Sanders Blog

Sunday, 19th June

As yesterday went on, a terrible pain developed in the outer section of my left upper thigh. It began to feel like a dead-leg or the early season consequence of a heavy rugby tackle. I had no idea where it originated having had no incident during the day to bring it on. By the time I had to walk up the stairs to bed, I was in agony and, in bed, I couldn’t get comfortable. I sleep on my left side and I couldn’t bear the pain when I tried that. I tried the right side but it was just as painful. I spent the night fitfully on my back and got up at 7.00 am still very tired.

Worthing Promenade

As soon as I started walking, this morning, the leg freed up and I was barely aware of it. After half an hour sitting down, I was reduced to the gait of an old and infirm man once again.

We chose to go out for a walk. The weather was beautiful and my leg demanded it. We drove to Worthing Promenade – about 15 mins away – and Pauline picked up an order from M&S. That shop really does have an air of the past about it! The walking definitely helped and I will go to the gym tomorrow to continue my exercise.

When we got home at about 3.00 pm, we griddled Hake fillets and courgette slices out in the garden and Pauline cooked garlic, button mushrooms but, by the time we had eaten our meal, the clouds were beginning to edge in. It got increasingly murky throughout the afternoon but we only got a light shower of rain at about 8.00 in the evening.

Monday, 20th June

Woodhenge on Worthing Beach

The joke of the day, which opened with torrential rain, is that it is Mid-Summer’s Day or summer solstice. By 11.00 am, the sun was out from blue, blue skies but mid-summer? Worthing Beach marked the day with this structure featured in The Times this morning.

Part of the process of buying a new car has been, for us over the past 20 years, transferring our ‘cherished number plate’ from the old car to the new. Today, the DVLA documents arrived and we took them in to our new Dealership. They removed our ‘cherished plates’, replaced them with those required by the DVLA and told us our new car would be available in a couple of weeks. It is all a very smooth, if bureaucratic, operation in contrast with procedures we experienced in Greece and which Bloggers in Greece bemoan on a daily basis. There, Bureaucracy rules.

Tuesday, 21st June

Summer solstice evening on the Pennines

Lovely bright and sunny morning. My sister, Mary-Jane, once told me she was ‘too busy for weather’. I have been amused to notice that, like me and particularly since retirement, she has been tweeting pictures of her environment and weather around her Yorkshire Pennine home. It comes to us all with age.

From the right: Tarragon, Sweet Basil, Tumbler Tomato (red), Tumbler Tomato (yellow).

I have been cutting the lawns, weeding the beds and mulching with chipped bark and feeding the patio plants. the tomatoes and peppers are covered in flowers although there does appear to be a worrying lack of pollinators flying around. The tarragon and sweet basil are romping away.

A phone call from our new Honda Dealer says our new car will be available for collection on Thursday and we need to go in and complete documentation today. We agree to visit en route to the gym. Outside, the road is being tarmacked so our current car is parked off-site. Things are certainly coming together. As soon as we get the referendum out of the way and see how the land lies, we can get on and book our winter holidays.

Wednesday, 22nd June

A grey and misty but warm and sultry morning. The contractors have been finishing the tarmacked road outside. I have been stripping the car of all our personal possessions in readiness for taking it in to the Honda garage tomorrow morning and driving away with a new one. Pauline, meanwhile, has been changing over the insurance. Our insurance company have made a complete mess of the process. It hasn’t been helped by transferring on the ‘cherished’ number plate but, for car insurers, it shouldn’t be rocket science.

In Greece, Bank restrictions are still in place after almost two years. Yesterday, the President of Greek Banks Association, Louka Katseli, said that the Capital Controls would be lifted by end of the year. Today, Fitch, the Ratings Agency, said Greece’s four main banks would default if Capital Controls are lifted. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose or what ever the Greek is for that.

Thursday, 23rd June

London’s Sound & Light Show

Over night everywhere was pressured washed cleaned by torrential rain and flood-lit by extensive and prolonged lightning displays. In London, it was quite damaging with trains cancelled and roads flooded this morning. Here, we were lucky and everything was refreshed.

We went out to deliver our car and collect the new one at 10.00 am. It was ready and waiting. Dealers always feel that have to make it a special occasion. We’ve had so many now, it felt no more special than a trip to Sainsbury’s but it is nice to be driving a new smell in a younger body with a tighter construction. The front end has changed and become a bit more American and macho which doesn’t really do it for me. I’m macho enough already. Otherwise, nothing much has changed about the construction of the car.

The media centre will take some getting used to. The previous model had retained its built in sat. nav. system over 15 years with only a few, minor alterations. This new one is also built in but is Garmin-derived and very different.

When you’re used to something for fifteen years, it becomes part of the fabric of one’s automatic thought patterns. Over the years, moving from one Ms. Windows platform to another always aggravates the smooth completion of work activities until the user ceases to notice by which time, they have to cope with yet another  Ms Windows platform. So it is with this satellite navigation system. Fifteen years with one has made its operation automatic. One has to keep the mind open and embrace the new while fighting the inclination to compare it with the previous regime.

I see it as an exciting challenge which may well move me forward in thinking and activity. In the past, one just had to grapple with the idea of linking a mobile phone by bluetooth with the car’s media centre. Now I’m trying to work out how to run the car’s internet system from my 4G mobile phone.

Friday, 24th June

The Lunatics have taken over the Asylum!

The world has changed. It will never be the same for Britain again in my lifetime. The lunatics have truly taken over the asylum. Forgive them for they know not what they do. Instability, danger, not only lurks around every corner but comes up and stares us directly in the face. It is hard to find light relief in such gloom. I did read a tweet at 5.00 am today when Sunderland declared a ‘Leave’ vote. One wag retorted – The people thought they were voting to leave Sunderland.

Expats across the continent will be nervously examining their options. Cosy, dual-nationality options will be seriously up in the air. Reciprocal agreements on Healthcare and Pensions, Travel and Security will be up in the air. Great Britain will almost certainly collapse because the Scots will seek referendum negotiations to get back in to Europe but that presupposes there will be a Europe to get back in to. Already other countries are demanding their own referendums – notably Holland immediately but also Italy and France.

‘Call Me Dave’ has called it a day and announced his resignation. Gobsborne will not be far behind. I don’t think he will enter the leadership race because he has no chance of winning. They will have to appoint a Brexiteer to lead the negotiations. The nightmare scenario of a Prime Minister Boris and President Trump summit meeting is lurching sickeningly towards us.

Back in the real world, we were up at 4.30 am listening to the nightmare unfold. Out on shaky legs to Tesco at 9.00 am and now, back home, we are trying to assume some semblance of normality by contacting Honda Finance to pay off our twelve hour borrowing which provided us with an extra £3000.00 discount from the on-the-road price. Then we can move on to book our Winter holiday in a collapsing world.

Saturday, 25th June

Yesterday finished with us successfully ending our twelve-hour finance agreement with Honda. The result was that we now own the car outright and the £34,300.00 vehicle has cost us £13,170.00. After 4 years of driving and almost 30,000 miles, we think that is very acceptable.We spent the savings on a month in a 5* hotel in Tenerife. We are going for the month of November to Costa Adeje and have booked a double room with sea view and half board in the Adrián Hoteles Roca Nivaria.

Blue Sky Babe!

Here it is warm with blue sky/clouds/blue sky/clouds, etc.. We drove down to Littlehampton Pier where there is a good fresh fish shop. It’s more like a cabin or shed, actually, but it sells the day’s catch which is nice. Particularly, they sell fresh and dressed crabs, lobsters, John Dory, Turbot – things that are not always available in the supermarkets. It turned out that we were a bit late for the best choice and we didn’t buy but we did go for a walk down one of the piers.

At the seaside 1 – Littlehampton

At the seaside 2 – Littlehampton

It is a working and a pleasure port. On one side there is a golf course and on the other a marina. Boats tug in from the sea and up and down the estuary which takes up the excess high tide.

Sunday, 12th June

The morning started very warm but rather damp with light rain. Fortunately, for our next door neighbours, who were holding a garden party out on their lawn, the day soon turned to hot and sunny blue skies thus rescuing the day for everyone. Our neighbours have just returned from their honeymoon (They are in their late 50s.) and were holding a get-together for friends. They had invited us, out of civility, but we already had plans. We just called in to wish them a happy day and went about our planned day.

West Quay – Southampton

Actually, we are still tired from going to bed at 2.00 am on Friday Night/Saturday morning. Old people like us really don’t cope with late nights so well. Ridiculously, we were having a delivery of some mirrors this morning and the delivery slot was 7.00 am – 11.00 am. We were to get a call one hour before. The radio went off at 6.00 am as usual but I didn’t jump out of bed until my mobile rang to say they would be arriving in 10 minutes. I can shave very quickly at times.

Southampton

After the Marr Show and The Sunday Politics, we left to drive to Southampton. It is 47 miles away and takes about an hour to drive. Like so many drives around here, the scenery in the warm sunshine is delightful. Neither of us has ever been to Southampton and we were going to the West Quay area.  It was easy to find. We were looking for a last bit of bedroom furniture – including mirrors and came away with exactly what we wanted. The last bit will be delivered on Tuesday.

Monday, 13th June

The day has started damp but warm again and, once again, it all soon dried up. We were supposed to be going to the gym but an expected delivery came late and then we had an unexpected visit from the Builders who are addressing some, minor, ‘snagging’ issues we had raised. Consequently, we stayed at home.

We used the time at home to have a ‘family conference’ about buying a new car. We had a vote and the motion – This house believes a new car purchase would be beneficial to our welfare. – was carried unanimously 2 – 0. I used the discount new car site – CARWOW – to get quotes from all the Honda Dealers within reasonable travelling distance. The best quote came from a dealership only 2 miles away. We tried it on with our regular dealership in Yorkshire and it still looked very good. We made an appointment to visit on Thursday.

The Brexit debate seems to be drifting inexorably to ‘Leave’. The Germans want us to stay which is rather counterproductive merely provoking the question: What are they after? The magazine – Der Spiegel – has an amusing front cover and it contrasts even more amusingly with an earlier front cover about the Greeks.

The Greeks are going to get a complex at this rate…… Oh, they already have!

Tuesday, 14th June

The day is grey again and is set to stay that way in a lot of the country for most of the week although we can expect quite a bit of sunshine. We are going to the gym so we don’t care although my tomatoes and pepper plants do.

Four Referendum polls published today have the Leave campaign well in the lead. The Times features a poll by YouGov which has the Leaves ahead by 7%. An ICM poll shows Leave with a six point advantage. The Sun newspaper has come out strongly in favour of ‘Leave’.

The Sun newspaper with echoes of the 1990s headline ‘Up Your Delors’.

Call-me-Dave has produced the perfect storm with

• Tories fighting Tories – never confidence inspiring.
• The Government taking what they see as the high ground and hectoring the common man at his garden gate about impending economic implosion. This is like a red rag to a bull and a real chance to give the Establishment a good kicking and to hell with the consequences. Even I, who will vote a resounding Remain, are sorely tempted to do the opposite just to ditch the Tories.
• Failure to address the big concern of the Great Unwashed – Immigration.
• Reliance on Labour and the Unions and their members has proved unwise and illustrates the yawning gap between the political elite and the electorate. They are likely to drive Labour voters into the arms of UKIP.
• You know it’s bad, when they start threatening pensioners.
• You know it’s really bad when they wheel out Gordon Brown.
• If the vote is (just) won either way, there is a strong chance of a rising up of the Far Right or the Far Left or both.

Wednesday, 15th June

A lovely, sunny morning. Woke up to some interesting pieces of news. Newspapers and the broadcasting media are trailing the information that the deceased comedian and broadcaster, Clement Freud, grandson of Sigmund Freud was a paedophile and that two, fairly elderly ladies were testifying to their abuse by him. More interesting to me was the news that Gobsborne, our current Chancellor, whose own brother was struck off from his post in psychiatry for inappropriate sexual relationships with a vulnerable patient, was threatening everyone in the country with an emergency budget if they voted for Brexit. Amusingly, 57 of his own MPs immediately issued a letter pledging to vote it down if he tried it.

Had a phone call this morning from our Yorkshire, Honda Dealer who is making a bid for us to buy our new car from him. What it has done is give me a baseline upon which to negotiate with my potential, new Dealer in Worthing. We are visiting him tomorrow. Meanwhile, there will not much travel to Greece next week. because OSYPA, the union representing Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority staff, called a five-day walkout, starting on June 20. The protracted strike action is expected to affect both domestic and international flights. At the same time, OSE Rail workers are to continue with rolling work stoppages that are to culminate in a 24-hour strike on June 22 while workers of the ports of Piraeus and Thessaloniki are continuing their strike action.

Thursday, 16th June

Interesting day – 16/6/16. We received a phone call from our local, Honda Dealer offering the top of the range car for nearly £4000.00 / €5050.00 less than our regular, Yorkshire Dealer. Both were already offering nearly £3,000.00/€3,800.00 discount initially but our new dealer’s offer meant we had no choice but to accept. I feel incredibly unfaithful to our dealer of 30 years but  £4000.00 / €5050.00 is  £4000.00 / €5050.00. He offered us an extra £1000.00/€1262.00 for our car – £15,000.00/€19,000.00 instead of £14000.00/€17,680.00 for a 4 year old car with 28,000 miles on the clock. He also offered a brilliant wheeze for saving an extra £3,000.00/€3,800.00.

Jo Cox M.P. – Murdered in Leeds

For customers who take out Honda Finance, the company contribute an extra  £3,000.00/€3,800.00 towards the cost of the car. Honda get that back through the interest rate. The Consumer Credit Act allows a 14 day ‘cooling off period’ in which you can change your mind, cancel and pay back the loan. Our salesman says we can cancel in that time and still keep the £3,000.00/€3,800.00 manufacturer contribution. So, our £34,000.00/€43,000.00 new car will actually cost us, with trade-in, £13,239.00/€16,740.00. Can’t say fairer than that. We should have it in a couple of weeks!

Terrible and shocking news about Labour MP, Jo Cox being gunned down and stabbed to death in Birstal, Leeds. On all accounts, she was a talented and caring woman with two, young kids. The man arrested for her murder is described as a ‘loner’ with ‘history of mental health problems’. While mad men are free to walk the streets under the money-saving guise of ‘care in the community’, these acts of irrational violence will never be far away.

Friday, 17th June

On this day, 36 years ago, Pauline and I came as close to dying as we ever will without actually being dead. We were driving our first brand new car, a ‘pageant blue’ mini as British Leyland described it, to school at the end of school exams. A man driving the opposite way in a works, Ford Cortina, went out of control on a bend and cut our car in two. The ambulance men thought I was dead and I was in hospital for two weeks after not being aware of my surroundings at all. The recuperation took another year. The only upside of the event was that I never got to mark the exam papers. I apologise if this is repetitive for regular readers but when we reflect on all the life we have enjoyed in the past 36 years, we realise how lucky we have been and need to reflect it. I only hope the Skiathan and his wife have such a reprieve.

Had to write a ‘Dear John Letter’ to our old friend and Honda dealer in Yorkshire – although his name is Chris and it was an email – telling him of our infidelity in buying a new car from someone else. I found it difficult and am genuinely uncomfortable after a 30 year relationship. I am on his jokey email list. We were invited to his 60th Birthday celebration. He is a big wildlife fan and sponsors an elephant at Chester Zoo. I regularly send him funny pictures of elephants from the web. He took it well and by email reply declared undying love!

Although the European Stability Mechanism approved the disbursement of 7.5 billion euros in bailout funds for Greece on Friday ensuring that the country will meet debt repayments that come due next month, the IMF made sure the appreciation was muted by pouring cold water on Greek hopes for debt relief. Effectively, this is European ‘kicking the can down the road’ policy. It really tells the Greeks to Remain in Jail and don’t collect €2billion. However, they are still being fools to themselves.

There is an early heatwave hitting Greece at the moment with temperatures upwards of 40C/104F. The ports are being privatised and port workers are unhappy about it so are on long-term, rolling strikes. Unfortunately, a significant element of the tourist industry caters for cruise ships. Not for much longer. The striking port workers are refusing to allow coaches to collect or deliver cruise passengers anywhere near their ships. Much of the cruise demographic is elderly and they are being forced to walk long distances between their transfer transport and their ship carrying all their luggage in 40C/104F. Elderly, often overweight and carrying heavy weights mixed with heatwave and walking = heart attacks. Cruise ship operators are already starting to question the wisdom of calling at Piraeus.

Saturday, 18th June

A dry day but rather overcast for much of it and only reaching about 19C/66F. We have spent it quite quietly. I’ve actually had time to read The Times completely for the first time in the last six months. We have been doing a lot of forward planning in the spare time between reading and watching football matches. We have started to select destinations for a month in the sun in winter but won’t book anything until we’ve seen the effect of the referendum on currencies. There’s no rush and we will be off to Greece before that anyway.

 Sunday, 5th June

Apparently, today is Sunday and a day of rest although you wouldn’t know it if you visited any major supermarket. I marked the day by getting up early and mowing the lawns followed by cleaning the car inside and out. Didn’t you just want to know that? The day was blue sky and bright sun from the moment we got up at about 6.30 am until we came in from playing outside at 7.00 pm. As forecast, the temperature reached a warm 24C/75F but felt hotter because of the humidity.

The iPad Pro with integrated keyboard cover

Now there’s nothing much more to buy for the house, we can now look to indulge ourselves with GADGETS. I love GADGETS! In March 2013, I bought my first iPad and it revolutionised my life. Instead of going out every morning for a copy of The Times and paying £1.00/€1.28 for each copy. Now, by the time we wake up, we both have a full copy of the newspaper delivered to our iPads and those copies are updated throughout the day. The cost is £26.00/€33.00 per month for both our copies plus full access on the web to all ‘Times’ web material. Before the iPad, I would access our bank account on my desktop machine once a week or so. Now, I have accounts in four different Banks all of which I can access from my iPad or my phone and I do every morning. Before the iPad, if I couldn’t think of something as I go about my daily life, I would shrug and put it down to senility. Now, wherever I am, I can and do immediately consult my iPad, interrogate the web and pretend I remembered it all along.

Today I ordered my third iPad. I bought the first in March 2012 for £482.00/€617.00 and my second in August 2014 for £499.00/€639.00. Today, I ordered an iPad pro – 12.9″. It has a considerably larger screen and a much quicker Wi-Fi service. It also takes a keyboard which is integrated in to its cover. This will allow me to leave my old laptop at home when we travel abroad and to Blog, etc. on my iPad. Mind you, it is much more expensive. The iPad costs £679.00/€868.00 and the keyboard cover is £111.00/€142.00 so the total cost is a considerable £790.00/€1011.00.

Monday, 6th June

Up early on a hot and sunny morning. The sky was pure blue and, by 9.30 am, the temperature had reached 22C/70F. We were at Roundstone Pick-Your-Own Farm at that time (about 3 mins from our house) and in the middle of a huge field of first-flush strawberries. We spent about 20 mins there and another 20 in the rhubarb field. In this weather, it is a delightful activity.

Back for coffee and then out to Littlehampton beach – on Sea Road. It was amazingly busy as the sun brought out  visitors. We walked along the beach road. past the colourful beach huts that seem to be privately owned and down to the East Beach café which is actually a highly acclaimed restaurant. Just a mile and half walk with the same back was lovely in the sunshine and the sea air.

Pauline went down to the sea’s edge to test whether it was warm enough for her to force me to swim. As I didn’t do it in Greece until the end of June, there is little chance here although she did declare it warm. I was taking photos on my phone and asked Pauline to re-stoop to the water so I could photograph it. Unfortunately, at that very moment, she was hit by a breaking wave and got her shoes and feet soaking. She took a while to calm down.

Actually, she took it very well and liked the photos which is very unusual. Having dried her off, we took a slow drive home and drank tea in the garden sunshine. I don’t know if I mentioned but I am three weeks into a no-alcohol spell.

Tuesday, 7th June

Gorgeous day. We were out at 9.30 am in brilliant sunshine and 22C/70F. Humidity was already rising. Off to Currys in Littlehampton to collect my new 12.9-inch iPad Pro and two radio alarms for the bedrooms. On to Worthing sea front and to M&S to pick up some garments that Pauline had ordered. We were home by 11.30 am – just in time to receive delivery of an interesting chair that Pauline had ordered for her Sewing Room. It was ordered from Wayfair – an American concern at a cost of £150.00/€192.00 and has an interesting ‘bentwood’ construction.

I know the Blog has degenerated in to a catalogue of unfettered consumption over the past couple of months. I tried to resist it but that is was what life has been for us over that time. After six months homelessness and a previous six months divesting ourselves of our possessions, we arrived here with virtually nothing apart from sentimental objects and our clothes. Everything, everything from furniture for every room to cooking pots and pans, bathroom furniture, bedroom furniture, lightshades, everything had to be sourced anew. We arrived cash-rich but effects-poor. To some that may seem an exciting challenge but it is not all fun, I can tell you. I for one, am heartily pleased that it is nearly over.

It seems rather obscene to switch from that to the Greek economy (although that is one of the sources of our cash) but Kathimerini reports that the value of Greek supermarket sales posts record decline of 8.8% in March. The first three months of this year proved to be one of the worst quarters ever for the supermarket sector in Greece. Sales value fell 6 percent in January year-on-year, followed by an 8.3 percent drop in February and topped by an 8.8 percent slump in March. Consumers are cutting down on even the most basic of commodities, ranging from milk to washing powder.

If that isn’t a sign of serious decline, Greek cruise ship operators are worried of a lasting impact on the sector from an ongoing strike by port workers protesting the sale of the country’s biggest port Piraeus to the Chinese shipping giant, Cosco, while much needed Chinese tourists will not be arriving in Greece this year as China Airlines cancelled planned scheduled flights to Athens because the Greeks failed to agree to their landing rights.

Wedesday, 8th June

Honda Accord 1984

Hot and humid night in which we heard some rumbles of thunder but saw no rain. This morning, at 9.30 am, the temperature is 24C/75F and sticky. It is a big day for me. I’m having my haircut in the garden. It has to be done before Prime Minister’s Questions at 11.30 am. We are also going to address the issues of (Beware Obscene Consumption) a new car and a winter holiday.

Honda Prelude 1988

I have always bought Honda cars since buying the first in 1984. We took delivery of a brand new Honda Accord and I immediately became addicted to the smell and feel of new cars. The Accord was our first car with power steering and air conditioning and Anti-Lock Brakes. I was hooked. We had just bought a big and expensive new house and we kept the Accord for almost four years. Looking back, I can’t believe how ‘boxy’ those cars were. We traded it in for a Honda Prelude which looks incredibly dated now although I remember being so proud of it at the time.

Honda Prelude 1994

We were feeling richer and we changed the car virtually every year with about 12000 miles on the clock. We always used the same dealer and the same salesman who remains a friend today. I think we had six, new Preludes, gradually moving on to automatics and then Chris phoned us to say that Honda had brought out their first 4-Wheel Drive, utility vehicle and asked us to come and look at it. This was 1995/6. We were in our mid-40s and looking to ‘break out’. We bought the first CRV to arrive in Huddersfield. It was bright, metallic orange. Once again, we replaced it every year and our second was metallic yellow. We drove it to Greece for the six week holidays and that was it. We’ve driven CRVs ever since. We changed them virtually every year until 2009 when we retired. We’ve only had two since then but this one is ready for a swap. It’s really getting dirty.

Honda CRV 1995

Honda CRV 2007

Honda CRV 2012

I intend to keep the new one for another four years so I want as many gizmos as I can. I love gizmos! This one will include on its media screen/sat nav.:

1. Traffic Sign Recognition
2. Lane Departure Warning
3. Blind spot Monitor
4. Forward collision warning
5. Collision Mitigation braking System
6. Lane Keeping Assist
7. Intelligent Adaptive Cruise Control

The whole package will be about £34,600/€44,300.00 and our current car with 27,000 miles on the clock will knock about £14,500.00/€18,600.00 off that.

My driving style has changed immensely since retiring. While working, I drove everywhere at top speed. Have to get there now! I didn’t worry too much about speed limits including on my long drives across Europe. I collected a couple of speeding tickets over thirty years in UK and paid one, on-the-spot fine on the French-Swiss border for driving  at 120mph/193 kph on a 80 mph/130 kph motorway. It cost me €70.00 and a wagged finger. In retirement, I don’t have to get anywhere soon. I actually want to slow my arrival at destinations down – particularly the grave. I use sat. nav. for almost every journey which involves leaving my garage and set Cruise Control or Speed Limiter immediately when I can. To have Cruise Control automatically keep my distance from the car in front would be good. May be it will provide me with a taste of driverless cars in preparation for my ‘gaga days’ in 2050.

Thursday, 9th June

Pottering in the Office

Another beautiful day, warm and sunny, reaching 22C/70F. Pauline has been busy cooking and perfecting lovely dishes. I’ve been pottering. I spent the morning in the sun bringing my new iPad Pro up to speed with my app. requirements and reading the paper.

This afternoon, I’ve weeded the front garden and cut the lawn as well as sharpening the edges with a half-moon tool. I mowed the back lawn  and watered my extensive plant collection. It is so extensive, I need three photos to illustrate it. This is gardening on a grand scale!

Sweet Basil

French Tarragon

Sweet Bell Peppers & Tumbling Tom Cherry Tomatoes

They are loving this sunny, warm weather and both peppers and tomatoes are just beginning to flower.

In the really ‘big’ world, things are distinctly precarious. The three most recent opinion polls in UK are showing an increasing desire to leave the EU. Not only that but a poll by Pew Research Centre in Washington DC and reported in The Times today says that the French are second most hostile nation to the EU, beaten only by the Greeks. The French want us to leave Europe and the Dutch are pushing for a referendum after we go.

Kathimerini reports:

Fears are rising about the possible breakdown of a deal between the European Union and Turkey for the return of migrants after legal committees in Greece upheld dozens of appeals by refugees against their deportation…..Meanwhile there are also concerns about a pickup in arrivals from neighbouring Turkey.

With thousands of migrants already camped out on Greek islands, in Piraeus and the old Athens airport, bookings are inevitably suffering.

….The total number of refugees in Greece is 57,458, according to government figures made public on Tuesday….migrants are living in makeshift camps or state-run facilities on the Aegean islands or mainland Greece….. tensions have been rising. On Tuesday suspected far-right protesters attacked a group of migrants near a state-run camp on Chios…. On Lesvos and Samos, brawls between groups of migrants have escalated in recent days, with protesters setting fire to bedding and tents in camps.

It is a parlous state from which there is little view of an early resolution.

Friday, 10th June

Slightly cooler and more cloudy morning. Just the weather to get jobs done in. First up, we must wish Pauline’s brother-in-law, Colin, happy 80th birthday. This year he’s sharing it with the queen.

European Health Insurance Card

First job this morning is to renew our EHIC cards which ran out in January and which we had forgotten about. In fact, our second month in Tenerife in Jan./Feb. wouldn’t have been covered by it. Fortunately, we have comprehensive health cover any way but it is better to be safe. We rather forget the European Health Insurance Card because it was useless in Greece. There was little healthcare on the island and, what there was, we had to pay for. It is different in more developed countries like Spain, France and Italy, although the whole thing may become a moot point in a couple of weeks if the vote is to leave the EU. Optimistically, I’ve set up a reminder in our on-line diaries in 5 years time to tell us to renew our cards.

Drove back to Surrey this afternoon to help Pauline’s Brother-in-Law, Colin, celebrate his 80th birthday. Pauline’s niece, Mandy, had set up a surprise party with lots of his old friends attending and his favourite artist, Rod Stewart, performing in the garden. Well, actually, Rod was otherwise engaged so a tribute act from Grimsby had been booked. He turned out to be amazingly good and the older people there really enjoyed it.

Mandy had supplied more food than could be needed for feeding the 5000 and Pauline spent two days making sweets for the buffet. Strawberry Tart, Lemon Meringue Pie, Chocolate Torte with Raspberries and whipped cream, Blackcurrant Cheesecake, Coffee and Hazelnut Meringue Cake. They looked delicious. It was a warm evening and the party went on until nearly midnight in the garden. We drove back to Sussex, watched a Brexit Referendum Interview with Farage and got to bed about 2.00 pm.

Saturday, 11th June

We were tired this morning but the radio didn’t know that and came on at 6.00 am as usual. Weekend shopping is not usually great and we try to do it on Friday before the Great Unwashed are out but we were busy yesterday and it had to be done. It is an incredibly hot (26C/79F) and humid morning. It was so noticeable as we walked out of  air-conditioned Tesco and into the atmosphere. It was like walking down the plane steps into the Mediterranean climate.

This place that we have chosen to live in is reputed to be the sunniest in Britain and we are beginning to believe it. Two miles from our house is the Highdown Vineyard which describes its climactic advantages:

The open site enjoys free draining chalk soil and gentle westerly breezes, which ensure a good airflow through the vineyard. Its proximity to the sea means it doesn’t usually suffer from the late frosts which beset so many English vineyards. The site also benefits from being in an area with some of the lowest rainfall and highest sunshine in the country.

Highdown Vineyard Shop

The Vines and their Owners

Maybe I could get in to a new career! They’re bound to need a taster. I’m experienced.

 29th May, 2016

The sun is out. The sky is blue. It’s beautiful and … we are beginning to feel, once again, like we’re permanently on holiday. The tarragon and sweet basil are loving it and so are we.

If you read the saga of the television aerial installer last week, you will be as surprised as I was when I recall this event. I searched out another, suitable firm in my vicinity and printed out their details so I could call them on Tuesday after the Bank Holiday weekend. I told Pauline and gave her the details to read and approve. (I am nothing if not democratic.) Just as she was saying that she thought they looked a good possibility, the phone rang and it was the original installer phoning – on Bank Holiday Sunday afternoon – to apologise and arrange to come on Tuesday. Taking the least line of resistance, we agreed.

We thought we might drive the three or so miles to the beach in this lovely weather but it soon became apparent that it was a stupid idea for retired people to vie with everyone who was enjoying a long weekend away from work. We came home and sat in the garden which is bathed in sun from early morning to late evening. While we were relaxing, the latest Angmering magazine – a monthly, free, 70 page colour booklet advertising a multitude of local events, clubs and services – arrived through the door. This place is an amazingly energetic and interactive community in the sun.

30th May, 2016

A little more overcast this morning. It was 18C/65F with weak sunshine and a light breeze at 8.00 am. I wanted to mow the lawn but was mindful that people living around us are workers and would be enjoying a Bank Holiday lie-in I refrained until 9.30 am. Nobody should waste the day and stay in bed after that should they? I am cutting the newly laid turf little and often and it certainly appears to be appreciating it. It is luscious, thick, green and growing strongly. Just as a lawn should be.

I know I have some hobby-horses and opposition to formal charities is one which I have written about before but I can’t resist drawing your attention to this article in The Sunday Times yesterday. It shouldn’t come as any surprise but many will be shocked to read it.

The gist of the article reports that major charities ‘cost’ more to administrate than they provide for their advertised ’causes’. Read the full article here –  Charities’ Gravy Train. Successive governments fail to fund what I believe they should. With a Tory government, things are even worse.

They are failing to adequately fund the National Health Service with a shortage of Doctors and Nurses, the emergency services – Ambulance and Fire, Flood Defences, the Education Service with a shortage of Teachers, the Immigration Service with a lack of air, sea and land border surveillance, the Legal Aid Fund which means the cost of going to law is prohibitive for the majority of citizens, Local Authorities which are having to cut Library services, swimming baths, Community Waste tips, etc. All of this is done surreptitiously, blamed on others or the need for ‘austerity cuts’. All the time, George Gobsborn tells us how well he is doing although he doesn’t make explicit that he is referring to the long term strategic plan of reducing the size and role of the State.  Happy Bank Holiday – to the Bankers!

31st May, 2016

‘Same Day Express Service’ which took a week.

A damp and cool, grey morning for the last day of May which only brightened in the late afternoon. At last, the television aerial installer arrived from Actionaerials. He turned out to be a lovely chap – an ex-publican from Brighton. We have Sky in three rooms downstairs and wanted Freeview on the four, bedroom sets. Seven connectors in the loft – three feeding downstairs and used for Sky and four ‘free’ already feeding the upstairs rooms have been left by the builder. I expected ladders, drills clambering across the loft space, etc.. He took one look and pronounced an aerial in the loft would be all I would need and a power supply with signal booster. The total price would be £200.00/€260.00 for the aerial and power unit + booster + labour would be £144.00/€188.00 making a total of £344.00/€448.00 + VAT. I couldn’t do it because of the pain so Pauline wrote a cheque for £412.80/€537.00 and ‘thanked’ the installer.

We are going to Greece this summer but I’ve already started to look for a month or so in Tenerife in the winter. We are thinking of spending the month of November in Costa Adeje. Having gone out for the first time last year and done two months straddling the turn of the year, we are looking to move a little upmarket this time and are considering the Costa Adeje Gran Hotel.

It has a Health Centre and two pools just for adults, free Wi-Fi (now obligatory) and three different restaurants. A month will cost us about £4,500.00/€5850.00 which is not bad for four weeks of warm relaxation – after the gym work! Kids will be in school so at least we shouldn’t have to contend with them and it will be closer to areas of interest like  Los Cristianos, Teide National Park, La Gomera and La Palma. I wonder if we will still be European citizens by the time we go. I am seriously beginning to wonder and panic a bit!

1st June, 2016

Happy June

Goodbye to May and Hello to June 2016. Actually, the white rabbit doesn’t look too thrilled and it is rather cool and grey outside although exceptionally hot weather is forecast for our region at the end of this week.

Good weather at home maybe just what we need if American warnings are heeded. The Times leads with this in today’s edition:

Tens of thousands of American tourists were warned yesterday that they are at risk of terrorist attacks across Europe this summer, leading to fears that holidays will be cancelled en masse. The US State Department issued an unusually broad travel alert that applies to the whole continent for this month, next month and August. It warns American citizens that they could be in danger at major events, tourist sites, city centres, restaurants and on public transport.

Americans take real notice of their government’s advice because they usually give it on sound evidence like finding ‘weapons of mass destruction’. However, the European Football Championships could be a honeypot for ISIS who will exploit lax security in airports but the Americans also tell their citizens to avoid tourist locations such as Mediterranean beach resorts.

Talking about the Mediterranean, the people of Greece are waking up this morning to instant price hikes in all their favourite things – sales tax rate went up from 23% to 24%, while taxes were also raised on services used heavily by Greeks forced to cut back on leisure activities due to the financial crisis. Charges increased on internet, fixed telephone and pay-TV subscriptions. Meanwhile, a huge, 5* hotel – The Athens Ledra (Ledra Marriott) on Syngrou Avenue has gone into administration turfing out guests and closing its doors. Their staff haven’t been paid for 3 months and its debts to banks and the Social Security Foundation (IKA) are said to top 40 million euros.

In UK, the Pound Sterling is falling again as aggregated opinion polls show Vote Leave pulling away to a worryingly significant lead. This is exacerbated by migrants being picked up from small boat crossings in quiet coastline settings around the UK and stories of increased migration through Libya to Italy and a return of the Greek island migrant problem as Turkey realise they may not get what they hoped for from the EU and  start to relax their grip on the smugglers.

2nd June, 2016

Starting to take June for granted already even though it’s grey and a little cool outside. The best we’ve reached is 16F/61C – a  palindromic temperature conversion as I’m sure you’ll recognise. We got up this morning thinking that we had to do nothing other than make our trip to the Leisure Club. After a couple of really hard sessions over the past couple of days, I am aching. We only have to do Friday and then we can rest over the weekend.

As we were moving to our new home in Sussex, we were determined to bring items from our joint history and mix them with fairly modern things which challenge our taste and view of the ‘appropriate’. We have a pendant light shade which we bought for Pauline’s Mum’s new home in 1980.

We have a silver cigarette box that belonged to my father. He kept his Players Cigarettes in it. Mum gave it to me in 1984. I had my initials engraved on the top, bought myself an expensive, new lighter and filled the box with cigarettes. Within a week, I went from smoking 4o a day to giving up completely and I have never even considered touching one ever again. The box is a lovely memory conflating Dad’s, Mum’s and my life. I have my Grandfather’s ‘apprentice piece’ – a yew, smoker’s chair – know in the family as ‘The Richard Chair’. As I wrote on the Blog recently, I have the huge, House for Sale sign from the gate of our Greek house.

I wrote about buying our Dining Table & Chairs from a supplier in Oldham where we worked for 40 years and then getting a bedroom furniture company to fit our bedrooms. They turned out to be made in Oldham and the project manager we liaised with told us that Pauline & I used to teach her mother.

Since the bedrooms have been completed, we have been looking for white stools to slip under the kneehole of each dressing table.Thinking modern and slightly wacky, I found this white, leather topped, gas-strut stool and we both thought it would be fun. I found it being sold on a number of websites, one of which, bizarrely, turned out to be Tesco Direct. They weren’t expensive and I ordered three. When the confirmation email arrived it said they were being supplied by Lakeland Furniture.

I can’t avoid curiosity and I immediately Googled Lakeland Furniture. Guess where they are based? Oldham! They are housed in one of the old cotton mills that was once housing Littlewoods Mail Order. I blame Pauline, of course, because she is Oldham born and bred. Let’s hope the chairs are just as beautiful and just as reliable.

3rd June, 2016

To say this morning was freezing would be an exaggeration but it is the sort of term one would use for it in June. It was bloody freezing! We were on a major shopping mission this morning. First to Asda for bananas. I live on bananas. I was a monkey in a former life. Asda bananas are streets (or plantations) ahead of the other, major supermarkets in terms of quality and flavour. Listen to a dedicated consumer. They use Fyffes – an Irish company – who import them from Costa Rica.

Monkey satisfied, we moved on to Sainsbury’s to buy power block/USB charger units for the bedrooms allowing us and guests to charge iPads/Kindles, etc. over night. On to Currys to pick up the final television for the last bedroom. Lastly to Tesco for our major shop of the week. After getting home, I watched a re-run of the ‘Call me Dave’ interview from last night while Pauline was completing the re-spraying of three, big mirrors that we have dragged around with us from house to house for thirty years. We love them and they cost us £50.00/€64.00 a piece all that time ago but they are in a rather dated, varnished pine frame which doesn’t suit our modern style. The one illustrated here in our Hall will stay as it is. Pauline has masked off the other mirrors and is spraying undercoat and matt white top coats before they are hung in the bedrooms. She loves doing that sort of thing.

I am actually doing practical things as well today because there is no Daily Politics. I’m hanging pictures in Pauline’s Ironing & Sewing Room. The pictures are an eclectic mix of framed opera posters which I love; a picture of Jemima – a much loved cat of Pauline’s which died in 1980; a picture of our shadows on the Kali Strata of the Greek island of Symi in 1989 and a shot of the Hora on Folegandros that we stayed in a couple of times in the early ’90s. Although we physically shopped all morning, we did a bit more on the net this afternoon. Pauline needs an easy chair in which to contemplate her sewing. We’ve ordered this from Wayfair. I don’t know what you think. A mixture of modern and retro? It cost £150.00/€193.00 but we had a 10% discount from them because of previous purchases.

4th June, 2016

The week has concluded with quite a few things in the house coming together. The wacky, white stools arrived this morning, looked perfect and went straight into the main, three bedrooms. This is bedroom 1 now.

Bedroom 1

Bedroom 2 is virtually complete with a re-cycled mirror, painted white by Pauline and the ubiquitous television looks like this:

Bedroom 2

Bedroom 2

Bedroom 3 is in the front of the house, is the same size as Bedroom 2 but needs a bit of work yet and currently looks like this:

Bedroom 3

Bedroom 4 is the smallest of the four and we don’t really need it. Buying good quality, new-build properties with two or three bedrooms is not as easy as one might think. Ours is given over to Pauline for Ironing & Sewing and her cookery book collection. Currently it looks like this:

Bedroom 4

Bedroom 4

I don’t know if you notice an overwhelming ‘whiteness’. This will be counterpointed with pictures which will be put up next.

We had a huge pile of cardboard from recent deliveries bunging up the garage. We took it to the local tip and then drove on to the beach at Ferring which was almost deserted. It was absolutely delightful.

Ferring Beach

22nd May, 2016

A warm and relaxing day of newspapers and little else. The new week will see us restart our exercise program now we are not tied to the house. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday at the Leisure Centre and then Thursday visiting Surrey. We are still waiting for confirmation of the delivery of the new sideboard and that is it.

23rd May, 2016

Happy 67th Birthday to my sister, Ruth. It looks like she’s spending it in the Lake District with rather nice weather. Hope she’s having a lovely day.

We are certainly enjoying a very warm and sunny day down here. We reached 76F/24C in the shade as we cooked and ate our meal out in the garden. Griddled Pacific Salmon with Greek Salad was just delightful. Earlier, I had considered negotiating a new trade deal with Brazil or setting up a trading business in India but, in the end, I settled for sweeping out the garage and taking a final box of rubbish to the local tip. Actually, I’m sure it was more rewarding.

Tomorrow, we will go to the Leisure Centre and relaunch our health campaign with renewed vigour. In Greece, meanwhile, the newspapers are reporting Fears of protracted strike at Piraeus and Thessaloniki ports. Port Authorities are due to go on strike to protest privatisation plans on Thursday, prompting fears of a prolonged period of inactivity at the ports. Potential tourists be warned!

24th May, 2016

The gorgeous days keep coming. Hot and sunny from 6.00 am right through until now as I write at 6.30 pm. The thermometer in the shade hit 23C/72F. I was so excited, I cleaned the car. We went out to Curry’s to buy three, smallish TVs for three of the bedrooms. They are only 24″ screens with white surrounds and Freeview receivers built in. They cost £420.00/€550.00 in total. Now I have to get a terrestrial aerial installed to supply the signal.

Our meal was cooked out in the garden again. We so enjoyed the griddled salmon yesterday that we repeated it today. Wild, Pacific salmon is such a wonderful flavour (at £13.30 per Kg.) compared with farmed, Scottish salmon (at £12.00 per Kg.). Griddled, the oil-rich skin goes charred and crunchy. Absolutely wonderful.

25th May, 2016

We have really rediscovered tarragon in a big way. Years ago I wasn’t keen but now we use it to flavour chicken and salmon regularly. We probably overuse it but it’s our choice. Living in Yorkshire, I failed miserably to grow it in the garden but down here is a different matter and today I bought three plants for growing on in pots. We have a nursery that specialises in herb and vegetable plants just 400 metres from our house and it is there we went today. Culberry Nursery is fairly homespun but all the more interesting for that. In addition to Tarragon, I bought Sweet Basil plants and Sweet Bell Pepper plants. I will grow them in pots this year just for a bit of fun. I’ll probably add some cherry tomatoes as well.

A local firm is coming to install an aerial so I can receive Freeview in each of the bedrooms. The televisions arrive on Saturday and we will have moved another step on. Meanwhile, we are going back to Surrey tomorrow to pick up my repeat prescription from the Surgery which we have nor resigned from yet. We haven’t had time to choose a surgery down here yet and we will do that over the next month. It will have to be done before we go away. We will go out for lunch with Pauline’s sister and niece. I’m on a no alcohol phase – hopefully lasting three months – so I am driving. However, typically, Pauline says she won’t drink either to show solidarity.

26th May, 2016

Woke up early to a beautiful, sunny morning. At 9.30 am, we set off for Surrey. It should take us almost exactly one hour according to our experience and our sat.nav.. We didn’t calculate in an accident on the M25 which virtually doubled our journey time as we sat and crawled nose to bumper. I knew I should have gone to the loo again before I left home. By the time we reached our doctors’ surgery in Woking, it was all I could do to control my walk to the door.

With my repeat prescription in hand and my relieved state in mind, I felt able to look around my old stomping ground. Unlike where we are in Sussex which seems to have an abundance of wisteria, where we were in Surrey is now dominated by vast and brashly colourful rhododendrons. The traffic and the driving style is aggressive and selfish. Drivers approaching a roundabout dive, kamikaze-style for the advantage.

We survived the traffic and called at P&C’s house before leaving for a gastro pub where were going for lunch together. It was called the Hand & Spear in Weybridge. We went to the restaurant and were seated in the conservatory. Pauline & I ordered roast pigeon with beetroot and beetroot jus for our starter followed by slow roasted lamb with celeriac fondant. It was very well cooked and very enjoyable although I feel bound to say that Pauline would have cooked it better. We didn’t have a sweet or coffee. We had two bottles of sparkling water and a bottle of white wine. The bill came to £175.00/€230.00 which was not unreasonable and we really enjoyed the conviviality of the event but neither of us would leap to eat there again.

Our drive back to our Surrey home took 55 minutes and was a delight. The sun was shining all the way and the temperature was 22C/70F. The traffic and driving was almost polite and the world spread out in good order.

27th May, 2016

Warm and sunny day that was 20C/68F at 8.30 am and reached 22C/70F by mid day but felt a great deal hotter because of the high humidity. We were out at the huge garden centre about a mile away from our house to buy some new pots for the patio and some extra plants. To add to the herbs – Tarragon, Sweet Basil and the Green Bell Pepper plants – I bought yesterday, I picked up some ‘trailing’ cherry tomatoes – yellow and red – especially developed for growing in tubs or hanging baskets. If I get them looking like the illustration, I’ll show you. Otherwise, you’ll never hear of them again.

We went on to a local industrial park to a GPO office to collect a parcel we missed yesterday. While we were there, we spotted a builders’ merchants which we knew stocked the liquid wax Pauline has used on our dining table. It was so good, we bought enough for two more years’ treatments. If you’re a regular to this Blog, you will know my proclivity for ‘forward buying’.

28th May, 2016

About 3.00 am we were woken by the sound of torrential rain. Although it only lasted about five minutes, we went downstairs and made a cup of tea. Back to bed at 4.00 am on an uncomfortably warm night. We weren’t surprised to learn this morning that other places near us had experienced thunder and lightning. We must have been just on the edge. Story of my life!

Tired when we woke, as usual, at 6.00 am. Still, the day was fine and sunny and waiting to be started. We are tied to the house today. Curry’s are delivering televisions for the bedrooms and the aerial installer may just turn up at the third time of asking – if he can be bothered. Pauline and I are finally getting around to contacting friends and family to confirm our new address and keep them up to speed with our lives. It is a mixture of emails (where we can) and letters where necessary.  Fortunately, a computer makes it all a lot easier. In total, we had more than sixty people/families to contact. A stock letter slightly tweaked for each contact is fairly quick. A stock email with multiple addressees is similarly economical with time. I really like my address label printer that churns out multiple, transparent, adhesive address labels in short time.

As I write this Blog at 6.00 pm in sultry heat and with one eye on the Championship Play Off final between Hull and Sheffield Wednesday, the TVs have arrived and been set up but the aerial installer has not and is now sacked. I will choose another company after the Bank Holiday weekend.

15th May, 2016

Came down to the mild and delightful smell of beeswax in the Kitchen/Family Room. Our huge and heavy dining table came from Lithuania via Oldham in Lancashire. It is made from reclaimed wood and seats eight diners with plenty of elbow room. The wood has dried out a bit in transit and storage and needed some wax.

Pauline, who does all things practical, was girding her loins to spend a couple of days rubbing a tin of beeswax in to the wood and then another couple of days, rubbing it off. After considerable research, she found this tin of liquid wax that just had to be ‘painted on’ with a brush and left to soak in for an hour. Because of this, she had time to give the table three coats of liquid wax, leaving an hour in between each coat and still serve our meal on it in the early evening.

I had the hard job of putting pictures up on the wall. I call it the pre-Alzheimer’s prescription. I put up the framed photos of all our houses and, in doing so, bring all the memories of other decades flooding back. I put our academic certificates up on the wall in the Office and it immediately sparked a conversation of the late nights of essay writing we both spent completing our degrees and of the long periods of time I spent in the Manchester Library rotunda researching my Masters thesis which Pauline typed up on our Amstrad PCW with the dot-matrix printer taking noisy hours to print out.

It has been a source of amusement to those who have known me over the years that I have a very poor memory for the most simple things. I can remember whole chunks of poetry that I learned when I was 18, the central thrust of Rene Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy  which I studied when I was doing my BA more than 40 years ago and the arguments addressed in Ferdinand Tönnies : Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft or the thread of The History of Trade Unionism, 1666-1920, by Sidney and Beatrice Webb, both of which were my summer holiday reading on a Greek beach in 1985.

What I can’t remember, is how to get to B&Q from my current home even though I have been there five times in the past month. I couldn’t remember how to get my wife to my Family home to meet my Mother 35 years ago. Thank goodness for Sat. Nav.. I can never stray too far from the car because I have no memory of where I parked it. Pauline & I maintain synchronised, on-line calendars so I can keep tabs on the week’s/month’s events. I keep this Blog as a form of aide memoire. As TS Eliot, in The Wasteland, says:

These fragments I have shored against my ruins.

My framed photos on the walls do the same for me.

16th May, 2016

Gloriously sunny day. We are full of the joys of life. Up early and on with jobs. Our to the Post Office to pick up a parcel and post a letter. Back for coffee and then lawn mowing for me and cleaning for Pauline. I followed my job with pressure washing the drive to get rid of the residue of builders’ mud. All of this was done in strong, hot sunshine.

We griddled salmon steaks outside and ate them outside with Greek Salad in the sunshine. The bedroom furniture fitters are due before 8.00 am tomorrow so we are tidying the rooms up for them. Four days of work should see the job done and we can get on with a normal life.

Just to underline our lucky escape from Sifnos island is the confirmation by KTG of the:

Scrapping VAT deductions on the islands:  Sweeping price increases in goods and services are expected on the islands (Syros, Thassos, Andros, Tinos, Karpathos, Milos, Skyros, Alonnisos and Sifnos) as of 1. July 2016, as the VAT deduction of 30% will be scrapped.

This is in addition to all the other increases:

Value Added Tax rise from 23% up to 24% as of 1. July 2016
Fuel prices: Hikes in special consumption tax
Beer: retail price will be increased
Cigarettes, e-cigarettes, tobacco: special fee: estimated30-50 cents per package
Phone land lines: additional fee of 5%
Cable TV: an extra fee of 10%
Hotels & Rooms To Let: A special fee will be added on accommodation bills

It is going to make islanders feel that they are living their lives under siege – a siege waged by Germany against this tiny nation. With 60,000 or so migrants camped out around the country and islands, life will not be comfortable this summer.

17th May, 2016

The bedroom fitter arrived at 7.30 am on a dry, sunny and fairly mild May morning. He has four rooms to install wardrobes with internal furniture as well, dressing table runs, bedside cabinets, etc.. It feels like a tall order to us but he seems confident. He is a local man – from near Brighton – employed by the Lancashire company.

While the fitter is working, I’m looking at storage shelving for the garage. I get all the ‘sexy’ jobs. Heavy duty, metal staging is what we need. I have to store car products and tools. I’m not quite sure why because, although I’ve got every tool under the sun neatly stored in three, graded-size tool boxes, I have little idea and zero confidence in using them. Still, a man has to do….

18th May, 2016

We’ve got rain and it feels lovely. We’ve hardly seen any for months. At least I got the lawns cut on Monday but they are really growing fast. Of course, it is new-ish turf so that may explain its vigour. According to the forecast, we will have some rain today and a bit more tomorrow so the garden will be expressing its gratitude.

We have the bedroom fitter working on bedroom 2 today and I’m watching The State Opening of Parliament and The Queen’s Speech on television. It is going to be a policy-lite speech because it is taking place against the backdrop of the European Referendum which is still quite close and will see the prime minister  leave if the vote takes us out. Even if it is close, he may have to go because the governing party is stuffed full of euro-sceptics who will demand a new formulation. Farage has even suggested that, if the vote is narrowly to stay, another referendum will follow on its heels. This is brilliantly illustrated in today’s cartoon in The Times.

19th May, 2016

We’ve moved to a small village which is clearly skilled at one thing at least – growing wisteria. So many of the brick & flint walls of cottages here are clad in abundantly flowering wisteria. We have never seen it so vigorous and successful. It is absolutely lovely right now.

The bedroom fitter is completing day 3 of 4. He is fitting out wardrobes, bedside tables and a dressing table in bedroom 3. Tomorrow he will complete Pauline’s ironing/sewing room. The furniture components have all been produced and prepared in Oldham,  – which was featured on Radio 4 yesterday as the most deprived town in England – boxed up and shipped down here. Our garage has become increasingly full of cardboard and off-cuts of wood as the days have progressed. Today, I have filled the car boot with rubbish and we have driven off to the communal tip to dispose of it. Two more trips should do it over the weekend.

20th May, 2016

A delightfully sunny and warm day. The bedroom fitter arrived at 7.00 am for the fourth consecutive day and worked solidly until 3.00 pm without a break. By this time, he had completed the fitting of all four bedrooms, cleared out his tools , vacuumed each room and left for his drive home to Brighton. For his four days work, we paid him £850.00/€1100.00. For the bedroom furniture, we paid an additional £11,000.00/€14,300.00. Everything is now done and we have our house back. We were left with a garage full of packaging and off-cuts which I packed in to the back of the car. We drove to the local waste disposal site and dumped it. The site is staffed with a great team workers of  who are keen to help people carry waste materials from their cars and put them in to the correct bins. It is all so easy and convenient.

We came home via Tesco supermarket where we bought a side of salmon, 4 sea bream fillets, a kilo of calamari and some cod loins. It’s going to be a fishy few days.

21st May, 2016

Up early on a rather overcast but warm morning. Loaded up the car with the last, remaining off cuts of wood from the bedroom fitter and drove to the local waste tip to dump it. At last the garage can get back to an empty state and the car can be put away. After leaving the tip, we drove 3 miles on to Climping Beach. It is a lovely, natural area with gorgeous, old houses clad in wisteria and leading down to a shingle beach which is quiet and lovely to walk on. Now that our house is in full working order and most deliveries have arrived, we can spend time exploring these places before we set off for Europe.

Came home to put some more pictures up and finish tidying the garage. I am going to fit two shelf racks for storage at the back of the garage and can now seriously think about ordering them. A reader of the Blog contacted me with a suggested supplier and that is the one I am going to go with.

8th May, 2016

Up at 6.30 am after a very warm night. Opening up the conservatory doors to allow the sunshine straight into the family room, the temperature was already reaching 20C/68F. After fresh orange juice and tea, we celebrated the start of the new week by driving to the Littlehampton Waste Disposal site to get rid of all the cardboard and wood generated by our unpacking and garage clearance.

I was re-reading my Blog from this time two years ago and found that we were starting the same process but in reverse in our Greek house. We had already agreed the sale but had to keep it quiet. We knew that we wouldn’t be taking much back to Surrey with us in the back of our car. We arranged to sell or leave all the furniture and fittings. Things like Kitchen and Dining equipment, pictures, televisions, computers, etc.,  were given to friends and helpers. Still that left a huge amount to be got rid of and we had to do that without drawing attention to ourselves. Almost every morning, we would get up early and make a trip down to the communal bins or up to the waste tip to dump unwanted items. We didn’t want to compromise our sale in any way by indicating its imminence. The plan worked, thank goodness.

I found space in the car for The House for Sale sign which I thought would be a good memory. This week, it will go up in our downstairs Office on the wall with framed photos of all the houses we have lived in together throughout our marriage.

It is still light at 9.00 pm and extremely warm – 23C/73F, close and sticky. The temperature has reached 27C/81F today. We sat outside for an hour or so to eat our meal and had to put the sun canopy up to beat off the sun. The winter and summer duvet covers have been changed – from 10 tog to 3 tog – and I will still probably sleep on top of it. The changing year has suddenly crept up on us. Still light at 9.00 pm.! You wouldn’t get that in Greece.

9th May, 2016

Up at 7.00 am on a warm and windless morning although the forecast was for the arrival of rain. After breakfast and a few minutes reading The Times, I was outside with the Henry vacuum cleaner, a glass spray and a leather cleaner spray working on the car’s interior. We can’t believe that we’ve kept it for nearly 4 years and already done 27,000 miles. We have never done anything like that before. Actually, the car has been an excellent one in spite of having crossed Europe four times in its life, and is still ‘nearly new’. We will trade it in sometime during the Summer and buy a new, slightly updated model which will cost something like £35,000.00/€44,000.00. If we keep it the same length of time, our next new car will see us approaching 70!

After a quick cup of coffee, I was out again mowing the lawns. I’m so pleased that I forked out for a rechargeable, cordless mower. It is so liberating. I fly around the lawns and cut 160 m² of grass in under half an hour. It is left striped but green and luscious. What more could you want?

It is a sultry evening. As I write at 10.00 pm, the temperature in the Office is 26C/79F. We are still casting around for furniture for the lounge. The bedroom furniture is being delivered on Thursday and fitted throughout next week. Our fitter has texted to say he will come and fit the bathroom furniture, which is clogging up the garage, towards the end of the week. Hopefully, by June, we will almost be at stasis and ready to go away. What will we do when this house is sorted. We’ll have to sell it and start another.

Ta Nea reports today under the headline:

Εξοδο της Ελλάδας από το ευρώ ζητούν οι Γερμανοί Φιλελεύθεροι
(German Liberals seek exit of Greeks from the Euro.)

The German Liberal Party argue that the only way forward for Greece is through a ‘haircut’ accompanied by leaving the Euro (however temporarily) and a deep devaluation. Economically, it is the only way they will dig their way out of this hole. It will be painful but would not mean the continual downward spiral that they are currently in.

10th May, 2016

Light rain this morning at 7.00 am soon gave way to warm sunshine and 18C/65F. We had some shopping to collect and a couple of parcels to wait in for so the Leisure Centre fell off the end of the agenda. We picked up a new microwave and a deep fat fryer. We don’t use the latter much but love to eat Calamari with salad.

The microwave was ordered from Curry’s. In 1980, I bought Pauline what I thought was a dream Christmas present. It was a Phillips microwave that was a big as a house. It cost a whacking £450.00/€571.00. Now, 36 years on, this microwave cost just £110.00 Goodness knows how the comparison works when allowing for inflation over those years. – Actually, I’ve just used a Historical UK inflation calculator to calculate that our original machine would cost £2056.50/€2610.00 in today’s terms. The fryer is a plastic copy of the professional one we left in Greece. This one cost just £30.00/€38.00 and will only be used outside in the garden.

The heavy rain we were told would hit us this morning failed to materialise and, this evening, the temperature in the Office as I type this up, has reached an uncomfortable 27C/81F.

11th May, 2016

A warm but deliciously wet morning. Everything is looking green and luscious. Had to do my ‘official’ INR test this morning. As I haven’t ‘officially’ left my current doctor and registered with a new one down here, I have emailed my results to Woking Anticoagulation Dept.. Having missed a couple of days, we must get to the gym today and make sure that it coincides with PMQs at mid day. We are expecting a fitter to arrive over the next couple of afternoons to sort out the bathroom furniture.

I’m rather enjoying playing with the newly discovered Historical UK inflation rates and calculator. I started teaching in September 1972. I was paid by cheque and my first one was for £60.00/€76.00. How could I forget. We had to work a month in advance before we got paid and, in order to live, I had to borrow £60.00 from Lloyd’s Bank. It took me six months to pay it off. The £60.00, of course, was take-home pay for the month. We used to calculate – as a rough guide – that we were paying 30% of our headline pay in Income Tax + Graduated Pension + National Insurance. So, my headline pay will have been circa £90.00/€1152.00 per month or £13,824.00/€17,492.00 per year. Actually, a starting salary for teachers today is significantly better although still not much at £22,244.

We have finally found and ordered a sideboard for the lounge. It seems to have taken forever. We celebrated with a lovely meal of roast cod loin, roasted field mushrooms stuffed with feta cheese and drizzled with basil oil, accompanied by roasted shallots and yellow peppers. We drank a wonderfully scented but sharp bottle of chilled white wine with the meal and the day descended in to a haze of happiness.

12th May, 2016

We decided against the stag’s head!

A busy, busy day. The bedroom furniture is being delivered this morning prior to being fitted next week. The delivery is pre-timed for 7.00 – 9.00 am. We have strict instructions to clear the rooms before they come. As we’ve only got beds in them, there is little to do. We already have wardrobes in Bedroom 1 and are having dressing table and bedside tables built in. In the other three bedrooms, wardrobes, bedside tables and dressing tables are being fitted. It is a huge lorry load that arrives. It was wet over night so Pauline has fitted covers over the carpet all the way upstairs and in to the rooms.

The lorry arrived at 8.00 am. It was dry and warm outside. Two men – one Polish – began to do the trek from the lorry to the bedrooms with each item labelled and numbered. We have already been told that it will take four full days to fit so the amount of stuff coming in is not so surprising. It has taken them over an hour to unload. Now we have to do the weekly shop. Life for we high flyers is unbounded.

Talking about high flyers, we have met and received at our house so many good people doing so many fairly ordinary jobs (albeit ones I could/would not do) but who have good Honours Degrees. The man who delivered and fitted my British Gas Smart Meter had a 2:1 Honours Degree in Hospitality & Recreation from Birmingham. The lad who came to screw bathroom furniture on the walls has a Physics Degree from Bangor. The lorry driver who delivered and fitted our Office furniture had a degree. The electrician who fitted our media distribution points had a degree. Of course all education is essentially rewarding but, if you end up with a developed mind which fails to be stretched at work, it runs the risk of frustration and dissatisfaction. Not only that, you also end up with a large debt. An excellent cartoon last week depicted an old man celebrating his 80th birthday and asking his wife: What to pay off first – the mortgage or the student loan? It may be funny but it could be accurate.

13th May, 2016

Friday 13th – Unlucky for some. Let’s hope it’s not for Pauline. She’s going to Toni & Guy in Worthing to have her hair cut. She would have to take the train to London to find a Vidal Sassoon salon which she would prefer but is hoping this will do. Failing that, we may have to fly to Athens. She really likes her hairdresser there. I am being given an hour or so to explore the Worthing shops and, maybe, even the sea front. We have four days ‘free’ before the next wave of work begins. On Tuesday, the bedroom fitters will be in for the rest of the week. We are hoping we can be confident enough to leave them while we go to the Leisure Centre each day but we’ll have to ply them with coffee and biscuits.

Now the bulk of our spending on the house is done, – We have a few lamps and side tables for the Lounge to find. –  I am turning my attention to replacing the car. It’s on its way to 4 years old and has done 27200 miles/43775 Km. I have been told that it is currently worth £14,500.00/€18,500.00. The new one will cost me £35,000.00/€44,500.00 so I will need to make up £20,000.00/€25,500.00. I have always bought from the same dealer and the same salesman in Huddersfield since 1984 – usually each year until retirement. Even after moving south, I returned to Yorkshire to replace my car although not as frequently. This time, I will probably buy & sell on-line for the first time. I feel quite disloyal but it is hard, economic sense.

Delightful morning in Worthing. walked down to the beachside and the pier and then did some shopping while Pauline had her haircut. She booked the Manager and he turned out to be ‘Sassoon’ – trained. She was delighted with his skill so we may be alright for a year or two now. It only cost £60.00/€76.00 as well so it was win-win for me. The weather was hot and sunny although the headline temperature was only 22C/70F. It was humid which made it feel hotter.

14th May, 2016

Quite a change in temperature today although still sunny. Yesterday, 22C/70F and very humid. Today 14C/57F with a chill in the wind. We were warned that there was a possibility of frost in the North.

Every property we have lived in has been photographed, framed and put on the wall of the next one. Our Office is stuffed full of a desktop computer, 2 laptops, a scanner, 2 laser printers, a label printer, 2 iPads, 2 Kindles, a Sky box and television, an internet hub, a smart meter monitor,  2 desks, 2 filing cabinets, a cupboard, a book case and 2 computer chairs. Not wishing to leave any bare walls, I’ve now put up our previous homes including our Greek house Sale sign.

The Office is somewhere we spend a lot of our time. I am Blogging, website designing, and writing while Pauline is doing the day to day accounts, shopping and corresponding. We have always had this sort of facility in all homes – including the Greek one – as well as at work. It is important to me to have designated thinking and writing space.

Talking about Greece, it’s economy shrank 0.4 % in the first quarter compared to the last three months of 2015. In addition, House transactions in Greece are grinding to a standstill in 2016. The first few of months of 2016 find residential property sales in even worse shape than last year, according to the Bank of Greece.

1st May, 2016

Καλό μήνα

New week, new month. Happy May to all our readers and a special Καλό μήνα, καλό Πάσχα to our Greek friends. We have got a beautifully clear and sunny sky and I am having my hair cut in the garden by my beautiful wife. I’m not terribly keen on sitting still so long so my face will begin to look like this rabbit’s before she’s finished.

It has been a lovely, warm day. My hair has blown away across the garden. I hope it will form the basis for some bird’s nest – preferably a robin. Roast chicken and root vegetables for our meal was delicious. We remember when the price of chicken made it a luxury to be eaten very occasionally in the 1950s whereas fish was fairly cheap. Now it is the opposite. Pauline still buys the best fresh chicken she can find and it certainly rewards her with excellent quality and flavour. Today a bird of 1.8kg cost £7.57/€9.70 from Tesco ‘Finest’ range. It was delicious. It will make two meals for us so is very cost effective.

Watched three Premier League matches while reading the Sunday Times this afternoon as the sunshine belted in through the open, conservatory doors. It was a strange experience not to be rooting for United to win and to feel pleasure when Leicester pulled off a well fought draw. There is little, now, that can stop them winning the title.

2nd May, 2016

Bank Holiday for many but just another day for us. We have been to David Lloyd Leisure Centre to sign a 12 month contract. It will cost us £129.50 per month. That is for ‘off-peak’ usage which suits us fine. We will use it 5 days per week and concentrate on the gym, pools and health spa. There is an on-site hairdresser and beauty treatment centre which Pauline may use and a restaurant/café with televisions and Wi-Fi which will be useful. There are also lots of ‘free’ classes which Pauline may book up for like ‘Zumba’.

Built-in obsolescence is a terrible thing – as I keep reminding my wife. I’ve had a simple but efficient scanner for a few years. Suddenly, with the recent upgrade of Windows 10, it has ceased to work and there is no new driver for it available. I’ve been looking for a new scanner. Cannon, which makes my current machine has produced an identical model but with an updated driver and they will charge me £50.00/€64.00 for the privilege of using it with the new Windows. Even so, I’ve ordered one to pick up tomorrow at Currys/PCWorld.

3rd May, 2016

Lovely, sunny, cloudless day – rather mirroring the mood of the people of Leicester. We have a little man coming round to do some work this afternoon so we feel rather ‘confined to Barracks’ while awaiting his appearance. Tomorrow, we have our ‘induction’ at the Leisure Centre by our ‘personal trainer’. Sounds fun!

Today our new sideboard was delivered. It had come all the way from Spain and we had waited for weeks. The deliverers unpacked it in our lounge and ….. it was damaged. We couldn’t believe it. We paid £650.00/€821.00 six weeks ago and waited with rising anticipation. To find it damaged and have more time to wait is unbearable. Our dilemma is that we looked for a long time before choosing it and failed to find anything else we liked more. We are reluctant to go back to the drawing board but not prepared to wait much longer.

4th May, 2016

On this gloriously bright and sunny day, we both woke up early and turned and said to each other, “We need to go back to the drawing board.”. I had my orange juice and then emailed the suppliers to tell them to refund £650.00 to our account and collect the damaged sideboard. They replied immediately saying the refund would be made but it was cheaper for us to donate the sideboard to a charity which is what we will do. We will now look for a replacement. We are deliberately focussing on modern, slightly quirky, maybe designer in their use of materials. I wonder what you think of these:

Alright, perhaps they’re not your cup of tea but they seem right for a new-build house. The only problem is that they are not viewable in store. They are all internet-only companies.

Did our induction session at the Leisure Club this morning and came home and grilled chicken and shallots outside in the sunshine. Life is definitely good at the moment.

5th May, 2016

Glorious, glorious, glorious morning on the Sussex coast. At 7.00 am, the newly mown lawn was bathed in warm sunshine and the temperature was 11C/52F. We are looking for 21C/69F today moving towards 24C/75F by Sunday. It’s going to be an enjoyable few days.

Jobs this morning include a trip to Currys PC World to collect my new scanner and then in to Tesco next door for the weekly shop. Back for coffee and then out to the Leisure Centre for a work out and swim. I think we will use the outdoor heated pool today in this sunshine.

Great session at the Leisure Centre timed to coincide with the Daily Politics. It is almost two months since we did a gym session and we began with some trepidation but we needn’t have worried. It was fine and very enjoyable. Admittedly, we didn’t overdo it and, afterwards, just luxuriated in the huge Jacuzzi pool. It was very enjoyable. Driving home in glorious Summer weather, we reflected on how happy we are and how reassured that we had chosen exactly the  right place to settle.

6th May, 2016

Glorious Summer’s day. Yesterday actually reached 23C/73F as we left the Leisure Centre. Today is 26C/79F in the shade in our back garden. Quite delightful! We griddled sea bass fillets on the patio and ate them with Greek Salad. We did about 90 mins. of workout and came home to relax in the sun.

Everything about the David Lloyd Leisure Centre is on a magnitude of ten compared with our previous Nuffield Health Club. The sauna is big enough to hold a party in and so hot I could manage less than ten minutes. It is less friendly and personal but it is exactly what I like. I just want to do my exercise and leave. I am not looking for community. I’ve got a wife! Tomorrow we are going to Littlehampton Marina which is about two miles away. We aim to be there in time for the fishermen landing their catches and selling it from huts on the shore.

7th May, 2016

A hot and sultry day in which we were fairly active. We worked on continuing to unpack boxes from our move. This coming week will see a lot of bathroom furniture installed – our fitter has been in Las Vegas for a couple of weeks and will need to build his cash reserves back up so is keen for extra work.

When they are installed in the three bathrooms, we can move ‘stuff’ out of boxes and into the cupboards. The newly produced bedroom furniture is being delivered on Thursday and installed the week after. We only have wardrobes in our bedroom at the moment and none in the other three rooms. They are being fitted and then each of the four bedrooms will have bedside cabinets installed and a run of dressing table furniture with chairs and mirrors. After that, I can have the bedroom televisions installed.

I’m rather glad I’m not in Greece yet. There is a general strike which will paralyse the country and, particularly, its transport system. Hope you’re not expecting to travel by ferry this weekend to an island. You better stay at home! There is a general air of gloom surrounding the security of the current government at the moment. With their arms bent far up their backs by the Germans, they are having to force through more tax rises and more pension cuts. There is something of resigned despair emanating from poor and middle class Greeks. This accompanying poster has been hijacked by the British Leave Campaign to make their own case but it has been snatched from a Reuters article in a similar vein. There is definitely a sense in the air that a new, Greek crisis might be looming in mid-Summer.

24th April, 2016

The last week of April already. Hold on to the handrail! At 7.00 am, the sky was pale and wan, as Yeats would have described it. The temperature was a cool 7C/45F. I watched the morning political slot with Andrew Marr and then we went out shopping. We had ordered a low tog – 3 – duvet and had to pick it up from Dunelm. We went on to do a large shop at Tesco next door. The supermarkets are so busy of Sunday morning. It’s enough to gladden one’s heart!

Back home in time to unpack and set up my new pressure washer. It will see use tomorrow. On to the e-Sunday Times with glorious fresh capuccino topped cinnamon sprinkle sipped while I watch Andrew Neil with the combative Dominic Raab and the obstructive Lucy Powel trying to filibuster. Of course, Raab was on for discussion of the European Referendum vote. I find myself in the most deliciously contrary position. I love Europe. I feel decidedly European. I am determined to vote to stay in Europe. However, when establishment people tell me that voting to leave will bring a plague upon my house, it makes me want to vote ‘out’. It must be the natural dissenter in my character.

25th April, 2016

All These Bits!

I am not and never have been a practical person. At Grammar School in 1962, I was required to do one-year taster courses of metalwork and woodwork. I failed in the end of term task to make a ‘pipe rack’ and I failed again in the next term’s test to make a key tag and a coat hook. In practical things then as now, I am a failure. I used to be ashamed of it. Now, I realise, I am good at thinking, writing and analysing and I am happy to rely on my wife for the practical solutions. Pauline will take hours writing a few lines to friends. I will take hours removing my new pressure washer from its packaging and trying to assemble the parts from sketchy illustrations produced by a German company.

Just look at all the bits that came in the box. The illustration doesn’t even show you that I’ve had to attach the handle and wheels already. I’m exhausted and I haven’t even assembled the gun/lance/thingy. After I had finished assembling the whole thing, I connected to our garden tap and power from the garage and proudly called Pauline out to see the demonstration. She turned the power on and I turned the water on. Before I even got hold of the gun/lance, water spouted from every orifice. It clearly wasn’t right. Pauline laughed, checked the instructions and reassembled the connector in seconds. Turning the water back on saw the whole thing work perfectly. Aren’t wives clever? Tomorrow she will let me clean the car.

26th April, 2016

A strange day of brilliant sunshine and short showers including one of hail. It was never really warm – I think it reached 10C/50F. – and often feeling raw cold. In the sunny morning period, I managed to mow the lawns, and pressure wash the patio. In the cold times, we hunkered down in the house, emptying the Office in readiness for the delivery of the furniture. I had bought a cheap, stand-in computer desk while the real stuff was being manufactured and delivered.

Today, two delightful; chaps turned up in a huge delivery waggon and carried off an L-shaped corner desk unit and a straight extension desk unit, a 4-drawer filing cabinet and a 3-drawer pedestal cabinet. They brought out a full height, beech bookcase for the downstairs Office and a white bookcase for Pauline’s ironing/sewing room. The men themselves were almost as interesting as the furniture the were delivering. One was a Bulgarian who had been in UK for three years, taken his HGV qualification, had worked as a courier for CityLink until it went bust, worked subsequently for Hermes and was now working for Office Furniture. The other guy had lived in Worthing throughout his childhood but now lived in Manchester. This is the reverse journey that we have made. Lives are interesting and strange.

27th April, 2016

Mum has been dead for eight, long years today. Eight years! How I miss her. I remember her now. She would be very exercised by the effects of the oscillating weather on her large magnolia tree in her garden. It was her pride and joy but hugely susceptible to frost.

A wonderfully sunny morning with just a hint of light frost on the newly mown lawn. Sun streaming through the conservatory windows made the kitchen a hothouse. It got even hotter when we started to unpack and piece together our new, office chairs.

When we were young, everything seemed to come stamped with Made in Taiwan. Now, everything comes stamped Made in China. There is only one, central reason for this – The incredibly low wages paid in that country. Unfortunately, low wages do not equate with motivated workers and high quality production. If you’ve ever built an office, gas-strut chair, and I’ve built hundreds in my school days, you will know that it should be a fairly simple process with few pieces to assemble. The Chinese seem to have a knack for making it difficult. These chairs cost about £200.00 for the privilege of building them ourselves. That formed a couple of hours of our lives that we’ll never get back. Still, like the pains of childbirth, the angst has gone now we have wheeled them into our office and use has begun. Actually, I’m sure childbirth is a breeze in comparison!

28th April, 2016

Once again, we are treated to a Summer view first thing in the morning. Up at 6.45 am to clear blue skies and strong sun. Cold though and a hint of frost on the lawn and on the roofs once again. The targets for today are getting all our books on to the newly installed bookcases, tidying up the garage of all the empty boxes, visiting the local tip to dispose of accumulated cardboard and just enjoying the day.

I love gadgets and I have lots. I am what’s known as an ‘early adopter’. I must be one of the few people in the country who is delighted and fascinated by the delivery of the British Gas smart meter monitor, It is on my desk now. The house builder set us up with a British Gas Dual Fuel account from the outset and with that came an expensively commissioned smart meter monitor. We have had earlier prototypes for years. We had one in our Yorkshire house at least ten years ago but this is far more sophisticated. The government are legislating to make them compulsory under their ‘Green Agenda’.

This smart meter monitor uses the power of the internet to wirelessly communicate with the actual meter outside and with the British Gas who will no longer have to employ armies of meter readers who roam the country in all weathers trying to gain entry to old houses to read their meters or who open up the meter boxes on the outside of newer house on an annual basis. Many of us have been reading our own meters and supplying the readings for decades but all of this will fade in to the oblivion of a bright new age. Now we can work out how much boiling the kettle is actually costing us or lighting the gas hob to heat soup. On our meter, the gas consumption and electricity consumption is provided by the hour/day/week/month/year. Why we can’t compare decades, I don’t know.

29th April, 2016

Yorkshire this morning.

We had a little bit of rain last night which has freshened up the borders and the lawns but we haven’t got the view that my sister, Jane, has tweeted from her lounge window in Yorkshire this morning. It is not hot but we have the conservatory doors open to the fresh air and it is perfectly pleasant. I must say, it doesn’t make me long for Yorkshire. As we approach May, it does get close to being all wrong!

As any reader of the Blog will know, we have been buying lots of ‘stuff’ to furnish and kit out our new home. It is costing, quite frankly, tens of thousands of pounds to do – probably reaching nearly £50,000.00/€65,000.00 by the time we’ve finished. On so many occasions in the past few weeks, we have been confronted by a salesman saying that we can pay for our goods on interest-free-credit over a certain period. The weird thing is that it is impossible to negotiate better terms by paying up front. If the cost of delaying or spreading payment is built in to the price of the goods, our view has been – Although we can afford it, the money is better in our investment account than in someone else’s. As a result, the bedroom furniture – £12,000.00/€15,400.00 – will not be paid for at all until May, 2017; the  beds – £3000.00/ €3,900.00 – will not be paid for until March 2018; and so it goes on until the Lounge furniture is finally paid for in March 2020. I will be 69 by then and we’ll probably be looking to replace it.

30th April, 2016

The last day of April which here in Sussex is going out with wall to wall sunshine. Not so everywhere, however. It has been a distinctly schizophrenic season in Northern England well illustrated by this photograph put out on Faceache this morning. We have the conservatory doors open to cool down the kitchen. The temperature outside was nothing to write home about – 12C/54F – but the strong sun without a hint of a breeze made it feel so much warmer.

At last,this afternoon, we are going to sign on at the Health Club. It will be about five weeks since we were able to do specific exercise. We have had plenty of exercise but it has all been incidental as we addressed our new house issues. Next week we start the new regime – back to work! Can’t wait.

17th April, 2016

A beautifully sunny and warm day after quite a chilly night. We went out to the pharmacy in Sainsbury’s because Pauline has an eye infection again. She has had this recurring for years. She has been told it is because she has dry eyes and doesn’t make enough tears. Anyway, treatment cream purchased, we drove back and, as we were parking, met our next door neighbours for the first time. They seem very nice. One is an executive with Last Minute.Com and the other is called John like me so it will be easy to remember his name.

We have a very busy week dominated by house, house, house. Thank goodness we are retired. Actually, Pauline asked if, like her, I felt I was on holiday. Living in a new place with all the freedom of time that we have does feel like permanent holiday. Soon, however, we will sign up at David Lloyd Leisure and will go back to work. Before that, I’m going to get fit watching two football matches.

18th April, 2016

So much for living on the South Coast. We were the coldest in the country last night because we were the only ones without cloud cover. Like on Sifnos, our house here is not polluted by lights and the moon and stars were in full view. The temperature went down to 0C/32F but there was no sign of frost and the morning remains cloudless with strong sun.

We are expecting a delivery of wall furniture from the Bathstore this morning. Another £1000.00/€1255.00 for mirrored cabinets, mirrors, toilet roll holders, towel rings, etc.. A little man is coming to fit them tomorrow (hopefully) but they will go in the garage until then. Later today, an electrician will come round to install an extra spotlight over the shower so Pauline can highlight her wrinkles while washing.

Moving in to a new property, particularly a new-build property, the services are very often so up to date they need a ten year old to understand them. We have a new cordless phone system which monitors callers and allows us to filter out those we don’t want to speak to. (Note to Poison Dwarf!) There are four handsets for around the house and a setup handbook as thick as an old telephone directory. I have been putting off reading through it and setting the system up until now. All phoners in the first two weeks have been interrogated within an inch of their lives before being put through. Yesterday, I put a couple of hours aside, set up the access, set up the messaging, saved all known contacts in the address book and sat back tired but happy.

Today we are going to get to grips with the burglar alarm and, tomorrow, the intricacies of the dual heating system. For this latter, there are controls for hot water and for radiators plus separate ones for heated towel rails BUT all of these are duplicated and separate upstairs as well as downstairs. I think I can cope with today’s task. I may struggle tomorrow.

19th April, 2016

Sussex has felt like Greece over the past couple of days, not because of the weather, not because of the language but because of the αύριο (mañana) syndrome. The electrician was due on Monday – cried off until Wednesday – and the carpenter was due on Tuesday – cried off until Thursday. Mind you, our woodman on Sifnos said he would rebuild our pergola in April and arrived at the end of September so we are still doing relatively well.

Amazon have tried (or say they have tried) to deliver twice in the past couple of days but ‘failed’. We have been at home so it can only mean they couldn’t find us or couldn’t be bothered looking. I went on the Post Office website to get our address registered. It is a nightmare of complexity. I tried to phone Customer Services to find ….. it is a nightmare of complexity. From recorded message menu to recorded message menu I fumed. Eventually, I deliberately chose the wrong option just to speak to a human being. Didn’t you know, he asked laconically, that the Post Office and Royal Mail are now separate and you want them not us? I confessed I didn’t. He offered to put me through to their Customer Service thus proving they weren’t that separate at all. After 5 minutes of Vivaldi, a recorded message advised me to go to their website where I’d first started and I collapsed in a heap on the Office floor, sobbing.

20th April, 2016

Wall to wall sunshine today. I’m going to give the grass its second cut. Just in time, our brown bin for garden waste was delivered this morning. It’s collected every second week with the recycled one. Brilliant and friendly service down here. For two more days, we are stuck at home with deliveries and tradesmen calling. By Friday, we will be ready for a trip out to Surrey.

The electrician arrived at 10.30 am and, in under 15 mins, ran a spur from the main light in the Family Bathroom to above the shower, installed a ceiling spotlight and left. At no time did he turn the power off. How did he do that? At 12.00 pm, the Blind Man arrived and fitted full length – wall to ceiling – blinds across the conservatory windows.  Within an hour and £550.00/€700.00 later, he had finished and disappeared into the sunshine.

We have been having an ongoing struggle with Amazon for a few days. For the third, consecutive day, a delivery driver from Brighton said he had tried and failed to deliver our parcel. He hadn’t even tried. He was Polish and probably paid a pittance but that is no excused for fraud. We complained for the third time to Amazon who gave the driver hell and, an hour later, he found us. Amaze balls! We had ordered three light shades. Two were Murano Glass and perfect. The third was plastic and horrible. It is going back immediately.

21st April, 2016

Up early and DISASTER. My e-copy of The Times wouldn’t download./ After deleting the app and resetting my iPad, I resorted to old technology and phoned the newspaper. They had been inundated with calls after updating their app over night. Within ten minutes it was fixed and I was happily reading over my fresh orange juice. Calm restored.

A busy day saw us out at 9.00 am to Rustington to return the rubbish lampshade to Amazon. This is incredibly easy and the money was already refunded to our card account before we handed over the parcel for return. We went on to a bank where we have ISAs to change our address. It required our passports for that. Rustington turns out to be a delightful place with lots of lovely shops and restaurants. We went into the delightful Waitrose there and bought dressed crab for tea. Driving back, Pauline told me that Asda were selling the washing gel she uses for the washing machine at less than half price. I told her we would corner the market and bought six bottles which saved her £27.00/€35.00 and, with the two bottles she’s already got, will last her a year.

I went on to Argo to purchase a pressure washer and extension hose so I can clean the car myself instead of paying £10.00/€13.00 every couple of weeks. The washer and hose came to about £150.00/€190.00 which wasn’t bad. Thirty of cleaning the car myself and I’m in profit and I need the exercise. By the time we got home, however, I was tired and decided the car could be cleaned later in the week.

We ate dressed crab and fresh prawns with tomato and cucumber salad. We shared a lovely bottle of chilled claret on a day which got so hot for April. We reached 19C/66F with glorious sunshine. Tomorrow we are driving up to Surrey. It is bound to be cold and raining!

22nd April, 2016

Set off for Surrey at 9.00 am on quite a grey, cold morning. Drove to Chobham to collect the arm of a leather chair we were having restored by a firm there for P&C. Drove on to visit them and stay for a couple of hours of chat then home. We haven’t been in Surrey for a month and the change – bushes and trees now in flower and full leaf is quite extraordinary. Woodland carpeted with bluebells were just magical. Oak trees in their fresh, early ochre leaf colour automatically appear harbingers of full blown summer. By then, our house will be completed and we will be on our travels. That is something to look forward to.

No longer will I have to look forward to receiving my State Pension. Today, I officially became and Old Age Pensioner. I am a proud man!

23rd April, 2016

A quiet day of consolidation at home. I have been rationalising investment accounts as ISAs mature and need my attention. As a savings vehicle, they are becoming increasingly less important now we all have an investment interest free sum of £1000.00 per year per person or £2000.00 per married couple. With interest rates hovering around 1.3%, it takes quite a bit of capital investment to breach the £2000.00 barrier. We will roll our ISA funds over but not take out any more because ‘open’ funds currently offer a marginally better rate. What hurts is the fact that investments are maturing which have been paying 3.5% and it is almost impossible to find homes for them at more than 1.2 – 1.3% without tying them up for years Currently, I’m not prepared to do that.

Sifnos at Prayer. (Supplied by a friend.)

We have also been looking at booking our Greek travel and, in spite of the weakening of the pound, finding it cheaper than last year. There is no question but that the migrant crisis in Greece is harming the tourist trade. There is also the persistent theme of Grexit. The Greeks are being forced to raise their VAT rates and to sell off their national silver. The government is being squeezed ever tighter to raise taxes and cut spending. There are regular rumours of undertones in the governing circles that the fight is not worth the pain and that Greece should just bite the bullet and leave. This could come to a head in peak holiday time. Even though the grip of the orthodox church is ever loosening as they increasingly plead poverty, prayer is all that is left to some on Sifnos.