Sanders Blog

Sunday, 19th January, 2025

A cold, grey morning in which one has to grind out the intentions for the day. Political thinking and interview shows, newspaper reading, music, Blog writing, exercise – walking outside and Gym work, football to watch …. and rest.

• Blog starts 839th week – 5,867 days
• Alcohol abstinence for 21st week – 145 days
• Walked 7.5 miles every day for 141 days – 1057 miles

The news is all centred around the Gaza deal which looks like it will start in the next few hours. The political interview shows are hijacked by this news and the Trump slant on it. It is still very disturbing that the media is so dominated by right wing ownership and thinking and that the print media feeds the Radio/TV media to generate a blanket right wing noise.

Music today is centred on one of my favourite instruments – the cello – and one of my favourite exponents of the cello – Jacqueline du Pré who died so tragically young. It is a very sad sound and a very sad piece in the gloomy light of this morning – Gabriel Fauré’s Élégie in C minor Op. 24. The irony is that the context of my introduction to this piece was the shabby poverty of Acre Lane in 1973 across which this rich but plaintive sound played.

An interesting piece in the Sunday Times today illustrated the passage of time across the generations. My age are known as The Boomers because we were the product of the post-war baby boom that attempted to replace the war dead and celebrate a brave new world.

My generation are all now in our 70s. We are early Boomers because our early life was still influenced by rationing and demob talk. All the talk recently has been about Gen Z (pronounced as an American Gen Zee) who are so disillusioned with the world and with politics and so far away from Hitler and World War, from Stalin and the Cold War that they espouse no democracy prefering the leadership of a strong autocrat.

The Millenials or Generation Y are so called because the oldest members of this generation became adults at the turn of the millennium. They, on the other hand, value convenience, individuality, ethics, and sustainability. When I look down the list, I find little I disagree with. I must be young at heart. For those readers who accuse me of obsession with the Past, they are clearly wrong. Like Millenials, I welcome the new, technological innovations of the age but it is only possible to fully appreciate them in light of what they replace, supersede, improve on.

I’ve done an hour’s walk in quite cold (4C/39F) temperatures. Now I can allow myself to watch the football …. while exercising in the Gym.

Monday, 20th January, 2025

A bright, sharp start to the morning as I discovered when I put the bins out. My next door neighbour remarked that I seemed to be getting slimmer by the week which raised my spirits and set me up for today’s effort. I am catching up on correspondence with friends and reading my digital copies of The Times, The Telegraph and The Guardian while listening to the music of the day – Brahms | Violin Sonata No. 1 in G major op. 78 in the background. Delicious!

Meanwhile, Chef is portioning up 8 pints of stock which were produced in the pressure cooker outside in the garden yesterday. Outside because the smell is all-pervasive and it drives the neighbours’ cats wild rather than permeating the house. The stock is then stored in the outside freezer for future use. Chef is amused that a Turkey bought after Christmas for just £8.00 instead of £60.00 has provided 4 meals and all this stock – the true meaning of home economy.

Window cleaner’s here today and the glass is sparkling in the sunshine. He only comes once a month and still charges £21.00 as he has done for almost 8 years. He seems happy and does a good job so all is well in window land.

If you have a smartphone and are a Boomer or younger, you probably use the phone for digital payments. Android phone users tend to have Google Pay and Apple phone users have Apple Pay. They use digital wallets into which one can slot digital copies of all types of cards.

Mine contains Credit/Debit cards, Shopping Cards like Nectar, Waitrose, Tesco Clubcard, etc.. It also contains, at times, my Boarding Passes for flights, Airport Lounge cards, Hotel membership cards and more. It will be used for the new, European Visa card and was used for my Covid injection credentials in the past.

All these cards saved digitally report information about me and my activities to their sponsoring organisations. They are a part of my digital footprint. Of course, any over-sharer like me is not really troubled by that process. Shops see my purchases and target me with offers based on that information. Hotels offer me incentives to book again, etc..

Now, we are going to have a new, government digital wallet for our Driving Licence, Health Records, Pensions and more. Not sure why it can’t be integrated into existing ones but it will certainly put the skids under the phogeys who haven’t got round to smartphones yet. They will become essential to modern life and not a moment too soon.

Quite cool down at the beach this morning although it looks as if Antony Gormley got there before me.

Tuesday, 21st January, 2025

A lovely bright start to the morning which featured my music of the day from Claude Debussy – Deux Arabesques. I didn’t find this until relatively recently but I think it’s going to feature more over the next couple of decades of my life. I hope you’re sampling them, Dear Reader. It’s never too late to try new things …. or old, for that matter.

Today, I’m looking at diet. I have always struggled with my weight. I blame my Mother. I am an early Boomer and was brought up on hearty, calorie-filled meals which included plenty of carbohydrate. Homemade Suet Dumplings with Beef Stew, Shepherd’s Pie, Chicken & Mushroom Pie, Steamed Puddings, Treacle Tart, home made cakes and biscuits, etc.. I’m sure they conditioned my body for life. Of course, childhood was a time of constant moving. I was playing and training Rugby 6 times a week during the Winter and similary Athletics in the Summer. I always remember a girlfriend saying, You never stop moving even waiting for a bus.

When I stopped playing competitively, I tended to put on weight. And so my mature life has been a constant battle. It has taken me a long time to learn to eat low calorie things like green vegetables, salads and fruit. Although starchy foods like pasta, potatoes, bread and rice are generally good for people, they are a nightmare for me. My blood sugar goes sky high and then plummets leaving me feeling the need to eat again. It challenges my self-discipline.

As a result, my wife has devised ingenious ways of replacing carbohydrates. I know science differentiates Simple and Complex Carbs but I just try to control my glucose levels and things like this Spiraliser which makes spaghetti out of Courgettes help me. Not drinking alcohol also helps me because alcohol fuels hunger and encourages me to eat more than I need. Fortunately, my addictive nature has got me hooked on alcohol-free wine which doesn’t have that effect. Went down to M&S for just that this morning.

One of the funny/interesting things about alcohol-free drinks is that one has to be age-checked to buy it. Why? The supermarkets can’t be bothered adjusting their databases to distinguish between the two. The M&S lady said she wanted 4 examples of identification before she could let me buy it. It’s not cheap at £4.00 a bottle and she was joking. I offered to show her my wrinkles but she suddenly seemed less keen.

Coming out of M&S, the day had lost its light and low, grey cloud arrived. The lights on Worthing Pier were coming on. That will teach me to go to M&S. We are forecast for a week of rain to come. Looks like I’ll be living in the Gym where I’m watching Homeland, an espionage thriller which will keep me going a long time with its 8 Series of 12 episodes each.

Wednesday, 22nd January, 2025

A relatively mild night in which we didn’t fall below 8C/47F but it has brought a grey, misty morning. Fresh fish has been ordered from the coast shop – sides of salmon and locally caught cod – so we will go down for a walk and to collect it. Still finalising travel plans so that is near the top of the list this morning. I’m struggling with a malaise that is dogging me and dulling my incentive to act. I’m working to shrug it off.

Music this morning is a relatively modern piece – less than 100 years old – Aaron Copland’s Appalacian Spring. I first heard it in 1968 in the Prefects’ Room of my Grammar School and found it intriguing but ‘difficult’. I think I still do. It was written at the end of WW2 in 1945 and was seen as clean sweep in the world of music. You hear the cadences of ‘popular music’ woven into it. What I know as The Lord of the Dance is there but that is a hymn written in 1963 so post dating it. What I’ve subsequently discovered is that the melody was taken from the American Shaker song Simple Gifts composed in 1848. I tell myself that I have to listen to ‘difficult’ pieces and that all of this is a learning timeline but, at the age of 73, perhaps it is time to settle for those I really enjoy.

My wife would happily be 20 again. She longs to be younger. She bemoans every sign of aging. In the past, people routinely lied about their age in order to deny the aging process. I think I am out of step because, at every stage, I have always tried to be content with who and what I am. However, I am becoming increasingly concerned about the physical changes of aging. I know I am challenging myself more in retirement but I ache in the mornings, find getting up out of a chair takes longer to straighten up and go forward. When I get out of the car after driving for an hour or so, I walk like an old man bent double with age.

While changes will occur every year, past research shows that, at the protein level, the most notable changes take place around ages 34, 60, and 78. Most people begin to notice a shift in the appearance of their face around their 40’s and 50’s. Other than this, the transition is so incremental as not to be noticeable. It is photographs like this that really hit me hard and go back to my own records.

It is in bones, muscles and joints that deterioration is most noticeable and that’s why I am trying hard to exercise and eat healthily. Unfortunately, my sisters, who must be made of inferior stuff, have had to have a number of their body parts replaced as they fall into the pit of old age. But mental deterioration often gets ignored even though it can be even more devastating to the quality of life. That’s why I read, analyse and write every day. It is why I continue to challenge myself intellectually in the hope that it will stave off or delay dementia and why challenging travel and relationships must be continually pursued into old age. A long walk and a Gym session is where I’m going now and later I will book the next piece of travel abroad.

As Trumpism returns with a vengeance, we must never let this sort of thing back into the body politic:

While the world recoils from the rule of oligarchs, it’s good to see Murdoch and his ilk humbled by Tom Watson and Prince Harry.

Thursday, 23rd January, 2025

Up early. Big day. Today is Dishwasher Day. It is now a month since we had a working dishwasher. If we don’t have a working dishwasher by this evening, I am literally going to kill myself. It has been intolerable! I have had to dry up after each evening meal. It has been like the 1950s. Four weeks ago, we went to Currys to order a new one to replace ours which had broken down after 8 years of good service. We were told we would have to wait a fortnight for it to be delivered and fitted. When it was, they told us immediately it wouldn’t work. There are two sorts of fully integrated, fit under dishwashers – Fixed and Sliding. Who knew?

They delivered a Fixed Door machine and guess what we required. Our kitchen was an upgrade of the standard David Wilson supply which came with an AEG dishwasher and Blackpool illuminations below. The plinth studded with lights means the door has to slide up and down as it opens and closes. Today, they are supposed to be delivering a sliding door dishwasher to bring joy and celebrations to our household.

While I wait in anticipation, I am listening to the music of the day – Mozart – Piano Sonata No. 16 in C Major – in my Office. Can’t decide whether I am enjoying it or not. I wanted to play the Requiem but wondered if it just looked too depressing for a Thursday morning and that you would judge me badly, Dear Reader.

No, to hell with it. I’m going to be daring. I am going to throw caution to the wind and play Mozart’s Requiem in D minor – Lacrimosa. Written, as he was dying, in 1791. Death featured strongly in the lives of the people of the 18th century. Mozart himself died at the age of just 35.

It’s a wonderful word, Lachrymose. We don’t use it enough nowadays. If you don’t know what it means, look it up. You should do that every time you come across a strange word and do it immediately. That’s what Google is for. I was hearing about a lad who shunned all the privileges of a private school education that his parents bought, achieved little or nothing in his school work but suddenly, in his early 20s, realises he is in deficit. He thinks he ought to read some books. Those around him are using words he doesn’t understand.

I was lucky to be brought up with words. My Mother used words all the time. My Grammar School education was big on words. My English teacher had a policy of introducing and getting us to learn a new word every day. He was my Rugby teacher who I idolised and I can still go back to 1963 as he led us to the upper floor window of our classroom overlooking the pitches. We waved his hand across the view and said, Panorama. We then had to use the word each time we saw him around school … until the next word, Aesthetic.

Of course, many years later and as I was learning Greek, I found that the origin of both words was in the Greek. Panorama came from Πανόραμα Pan horama / All view and is pronounced Pan-or-ama. The stress is on the or not the a. Aesthetic came from Αισθητικός and is pronounced Ais-thet-ikos with the stress on the thet.

I am gripped by language. I have carried the lesson around with me for the last 60 years. I can’t not know the meaning of a word. I have to look it up instantly. Of course, I no longer need a dictionary or a thesaurus. Google everywhere is my go-to source. With smartphones, I don’t even have to wait until I get home. I can often be found on a walk looking something up on my phone.

The strangest thing nowadays is that I know so many more words than I realise. While I am writing, I use a word which I think I should check and it invariably turns out to be exactly the right one for that situation. How many words do we all know in our collective subconscious but don’t use enough to make ourselves understood? You ought to try the principle out, Dear Reader. It doesn’t matter what age you are. Learn a new word each day and use it all the time until you get comfortable with it. It is so empowering.

Can you believe it? The dishwasher has arrived. Another Romanian – with pefect English – has arrived to fit it. Turns out the previous plug had overheated and fused to the back of the machine. A new socket is required. An electrician is required. Can you believe it? The Romanian is an electrician in his spare time. He just happens to have a spare socket replacement with him. He does the job in 5 minutes and I pay him £20.00. Dishwasher slots in and the only difficulty is fitting the door. A few nervous moments and … I don’t have to kill myself. We have a working dishwasher.

Friday, 24th January, 2025

Storm? What storm? It isn’t pleasant outside. Dark clouds over head and rain still falling lightly but no storm here. The rain will disappear in the next hour and then we have a good day in prospect. Very mild over night – 11C/52F – but dark under brooding clouds.

To match the weather, I have chosen a piece inspired by rain this morning. Chopin – Raindrop Prelude (Op. 28 No. 15) is just delightful and draws down inside me as it insists with the left hand just as the dark skies do. The prelude is noted for its repeating A♭, which appears throughout and sounds like raindrops.

From the sublime to the ridiculous this morning. Never have I been so happy to have to unstack the dishwasher. It was a joy! We’ve had a dishwasher since we moved to Slade House in 1984. To be without for a month was a nightmare. Sanity is restored once more. Life can begin again.

Mandy was a very young 13 when I first met her in 1978, into animals and particularly horses. She had her own horse in the paddock in front of the house. She was/is clever and has particular emotional intelligence with great interpersonal skills all of which I lack. She was attending Hulme Grammar for Girls. One of the first things she invited me to do was join her and her friend in a game of hopscotch which was chalked out on the patio.

She was known as Titch. Now, 47 years on (What am I saying?) and living in America, Mandy is celebrating her 60th Birthday. We wish her a very happy day and hope she sees it as the milestone it is. She is officially a senior citizen.

Saturday, 25th January, 2025

The day started well at 7.00 am as I got on the bathroom scales. It got much better as we went to the beach for a walk in warm sun. Whatever the warnings were about storms recently, they just passed us by completely.

The world was out this morning – walking, dog walking, cycling. scootering, sailboarding, kyaking, paddling – it was all going on this Saturday morning.

Back for coffee and some Office work. New edition of one of our central credit cards means a major job for updating with so many organisations from media purchases to hotels and holiday bookings to purchasing organisations, iPad and phone apps, etc. Every one has to be Bank cross-checked which adds to the time.

While I work, I am listening to the optimism of the day and the sun and blue sky outside through Vaughan Williams – The Lark Ascending which, ironically, was probably written to signal quite the opposite. Composed in 1914, it rather signalled the end of an era, the final symbol of purity and beauty in Nature that men at war would leave behind in old England – reflecting nostalgia for a partly mythological lost age of innocence.

Anyway, all done now and time to read the press. Like 1914, nothing stays the same. Everything is in a permanent state of flux. And so it is for the government. Growing the Economy is on the front of every Labour politician’s mind and the most effective way to do it is to deal with housing. Young people need places to live. If they can become home owners, they have a stake in society that will change their lives completely.

People who buy houses do so by working, earning money, paying taxes and then spending their money on furniture, furnishings, home services, cars on the drive, etc.. They go on to have children and spend money on them. All of this contributes to the Economy. It drives Demand which commands Supply which drives Consumption and more Demand, etc.

The problem is that many people find it difficult to deal with change. They find it threatening. New houses built in their neighbourhood threaten to change it. The view is changed. The density of people and transport is changed. The collective noise is changed. There is fear of the other – the stranger. Cultures are broadened and challenged. And so a groundswell of dissent based on fear of change arises and threatens inevitable development. And it is inevitable. This is what a Labour Government is bravely siezing.

The village we moved to 9 years ago has had an enormous amount of new housing since we got here. It has changed the feeling of the area, the congestion on the roads and the density of customer demand. This morning, in a trawl of local media of locations from my past – Derby, Greater Manchester, Huddersfield and Sussex, there was no shortage of dissatisfaction with a changing world. Labour are the first government to show a willingness to override them.

Sunday, 12th January, 2025

Another glorious morning with lots of possibilities and tasks to get through. Strangely, I’m feeling a little sadness, emptiness this morning. Something is missing. Got to force myself through it. Music for this morning is another composer I discovered for the first time in the mid-1970s – Rachmaninov, a Russian émigré after the Revolution and a Romanticist.

Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini formed a backdrop to my Degree studies late into the night. It never fails to move me. Probably a bit self-indulgent and not the best choice for today, I am ineluctably drawn to it. I can see myself bashing away on a blue, manual typewriter at the latest essay only sleeping in the early hours of the morning. Strangely, it was an exciting time. Everything was possible.

Exercise, cleaning the car, confirming the next element of the year’s travel all have to be completed today, writing, newspaper reading, etc.. And so life goes on. Particularly today, I want to make final decisions about the Spanish trip in July. I’ve tied up accomodation and travel for May in France, June in Greece, August in Greece and Yorkshire/Lancashire at least once this year. I’ve just got Spain in July and Tenerife in November to tie down.

Might have found a reasonable property for July. It’s only available for 3 weeks and will cost £4,300 but that’s alright. It has a private pool and is near a beach. It has an outdoor kitchen and one indoors with dishwasher and washing machine. It has a good shower and WiFi – two prerequisites. There are a couple of bedrooms and bathrooms. It is in easy walking distance of the beach and a good supmurcado. It is on the edge of the city so offers plenty of restaurants if we want them.

The property is on the outskirts of Torrevieja and means flying to Alicante. Never been there before so that would be interesting. Incredibly cheap to fly in July. Quite a shock after Greek flight prices. My housekeeper remains to be persuaded. I thinks she considers it is not good enough. I may be back to the seach but I’m determined to get this done very shortly. Got to find the month of November in Tenerife before properties there are snapped up.

Monday, 13th January, 2025

A grey, warmer and dry morning. It’s forecast to be a dry week of above average temperatures so all good. Driving up to Surrey later in the morning so time for an hour or so walking.

Music for this morning is an old favourite. I listened to it so often in my garret that I thought I knew every note. It is Beethoven’s 5th Piano Concerto – Emperor. I dare you to listen to it and not be moved, Dear Reader.

To counter balance, I am reading the Group Chat on Whatsapp of a collection of lads (old men) from my student days. They talk a lot of frivolous, inconsequential rubbish – the sort of thing I imagine people talk in pubs to while away the time. I contribute to the Group Chat occasionally but usually I just sit and chuckle. Yesterday, most of the chat went on in the morning and then everyone was off doing their own thing – actually in the pub, watching the football, meeting family, etc. Yesterday at 4.30 pm, a lad called Chris posted:

We will have it in a orange sauce tonight 😏

Nobody picked that up until 5.00 am this morning when Peter asked:

What, Chris? Duck?

Chris got back almost immediately with:

No, loin of pork. Sorry Pete that was meant for my kids.

And there is retired life for you in a simple exchange. We shuffle along in the mundanities of life. There has to be more to it than that.

As predicted my choice of holiday rental was rejected so the search goes on. As always, it is the balance between price and quality that has to be faced. This property is lovely but cost £6,000 for 3 weeks in July. I think it’s worth it but I wait to be instructed.

After an hour of walking, drove up to Surrey avoiding the motorway. Good journey. An enjoyable drive. M is flying back to Florida next week so we went up to say goodbye and to take her birthday present. The girl who I played Hopscotch with almost 50 years ago will be 60 next week as well. Absolutely incredible and scary. She had been to a funeral of a former colleague who had died aged 75. Now that really is scary and absolutely rivets me to achieving all my ambitions quickly.

Stayed a couple of hours and then drove home the motorway route. It was quiet and easy. Home by 4.00 pm and had a banana to get me through. Then, out for another hour’s walk in falling temeperatures. Dark is still coming so quickly. It always feels later than it is. So by 5.30 pm, I have done my target and there is just time for a shower before Supper. Tonight it is Roast Salmon with Pesto Crust accompanied by Green French Beans and Asparagus Spears – and I’m hungry!

Tuesday, 14th January, 2025

Really enjoyed yesterday. Loved the drive through the Surrey Hills, through Horsham & Dorking – a drive of beautiful fields and trees, of skies and hedgerows and remarkably little traffic. Nice to give the car a run and to spend an hour listening to a political podcast against that backdrop. Half way through its 4th month, the new car has covered just 1500 miles. It can’t wait to stretch its legs with a drive to Yorkshire and to France.

Just as I was thinking back over the trip this morning, this article appeared in The Guardian and I think it is right. Ironically, I walked on Box Hill with my Grandfather in 1956. Scary to think that was nearly 60 yeaars ago. Now I drive past it regularly. M is going back to Florida so we had to see her before she flew.

Set out for a walk on the beach in 5C this morning. The waves were crashing foam on to the shingle and roaring back into the sea as the tide turned. I had my musical choice of the day playing in my head: Mendelssohn – Hebrides Overture (Fingal’s Cave). There is something special about being here. Every day is interesting, exciting, mournful, reflective, thought-provoking.

The light, the breeze, the sky, the clouds, the waves, the colours, the sounds all evoke ever changing experiences. They make a walk always interesting and demand – maybe over demand – to be photographed.

I never fail to feel lifted and invigorated by that walk. Never seem to have time to go in the Beach Cafe & Restaurant although it is an incredibly good place to look out over the sea.

By the time I drove home the temperature had doubled to 10C/50F. Might get my shorts back out this afternoon. Very cosy pockets!

My friend, Kevin, had his car stolen from his drive over night about two weeks ago. He has heard nothing since. I was thinking about the problem that electronic, keyless entry is for security.

As long as I have my key in my pocket, a touch on the door handle and it opens. a press on the petrol flap and it opens, a hand on the bonnet and it lifts, a foot swung under the boot and it opens. For that reason, all is easily available to the teenage cloner.

One solution is to have the car report continuously to your smartphone/iPad. A car tracker will do just that. This one costs £150.00 for a 5-year service which includes 2G wireless communication showing exactly where the vehicle is down to the street and the house on a map. With that, Kevin would have been reunited with his car by now.

Wednesday, 15th January, 2025

A warm night has given way to a warm, grey morning. Sounds like the North will have more sunshine than us today and I thought that had been outlawed by the new Labour government. They are doing so many good things that I’m sure they’ll get round to it eventually. Whether it will be before abolition of the unelected House of Lords and return to EU membership or not I’m unsure. Nice to see, this morning, the bonkers Right Wind media having the wind taken out of their sails by lower inflation figures being reported.

We have been without a dishwasher for 3 WEEKS now. I can’t take much more of it. We ordered a new one immediately the old one failed but the wrong replacement was delivered so we have been waiting. There is still another week to go. I’m not sure my marriage will survive it. I’m resorting to music and humour along with plans for the future to blot out reality. Today’s music is Dvořák Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 53.

At least I have made my neighbours chuckle as they went to work this morning. I don’t know if you use the Professional Networking site, Linkedin. I joined it as an Educational Professional years ago. I constantly got offers of jobs in schools and other educational institutions. When I retired, I wanted to continue my conversations with people but not be not restrict it to education. You have to list an area of expertise or competence so I described myself as Entertainments Manager. I haven’t been on the platform for quite a while and almost forgotten about it.

Near midnight last night, my lovely neighbour, Michelle – a copywriter – sent me this. She was obviously working late.

On Monday, I reported wanting to spend £6,000.00 on three weeks in a villa on the outskirts of Torrevieja. That was vetoed on price alone not least because I want another month in Tenerife in November. Ultimately. I moved my search to Alicante and an apartment. I think I’ve found one. It is decidedly more modest but has all the facilities

It will cost less than £3,000.00 for a three week stay! It has a shared Pool and a groundfloor shared Gym. It has a washing machine, dishwasher, fully equipped kitchen, two bedrooms and two bathrooms, smart TV with satellite channels including Netflix plus wifi. There a nunber of restaurants and shops within walking distance and a beach. I seriously think it will do. I’ve checked the flight prices to Alicante from Gatwick and they are ridiculously cheap. We will sleep on it tonight and a decision will be made tomorrow morning.

Thursday, 16th January, 2025

A mild night and another mild, grey start. The news over the past couple of days has been about inflation down and growth marginally up in the UK but one thing hit me yesterday from the Manchester Evening News and it is something that has always concerned me.

In the days of Tory government, Universal Benefit was introduced some 15 years ago. It rolled up benefits like income support and working tax credit to support low incomes. What it was intended to do was to encourage increased employment opportunities by not taking profits from commercial companies. It was made to look as if it was helping workers while it was really subsidising employers. As a result, employers could pay less than cost of living wages in the full knowledge that government (You and Me) would subsidise them.

In Rochdale and Oldham, one in 11 adults – about 9 per cent – requires the extra support of the low-income benefit despite being in paid employment.

This was clearly not sustainable nor equitable in the long term but sucessive governments have failed to grasp the nettle and force employers to pay a decent wage. This Labour government has increased the minimum wage and lots of businesses are shrieking but still Universal Credit is paid out. Of course, the North of England is where low pay is most prevalent and where wages have to be subsidised by government support most. The real point here is that 9% of all those requiring income support are in actually in paid work.

That conundrum has to be solved and the solution will be inflationary in the short term which is why no one can face doing it. It is almost as difficult as living without a dishwasher three weeks already. The new one should be delivered and installed a week today. It can’t come a minute too soon. To soothe the savage breast, the music I have chosen today is Brahms Violin Sonata No.1 which is a favourite over the years. I just can’t decide whether it fuels or reflects sadness.

Out for an hour’s walk in the countryside and then I have to take my Housekeeper to the Surgery for a Checkup. We are so lucky with our medical practice. The more people move here, the better it seems to step up to the challenge. Even so, I was looking at Private Health procedures in hospitals near us for future reference:

Procedure	Local Cost
Colonoscopy	£2,500.00
Cataract	£3,500.00
Hip Replacement	£5,000.00 – £10,000.00
Knee Replacement	£5,000.00 – £10,000.00

I must admit, I would be reluctant and ashamed to go down that route but the thought of putting life on hold while waiting a year or two for the operation is not really an option I could contemplate unlike those poor people on Universal Credit. I know one or two of my siblings have had to resort to Knee & Hip replacements privately and I understand why.

Friday, 17th January, 2025

A grey, cool morning. Life feels a bit mundane today. I need some sun and I need a dishwasher! I need some sense of purpose. I’ve even put the central heating on. It is 7C/45F outside. According to the World Health Organization, a temperature of 18°C is suitable for healthy people. Our house is currently 21.3C without any heating and it is beginning to feel cold. Am I unhealthy? Don’t answer that, Dear Reader.

Dishwasher will come in 6 days. Thank goodness! Sun will come as soon as I can complete a booking. The Spanish property was thrown into doubt by my fellow traveller so it has been back to the drawing board. In fact, I’m getting a bit fed up of searching. There are so many moving parts to consider. I do so much research and am so cautious before choosing that I can’t decide whether it is experience or aging that is holding me back.

How far is it from the airport now we’ve decided not to drive? How far from the beach? How far from the shops? Has it got all the facilities we require? Does it look fresh and modern or old and tired? Is it value for money. Currently, the property above seems to fit all these concerns. It is just 22 miles from Murcia International Airport and costs £4,200.00 for three weeks. It has all the facilities and looks modern and fresh. Watch this space.

Looks like it might get approval from the negotiator. I have found flights for Murcia International which will be a first. They are so cheap, they are almost being given away.

Saturday, 18th January, 2025

Another grey, cold, winter day. It was relatively warm all night not falling below 6C/43F but suddenly dropped at 7.00 this morning. I am going out to the beach in 2C/36F. I’ve got a new, quilted coat to try out.

People, places and music do it for me. They are the most evocative of memory and emotion. I was reading a Yorkshire newspaper online this morning and it listed so many places from my past that everything flooded across my memory in a rush. Not least, I pictured Castle Hill which is visible from so many places around the area just as was intended.

It encapsulates the power of place and dates back to the Hunters and Gatherers of the Mesolithic age. There appears to have been widespread travel or trade along the river valleys connecting the Yorkshire Wolds, the Peak District and the Mersey & Ribble estuaries. This high place was one of safety. We saw that on Sifnos with its Kastro – a fortified castle on a hill for fighting off invaders.

The current tower is know as the Victoria for obvious reasons having been completed towards the end of Queen Victoria’s reign in 1899 as a memorial but nothing stays the same. Permission was granted in 2022, to build a single-storey above ground restaurant/café/bar including six en-suite bedrooms, public toilets and an exhibition centre. Civilisation evolves even if humans retain their memories of days past.

In keeping with the theme, music today is an old favourite, Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. Composed 302 years ago, it had been nearly ruined for me by Musak – that awful telephone on-hold filler that pollutes the world. At one time, The Four Seasons was everywhere to the point of death by saturation. Coming back to it this morning was lovely like rediscovering the past afresh.

I read newspapers to keep up with old links. This morning, not only did Castle Hill come up but this article about the small, conservation hamlet of Helme where we lived for almost 20 years came up. It featured an interview with our old friends and neighbours, Tim & Mary. They are about 5 years older than us and have very different interests to us. Tim is into horse racing and ‘pub culture’. He was a solicitor for Kirklees Council. Mary was a mad keen horse rider and very into dogs. Unlike us, they are still in Helme after 45 years.

As they say, you go go travelling to see the world or stand still and let the world come to you. I’m not sure it completely holds but there is a kernel of truth in it. I prefer movement and new horizons as long as I can always come back and revisit. I believe we lose out by staying in once place too long but … each to his own.

Sunday, 5th January, 2025

Heavy rain over night. I woke at 5.00 am and my phone said the temperature outside was 11C/52F and that Greater Manchester and Leeds were both 1C/34F and snowing. My friends up there were sending me photos and the news was of the closures of Manchester, Leeds Bradford and Liverpool Airports. I’m just hoping the football match isn’t cancelled this afternoon.

I must admit my heart sinks at the memories of these mornings but it would be tomorrow when the real problems would start. Rain outside means hours in the Gym instead.

Music today is an old favourite which I’ve always found so moving. I first heard Elgar’s Enigma Variations as late as 1974 when I was teaching a Summer School in Ripon. I thought nothing of it until almost a decade later I picked it up again. Music and Time and Events all roll into one ball of emotion that is hard to quell.

Playing it in my Office this morning brings back those times with such clarity. I’ve just finished watching the most moving Romantic Drama set in the tragedy that was the First World War and Elgar’s music is so intertwined with that time. Sorry, old man syndrome. Getting maudlin. It’s one of my least attractive qualities although others run it close.

I have done just over 2hrs straight in the Gym and I am absolutely shattered. It’s a good shattered but I don’t want to lift another finger. My Housekeeper has completed the cleaning of the upstairs carpets. Her routine will be almost complete after she has valeted the sofas and touched up the tiny scratches that day to day living leaves on paintwork. I don’t like to interfere so stay out of the way on these occasions. At least the big match is on this afternoon so I can relax in comfort.

Just had a Direct Message from Sue Wilson in the Charente. Although she is living in France and UK, she is thinking of selling her Midlands property and buying near us on the South Coast. I think she’s rather been taken by my photographs. If you know the Charente, you would wonder why but I’ve told her that we welcome all immigrants.

Monday, 6th January, 2025

I’m weather obsessed at the best of times. This weekend the world caught up with me. It is not so often that the North of England makes all the headlines in newspapersbut this morning Ripon, Leeds, Oldham are all featured on the frontpages.

These were the days when we got up so much earlier than others and set off specifically to get to work and assess the conditions. It looks like we may have had an impossible task this morning and the school closure may have been preordained. The next iteration of my old school had already put up this screen.

It was put up from home by my IT Technician from more than 15 years ago. I trained him in Teach First and he is now Head of IT – a very satisfying conclusion. How a callow youth can become serious adult.

Talking about callow youths – here are some more. For those who care about these things, it is Epiphany and in Greece people greet each other with Χριστός ἀνέστη! or Christ is risen. Yes, I realise how bonkers it is but we all have our lunacies. This morning, on Sifnos Island, in Kamares Harbour where we used to live, the callow youths dive into the icy waters for a gilded cross (electro-plated) tossed by the local witch doctor (sorry, priest).

While my health is back to excellent and my weight is well on its way down again, Pauline, who is never ill … is not well. This morning she has had to see her GP about a recent problem and this afternoon I am taking her to Southlands Hospital in Shoreham-by-Sea prior to an operation on Wednesday. It is an uncomfortable and nervous week.

Music for today was composed in 1936 by Samuel Barber and is the ultimate in pathos. Rarely does it leave a dry eye in the house. it arrived at just the right moment, when America was still hurting from the Great Depression and Europe was sliding into war. I challenge anyone not to be moved by it.

Tuesday, 7th January, 2025

Weighing things up today. Booking multiple travel arrangements and filling the 2025 calendar to provide all the work a real purpose. But first, we welcome this gorgeous day with a walk by the beach.

Looks wonderful but actually was very cold with a biting off-shore breeze. An hour was enough and then home for coffee.

Our Annual Travel Insurance Policy is provided ‘free’ with our Black Account at our Bank. I say free but the Account costs us £35.00 per month or £420.00 per year. Banking is never really ‘free’. We just pay openly or invisibly. We have used an openly payed for Premier Banking service partly because of the services that come with it. It allowed us a huge, free, instant overdraft facility which was useful when we were building abroad.

Of these existing services, Travel Insurance, Airport Lounge Access and Mobile Phone Insurance are the most valuable to us. Everything else is doubling up things we have elsewhere or things I don’t know about. Why would I want a Concierge Service or a Ticket Booking Service? What is Cinema & Film Rental?

Travel Insurance has always been valuable and made the account virtually pay for itself. Each year we have an unlimited, worldwide travel policy fully covered. Now, of course, we are in our 70s. That brings a surcharge of £75.00 per person. We also have existing medical conditions which bring an extra surcharge. Having just sorted out the 2025 renewal, that ‘free’ policy will cost an extra £426.00. Having had cancer is costing me about £250.00 per year although I am fitter than I have been for a long time.

I’ve just done a comparative quote travel insurance search and this £1,286.13 is the cheapest equivalent offer I could find. Makes me feel a bit better about my ‘free’ policy. Suffice it to say, I won’t be buying All Clear now.

Wednesday, 8th January, 2025

A crystal clear sky full of stars gave us quite a cold night and there was a hint of frost on the roofs this morning first thing. Ignoring that I’ve been out for an early walk because my job is Ambulance driver this morning. I am taking Pauline to Southlands Hospital in Shoreham-by-Sea. She is nil by mouth because she is being operated on in the early afternoon. She doesn’t react particularly well to a General Anaesthetic so she’s not looking forward to it and it will be an uncomfortable operation for anyone.

My friend, Kevin, is 75 today. That makes me feel a lot better. Turns out all that group were older me. I even went out with an older woman. Kevin had his car stolen a fortnight ago and has heard nothing about it yet. Must be a nightmare situation. To add to that, he has Flu’ and is 75. Makes you wonder if life is worth living any more.

Just 5 years ago, Kevin and I were reunited after almost 50 years apart. It was an emotional but life-affirming experience and we have remained in contact almost daily since. We live at opposite ends of the country but the web has allowed us to bridge that gap.

Of course, I hope my wife comes through her operation and lives another day or two but the most important event happens tomorrow. The new dishwasher is being delivered, plumbed in and fitted with its kitchen door and I no longer have to do the drying up. For two weeks now, it has felt like the 1950s in our house. It’s been like losing an arm … no, worse. It’s been like losing the internet. There, I’ve said it.

We have ordered a good quality Bosch built-in machine which automatically comes with a full, 5-year warranty. I hope it will be a lot longer before I have to go through this again.

Thursday, 9th January, 2025

Well, the operation went better than well. The patient was first on the list and in the theatre early. She was relieved to find she was being operated on by the surgeon she had built a good relationship with and the whole thing went so well, I was able to collect her in the evening.

The hospital is lovely. The people are fantastic. It is about 25 mins drive from the house but that isn’t a problem. Our nearest hospital is in Worthing which is not much nearer but where I would go in an emergency although we have an ambulance centre just round the park so it should be quite efficient.

Soon after we got home, the official results of the procedure were input by the medical staff and uploaded on the NHS app. We were able to read about the success of the day. Pauline was much more proud of one line in her notes that said:

Clinical Frailty Score: 1 – very fit.

Where 1 is best and 10 is most frail, this was pointed out to me a few times last night until she fell asleep after the stress of the day.

But, enough of that. Today is DISHWASHER DAY. Wonder of wonders. It will be delivered and fitted mid-morning so I’m going out for an early walk. My weight is coming down quite rapidly at the moment and my fitness levels really are back now. It feels so good after a lengthy fight. Now been alcohol-free for 130 days. In fact, I’m getting addicted to alcohol-free Cabernet Sauvignon – a whole glass each evening.

Sky News has been running an article about the boom in use of weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy is beginning to turn the tide in UK. I am proud that I haven’t had to resort to anything like that but have done it through personal discipline and effort. It makes me feel better about myself.

The worst has happened and I am depressed. Currys have turned up with the wrong dishwasher. Our order has been cancelled and will have to start again. I will be drying up by hand again tonight! Actually, we may even reassess our order. We have since found a better one and are going out to look at it ….. New dishwasher ordered and I have to wait 13 days for installation. Life just isn’t worth living!

Although, of course, it is. There may be unfriendly people in the world but they will get their just deserts. There may be unhelpful situations in one’s life but they will fade in the great scheme of things. There will always be beauty. Gorgeous walk in the Marina this afternoon.

Friday, 10th January, 2025

A cool night. We went down to 0C/32F and the car had some frost on it this morning. Thank goodness for auto-defrost facilities on modern cars. Greater Manchester and North Yorkshire saw -7C/19F which always makes me think of those sleeping rough. It is a situation likely to bring death to the undernourished. Tonight will be even colder according the forecast. There will be no shorts wearing for a while.

It is ironic just as the news is dominated by wildfires in Los Angeles and the Copernicus climate change service report that last year was the warmest on record, the first to breach a symbolic threshold, and brought with it deadly impacts like flooding and drought, scientists have said.Two new datasets found 2024 was the first calendar year when average global temperatures exceeded 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – before humans started burning fossil fuels at scale. The past decade has seen every year in the top 10 hottest on record. Beginning to look a lot like global warming …

Just as the idiot, Trump, is selling Drill, Baby, Drill (for oil) to his equally idiot supporters, so the world is on fire as The Times cartoon makes brilliantly clear this morning. They are all really in LaLa Land all ready to be exploited by the far right Trump/Musl axis.

Talking to my friend, Kevin, who lives in North Yorkshire. He got up the day after Boxing day to find his car – a white Ford Puma – had been stolen from his drive in a relatively quiet, marginally rural area above Leeds. My first thought was someone struggling to get home from Christmas celebrations late at night had seen an opportunity. However, Kevin says both sets of keys were in his house and the ignition is electronic so needing sophisticated technology to start. Hardly an impulse reveller’s ability. And so it has proved. Nothing abandoned at the roadside. No sightings or police action at all. It is now 15 days since he reported it and nothing. Can you imagine it?

A grey and chilly day down at the beach – just 5C/41F – and the breeze made it feel much colder. An hour’s walking was plenty outside. Have to do the rest in the Gym today.

Saturday, 11th January, 2025

Bit of frost again this morning after a cold night. A wonderful day in prospect. Sunshine all the way. My weight had dropped again this morning which explains why I felt so hungry all day yesterday. Keep having to tell myself it is all in a good cause.

I don’t know if you read the Daily Telegraph. I do although I am not a natural fit. It is mainly for those who want to return to 1955 and for the politically insane. I read it to counterbalance more sensible, main stream political philosophy. However, I think this professor is absolutely correct as he strips back the hype about weight loss.

For some time now, new ‘experts’ have advertised the efficacy of all sorts of weird and wonderful methods. Professor Frayn debunks them all and insists that calories in v calories out ultimately is the only thing that works. As he says in this article, you only have to look at pictures of workers leaving an Oxford car factory in the 1950s. They weren’t driving home. They were all on bikes or they walked. They ate smaller meals and burned far more calories.

I began my fight back from the effects the cancer treatment had had on my body when I flew back fom Athens on August 27^th last year – 137 days ago. I had realised how unfit and overweight I had become. It had come as something of a revelation. I was shocked how it had crept up on me and I made a resolution as soon as I landed.

I have not drunk any alcohol since that day. I have restricted myself to 1500 calories per day and not missed a single day of walking 7.5 miles. I am walking at least 53 miles every week and around 213 miles every month. I have already walked 1000 miles since I started the campaign.

As a result, since the end of August, I have lost 1/6^th or 17% of my bodyweight and massively improved my fitness particularly my cardiovascular endurance. Just weigh yourself, Dear Reader, and then divide it by 6. If you lost that, how would you feel? My blood pressure has improved enormously as has my INR.

My wife has had to put up with this regime both activity and diet. As a result, she weighs less than she has done for 40 years and, as the surgeon noted this week, she is very fit. The downside of this is she constantly needs new clothes. Our door is repeatedly battered by brochures from clothing companies. We are regularly receiving and sometimes returning things. Today, will be a trip to Worthing Pier. Opposite is M&S where she has seen the style of jeans/trousers that she likes. I prefer baggy clothes on little people but there it is.

Fortunately, the jeans were rubbish so it cost me nothing although I did buy a couple of bottles of alcohol-free red wine. I am 137 alcohol-free days and counting. I’m thinking of converting to become a Methodist Temperance Society Blue Ribboner – what do you think? Yes, there’s going to be a hell of a party when this is over.

Sunday, 29th December, 2024

A grey and surprisingly cold morning. We were half the temepratures in Manchester & Leeds this morning. Still, I was brave and went out for an early walk by the sea. In the dampness of very low cloud, we were met by an untidy gaggle of Mods on Scooters. It was like a time warp apart from they were all 70 yr olds tying to recreate the 1960s. They were all wearing Parkas. If you know what they are, you are old, Dear Reader.

They were the only bright but tawdry sight on this grey day at the seaside. However, the walk was chance to talk over plans for the new year and travel. Originally, we intended to spend a month driving in France but that has now changed. We are going to rethink a Spanish drive instead as we had wanted to do last year.

Portsmouth is not far away from us so we will go Portsmouth – Bilbao and then drive across Spain to Valencia region via Zaragoza. It’s quite a long sailing time. On the way out, it involves 2 nights on board but only one in return. When I was young, I might have settled for a reclining seat but not now. It has to be a comfortable cabin.

They only have 4-berth cabins even for 2 people so there is plenty of room. With a window and a TV, the cabin + car is £1140.00 return which compares quite well with the ferry we used to take down the Adriatic to Greece a decade ago.

Arriving in Bilbao at 8.00 am, I will then to a drive across Spain to Zaragoza (3hrs). Stay there one night and drive on to Valencia (3hrs). I’m looking for a property for 3 weeks by the sea before retracing our steps to Bilbao. Might be nice to spend a day there exploring before the ferry home.

I’m not bothered if the property has a pool if we are near to the beach. It has to have:

• Outdoor Space / big Balcony
• Good Wi-Fi
• Air Con.
• Washing Machine
• Equipped Kitchen
• TV
• Parking
• Access to Supermakets & Restaurants

Monday, 30th December, 2024

Exactly 46 years ago today, we got married in West Yorkshire. It was in the middle of a blizzard across the Pennines. We married in Huddersfield Registry Office but had a blessing in the local church just to satisfy my mother. Lots of lovely people came. It was an enjoyable, party day.

It hadn’t started well when we got up to find the cold water tank in the loft of our old, stone coaching house had frozen over and then defrosted quickly with the central heating and poured through the loft door on to the stairs carpet. Really kind people who ran a carpet cleaning company immediately came round, fixed the tank and cleaned and dried out the stairs carpet in the morning before we left for the ceremony. Everything, ultimately, went well.

Last night, as we reminisced about that day, the lights went out. Pauline had just put on the dishwasher. After going to the fusebox, we realised the heating element in the 8 year old dishwasher had triggered the problem and was no longer working. It had been in the new kitchen when we bought the house so it’s done well.

This morning, we are spending our wedding anniversary ordering a new dishwasher and asking for an urgent delivery and fitting. Can you imagine having to wash dishes by hand? It will be just £499.00 for a new one but when you add delivery, integrated fitting, removal of packaging and the old machine plus 5 years full replacement cover, it will cost exactly £700.00. What really sells it to me is the ability to control it over WiFi and using Alexa voice commands. That’s progress!

Went to look at the dishwasher model at Curry’s. Told them the story and they knocked £50.00 off so all good …. until they told us it wouldn’t be delivered until Jan. 9th. Who can wash up by hand for 10 days? The other downside was that my Housekeeper’s eyes spotted a new carpet cleaner which she’d been secretly admiring for a few days apparently. That did add another £180.00 to the total but …. I made it an anniversary present so that’s alright then.

After all that spending, we went for a relaxing walk by the beach. It was 10C/50F but felt colder with the breeze off the sea. Even so, there were families with picnic baskets on the beach and kids with bare legs splashing around in the lapping waves. Why don’t kids feel the cold? – no sense I suppose. I was desperate to get home for a hot cup of coffee.

Lovely celebratory meal of grilled Halibut Steaks, Stuffed Mushrooms and Roast Cherry Tomatoes accompanied by Alcohol-free Prosecco. Felt quite drunk after two glasses of that.

Tuesday, 31st December, 2024

The year is going out with a customary mild but grey day. Been out for an early hour’s walk to get the day going and because Amazon are delivering a parcel at lunchtime. Walking always seems to facilitate thought and conversation. That can be a good thing and a bad thing. Often it is the time for idle chat but there are occasions when we store up difficult conversations for the open air. Today, we talked over travel plans and reviewed whether we are making sensible decisions before it is committed.

I talk in my head constantly. It is like an inner monologue in which I discuss my thoughts and feelings with people who I have known but are only present in my head. This morning I read an article in a newspaper about exactly that. The writer also has an inner monologue and thought everyone did. I, on the other hand, always thought that I was odd. Actually, my head is the space for dialogue between me and past places, people and events I have experienced. It is a place for celebration and regret. I’m quite excited to find there are other people like me. What is scary is to think that some people have nothing going on in their head a lot of the time.

I used to have long debates/arguments with my mother for years after she had died. I talk to friends and acquaintances from the past all the time whether I still talk to them in real life or not. I visit places from my past in my head although the digital revolution has made realtime dialogue with distant people and places so much easier now.

This morning I have spent some time in: Kamares, Sifnos, Socrates Square, Thessaloniki and outside the Parliament Building, Athens in Greece, outside the Duomo Milan and on the Rialto Bridge, Venice in Italy, looking at the New York skyline from Fifth Avenue in the US and near Brighton Beach and Blackpool sea front in UK. All of these places I have visited in real time via live webcams. These photos are snatched live this morning. At the same time, I have been chatting to distant friends online.

The article reports a large study completed by a psychology professor at the University of Nevada concludes that:

Most people have an inner voice roughly 25% of the time. What that means, he says, is that some people never have words going on, and a few people have words going on all the time, and a lot of people have words going on some of the time.
However, our brains are miraculous and extremely weird things, and everyone has a different way of processing the world. Some people just process in pictures.

Can you imagine having to process complex concepts or even emotions only graphically? I can’t. Words are so important with their deftness of meaning and intricacy of history.

Wednesday, 1st January, 2025

Happy New Year to all my readers. Every year I say it …. to you and myself. Can you believe yet another year gone? This year, I’m going to say, Can you believe yet another new year of opportunity? That is how I am going to approach it. There are things I have put off or others have put off for me that I am determined to achieve this year. It will happen is the way I start the new year. People, places, reconnections are the order of 2025!

This year, we will be 74. It will happen. You see, it’s easy. Last night I wished 42 people Happy New Year by Whatsapp and Text. Almost everyone replied last night including our gorgeous, slightly drunken neighbours. A few didn’t manage it until this morning but that’s fine. The new year will be one of reconnections.

While I was at home drinking alcohol-free Prosecco (surprisingly nice … if you grit your teeth), I received a lovely photo from M&K on the piste in Chamonix as a sharp contrast to their Florida home. They have always loved skiing. Pauline & I can’t see why. We’ve seen enough snow to last us a lifetime. But, when you’re young anything is possible. Mind you, they will be 60 this year and I had already walked my 7 miles and done 90 mins in the Gym.

I heard from my sister, Jane, at 3.00 am with this picture from Horseguards Hotel where she had a good view of the firework display on the Thames. She obviously enjoyed herself which is the main thing but I think I got a better view on TV. At least it was dry and warm last night for city revellers.

I heard from another sister, Cathy, who told me she hasn’t been well for the past three weeks, unable to eat and lost a lot of weight. Feeling better now, they have gone off to a Spa Hotel in Hastings to see in the new year. I hope she’s restoring her health by eating lots of Breakfasts. Hastings is an interersting place that we considered buying a house in originally.

Heard about the death of the DJ, Johnnie Walker at the age of 79. It does seem such a young age now. Just 5 years away for us. He was one of those I lobbied the Wilson government about in the late 1960s as they tried to abollish Pirate radio stations in favour of Statist ones like the BBC as I saw it then. Radio Caroline and Radio London blared out of an old sterogram that Bob bought in a Jumble Sale. I wasn’t having a government controlling me!!!

And so it goes on – rebellion and anarchy in our 70s. That is what life is about. Taking risks, Dear Reader. We must do it! My Housekeeper is using her new ‘gift’ to spring clean the carpets. Life doesn’t get much riskier than that. I’m off to the Gym for another day of pain.

Thursday, 2nd January, 2025

What day is it? It’s felt like Monday all week. Something should be happening. Should I be going back to work? Outside it says is just 4C/39F but it feels really warm in the sunshine. Keep hearing that Greater Manchester is drowning but here looks rather like the Med. in winter. Strong, low sunshine out of an azure blue sky.

Just had an epiphany walking through Rustington High Street. I walked straight past the famous Pie Shop smelling of freshly baked pies and on to spend £50.00 in the Health Food Shop. What is going on?

Staying alive, staying alive … it’s just an attempt at staying alive. These are constituents of my Housekeeper’s home made Muesli. I have to say that, 4 months down the line, I am enjoying them. I have to say that.

Chatted to my old friend, John-R this morning. He was born in a place called Whitley Bay. I must admit I had never heard of it in 1969 when we first met. Actually, I wasn’t aware of anywhere North of Derby before I started applying to Universities. Anyway, John came from Whitley Bay and immediately told me how beautiful it was there. Great beaches and lovely scenery. I took his word for it but I’ve never been there. This morning, over Breakfast, Whitley Bay stared out at me. I contacted him to tell him that he and the girls from Whitley Bay were famous. I don’t think he knows any girls.

Out walking this afternoon, the beachside path was quite busy as people soaked up the sunshine. It may have been a little cold for ‘normal people’ swimming. But it was a lovely day to just stand and stare, dream dreams and drink in the sunshine through tired eyes.

You really should try it, Dear Reader. It is rejuvenating. Just an hour or so to do in the Gym and then I can relax.

Friday, 3rd January, 2025

Must have been cold over night. Bit of frost on the lawns this morning. Glorious sunrise. The beachside was magical and largely deserted. Many workers had gone back and the rest must have been lazing in bed.

An hour of sun and exercise and everything feels better. Tasks to get through today as well as a Gym session. Trying to get Housekeeper to complete cleaning all the carpets before she goes in for her operation next week. Ordered her some extra cleaning fluid for her Wedding Anniversary present to that end. My generosity knows no bounds!

In her spare time, she’s roasting a turkey for supper tonight and to make stock/soup for the next few weeks. Amazing buy in Sainsburys. A 4.6kg Taste the Difference Norfolk Black turkey which had sold for £60.00 before Xmas cost just £8.00 today.

Still trying to pin down accomodation and travel arrangements for two months – June in Valencia and November in Adeje so that we can have things sorted out and they give us targets to work towards.

Had a knee trembling experience yesterday as I did my Gym workout. I was watching a beautiful, sensitive, delightful, heartbreaking film called Birdsong on Netflix. It is a vivid depiction of the horror of war in 1914 but soft presentation of love and sexual attraction between two, youngish people. The contrast is deliberately accentuated as the film cuts from one to the other and back constantly.

After the war, many survivors reported that the abiding memory was not of the screams of men or the sound of gunfire, but of something seemingly hugely out of context:

It was the birdsong, the birdsong in that short gap when the artillery barrage stopped and before the whistles blew for us to get out of the trench and start running – it was beautiful.

The stark contrast between the mindlessness of men set against the eternal beauty of the natural world is symbolised in the contrast between men blowing each other up in muddy squalor set against the movements of a man and a woman making love in comparative comfort.

At that very point, I thought of my Father. He was someone who was present in my life but who I never really knew. I was 14 years old when he died at the age of 49. He had been a Captain and then a Major in the Royal Engineers and he fought / built bridges in the Sinai Peninsula & Palestine during the Second World War. I was young but I wasn’t stupid and I suddenly realised how little I had understood of the experiences that had made him the man he was and why he seemed so remote and so serious.

Saturday, 4th January, 2025

We have frost this morning. You can even see it on the roofs. We are just 3C/37F and it looks cold. At one point last night we were colder than Manchester. Very cold place Manchester! I am insulated in my Office with my renewed interest and enjoyment of music. I have taken out a subscription to Amazon Music. This morning, I am reliving the 1980s with Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony – Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68.

In the 1980s, I used to drive back across the Pennines in my silver Honda Prelude sports car with the Pastoral Symphony at full volume and only the sheep to be disturbed. It was glorious. A triumph of Romanticism over Reality. I really am a romantic at heart but with a core of realism grinding along in the background.

The 1980s. I wouldn’t go back there for anything. I am happy in 2025 with all the improvements of life not least the fact that my CD player sits idly on the desk unplayed for months, years. Everything is downloaded now at the call of a voice and playable around the house on TVs and Amazon Alexa speakers. The whole process points up the distance we have travelled in my lifetime. In 1965, my grandfather gave me (and I admit a bit anachronistically) a wind up gramaphone and a collection of 78s. Large, already discontinued gramaphone records of opera, popular 1930s music hall songs and some classical pieces like Handel’s Largo which I fell in love with.

For a brief spell between 1966 and 1973, I listened to what would be called ‘pop’ music and Handel met the Moody Blues inside my head at least although only by chance because I never had a record player of my own. I remember buying a cassette player in 1974 and playing it until it just ate tapes, shredded them and spat them out again. Chopin was loved and destroyed in that. My first car with a CD player was in the late 1980s and that was revolutionary. Today, although I still have a CD player in the car (I think), it has never been used. Everything is downloaded from my phone and played through Android Auto app. So Amazon Music will go anywhere seamlessly.

Out for a walk and to the fish shop. In the time it took to write the first half of the Blog entry, the temperature outside had risen from 1C – 6C and things were brightening up. That’s the power of Beethoven. Actually, as so often, temperatures completely fooled me again. A strong beeze off the sea made 6C feel like -6C so I decided to not put myself through that discomfort. The Gym will be nice this morning.

We’ve learnt that when we see good fish to buy it immediately. It is often in short supply and disappears quickly. The UK catch is bought up by European markets or was before Brexit. When we see Locally Caught Sea Bass advertised, we buy it in bulk. It isn’t cheap but the difference between farmed sea bass – usually from Greek waters – and wild fish caught around here has to be tasted to be believed. It is much more expensive, rarely on show but well worth the wait. Today 10kgs of fresh fish including 2 sides of Salmon, 6 large Sea Bass and 2 kgs of quality Tuna cost £320.00. Healthy eating isn’t cheap.

Sunday, 22nd December, 2024

Gorgeously sunny morning but with a bitingly cold wind. My phone says 7C feels like -3C and I think that’s just about right. Down at the beach, things were a little quieter than usual although there was a long queue at Sainsburys.

I actually wore a woolly hat for walking today. I looked ridiculous but I do anyway. I got it as a Christmas present years ago and have hardly used it but, since my radiotherapy, I find I feel the cold more quickly and the hat has been stored for days just like this. At least we weren’t in Yorkshire where the local news was of part of the M62 closed after snow overnight as high winds and flooding also hit Yorkshire. The snow was causing disruption on the motorway between Huddersfield and Saddleworth between junction 24 at Ainley Top and junction 22 at Rishworth Moor – exactly the stretch that we drove every day.

As we move towards the final week of the year, it is time to take stock, to balance the ledger of life so far and set goals for the New Year. I am nothing without assessment data of the past and targets for the future. This sort of discussion has been going on in our household for a few weeks. I mentioned before that house moving rears its head at times. We are both very happy in this house. It is comfortable with lovely neighbours in quiet street in a nice area. We do look at other developments which were built 20 years ago and they do look ‘tired’. We do wonder if that will be us if we stay.

Still, that is just one of the things being reviewed in the ledger. Health & Fitness are also being considered. It feels like we have that back on track although I am taking Pauline for a pre-operation meeting at the hospital tomorrow and it is a bit of a nervous time. I spoke about travel being a focus and that has to be largely sorted out in the next couple of weeks. I am working on it quite intensively.

Similarly, Financial Investments for the future have to be reviewed and, although it is going extremely well – too well by the looks of the unpaid tax demand I received yesterday – things can change very quickly. I am definitely going to continue investing our full ISA allownce – £40, 000 – again this year to shelter it from taxation. It may be ‘safe’ but safe is good if it will pay somewhere around double the inflation rate, tax free over the next couple of years.

Monday, 23rd December, 2024

A crisp and bright morning with a cut in the air. The last full week of 2025 is looking beautiful. This afternoon, I’m taking Pauline to meet the surgeon who will be operating on her in January so walking early. The air was surprisingly biting in the off shore breeze.

The backlit horizon pointed up the Rampion Wind Farm installation which is just about to be extended and energy brought ashore through Climping Beach. Only under a Labour government does the Future become reality.

I’m all for these off-shore farms which supply lots of power without disfuguring the landscape. The photograph today was taken on 10x zoom. The installation is almost invisible to the naked eye. It is how the power is brought ashore and distributed that will be the tricky part.

I became an adult in 1972. Well that’s when I was 21. It was quite a dark year in many ways. The Tories and Ted Heath were in power. It was the year I left College and started teaching. I was sent this fact sheet by one of my friends this morning. One stark fact hit me straight away.

In 1972, male life expectancy was 72 years.

In 2024, male life expectancy is 82 years.

If you think the past was a Golden Age, this fact alone should give you pause for thought. It’s so easy to forget these things. I’ve just done a quick data comparison.

I suppose it is over 50 years but there is a saluatory lesson here. World population has almost doubled while UK population has only increased by about 23%. Just not enough British girls prepared to have babies here.

Unquestionably, investment in property has been the best thing overall. In 1972, it would take 4.3 years of salary to buy the average house. Today it would take a whopping 11.2 years of average salary to buy an average priced house which is why the young ones are struggling to find somewhere to make babies.

I am a sucker for flowers. This morning there was a knock on the door and there was the lovely Sharon with a bunch of flowers for me. She said it was for everything I do for the street. Nobody ever needs to do that for me but it was lovely of her.

Tuesday, 24th December, 2024

A misty moisy morning and, I’m told, it is Christmas eve. I was sent a video greeting from lots of lads I haven’t seen much of for over 50 years last night. Pauline said, Don’t they look old. I thought, Is that how I look to others? Pauline was just back from a meeting with the Consultant in Woking Hospital who genuinely said to her that she had a high level of fitness and he really thought she was 50 until he checked her notes. You know that annoying way people seem to glide on air as they walk back to the car. Well, one of us did that last night … and it wasn’t me.

The walk is different every day. The mist this morning was reminiscent of days gone by. Smog in central London, low clouds over the Pennines, wet days on Sifnos.

As I walked, I had in my head pictures of books. The guest editor on BBC Radio 4 Today this morning was a children’s author who featured Dolly Parton. Her love of reading has led to her writing lots of children’s books and giving lots of money to found a programmme of providing books for kids across the world.

In Primary School, I devoured works of Fiction and loved being read to. When I was 7, I couldn’t wait for the end of the day when Miss Marlor read The Magic Faraway Tree to us. At night time, Mum would come up to say good night and read to us. She loved to do all the voices. I remember The Blackbird Patrol really well as she put on the voices of black slaves and pirate captains. I lived in and for these stories.

What puzzles me is that I haven’t read a work of Fiction for pleasure since I left Primary and moved to Grammar School. There I was given mainly Faction to read. In my first year, I was introduced to Winston Churchill’s My Early Life. I got quite interested in it. Later, I studied Dr. Samuel Johnson for the power of words and argument. I read The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. I was hooked.

Any work of Fiction I have read has been for ‘work’ – either teaching or studying or both. I had to teach James Joyce at A Level early on in my career. I didn’t know it at all but A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man knocked me for six. It was about me and my life. I was doing a Literature Degree at the time and studying 20th Century European Poetry. James Joyce was taunting me. I was continually rejecting religion in general and Catholicism in particular. James Joyce understood me. It didn’t speak to my students with quite the same intensity.

My Masters Degree involved reading around the Literature of the day and William Godwin’s novels were informed by his political radicalism so I read it with pencil in hand. He went on to publish important works of political philosophy. Godwin’s daughter, Mary, married Shelley and went on to write Frankenstein but also became a leading proclaimer of women’s rights. Once again, I was reading with a purpose rather than pure pleasure.

I’ve had a book on my shelves for a long time which I dip into but haven’t completed. It is the sort of thing I need in my life to keep me sane. The God Delusion describes my view of the world. It is about a fiction which is so destructive of world order. Behind so many conflicts – maybe all conflicts – a religion sits. It is hard to see how self-delusion can justify such horrors.

There is also a gulf in the more specific genres that men and women choose, with men tending to read history, biographies and memoir, while women are more likely to choose mystery, thriller and crime, romance and other fiction.

Deloitte Insights – 2024

Although I knew it was true for me, I didn’t really focus on this obvious piece of research about the gender divide in reading summed up by the above research. It rather explains why I have found the fiction of entertainment so difficult to enter until recent times. Now, I spend all my time sifting through the back catalogue of all my rented platforms for things to watch.

Wednesday, 25th December, 2024

Another Xmas Day – our 73rd. I long lost the excitement. In fact, I find it rather a sad time now. Absent friends, long gone times, etc.. There was a time when Breakfast would be toast with home-cooked slices of ham. And then the big drive up to Surrey with everything to do to produce a big meal. There was a time, much further back when we were all ‘forced’ to go to early mass before Breakfast. Presents weren’t opened until mid Morning. There was a time … there was a time when … The mists of time rise and fall and rise again.

This morning, the biggest thing I had to do was have a shave and get dressed. Drink freshly squeezed orange juice and a huge cup of freshly ground coffee – Taylors Rich Italian No. 4.

We really don’t need presents any more although we’ve had lovely flowers from neighbours and P&C and M&K had bought lots of treats for the garden and the house – many from Florida. They were good fun to unpack without having to go to mass first. We’d already had some presents from Margaret & Tony in Marsden and Little Viv in Oldham so our cup runneth over.

The kitchen is smelling sweetly with scent of flowers and a candle that we were given recently. Later today, it will waft the distinct smell of shellfish as Chef prepares Loster, Langoustines, Scallops and home-cured smoked salmon for our meal served with a green salad.

Before that, we are going out on a long walk on the beach in very warm weather. Could be busy. It might be warm but it’s still gloomy.

I decided against the Christmas Fun Run on Littlehampton Promenade. I don’t know why because it looks so exciting doesn’t it, Dear Reader.

Chef has produced a seafood platter of Scallops, Lobster, Langoustines and Home-cured Smoked Salmon all served with a Green Salad and a Mustard Mayonnaise & Dill Sauce. Of course, we toasted each other with a bottle of chilled Zerozecco. After a 7 mile walk by the sea and an hour in the Gym, I was ready for it. If you’re allergic to shellfish, Dear Reader, don’t lick this photo.

Thursday, 26th December, 2024

I must have been feeling sloppy last night because I watched Notting Hill …. again. What is wrong with me? I think I’m losing it. It was 1.00 am before we got to bed. Consequently, the unthinkable has happened this morning. Didn’t get up until 8.00 am.. Already I feel out of sorts with the day. So many things to get through, to achieve.

Alrerady had Whatsapp greetings from neighbours and friends. Out for an early walk and to Sainsbury’s. Apparently we need milk. On Boxing Day? I think my Housekeeper is losing it. Anyway, it is rather murky and damp out there but warm. Not very inviting. Got to get my exercise done because it is an afternoon of football to watch.

I’m having a fight with my self about a new coffee maker. I have a perfectly good one but there is a heavily advertised one I’ve had my eye on. This month, it is reduced from £750.00 to £649.00 and I’m even more tempted. But I don’t need one. It would be total self indulgence. Pauline doesn’t even drink coffee.

I really can’t justify it. I really can’t. Bet I do! Going walking to take it off my mind and think about travelling in 2025.

Got out there and the drizzle is quite unpleasant. Come home to do the full routine in the Gym. In the time I was out, I more or less crystalised in my head the travel plan for the year to come.

• May – a few days in France, Côte d’Opale
• June – a week in Greece, Thessaloniki
• July – a month driving down through France to Bordeaux
• August – a week in Greece, Athens
• November – a month in Tenerife, Adeje

There are still plenty of gaps for two visits to the North of England to visit the past. All things will come to pass, Dear Reader.

Friday, 27th December, 2024

Xmas is over for another year. I really haven’t missed it both because I’m not a christian but also because I don’t go out to work. I am not in need of spiritual delusion or a break from work. Time doesn’t miss a beat although I will acknowledge New Year’s Eve. Time advancing is important – essential to acknowledge and try to understand. It brings the bad and the good.

I don’t look forward to being 74 next year but I do welcome all the innovation that will inevitably come. New car technology. New coffee maker technology. New Health technology. New Power technology. New Internet technology. Artificial Intelligence. AI will be increasingly important as this decade advances.

This morning, Professor Geoffrey E. Hinton, who won the Nobel Prize for his work in developing machine learning technology using artificial neural networks, was interviewed on BBC R4 Today. It was a fascinating interview for people like me and ranged from discussion of Adam Smith to sexual exploitation.

You are probably well aware of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, Dear Reader. At the risk of patronising you, I remind you that he was a Scottish economist and moral philosopher in the 18th Century. He was writing at the birth of the Industrial Revolution and was concerned with the effect of Industry and Business on ordinary people. His central tenet involved The Invisible Hand which is based on the idea that people’s self-interest and freedom to produce and consume can lead to the best interests of society as a whole. The constant interplay of individual pressures on supply and demand causes prices to move naturally, and trade to flow. Now, it is beloved of the Right in politics who want smaller government and less regulation. Free markets are espoused. Nationalisation is decried.

Fast forward 250 years, from 1776 to 2024 and the newest worry of unfettered change is Artificial Intelligence. Professor Hinton’s view is that, although AI held out enormous benefits for the world, it also harboured enormous threats to its existence. In fact, he believes that AI unfettered is an existential threat to our survival beyond the next couple of decades and needs to be regulated. Hinton posited the belief that AI could do so much Medical Investigation so much more quickly and accurately than any human can that a single doctor would be able to monitor the health of thousands of patients at a time. This is as revolutionary as the Industrial Revolution of the past.

In reality, most of us encounter Artificial Intelligence in some way or another almost daily. From the moment you wake up to check your smartphone to watching another Netflix-recommended movie, AI has quickly made its way into our everyday lives. AI has been making its way into Education for the past 20 years. I was pioneering online education with lesson material, testing, assessment and reporting to parents through an intranet in 2004.

AI has increasingly organised the means of production with robots in factories and methods of delivery as Amazon warehouses illustrate. We use Alexa or Google Maps; we search for something on the net and then find every other application that we use recommending new coffee makers for weeks afterwards because of incorporated AI. My car has more incorporated AI than you would imagine like a camera blind spot function or intelligent cruise control. The ultimate will be totally self-drive cars

AI can understand and learn any intellectual task that a human being can. Soon, Super AI will surpass human intelligence and perform any task better than a human. That is why controls have to be built in to its development.

One of the current concerns seems to be the use of AI to create political havoc through lifelike avatars making online speeches to move elections in a chosen direction and sexual exploitation particularly of children by nudifying images of real people and then exploiting them for gain. To be blunt, AI like all other innovations can be turned to good or ill and will need some controls. The skill is to control without suffocating.

It is going to change the world. It is going to totally alter the need for workers. It may well usher in the Universal Basic Income. Hopefully, it will improve all our lives immeasurably. That is a thought for the coming year.

Saturday, 28th December, 2024

No fog. No dampness. No sun. Dull and overcast. It sounds like airports are being plagued by fog this morning from Manchester to Gatwick & Heathrow. Significant because M&K, back from Florida are now going to Chamonix for a week of Skiing. Let’s hope they get off without delay to Geneva. When you’re only going for a week, a delay can be really destructive. We wish them well.

We wish Kevin well also. He’s had his car removed from his drive over night in North Yorkshire. It’s a nightmare to wake up and find your right arm gone. As I told him, it’s a good job he’s got a bike. Well, you have to be sympathetic, don’t you. At first, I thought it was someone stranded after a Boxing Day party loking for an easy way home but this can’t have been too opportunistic. It is quite a sophisticated job to steal a car with an electronic ignition. Kevin insists it was locked and the keys were in the house. It would need a car key cloner to get in and start the engine.

I went on line and found lots on offer from under £100.00. This machine reads the radio signal from your car fob and can replicate it in a blank one. You need a bit of knowledge and practice but could soon be up and running. I’ve been aware of this for a year or two but haven’t really felt the need to do anything about it. My last three cars have had electronic ignition but I have never heard of a car being stolen down here around me.

There is an easy way to protect yourself which I learnt in 1962 in Grammar School. I must admit, Faraday didn’t really speak to me in those days but I still remember a lesson about the Faraday Cage. A Faraday Cage or Faraday Shield is an enclosure used to block electromagnetic fields. These simple, little pouches replicate the Faraday Cage and protect your key fobs in the house from being read outside and replicated. I’ve ordered two immediately from Amazon.

Walking by the beach this morning there were parents with excited children on flashy, new scooters, youngsters on new bikes slightly too big for them but for their legs to grow into. This chap had received a Christmas present on a different level altogether. Quite fancy one myself. Apparently, it’s called an e-foil. Going to look on Amazon.

It’s 2.00 pm. I’ve done my 7 miles for the day. I’m drinking a lovely cup of coffee from my soon-to-be-defunct coffee maker while Beethoven’s Pastorale Symphony is playing on my Alexa speaker. I’m going in the Gym soon to do a bit more work and watch my latest Spy Thriller on the Paramount+ platform. Almost everything is well with the world …. almost …

Of course, while we were out, Amazon delivered all our orders. It is so easy I order everything I can on Amazon and, with Prime membership, it comes ‘free’ next day. It is so reliable, I actually feel sorry for the delivery people who are usually in their own vehicles and working until late at night to complete their rounds. The standard final time is 10.00pm but they often deliver well after then. When do these people get to eat and sleep before setting out again on another list of impossible delivery committments?

Sunday, 15th December, 2024

Had my hair cut this morning before it all falls out. It is definitely thinner now and I don’t like it. When this haircut song was first out in 1970 my hair was as thick as a bush …. in fact, it was a bush. How the mighty are fallen!

At least I haven’t got a bald, monk’s crown like my Dad developed quite young. He was so embarrassed about it that he tried umpteen quack potions without success. Nowadays, of course, he would shave his head and look trendy.

Talking about monks: I went to a Church of England College. Goodness knows why. Anyway, I never saw any of the students I associated with show an ounce of religiosity while I was there but some have developed it in old age. Fear of the abyss, probably. One of them has been trying to convert me – a hardened atheist – to Christianity. I can tell you that he has more chance of shoving a camel through the eye of a needle …. Don’t know where I read that!

I do like to taunt them with their delusions though. I’m sure one of them believes god arranged it for Newcastle to beat Leicester 4-0 yesterday. I sent them a video of pantheistic delight this morning. I’ve been reviving my rudimentary ‘skills’ of video editing and dubbed some music onto the natural soundtrack from this morning’s walk.

I’ve been sending cases of wine across the country to old friends for Christmas. I thought they could help me drink them by proxy. I have been alcohol-free for 110 days now. I’m thinking I might soon qualify as a Methodist. These cases of wine were ordered from that well know wine merchant, Amazon. I don’t care what anyone says about their ability to avoid taxation, they have delivery down to a fine art.

Every single case has been successfully delivered over the weekend and I have been able to watch in real time where they were on the journey. Alcohol has to be signed for so I could make sure they were in to receive it. My friend, Kevin, sent me this photo within minutes of receiving his. He’s probably drunk his by now – thinks it’s communion wine.

Monday, 16th December, 2024

My friend and former digs-mate, John-R, who has always had religion, poor lad, sent me this from a Carol Service he attended at Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire. Looks positively balmy doesn’t it. Beautiful setting though.

The average daytime temperature in UK at this time of the year is 7C/45F. Overnight, we were double that and warmer than Athens. Beautiful sunrise this morning. Got quite a (relatively) busy week ahead. Daft thing to say when I look at it and compare with work times but all things are relative.

Got the window cleaner coming this morning – thank goodness. Going to cut and edge all the street lawns in time for their Chrsitmas visitors. My housekeeper needs taxiing to the hairdresser tomorrow. Two service engineers coming on Wednesday to check the Burglar Alarm and the CCTV camera system. The camera-feed software needs reinstalling. Thursday we are driving up to Surrey to visit M&K who are back from Florida and to deliver Xmas cakes and presents. All of that has to be fitted around my fitness regime which takes at least 2 hours each day. You see what an exciting schedule you are missing, Dear Reader.

On my walk this morning, the sea was in and the horizon far away. I stared out longingly to that blue-rimmed line of possibilities. Who and what is out there? Whatever, it will definitely be warmer than North Yorkshire.

Pauline has an operation coming up early in January and she has a meeting with the consultant next week. This week she is preparing be testing her blood pressure twice a day and I am recording on my Health Spreadsheet so she can take a print out with her to inform the conversation. Annoyingly, her blood pressure is always absolutely perfect so there should be no problem having a general anaesthetic.

My Mum would have been 101 this year. She was from Croydon in South London. She went to a Roman Catholic Girls College and then trained as a Montessori teacher although I don’t think she afforded her own children that liberality. Having finished training, she moved down to our village in the Midlands met Dad and the rest is history although there are those of us who don’t believe in it.

A formative part of Mum’s history was the Second World War. She was 16 when it broke out. London was badly bombed. Her Dad, my Grandad was a bomb damage assessor – a loss adjuster. Mum was evacuated to rural Wales. I think she was near Builth Wells. They took us there once to reminisce. It rained. It was so exciting, I certainly would never go back. However, evacuation did have a profound effect on Mum and so many others as the were dislocated from city to country.

Currently, I am watching an interesting film on Apple TV called Blitz directed by Steve McQueen, Briton’s leading, black film director. It tells the story of a young, black boy who was put on a train by his Mum to take him out of London bombing and give him rural safety for the duration. The boy has to cope with the minority status of being black and with being wrenched from the safety of his home. He jumps off the train en route and stubbornly walks his way back to London. In contrast, I think Mum’s experience was one of liberation, new horizons, finding first love. She remembered it fondly.

Tuesday, 17th December, 2024

A grey but warm start to the day. All the statistics were going well this morning. My weight was down again. My INR was stable. My shaver app reported 98% ninja performance. I have done my 7 miles a day target every day for 108 unbroken days. No alcohol for 111 days. All is well with the world. Well, almost, Dear Reader. I do have one or two loose ends to tie up and I will. If you know anything about me, you will know I will.

Out for an early walk. Hard to know what clothes to wear today. Opted for a fleece and was sweating by the time I got home. It’s the same in the house this year. When the winter period arrives, I close the air-circulation vents on windows and dooors. This year it has been so warm that the house is permanently too hot. Not that I am complaining. British Gas contacted me to say that they were returning a considerable amount of money that we had over payed this year. You only get this sort of weather under a Labour Government!

You have to pinch yourself to understand how far we have come over my lifetime in terms of home comforts.From coal fires to central heating and from draughty windows to perfect seals that require vents. You can only imagine what privations these people from almost 150 years ago thought were just normal ways of life.

The photo was posted this morning and I had never seen it before. It was taken in Montmartre in 1887 and is the only known photo of Van Gogh and Paul Gaugin together. Third from left smoking a pipe is Van Gogh and far right is Gaugin. Thinking about it, it’s no wonder they turned to absinth and don’t forget, absinth makes the heart grow fonder.

Driving Pauline to the hairdresser’s because it is difficult to park. I will come home and drive back just over an hour later. She’s beginning to worry about her hair. She has the odd grey strand starting to appear but it is not really noticeable. What she’s worrying about is that her already ‘fine’ hair is thinning. I’ve offered her some of mine but it was rejected. Of course, the internet always comes to the rescue. I’m going to buy her this for Xmas. I may have to make myself scarce for a while afterwards ….

…. Just picked up the returning warrior/worrier and she tells me the hairdresser said her gey streaks are so minimal as to be merely highlights. He told her that, in his experience and it is extensive – He trained and worked at Vidal Sassoon in Manchester – Pauline’s hair will now never go grey having survived 73 years and thinning is just something she will have to cope with.

I retired from teaching in the same month I was 58. I received my Teachers’ Pension and Lump Sum immediately but I had to wait another 7 years until I could have my State Pension. I was born on 6 April 1951 which made me eligible for the enhanced, New State Pension. One day earlier and I would have been on the old system. I was aware of the WASPI Women and their anger about the pension age qualification changing and them having to wait longer for their pensions. They claim that changes to our SPA were implemented with inadequate or no notice.

I know of quite a few Teachers who claim to be WASPI Women and I have have been a bit sceptical. Today, the government confirmed it wouldn’t be paying out the £10.5 Billion compensation. I don’t know about other professions/jobs but teachers have always been kept in the information loop. We did know about it. I keep records, Dear Reader, to the irritation of my not-very-grey friend. I have payslips going back to 1972 and communications from the Pension Service stored in chronological order in the Office. I submit this evidence from 2008 of when I was informed of my State Pension eligibility by the T.P.S.. All other teachers should have received the same advice but did they read it?

Wednesday, 18th December, 2024

Another very warm night opens on to another warm and grey morning. I’ve got a security service engineer arriving to day. He will service the burglar alarm and help me out with the software which runs the CCTV system. It will take a couple of hours this afternoon.

Woke up this morning to hear inflation had risen to 2.6% mainly on the back of petrol price rises. Although inflation is a national problem, for me as an individual it is not so much. It will force the Bank of England to keep interest rates higher than otherwise. If you are a borrower of money, that is a problem. If you are an investor of money, it is lucrative. My fixed rate Bonds are still earning more than double the inflation rate and will do for the next year

Petrol prices are becoming much less significant in my life both because I am currently clocking less miles but also because I drive a self-charge hybrid Honda. I have driven Honda cars since my first in 1984. Over the years, I have bought 4 new Preludes in the 1990s. I even wrote one off in a moment of madness.

Preludes haven’t been made by Honda for a few years and I do enjoy the higher seating and road view of the CRV SUV which I’ve been driving since 1998. Yesterday, I read that Honda would be bring the Prelude back in 2026. It looks nice and I am tempted but I’m not sure it will be for me now. It is a young man’s car, low slung and sporty. I have to admit the realities. Anyway, this morning it was announced that Honda were exploring the possibility of marriage to Nissan to combat the flood of electric cars built in China and taking hold of the market. It does make one wonder what sort of child this marriage could produce. We will see.

The grey of the early day has blown away to be replaced by blue sky and sunshine. Still lovely and warm, The sea was looking frothy and crashing sweet and clean.

Sometimes the world can be a beautiful place and it was this morning. What better circumstances to celebrate the marriage of Honda & Nissan.

Thursday, 19th December, 2024

Glorious morning. Driving up to Surrey to meet M&K back from Florida. Taking cakes and puddings for two families plus presents. Nice day for the drive although the low sun will make the M25 harder to cope with.

Got to get a walk in first or I will be struggling to make my target. Went out early to get an hour in before leaving to fight with the M25. It will take us about an hour to get up to Surrey as long as all goes well. Received a phone call from an old friend from my birth village, Repton, this morning. David Beasley is 10 years older than me. He has a small holding in North Wales. His wife died five or so years ago and, after an intense period of loneliness, he has found a new friend to share his life with. The effect, the change in his voice and his view of life is quite transformational. Optimism and happiness abounds.

The drive up was a lot better than I expected. We chose to miss the motorway out and go through posh Cobham. Bumper to bumper Porches but otherwise pleasant. Spent a lovely couple of hours with M&K and P&C. They are looking well and happy and are driving to Oldham tomorrow which will be rather a climate/culture shock having just returned from Florida.

Back home just as the sun was setting but had to get my second walk in before resting. Confined the walk to our local neighbourhood and parks. It felt bitterly cold as the sun disappeared over the horizon and the breeze bit into my flesh.

What I don’t understand is why the cold doesn’t affect kids who carry on biking round the area and kissing girls without a care. Not being observed by adults seems to be worth paying the price of pneumonia.

Friday, 20th December, 2024

Gorgeous morning after a crystal clear night. Got a day of jobs to get through before I am allowed to eat.

Still receiving lots of cards. I’m not at all bothered about the event but I love the annual human contact. I get lots of newsletters and lots of cards. I told myself off yesterday when I caught myself looking for the missing ones rather than the ones I had received. Each year, I keep a record of those I received and those I didn’t. I make it a point of principle not to stop sending to people who haven’t sent to me for a while. You have to be big about these things.

Last year Pat, the wife of my old friend, Sam – an international rugby referee and all round wonderful man who died 20 years ago – didn’t send me a card. I sent one again this year and then her card arrived yesterday from a Nursing Home in Oldham. I have sent another one to her new address and might go round to see her when I’m up in Oldham soon.

Two cases of wine were delivered in Oldham this morning. One for Margaret in Marsden and one for Viv in Oldham. They got cases of quality, Spanish red. Actually, I was quite enjoying Spanish red before I stopped. Julie in North Yorkshire and Kevin in Leeds both got cases of Australian white wine. Actually, I was quite enjoying Australian white before I stopped. Do you get the pattern, Dear Reader? Alcohol by proxy is a wonderful thing!

I bought my wife an Alexa for the Kitchen. It has obviously released a long suppressed need to listen to popular music. Everytime I arrive there, I am greeted by Fleetwood Mac, Elton John, Take That, Leonard Cohen mingling with the smell of newly baked bread. It makes me feel quite bad.

Over 46 years, obviously I’ve forced her to listen to Chopin, Rachmaninov, Beethoven and to shut herself away as I’m belting out Puccini and Donizetti while she really wanted to let her hair down with Gary Barlow. I do feel generally awkward.

In the early 1970s, as I was studying for my degree, I had to explore classical 19th Century composers alongside literary, philosophical and political texts. I started to listen for the first time, realising that I knew nothing of classical music and opera. It felt like a deficit in my education and I had to address it. I bought a battery operated tape player and a handful of cassete recordings and played them night and day as I studied. I knew every note of the Études and Nocturnes. I sang Donizetti‘s ‘Lucia di Lammermoor‘ until I thought I might get a booking. I thought pop music was banished for good.

I still love the classical but, in old age, I have been able to go back to popular music. As we drove to Greece – a journey of some 15 hours – we sang to James Taylor and to Take That over and over again. The kilometres (all 1200) sped past. It was a time when we didn’t have internet in the car so CDs were the only source of entertainment when BBC had long faded out.

Now, I put my smartphone through the infontainment system and listen to anything I please. The hot choice currently is a political podcast like The Newsagents. Five are recorded each week and I am lost for an hour of enjoyment.

Saturday, 21st December, 2024

A dark, damp morning opens on the Shortest Day. At least it’s warm. Looks like most exercise will be in the Gym today. At 5.45 am, the radio wakes me and by 6.00 am, old College friends are posting messages around. I thought I was odd waking so early but not at all. They are all unable to sleep in the early hours of the morning. What we all need is a job. Then, we would sleep right through. Today, it looks as if we will not see the sun at all. If we could, it would be for less than 8 hours. De…press…ing!

My sister in Flockton, West Yorkshire sent me this photo from her back garden. Not sure what that delicious green is. Looks like watercress but might be green manure.

At least the sky dried long enough for a walk round the local area. As you can see, the park near the Community Centre was not very hot and sunny this morning.

Found this little delight growing wild in the park. The orange berries shone in the darkness. It is called the Stinking Iris or  Iris foetidissima and is common in UK and in Greece. It is called stinking because the leaves when crushed smell of roast beef which puts some people off.

I am trying to lift my spirits by looking at colours like this. It is so difficult to choose a property and commit to £5 -7,000 at a distance. So often things are not what you see in the photographs. I have learnt to book through respected agents. I have set the first week of January to decide on a property in Southern Tenerife for the month of November.

I have a couple of places I’ve identified already through a company I’ve used before. VRBO or Villa Rentals By Owner has been reliable in the past. I used it when it was called Home Away because that is what I wanted. Move home to the sunshine for a while. Set up by an ex-teacher (Why didn’t I think of that?), it’s owned by Expedia now. I’ve also used and tend to trust Booking.com and I am looking through their offerings as well.

Of course, there is always a downside to life. Received two lots of Christmas Greetings this morning. The first was from the postman saying they wouldn’t deliver an item until we had paid £5.00 unpaid postage by the sender of something. I just hope they weren’t meaning the second delivery which was from the friendly HMRC informing me that I owe them £1000s of back taxes. It’s not a scam. I do. It just hurts more somehow when they don’t just tax me at source as they do with my pensions.

Sunday, 8th December, 2024

Well, the predicted storm never materialised. A bit breezy and with heavy rain over night, the day has opened bright and dry with sunshine. Last Sunday, we were welcoming December. Now, we are hurtling through it at pace. The older I get the less confident I am about the time line of events.

Yesterday, my neighbour told me he had been married for 18 years and I felt old for the rest of the day. I never forget a teacher announcing in the staffroom when I was in my 3rd year of teaching that she had just completed 25. I thought that must be an amazing situation – near end of life. I attended a Golden Wedding anniversary with just the same sense of unreality. The ship of time continues to sail slowly and largely silently towards us, Dear Reader. We don’t know when. All we do know is that it will surely arrive.

And so the week opens with joy and optimism. I am looking towards the new year’s travel. I have already booked hotels in Athens and Thessaloniki plus flights for two separate visits. I have arranged an extended trip to the North of England to seek out friends of old. Now I am actively looking at a month in the Canaries probably in November. I have learnt to be really careful in choosing such properties. Photographs can flatter to deceive.

This property is bigger than we need with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms but that is what you have to pay for to get quality and space. There is no point in spending a month in a property that is a lot less than you would expect at home. This has a pool, good kitchen with dishwasher and washing machine. Fast wifi, nice bathrooms and reasonable views from the terrace, somewhere to park a rental car. The price for a month is £5,400 which will be around £6000 with flights and transfers. For 2 people over 4 weeks that seems reasonable and ought to guarrantee reasonable service. The aim is to move our lives to somewhere with warmth and sunshine in a generally cold and dark month.

Out for a walk this morning. Strong wind made it all feel freezing. The tide was completely out. The distant windfarm more visible in the sea and obviously generating lots of power. Vast swathes of revealed beach with streams of sand whipped up by the wind. Very few people braving the day.

Monday, 9th December, 2024

Walls are built for two, main reasons. One is to keep things out – cold and wet, invasions, immigrants, etc.. The second is to keep things in – warmth, cattle, prisoners, the insane, populations under an authoritarian regime, etc..

The decision was taken to build a Wall between East and West Germany and work began in the early hours of 13 August 1961. I was 10 years old. The Berlin Wall became the symbol of the Cold War and a tangible manifestation of the world’s separation into two, distinct ideological blocs. The Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, or SED had been the ruling party in East Germany since 1949. The experiment was failing citizens of the Eastern, socialist Bloc. Economies had long been faltering and citizens were rising up and demanding change in Czechoslovakia (1968), Poland (1980) Hungary (1956 & 1988), and now Gorbachev, leader of the Soviet Union, was forced to recognise the inevitable.

The people of East Germany had seen the comparatively luxurious lives of their Western counterparts and wanted it. The wall separated them. A new travel law was mistakenly announced on November 9, 1989, crowds rushed to the border, which was opened under the onslaught of so many people. The fall of the Wall led to the ultimate collapse of the German Democratic Republic. The cold war that had been the stuff of legend throughout my childhood, was over. I remember echoes of my parents discussing the capture and imprisonment of businessman and spy, Greville Wynne in the early 1960s and then watching this played out in a Netflix film, The Courier, 60 years later.

On April 6^th, 1994 – my 43^rd birthday – a three day Irish conflict peace was announced. By August of that year, the Provisional IRA announced a cessation of military operations. A conflict that had occupied centuries and had been particularly prominent in the early years of my adulthood was tentatively over. Recently, I have been watching a drama called Say Nothing which told the story of resistance that brought the IRA to this position which is even now moving ever closer to a united Ireland.

Both of these socio-political changes had looked intractable. The occupying forces seemed immovable …. until they weren’t. Despots survive and thrive on confidence, threat and bluster. There comes a time when autocrats like Tito in Yugoslavia, Idi Amin in Uganda and Robert Mugawe in Zimbabwe see the aura of invincibility slipping away. And so it has been with Bashar al-Assad in Syria this month.

I draw my own lesson from these occurrences. When things look bleak, impossible, not worth fighting for, that is exactly the time to fight. All walls crumble eventually. The mists blow away and a new beginning comes into view. Nil Desperandum, Dear Reader.

The skies on our walk this morning were overcast with dark, fast moving clouds which were reflected in the sea and beach below but there will be brighter days and sunshine will reveal a new view as the wall comes down.

Tuesday, 10th December, 2024

What a dull, December day. Depressing. Trying to brighten the load with innovation this morning. I have a new girlfriend arriving who I ordered from Amazon. It is an Alexa. I must admity that I was slow to accept the value of virtual assistants. I thought it was a sign of laziness – almost unfaithfulness. I suppose I have used software on my smartphone to control household devices for quite a while.

I use the SmartThings App to control the two Robot Vacuums, to link to my Honda car’s system control, to pair with my Lounge TV’s Bose soundbar, to link to my Huawei earbuds, to my Philips shaver and to my Garmin watch. It is invaluable to do stuff when I am away from the house.

I use the Hive Smart App to control the central heating zones in the house upstairs and down independently, the hot water system and then radiators in the Gym and lights around the house by room. These things are so useful and particularly when we are travelling. Not only that but they are incredibly economical. The central heating very soon overwhelms the house with heat so it can be turned on and off from the phone app and, therefore, is rarely on.

A few month ago, I replaced an old and loved friend – a bedside radio alarm – with a wifi, voice controlled one. It is an Amazon Echo Spot with Alexa. It wakes me up at the right time every day with BBC Radio 4 every morning. It tells me the weather. It reads me my calendar for the day and will play anything else that can be grabbed from the internet just by me telling it to. It is the perfect girlfriend.

Now I’ve order another iteration of the Amazon Alexa remote automation for the Kitchen. There are times when my wife is cooking and wants a recipe. While she is doing housework, she wants to listen to music. She might want to talk to her friends face to face without leaving the room, to call up a short video of how to fix something her useless husband can’t manage. She might just want to display a slideshow of her favourite photographs.

The new Amazon Alexa Echo Show 5 will do all those things and more from our kitchen. I’m looking forward to the challenge of setting it up for her. The next thing will be to install a wifi, video door bell which will alert us of someone at the door on our watches, smartphones remotely and allow us to speak to the visitor on this Alexa screen from the kitchen. Very soon, we won’t need to open the door at all.

Wednesday, 11th December, 2024

Another gloomy, dark day. Not going out to early today because it’s just not inviting. This morning is going to be a Xmas card and newsletter production time. Pauline writes the cards because she is the only one left who remebers how to use a pen. I am printing the address labels because I am the only one who knows how to use the database.

We receive newsletters from so many that I can’t stop with mine now. I have been doing it so long that it has just taken me an hour to knock this off today. My little friend in the kitchen is writing, stamp sticking and newsletter folding. I will help carry them to the post box.

I have sunk to a new low. I have drunk a bottle of alcohol-free wine. In preparation for Xmas lunch at home, I bought three, different bottles to trial. So far, I have tried two separate bottles of alcohol-free Sauvignon Blanc which I thought would go with a fish platter. The first one was absolutely dire and nothing like Sauvignon Blanc … well until I tasted the second one which was nearer to white Shloer. I’ve got a third bottle of alcohol-free Malbec. Let’s hope it comes through.

Thursday, 12th December, 2024

A grey, December day. I am enjoying wine this morning …. by proxy. I am sending cases of delicious wine to all my friends around the country. Amazon are a great wine shop aren’t they? I subscribe to Amazon Prime which gives me lots of benefits but one I’m using this morning is ‘free’, next day delivery. All it takes is money …. which is what Chrsitmas is about isn’t it, Dear Reader. No? Well it works for me!

I am a people person. I love people. I love their life stories. This morning I was contacted on DM by a girl called Catherine who I taught in the 1980s. I must admit I don’t remember her at all but she certainly remembers me. She looks like she has grown into a lovely, kind woman.

I often find these contacts quite moving. We forget the part teachers can play in our lives. I always tried to treat the kids as individuals. In fact, I never called them by their real names but made up nicknames based on how I perceived their personalities. At first they resented it but soon began to enjoy the fact that someone had taken the trouble to notice them enough to do it …. although BumFace never quite came round to it. Anyway, I replied to Catherine telling her that I contacted my own English teacher with similar sentiments just before he died and hoping she will not have had the same effect.

I’ve been to Aldi. It was bustling but I won’t be going back in a hurry. I went to buy a couple of bottles of alcohol-free Fizz. On to Sainsburys, which was also busy, for a couple of bottles of alcohol-free wine. Tasting session over the weekend. I’ll will report back later …. if I’m sober. Don’t hold your breath.

Our new-ish car is only 10 weeks old and today has achieved the grand mileage of 999. At this rate, I wil manage 5000 miles a year. Yesterday, I wouldn’t have been that optimistic about getting there at all. Driving back from the beach, a man shot out of a driveway in a Range Rover and almost drove through the middle of me. He stopped with less than 3 inches to spare. I don’t know who was more shocked. Anyway, I smiled and waved as he heaved a huge sigh of relief. We all do daft things.

Driving out to the supermarket this morning, I thought something had gone wrong with my new, varifocal glasses. I really couldn’t see well at all. Were they misted up? I took them off to find I was still wearing my half-moon reading glasses. Silly, old fool!

Friday, 13th December, 2024

Paraskevi Dekatreís / Παρασκευή και 13 / Friday 13th / Just the day for the Dentist! Who booked that for this morning? I’d rather be having my hair done.

Had some lovely newsletters from people I don’t get to talk to on a regular basis. My cousin, David, who is, of course, many, many years older than me, sent me a life update this week. I love hearing about people’s lives and how they solve the problems of living.

I heard from my youngest sister, Caroline, who lives in Ireland and hasn’t left there, she tells me, since 2012. I haven’t seen her since Mum’s funeral and it was lovely to catch up. Pauline had a newsletter from one of her oldest school friends who she hasn’t seen for years. When we first got together in the 1970s, Pauline was spending her weekends playing Netball and refereeing matches. She is a qualified Netball referee. Her friend, Lynn, who became a Primary School Headteacher in Oldham, played in the same tea.

I am going to enjoy Xmas by proxy this year. Not drinking wine but buying cases of wine presents for others. Not eating cake but delivering cakes for others. Not celebrating but leaving that to others. It will be an Xmas without Xmas. You can’t get much more Scrooge than that. I was interested to find Chef using the new Alexa in the Kitchen to entertain her while she worked. Icing the cakes was done to the background sounds of Fleetwood Mac, Leonard Cohen, Elton John – things which haven’t been heard in our house for a long time.

The weather’s pretty Scrooge-like as well. Overcast and uninviting. We’ve had weeks of the red top newspapers telling their gullible readers that there would be avalanches of snow at Christmas. Can you believe it? We are now forecast to be mild and sunny. The North of England will be cool and wet. No snow anywhere. Isn’t life exciting, Dear Reader. Around this time 15 years ago, I was driving over the Pennines in these conditions.

Back from the Dentist without problem. No work and the next checkup on my Plan is the end of June. My favourite part of the process was when they reviewed my general Health. They asked the long anticipated question: How much alcohol do you drink, Mr Sanders? It amused me to be able to say, Oh, I don’t drink. while thinking, at the moment.

Saturday, 14th December, 2024

This weekend marks mid December and is just a week away from the Winter Solstice. Saturday night next week is the longest night of the year. The fight back starts then as days begin to lengthen towards Summer. I don’t know if we will have a Winter this year. It is just depressingly grey and mild.

Funnily enough, my Memory Box this morning threw up a photo of a group of women frozen in time. They were in mild but grey-looking Istanbul. My sister, Ruth, is in the centre of the group. Of course, 15 years on, she remains so much older than me but will always stay frozen in 2009.

On this day, in 2010, we were in France buying wines and presents for Christmas in Surrey. It really does feel so far away and so long ago. So much has happened in the intervening years. We have to make sure they happen again.

On this day in 2013, Pauline gave me one of my Christmas presents which I had requested. I don’t know what phase I was going through. I think it was Malvolio. I’m over it now.

At this time in 2014, we were visiting our old friend, Jill from Middleton, who has been living on the South Coast for 30 years. She was a PE teacher at our school for a while. We were visiting her at her brother’s house in Surrey. The house had formerly been owned by Rick Parfitt of Status Quo and was a rambling old pile with swimming pool and tennis court.

In 2017, I received this portrait of another sister, aka Lizzie Dripping. I think she was going through her intellectual period. Whatever, this is the redeeming element of a tawdry celebration called Xmas. Hearing from people who we don’t see from one year to the next. Today, we had a lovely card from our Doctor of 25 years ago. He bought our house in Helme, Meltham, West Yorkshire. I featured the house a few weeks ago when we found it up for sale.

The Doctor and his wife told us that he is having the same problem we had. When we put the property up for sale in 1999, it took 18 months before we found a buyer. We moved out in July 2000. He has had it on the market since June this year with almost no interest. The market does seem slow in West Yorkshire. He is moving to a large house he has inherited from his family in Norfolk so the sale is not immediately important. Their three sons have all become doctors and one has moved down to live and work near us on the South Coast. He is promsing to come down soon to visit his lads and call in on us which will be nice.

Sunday, 1st December, 2024

Happy December, Dear Reader. I wonder how many more we’ve got ….. Anyway, let’s be positive and optimistic. The next month will be warm and sunny and the new year to come will bring prosperity and joy.

In that vein, the first day of December has opened dark, gloomy and damp-ish. It’s not raining but low cloud is distilling water on the land below including my garden. Still, going out for a walk after the rituals of the first day of a new month are completed.

I don’t need to repeat it for regular readers but the 1st of the month means data. I record our power usage for the previous month on my spreadsheet and compare it with the same month over the decades. It doesn’t really inform our usage but illustrates the different places we have lived. A separate spreadsheet records my Weight, Blood Pressure, INR, ect. That goes back to January 2009.

Today marks the beginning of Year 17 of the Blog. If you are a reader from the first day, hard luck. If you are a new reader, welcome to your new sedative. The Blog is backed up every Sunday morning now it has become an important historical record – for me. I try to refresh it’s design and to readjust it to my changing situation.

The snap shot on the right is from November 2011 when half my life was being lived in Greece. It was known as Hellas Blog – or Greek Blog for the uninitiated. Week 100 was just under 2 years into its development and I was already amazed that I had managed so long. I use WordPress to construct and maintain my story. It is a very flexible platform which allows radical changes in design while mainting the content over time. Unfortunately, a change of design which I make today translates into a change in design retrospectively as well.

Monday, 2nd December, 2024

Gorgeous morning down here. Warm and bright with strong, low sunshine. It makes driving difficult but it’s great to see the sun so I don’t complain. Had to taxi my Housekeeper to M&S this morning. Xmas presents to collect. It is quite busy in the upper clothes floors but the food hall is really bustling.

Directly across the road is the Pier. It has been closed for a few weeks for repair work underneath. They had to wait for low tides to get at the rusting metal struts. At the same time, they were replacing very old piping on the pier itself and redeveloping a swanky, new fish restaurant called Perch.

The views are wonderful when the skies are clear like this morning. You should have joined me, Dear Reader. In old age, these are days to be savoured and shared.

Haven’t been into town for a while. Today, having ventured out of my white, middle class enclave, it is obvious how multinational the population of the town is. Very few Black and Asian people although there are quite a significant number of Chinese/Japanese. Our town has many European and Eastern European immigrants – French, Italian & Spanish but also Polish, Lithuanian, Croation and Ukranian. We rarely see a dark face at all. It is such a shock when we go back to the North of England.

I have nothing against the colour of people’s skins, nothing against Asian people in my community whereas that did seem to be an strong theme underpinning the Brexit vote. We always argued that Brexit would increase Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi immigration as they were drawn in to replace fleeing Europeans. Dark skin immigrants with cultures far removed from our own would replace white faces with cultures largely in line with our own and so it has proved.

Of course, politicians who feel they can’t row back from the disastrous Brexit deal, have been drawn into the ridiculous argument called ‘Small Boats’. As the official data makes clear from the graph above, small boat, so called ‘illegal’ immigration counts for such a small proportion as to be not worth talking about. All assylum seekers amount to just 13% of immigrants and only a small proportion of them come on small boats. The British people are being taken for idiots and they are living up to expectations.

Tuesday, 3rd December, 2024

Well, if this is Winter, I want more of it. Now December and relatively mild although a bit overcast. Today is a day of memories and reunions. I don’t know if you have come across the sentimental poem by Thomas Hood from the 1840s called I Remember, I Remember:

I remember, I remember,
The roses, red and white,
The violets, and the lily-cups,
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday,—
The tree is living yet!

Yesterday I heard again from a lad who I haven’t seen or spoken to since 1967. Keith lived further down the village and his dad was a policemean. Keith, who is about 2 years older than me, went to the Secondary Modern school in Derbyshire while I went to the Grammar School in Staffordshire so our paths didn’t pass much after that.

Keith went on to become a policeman in Burton like his Dad. When he retired, he moved to the island of Kefalonia. He became an entertainer and has lived there for about 25 years. He clearly wants to touch base with his past. It is a natural, human instinct to want to review and revisit the people and places of one’s past. Most of us do it. I have that instinct in spades.

This morning a picture of the village of Apollonia on Sifnos appeared with their homely little Xmas tree. It rather sums up the island we lived on for so many years. The tree is standing outside Lakis Caffenion which has all the feeling of an old, original from an earlier time. Lakis is no longer there but his caffenion goes on its quiet, understated manner. It is near the bank and we would meet to discuss financial arrangements over coffee. I look forward to sipping coffee there again and I will.

I haven’t seen my little brother, Mike, for 5 years. He lives in Wolverhampton and is just 67 years old although he has been retired for quite a long time. I last saw him in Bolton at Ruth’s 70th birthday party as she celebrated her history and drew in people from her past. He told me he was reclusive and he has illustrated that quite well over the years. I get a card from him each year and that is about it even though I’ve invited him down here.

This morning, I received a card from him suggesting he may well be on his way down to the South Coast in the new year. I really hope he does because it would be nice to see him again and show him around the area where quite a few of his relatives have lived over the years.

I have been talking this morning to a dozen or more people who I reunited with after 50 years of absence. I am enjoying it. It feels right. I have more to reconnect with yet and I will. It is my mission and it will happen. Of course we all have fears of what our Past will think of our Present. Will they expect us to be as they remember us from the past? Will they be disappointed? In the end, it is the person not the appearance that matters. We are what we are no matter how old or wrinkly.

The poet, Philip Larkin, used the sentimentality of Thomas Hood’s poem to produce his own brand of cynicism in a poem also entitled I Remember, I Remember which he concludes with the line:

Nothing, like something, happens anywhere.

Philip Larkin: The Less Deceived – 1955

In the poem, Larkin returns to the place of his birth, expecting to experience a rush of nostalgia and familiarity. Instead, he finds himself feeling disconnected and alienated. The places he once knew no longer seem recognizable, and he realizes that his memories of the town are idealized and incomplete. This may well be what we find but my experience has generally been much more rewarding.

Wednesday, 4th December, 2024

Lovely morning and much warmer than expected after the most gloriously clear and sparkling sky last night. The stars really were coming out last night for me and you, Dear Reader. Yesterday, Julie from North Yorkshire reported that her Dishwasher had broken down. This morning heard from an old friend, Diane from Saddleworth, that she is moving after her husband’s untimely death and has a brand new dishwasher for sale. Two friends from different spheres of my experience. Might get them together. Diane is staying in Saddleworth so look forward to seeing her when we go up.

I wonder what you will be eating today. I am going to have home made Museli – rolled oats, raisins, chopped fruit and ice cold, fully-skimmed milk – and then griddled tuna with green beans and asparagus for supper. Sounds quite healthy doesn’t it? And it is. Married to a cook for more than 45 years has meant that I have been eating great home cooking most of my life.

Ready Meals and Take Aways have hardly featured in my life. I was introduced to fish & chips eaten out of newspaper at College and I did eat quite a bit of it in my first couple of years of teaching. Since then, meals have been freshly prepared each evening and I have even enjoyed cooking them myself. I don’t think I have ever bought a Ready Meal since the early 1970s. All our bread is home made. We rarely eat cakes & biscuits, I am not keen on crisps and bacon & ham has been banned for a long time.

I must admit that, at the end of a very hard week of work, Friday night would be Chinese night. We had a wonderful Chinese Take Away in our village and that would be a real treat to start the weekend. Funnily enough, even that would be tinged with guilt on Saturday morning waking up with that dry mouth of Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) which is a flavour enhancer often added to restaurant foods.

This morning, the Labour government announced a program of action against ultra processed foods and I was shocked to hear that we have some of the highest consumption of ultra-processed in the world alongside the USA. It is hard to understand why and it is undoubtedly the source of serious threats to life but particularly bowel cancer and heart disease.

I gave up smoking on the 15th November 1985 and I am really pleased I did. I think I would be dead now if I hadn’t. Of course, wine is my downfall and I am addressing that but at least I never had the taste for fizzy, sugary drinks which are even more dangerous. What disappoints me is that it took me too long to bring myself to healthy things like fish and salad.

This morning, we walked by the sea where three women were swimming under a watery sun and then shopped at the Fresh Fish outlet. We bought sides of salmon, halibut steaks and seabass fillets. This year, Christmas Dinner will not feature turkey but a seafood platter instead. Today we bought or ordered Langoustines, Scallops, and a Lobster to serve with a plate of home cured Gravadlax. Looking forward to it.

Thursday, 5th December, 2024

Heavy rain over a very warm night has given way to a dry but dark sky and soggy world beneath. It is the sort of day when one wakes up and thinks it would be nice to be somewhere else – Athens for example. Dreamed about it over night because the last thing I read before bed was an article about a multi-billion Euro development.

First stayed in Athens in July 1981 en route to a ferry from the Peloponnese to Zakynthos. We arrived at our hotel in extreme heat and in darkness. As we checked in to a cheap, C-class hotel for one night before moving on, arriving at our room with the key in the door, all the lights went out and the hotel was in complete darkness.

No mobile phones with lights on in those days, not even emergency lights in cheap, Greek hotels at the time. We fumbled to get into the room as thunder and lightning roared all around. What we didn’t realise was that Greek power boxes were located on the outside of the buildings and heavy rain always knocked out the power. We were shocked. Greeks just shrugged.

It wasn’t the best introduction to a city that I have grown to love over more than 40 years since then inspite of its problems. If you were to aggregate the weeks I’ve spent there over that time, it amounts to a couple of full years residence. I have walked in the buzzing heart of the market places, met fascinating, noisy, excited and interesting people. Eaten in the most wonderful streetside tavernas and in posh restaurants. I have stayed in the cheapest, roughest hotels and in some of the most upmarket ones as well.

Over the years, things have improved greatly but the transport system has always lagged behind rapidly increasing tourism. I’ve taken my life in my hands and driven across Athens every year without noticing much improvement. At last, modern Athens is developing a 21st Century transport system that will make London look old fashioned. A sign of the times that European membership has afforded Greece to spend £4.8bn on it’s city infrastructure while we struggle to fill parochial potholes.

What worries me about UK is its insularity. It’s fear of the foreigner, the other. It harks back to the mythical Golden Age which rose-tinted glasses make look so much better to some – particularly many elderly, Faragist /Reform Brexiteers. It never was golden and we will never go back to it. In his speech this morning, Keir Starmer talked about the tepid path of managed decline.

We have to move forward. Just a few minutes drive down the road is the genteel town of Arundel with its imposing castle.

A recent newspaper article featured it as the most relaxing place in the whole of Europe. If you are immobile, in your dotage, scared of travel, of foreigners and foreign language, near to end of life – go to Arundel and relax. I want to continue embracing the challenge of activity, learning, other cultures, other ideas, other expectations and demands. Don’t settle back, Dear Reader, and lower your sights. Look to the horizon because:

Only one ship is seeking us, a black-
Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her back
A huge and birdless silence. In her wake
No waters breed or break.

Next, Please by Philip Larkin in The Whitsun Weddings – 1964

Death comes to us all in a huge and birdless silence and, before that, Dear Reader, we should take risks and make as much noise as possible.

Friday, 6th December, 2024

Gorgeous morning after a beautiful night sky … but not cold. Perfect, Winter weather. I hope the rest of the day goes to plan. This morning’s Oncology review can go one of two ways. It is 12 months since I completed my Radiotherapy treatment. My subsequent treatment plan sets 6 monthly P.S.A. & Testosterone tests plus 12 monthly, full body imaging scans. It felt very reassuring when I received it until I read of so many men who discovered metastic cancer long after the all-clear. Of course I want to know as soon as possible but then …. I don’t want to know, Dear Reader.

We have been in this current house for 8 years 9 months. We bought it ‘off-plan’ and then sat and waited for it to be finished. We returned from a month in Tenerife and came back hoping for good news. It was late and we came down from Surrey on this day 9 years ago to check progress. The garage hadn’t even been started by this time. We were desperate to move in. We got through Xmas and then went back to Tenerife for another month before eventually moving in in at the end of March 2016. Even so, where has all that time gone?

Well, all is well. Just had an Oncology review. My blood test showed ‘normal’ testosterone levels. My PSA was 0.2 which seems wonderful and my full-body CT scan showed no metastatic cancer escape. I pointed out that it was a first for any part of me to be described as normal. They told me that these checks would continue for the foreseeable future which is very reassuring. My cheeky neighbour, Dee, said she questioned the result of my testosterone level but didn’t say which way. Going out to the beach under blue skies and strong sunshine to exercise my new bill of health.

Celebrating with a walk by the sea was exactly the right thing to do. Quiet and sunny, it was a place to think and plan for the Future. It has been decided that we will book a month in the Canaries for November and get it fixed up soon. So, that is one of my jobs this afternoon after my Gym session.

Saturday, 7th December, 2024

The predicted storm hit us over night although it wasn’t as bad as expected. Dry but blustery this morning. We went out to the beach for a walk but it soon started raining and the wind was stronger there.

It wasn’t going to be pleasant walking. The sea was angry and the skies threatening. We stayed for a few minutes then drove home. It is going to be a day in the Gym.

I was looking forward to the Merseyside Derby this lunchtime but the Everton v Liverpool match has been called off because of the storm. The pier in Worthing has been closed for safety reasons and so many Xmas activities around here have been cancelled too.

In our house, two Xmas cakes are being marzipanned ready for icing. Normally, I get homemade sweets from the trimmings but not this time. Discipline maintained. Xmas card lists are being scrutinised (Who is dead? Who failed to write last time? Who can receive electronic greetings? etc.) ready for cards being written and addressed.

À propos of absolutely nothing, this chart appeared in a newspaper this morning. It refers back to the topic I was writing about on Wednesday. The difference between a Greek and Italian diet and that of UK is shameful. And we bleat on about farmers and farming. Large proportions of the British public don’t buy fresh farm produce let alone know how to cook it.

Sunday, 24th November, 2024

Incredibly warm but windy night. It was 16C/61F all night and is forecast to remain that way for most of the day. Down at the beach, walkers were leaning into the wind and being buffeted and sand blasted. My skin began to feel like sandpaper and my mouth was gritty.

The beach had been blown back over the promenade this morning and the angry tide was retreating under light grey skies. Actually, the temperature outside has reached 18C/65F by mid day. Quite unusual for the end of November but really welcome.

Walking wasn’t easy and an hour was enough this morning. The rest will be done in the seclusion of the Gym. I have to work on muscular strength as well as fitness and weight loss. The hormone treatment and radiotherapy have definitely weakened my muscle power. It suddenly hit me when I started to lug heavy things (men’s work) around the garden. I was warned of this side effect but dismissed it at the time. I’ve got to build it back up.

This lad above was diagnosed with cancer in his prostate. He had the treatment I did. He thought he was clear but then they found 6 small pieces of cancer had escaped and were populating his body and had developed to the extent that they were incurable. He has a death sentence. I’ve had my dye-injected CT scan to discover if any cancer has escaped or metastasised as they describe it. I haven’t had the results yet. Blood tests on Friday and then the big reveal in a couple of weeks. Can’t say I’m completely calm about it but, at this stage, there is nothing I can do.

I feel dark and searching eyes surrounded by the wrinkles of experience emerging from the mists and gazing on me, knowingly. Fate is there.

Monday, 25th November, 2024

Gorgeous, warm and sunny morning for a walk by the beach. Went out early while it was quiet. Still a few hardy souls were down there breathing the sea air.

Back home in time to meet the Home Security man who was coming to assess our CCTV system with a view to taking it over and servicing it. I need a new software controller to make it more user-friendly and a video-doorbell so that I can speak to delivery drivers remotely. It will come down to negotiating an ongoing price. We won the Lottery at the weekend so that £30.00 will help.

I first moved to the North of England in 1969 and to Oldham in 1972. My memory of that time, particularly in Oldham was of greyness – darkness even and coldness. I found it a harsh and unhappy place, a place like nothing I had ever experienced before. Of course many Oldhamers were far worse off than me. People living in abject poverty. People unable to see a way out.

Last night I watched a bit of Oldham history, a bit of my history played out in a new dramatisation of the Test Tube Baby story called ‘Joy‘ on Netflix. It upset me. I found it very emotional both as a story per se but also the memories of that harsh time I had come through.

There was so much about the story that I didn’t know but particularly the women involved – not just those desperate to conceive but those opposing the whole process on religious grounds and the girl who was central to the success of the whole project, nurse Jean Purdy who saved the project from being abandoned. Oldham Royal Infirmary resisted putting her name on the commemorative plaque until well after her death of cancer at the age of 39. I tell you what also shocked me: Dr Patrick Steptoe was described as dying of old age. He was 74!

Tuesday, 26th November, 2024

I have been recording the minutiae of my life every day for 16 years. Next week begins Year 17. Now, I cannot stop. I thought I was odd, unusual, out of the ordinary by this fixation but I’ve been realising for some time that I’m not at all. So many people have done and still do the same and 17 years is just relatively record keeping infancy. Not all do it on-line, of course, but I found this a couple of days ago in The Observer.

This girl has recorded her life every day for 40 years. That is more than 14,000 entries. Some people want to leave something of themselves to posterity. Some find it therapeutic. Apparently, the habit soared during the Covid lockdowns as people realised that they were living through history. Diaries give you the ability to distil your experiences and make sense of them. I must admit, I often find the whole process painful but cathartic. For historians they are priceless as they record social trends, layers and details that wouldn’t make it into the history books. They plug a gap in the everyday.

The lady in the article concludes that:

…. it’s simultaneously reassuring and dispiriting that I remain recognisably the same me from 40 years ago.  When painful moments are written down I can more easily let them go. Seeing life as a story with an unknown number of chapters left to write is both exciting and daunting. I plan to chronicle the days until I can no longer hold a pen. The only part of the story I’ll never get to write is the ending.

I can see a lot of that in me. There is so much of my young character that I see writ large in my senior self. So many of my weaknesses and strengths are just accentuated in later life. One of them is determination and doggedness. I refuse to give in or let go particularly in something where I have established a position. In the last 3 months, I have walked 7 miles a day every day without exception. What this does to a mind like mine is mean I now cannot not do it. Irrespective of anything else in my life, I have to maintain that standard.

In just the same way, after 16 years of recording my daily life, there are few things that would stop me continuing until Altzheimers gets me as it surely will. Only then will people be rid of me.

My wife is already worrying about what she will do when she doesn’t have a lunatic sitting in his study writing away madly. She sees the Blog as the ultimate summary of our Life together and she is worried about losing access to it. As a result, I not only pay for the webspace to post this Blog but I also rent webspace to post a backup copy which I put up every weekend. Now, all I have to teach her is where to find it.

At the beginning of my Blog journey, I wrote about a lad – a man- from my childhood. He was a youth in my village and 4 years older than me. I went to the Grammar School in Staffordshire and he went to the Secondary Modern in Derbyshire. Like his father, he became a police officer and retired in 2002. He spent a lot of his time on the Greek island of Kefalonia earning cash as a pub/club crooner.

He bought a house there and became a permanent citizen. He sounded very popular and happy. Then his wife died and, recently, I think he has had a stroke which has left him quite debilitated. I contacted him yesterday and his reply was totally unintelligble. It was a matter of all the right letters but not necessarily in the right order.

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper..

T.S. Eliot – The Hollow Men

Until that time, I will keep juggling the spinning plates – Blogging and Jogging. Going out for a walk right now. See you later …. hopefully.

One day, you’ll look
To see I’ve gone
For tomorrow may rain, so
I’ll follow the sun …..

Wednesday, 27th November, 2024

On one of the warmest mornings of the Winter so far, I have a man coming to remove an old (3yrs) oil-filled, wall mounted radiator in the Gym and replace it with a German made, ceramic stone filled wall radiator which is much more economic and controllable. It is wi-fi controlled and can be put through my Alexa Hub so it is adjustable purely by voice instruction. The ceramic stones hold and transmit the heat much more effectively than oil.

The German manufacturers immediately prove they are a class apart. The packaging is brilliant. The installation instructions and aids are outstanding and the radiator has a 15 yr warranty. I am already saving up to replace it in 2039 when I will be 88 yrs old. That is just the year when I dye my hair blonde. Worth the wait, Dear Reader!

Heavy rain overnight but dry this morning. Don’t know what the attraction was down at the beach but these seagulls seem to have got the memo.

I know I was speaking rather lightheartedly about the next 15 years and my expectations. I am incredibly lucky to be able to speak about it at all. The photograph above was sent to me this morning of a young man who would be my age today. Bob Stevenson was a nice and interestingly quirky lad in my tutorial group in College. He died 52 years ago this week of lung cancer. All that life and love missed.

Thursday, 28th November, 2024

Glorious morning again today. Took a defunct radiator removed from the Gym wall to the Recycling Tip and then went on to the beach. Something very unusual is happening to the seagulls. At least I’ve never seen it before. Today they were massing and marauding on the sea edge and flirting with crashing waves as the tide turns.

Lovely walking but I found myself struggling a bit. I am walking around just over 7 miles a day – 50 miles a week at the moment / 200 miles a month. I also do a Gym routine each day. I think you would class that as moderately active. For a man of my age, the daily calorie requirement is 2,200. I am living on around 1500 per day. I am deliberately putting myself into deficit but this morning I hit a brick wall.

I was a bit wobbly as I walked back along the beach road but didn’t think it merited an ambulance. It turned out that there was no emergency. They had just come down for Breakfast. Ah, Breakfast! I remember that.

I’m watching a hauntingly sad dramatisation of the 1970 – 1998 IRA struggle for a free Ireland. It is a desperate part of my/our history, Dear Reader. The bombings, the shootings, the incursion of the British army in Ireland and the infiltration of Irish bombers on the mainland.

Just as in Gaza, there is no real excuse on either side for attrocities BUT, in Gaza, the Israelis have kept the Palestinians hemmed into a relatively small piece of land and continued to annexe more land for a greater Israel. The Palestinians have understandably got frustrated by this process which has denied them Statehood. As a result, they have become increasingly aggressive-resistant.

I have always believed in a United Ireland. It would mean reversing the British annexation that began in 1649 with Cromwell’s invasion of Northern Ireland which outlawed the Catholics and awarded their lands to English gentry and continued through the reigns of Charles II & James II. It was barbaric annexation and ethnic cleansing on the part of British imperialism in the same manner as the Highland Clearances. No wonder the Irish were/are angry. No wonder they took up arms against their oppressors and they were proved right. The British government would never have come to the negotiating table without the brave men and women who stood up and in many cases died for their principles. And now, they are on the brink of an ultimate win.

Friday, 29th November, 2024

You light the skies, up above me
A star, so bright, you blind me,
Don’t close your eyes
Don’t fade away, don’t fade away ….

Oh, all the stars are coming out tonight
They’re lighting up the sky tonight
For you, for you ….

Last night the sky was wonderful as the sun went down and then as the stars came out and shone across the sky. It was magical.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas – 1952

This morning, I have an early appointment at the surgery for tests to inform my Oncology meeting next Friday. The tests are for Testosterone & Prostate Specific Antigen and will be used along with the full body CT scan to decide whether any cancer cells escaped the original treatment. I hope to continue raging against the dying of the light for a little while longer.

The world is such a beautiful place that none of us should hurry to leave it. Walking by the sea this morning, the tide was coming in, the sky was cloudless, there was no wind and the sun was shining warmly. The strange thing is that, instead of just appreciating the moment for itself, I have an irresistible urge to give it meaning by sharing it with my friends, my readers.

Saturday, 30th November, 2024

The end of November is celebrated in two ways down here. First thing under a dull and brooding sky, the Park Run becomes a Beach-side Run today. I didn’t sign up. I don’t sign up for group activities as a rule.

As we went down the promenade, volunteer marshalls were preparing the administration of the event. Some people just like organising and wearing pink vests. The tide was still coming in as we walked and the waves were roaring and crashing on the beach noisily drawing pebbles back into the water on retreat. Very warm and windless. Just missing the sunshine of the past few days. Well, it is nearly December.

The second thing which seems to happen in the first weekend of December concerns Christmas or Xmas as I prefer to call it being an atheist. It doesn’t matter really. I am the original humbug. Xmas really does little for me and even more so when I am on a diet. This year, festivities are completely cancelled for me.

Anyway, the neighbours around here get together to help each other decorate their houses outside. The men carry ladders around offering help each other decorate their homes by lining their eaves with lights. Electricians and builders give their expert support. The women make coffee and carry round mince pies (What else would they do?) and they get together in each other’s house to drink mulled wine and sing carols. Yes, I know. Now you can see why I abhor Xmas.

Fortunately, the householders around us are lovely people who don’t go over the top with their decorations. We don’t have to suffer garish, flashing displays. They tend to be moderate and tasteful and some are token, minimal offerings like this weeping tree. They go up this weekend and come down by the first week of January without fail.

There was a traditional Christmas Fayre in our village of Angmering last night with a brass band, food stalls and the trees on the village green dressed with lights.

I still feel obliged to send Xmas cards especially for those without emails although we will try to send digital ones to many people. Pauline has made Xmas cakes and puddings for others but not for us. We are deciding to eat a medley of fish this year – scallops, smoked salmon, langoustines and crab instead of turkey and no alcohol but I will also integrate my exercise routine into the day.

Sunday, 17th November, 2024

Beautiful blue sky and strong sunshine to start the new week. Just 3 weeks until the Blog has be going for 16 years. Many have died both literally and metaphorically in that time. For some, it was a welcome release. The Assisted dying Bill may be as a direct response to Blog readers.

To celebrate the day, I had my haircut and then went for a lovely walk in the park for a change.

The equipment in the Gym is all computer driven. Computers are sensitive to temperature and low temperatures particularly. Of course, the garage was not connected to the house heating system so I had to have a separate system installed.

I bought an oil-filled, electric vertical radiator which seemed to work well but I soon realised it had a function missing – remote control. While we were away in the winter months, I couldn’t turn it on. This morning, 3 years after installing it, I’ve found it isn’t working. It gives me a chance to readdress the issue.

Things have moved on and improved. There are always benefits for the righteous, Dear Reader. There are so many radiators available that provide an app to control from my phone. That is what I will order tomorrow.

Monday, 18th November, 2024

Lovely morning – mild and comparatively bright. My first job on a Monday is to take the bins out. Was rather shocked to read that some areas in England are so cash strapped that they are proposing to collect Black Bins only once a month. Ours are collected weekly and there is no current suggestion of changing.

Did an early walk by the beach. The tide was on its way out. The sky was watery bright and the air was comparatively warm. The news from the North of England is less comfortable. Quite a bit of snow is forecast for them this afternoon. If I had been at work this morning, I would have been wondering if there would be a problem driving home over the Pennines to night and then getting to work tomorrow. I know we always felt it was our responsibility to be there early, before other staff arrived to make sure things went smoothly, the school was safe and had enough staff to work it.

Sometimes, I get up and suddenly realise I no longer have any responsibilities. A weight is lifted almost like a revelation of freedom. I wonder if I’ll ever throw that off. I don’t know if this happens to you, Dear Reader, but I experience a regular and frequent discomfort in retirement. I cannot sit still and indulge myself for long without getting an uncomfortable feeling of disquiet that I should be doing something and I am ignoring my responsibilites. It’s rather like an inverse imposter syndrome. It is hard to reconcile the fact that I am no longer needed.

While the sea promenade is being redeveloped the old buildings, including the toilets, have been demolished. I’m not sure they have successfully resolved the issue however temporary.

My tutor at College 55 years ago died yesterday. He was 95 and he had relinquished his responsibilities long ago.

Talking to friends/ex-students this morning, we reviewed our pioneering group of 24 boys who went through the 69/72 courses and only 20 are still alive with at least one living is sheltered accomodation. It does make you wonder who is next and under what circumstances.

Tuesday, 19th November, 2024

Humankind has been obsessed with time since, well …. Time immemorial. As Philip Larkin wrote, Days are where we live. What has always fascinated me is our differing reactions to it. What I’ve never been able to understand are the ones who say they have no interest but staying in the moment. The Now.

You, Dear Reader, may be more familiar with Morrisey and The Smiths than I and you will know his song, How Soon Is Now?

When you say it’s gonna happen now
When exactly do you mean?
See I’ve already waited too long
And all my hope is gone

Sometimes the slowness of time can bring real angst. When we long for something else, a watched pot never boils. When we are enjoying an experience, we want time to stand still. We want that moment to go on for ever. Stop the World. I want to get off.

Of course, neither position can be realised in reality but both are responses to our being trapped in the space-time continuum concept of Stephen Hawkins book. I’m not interested in History, people say. Why live in the past? It is not a thoughtful, intelligent or reflective view of our lives. I remember a film in which a family were all in a car driving to the seaside and singing:

We’re here because we’re here because
We’re here because we’re here because
We’re here ….

ad infinitum. The circularity, the very insularity, is almost an attempt to blot out the past and block thoughts of the future. We are here only because we are here is a denial of humanity. It is the ultimate vacuity. I can tell you that getting cancer really concentrates the mind on time left and puts things into perspective.

A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments.

Little Gidding (1942) – T. S. Eliot

There is no present or future, only the past, happening over and over again – now, as Eugene O’Neill wrote. And when we examine those who deny interest in the past, they are the first to recognise and celebrate birthdays, wedding anniversaries, lay flowers at the graves of those who have been and are gone.

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.

Four Quartets – T. S. Eliot

This morning, my wife is off to the Beautician’s for a couple of hours. Quite a lot of restoration is required – reclaiming the past. I’m home alone waiting for a delivery and booking people to install my new radiator in the Gym. And that’s where I will be this morning because it’s raining. Getting fitter by the day and trying to stay alive as long as possible into time future. Have a lovely day, Dear Reader.

Wednesday, 20th November, 2024

What is happening? We have distict signs of frost on the lawn. The sun is out but the temperature is only 2C/36F. Might need a fleece when I walk outside this morning even though we have gorgeous sunshine.

Got some workmen calling first to inspect a small job. The new radiator for the Gym was delivered last night. Some exhausted young man hurriedly arrived in a white van, ran to my house at 6.30 pm with a 50lb package and ran back to his van. He had disappeared almost before I’d closed the door. What a life! Who would be a white van man?

When I was a young teacher, full of vigour and ambition, I was always tired. Mind you, I was surviving about 4 hours sleep a night and studying for an Arts Degree while teaching full time. Later in Education Management, mental tiredness left me driving home with a head feeling like concrete and almost incapable of thought. Now, tiredness is physical and utter bliss.

There is something really wonderful and self-congratulatory about the fatigue of exercise and that is what I feel in retirement. I am an all-or-nothing personality and pushing myself to the limit is genuinely rewarding. An old friend was declaring his achievement of Dry October. Three months without alcohol and counting for me at the moment. All or nothing. I love red wine but I also love my power over it rather than adiction to it.

My new varifocal glasses have proved so successful that I ordered a second pair this morning and my wife who already has 4 pairs of reading glasses ordered a fifth pair combined with sunglasses so she can read her Kindle out in the garden – unless, of course, she’s thinking of wearing them in bed. We went on to buy some Christmas cards – with robins on, of course. This year will be a crossover year. Anyone who can be reached by Whatsapp or Email can expect an e-card. Those who I can only reach by text or snail-mail will get a robin.

On to the fish shop for 2 dozen locally caught sea bass and 2kg of Tuna and then on for a walk. The beach and sea were looking gorgeous today at a time when our old stomping ground of the Pennines was looking as illustrated above.

Thursday, 21st November, 2024

Up before 6.00 am and out before 7.00 am on a cool, dark morning. Driving to Gatwick Airport South Terminal to meet a B.A. flight from Tampa, Florida. Collecting P&C and driving back to Byfleet, Surrey. Just hoping we don’t get caught up in rush hour to the city.

I love driving in the dark and that was the first half of our journey. Long queues at roundabouts as people headed for work. Couldn’t do that every day. We arrived just after 8.00 am but parking was difficult. South Terminal Short Stay was packed. We drove around for some time before finding a spot.

Out across the concourse to Arrivals and the Flight Board which confirmed for us that the Landing would be 20 mins early. We found the Passenger Exit point and waited. And waited. And waited. One full hour after landing, the 5 strong party came into view. The apparatus around flying seems to have got more onerous and time consuming since we first flew 45 years ago. It really makes me prefer to drive if it is a viable alternative.

David, James & Jade went off to their car. P&C came with us. A 40 mins drive to Surrey, drop off P&C and then an hour’s drive home.

This last leg is always lovely but today it was absolutely beautiful with trees in strong Autumn colour in lovely sunshine from a gentle sky. The round trip took us 5 hours and then I had my exercise routine to complete. An hour in the Gym and an hour out walking will do today.

A sign of the times: on this day in 1971, the band, Lindisfarne performed at my College as part of their Lady Eleanor Tour. Look at them now.

Do you remember this, Dear Reader, from 1971? Don’t think I’ve heard it since then. I remember Whispering Bob Harris on The Old Grey Whistle Test though.

Friday, 22nd November, 2024

Gorgeous morning opens with just a hint of frost on the roofs. It had been a night of huge, sparkling stars. Were you gazing, Dear Reader? I was before I went to sleep, perchance to dream.

Busy morning. Lots of shopping and then I am contacting a new security company to discuss taking over our CCTV system. I haven’t been happy with our initial company so I’m going to invite our Burglarm Alarm servicers to take over management. I want them to install a video-doorbell which will alert our smartphones as well.

Can’t believe how lucky we were yesterday. We did the Gatwick Airport run successfully and all went well. Today would have been a nightmare. There has been a bomb scare which has closed all the access roads to the airport.

Those in the airport or arriving back to the airport have been forced to evacuate and stand outside in the cold. There is a suspected bomb in luggage on an arriving plane. Very exciting!

We very rarely eat red meat – occasionally Stuffed Peppers & very occasionally grilled Steak. Tonight I am making Beef Ragoût for Supper. It will, of course, be outstanding and a real treat. I make it from the most wonderful Skirt of Beef from our Butcher. It is so tender, I am almost tempted to turn it into Steak Tartare but wouldn’t be allowed.

Saturday, 23rd November, 2024

I am back in shorts and tee shirt. It went from 4C/39F to 14C/57F over night …. but wet. Exercise will be in the Gym today. On days like this it is a life saver. Kevin in Leeds and Julie on the North Yorkshire coast have both got snow this morning. I’m going to spend a bit of time looking for some sunshine.

First, though, my eye was caught by a story from the mean streets of Oldham. A story appeared in the Manchester Evening News that immediately flooded my memory banks. Around 46 years ago, we appointed a bright new Maths teacher called Frank to our school where he had been a pupil. A couple of years later, we appointed an attractive, young Home Economist called Diane to the staff. Within months, they were an item and subsequently married.

After a short spell, Frank decided he didn’t want to teach in Oldham and he and Diane went off to teach in Malawi. As a staff, we learned the Malawi National Song to sing to them as they left. That didn’t last long and they came back rather sheepishly. Frank went into Insurance for a while and Diane came back to us.

Suddenly, we were told that they were buying a school! It was Farrowdale School in Shaw – a private school for kids aged 3 – 16 yrs. They ran it successfully for 30 years although I think it was harder work than they imagined and not the money spinner they hoped either.

They retired and sold up, about 10 years after us and started the normal retirement travel plan – Australia, New York, Spain, etc. Suddenly and without warning, Frank was diagnosed with a Brian Tumour and was gone in weeks. Diane had been left to continue a long, lonely retirement of narrowing possibilities.

Sorry – all triggered by a news item – and rather sad but a salutory lesson to measure life by.

And so to the Gym all the way across the garden. Two full hours I’ve got to do today. Fortunately, I’m watching an engrossing and intelligently written drama spanning four tumultuous decades during The Troubles in Northern Ireland. It’s available on Disney Plus and called Say Nothing which is what IRA families were taught to do in the face of an authoritarian military occupation from the mainland.

It is our history, my history and centres on the 1972 abduction and murder of Jean McConville by the IRA who suspected her of being an informer. She was a Protestant married to a Catholic in Belfast. She was torn from her family, dragged away and never seen again until her body was discovered some 30 years later. The drama strongly indicts Gerry Adams as a central figure in the action. He has always denied his membership of the IRA in the face of strong evidence. I have always believed that a united Ireland was the only acceptable position and we do look as if that will come about maybe even in my lifetime.

That is Gym-time watching for me alone. Evening sharing is the most unlikely pick for me but I am really enjoying it. You wouldn’t put me down as someone who enjoys stories about love and relationships but that is what I am doing. I pay for Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Disney Plus, ITV-X but ‘free’ on iPlayer is a genuinely funny and gentle series of mini episodes called Cheaters. It is a drama, semi comic series about sex, relationships and infidelity.