chitting or developing break-out shoots in the light of the cold frame for a week. Dig a trench, space the seed potatoes carefully, cover over with soil and sit back. When shoots break through the ground, heap soil over the top to keep them warm and exclude the light. After just 10 weeks, dig up with a fork and out will come nests of the most delightful snow, white new potatoes.

I’m also going to start planting up the pots. Currently I am in love with this plant – Houttuynia Cordata (pronounced Who-tun-yer) which is amazingly bright and dominates the area.

It splits and is easy to grow. I have been nurturing small cuttings over the Winter and they are ready to be planted out. That will be one of the jobs. I love red Geraniums but will wait a couple of weeks to plant them out. Seeds I sowed just over a week ago are now romping away and will need pricking out into pots. I use my Under-Gardener’s more delicate skills for that job. I just direct the operation.

Friday, 4th April, 2025

L’été est vraiment arrivé… Summer is really here. Love it! We are forecast for 22C/70F today and warm and dry weather for the week ahead. It’s so warm, I’ve opened up all the cold frames to the skies. Green Beans are looking great and will be ready to plant out in a week.

For years, I would stride around the Greek Islands, stripped to the waist, in 90F of burning sunshine. I love sunshine. I love heat. But I am finding that my tolerance is less enduring than it once was. Older skin tans less and tolerates less. We already have two, huge parasols in the garden. I’ve just had to order a third. We eat outside a lot. I can no longer sit in full sun at a Dining Table. I have ordered a huge, cantilever parasol which will completely shade our table.

Sign of the times. Admission of aging. Good price though, Dear Reader. We’ll see how good it is in reality. Let’s hope it gets plenty of use in the next few months when we are at home.

Apart from exercise, I’ve got all sorts of outdoor jobs to get through today. Potting up newly sown plants. Taking cuttings for the cold frames. Mowing the public lawns. Cleaning the patio flags. In down times, I am finalising where I will place the ISA investments for 2025-26. They sound like they may be the last, large amounts I can shelter from taxation. The Investment Bank I propose using has just announced that it will close all High Street branches from July so I’m busily installing apps to do the day to day transactions.

We are driving to France in a few weeks so I am researching some activities of interest while we are there. I am going to go back to St Omer which I have driven through a number of times without really exploring. Hopefully, we will have some dry, warm weather to walk and see the sights. St Omer is notable as a Brewing town like Burton on Trent where I’m from.

I’ve just been watching the most moving trial summary by the judge in the conviction of a woman who killed her new born child while under post natal depression 25 years ago. She was sentenced to 2 year’s imprisonment suspended. My Grandmother, my Dad’s Mum, was sentenced to life long mental hospital incarceration as a result of her reaction to post natal depression. How times have changed.

An old friend sent me a lovely memory to lift the spirits after visiting yesterday in wonderful sunshine. Great times. There are times when you just need a bit of a lift. Out walking this morning, the temperature reached an astonishing 27C/81F and my spirits were rising with the heat when a lovely young lady came over the grass in the park and said,

I hope you don’t mind me saying but I’ve been watching you for a few months and you’re looking great. You’ve really lost a lot of weight. How have you done it? Just through walking?

Of course, she began to wish she hadn’t asked the resident weight-loss bore because she got chapter and verse about how I’d done it but it cheered me up.

Saturday, 5th April, 2025

Goes without saying that it is another glorious day. Down at the beach, the sea is calm and flat and glistening in the sunshine. The warmth yesterday reminded me of an early Greek morning and it is about this time we would be setting off on our drive – Hull / Zeebrugge / Luxembourg / Metz / Strasbourg / Colmar / Mulhouse / Lucerne / Altdorf / Como / Milan / Piacenza / Modena / Pisaro / Ancona / Ferry down the Adriatic to Patras / Drive to Piraeus / Ferry to Sifnos … and rest. The journey was wonderful fun.

When we first travelled to the island in 1984, the ferries – the Ionian Express and the Kimolos Express took a sapping 5.5 hrs to get there. Although the Adriatic ferry took 24 hours, we had a Luxury cabin and high class restaurants. The Greek island ferries had aeroplane seats and souvlaki bars to buy cheap snacks like ham & cheese toasties and cans of Sprite. It was hard work although we were young and up for the struggle.

Nowadays, some of these chugging, old boats still ply their trade but they are rapidly being outclassed by the newer catamaran-style boats which do the trip in less than half the time – 2.5 hours Piraeus – Sifnos. We could only dream of that at the beginning but time brings innovation and improvement.

When you’re 74, – and I will be tomorrow – you can do anything that you want without concern for the fall out. I intend to do exactly that. This is the year to break all conventions, breach all boundaries and just go for it. Don’t regret it on your death bed will be my motto.

Traditionally, Chef asks what I want for my Birthday meal. This year it is simple and restrained. I want Kolokithokeftedes (κολοκυθοκεφτέδες) (Fried Courgette Balls). An so it will be, Dear Reader. You’re welcome.

Sunday, 23rd March, 2025

Can you imagine being married for 68 years, Dear Reader? Today, P&C have been married for exactly that long and we congratulate them.

Originating in the dark, satanic mills of Oldham, we hope they have a lovely day up there in sunny Surrey. Of course, a lot of it depends upon individual longevity. At ages 86 & 87, they’ve achieved that already.

Of course, old people are constantly asked on what the secret of their long life is founded and they resort to quite ridiculous things like brown bread and a boiled egg every morning and a glass of sweet sherry before bed. We know it’s nonsense but it is perpetuated. Most of us use the information selectively. I particularly like this one above reported in the Manchester Evening News yesterday.

When you’re old, by definition you have more time behind than in front. For me, finding, observing, reminding myself of the context of that time continuum I/we are on is important. Not in some sentimental way but to keep a hold on the movement of time. It has been a subject for poets throughout the ages.

These days, the world of social media and mobile phones means the process of reviewing the past and remembering it is more graphic. Yesterday, I received some photos from my old friend who I was in Digs with for 2 years 1969 – 71. He and I talk regularly about what we are doing in the present and aiming to do in the future. We will meet again this year for a proper catch up but remembering through pictures is good.

Just 10 years later in 1981, I was travelling across Europe to the Greek island of Sifnos. What should pop up yesterday but two photos from exactly that time. The first ferry I ever took from Piraeus to Kamares was the F/B Ionion. It doesn’t exist anymore other than in the memory and these photographs.

Monday, 24th March, 2025

Started the day with a lovely walk around the local area, through the gorgeous daffodil displays. It is invigorating and sets up the day to come. I have a series of fairly mundane housekeeping jobs to get through. I’ve got some seed sowing to do out in the garden and then some preparatory Finance work to do prior to the start of the new tax year on April 6th. It will be completed in the light of the Financial Statement on Wednesday.

Particularly, it will be important to see if the ISA rules are tightened. There has been speculation of the £20,000.00 per person per year tax-free savings allowance being drastically cut to just £4,000.00. There has always been talk of how long it would take one to become an ISA millionaire. Apparently, if you save the maximum allowance every year for 25 years is the answer. I have been too busy living life to manage that amount but, on reflection, perhaps I should have forced myself.

If you’re asking why I would even be considering this, an article in The Times this morning emphasises it’s significance. The full article is here. We have what are spuriously called gold-plated pensions and they are defined benefit and inflation-proofed. They should keep pace with prices over a retirement of 30 years far better than this lady’s Annuity Pension. We also have a modest State Pension and the huge advantage of the proceeds from the sale of our Greek home plus lifetime savings and investments. The longer we live, the more significant these will become.

The Labour Government are doing good things in a very difficult environment. Taxing private education or buying privilege for your children as we call it has been long overdue. I would ban all private education on principle. Taxing farmers as we tax everyone else is long overdue and will stop the rich landowners avoiding paying their due taxes. Making second home owners pay increased taxes makes sense in redistribution to the poorer end of society. If I am unable to shelter my savings from tax, I will understand and accept it although I will be disappointed. Hopefully, I can get the £40,000.00 for this year salted away before the change.

The problem is age. I have more or less accepted that I am too old to buy another property abroad although I still flirt with the idea at times. I do not have enough time to invest in the stock market in a full blooded way and wait to recover from a market downturn or crash. I have to invest more short term.

I have always believed that I am likely to die before my wife so I have sheets of instructions locked away about how to access all the funds. It is likely that Probate will be required for part of it so directions about how to deal with that are included. We have had very comprehensive wills since the early 1980s and our executors are still alive so that is in order.

Even so, it is good to review these conditions regularly. Certainly we will never be either rich or poor. We will always be reasonably comfortable. After 16 years of Retirement, we are still able to save/invest which I wouldn’t have predicted back then. Let’s hope we live to test the 30 year barrier. I will only be 88 years old, Dear Reader. I intend to be still walking 8 miles a day and doing a Gym routine.

Tuesday, 25th March, 2025

Last week of March. I’m hurtling towards the age of 74. I find it hard to say out loud. It hurts! We are also hurtling towards the new Tax Year, Dear Reader. Yes, I know, you can think of nothing else. This morning, I have an appointment at an investment bank where I hope to make a new, tax-sheltered investment for 2025.

Then, on to the Garden Centre to see where they are up to in terms of bedding plants, on to Wickes to order a delivery of fresh topsoil/compost to refresh the raised beds and pots. Suddenly, the Financial Year and the Horticultural Year restart with a jump and it’s good to be ready.

It’s turned into a lovely day of warm sunshine. Going out for a walk because fitness is the state most important to longevity followed by affluence and happiness. It is not surprising to find that the affluent are much more likely to be happy with their state than those struggling to survive.

There is a distinct difference between longevity and a healthy life. For many, the final decade or more is marked by ill health and disability. The aim is to marry health and longevity together.

Another 8 miles in the bank. I’ve now completed 8 miles a day, every day for 7.5 months apart from one day which haunts me even now. In over 1700 miles, there was a day that I just couldn’t complete because I had a long, tiring drive and got home exhausted. I tried to raise myself but just couldn’t do it. It makes me angry with myself and ashamed every time I look at the stats. – which is every day and sometimes two or three times a day.

Wednesday, 26th March, 2025

Glorious morning. Strong Spring sunshine. Buds on trees and bushes bursting fresh green everywhere. Amazingly confident birds calling from every branch, establishing their territory, confirming their mates, preparing for the perpetuation of Life.

It is a time of optimism and hope. New, confident beginnings. A promise of better times ahead. The Summer is coming. The only downside of this movement forward is that we will all be older.

We have got a summer of travel to come but I am trying so hard to keep everything buttoned down until then. Self denial, self discipline, self impulsion, self flagellation, self responsibility are the watchwords until May. The common denominator is self. It falls to me and my determination in all these things. I hold myself responsible and it must be me who fixes it.

I was surprised by an interview I read yesterday with the opera singer from Manchester – Russell Watson. He suffered a glandular tumour which was treated with radiotherapy. The radiotherapy left him suffering, constantly tired for two years afterwards. If that is a common result, it explains why I have been strugling so much with my physical condition. I am almost back. I am on course for walking 3,000 miles this year. I will have done at least 8 months on a restricted calorie intake and no alcohol. It is all a continual battle but I am winning it.

The lovely weather promises that it will all be worth it. Let’s hope we have a good May with nice weather both here and when I am away. More seed sowing in the sunshine today after a 90 minute walk and then an hour in the Gym.

Just been following the Chancellor’s Spring Statement and it was good to hear that The Office for Budget Responsibility have upgraded forecasts for growth over the life of the Parliament based on Labour’s building plans. I was just as pleased to hear no plans for tightening ISA limits. It may be something on the cards for the future so I will attempt to shelter as much as possible over the next few years.

We have a swanky, new care home near us. At least one of us may need it at some stage. It has specialisms which include Dementia but it allows one to buy/rent whole apartments and includes lots of facilities to make the last years of life enjoyable. The cost of services is about £50,000.00 per year in addition to property prices/acommodation charges. It will not be cheap and it will not be provided under Social Care support. With no children, we will have to find it all ourselves. We need to prepare but hope we don’t need it for another 20 years or so.

Thursday, 27th March, 2025

Glorious morning after quite a cold night. We went down to 4C/39F for the first time for a while. The sky was sparkling and clear last night but is blue and cloudless this morning. It is going to be a growing day for nature.

Nature is a wonderful thing. I sowed these seeds just 36 hours ago and stored them under cloche lids to keep warmth and humidity up. The result is above. I think it is incredible. If I had had the time and patience to sit and watch, I’m sure I could have seen this germination and growth process with the naked eye. These little, flat and dry whispers of seed are so programmed in nature to feel a warm, wet environment and immediately reached down to the floor for nutrition and up to the sunlight for further nutrition.

And from litle acorns … Well, this is the story of life. Generation. Making, nurturing and growing babies. Hoping for the future, their future. It is a selfless act of respect for life. Look how these scrawny, little sticks of green energy will develop and mature in the next couple of months. I wonder if they will go to university, get married and have children. It is all in the lap of fate.

My Housekeeper has multiple jobs/skills. She is a chef, laundry woman, electrician, builder, painter & decorator, hairdresser and, each morning she is my chiropodist. (Sexy or what?) All this walking demands lots of footcare. Every morning I have my feet checked and creamed. Consequently, they are beautiful and soft. In fact, according to her they are one of my best (only) features.

I’m going to have to work on BALANCE. I’ve noticed that mine is becoming suspect. It is something which happens in age and has to be fought against. Can you stand on one leg …. with your eyes closed? I know I have always struggled with things like that but I’ve noticed that I am even less capable of it now.

The project for today, and we all need one, is to treat the car with a new product I’ve bought. It is a silicon and polyeurethane resin spray coating. A black car is always difficult to keep clean and this sparkling, black, metallic paint quickly shows even the dust spots out of rain. I have to clean it and then coat it in the resin which shines up to showroom level and then (allegedly) shrugs off water and dirt for up to 8 months. We will see. I’ll let you know.

Friday, 28th March, 2025

The morning started off damp but has soon brightened up to blue sky and sunshine. Must wish my sister, Jane, happy 71st birthday. She is spending it on Gran Canaria.

Been talking to my old friend, JohnR, and sharing with him this photo from yesterday’s The Times.

When I left home to go to College, JohnR was the second new person I met on arrival at my Digs. To say I was green and innocent would be an understatement. My first Digs mate was Nigel from the South of England. He was sitting under a table, morosely playing Leonard Cohen – Bird on the Wire. Who the hell was Leonard Cohen? It sounded like nightmare noise.

Dismissing that shock for a while, I was next presented with JohnR, a fresh faced, penny whistle playing, Methodist, Geordie who spoke in an accent and a language I had never heard before. He called me Bonnie Lad which had certainly not happened before. He told me he came from Whitley Bay. I’d never heard of it. Was it on Mars? He told me how beautiful it was and he spoke with a pride about his origins which I had never felt myself. We speak quite often now but I have never been been to his home town. If it looks like this. I’ve definitely missed out. I’m looking forward to seeing him again soon.

Revisiting old memories is really on my mind at the moment. This is the time we would be preparing to set off for Greece and our garden and the surrounding hillsides would be carpeted in greenery after Winter rains. The flowers would be everywhere and the barren, dry earth of mid-Summer hardly imaginable. A friend sent these yesterday. It brings it all back immediately.

Age tarnishes everything, Dear Reader, and not necessarily for the better. Just the passage of time is enough to bring about a need for renewal. I rather like to see old buildings re-purposed and renewed. But today, after 8 short years, I have to buy new Office Chairs. Just day to day scraping and twisting have made ours look too lived-in to be acceptable. They’ve gone up in price a bit since then but not too badly. A pair of smart, Office chairs = £520.00. Sold!

Although the day has just got better and better, wrapping its warm arms around us – 16C/61F (palindromic heat) – I have got more and more tired and jittery as I pushed myself in the Gym. In there, I am watching the 7th series of Homeland. It is just pure brilliance. If you watch nothing else for the rest of your life, I would urge you to watch this, Dear Reader. With Trump in power and Russia/China on the rise, this Drama is so on point.

Saturday, 29th March, 2025

March is almost over and we lose another hour tonight as the clocks go forward. Got to make the most of this life. It is the most glorious, warm and sunny day. I’ve been chatting to Kevin in Leeds, Peter in Harrogate, David in Bolton, Andy in central London, Julie in North Yorkshire and Sue in Gozo, Malta. The latter is a girl from Oldham who was Pauline’s best friend throughout her years at Hathershaw school. She has been living on Gozo for the past 5 years and looks very happy there. She is the same age. We are all aging.

I love the internet. All of these things are only possible because of it. We share words, photos, videos across the ether at the switch of a keyboard. This morning I received news of the death of a Sifnos resident. Testament to the simple life and the mediterranean diet, Angelos Loumidis was born in 1928 – just short of his century.

A simple farmer still using the old methods of donkey transport and the old, stone threshing circle for harvest. This video shows Loumidis directing activity in the threshing circle which looks out across the sea to the islands of Paros and Antiparos.

A simple farmer on a Greek island will never get rich. His will have been a subsistence level of life. Rich in experience and friendship but without the commercial trappings of modernity. Living on the fruits of his own labour – olive oil, tomatoes, chickpeas, freshly baked bread and home made wine. I want to live to 100 but I’m not sure that simplicity would be worth it now.

Sunday, 16th March, 2025

Cold night under a full moon. Gorgeous morning of clear skies and strong sunshine. After orange juice and coffee, Chef is at it again. This morning bread is being started. Yeast is warming in the kitchen with that lovely, yeasty perfume before the process really begins. By the time I get back from my walk, a bowl of dough will have trebled or more and be escaping over the rim. When you think about it bread making and the effect of yeast are incredible processes. How did anyone ever discover it?

Life is quite parochial at the moment. Largely that is my own fault. I deliberately focussed on a weight and fitness program and didn’t make travel arrangements until May but there are times when it feels very confining. It is working but the discipline required can be frustrating at times.

Sixteen years ago, I was still 57 – just – and less than three weeks away from Retirement. A dash away to Greek Springtime was in prospect and long time of playing out ahead. For years we had spent Easter in Greece. It is a delightful, relaxing time of unpredictable weather and of the most beautiful wild flowers carpeting the land.

To make the most of school holidays, it meant a Friday night flight from Manchester arriving in Athens in the early hours of the morning. Down to Piraeus harbour and then a tired wait for a ferry to Sifnos at 8.00 am Saturday morning. Docking about 1.00 pm the port was bathed in rain, hail, strong sunshine, take your pick. I remember we took clothes for all seasons just in case. Whatever, the first view was of a carpet of flowers up the hillsides. It was instant joy and relaxation.

Of course, for the final ten years we had reopening, reawakening, refreshing house duties. A house shut up for 6 months needs airing with windows open to the Spring warmth. All the services had to be reconnected – satelllite tv, broadband, etc. A restarted fridge/freezer needed restocking and all those other jobs home owners do all year round. With only two weeks there for Easter, it was demanding but had to be done ready for the drive there in July and six weeks of Summer time to follow.

Music today is S’ Agapo (Σε Αγαπώ – I Love You.) from across the years. Played in buses and tavernas mingling with strong tobacco, heady wine and hot nights, the song brings back so many memories. Good memories. Memories with no regrets. S’ Agapo.

Monday, 17th March, 2025

Happy Monday! Lovely, sunny day. It’s a cleaning day. Clean Monday. The Window Cleaner is here. I’m valeting the car and tidying up the patio. My Housekeeper is steam-cleaning the floors. What an exciting day.

Friends in the North were ecstatic last night as Newcastle won the League Cup Final at Wembley. The League Cup used to be a second class achievement but Geordies went mad. It was a good game and I was pleased for them but it didn’t mean much to me.

Peter Holgate, an old College friend is a season ticket holder and was there early in his black & white shirt although he said the escalators were not working and he struggled to climb hundreds of steps. He sent me before and after photos which gave a flavour of his day.

The last time Newcastle won a trophy was in 1969. The trouble is that I remember it well. This is getting serious. I am 74 in less than 3 weeks and I don’t like it. Caroline was only 7 years old. She and her husband are keen Newcastle supporters and sent me a photo of there joy yesterday evening. I must admit, I enjoy sport but can’t get that excited.

Anyway, on with the day. I have to go out and replenish my ‘Liquids’ stock. One of the main constituents of my dieting day is drinking. It has to be low calorie and a palate-refreshing flavour. I tried Shloer 0% but can’t get used to its horribly sweet taste.

I drink Tea, Coffee (with skimmed milk), and unsweetened Oat Milk. I also have found that Fever~Tree flavoured Tonics are excellent, low calorie supports so this is my day of exercise and diet.

I’ve written before that I never dream and, if I do, I never remember it. The radio comes on every morning at 5.45 am. Usually, I am awake waiting for it. This morning, it woke me with a jolt from … a dream. I was dreaming of being in a large room of long tables covered in starched, white cloths. They were Buffet Tables piled high with food. As I went to get some, it disappeared. This was a continuing process. Each time I went to a table the food – Great legs of roast ham just disappeared into the mists … I must be hungry.

St Patrick’s Day today. Three years ago, I was on Fifth Avenue, off Times Square, New York. I didn’t even know it was Paddy’s Day when I booked. The area went madly Green. It was disappointingly damp but it didn’t dampen Irish spirits. It was an enjoyable experience although not one I would rush to repeat. New York didn’t do it for me at all.

My friend, Kevin, is in Spain. He goes for the sunshine because he suffers from SAD syndrome. Well, he’s picked the wrong week this week. It’s raining. Here he is looking a bit forlorn with his latest girlfriend. Apparently the Spanish coast has had a month’s rain in a day. It’s enough to make anyone SAD. At least he’s got a girlfriend to console him.

It’s no longer warm and sunny here. The lovely start to the day has given way to a grey afternoon with a cold and sharp breeze that cut through me on my walk. I’m going into a centrally heated Gym to watch Series 6 of the brilliant Homeland and complete my exercise routine. My Housekeeper is ironing to keep her out of trouble.

I’m sticking with Greek for my music today. It is making me feel quite sad and empty for a time gone, a time to be revisited and regained. It’s got to happen. I will make it happen. My music today is Απόψε σε θέλω (Apópse se thélo – Tonight I want you.) – Haris Alexiou. It is the sound of plaintive Greece, of dark, late nights punctuated by pinpoints of bright, electric light far off in the black landscape. Life is far away across the landscape, out of reach. It is a feeling of disconnection and loneliness.

Απόψε θέλω να πιω / Tonight I want to drink
Τίποτα μετά να μη θυμάμαι / I don’t remember anything after that …

You see what dieting is doing to me, Dear Reader?

Tuesday, 18th March, 2025

Didn’t sleep well last night. Had felt sad all evening. Woke early before the radio came on. Light outside at 4.30 am. Glorious day by 6.00 am with strong sunshine. My Carer is in need of care herself. I am a total sceptic about Alternative Medicine but she has been having some headaches which the doctor suggests may be caused by nerve endings in the brain. She can take a strong, interventionist drug which is only palliative itself. She has chosen to try acupuncture instead. Rather her than me.

The Littlehampton Natural Health Centre is a hotchpotch of alternative therapies, I could even have my pelvic floor attended to. Anyway, if it helps, a initial session of Acupuncture for £55.00 has been booked but they are so busy it won’t be until the middle of April.

Walking by the sea is my alternative therapy. The colours, smells and sounds really lift the spirits. Today, after visiting the acupuncturist, I drove to the beach just a couple of minutes away. The warmth of the sun, the mediterranean blue of the sky and the gentle lapping of the distant waves make one feel better immediately. I wanted to dash into the water. I resisted the impulse. That reverie was unfortunately broken by the arrival of a classful of Primary kids in High-vis jackets and screeching teachers. Retreat was the best policy.

Had to spend an hour at Honda this morning where the central locking unit was replaced. Lovely people. I am pleased with my loyalty to the brand. It has paid off hugely over the years. In over 40 years of buying Hondas, I think this is only second time we have had an issue with a car. The last one was in 1985 when we developed an airconditioning problem. I think that’s quite impressive.

I am naturally a loyal person – like a pet dog, I suppose. I often think I am too loyal. I was amused to see this article in The Times this morning. My wife always says that I don’t cope very well with her being ill. I do try but she’s probably right. I was OK at playing Doctors & Nurses but not Nurses & Patients. Well, you don’t get the same services do you, Dear Reader?

I prescribe music. It is a profound medicine. Music today is Chopin – Etude Op. 10 No. 3 (Tristesse) It is a study in melancholic sadness. Sometimes a piece is wholly appropriate. Whatever, it is beautiful enough to move one.

Wednesday, 19th March, 2025

A busy day. Out all day. Started off dull but soon went into full sun mode. Gorgeous. I’m Tesla spotting. It has become the symbol of right wing extremism, populism at its worst. It’s owner, Elon Musk has been up front in Trumpian politics and is renowned for leading the Nazi salute brigade. He is encouraging and normalising government by untruth and furthering the American MAGA movement which feeds on lies and conspiracies.

Social Media and, particularly Musk-owned Twitter-X, is alive with anti-Tesla ridicule. Across Europe and Democratic America there are numerous incidences of burnt out Tesla cars, protest movements against Tesla sales and anti-MAGA demonstrations. Just ask the Canadians who are running a national boycott of American goods on the shelves.

Right back in 2012, I was starting out on an ISA investment journey. Putting the maximum I had disciplined myself to save for two full Santander ISAs. My campaign has continued unabated throughout Retirement. It looks as if I’ve found a home for the next investment pot which will open on my birthday, April 6th. In 2012, I was getting a 2yr fix at 4.0%. A year later, I was getting just 2.8%.

Currently, I can get 4.21%. If inflation can be pegged back to Bank of England 2% base, there is still a gain to be made and tax-free. A sign of the times, Santander has announced this morning that it is closing 25% of all its High Street outlets to provide essentially on-line services. About time.

Winter, spring, summer or fall
All you have to do is call
And I’ll be there, yes, I will
You’ve got a friend

Listening to driving music this morning. James Taylor You’ve Got a Friend, a Carole King song from the Mud Slide Slim album. It’s difficult ideas but easy singing. I have so many mixed associations with this song not least a long, long drive to Greece, through the depth of the French countryside, the heights of the Swiss Alps, the motorway frenzy of the Italian Autostrada and the intense heat of the Greek Pelopponese.

Home by mid-afternoon and it is a beautifully sunny 17C/63F. I have walked 7 miles so far but I feel tired and shaky. My sugar level is low and my muscles feel depleted. This is the second day running it has occurred and I’m not sure why. Still, I’ve got a Gym session to do this afternoon before Supper so I’d better get on with it.

Thursday, 20th March, 2025

Today is the Spring Equinox or equal day and night. It is going to be a warm day here in 2025 but the warmest Spring Equinox on record in UK was March 2oth, 1972. I was still aged 20 (just) and writing my college thesis. In fact I was particularly creative at that time.

My thesis was on the works of a Cumbrian poet, Norman Nicholson, who I did a poetry reading with at Leeds University along with local Ripon poet and my English Lecturer, David MacAndrew. David was a lovely man and kind friend. He has been dead for 6 years now. How time flies. How those years since Spring 1972 have flown. For my own records as much as any of my College readers, I record these photos of David.

It’s going to be an outdoor day enjoying the sunshine. First a walk and then a couple of hours giving the street lawns their first cut of the season. Got to make the most of the life we have.

This morning it was announced that Eddie Jordan, the former Formula 1 team owner had died aged 76. He had been diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer. Two years ago, I was diagnosed with early stage but aggressive prostate cancer. So far, I have survived to fulfil further ambitions. I am going to do exactly that.

When I see this rich man with all the access to medical testing and treatment at his command looking so fit, tanned and healthy and know he is now dead at an age just two years after mine, I know I can’t hold back. Taking risks and doing what I have long dreamed of doing just has to happen.

Of course, what could the music be today other than Vivaldi’s Four Seasons: Spring. If you can get the Musak editions out of your mind from 1990s telephone answering machines, it is glorious. It reminds me of the moorlands on the Pennines.

I’ve done three hours of mowing, edging and sweeping. It started off warm but at 3.00 pm it is hot. We have just reached the magic 22C/70F and it is beautiful. I am absolutely shattered but I’ve still got 40 minutes to do in the Gym. Everything about my body is screaming, NO! but, as usual, my head is insistently replying, YES!!!

Friday, 22nd March, 2025

A different day – less sunny and cooler although improving. Down at the beach en route to the Fish Shop, things were quiet and calm.

Good day for making a crossing in a small boat. The sea is flat and calm. There is no breeze and it is relatively warm. Good alternative to flying in to Heathrow this morning.

I have written before of my unerring need to go back, to revisit, to reconnect with people and places. I usually set a plan and eventually tick off elements of that plan over time. Having spent 25 years on Sifnos, it is on my list for revisit.

This morning some memories of people and places on the island were posted and took me right back to the late 1970s – early 1980s. There are people I know from then in these photographs. Some are dead but some are still alive. The places may have changed but they still exist in new form. That is the challenge. These photographs feature the first man I met on arrival, our architect of our house and one of our favourite tavernas for Lunch. Happy Days to revisit.

Music today involves two lovely voices – Andrea Bocelli and Celine Dion -recorded at an open air concert in Central Park: La Preghiera (The Prayer) Fortunately, I don’t rely on prayers.

Going out for a walk followed by some more grass mowing and finishing off with a Gym session. Activity is central to life at the moment. It is working although I am strangely starting to suffer energy depletion at the moment.

With all this effort, I am starting to look at new suits to fit a new me. I can’t decide how formal/informal to go. These are my current favourites and they are cheap at just over £200.00. I might have to order one of each if someone doesn’t help me. Reader views always welcome.

Saturday, 23rd March, 2025

Had a terribly fitful night. Woke desperately tired and then fell back to sleep. Up half an hour late this morning. A pleasant, mild and bright morning. It’s going to be a gardening day. I’ve got artificial lawns to sweep, cold frames to clean out and seeds to sow. We were given Christmas presents of bulb packs which have been developing away in their containers. The Grape Hyacinths are the first to put on a Spring display.

Out in our street, the cut out flower beds in the lawns have to be planted up in a few qweeks time. It costs me quite a bit of cash. I don’t ask neighbours to contribute. It is my offering to the community like the lawn mowing service. Being one of the few retirees around here, I have the time and they don’t. I try to plant out colourful but hardy and long lasting plants which survive throughout the Summer. Particularly this year, they will have to cope because I will be away for most of it.

They have to be bright and stand-out as people drive in. They have to have a ‘corporate’, unified feel of a community. They can’t look dull, grubby, unkempt or uncared for. They will flower from June to October. I will buy young plants from the Garden Centres but sow all these seeds as well because I will need about 200 plants in all. Seed sowing will start today.

I’m also sowing my one of my favourite vegetables which I eat about three times a week – French (Green) Beans. They are easy to grow from seed and prolific in fruiting over a long season.

Out walking, there are lovely signs of Spring. Daffodils and Hyacinths in full bloom, Robins in trees screaming at us to get out of there patch and these, gorgeous magnolia blooms which really symbolise the season.

Just finished my Gym routine at 4.30 pm after a morning of gardening. I am out on my feet. I don’t understand it. For the third day running, I feel shaky and my muscles are cracking. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t really think I am pushing myself too hard but I am definitely in deficit somewhere. Today, I’ve eaten a bowl of home made museli and a banana. I don’t feel hungry but my body is saying it needs something. You’ve definitely got problems when your body needs something.

A propos of absolutely nothing, this afternoon I’m listening to Elton John & Kiki Dee singing Don’t Go Breaking My Heart. I suppose I have a broken body.

Sunday, 9thMarch, 2025

Gorgeous, warm and sunny morning. How lovely for little Catherine to celebrate her 70th birthday. It astonishes me to even say that. Catherine is 70!

Still, it comes to us all. I’ve made her a home-made card. As I was always told, they are so much more meaningful. As she lives just down the road from me, I know she is enjoying the same, lovely weather and will be able to enjoy a glass of wine in the garden today to celebrate her achievements.

Catherine was born in 1955. It was a different world as some of these photos suggest. Actually, she has just sent me a photo of her own Memory Board with many photos I haven’t seen before.

Funnily enough, I was looking through the 1911 and 1921 Census records yesterday. I love that sort of thing. Found out some fascinating stuff that I didn’t know.

Mum was born a Coghlan. Her Dad, my Grandad was James Jeremiah Coghlan (Irish extract Roman Catholic) who was born in 1894 in Brighton. I even have a photo of the house and street where he was born although it was redeveloped long ago.

When I first knew my Grandad in any cognisant state, he was living in Croydon and managed the furniture department of a store in central London. When he retired, he moved up to the Midlands near us, opened an Antiques Shop and did his own re-upholstering of old furniture. He was proud of his skills.

I didn’t know and never met any of his siblings – my Aunts and Uncles. I certainly didn’t know of his father, Daniel (Born 1851) – my Great Grandfather – or his Mother, Mary Coghlan (Born 1856) or his Grandmother, Mary Fielding (Born 1828) – my Great Great Grandmother – at all.

I’m going out to tidy up the garden and enjoy the sunshine before I do my Gym routine. I’m listening to Elgar today. We are seriously on the edge of World War 3. I honestly believe that these are the conditions that crept up on the world unnoticed before the Second World War and the foundations are forming again. The Elgar I’m listening to is the Nimrod Variation. Nimrod the warrior is all around us now. The Tory government scrapped a new fleet of Nimrod submarine hunters which cost almost £4bn to develop, just before they were due to enter service as part of drastic defence cuts four years ago

Monday, 10th March, 2025

A grey, warm morning. Missing yesterday’s blue sky and sunshine already. We have been experiencing lovely, warm and sunny Spring days recently. The world (locally) is turning back to life. Now we are told it will flip back momentarily to colder times. Daffodils and crocuses will survive the blip but tree blossom may not. We haven’t gone quite that far yet with just nascent buds appearing so all will be well. The shorts and tee shirt can stay in the wardrobe for a few more days.

I used to be a climate change denier. There, I’ve said it. I am no longer, although I harbour a residual suspicion that historical world climate events don’t suggest man-made change is entirely the explanation. However, not to be churlish, my sister, JaneBG has shamed me into accepting the inevitable. I thought I would preface today’s Blog post with that admission.

I used to live on the edge of the Pennines in West Yorkshire for many years and a recurring story of the moors being on fire came each year. They are ritually set on fire as a part of land management, burning off the old growth to encourage new shoots to emerge and blossom over the Summer. It would also happen as tinder dry heather was sparked into fire by careless recreation of a thrown away cigarette or barbecue. I don’t remember hearing of fires in early March … until this year.

Moor fires above Huddersfield on Holmfirth Road and Diggle in Oldham over the last few days.

I am not a Geographer or a Scientist and I do not have a proper understanding of Climate Science. I rely on others. Recently the concept of Global Warming has been qualified by the possibility of Europe actually cooling. This scenario is unlikely to affect my Generation although warming is already something I am addressing. Installing Air Conditioning in the house and preparing to use less water in the garden are both becoming necessities now. I must admit, I would rather deal with warming than have to heat for cooling but it will neither be in my gift or, probably, my lifetime.

My expected lifespan – as an average for those born in 1951 – is 87 years which means just 13 more. A woman born in 1951 can expect to live to 89 years. That is my challenge – to beat the 87 ceiling. That should be all our challenges, Dear Reader. World War 3 could put that under serious strain even if I am not called upon to fight.

I so enjoyed the Elgar yesterday that I couldn’t wait to play more this morning. Today I am focussing on Enigma Variations: Variation VI. Ysobel – Andantino. Ysobel is a Hebrew name which means to struggle with god and led to the naming of Israel. Not many people know that.

Tuesday, 11th March, 2025

A bit overcast this morning but warm and humid. I am putting myself through another test this morning. I’ve volunteered for Our Future Health a collaboration between the public, charity and private sectors to build the UK’s largest health research programme – bringing people together to develop new ways to prevent, detect and treat disease. Of course, I’m only doing it because they are going to pay me £10.00 for my services. Height, weight, waist circumference, blood pressure, blood sample are all taken and recorded. There is no hiding place.

I volunteered immediately my surgery suggested me and I am happy to offer my unique body for the country’s amusement. I assume they have only invited gods and other people of true beauty. Even the organisation can’t really believe my willingness to take part. They have emailed and texted me to confirm my appointment constantly since.

I am going for a 9.00 am appointment at a clinic opposite the beach. I’m not sure how often this will happen but it will have to fit in with my travel plans this Summer.

I weigh myself every morning first thing and I am still well on course. Down again today. I have definitely got the right balance of calories in and calories out at the moment. Over Breakfast, I tested my INR (2.9) and checked my Blood Pressure. Both were good. I think my Blood Pressure is excellent at the moment.

However, that turned out to be the high point. Out at 8.30 am and straight in to rush hour traffic. The drive took me 3 times as long as normal. Parked up by the beach (£3.40) and rushed down the promenade to the testing centre to find a small paper notice pinned to the window – CANCELLED – Testees will have been notified by Text. I hadn’t received a text at all, Dear Reader. You can only imagine how disappointed I was.

Across the road, down at the beach, the sun was just starting to break through the clouds but the area was almost deserted. I’m not sure why but a number of stone pillars have been installed covered in photographs of all the seaside opportunities available for visitors to explore.

The drive home was much quieter and, over coffee, I phoned the Future Health Head Office to receive a bland apology and request to book again. I will give them one more chance but that’s all.

After coffee and a walk, I am going to finish tidying up the back garden this afternoon while my Decorator complretes the re-painting of the groundfloor of the house. It’s a hive of industry here at the moment. I like a good handyman (woman). Very cheap!

Hey, baby, I’m your handy man
I’m not the kind that uses pencil or rule
I’m handy with the love and I’m no fool
I fix broken hearts, I know I truly can

So, you’ll understand my musical choice of the day is James Taylor: Handy Man. Always liked James Taylor and I don’t really know why. I think it is the cool thoughtfulness of the lyrics that appeals to me although I’m not sure it holds up with this song.

I don’t know if this happens to you but it is increasingly happening to me, Dear Reader. Over coffee this morning, I watched a rolling news presentation by Manchester United of proposals to spend £Billions on the building of a new stadium complex which will help regenerate the North of England. It all sounded good and was said to be aimed to open in 5 years time. Wonderful and quite quick …. until I realise by the time this stadium is opened, I will be 79 years old. It is all so unfair and explains why I am so urgent to do things I want to do before my hair falls out and/or I fall off my perch.

Wednesday, 12th March, 2025

A mild but grey morning. My Carer is out. She is moonlighting as a Cat Carer this morning. She tries to fit this in to her portfolio of careers as a Carer, Housekeeper, Chef and Painter & Decorator. It is an unpaid service that she offers to the neighbours when they are away. This morning she is next door feeding two cats Duck in Sauce at 7.30 am. Can you imagine it?

Taking the car in for work this morning. They’ll only need it for a couple of hours so I’ll walk home and then back to collect it. Meanwhile, the Cat Carer will don another cape and become Chef to make a batch of Hot Cross Buns before swapping capes and continuing the Painting & Decorating. It’s exhausting, isn’t it, Dear Reader.

I’ve booked an alternative trip to the Medical Research Clinic for early next month and I have found a scanning service which I’m interested in following up. I read about it in The Times. Neko Health offers a comprehensive body scan which really covers a full amount of data.

There is only one UK site at the moment and that is in Marylebone, Westminster so that is where I will go but it looks as if the principle could be the future for NHS processes although I may not see much of it in my lifetime.

The sun has come out in time for my walk and the world looks lovely. My friend in North Yorkshire had his car stolen just after Christmas and still has no car. I’ve been without mine for less than an hour and I feel very uncomfortable. I’m soothing myself with a song from Bocelli: Lo Ci Sarò – I’ll Be There. Kevin is sunning himself in Spain. It is certainly sunnier and warmer than here but no so distinctly as it will be in another month.

Here, tree buds have broken, daffodils and hyacinths are in full bloom and gardeners are on their starting blocks for the new season. You can feel change is in the air. I’m looking forward with optimism, Dear Reader. New beginnings.

Thursday, 13th March, 2025

Glorious morning. Blue sky and sunshine. Early walk this morning before driving up to Surrey to see smarty-M from Florida. All night the aroma of freshly-baked, hot cross buns has wafted through the house and now they are packaged up for transport in the car. I am hard into my diet. Chef is taunting me with her cooking.

I must admit that they do look good.  I hope, M, P&C enjoy them when I’m not there. Actually, I am so far into the diet that the sweet, fruit bread doesn’t really tempt me for long.

For a number of years, I have been disciplining myself to save and invest the maximum ISA amount for both of us each year. The maximum currently is £20,000 x 2. We are just about to do that again on April 6^th, my 74^th birthday and the start of the new Tax Year. Our tax -free investment allowance each year is just £1,000.00 x 2 so we are facing increasingly punishing tax bills and ISAs are the only way to shelter our cash from tax.

That is what I’ve been researching recently. I think a fixed rate for a couple of years is the best way to go. Despite the financial instability engendered by the Trump administration, I have reasonable confidence that inflation won’t soar out of hand and that a fixed rate can be relied on to make positive profits over a 24-month period if I’m not paying any tax on it.

They may be positive but they’re not very big. The maximum ISA for two people – £40,000.00 will only earn £3,605.80 over two years. Even if inflation comes back to the Bank of England norm of 2%, that would be worth just £1,879.00 in inflation adjusted value. If I move our ISAs of the last few years in as well, it is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick but not a great deal.

Even if I invest it outside the ISA, tax-free wrapper, I can only get a marginal increase so it’s not a difficult decision …. unless the ISA route is limited by a future Budget which has been rumoured.

Te voglio bene assai
Ma tanto tanto bene, sai
È una catena ormai
Che scioglie il sangue dint’e vene, sai

One of the joys of driving up to Surrey is that I have time to listen to a political podcast from The Newsagents. It will probably be a series of discussions about Trump, Canada and Mark Carney. It is my sort of thing and it will speed the journey up. Befre that, I am listening to one of the most emotional songs I’ve ever heard. It makes my cry every time I hear it. Andrea Bocelli’s, Caruso.

What should make us all cry and then stand up and fight is scarily spelled out in this French Senator’s speech to the French Senate yesterday. It takes 8 minutes and you have translation subtitles to follow but it is well worth it. Truly spellbinding.

Friday, 14th March, 2025

Lovely, sunny morning after a crystal clear night. The garden was floodlit with moonlight and looked magical. As I drove back from Surrey yesterday, the skies opened and heavy rain hit cold air which turned it into hail. We are on that unpredictable edge of winter into warmer times.

Back home, the sun came out and I did an hour’s walk in brilliant sunshine but was faced with this ominous cloud on my way back. Just made it before the skies opened.

I have plants out in the cold frames and they need to be at the moment. Last night, we went down to 0C/32F at low point. Some bulbs we were given at Christmas are ready to be lifted out and given the open air now. We have been tidying up the garden in readiness. People all around us have been cutting lawns really short. I have held off and I won’t do anything until next week and warm weather returns. It is easy to harm grass by cutting it too soon.

Ten years ago, we were still in Surrey but preparing to drive up to West Yorkshire. I recorded the differing conditions on the that day and they were stark in contrast. I, for one, can’t wait for warmer times to be confirmed and stable.

Pauline received a thankyou of flowers from our lovely, next door neighbours for looking after their cats. They are beautiful – the flowers not the cats. I love cut flowers. All donations welcome.

Por mi que estoy ahora aqui
Y sueo cosas cosas que no s de ti
Dnde estaras?
Qu calle andaras?
En tu retorno
Sueo

Just about to go out for a walk now at 1.00 pm and the rain starts right on queue. It isn’t forecast to be around for long. I’m going to listen to a lovely Bocelli song – Sogno (Dream). Love these words. The Italian is so beautiful. I won’t do any more, I promise.

Saturday, 15th March, 2025

The garden was flooded in the most beautiful moonlight last night – magical and compelling. I woke thinking about it and all the other human beings looking at the same light in the sky. While I write this Blog today, I am listening to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and dreaming of the silver light now gone.

An early walk in lovely sunshine which was deceptively cold as the breeze held a raw edge. Still, it was good to get that done. Chatted to Kevin in Spain and Peter in Dubai and then got on with a task I have set myself. I love cut flowers in the house but they have to be replaced so often that we have a few Faux Flower arrangements around the place. This one in the Hall has been there for over 12 months and I am beginning to not notice it other than it is too tall and blocks the mirror when I want to admire my figure. And we can’t have that. I am looking to replace them.

There are lots of sites on the web that sell them but you have to pay for quality. I have selected a few for my Housekeeper to comment on. I’m not completely convinced by any of them yet. They average around £150.00 for an arrangement in a vase but they will be replacing fresh cu flowers for twelve months plus so that is a reasonable price to pay.

I want them to look as natural as possible while not dominating everything else. I don’t know what you think of these choices, Dear Reader. You could always let me know although your voice will be ignored just as much as mine, ultimately, as the Housekeeper decides.

I’m going in the Gym to bury myself in the absorbing fiction of Homelands. I need it right now because the post has just arrived with two more, huge tax demands. I’m thinking of emigrating!

Sunday, 2nd March, 2025

Gorgeous morning. Sunshine does make one feel better doesn’t it? We live about 36 miles from Gatwick Airport. It takes about 45 mins to drive there. By the time planes have reached us to cross the channel, they are silent specks in the sky with long, white trails behind them. How much more traffic we will have with an extra runway remains to be seen.

Already I have booked 8 flights for this year – each one with Easyjet and each one from Gatwick. It is an easy transition. For some, I drive and park in the Long Stay and for others, I get a taxi allied to a night’s stay in a hotel at the airport – usually I book Sofitel because it is a nice hotel with a convenient walk across to Departures and I am a member who gets discounts. I like discounts.

Effectively, all my trips excluding those to the North of England are ways of buying sunshine. Of course, Florida is a guarantor of sunshine but I couldn’t face it at the moment under its current regime. I would be in the assassination market myself which could prove problematic. We don’t want to let M&K down because we know they get so lonely without us but Manchester is more appealing at the moment. They’ve got Andy Burnham after all.

Music today is an old favourite that I haven’t heard for years. Last night BBC2 was devoted to Elkie Brooks and this brought back so many associations with the past. Lilac Wine, I’ve learnt today was a Song by Nina Simone from 1966. I only remember it from Elkie Brooks in 1978:

Lilac wine is sweet and heady,
Like my love
Lilac wine, I feel unsteady,
Where’s my love …?

Down at the beach this morning, I found myself singing quietly in my head with an blur of softness on my breath. Embarrassing really because the world, his wife and her dog were there drinking in the sunshine.

The coffee shop spilled out on to the beach and the sunshine. The regatta was far out on the sparkling sea and the cycles were parked up to rest in the warmth. It’s coming, Dear Reader. It’s coming.

Monday, 3rd March, 2025

Another gorgeous morning to drink in the sunshine. Went round to chat to Honda and book the car in for Friday. Spoke to a lovely, little girl on the desk who wasn’t even born when I bought my first Honda. Of course, the central locking is working flawlessly this morning. Anyway, it will all be sorted out on Friday.

Back home, I am working on a project of insurance for my data. I generate so much ‘stuff’ that I would be very upset if I lost it so Backup is essential. I use an automatic backup program so I no longer have to think about it.

Computer crashes and security infections are far less prevalent today than when I first started. In 1988, my Masters Degree Dissertation was always in danger and had to be saved on floppy disks which were easily open to corruption. By 1994, computing had moved on but hard drives were limited to 32mb and backup on floppy disks was still very vulnerable.

Just 30 years ago, hard drives were limited to 32 mb. Today, my hard drive is 1,000,000 mb or a Terabyte and houses more pictures and files than could be imagined. Of course, some are more precious than others. I received one 4 years ago today that I never want to lose. It came up in my Records Box this morning and was immediately backed up three times.

I use a cloud store – One Drive that comes with Micosoft Office-365, a local cloud store in the form of this small Terrabyte drive and I have a simple flash drive. There’s insurance and there is real insurance.

Music today is the guitar. The classical guitar of John Williams. I don’t play this too often but today I am listening to Aeolian Suite for Guitar composed and played by John Williams.

Well the day remained wall-to-wall sunshine and reached 15C/59F. Walking was warm. If I hadn’t got my Housekeeper painting, I might have set her on garden tidying instead. Still, there is time.

Tuesday, 4th March, 2025

Another glorious morning. The temperature only says 7C/45F but it feels warm in the sunshine. I’m going out for an early walk. My Housekeeper is painting and the house is invaded throughout by the smell of new paint.

The sea, on the other hand smells freshly of … sea water. It is a good and relaxing place to be. I am walking over just about 3000 miles per year. I feel fortunate not to suffer with joint problems.

A number of my fellow College friends are waiting for or recovering from Hip and knee replacements. That is not something I’m suffering from currently. I have worried that all this walking will bring those problems about but I have been reassured that walking makes them less not more likely.

The Mayo Clinic research found that the average American walks only 3,000 – 4,000 paces per day and 5000 paces should be considered a baseline to health. Although some activity is better than no activity, one should always be challenging oneself to go further. You have to constantly look for fresh ways to integrate walking.

Going to have to try this one. The Lowry Centre in Manchester has an interesting new experience inviting people to walk in to a Lowry painting. Must be worth a visit, Dear Reader. Lowry360 will be open at the beginning of May.

Walking, walking through time and memories …I’ve always loved this quote from T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets:

Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden.
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future ….

Music today is from Helen Shapiro (who is only 78 now) singing Walking Back to Happiness which expresses an idea so close to that of Eliot’s it is amazing. Walking back to the present is an incredible concept. It was the first ‘Pop’ song I ever heard. It was in 1961-2 and played over the tannoy of the first ever supermarket I ever went in to. It was in the Summer before I went to Grammar School where boys were already talking about The Beatles. It took me a while to catch up. Story of my life.

Just received a letter from the Le Ministère de la Transition Écologique et de la Cohésion des Territoires with our Crit’Air vignette attached which will cover us for driving in France and assure police that our car is environmentally clean.

Every time we change the car, we need to buy a new vignette because it uses the car’s VIN number. It costs less than €5.00 and it saves a fine in France so I always do it.The biggest problem is sticking it in the windscreen correctly.

Wednesday, 5th March, 2025

Unusual start to the day. Thick fog all around. Don’t often see that down here. Went down to the beach to collect a fish order and took the chance to walk by the Marina.

Quite chilly 5C/41F under the heavy sky and so different from yesterday’s sunshine. I suppose it is good to see the differing conditions but I prefer the sunshine.

My father died of a heart condition at the ridiculously young age of 49. He actually had a heart attack while he was in a hospital bed but was unable to be saved. This morning, the news carried an innovation being urged on the Labour government by experts from University College London (UCL) who report their view that a single, daily “polypill”, which includes a statin and three drugs that lower blood pressure, could be a flagship initiative to boost the Government’s drive to prevent disease.

Because of my own heart condition of Atrial Fibrillation and my family history, I have taken a handful of pills to cover cholesterol, blood pressure and anti coagulant for the past 16 years. Most of these things may now be offered to all over 50s in a combined pill which is so cheap since they have run out of licence-time. I feel fit. I don’t really worry about heart attacks and stroke any more. This combination of drugs has freed me of those concerns.

I am much more exercised by the threat of cancer. I am adequately tested for prostate cancer now. I have been regularly tested for bowel cancer but it is not automatic and I have to fight for it each time. How often should it be? I do the NHS Bowel Cancer Screening test every 2 years. I have had a colonoscopy at the same interval for the past 4 years. This morning I was told that it should be every year at my age. It was by a private testing company but their data was compelling.I may have to break the habits of a lifetime and pay for privately enhanced treatment.

Warm sunshine has returned and most things are well with the world. The days are coming when fog will lift permanently and sunshine will flow warmly. It will be a time of clarity and blue, mediterranean skies. Music today is Torna a Surriento (Come back to Sorrento) sung by Mario Lanza. If only I could, Dear Reader.

Thursday, 6th March, 2025

A delicious morning. Up early to greet our new central heating service engineer. Really nice, salt-of-the-earth lad who turned out to be a Grecophile who wanted to buy a place in Lefkada. We have been paying British Gas about £350.00 per year for their Gold Standard service. This lad used to manage a team of BG engineers and now works for himself. His service was more thorough and cost just £70.00. He’s already been booked for next year.

These are uncertain times of world destabilisation. Since the Trump-Vance attrocity with Zalensky in the Whitehouse, so many of us have carried round a heavy heart. A friend from Yorkshire sent me this yesterday which relieves the anger momentarily. Just click to play it when you need a ‘joy’ fix.

It is such a lovely day that I’m playing Beethoven’s Symphony No.6 – Pastoral. There really is nothing else on a day like today. When I go walking in the sunshine today I think it will be shorts and tee shirt for the first time for a while. Good things are coming closer and more rapidly now. Not long until May.

My old flatmate, Chris Tolley, has just heard that I am alcohol-free for 191 days. He is away in the sunshine of Lanzarote and sent me a photo to make me jealous. There are many things I want but a glass of warm lager in Lanzarote is not one of them.

The back garden is bathed in strong and hot sunshine. Chicken Stock is being made in the pressure cooker simmering away on the induction hob outside on a table, pervading the air with its distinctive smell and sending all the cats in the area wild.

The upside of Trump’s America First policy is that it throws UK back into the European sphere. However much ambiguity surrounds our government’s attempts to bridge the transatlantic gap, it is becoming clear that there is only strength in European unity and a European defence force that the Atlanticists have been denying for so long. So many of us have thought that for so long as we opposed the Brexit idiocy. It is all coming home to roost.

The Peace Dividend idea at the end of the Cold War was a reason cooked up to allow European nations to divert spending away from Defence into other channels. It was a nice idea but just plain wrong. There will always be aggressive agencies against which we have to defend ourselves. Arguments against nuclear weapons were made on cost and value. Arguments for rested on Deterence.

Boris Johnson famously argued against rearming Military Forces on the basis that it would all be hight tech. in future. He said fighting won’t involve tanks anymore. Just a couple of years later, what has been most needed by Ukraine’s Armed Forces has been Tanks. What we don’t need are the Aircraft Carriers that we bought at extortionate prices in order to support US forces in the Atlantic Ocean.

Friday, 7th March, 2025

Another lovely, warm, Spring morning. Out early to Honda to have the central locking mechanism checked and a Recall on the Fuel Injection system which they only advised us about yesterday.

We will leave the car and walk home. It is a 40 mins walk so we will walk back a couple of hours later. The walk is through the woodland surrounding us. It is still mainly dormant although buds on trees are about to wake to the Spring. This current warm spell will probably do it.

The walk there and back will amount to enough outside today and I will go on to complete my Gym routine this afternoon while my painter & decorator continues freshening up the house. It is amazing how faded the unpainted areas now look so she has inflicted a life time of work on herself equivalent to painting the Forth Bridge which they say needs restarting as soon as they get to the end.

Of course demi-gods like me have more important focusses. Diet, Health and Fitness are the centres of some of my friends mine’s thinking. My friend in Yorkshire and another in Rochdale are obsessed with something I hadn’t heard of but will investigate now. They talk about the Withings Scale from which they quote their Fitness Age.

I thought it was a chart but it turns out to be an actual set of bathroom scales which provide detailed reports of the body scan the scales perform including fat and muscle percentage, cardiovascular risk assessment, and detection of certain early signs of diabetes-related complications and vascular age.

All of this information can be deduced from scan of feet and hands each morning which is then relayed to a smartphone app. Now they’re talking my language! I am trying hard but not hard enough. All that information is a little bit scary but I think I will have to submit to it. Kevin tells me that, although he looks 80, he has a fitness age of 60. That is my target.

My Chef cooked what is turning out to be one of my favourite, healthy and delicious Suppers last night. It consisted of roast Sea Bass with pesto dressing accompanied by Portobello Mushroom stuffed with shallot and parmesan and roast Cherry Tomatoes.

Other than Muesli, this is the only meal of the day. It is accompanied by a glass of alcohol-free wine and fits well within my calorie-intake target. When you get me 7 months into this routine, I find it quite easy. The problem will be when I start to relax it. Will I be able to pull it back whenever I want to?

This morning, I’ve been invited to book the first of a two part annual health check at my Surgery. They are absolutely fantastic down here. We get appointments when we need them. Everything has been done on-line almost since we arrived 9 years ago. Results are delivered on-line to an app on my phone. The service itself is proactive as in this case. I didn’t request a health check. I was invited. When you are in your mid-70s, these things are increasingly important

While keeping up the spinning plates of my body and the car’s, I’ve chosen Take That‘s What is Love. I’ll sing along in Greek because that’s what I associated it with. You can sing in English, Dear Reader. No pressure!

Saturday, 8th March, 2025

Gorgeously warm day for early March. We are reading 17C/63F this morning in the back garden. My walk at 9.30 am was delightful being greeted by shiny, new blackbirds, sweetly voice thrushes and aggressively determined robins all jostling for space and food building up their prowess in readiness for the big love-in.

Before I go on, I have been contacted by a clever clogs who has taken issue with my solution to one of the mathematical puzzles – see Wednesday, 12th February, 2025.

A.C. Clogs says that my solution ignores the BIDMAS rule which says one should deal with multiplication before the addition. This means that the answer to this puzzle should be (4 x 6 = 24) + 3 = 27. Much as I don’t want to acknowledge it, she is right.

Today is International Women’s Day after all as my Bavarian-Australian next door neighbour has just reminded me as I returned her Hot Tub towel which had some how fallen into our garden. My wife is celebrating by being allowed to continue painting the house. I am giving her freedom by watching football and Six Nations Rugby. We all have to make sacrifices!

I’ve also been enjoying exploring the 1911 and 1921 Census releases this morning. They are providing lots of lovely information going back to the early 1800s. Interestingly and rather disappointingly, I thought my Mother’s family had closer ties with Ireland than they did.

Neither my Grandparents nor my Great Grandparents were born in Ireland so the connections really do go a long way back. No chance of me claiming EU identity via my ancestors unfortunately. I will have to rely on Labour taking me back in and Trump making them go faster than they want.

I was supporting Ireland against France this afternoon but it didn’t go right. The French were just too good in the Spring sunshine. Haven’t had time for music today.

Sunday, 23th February, 2025

A beautiful morning. I had an empty sadness inside me yesterday. This morning renewed my optimism that all will go well and that I will achieve my ultimate goals. Blue sky, warm and bright is definitely a harbinger of things to come.

………. Blue-eyed May
Shall soon behold this border thickly set
With bright jonquils, their odours lavishing
On the soft west-wind and his frolic peers;
Nor will I then thy modest grace forget,
Chaste Snowdrop, venturous harbinger of Spring,
And pensive monitor of fleeting years!

William Wordsworth – To a Snowdrop – 1820

Obviously, the effects of Global Warming have advanced the time of Spring considerably over the past 200 years and the difference between the Lake District of Northern England and the sheltered coastal temperatures of West Sussex contribute but these harbingers of Spring are out here at least two months earlier than Wordsworth’s 19th Century Cumbria.

It is a morning of domesticity. I am having my haircut in the Kitchen after I’ve done a 90 mins walk. I have a live-in Barber who actually doubles up as a Chef and Housekeeper. Chef has produced a huge batch of Meat Sauce for one of my favourite meals – Stuffed Peppers / Πιπεριές Γεμιστές. I think this pan will do 6 meals for two people unless you drop in, Dear Reader.

If you are a regular reader of the Blog, you will know that I have been drifting from Left to Right on the Nature v Nurture debate. The Right tend to argue that bloodline and genes are predominate determinates of generation. The Left tend to deny that and argue that privilege of circumstance is what makes the main difference. Levelling up would raise the Health and Physical Wealth of the less fortunate.

I was brought up in a Right Wing family but educated in a Left Wing milieu. I grew up on the belief that amelioration of Nature particularly through compensatory education was the way to improve the world. In later life, I’ve been alarmed to find how many physical attributes are common throughout my family. Now, the Sunday Times reports research with a re-balancing of that argument. Socioeconomic status – your post code and associated affluence which is all tied into your level of education and cultural choices – is by far the most influential factor on longevity. It doesn’t mean that no poor people live to great ages just that the likelihood is less.

Music for this Sunday morning, while the devout are at prayer, is the Debussy – Cello Sonata which was written at the start of World War One and is guaranteed to make life more enjoyable if not any longer.

Monday, 24th February, 2025

A dark early morning of heavy rain has miraculously brightened up by 9.30 am. It is very warm. I’m tired. I didn’t sleep well. I never dream but I’ve been dreaming. In spite of this, I’ve got to get my exercise done. These are the most important days when I have to drive myself through the crisis.

This week marks 6 months without any alcohol. It is the longest spell I have done since 1973. I would like to say I feel good about it -feel better for it. It wouldn’t really be true. I am pleased to reassert my self-discipline. I’m sure it has allowed my liver to breathe a sigh of relief although my doctor told me last year it was in excellent condition. It has definitely helped me in my struggle to lose weight and regain fitness. Both of those goals are well on target. I have a date in May in my mind that I am aiming for. Another 12 weeks.

I am trying to keep myself occupied physically. Having completed my travel planning and bookings for the year with a few gaps to slot extra bits in, I am turning to the garden over the next few weeks. Soon the lawns will need reviving as they welcome the Spring warmth. Moss killer and weed & feed applied to boost them after quite a wet Winter. I am about to order hundreds of ‘plug’ plants to grow on for planting out.

It is a cheap way to produce hundreds of plants without needing to germinate them all myself. They will arrive at the beginning of April and be potted up into my cold frames. They will go out into the beds in late May to flower all Summer while I am away. My neighbours will get instructions on how to look after them.

Music today is from the Moody Blues – On the Threshold of a Dream: Lovely to See You. Haven’t heard it for years. Sounds dated but I suppose I am. It’s strange but part of me utterly rejects the past for its taint with aging yet part of me longs to dive back into it – to understand it with the perspective of distance. It’s probably quite natural but it fascinates me.

I’m absolutely loving my Gym workout each day at the moment. I can’t wait to get in there. I’m watching an Anglo-American Spy drama over 96 episodes which I resisted for a long time but finally re-tried and it is brilliant. I am utterly hooked.

I find myself completing my routine but forcing myself to go further just to finish an episode. It is really topical and involves Israeli prisoners of war, Al Quaeda, Afghanistan, Russia and a change of American President. What more could you want? I love the irony that I have to subscribe to Disney Channel to watch it. This alone is worth the £5.00 a month subscription.

Tuesday, 25th February, 2025

February is sliding rapidly away. March is marching closer. The Spring is on our doorstep. These are the waves of time flowing back and forth on the beach of our lives, each time getting closer before retreating to reveal our past.

If you are my age, Dear Reader, the death of Roberta Flack yesterday will not have passed you by unnoticed. I was no great fan of Soul Music, as I think it was called, but songs like The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (1969) and Killing Me Softly (1973) are part of the fabric of my youth and so chimed with stages of my life that they will always be significant. She lived to 88 but died of a nightmare illness – Motor Neuron Disease. Nothing in life is simple or easy in the end but we have to bear it.

Energy prices are rising again and we have to bear those as well. Interesting article in The Telegraph this morning about how retirees are escaping to warmer climes to save on heating bills. Now that’s an idea, Dear Reader. What do you think?

About 40 years ago, I went to Cyprus in the Winter to enjoy some extra warmth. I hired a car and explored the southern half of the island. It was interesting and enjoyable but not the Greek experience I had been hoping for. I haven’t been back. The article this morning was suggesting that I reconsider and I will.

Around 1985, I stayed in an almost empty area called Protaras. It is quite developed now. I drove to Larnaca and Paphos. I drove from the sunny beaches of Paralimni up the Troodos Mountains region into heavy snow. I drove to the Famagusta checkpoint to look over the fence between Greek and Turkish Cyprus.

I am already looking for a rental property for the month of February next year in Paralimni, South East Cyprus. One of the first that came up suggests I was always destined to return.

It might be a bit big but would be worth it for the name alone. I will have to invite a bunch of friends … if you are up for it, Dear Reader.

Wednesday, 26th February, 2025

Wet and warm, grey and depressing. What to do with today? I am acknowledging 16 years and 6 months today. It was 16 years ago today, at the tender age of 57, that I learned I had an irregular heart beat. Medically, it is called Atriall Fibrilation. Crudely, it means that my heart stops and starts spasmodically, allows the blood to pool in the ventricles of the heart where it can coagulate and pulse clots around the body causing strokes and heart attacks.

I must admit that, in retrospect, I probably suffered from this for years before it was diagnosed. As an athlete and a rugby player in the late 1960s, I put heart palpitations and and feeling light headed down to pushing myself too hard, being short of oxygen, being muscle fatigued. Looking back, I think it was probably irregular heart beat.

Anyway, for the past 16 years I have been dosing myself each morning with rat poison. I take Warfarin which prevents my blood coagulating and therefore clots don’t form to develop catastrophic consequences through circulation. In rat poison, the doses are so high that the rats ingest that their blood circulation is so fluid their bodies explode.

In human sufferers, dosage is closely controlled by medical experts. Hospitals have specialist Departments of Anticoagulation for just this process. I report to one in Worthing every couple of months. We communicate by email. I am fortunate enough to be able to afford my own testing machine and don’t have to physically attend a clinic which is so inconvenient for most. Even so, from the moment I was diagnosed, all my prescriptions even those unassociated were free. I used to really worry about the condition but these days, I am relaxed and on top of it. I test myself weekly and maintain a spreadsheet which is now 16 years long. I never give up!

Six months without alcohol. I think that’s worthy of at least a round of applause. Now walking a minimum of 8 miles a day but actually nearer 60 miles a week. I’m feeling so much better, so much heathier. I know there are somethings I still need to reclaim and I will but music is back in my life after all this time finding it almost unbearable. Today, I am listening to the magnificent Jacqueline du Pré playing Elgar’s Cello Concerto  in E minor composed at the end of the First World War.

Thursday, 27th February, 2025

Gorgeous morning. A little bit cooler than recently but blue sky and sunshine. Eyes drink in the light. If you haven’t got it, I wish I could share it with you, Dear Reader.

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus is a book written by American author and relationship counsellor in the 1990s. Mars is a sign of bravery, aggression and a quality of being strong. Venus is a sign of love, beauty, kindness. Stereotypes are wonderful aren’t they? And plain wrong. It may have sold books but it doesn’t really inform the science of relationship advice. It is too reductive even if it still has some basis in reality. I can be brave, strong, aggressive but I can also be a soft mess. Over all, my experience is that women are stronger and harder headed.

Retirement can be boring after a while and we all look for distractions. We shop and we travel. I shop for technology and my wife shops for clothes. We meet over food and travel. One of the great things is that we don’t have to actually go to shops any more, the shops come to us and they do …. almost daily. This morning I am going to Saint + Sofia in Covent Garden (by proxy) to return a pair of Venus trousers and reclaim £160.00 for my bank account. All I do is print out a label and good things happen.

Ten years ago, I was shopping in Maplin Electronics for memory cards. Now there is no shop left across the country. They went into administration in 2018 and now only trade on-line … and why not. Work from home is a great idea. All teachers should do it.

My live in House Decorator has been tasked with repainting all the internal doors. After 9 years of life and being pounded with strong sunshine, retouching is no longer feasible so all 8 ground floor doors and surrounds are being totally repainted. She needs a project and there it is. As a result, we have made a trip to Wickes this morning for brushes, rollers, paint and White Spirit and Masking Tape. Over the next couple of weeks the house will be renewed.

My job is to complete my fitness regime each day and continue research for a holiday rental in Cyprus for the month of February 2026. No time like the present and someone has to do it. The one above is fantastic value at just £3,200.00 for four weeks replacing UK winter with Mediterranean warmth. What’s not to like?

To keep me company, I have Pavarotti singing Libiamo ne’ lieti calici from Verdi’s La Traviata. Even my Painter & Decorator is singing along. It is an old favourite with so many opera lovers who pretend they can sing whereas Pavarotti is effortlessly sublime … rather like me in the shower.

Friday, 28th February, 2025

Today marks the end of Winter by the meteorological calendar but we’ve got four more weeks until the clocks go forward. Still, the day is glorious with cloudless blue sky and strong sunshine. My Housekeeper doesn’t care what day it is. For her, it is another day of self-indulgence. A constant round of Beauty treatments, new clothes and, this morning, the Hairdressers. Friday seems to be popular.

Went down to the beach where the temperature was a lovely 14C/57F with the tide gently lapping on the turn and hardly a soul in sight.

You only have to bathe in the warmth, listen to the sounds and watch the mesmerising movement of the sea to know life is worth living. It is really reviving. Came away feeling better about life and more determined than ever to succeed. Not long until May.

All eyes yesterday were on America and the Starmer-Trump meeting. The lawyer prepared well and the egoist fell for the preparatory work. All the media with the exception of the ultra right wing Express had to hand it to Starmer. Even the Murdock Times (above) gave praise.

I’ve got the sounds of the sea still playing in my head throughout the morning. So the music I’ve chosen today is from Fleetwood Mac: Albatross. Delicious chords which so echo the sounds of the sea, the lapping of the waves, the dragging of the shells back into the water.

It is so lovely to live here and have this on our doorstep but it will never rival the Mediterranean for me. I will spend the rest of my life exploring shores heated and exposed by the searing heat and blinding sunshine of Mediterranean skies. I can hardly wait for my next visit.

Saturday, 1st March, 2025

Happy new month, Dear Reader. Happy March 2025 and welcome the Spring. It’s certainly bringing gorgeous, warm – 14C/57F – sunshine and blue skies with it this Saturday. Outside on an early walk, the trees and hedgerows were alive with birds looking for friends with benefits to access the gene pool and extend the species. Flowers and buds on bushes are breaking in the bright warmth preparing for the season.

Music today is the delightful Beethoven: Violin Sonata No.5, ‘Spring Sonata’. It is a time of heart raising expectation and joy to come. And there is joy to come, Dear Reader. Life is rejuvenated and reborn. Let’s hope we are too.

Met our neighbours out walking. They have two girls now aged 18 and 16. Each are doing exams this Summer and the elder one preparing to go off to university in September. When we moved in to our new house they were both at Primary School. It is a shock to reaslise how time has moved on in the light of that fact. It’s a shock for parents as well, of course. It reminds us all how old we are.

I’ve owned Honda cars since my first one in 1984. In that time, I have bought more than 20 of them from new. I have virtually never had a problem with any of them although I didn’t keep one more than two years. Yesterday, I developed a central locking problem on the front passenger door and it has to be looked at on Monday.

Actually, I first found out when my Honda App showed all doors, sunroof and windows were locked with the exception of the passenger door. When I checked that was locked as well. So there is an electrical facility problem which I can’t solve.

For that reason, I am going to give the car a full valet in the sunshine in readiness for taking it in on Monday. I am always reminded that when I took my Honda Accord in for its first service in 1984, the Honda desk mildly rebuked me for delivering such a dirty vehicle. They said they provided every customer with free cleaning kits because their vehicles were their adverisements and had to look good always.

I took that rebuke to heart even though I had given them the princely sum of about £7,400.00 and was rather shocked by their response. I have always tried hard since then.

Well, if you are a Democrat and you didn’t go to bed and get up this morning with that obscene scene palyed out in the Whitehouse last night then perhaps you were not paying attention. It has dominated my thoughts since yesterday evening and it fully justifies the opprobrium heaped on that attrocious, attention-seeking, orange man-baby as he abused the President of a European, democratic country. It was utterly appalling but it has to unite Europe in opposition.

The most astonishing thing has happened. I’ve cleaned the car from top to bottom, inside and out. It is ready for inspection on Monday morning. The only thing is that the central locking problem has disappeared completely. I am amazed. I only cleaned it.

Sunday, 16th February, 2025

It’s all downhill from here for February and for life. For me, the morning routines started badly. My shaver refused to pair with my smartphone. Disaster. How can you shave without a phone? I have a Philips Shaver with which I use an app called Groom Tribe. So that set me back. It records all my shaving stats going back to 2023. I’ve got it all back now but it was a hairy moment. (See what I did there?)

Downstairs for orange juice, tea and coffee while I catch up with the goals from Match of the Day yesterday. The Sky Q Box in the Kitchen had disconnected itself over night. That had to be reconnected.

Out early for a 90 mins walk in quite cold temperatures. It is only 4C/39F which is hardly exotic. It is dry and forecast to be dry all week. Driving up to Surrey at mid day taking some new phones and a huge bag of sweets along with a massive batch of freshly baked scones plus a huge pile of freshly baked Oven Bottom Muffins which the ex-Oldhamers miss.

Hopefully, the roads will not be too busy on a Sunday. Who goes anywhere on a Sunday? I’ve had to teach myself the installation of the new phones which are VOIP or voice-over-internet-protocol which everybody with a landline is being moved to. Basicaslly, the line connection can no longer be called ‘Land’ because it isn’t. Everything comes across the internet so the handset has to be plugged into the BT Hub or connected via WiFi. This is one of the reasons that I’ve given up our landline. It just duplicates our mobiles which themselves come through WiFi when we are in the house because the connection to the 5G signal is so weak inside.

Music today is playing in my head as I walk. It is from the fantastic Verdi opera, Nabucco. The title comes from a short version of Nabucodonosor (English: “Nebuchadnezzar) The opera follows the plight of the Jews as they are assaulted, conquered and subsequently exiled from their homeland by the Babylonian king Nabucco. The piece I replay in my head is the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves: Va, pensiero, sull’ali dorate. / Fly, thought, on golden wings.

Had a wonderful political podcast about the infighting in the Labour Party/Government as I drove this morning. The time and the miles melted away. I was in it. I wanted to be in the middle of it. If I come back in another life, there are a number of things I will do better and differently. Involvement in politics is one of those areas I would think about earlier.

When we’ve done our good deed for the day, it will be an hour or so home hopefully in time for the Man. Utd clash with Spurs. I’ll watch it while doing my workout in the Gym. Well, I did my work out but United didn’t perform their side of the bargain. They are a long way off achieving anything.

I was part of a tiny, select group of lads at my College who developed an identity because we were the first. Gradually, each member of the subsequently disparate group have been relocated and I got home today to find the final missing member has been gathered in. Charles was rather an outsider who sat in the Common Room and played impromptu classical guitar to all who would stay to watch. His girlfriend was named Winsome which quckly led to the quip, You Winsome and you lose some.

Monday, 17th February, 2025

Lovely day with blue sky and sunshine. Almost made me think about the garden although, on second thoughts, I’ll give it a couple more weeks. Bins out this morning. I am the bin man this week. I have 5 sets of bins to put out and back later. So many of my neighbours are away on Half Term holidays even though most do not have kids. Any excuse and it seems like Dubai is the popular destination this year. I suspect they’ll all meet up for a street party when they get there. Anyway, I am still here – just waiting – but my time will come. The window cleaner has arrived and then we go out for a walk.

Later, my Housekeeper will be painting touch-up areas and I will be in the Gym. I’m going to restart my rowing regime today and build it up over the next couple of months. Our walk takes us out of our Development and through a park which borders an older Development from some 20 years ago. The tree planting is quite mature now and the trees are pollarded every couple of years. The Parks & Gardens were on it today. The results are stark but grow back so quickly that the results will be majestic by September.

One of the stipulations on our development in 2016 was that there should be lots of open, green space and that mature trees should be left wherever possible. This beautifully mature tree survived the build as it should have done. Even in its skeleton structure, it looks impressive this morning.

As a post-war Boomer who never had kids, I am fascinated by following generations and their attitudes to the world. We are all partially shaped by the environment of our childhood. Twenty years ago, The Times published a study of the social attitudes of Millenials. This morning, they feature an interesting comparative study into the social attitudes of GenZ. These are its key findings:

I have to say that I echo quite a lot of them. I think UK is racist. I would be disinclined to fight for such a country. I do think UK is largely stuck in the past. I would happily have chosen working from home in my career. I don’t really have a view on casual sex or on transgender. I have always drunk alcohol and virtually never touched drugs but I don’t really object to others doing it.

Being in debt in my youth was something I saw as a good thing. When I owed more than £250,000 to a bank, I always saw it as an investment that would pay back double and it did. They do seem rather less inclined to take a risk than I was. Maybe that comes down to education more than anything else.

Music today is deliberately going with a composer I’ve always found ‘difficult’. I know I am supposed to like/admire/enjoy Mozart but I have never found him easy. Today, I am forcing myself to listen to Mozart: Andante in C Major and it is starting to win me back. You should try it, Dear Reader. You might understand it quicker than me.

Tuesday, 18th February, 2025

What a gorgeous morning. We are reading 9C/48F but the sunshine makes it feel warmer. Going down to the fish shop on the harbour to buy locally caught cod and swordfish. The morning started weirdly with a call to BT. Change is always difficult and sometimes fraught. The other day, I had a phone call from BT who I buy Broadband and Landline from and have done for 25 years. BT have joined forces with EE who I have two mobile contracts with. They have been having service integration problems.

I was moved from BT to EE for their Broadband provision a few months ago. They sent me all the new equipment. I have it up and running well. Last week, a nervous BT office called me and tried to get me to re-sign another 2 year contact 6 months early. I thought it was strange at the time but I agreed. I told them I wanted my Landline taking off it because it was no longer useful. I was told it would disappear yesterday. When it didn’t, I phoned them this morning to be told that they had no knowledge of it.

New research published this morning commissioned by Recycle Your Electricals found that nearly 40% of UK homes keep their small electrical connectors and chargers in a ‘drawer of doom’ just in case they are ever needed. I am one of that 40%. This morning I scrapped a full set of 6 landline phones. Even having read the research, I hesitated over whether to store them in my Drawer of Doom in the filing cabinet or just bin them. I fought hard with my instincts and binned them but it was touch and go.

Music today is … (Hold your breath in astonishment!) … Take That: The Garden. I like the song but, particularly, I like it for the words – the quality of lyrics like this:

Everyone, everyone, can you hear the soldiers coming?
And everyone, everyone, every man and every woman
We all fall in the end, we’re just miracles of matter
So come on let me love you ….

I like it because it’s sung by a lad from Oldham in identifiably Oldham cadences. It takes me back. I especially like it because it plays on the theme of a poem from the mid 17th Century written by Andrew Marvell: To His Coy Mistress.

Had we but world enough and time
This coyness, lady, were no crime

Basically, Marvell is trying to get his love into bed but she is playing hard to get. He is saying that they don’t have time to mess around. Time is short. The Garden is doing exactly that. The soldiers of time are constantly marching nearer. Before they arrive, let me make love to you. It is an eternal theme.

Wednesday, 19th February, 2025

Some respite from the cold has arrived. It is noticeably warmer and will get warmer still over night. That’s a positive sign which will encourage the daffodils and the birds. I am dreaming, dreaming of real warmth in the future. I know I will make those dreams come true. I’m preparing for it right now.

There is always one good moment in the calendar for February each year. That is when my little brother, Bob, catches me up. Just 10 months apart (That’s fecund Catholics for you!), Bob is 73 today and we wish him Happy Birthday.

I’m finding it hard to listen to the News since Trump took power. The World is going to hell as he thinks he can trample on the dreams of the Ukranians and the Palestinians. Their dreams of freedom are just that and nothing more as the unprincipled autocrat surveys the world stage. To hear his view this morning that Ukraine invaded Russia not the reverse and that the only settlement will mean ceding their territory to their enemy is obscene and insane. If the West don’t stand up now, they never will.

What it will do, is push the UK back towards European integration again. It may start in Defence but already people are begining to see that back in Europe will be our ultimate destination. I’m all for it and still can’t understand the thoughtless, Brexit drive.

Europe needs Ukraine inside the family of EU nations and Nato defences. It has long been a dream or ambition. Ambitions are important. They inform our actions in the now as we move purposefully towards the future. We have for too long rested on our laurels, indulged ourselves in the peace dividend by deluding ourselves about Russia. Now we have to bite the bullet (literally) and divert spending into positive defence. There is no other way and that is one thing we can agree with Trump on. We cannot rely on the US to fight our battles for us.

Seems a little incongruous but music today is about dreams. It is actually Dreams from Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 album, Rumours. It is my one of my wife’s favourite albums and I have grown to enjoy it with the familiarity of her regular playing of it. The one thing you can really know about her is that she is not GenZ. She is utterly a Boomer. A piece of research which I found amusing came out yesterday. It listed some distinctly GenZ habits/attitudes with which to measure the rest of us.

If you’ve ever been told you’re showing your age just by doing something completely normal, congratulations — you’ve officially been called ‘old’ by Gen Z. These include:

• Using a landline
• Owning DVDs or physical media
• Taking photos of everything instead of just enjoying the moment
• Paying with cash
• Wearing skinny jeans
•  Leaving voicemails
• Using the “crying laughing” emoji

In my quest to be ‘younger’, I’ve ditched my landline. I only own DVDs because I can’t face throwing things away but I never play them. Everything is digital now. I am guilty of taking lots of photographs and not being able to just enjoy the moment. I never pay with cash and haven’t for years. I have never worn skinny jeans in my life. I rarely leave voicemails mainly because I think I sound uncomfortable. I try not to use the “crying laughing” emoji although lots of my friends do so I feel pressured to use them in reply.

Thursday, 20th February, 2025

Strange global warming taking place. This morning we are 12C/54F while Athens is half that. Manchester was even warmer. Doesn’t seem right but that’s levelling up for you. It’s warmer but cloudier and wetter. Just to cheer myself up, I have chosen Bellissime Stelle (Beautiful Starry Sky) as my music for this morning. Lovely words ….

Verrai, verrai,
Dovunque arriverai:
Sei pioggia che gonfia le fontane.
Cadrai, cadrai, sul fondo scenderai
nell’anima che scalda gli occhi miei
e ancora ti vorrei.

It is two years ago this week that I was going for a biopsy that found I had an aggressive cancer in my prostate and exactly a year ago I was preparing for a second colonoscopy of my lifetime. The former was erradicated for now and I get lifetime bi-annual monitoring. The latter was clear after some concerns from the first one. My health appears to be excellent at the moment.

I have had a lifetime of dieting and have always been prone to putting on weight since I gave up playing competitive sport. I have always been too inclined to self indulgence and have always fought for a larger slice of the pie in all spheres of life. I am my own worst enemy, I know. And then I beat myself up about it and I have massive determination to do something about it. In a few days, I will mark being alcohol-free for 6 months. I will have walked 8 miles a day every day with one exception in that time and survived on 1500 calories a day. There aren’t many people who can do this but it becomes a way of life to the point that, when I eat something, I instantly regret it because I crave that ’empty’ feeling.

In the past, my substitute flavour drink was the awful Shloer which has that dreadful artificial sweetener background. In the past 6 months I have been drinking far superior products: Alcohol -free wine with Supper and Tonic-based drinks from Fever-Tree during the day. These three are my favourites and the Spanish Clementine in particular. They are low in calories and high in flavour. They get me through the hard times …. well, some of them.

In Sainsbury’s this morning, I was walking out when I saw an old chap looking at the display of seed packets for sale. He was reading the French Beans. I just casually asked in passing, Are you starting this early? I got chapter and verse about his age, health and life experience. He turned out to be 89 years old and he was thinking about sowing climbing beans this year. The problem is his hip. He needs a hip replacement and he has been told his heart wouldn’t survive the operation. It makes him sad. He only gave up riding his motorbike 6 months ago. Aging and decline is a terribly sad thing and we must resist it with all our determination. I’m going to. Are you, Dear Reader? Always on my mind ….

Friday, 21st February, 2025

Spring morning. Warm and breezy. Out early to the Health Food shop on the High Street – Grape Tree. I wanted to get ingredients for Museli. One bowl of that fills me and gets me through the day until Supper.

I know it sounds esoteric and nerdy but I don’t take it far. They have a mix of Oats, Wheat and Barley which I fancied trying plus some flaked nuts and chopped fruit which I already buy. When you’re on a diet, fibre is an essential component and I find oats swell in my stomach and keep me full for longer.

I’m rather getting to like chopped papayer and pineapple along with golden sultanas, flaked almonds and coconut combined with ice-cold fat-free milk at mid day.

Out for a walk at the beach, a stiff off shore breeze made it feel colder than it was. The last real day of Half Term was quite quiet. But Spring is definitely coming. You can feel it straining at the edges. Buds on trees, birds in trees and even bulbs forcing their way through the ground to meet the daylight. So, today’s music is Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.

No need for heating. I even went out without a coat although that didn’t make it pleasant on the shore path. I suppose we have a long way to go until we can rely on the warmth but it is defintely coming. Hang on, Dear Reader. See you in May when everything will be warmer.

Saturday, 22nd February, 2025

Warm and grey with damp air. Not a day to be sunbathing. We are 12C, Manchester 7C and Athens 6C. Fascinating reversals. Today will be a Sport one. England v Scotland Rugby. Everton v United Football. Of course, I’ve got my own targets to achieve with a walk and the Gym.

Hundreds of Gulls were swarming from side to side of the parkland, searching for food. They are like air-rats. Ironically, by the time I had completed my walk, the sun had broken through. For the first time in weeks, I was sweating in a fleece. Soon time for shorts and tee shirt. Can’t wait!

One of the problems with a long marriage and I’ve been married for 46 years (Incredible just writing it.) is that we each take on tasks to the exclusion of the other. My wife’s iPad had a wifi problem over the past few days. There is only one person in this relationship who can fix that and it is not her. Whereas, I don’t even think about washing and ironing clothes, I’m just told when it will happen and the wardrobes are repopulated with fresh and ironed clothes. Fortunately, she loves her latest iron which is almost larger than her and makes the process quick and enjoyable …. I’m told.

We get into some so entrenched patters of responsibility that, as someone said to me the other day about there husband, I don’t know how he would manage without me. It is a dangerous position to be in. My wife woke thinking about how she would cope on her own if she had problems with the internet, her computer equipment, the Sky delivery service, the internet-based heating controls, the car settings, etc. She’s obviously anticipating a change of situation.

I would seriously struggle to use the Dishwasher, Tumble Dryer and Washing Machines on my own. I even struggle with the top oven of our two and the multitude of facilities it offers.