Sanders Blog

26th February, 2012

Pauline & I sat outside to read The Sunday Times. It was delightful. The sun was surprisingly hot and my face and arms are instantly recognising the signs. In fact, they are both surprised to hear me still speaking English. The temperature was a pleasant 17C but soon chilled as cloud came over.

Quite an enjoyable football afternoon. It was a joy to watch Arsenal humble Redknap and that was elevated to another level when I saw Scholes and Giggs bring United three points although I felt sorry for Ruth whern I heard of Bolton’s battering.

27th February, 2012

A grey day. Heavy cloud but mild. In Greece, it is Clean Monday – a National Holiday marking the start of Orthodox Lent – when believers are meant to start the cleansing of their bodies and souls by denying themselves meat and meat products. Traditionally, cooks devise ever more clever ways of using fish and shellfish with vegetables. On this day, which is usually blessed with warm, Spring sun, the landscape is carpeted in a blaze of Spring flowers and Greek families take a picnic up on to a high point where they fly kites.

Unfortunately for the Greeks, it is not their year. Today, snow has carpeted Northern Greece. Torrential rain has drenched much of Greece. Gale force winds have kept all ferries in harbour. Happy holiday. May your God go with you!

28th February, 2012

Today is box day. Regular readers will be sick of hearing that, each year, our journey to Greece is preceded by boxes of items we can’t fit in the car being despatched by Parcelforce. In the past few days, Pauline has reviewed more box sites than I knew existed. It is time to buy them. After all the research, we order them from Amazon. They were the cheapest and certainly the easiest to oder from. That is happening so much now. Amazon are beginning to beat the High Street even on price. Delivery is free and the wait is less than three days. The High Street are going to have to beat that or die. Pauline has forward bought most of the things that we need to send – bulk buying when they are on special offer. We use a supermarket comparison site and savings are quite incredible. The boxes, totalling 60 – 80Kg, will be despatched on the Tueday as we set off on the Wednesday morning. We arrive on the Sunday and the parcels will be waiting for us in the island Post Office on the Monday morning. It is a fantastic service.

29th February, 2012

Big day today. We gave the garden its Spring clear-up prior to leaving it for six months. In Slade House our acre of garden would have taken the whole of March to tidy. In Quarry Court, it would have taken two or three days. In our new property where we own a patio and a strip of garden bordering it, two hours was all it took us to prune back and clear. Everything else is taken care of under the Service Agreement which pays for cleaning gutters, sweeping paths, cutting lawns, etc.. It was soon all finished and we were sitting outside with a cup of tea in the sunshine.

Watched the England match – interesting but, ultimately, depressing.

1st March, 2012

Happy first day of March.

Up before 6.00 am this morning. By 6.45 am, we were standing outside Woking Walk-in Hospital entrance for yet another blood test. It is incredibly light, suddenly. Clear blue sky and early sun promise a beautiful day. Usually there are a couple of commuters and a dog waiting for the doors to open at 7.00 am. Today, I was 10th and there were at least another 20 behind me. What is happening in Woking? There must be too much blood around. Last week was the first that my INR was almost correct – 2.7. Now I have to keep it there. Pauline finally persuaded me to like salads, green vegetables, lots of fruit berries. She thought it would help me lose weight. Shortly after the breakthrough, we were instructed not to eat them because the are high in vitamin K which mitigates Warfarin. What a nightmare – a life condemned to meat and roasted root vegetables!

A lovely, mild, sunny day in Surrey. Greece, on the other hand, is suffering a terrible winter. A blogger on the Greek island of Skiathos writes this morning: March has arrived like the months before it, Cold Grey and very wet …In fact it’s tipping it down once again. They had snow two days ago. Greece is really going through it, hence the gallows humour below:

2nd March, 2012

Another absolutely beautiful day that started off a little foggy but soon saw the sun breaking through and the temperature rising to 16C by the time we went out shopping after lunch.

Found this wonderful photo in the paper today.

Thought of pretending it was mine but no one would believe me.

Our development is supposed to be heated by Biomass. This was a condition that the eco-warriors of Woking placed on our builders. Of course, the builders were only bothered about profits and factored in the instalment of this technology. Running costs were worked out on the back of a fag packet and put in the literature as fact. As soon as we moved in, the Management Company told us that the builders had grossly underestimated the costings which would be at least double. A Residents meeting immediately decided to drop use of the Biomass but it remains as a back up. This week, a huge fire broke out in a power station in Tilbury, Essex.

The biomass fuel is usually pellets made from waste sawdust. It is poured down a hopper into the burning chamber. Obviously, a large store of such material is required but it is, by definition, highly combustible. Some say it is even prone to spontaneous combustion like a compost heap if it gets a little moisture in it. Our biomass store and burner is in the undercroft carpark. Pauline & I think that is a bit too close for comfort and we’ve begun to agitate for its removal.

2nd March, 2012

Pauline is leaving me. Well for a couple of hours. We have hardly ever been apart for that long over the past two or three years. She is going ‘girl-shopping’ with her sister and her niece. It will do her good. I am going to watch Liverpool v Arsenal.

19th February, 2012

Happy 60th Birthday, Bob. Received a nice email reply from Bob and I have suggested Pauline & I will take him & Jane out for dinner when we come back from Greece in October.

20th February, 2012

One of the things that exercised us when we decided to spend 6 months of the year in our Greek house was Health cover. We both have EHIC (European Health Insurance Cards) which, nominally, entitle us to treatment under the National Health Service of the country we are in. Greece has some fantastic Hospitals to rival many UK facilities but they are not in the Public Service. They are privately owned and funded. Here, for example, is the Onasseio Cardio-surgical Centre in Athens. As its name suggests, it was initially financed by Aristotle Onassis but now charges big fees paid by medical insurance companies.

Most wealthy Greeks take out insurance policies. We enquired about the cost. It would have been £5,000.00 per year which is rather steep for six months each year particularly when we are entitled to free treatment. We don’t want to become American, do we? As a compromise, we take out six months travel insurance which will cover us in a private hospital if anything serious happens and repatriates us if that is appropriate. The cost for two of us over 180 days in Europe is just under £300.00.

21st February, 2012

It is getting warmer – 12C today with 16C predicted for Thursday. The lady across the way with the fat, black cat, moved out today. I will miss the cat!

I tied up the rest of our Greek trip today. I booked the Tunnel crossing for early morning April 4th. I booked the Holiday Inn, Mulhouse, Alsace for that evening. I booked the Holiday Inn Express in Parma, Italy for the next night and the next day we board Superfast Ferries.

22nd February, 2012

After breakfast, we looked through our accounts for the last six months in Greece. Apart from extraordinary items like building work and a trip to Athens which we accounted for separately, living at the Greek house, cost us just £4000.00 for the six months. Even though the Euro settlement has been signed, we don’t trust the probity of Greek Banks and will carry all the cash we will need with us. I ordered another £3000.00 of euros from the International Currency Exchange and got them at £1.00 = €1.175. An hour later, the rate dropped to €1.16. This would have provided us with €45.00 less. I expect the rate to fall more in the next few days.

23rd February, 2012

After Breakfast, we drove to the Farm Shop in Chobham. Pauline and I had discussed the importance of reinforcing and forwardly oiling the wheels of the people who provide us with services in Sifnos. Panos & Rania at our favourite restaurant, Nikos & Chrissopigi our electrician and his wife, Giannis & Poppi, our plumber and his wife, Kostas & Maria, the woodman and his wife, Moshka & Apostolis who own the supermarket and the ladies in the Accountant’s office. We had discussed the possibility of Pauline making some jam and some chutney but time has run out so quickly that she’s not going to manage it. Instead, we resorted to farm shop produce. We hope to give each couple a little bag with one sweet and one savoury jar. Victoria Plum, Raspberry, Rhubarb & Ginger are the sweet offerings. Beetroot, Apple and Rhubarb & Chilli are the savoury choice all badged with an English Farmshop label.

The weather was so warm for mid – late February that we went out and bought a garden table and chairs. I opened a chilled bottle of Pinot Grigio and we drank it outside with a bowl of peanuts in 17 – 18C. We have forecasts in the papers today that we will reach 28C in the next few days. Thank goodness for global warming!

24th February, 2012

More shopping today. We managed to secure the last leg of our journey out to the island. April 8th, 11.00 am we will have driven down to Piraeus harbour and boarded a catamaran ferry which will do the journey in 3 hrs 15 mins. Aegean Speedlines will charge €159.00 for the privilege.

Later in the day, we went to transfer two cash ISAs from Santander to the Halifax. They matured a couple of days ago and were being downgraded to about 2%. It’s still not great but 3.5% at the Halifax may look quite good soon as inflation falls rapidly.

25th February, 2012

Wonderful sunshine again today and our courtyard reached 24C (in February!). We read the papers outside as the sun shone. Lunch – salmon and smoked haddock fishcakes with haricot bean salad and garlic bread – with a delicate bottle of white wine. At this time of year, the sun is low and, by 3.00 pm had started to go behind the trees. We went inside and I watched England narrowly lose to Wales at Twickenham and then flicked between Man. City thrashing Blackburn and England thrashing Pakistan. I only watched the cricket at all because Ruth kept texting me about it.

While I was lazing around watching sport and reading the paper, Pauline was researching box sizes on the internet. In the days before we set off, Pauline will pack two, large boxes full of things that we don’t have room to carry and we will take them down to the Post Office for shipping by Parcelforce. We have been doing this for about the past seven years and this is by far the cheapest carrier. We have never lost a parcel and they are in our local island post office almost before we are.

12th February, 2012

It was -4C in the garage when I went down to the car at 8.00 am. to go and get the papers. The air took my breath away as I go out of the car to buy the papers. I bought the Sunday Times and The Sunday Telegraph but I’m not going to do that any more. They just take too long to read. I will buy the Telegraph on Saturday and the Times on Sunday.

Watched Wolves destroyed by West Brom and felt sorry for Mick McCarthy. Felt really miffed that City managed to nick a goal against Villa.

Spent the day listening to Greece and the decision in parliament. The nonsense by a few anarchists was predictable but will still put tourists off this summer which is exactly the opposite of what Greece needs and wants. The decision will be at midnight, our time, and will almost certainly be in favour.

13th February, 2012

It is mild Monday and the temperatures are due to get warmer as the week continues. As we are off to France, that is pleasing.

For some insane reason, Nat. West have always put us on the highest category bank account. It has a qualification of earnings way above our pension but it has numerous benefits that are helpful to us. We get free:

• European Green Flag Breakdown Cover
• Annual Travel Insurance
• Worldwide VIP Airport Lounge Access
• Mobile Phone Insurance for 4 phones
• Card & Document (i.e. Passport) Protection
• Identity Theft Protection
• Home Emergency Cover – burst pipe, boiler breakdown, etc.
• Automatic £10,000.00 overdraft facilities

I spent the day bringing these things up to date, registering our mobiles, our changed credit and charge cards, our new passports, etc.. It’s amazing how time consuming it is. How did I do these things when I was working? Well, I neglected them most of the time and then jammed it all into a weekend.

14th February, 2012

Positively balmy 6C today. The sun is even trying to break through. In Athens it is 16C. I might pop over for a coffee. I could afford the flight but €5.50 seems a bit steep for a capuccino and that’s what they’re charging in Athens currently.

The foreign currency arrived this morning in three, small, 1st class Parcelforce packages. We immediately counted it out and everything was perfect. £5,000.00 bought €5875.00. We will use them again and buy another £5,000.00 now we know it works.

Just remembered that it’s Valentine’s Day. After 34 years together, we really are past all that and that is a nice, warm feeling!

15th February, 2012

We heard last night that the Greek deal was unravelling. Other Europeans were making bellicose remarks about preparing for Greece to leave the Euro. We think that they are negotiating positions but it is all taking too long for us.

By 6.45 am, we were standing outside Woking Walk-in Hospital waiting for a blood test. The lady who did mine, turned out to have lived and trained about a mile from where we used to live in Huddersfield. No wonder she did such a good job.

Decided to book our Ancona Patras return ferry tickets today. Last year we go a 50% reduction for booking early. This year it’s only 10%. We get an extra 10% for being over 60 and we always save 30% for booking the return journey at the same time. I’ve written before that we always treat ourselves to a Luxury cabin for the 20hr crossing from Ancona to Igoumenitsa (in Greece) to Patras on the Peloponnese. Last year, the return trip cost £493.00. This year it will cost £967.00. Thank goodness Pauline’s rich. The boat is lovely with excellent cabins, swimming pools, shops, restaurants, etc. but it is still a huge price hike which I think they will come to regret.

16th February, 2012

Up even earlier today – 5.00 am. We want to beat rush hour traffic because we are off to the tunel. Out of the house by just after 6.00 am, we were checking in by 7.15 am. It is all done automatically by numberplate recognition these days. The return trip for the car and up to nine passengers cost £22.00. We rolled on at 7.50 am and off at 8.20 am – (France 9.20 am). We went to our wine store and bought 200 bottles. That is 18 bottles  for Phyllis and Colin and 182 for us. Sounds reasonable really. Ours will be packed in the car and taken to Greece – one bottle for each day we are there. We went to Auchan in Coquelle to buy some groceries – smoked and garlic sausage, packs of rabbit joints, duck joints, duck breasts, jars of Dijon mustard, some wonderful cheese, etc.. We had a coffee and ham & cheese sandwich in a little cafe and then set off back to the tunnel. We were back home and unloaded by 2.00 pm.

17th February, 2012

After breakfast, Pauline cut my hair as she has done exclusively since 1978. I wouldn’t know what to do at a barber’s now or how much it costs. Signs of grey are increasingly threatening to break in. If Pauline cuts it short and controls my tendency to bushiness, then she maintains what she endearingly calls ‘pepper & salt’ colouring. Even so, I don’t think I’m doing badly for my age and I haven’t gone bald like Dad which has always been my greatest fear. I will be 61 in seven weeks which means Bob is coming up to the big celebration of 60. Always makes me feel better! As you can see, he may be a year younger and a few pounds lighter but he’s had to resort to a comb over. Perhaps if he did’t drink so much…Happy birthday for Sunday, Bob.

18th February, 2012

The morning started beautifully in full sun and blue skies but soon greyed over and started to rain. Anyway, after getting the paper, it’s a day in for us. I’m doing slow-cooked rabbit with shallots, carrots and celery. It is braising in a bottle of red wine along with some chicken stock, fresh rosemary and flat-leaved parsley. Towards the end it will have harricot beans stirred in which will help to thicken the sauce. It is already smelling great. I’ve even put the head in to the slow cooker for flavour but I will take it out towards the end.

Now I’ve fixed the dates for going through the tunnel – April 4th, the date for getting the Ancona ferry, April 6th, I can book two hotels – one in France and one in Italy – for the journey down. The distances haven’t changed so we are going to structure the journey in the same way as last year:

• Day 1 – 7 hrs driving to Mulhouse in Alsace.
• Day 2 – 5 hrs driving to Parma in Italy.
• Day 3 – 3 hrs driving to Ancona in Italy to get on the boat.

This is a job for Saturday or Sunday. I will use Booking.com.

It is Bob’s 60th birthday tomorrow. We are the same age for a month and a half. I sent him this:

5th February, 2012

Quite a bit of snow fell over night. Well, a couple of inches. In Yorkshire, it would just have been a normal May morning. In Surrey, it was akin to walking to the North Pole. We drove out for the papers. Hardly any one was on the road.

Watched Man. U. draw with Chelsea in a match which they should have won easily.

6th February, 2012

The snow is disappearing rapidly. As we waited for a settlement to the Greek bailout negotiations, I spent time researching and reading up on how the Greek economy had been allowed to get to this state. It will form the next chapter in my other, much neglected Blog – Living on a Greek Island. It will be completed and published this week, hopefully, to coincide with the Greek bailout success.

Merkel and Sarkozy have been very reassuring this morning. Germany will not accept Greece going bankrupt, Chancellor Merkel said in an interview this morning. ”We refuse to (accept) a Greek bankruptcy. We can’t accept that,” she told ZDF German TV.

7th February, 2012

Glorious, sunny day. The big, black cat who lives across the courtyard seems happy for the first time in weeks. We are going out for a walk this afternoon.

It was still -3C when we set out for our walk but lovely and sunny. The neighbours black cat kept trying to walk us to his door in the expectation that we would open it and looked quite crestfallen when we didn’t.

Next to our development which is red brick, is the convent building. It looks 1890s – 1900s in style and is built in a yellow ochre/orange brick with some pretentions to neo-Gothic which was popular at that time. It is surrounded by huge fir trees and rhododendrons. In the low, winter sunlight it looks beautiful. Next to it is a wreck of a house with white, painted pebble dash walls, peeling, broken window frames, a botched lean-to-cum-car-port and greying net curtains. It is on the market for just under £600,000.00. You couldn’t buy a garage around here for under half a million and the weird thing is, that hit us as soon as we came down, people don’t seem to care about or look after the outsides of their homes at all. They may do with the insides but they certainly don’t go for curb appeal.

The other strange thing is that we constantly get people trying to sell/buy our property. We get flyers or tatty pieces of paper through the door asking if we would like to sell because buyers are actively looking in the area. You would never get that in Yorkshire. It took us a year to get a viewing. From advertising to sale takes about six weeks around here.

8th February, 2012

One of the things we like about our development is that, even though we are a duplex with our own external front door, we don’t have to have those dreadful ‘wheelie bins’ outside our front door. There is a bin store with about ten, black, mobile refuse bins which are for general rubbish and ten more with blue tops for recycled stuff which I don’t really understand but Pauline tells me that I can put plastic, paper and cardboard in them. Fortunately, there is always space so you can dump anything you want. For example, we were getting rid of an old coffee maker. You just put it in a plastic bag, leave it at the side of the bins in the store and the rubbish men will take it. We had a mattress to be taken. We phoned the council, paid £10.00 over the phone and left our mattress in the store ready for collection. All rubbish is kept discretely out of sight then taken away and dumped on China or Africa or somewhere else.

Today, we have had a scandal. Somebody was spotted – not a resident – dumping a mattress and a large, pink, plastic slide in the store with no prior payment for collection. Fortunately, one of the residents is a private detective and he apprehended the miscreants who admitted they weren’t residents but were related to residents. They just wanted to avoid the charge. We are waiting for action to be taken over this by the Management Group. Oooh!

9th February, 2012

Another Thursday, another early morning at the hospital. Standing, queuing in freezing temperature at 6.45 am is not my idea of fun but it beats sleeping. More blood given. Woking Walk-in Centre have more of my blood than I do now.

Greece tentatively agreed a debt settlement last night. We might be in the clear for a while. It has come at a huge cost to the Greeks, however, who have had to take even more cuts to wages and pensions.

We were visited by Ms Lise Andreassen from the University of London this afternoon. She is doing her Doctorate on people’s adaptation of green technologies that are required in the building of new homes. We tried to convert her to our scepticism of climate change but we didn’t really succeed. Anyway, she is Norwegian.

10th February, 2012

It started to snow here about 7.00 pm last night. It was still snowing at 3.00 am. When we go up this morning at 7.00 am, it was melting in the weak, winter sunshine. This was the scene from our front door:

If you ever read The Magic Far away Tree by Enid Blyton and I lived in it for a week or two when I was six, below is how I imagined it to be:

Because we have some building projects to pay for in Greece when we get back, we will need finance above living costs. Normally, we would electronically transfer money from our English currrent account with Nat. West to our Greek Account with NBG (The National Bank of Greece). With the instability of the Greek economy at the moment, we don’t want to stick £10-15,000.00 in a Greek Bank which might crash so we have had to consider alternative ways. We will buy euros in UK and carry them in big denominations to Greece. When we have had to send large amounts of money (£20,000 – 50,000.00) in the past, we would use Nat.West Standard Transfer for which the would charge £20-30.00 but give us only marginally above tourist rate even though, as Private Banking customers, we were supposed to get preferential rates. Today, I have decided to take the plunge and use a Forex specialist. I bought £5000.00 at €1.1742 which is so much better than Nat West’s €1.12. So I got €270.00 more from I.C.E. (International Currency Exchange) than I would from Nat. West.

11th February, 2012

Got up to a lovely, sunny day with an outside temperature of -11C. This is the lowest we have experienced down here. It will be interesting driving out for the paper.

It was -4C in the garage but the roads were fine. The lady who served us in Asda had come to UK from Tanzania (made up from Tanganyika and Zanzibar) more than 30 years ago. Its first president was Julius Kambarage Nyerere who was very a very forward thinking, Marxist-based, political philosopher. I had to study his Education policy in my first degree. I think she was rather surprised I knew of him. The cosmopolitan nature of society down here is incredible.

Just watched Man. U. cruise past Liverpool like a Mercedes S-Class past a VW Beetle. Very childish behaviour from Suarez but also from Evra at the end.

30th January, 2012

The M62 in West Yorkshire was closed temporarily by snow last night. Here in Surrey, the days are still mild with a little edge on the breeze. We certainly haven’t seen any snow and it is our ambition to go for a whole year without seeing any. We are going through fully blown Spring inside our flat:

The morning started badly with England throwing a victory away and capitulating to Pakistan

and then got worse with United throwing an easy victory away and letting Liverpool in.

31st January, 2012

Last day of January – can you believe it? Cold and frosty outside this morning. In fact, my computer said it was -4C this morning when I got up. We keep hearing that snow is on the way but there is no sign so far. In Greece, for the fourth consecutive year, they have snow. People have been told that they can only drive with snow chains on this week. When you know the poor quality of some of the older houses, they must be freezing.

The debt negotiations seem to go on for ever but really are on the brink of conclusion. You still don’t feel that the Greeks are really meeting the rest of Europe half way but that is duplicitous Greeks for you. The EU said – You must privatise your Nationalised industries. Against their will, the Greeks agreed. The electricity generation industry was opened up with new companies coming in to challenge the state provider. However, the market was so skewed that the state company kept all its advantages of customer list, etc, as when it was a monopoly. As a result, the  competitors collapsed within months and they are back to stage one. Very little else has been achieved in the privatisation process.

Fantastic game tonight in which Everton beat Man. City. It was a really enjoyable match made better by United winning and Chelsea drawing. The icing on the cake was Ashley Cole being sent off. Poor old Mancini blamed himself.

1st February, 2012

Happy February to you all.

Nine weeks until we leave for Greece. With freezing temperatures in Greece and heavy snow in Italy, we have to hope the weather improves rapidly.

Had to do a bit of shopping today and, although the temperature was hovering about 4C, it felt much colder in reality. We should have been going swimming but a delivery – of a new vacuum cleaner – which should have been yesterday and failed to turn up is now rearranged for today. Once again, they have failed to give us a specific time band in spite of bragging on their website and on their answerphone that they do. They even swore blind that they did turn up yesterday and put a card through the door but they are lying. Let’s hope they turn up today.

Phyllis and Colin are coming for Lunch tomorrow so Pauline is busily cooking in preparation for that. I have been replying to a woman from The Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London. She is doing a Doctorate on Green Stuff. She is interested in our exciting experiences of Heat Exchangers and Biomass Burners and how it has made us so much more aware of and responsive to Global Warming and Climate Change. Poor girl! She is in for an interesting afternoon. I think I will open a bottle of red wine to soften the blow for her. She is Norwegian, poor girl!

2nd February, 2012

A day cold enough to take your breath away. By 6.45 am I was queuing outside the walk-in hospital. The doors open at 7.00 am. In that temperature of about -4C, it wasn’t easy standing outside. The doors open at 7.00 am and I was 4th in the queue. Even so, I was home by 7.15 am. and eating breakfast. We had to be out again at 9.15 am for Pauline’s appointment with the doctor to review the results of her x-ray which show early signs of arthritis but nothing much more which is pleasing.

Phyllis & Colin are coming for lunch today so it is my job to dop the hoovering. The new vacuum we ordered has still not arrived so we have borrowed an old Dyson that weighs five tons for me to use. After completing my work, I have a lie down while Pauline completes food preparations. The meal turns out to be wonderful – Steak pie with new potatoes, snap peas in garlic butter, green beans and delicious carrots. Colin was driving but Pauline, Phyllis and I shared a bottled of iced Pinot Grigot. Phyllis and Colin lived 60 years of their lives in Oldham so Pauline tries to create things for them that they can’t get in Surrey. So, she made Holland’s Pies (a mixture of pork and beef in water crust pastry) and ‘Japs’ (a type of multi-layered macaroons) which remind them of their past.

We had a lovely meal and Phyllis could hardly walk as she left.

3rd February, 2012

A very cold day. When I went down to the garage, the car read -3C. I drove down to the paper shop on heavily salted roads and the car read -6C. We went out later to do shopping at Tesco and had the car cleaned. I couldn’t imagine what their hands must have felt like in that temperature.

4th February, 2012

I had entertained the hope that I might get through the winter without seeing snow at all. Unfortunately, today a light smattering of snow has fallen. It was very warm in our flat but it is amazing how cold outside affects the psyche. I made Cassoulet for our evening meal – a real, hearty winter warmer.

22nd January, 2012

Breakfast, papers, football. Disgraceful win for City with Balotelli still on the pitch. What was the referee doing? Fairly disappointing win for United given their early dominance.

23rd January, 2012

One of the delights of living down here is to take advantage of special offers from Eurotunnel such as a £22.00 return crossing that they sent me today. We have booked this morning to do a shopping trip in three weeks time.

Went to the pool and had a lovely swim. I managed ten lengths this time. We have quite a busy week so the next swim could be Thursday when we will expect to do twelve lengths.

24th January, 2012

A wet day today but not too cold.The app. on my PC shows 3C at 9.30 in the morning. If all goes well today, Amazon will collect our faulty coffee maker and deliver a new one

Amazon have done exactly what they promised. They collected the damaged coffee maker at 11.00 am but didn’t deliver the replacement until 6.30 pm. I will unpack and test it tomorrow.

Watched a really good League Cup semi-final in which Cardif beat Crystal Palace on penalties.

25th January, 2012

Grey and overcast and quite cold outside. After breakfast, we unpacked the coffee maker and made our first cups of coffee. I have a huge, assorted pack of ESE pods. This morning we tried Izzo Caffe 100% Arabica ESE pods from Naples. They were wonderful.

Later in the morning, a nest of coffee tables were delivered from Oakland Furniture. These virtually complete our furniture buying for this year.

This afternoon, we went out a bought Asda’s entire stock of Wash & Go because it was on a very cheap offer. It will be sent to Greece where it is very expensive and I get through something like fifteen in the six months.

26th January, 2012

Woke up at 5.30 am today. I hadn’t slept well because I’ve pulled a muscle around my shoulder blade – probably swimming – and I couldn’t find a single position in bed where it didn’t hurt. When I got up, I found that the toilet in the en-suite had sprung a small leak. The beauty of buying a new property is that, for the first two years, we just phone customer services and a plumber comes round and fixes it for free. By 6.45 am, I was standing outside Wolking Walk-in Hospital waiting for my blood test. By 7.10 am I was home watching England v Pakistan. After breakfast, I fell asleep on the settee.

While she was hoovering, Pauline blew up our Dyson vacuum cleaner and we will have to replace it. Fortunately, Phyllis & Colin had a spare one – as you do – and we have borrowed it. We’ve invited them for lunch next week. Pauline will make Colin’s favourite – meat pie. Colin is, of course, a Lancashire lad and loves the famous Holland’s Pies.

27th January, 2012

After breakfast today, the sun came up and bathed the flat in warmth and light. I watched England continue to do a good job on Pakistan. Broad and Panesar were particularly impressive.

Pauline, who went for an x-ray on a lump on her shoulder which seems to be giving her pins & needles and some numbness in her left arm, had a telephone consultation with a doctor today. It seems that is what the do here. It seems that she is suffering from early signs of Arthur as arthritis is know in her family. All the women in her family suffer from it. She is being offered physiotherapy and cortizone injections. We are disappointed as she is so young. Like her Mum, she will probably suffer from it for the next forty years.

After lunch, we decided to take advantage of the beautiful, mild and sunny afternoon and go for a walk. Our property is in Maybury Place which is just off Sandersy Lane. Not only are our gated grounds lovely and quiet but Sandy Lane is a dead end for cars so is also very quiet. At the end of the lane is a narrow, muddy track where only walkers can go but which leads to Maybury Hill and to a gastro-pub with a fantastic reputation for food – The Maybury Inn.

We had a walk up there and back round our own grounds of the old convent which are magnificent.

15th January, 2012

A cold, bright and delicious day here today. Sunday papers and football. The temperature outside hardly rose above -3 but we suddenly realised as we went to bed that the heating hadn’t been on all day and we hadn’t noticed.

16th January, 2012

Sun and blue skies in Surrey as Greece play poker right up to the deadlines in Europe. I still expect a deal to be done but they are beginning to make me nervous.

I don’t think I’ve told you before but I am having this recurring dream where I am an English teacher, it is time for a lesson but, when I look in the books, I haven’t marked them. No great deal really but I wake up anxious and then, suddenly, realise that I’m not a teacher any more. Relief floods across me and I go back to sleep. As a teacher, I regularly hadn’t marked the books but it rarely gave me anxiety and I haven’t been an English teacher for nearly twenty years. I could do with ditching this dream. Perhaps I’ll retire from it.

17th January, 2012

Now I’ve retired from it, I’ve got time top watch the cricket. Unfortunately, England decided to have an off day. Pakistan easily bowled them out for under 200.

Spent some time helping Pauline back up her files in the cloud. She uses Windows Live. It really makes sense because her files will always be safe there – as long as she remembers her login and password.

We had an email from our friend, Rania, on Sifnos. We are having about 50 metres of walling built at the front of our property. It is being done by an Albanian friend of ours called Nikos and his team. He doesn’t speak any English but has been to see Rania to tell her that our big, iron gate has been damaged and goats have got in to the garden. He wants permission to go ahead and get the gate repaired. I have had to tell him to do it immediately and I will pay him in April.

18th January, 2012

I’ve enjoyed fresh coffee for a long time and, over the years, I’ve bought a lot of coffee making machines/gadgets. Some have been so complicated, I gave up with them, some have been barely adequate and they sit in a cupboard and some have been great but expensive to use. For example, I have two espresso makers in Greece which I had given up on while we were working in England because they were so messy and time consuming. For five or six years, we have been using pod machines because they are so much more convenient. We have had two Bosch Tassimo machines which have worked well, produced a consistent cup of coffee from a wide choice of pods but cost 25p per cup.

The machine costs about £100.00 and we have had two over the years. Now, however, the second one has gone ‘phut’. I have decided to go back to ground coffee machines but which also take ESE or Easy Serving Espresso pods.

I have chosen a Cuisinart Espresso Maker which is reasonably priced at about £170.00. I have also found an on-line firm that will sell me ESE pods at 16p per time.

19th January, 2012

Went to the pool for a swim this morning. It is a competition-sized pool and twice the length of the one we used to use at our Health Club. I was absolutely knackered after six lengths. We haven’t swum for four months and it told on my arms and legs. We just have to keep going back until it improves.

Recently my INR has been all over the place. We couldn’t find a reason for a long time but we now think it is because we have stepped up our intake of green vegetables to try to help me lose weight. Unfortunately, Warfarin is interferred with by Vitamin K. I should avoid things carrying vitamin K like all my favourites:

Pauline is tearing her hair out trying to sort out a diet for me! She’s just made some biscuits.

20th January, 2012

How Amazon managed without us when it started, I cannot imagine. Pauline & I have sustained this economy for all the months we have been back in England but the 0.6% growth in sales in January can be tracked, in its entirety, through our ‘Home Accounts’. Today, a series of delivery men have been ringing our door bell with parcels of items that are going to Greece to get us through the next six months. I think today we have had four since 8.00 am and we still have one to come.

It’s just arrived and it’s beautiful. Typically Italian machined steel. It is heavy and sexy. I love it. It has a three year warranty as well which should just about see me out – not before I die but until I want another one.

You will not believe this. It does not work. IT DOES NOT WORK! It is dead as a dodo even when plugged in. We’ve check the plug and fuse to no avail. It came from Reading this morning by van. I am going to throw it back to Reading from the roof top tomorrow.

21st January, 2012

A grey day illuminated by the emergence of our hyacinth. It seems to be straining a bit but it has been in the downstairs toilet since Phyllis gave it us in November. I think it’s nice.

Didn’t Norwich do well but Chelsea were pretty poor. I can’t feel sorry for Torres. He shouldn’t have deserted Liverpool.

8th January, 2012

Off to the paper shop in beautiful sunshine. I drove past a magnificent camelia tree in full flower. Mum would have been so jealous of flowers in the second week of January.

After watching Man. U. beat City 3-2 in the FA Cup, I produced a spreadsheet of my drug stock and projected forward to the first week of October. These are the sorts of ground breaking things you can do in retirement. I joke but the process is absolutely crucial. I cannot afford to run out and I really cannot afford to buy these drugs in Greece if they were obtainable or not. I’ve worked out that, on the open market, my drugs would cost me £150.00 per month. With the help of our previous doctor in Yorkshire, we have managed to build up a stockpile which reaches to the beginning of October but we need to continue building this up for future years. It seems strange to us that we need to be manipulative like this. Upstanding citizens with a right to medication but who want to travel abroad for six months at a time.

9th January, 2012

Had to go for my annual Diabetic Eye Test this morning. This takes about an hour. I have drops in 20 minutes before the tests. By the time I’m ready, I have to be led by the hand. Nowadays, I have a number of photos taken of the back of my eye. Hopefully, all will be well and I will return for another test next year.

This afternoon, we continued to address our investments which have matured and require attention rather than let banks stick our money in nil-return holding accounts. I’m cooking dinner tonight – seafood linguine – as Pauline has done all the cooking recently.

10th January, 2012

Pauline is brilliant. She has had a little lump – maybe a ganglion – on her shoulder for six months or more. She is prone to these. Ten years ago she had one in her forearm that was pressing on the nerve and had to be cut out in a Birmingham hospital. This one appears to be associated with tingling in her arm and the arm feeling icy cold. Today she went to see a doctor about it. He has referred her for an x-ray. At the same time, she told him about our drugs dilemma when we go to Greece. He immediately reassured us that we could have the drugs that we need on prescription. This was particularly apposite because the Greek News is reporting:

For patients and pharmacists in financially stricken Greece, even finding aspirin has turned into a headache.

Mina Mavrou, who runs a pharmacy in a middle-class Athens suburb, spends hours each day pleading with drugmakers, wholesalers and colleagues to hunt down medicines for clients. Life-saving drugs such as Sanofi (SAN)’s blood-thinner Clexane and GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK)’s asthma inhaler Flixotide often appear as lines of crimson data on pharmacists’ computer screens, meaning the products aren’t in stock or that pharmacists can’t order as many units as they need.

“When we see red, we want to cry,” Mavrou said. “The situation is worsening day by day.”

The 12,000 pharmacies that dot almost every street corner in Greek cities are the damaged capillaries of a complex system for getting treatment to patients. The Panhellenic Association of Pharmacists reports shortages of almost half the country’s 500 most-used medicines. Even when drugs are available, pharmacists often must foot the bill up front, or patients simply do without.

The financial crisis is brewing a “Greek tragedy” of slowing access to medical care and worsening outcomes for patients, Martin McKee, a professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, wrote in an October article in The Lancet.

The Greek Ministry of Health didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment.

It has always been a problem but is worse now. Pauline’s discussion with the doctor has really reassured us.

11th January, 2012

Another warm and sunny day. We had the front and back doors open to let in the ‘Spring’ sunshine. Greece, on the other hand had this:

Not only had Athens received a dumping of snow which stopped traffic but the winds were Beaufort 9 which stopped all the ferries.

12th January, 2012

Early start this morning. I was outside the Woking Walk-in Hospital at 6.45 am for my INR test. I have found this the best way to get a quick test. Unfortunately this morning, I found myself with the ‘Butcher of Surrey’ and she really hurt me. She had two, vicious but unsuccessful attempts on my left arm. She laughed when she couldn’t find a vein and I was in agony. She took my right arm and began to excavate it with something sharp but failed, once again, to find a vein. Finally, she stuck something akin to a pick axe into the vein on the top of my hand which fountained blood and then swelled up. I walked out in to the still dark morning, covered in swabs and plasters.

After going home to lick my wounds and have breakfast, we went to the Woking Leisure Park. It is, literally, a park which also contains a swimming building with three pools, steam rooms, jaccuzis, etc and another huge building containing gymnasia, etc. We went at 11.30 am. One pool was absolutely empty. Another pool was lightly used. The third pool we didn’t get to see at all. We used to pay £80.00 per month (almost £1000.00 per year) for swimming in a Health Centre. Because we are 60, we can have access through the main part of the day, which is the only time we want to go, for £40.00 per year. We join on Monday.

13th January, 2012

What a lovely day – Friday 13th with clear blue skies and strong sun. We did the London – Brighton Rally today. Well, we did Woking – Brighton in about an hour. It was a delightful drive. We headed for a trawler shop to buy freshly landed fish. It was coming off the boat as we arrived.

We bought enough fish – Sea Bream, Bass, Haddock, Cod, etc., to last us a month and then we drove down to Brighton Pier. We deliberately did the ‘old, retired couple’s thing’ of sitting on a promenade bench eating our ham sandwiches and bathing in the winter sun. The sea was flat as a pancake. It was reasonably quiet apart from the sea gulls.

We drove home and went to see the Halifax Bank in Woking. Over a month ago, we had transferred a matured ISA each into a new fixed-rate ISA package at 3.5%. We signed all the forms and left. After five weeks, we had received no confirming paperwork. When we contacted Head Office, we were told that the money hadn’t been moved. So customer sensitive are they that, without prompting, they gave us financial compensation and backdated our ISA to the original date but on the new, fixed rate of 3.7%. It’s great when the customer is king as Greece is finding out.

14th January, 2012

Heavy frost this morning. Out early to get the paper. I found the owner’s wife, a nice, big Polish woman, plastering the windows with Closing Down notices. She told me that tomorrow will be her last day of trading because the new Asda which opened up about a mile away has taken all their trade. I’ve only just got to know them and they are so convenient! They are offering the shop to rent so, maybe, someone else will take the battle on.

1st January, 2012

Happy New Year. Happy January to you all! Got a text and then a nice email from Liz today. She hadn’t got my card and change of address because she’d moved. She’s talking about going to live in India. I can’t see it myself but who am I to judge. I chose Greece!

Sunday papers and no wine today. A bitter sweet start to the New Year.

2nd January, 2012

Went shopping in Sainsburys Knaphill this morning. Pauline wanted to take back some pillows that she had bought there and considered rubbish when she took them out of their wrapping. A nice old lady who looked a bit like Mum was trying to cross the carpark road. She seemed surprised and delighted when I stopped the car and waved her across. It doesn’t happen much down here. They’re more inclined to run old ladies over. When I got in to the store, she made a beeline for me. Our eyes met over the rhubarb. “Oh that would make a nice change”, she said. “I grow it in my garden but, of course, it’s not ready yet.” It was one of those nice moments of the day.

This afternoon, we donated our smaller television to Phyllis & Colin for their second set. We have a new one being delivered on Friday and mounted on the wall in the Study. Tomorrow, our little man is coming to put shelves up in the Study. We had to make room for it all.

3rd January, 2012

Our little man, Graham, came from Epsom to put shelves in the study, more towel rings in the bathrooms, three mirrors in various rooms and sundry other small jobs. Working in a apartment is decidedly different to a detached house. For example, he had to wait until after 8.00 am before he started drilling. Then, when you’d predict electricity cables coming up from the floor, in the apartment, they come down from above and Graham, luckily, just missed one as he put up the shelves. We sat on tenterhooks downstairs while he worked.

Actually, I am exhausted. There is no way I could have gone back to work this morning. I was replying to emails until after midnight and the up at 6.00 am to be ready for Graham’s arrival. It’s always the same with us. We can’t wait until the person doing the work has finished, been paid and left. It is not as if Graham is not a delightful and interesting person. He is but we are both uncomfortable with someone doing the work while we are sitting around.

4th January, 2012

Things have gone a bit weird this morning. My friend of 30 years and Honda car salesman, Chris Woods, has sent me a photograph oh him in 1978. He is a lovely man about the same age as me; Grammar School educated; well travelled. I sent him the 2004 Honda pricelist I found and a photo of Pauline & I in 2003. He sent me back a photo of him in 1978.

Our little man, Graham Simkins, did all the final jobs yesterday including putting up shelves in the Study. Today, we are reconstructing the services: plugging back in mono printers, colour printers, label printers, scanners, audio systems, internet hubs, wireless transmitters, DVD and Video editors and checking everything works. On Friday, a large plasma television is being delivered and mounted on the wall. I will then release ‘official’ photos of the new study.

5th January, 2012

We went to the Doctors surgery to collect a repeat prescription for me. We are having something of a tussle. Apparently, NHS guidelines say that prescriptions should not be written for more than three months at a time. We go to Geece for six months. Our lovely doctor in Huddersfield would give us two three month prescriptions and tell us to take them to two separate chemists. She knew we wouldn’t abuse that position. Coming to Woking has put us in a whole, new position. Apparently, they suffer from ‘health tourism’ quite badly here. People sign up, get lots of drugs and then never return. We are struggling to find a way round it at the moment.

6th January, 2012

I know I keep saying this but, in the last three months, we have had so many deliveries, tradesmen, service people coming to our new home. They must number in the twenties by now. Almost without exception, they have been eye-openingly lovely people who are desperate to provide not just a good service but better than that and cheerfully. I ordered a 43″ Flat Screen television with wall mounts from Comet on-line. Because I don’t do ‘work’, I ordered the wall mounting service to go with it from Comet. It was about £100.00 extra. It turned out to be an excellent £100.00’s worth. Two lovely blokes phoned from their wagon to say they would arrive in half an hour. They wished us Happy New Year, brought in the large-ish tv and carried it upstair to the Study. With it they brought the wall mounts, two tool boxes and a vacuum cleaner. The van driver was the passenger’s support in this. I told them exactly where I wanted the television.

Within minutes, they had three different drills out. The wall mounts I’d ordered were universal and came with fittings for fifteen different makes. I would have been thinking about the job for months before calling for ‘a little man’ to fit it for me. Lovely people who had driven all the way from Southampton at 7.30 am did it for me in fifteen minutes with no mess or mistakes. The cost of £100.00 was cheap. Now I have a Study with broadband at the desk, a sofa a widescreen Sky Sports. What more could a man want……apart from nice food, plenty of red wine, female company occasionally???

7th January, 2012

The most beautiful day today. No wonder we don’t need the heating. It is 11C outside and full sun. Squirrels are leaping through the trees here shouting, “When does Winter start? I want to dig up my nuts!” Well, you know what squirrels are like.We read the papers while watch/listening to The Pirates of Penzance which Pauline performed in forty years ago.

We have been back in the UK for 13 weeks and we have 13 left before we leave. Next week is ‘Planning Week’ for our return.

25th December, 2011

Happy Christmas to any one reading this. It has been an interesting and low-key day.

Got up late at 8.0 am and had toast & marmalade with tea. Pauline put in a bit of preparation work for food to be taken with us to Mandy & Kieron’s house. I had asked her to keep it simple this year and not put herself under pressure. I spent my time on the internet, checking ferry prices for our Greek trip in April. Usually, I book them on January 1st. Last year, we got a 50% reduction by booking so early which meant saving about £500.00. This year, shock horror, the companies have trebled their prices and early booking reductions are down to just 10%. Last year, a 24hr crossing of the Adriatic in a Luxury cabin cost us just £500.00. This year, currently, it will be £1500.00. I say ‘currently’ because there is no way that they will be able to hold their prices and big reductions will certainly follow. The game will be how late we can leave our booking.

Pauline is caterer-in-chief at lunchtime and takes her responsibilities very seriously – too seriously if truth be told. I suggested that, this year, she pre-made a simple Starter and the Sweet course so that she only had to worry about the main course. She had pre-made two terrines for Starter – Pork & Pheasant and Fresh & Smoked Salmon with asparagus. It was to be served on a bed of green leaves.

We carry everything over in a huge container in the car. When the time came to serve the first course and as I carried out my slicing duties and placing slices on nine different plates, I suddenly learned that each plate needed either servings of fig & apple chutney or tartar sauce, an assortment of green leaves drissled with a mixture of oil & lemon, cracked black pepper and a gherkin sliced three times and fanned out on the plate.

Anyway, it all got done. The turkey was beautiful. By the time the Christmas pudding was served, like so many others across the country, I was too full to eat it. So, everything had gone to plan. The adults chatted. The boys played with their remote control helicopters, Mandy excitedly unwrapped her iPad and showed it around. Then, like the boring old buggers that we are, Pauline & I escaped to the peace and quiet of our own home some ten minutes away. We opened a bottle of champagne and watched Downton Abbey which actually was lifted by the discipline of a Christmas Special and given more bite. We went to bed, tired but happy, as one should do on Christmas Night.

26th December, 2011

Over the years of travelling, Pauline & I have gathered a huge number of photographs which we thought at the time meant something but, through the distance of history, mean absolutely nothing. We have a huge, plastic box full of them. It is almost too heavy to lift. I managed to get it in to the Study but I have no where to put it since the sofa-bed arrived. We are going to spend the morning together going through them all. 95% will then be binned. The remaining 5% will be scanned in and put into a digital collection. I will cry a lot for my past but that is how I am.

What did I mean, spend the morning. It is six in the evening and we have only reviewed half. We’ve got some crackers, though. This was Pauline & me last summer:

Well, actually, it was on Milos in 1983 but nothing much has changed. I then found this from 1984. It is the price list for our first Honda – an Accord costing us £7335.00 less £2935.00 we got for our trade-in, a Datsun Stanza. This is the Stanza:

Click on this for the Pricelist. I remember that we were so proud of our Honda Accord. It had Power Steering and Air Conditioning – almost unheard of in 1984. We couldn’t afford a Summer Holiday this year because we had only just bought the car when Slade House became available and we broke the bank to buy it. This poor photo shows the new Accord parked outside Slade House.

Did you see Ruth at the Bolton match? No I didn’t but I bet she wouldn’t have thanked you for waving. She’d probably gone home by Half Time. Poor girl!

27th December, 2011

More photo reviewing today. I am going to start scanning them in for Albums soon and certainly before I return to Greece. I have very few really good ones of Mum and/or Dad and lots of people have said they do. If you’ve got anything, I would be grateful for as high a resolution copy as you can manage.

Half heartedly watched some football today until it got to Norwich v Spurs which I thought was an excellent game. Is it my imagination or is Sky’s football offerings diminished this season? Answers on an email: john

28th December, 2011

Up at 6.00 am and off to the blood testing clinic. Queuing by 6.45 am but there are still three people ahead of me. Back for toast and coffee and then hoovering and tidying. Phyllis & Colin are coming for lunch. It will be their first visit since the carpets went down and the furniture arrived. They’ve only seen a concrete shell.

Received lovely emails from Panos & Rania and from Margharita Katzilieri and all the other girls working in the Accountants office on Sifnos. All wish us season’s greetings and make us look forward to returning.

Just nipped out to Tesco for a few things. Hardly any shoppers at 10.00 am. Are they all in bed still? What a waste of a day. Filled up with petrol before we drove home. It cost £62.00 which is pretty unpleasant but, instead of every week as it used to be, this is spread over three weeks. Two hundred miles in three weeks is almost unheard of in our lifetime!

We did a cost analysis of retirement. We are pleased to find that our annual commitment only consumes 50% of our pension and we feel that is quite a healthy position to be in. We can support two homes and two lives and still save and invest for the future. It feels good and very fortunate.

29th December, 2011

Civil Servants in Greece – about 150,000 adults – are having their salaries cut for the second time in a year. From January 1st, a civil servant with a Degree and more than 30 years service will have their monthly salary cut to just over €1000.00. Prices in Greece are as high as Britain. How these people will live, I have no idea. What effect these cuts will have on the general economy is obvious. Nobody will have money to purchase goods.

After breakfast on a warm day, we went to a place called Knaphill. It’s only about five miles away from where we live but it has a large Sainsburys and a Homebase. We have our little man coming next week to put up shelves and mirrors and we’ve decided to have some more towel rings in the bathrooms. Pauline has bought three more plus a soap, shampoo, and shower gel holder for the walk-in shower area.

In Sainsburys I bought Pauline a big box of Thorntons Chocolates because it is our anniversary tomorrow and we start our new diet and exercise regime on Sunday. We drive home and, after lunch, spend the afternoon doing paperwork. I went through all the Christmas Cards and the only family member I didn’t get one from was Liz which I thought was strange. I did get a text message from her yesterday but I didn’t fully understand it.  Mike’s card just had the word, ‘Mike’ on it but the writing was so bad, Pauline had to tell me what it said.

30th December, 2011

Our Wedding Anniversary. Thirty three years ago today the roads across the Pennines and many other areas of the country were nearly blocked with snow. We had chosen it as our Wedding Day. The Council Gritters had chosen to go on strike. Fortunately, we had a lovely day and everyone who wanted to attend struggled through and made it. We were married in Huddersfield Registry Office although the photo looks a bit Eastern European now

and then (to please my Mum) we had a blessing in the Meltham Mills Church just a few hundred yards from our house where we held the reception. Pauline did all the catering and it was brilliant. I had a wonderful day and it was the prelude to a wonderful marriage. I have been so lucky!

31st December, 2011

For most people, this evening is one to spend with others, partying, holding hands and singing Auld Lang Syne. Pauline and I have always shunned these activities and chosen to spend the evening quietly over a bottle of wine together. It is how we came in and, hopefully, how we will go out.

Diets can never start until the New Year in our house. December 30th is our Anniversary and then, of course, there is New Year’s Eve to be toasted in. Already, however, plans are afoot for a new Health Campaign as we cut down on eating and drinking and start to visit Woking’s ‘Pool in the Park’. We have both put on weight since returning from Greece. It is exactly twelve weeks since we set foot on UK soil which means we have about that much again before we leave. Actually, it is looking like we will go on April 3rd. Greek Easter is the week after Catholic on April 15th.

It was nice to read in The Telegraph today that house prices have risen more this year in Woking than anywhere else in the country. We’ve always had these effects on places.