Sanders Blog

28th March, 2010 

Putting the clocks back and forward used to be such a chore. I am dominated by time and have clocks and watches everywhere. Nowadays almost all of them are radio controlled timepieces. The clock in the kitchen, the clock in the dressing room, the radio alarm by the bed are all controlled and reset by the signal from Rugby. The clock on the TV, the clock in my car are both set by satelllite signals. I love driving across Europe because the Satellite Navigation system resets the clock by one hour in France and two hours in Greece. Having reset our watches, our phones and the cooker clock manually, we were ready to start the day.

It was a lovely, sunny day dominated by the Papers and some poor quality football. I cooked Belly Pork with Savoy Cabbage and red pepper and white wine jus. It went down very well.

29th March, 2010 

The windows and doors were inspected this morning, one or two adjusted and the job signed off. The curtains have gone back up. The burglar alarm man turned up to reattach the contacts to the new back door and patio door and put a new battery into the alarm box. Thirty minutes = £110.00. Just like teaching. The house has gone back to its pristine order.

I’ve found a simple instruction video on the web to teach me how to create a proxy server on my PC so that, in Greece, I can fool the BBC into believing that I am receiving my internet feed from UK and are worthy, therefore, of watching British TV free of charge.

Keep getting emails from Ruth telling me how soft I am. Of course, she’s right. Did you watch Married, Single, Other tonight? I did through floods of tears. What can I do about it? At my age?

30th March, 2010 

For the past 30 years I have been driving Pauline to Vidal Sassoon’s in Manchester or Leeds every couple of months to have her hair cut. That’s all she has and in the arcane gradation of hair dressing salons, she has always insisted on a ‘Top Stylist’ to cut her hair. Recently, that has cost £60.00 but it does make her happy. In return, she always cuts mine herself. The last time I had my hair cut by a Barber was 1968 and it cost Ten Shillings so I’ve been saving that at least. Recently, the ‘Top Stylist’ from Sassoon’s in Leeds left the shop and set up on her own in Farsley, Pudsey. Pauline was so pleased with her expertise that we went today to have her hair cut privately.

I don’t know if you are aware but Farsley is in The Rhubarb Triangle, a 9-square-mile triangle in West Yorkshire located between Wakefield, Morley and Rothwell, famous for producing early forced Rhubarb. If you’ve ever eaten ‘Champagne Rhubarb’, even in a yoghurt, you can be sure it came from the Rhubarb Triangle. Farsley, Pudsey is renowned for Rhubarb or Tusky as Keith Waterhouse  would call it.

I have a close University friend called Tash (because he had one.) who was so proud that he came from The Rhubarb Triangle.

Pauline’s hairdresser had set up shop in a flat in the heart of old Farsley. It forced Pauline to break her solemn pledge never to set foot in a school again. Her hairdresser’s flat was in an old school.

We leave for Greece two weeks today which means that Pauline will not have her Sassoon-trained hairdresser for six months. There is no one on the island that she will trust to cut her hair but, as luck will have it, her hairdresser used to live and work in Athens and will provide Pauline with recommendations for a top stylist there. Mind you, it will be an expensive haircut – seven hour, £100.00 round trip on the ferry, £150.00 night in a hotel, £100.00 eating out plus the cost of the hair cut. Still, as long as it makes her feel better!

31st March, 2010 

We could see snow on the Pennines across the valley but we were thankfully free of it. Received an email from Jane on her return from Athens:

Hi John – thanks for posting my photo for a second week. My team who run my office and therefore have access to all my emails think you are as mad as a march hare. But then they now know that to be a family trait

We had a great trip to Athens – the taxi drivers were back at work but the firemen went on strike on Tues and had a demo in Syntagma Square – this was good for us as we were not on fire and their demo cleared the traffic which meant we could walk about without threat from Athenian drivers. Athens is so much nicer than when we last went 30 years ago. The weather was glorious, the hotel was 5 star and we had a suite with a view of the Acropolis and I loved the new museum. We also returned to the Archaeological Museum to see again Agamemnon’s death mask, Zeus and the horse and boy jockey – amazing. The Greeks seem to have learned how to make good wine in the intervening years. So a great success and fortunately I had booked us on Easy Jet  not BA so we travelled without problem and v cheaply – and I have always been snooty about the orange airline. I will be using them and their on line check in and speedy boarding system again

Hope you have a great birthday – does it seem strange to be nearly 60?

Jane

I like to keep up with current affairs. Each day I read or browse on-line The Times, The Huddersfield Examiner, The Oldham Chronicle, Kathimerini (The Athens-based English Greek Newspaper), Ta Nea (Greek Newspaper) and four or five Greek Blogs. I found this in one of the blogs yesterday:

1st April, 2010 

White Rabbit! Jane sent me a photo of her and her team. This is Jane and the rest of the The Irish Peatland Conservation Council :

Don’t they look gorgeous. Why are they so weak on Climate Change? Happy April to you all!

Had a meeting with our Estate Agent at lunchtime. Agreed to drop our price by £25,000.00. Told them that we were leaving the country for six months and that all selling would be up to them. They didn’t seem phased by that. They’ll probably do nothing just as last year.

In the afternoon I went to Armitages Garden Centre to buy seed Potatoes to take to Greece. I already have the onion sets. I also bought some asparagus roots and rhubarb roots. I am going to create the rhubarb triangle of the Aegean.

2nd April, 2010 

Hope you read the opening reports of the Shoesmith-stitchup by Ofsted & Balls. Shocking as it is, nobody in Public Service should be at all surprised by the illegal and utterly immoral behaviour of that ridiculous body and their bully-boy boss, Balls. Ofsted is a creature of Balls and Balls is a creature of corrupt power. Rewritten 17 times to erradicate any criticism of police or Health officials, remove any positivity about Shoesmith and deflect all blame away from Balls and on to her, the toady Ofsted Inspectors must be in their last throes of influence. Read the full reports below:

3rd April, 2010 

It was nice to read that I am normal. Not that I doubted it inspite of the chattering classes attempts to re-define the roles of the sexes. The Male Brain, as Louann Brizendine concludes in her sequel to The Female Brain, is ‘marinated in testosterone’ and is hard-wired to cause men to lie and take risks and to be low on personal responsibility and social conditioning. At one time I almost worried that I had a one-track mind. Now I can relax in the knowledge that it’s normal. Thanks, Louann, you little minx!

21st March, 2010

United powered majestically past Liverpool and Chelsea faltered pathetically at Blackburn. Increasingly, Chelsea are looking like an ageing bunch who will have to be replaced for next season.

22nd March, 2010

Whenever we are away, the house is automatically lit. We currently have twelve timed lights including one outside permanently on a dusk/dawn switch. Because six months is a long time, I have had to break the rule of a life time and purchase energy-saving, long-life bulbs. I almost had to get a mortgage to pay for them. Fortunately, Pauline had save up £140.00 in Sainsburys points which went towards defraying the cost. We needed them. Our weekly shop leapt from £100.00 to nearly £500.00 with all the items we needed to take or send before us by freight. You wouldn’t believe that toothpaste, mouthwash, soap, toothbrush heads, coffee, tea, etc., could cost so much but when you are buying for 6 months it soon mounts up.

23rd March, 2010

Lovely day today. Went to see Ruth & Kevan in Bolton. We went for coffee. It took 30 minutes from house to house. Ruth’s house is neat as a new pin. In fact, every house on her estate looks neat as a new pin. The lawns are manicured to within an inch of their lives. It was lovely to see them both but particularly Ruth who has been so kind and supportive of me since Mum died and over this first year of our retirement. She is a lovely girl who we should all count ourselves grateful to have as a sister.

Kevan doesn’t look any different to the man I remember in 1972. He must be the Peter Pan of Bolton. He is gentle, mild mannered and empathetic.  No wonder Ruth chose him. Perhaps he chose her. We leave for Greece three weeks today and Ruth and I will keep in contact with Skype. Anybody else on Skype?

24th March, 2010

Terrible memories today of the sweep coming to 81 High Street. I’ve probably written about this before so you must excuse me but I always remember the Dining Room beings swathed in sheets and towels on the floor and the table right up to the hearth. We were banished to our bedrooms until the big clean up had been completed and then Brunch was served. Today we spent hours covering every carpet upstairs and down, taking down curtains and blinds. Coral Windows are coming tomorrow to fit new patio windows, new back door, new windows at the back of the house. On Friday, the blind man comes. Let’s hope he can find his way here.

25th March, 2010

After Mum, the alarm got us up at 6.00 am. Pauline shot out of bed. Within half an hour, I was awake. After tea and toast, we put the finishing touches to covering up the televisions, computers, etc. By 8.00 am I was off to Sainsburys to buy biscuits for the workers. As I arrived home, I met my neighbour, Jean, who told me that her husband, Peregrine, who is lecturer in a tertiary college in Bradford, was informed by email yesterday that he had been identified in a small pool of lecturers for possible redundancy. He is 48. This is an immediate sign of the slimming of public sector provision in general and tertiary education in particular. The fact that Perry is in the business of skilling young apprentices is of little importance apparently.

At about 9.00 am, the van arrived and the banging began:

Perigrine’s wife, Jean, is a bird lover. The lawn is covered with bits of bread in the morning but our lounge carpet is covered in bits of bread by the evening. It is a straight forward process of redistribution mainly done by magpies. They sit on our chimney and yell down it before carpet bombing with stale white sliced. I’ve asked Jean for a healthier brown but to no avail. Before we go away, we are determined to get a cowell put on the chimney. We don’t want to come home to six months of stale bread.

I’m going to be known as the man with the diseased phallus on the top of his house.

26th March, 2010

Went round to speak to my next door neighbour this afternoon. Put one foot on their ‘decking’ which had a winter’s litchen and water on it. It was like stepping on to black ice. I fell quite comically headlong but managed to avoid damaging the woodwork. Struggling to my knees and then feet a little shaken and with green-stained knees and elbows, I dismissed the fall with a wry smile but, as the evening wore on, I became increasingly stiff and my ankle throbbed. I had quite a bit of pain to get upstairs for bath and bed. I really don’t think it is broken.

27th March, 2010

Got up in the middle of the night, forgetting about my ankle damage and nearly fell headlong again with the pain. As the day goes on, however, the pain eases and it is clearly just a sprain or slight ligament damage. Saw my doctor today to obtain medication for the next 200 days. This amounts to:

• Amlodipine -1000mg
• Atorvastatin – 4000mg
• Doxazosin – 400mg
• Losartan – 20,000mg
• Pioglitazone – 9000mg
• Metformin – 200,000mg
• Warfarin – 1740mg

I feel quite ashamed of the fact that this is what is keeping me alive. Spent a lot of today preparing the launch of a new (additional) blog which will allow me to limber up for writing a book on our Greek experiences. I will maintain it over the six months abroad with vignettes of small island life particularly under the scrutiny of economic hardship and reducing European subsidies.

You will notice that a ladybird has dropped by to keep a close eye on the Blog. She is very welcome just as you are.

Everyone who goes to Bolton has a nice time. Pauline and I went on Tuesday and had coffee and conversation. Man. United went today and had three points.

I posted a letter to Mike today.

14th March, 2010

Happy Mother’s Day

Today was a beautifully sunny and warm day. We drove over to Oldham. We ate lunch in the flat and had Cod in Mornay Sauce with home-made chips. Before Pauline’s Mum could say she was ‘stuffed’, she was force-fed Apple Crumble with Custard. While John & Pauline struggled with ‘seconds’, Mum stumbled to the toilet and then puffed back to her chair. As she fell back into her chair, she switched on the television and adjusted the volume to level 34. Right, are you going? she said and Mother’s Day was over.

15th March, 2010

Blood coagulant check showed everything stable. One more visit the day before we leave for Greece and the it will be down to phone calls from the island. Had a nice email from Bob today. More than twenty years ago, I asked him to be the Executor of my Will. Fifteen years later, following the build of our Greek house, I sent him a Codicil. As we prepare to leave the real world for six months, I felt the need to check that everything was in place. Pauline knew exactly where to find our copies of the Wills but I wondered if Bob would remember. He is only young don’t forget. His response was delightfully reassuring:

Thanks for this.  I do still have all the paperwork you sent me (and I know where it is)

Stay well – enjoy your time in Greece – and smile to yourself when you think of me commuting each day on the treadmill in London

Best wishes

Bob

16th March, 2010

We set off to Hull exactly four weeks today. I have been buying seeds, onion sets, seed potatoes, etc to take with us. I’ve got to hit the ground running when we get there because we are right at the end of the sowing season in the Mediterranean.

17th March, 2010

Two more hospital check-ups for Pauline’s Mum this week and one more next week and we will have almost seen the end of them before we go.

Article from the front page of a Greek Newspaper today:

No cabs on streets tomorrow

There will be no taxis serving the capital and other major Greek cities tomorrow as cabbies stage a 24-hour strike. Taxi drivers object to government plans to make them issue receipts, keep account books and pay tax according to their income. The cabbies are protesting despite the government’s decision to postpone the implementation of these measures, originally planned to take effect immediately, until 2011. Under the current system, drivers pay just over 1,200 euros in tax each year, regardless of what they earn. Cabbies staged two 24-hour strikes last month and have pledged to continue their action until the government satisfies their demands.

This gives you a flavour of what the Greek Government is up against. Some echoes of this, of course, are to be found in the BA strike and the Unite Union’s relationship with The Labour Party not least with Mrs Har-person.

18th March, 2010

I wrote to Cal wishing her Happy St Patrick’s Day and including her essential emblem:

She wrote this back to me:

Thank’s! I had a grand day. I didn’t bother with green sausages this year just my usual bowl of Flahavan’s porridge. Then I had a lovely day in the garden planting 3 apple tress and finally getting my goosegog bush in the ground. Anyway, of course we had the bacon and cabbage with floury shpuds and parsley sauce probably like the whole nation on Patrick’s Day and a few scoops alright of the aul fire water, poitin.

Beamish and Murphy’s are the Cork stouts not that nonsense (West Brit) Dublin stout-Guinness.

I did have a right aul head on me the next day at work but I was instructing a yound lad of 18 who is totally blind to make pizzas, I am getting him ready to start Uni in Sept, he is doing his leaving cert at the minute and I have been instructing him in Braille and long cane for the last year and then I had to go to a 5 year old who is totally blind also and do long cane training with him, he has a global developmental delay also so he can be a right little bugger when he wants.

Life is mental at the minute as of course you know this time of year is so busy in the garden. I spent the whole of last weekend disinfecting my cold frame and pots before I go planting my veg seeds. I am doing carrots, parsnips, potatoes of course and all the usual suspects of the salad world.

Got to run I am instructing 16 volunteers in sighted guiding on Monday morning at the Uni before they support a group of 8-14year olds doing beep baseball and goal ball at a Camp Ability we are running at easter.

Yeah, I know the Toon should be going up but I don’t think they’ll stay up unless that stupid southerner Ashley buggers off and money is spent on players. My beloved Rams are doing reasonably well but they won’t be going up…………..Yours, on the brink. Cal x

PS: I am certain now that I was mixed up on the maternity ward in Derby City Hospital and given to the wrong family, ewe’s are all too weird for me to be related to any of you!

19th March, 2010

I was just about to email Jane for a photo when I received an email from her:

Subject: FW: Photo

Hi John – a photo of me. First year in the High School they discovered that I had no hand/eye/ball/bat coordination for any sport but I could memorise the rules for most games so they made me junior referee for the hockey matches. This is me clearly looking slightly anxious prior to my first refereeing the home game against Derby Girls High. Some might say my life script is being a “referee” .

Sorry we have not been able to get together before you go off to Sifnos. David and I fly to Athens this weekend – first time we have been back since 1980. So am looking forward to visiting the Acropolis Museum and sitting in the sunshine etc.

20th March, 2010

Pouring with rain today. The Saturday Times brought new delight. In 1994 I was the first person in my area to access the internet. Sixteen years ago, of course, it didn’t look anything like it does today. It wasn’t a graphical medium. It was dial-up and a 14.4 kbit/s modem which had formerly powered a fax machine. I remember making my first connection and accessing files from Manchester University. I was so excited I went screaming over to demand that the current Headteacher (who was subsequently sacked for incompetence) came to witness the earth shattering occasion. After four unsuccessful attempts to connect, it was fifth time lucky. He took one look a the string of text appearing slowly on the screen, said, Humph! Is that it? and walked off. I must admit that I hardly noticed. I was on a different planet. Ever since then, I have dreamed of and agitated for all interaction to take place on the net. I worked towards a virtual school until I finally the Learning Platform adopted in my own school.

It is now a requirement for all schools. I have long believed that access to services – local and national govermental as well as commercial – should be accessed over the web and I was pleased to see the Labour Party is flagging that up in The Times today.

7th March, 2010

Glorious sunshine AGAIN. The views across our valley were beautiful, although the snow covered ridges of the Pennines in the distance, have rather been lost in these photographs.

8th March, 2010

Long and arduous day today. Pauline’s Mum’s cataract operation is coming good but our trip to the hospital with her today got more and more exasperating by the hour. We have been treating extreme infection in her operated-on eye with three different creams/ointments every two hours. It has been an exhausting and exhaustive programme. The eye is showing real improvement. We were told to take her back to the Eye Clinic for 2.30 pm today. We got there early. The pattern is always the same: I drop Pauline and her Mum outside the Clinic with a wheelchair. I drive round and round the carpark until a space becomes available. Pauline arrives in the Clinic before the appointment time and then wait hours to be seen. Today, in spite of a precise appointment time, she was told the wait would be at least three hours – oh and by the way, we can do nothing until her notes arrive. These notes never arrive.

Because of my Mother-in-Law’s age, we have been regulars at the Oldham Royal over the past two or three years. Every time, the appointment is prefaced by an inordinate wait, an unknown doctor appears and asks all the same questions as the last time because the notes from before cannot be found. When it comes to it, the treatment is sympathetic and effective but the infrastructure is appalling. The consultation invariably ends the same way. Pauline’s Mum is given a prescription which can only be obtained at the Infirmary’s Dispensary. This is about the size of a cupboard. Get three people on the customer side of the counter and the bodily contact becomes so indecent observers would categorise it as troilism. The main function of this despensary is to service the hospital. Any outpatient demands go strictly to the back of the queue. After three hours in the clinic, Pauline had another 45 minutes in the Dispensary by which time her Mum was so desperate for the toilet, we nearly put out a flood alert (in my car!). The National Health Service is made up of lots of lovely, caring and often highly skilled people all drowning under a bureaucratic framework that is unable to cope with the demands of 2010.

9th March, 2010

Not feeling well today. Ironic really because it is five weeks short of one year since we were last in school. Only yesterday, I was remarking that, in that time, I we had suffered not one single illness. Usually, in any school year, we come in contact with so many ill people that I guarantee two or three bouts of cold/’flu.. Did a little bit of gardening in the sunshine but my heart wasn’t in it.

As you know, we all hate Arsenal but even I had to marvel at their performance against Porto tonight. It was breathtaking and the goal by little Nasri was wonderful. I still don’t rate Bendtner inspite of his hat-trick.

10th March, 2010

Sunny and warm today. We spent some time outside tidying up after this destructive winter. I suspect that a number of shrubs that have survived the past decade have been done for by this winter.

Received an email from Catherine. This is what she said:

Hi John

I had a lovely 55th b’day, It was a sunny but cold day.1 teach full time except for Tueday pm and eve when I am at college doing a psychotherapy and counselling degree. I teach the children who are out of school for one reason or another but mostly the ones I teach have phobias, OCD, trauma or Aspergers so it is interesting! I also am doing my first placement at a counselling service in Worthing which takes up evenings-I have to do 18months probation before getting paid work. I don’t get much time to do much else at the moment. The course finishes at Xmas – if I can get all the assignments completed! I don’t think I will ever be rich but don’t care about that as I have simple pleasures except Larie and I would like to move abroad to live in the sun. Jamie would like to move out of home but rent and properties are v expensive here. He is part way through accountancy training and has a very expensive girlfriend so no money! Our dog Bella is getting old so I am already eyeing up some puppies… but not telling her of course! I don’t mind keeping in touch but won’t be doing it every week as I don’t have time or the inclination and family stuff is not my’cup of tea’-to quote mum. hope that’s enough info to keep you going

Cathy

I’m still not sure what made so many of us so anti-‘family stuff’ as Catherine puts it when so much emphasis was put on it in our early life. Maybe I’ve answered my own speculation in that sentence but I’m not sure. Answers to jrsanders@btinternet.com.

Talk about class! Did you see United tonight? Rooooneeeyy!

11th March, 2010

Cut the lawns today for the first time in 6 months. I needed oxygen after finishing it. Pauline drove over to have lunch with her Mum and arrived back to find me collapsed on one of the garden benches. I’m sure it did me good. I’ll be ready to run with Jane BG soon.

The whole of Greece was on strike today – no flights, ferries, trains, buses, taxis, trams, schools. No public sector of any sort and the Olympic Airways workers who were sacked when it was privatised a year ago are still striking too. Rubbish is not being collected again:

To make matters worse, Athens has been hit by a huge cloud of sand whipped up on winds blowing across the Sahara. The city is covered in a yellow film of sand.

12th March, 2010

Wonderful photo from Greek newspaper – Ta Nea (The News) – this morning of the demonstrations in Athens yesterday. It is taken in Syntagma (Constitution/Parliament) Square right outside Hotel Grande Bretagne. Unfortunately, it didn’t show the banks and shops that were firebombed or the policemen injured.

You will have noticed that I read Kathimerini (the English version) because my Greek is too weak to sustain the full Greek version. It is part of The International Herald Tribune . However, in the past few months I have upgraded Internet Explorer to Version 8 which is so superior to previous versions and it offers so much more in terms of Add-ons. Particularly, one can integrate Google toolbar with its language translator. This is a fantastic piece of software which allows me to load a multi-column newspaper page with dense text in Greek and it is translated in front of my eyes in less than a minute. The translation isn’t perfect but it’s a hell of a lot better than I could do and I can now get a Greek’s insight into the news.

Below is a copy of the front page of Ta Nea (The News) in Greek and then in its rough translation:

13th March, 2010

I haven’t been to Ripon for thirty years and haven’t visited The Black Bull pub since 1972. It used to be a favourite haunt as a student. I was one of twenty males amid 620 females at Ripon. The transition in 1969 from an all boys Grammar School to an all girls College was genuinely enjoyable. In spite of having lots of sisters, I didn’t really know that girls were like that. Thirty eight years ago I left that closeted environment where everything was done for me and entered the real world. What a shock. The twenty males, of course, bonded strongly and, although one died during the course and two dropped out, we always knew ourselves as The Company of Twenty.

And yet, I really am not one for dwelling in the past. I have always resisted reunions. Today, in retirement, I went back to meet The Company of Twenty. In doing so, I visited the College buildings that are now private, residential apartments; I visited the building where my old flat was with the noisy brothel above. The green bay windows on the first floor was ours. The top floor was all together top shelf.

I visited The Black Bull where old men like me shook hands and tried to recreate the past. I came away deciding that I probably wouldn’t do that again.

28th February, 2010

Sunday papers pretty boring today. Man United won but that was equally flat match. Disappointing!

1st March, 2010

First day of Spring. Hurrah! Beautiful sunny day. Thought about pressure washing the patio. Thought about it but didn’t do it.

Reading the Greek Blogs and Newspapers still fretting about the Greek economic crisis. The Government is trying to find ways of forcing earners to pay tax on their earnings. As I reported last week, even doctors and dentists declare their annual earnings as €5000 instead of €100,000 in crude but successful attempts to avoid paying tax. If you go to them for treatment, they are supposed to give you a bill with a tax receipt which they file with their accountant and, ultimately, the government. They don’t issue these receipts because they know it is a paper trail of evidence to their earnings.

Of course, honest citizens should report these frauds but don’t because, if they insist on a tax receipt from their doctor, they are charged more instead. Unfortunately, what happens is that the Inland Revenue estimates their earnings and taxes them accordingly. This leads to ever decreasing declarations of earnings. Some earners, however, are easier to check on than others. Taxi drivers are going to have a meter in their cars that will record their journeys and their charges and, therefore, their earnings. They are going to be charged tax on their actual earnings. This is revolutionary in Greece. Consequently, all taxi drivers on going on a two day strike. Unluckily for them, most Athenians are looking forward to the taxi drivers’ strike because the roads will not be clogged up by yellow taxis.

2nd March, 2010

Only the second day of Spring but it is so beautiful today that after a long swim/jacuzzi/steamroom, followed by bacon sandwiches and The Times, Pauline is tidying up the garden in warm sunshine while I clean the patio and steps up to the house with my pressure washer. It takes about 4-6 hours altogether so I have to pace myself. Also, it has to be done twice a year. It won’t get done again until November. Let’s hope I’ve sold it by then.

Got an email from Malcolm Pritchard tonight. It was nice hear from him although I think Ruth was trying to get me in to trouble for using his photo without permission. However, Ruth did send me this picture of Malcolm taking part in the Winter Olympics – which, at his age, is impressive.

3rd March, 2010

A stressful and emotional day today. Took Pauline’s Mum for the first of her two cataract operations. A lttle nervous because we’ve pushed her into doing it and we know there is a (small) risk. The surgeon started operating at 7.30 am and, although I don’t know how many he was getting through, Pauline’s Mum was last on the list at 4.30 pm. Even so, she had to present at 11.30 in the morning.

 We took her to the Oldham Royal Infirmary with a wheel chair in the back of the car. The parking is impossible so I dropped them off and spent 40 mins looking for parking while Pauline took her up to the ward and made sure she was settled.

Off to Sainsburys to buy sandwiches for lunch and then in to Pauline’s Mum’s flat to do some essential wiring before she got back. Every time we phone, she takes ten minutes to get out of her chair and another ten to hobble across the room to the phone. She has resisted us moving her phone next to her chair but now is our chance. All went well. Next we had an appointment at Millfield, the Anchor Housing Care Home just up the road from her warden assisted flats.

Apart from the appointment that Pauline had made for us to visit this place, there was another impetus on my mind. Pauline’s Mum saves all the back copies of the Oldham Chronicle for us. We read them to see the names of all the children we have taught who are mentioned in the Crime reports, got married or died of a drug overdose and the occasional one who has graduated from University. We are always reading them a week after the event. On Monday, we read about Ellen Brierley, the first ever Mayor of Oldham, one time chair of the Education Committee, former Governor of our school. She had left her home where she had lived independently until the age of 95 and moved in to Millfield where she was celebrating her 96th birthday attended by the current Mayor of Oldham and the current Mayoress and Chair of the Education Committee.

We were invited in through the front door of the Home by the Patient Care Manager. She started to ask about our position with Pauline’s Mum. Pauline told her that her Mum was 95 and increasingly frail. I told her I had seen the story about Ellen Brierley in the paper. Suddenly, a Nurse walked past, did a double take and then walked back again and said, Hello Mr & Mrs Sanders. How are you? I knew her face immediately but couldn’t put a name to her. The Care Manager whispered her name as the Nurse disappeared. Two minutes later, she was back, announcing that she was 40 this year and her son was doing very well, thank you. This sort of thing happens all the time to us. I am (un)fortunate that I instantly remember their face from 40 years ago but can’t remember their name. Pauline usually doesn’t recognise them at all. They always remember us and, for that reason, expect us to remember every instant of their school life. They challenge us to remember. It can be very stressful. Another orderly walked past and I recognised her instantly but couldn’t put a name to her.

As we walked on, the Care Manager pointed out Ellen Brierley sitting at a table talking to another resident. Her face lighted on me in instant recognition (I’m not easy to forget.) and I went over to greet her. She looked immaculate as if she was just about to chair the next Education Committee and she began to speak in the way I had heard her speak so many times over the past 40 years. I told her which school Pauline and I had taught at since 1972 and she responded in a controlled and cultured speech to praise all the work we had done. She knew us to have been of the highest order of teachers or that’s what I thought she was saying until I suddenly realised she was using all the right words (education speak) but none of them were in the right order. They made absolutely no sense at all. I had cut out the story about her from the paper and when I told her, she said, I wondered where it was. I’ve been searching my mind …. We never quite got to what she was searching her mind for as a nurse came and took her away. This was my first ever contact with the effects of Alzheimer’s.

4th March, 2010

Athens is in chaos. A blog I follow published this photo of all the striking taxis. Not content with striking, they have parked right across Syntagma (Constitution) Square preventing all private motorists and buses from going about their business. Anyone who knows Athens, knows that Syntagma Square is an essential thoroughfare for the city. Closing it paralyses everything.

With stupid talk of Germany demanding Greece sell all its islands and the Acropolis before it gets a bail-out, the Greeks are getting more and more angry. Another general strike is called for tomorrow.

5th March, 2010

Our worst fears are realised this morning after a phone call to tell us that Pauline’s Mum cannot see out of the operated-on eye and is distressed. Pauline phones the hospital who tell us to take her in immediately. Another 30 mile trip. We get to the hospital at 12.30 pm. I drop them off with the wheel chair and then drive round the car park looking for a parking space. Although I find one quickly this time, the 12.45 pm appointment becomes 3.00 pm. It is quite scandalous how a 95 year old woman can be treated in that way. The news is good and bad. The operation looks as if it has been a success and the lens is clear. The eye socket, however, is severely infected, swollen and urgently needs treatment.

The treatment is even worse for an old lady. She has to use three different sorts of drops/gells to be squeezed in to her eye every two hours with fifteen minute intervals between them. I produce a chart to pin on her kitchen door. The logistics would challenge a Maths Graduate never mind an old lady with one eye and poor legs. She gets up at 5.00 am each day (Don’t ask why.) The chart begins:

5.30 am – Red Tube
5.45 am – Blue Tube
6.00 am – Tube from Fridge
7.30 am – Red Tube
7.45 am – Blue Tube

Not only does she have to read this chart with one, very old eye but she has to be able to open the tubes with terribly arthritic hands and squeeze it into her own eye something like twenty times before her bedtime at 8.00 pm. I’m beginning to really see why growing old is no fun.

6th March, 2010

Lovely experience today. I was preparing Pauline’s new laptop for taking to Greece. She has a desktop in the Study but, while she worked on that, I used the wireless connection on the laptop to set up radio and television services for access in Greece. Most British television isn’t accessible over the web when one is outside UK. The IP address from a foreign internet provider is blocked which means so is the content. One can get Sky News (BBC News I can get in Greece anyway.) and some ITV programming but the big thing is, we can get BBC Radio. I have wireless speakers to put round the house there so, through the internet, we can download Radio 4 (DREAM ON!) and listen to the Today programme in bed. If the Greek Sports Channels don’t cover the Test Matches and it was rather hit and miss last year, I will be able to listen to Test Match Special.

While I was on-line, a message popped up about Ruth trying Skype out. I clicked on Video Call and Ruth popped up. We had a lovely fifteen minute chat. Because it was Skype to Skype, it was absolutely free. We have agreed to meet for coffee in one of the next few Tuesdays before we leave. We will then make arrangements for when we will be on line to phone each other. What a lovely (old) girl she is.

21st February, 2010

Looked out at 6.00 am and the world was clear and fine. Got up at 7.30 am to a blizzard and the roads thick in snow. Went out for the papers immediately to feed my addiction and only just made it in my 4×4. Slid all the way down the hill back home. It’s going to be another ‘tucked-up’ day.

22nd February, 2010

Still getting everything ready for Greece. Today I ordered propagation units for growing vegetable seedlings before planting out. I ordered them from Sutton Seeds.

Another preparation is a framed photograph of our first house when we got married. The house you all came to on our wedding day. Pauline bought it in 1974 for £4,000.00 and we sold it in 1984 for £29,000.00. Our Greek house has pictures of Slade House and Quarry Court and now it will have the coaching house in Meltham. It went on the market two years ago for £340,000.00 but we can’t believe they got that for it.

23rd February, 2010

One of our biggest headaches in Greece at the moment is communications. We have our mobiles – we have a Vodafone contract phone each and we have a pay-as-you-go Vodafone Greece mobile with SIM as well. The latter would be quite useful for Greek calls in Greece but not cheap to phone UK. The UK contract mobiles cost 75p per connection outside UK using something called the Vodafone Passport which then allows one to use inclusive minutes. This is great if you talk for hours but Pauline phones her Mum two or three times per day and, as we are away 180 days, it would cost us just over £400.00. I know that’s not a lot and we would happily pay it but I’ve decided to resurrect my Skype membership.

Almost as soon as Skype was available, I downloaded it and tried to use it. Skype uses peer-to-peer technology to allow users to voice communicate over the internet (VOIP or voice over Internet Protocol). What it means, in real terms, is that two Skype users can talk for free. If a Skype user contacts a non-skype phone number, there is a charge but it is small. I can Skype call Pauline’s Mum from Greece to her flat in Oldham. She won’t know the difference but it will only cost me 1.2p per minute. Three 3-minute calls per day for 180 days will cost about £20.00. This is fantastic. It is all done with a little bit of software and a handset plugged in to a USB port. You can even have a hands-free phone now or a wireless Skype connection.

24th February, 2010

The one prerequisite for VOIP is a broadband connection. I am struggling to get a phone line. Some people wait for years because the OTE – the former nationalised telephone company in Greece – is a lame leviathan where the jobs-for-life theme is strongly expressed. The OTE is 30-percent owned by Deutsche Telekom after a limited take-over last year but as a condition they had to agree to leaving workers in their jobs undisturbed for life. This is one of the main problems with the Greek economy. The previously nationalised industries have been partly hived off to the private sector but they have taken their old working practices with them. These include being paid 14 monthly salaries in a 12 month period, being paid extra if they have to carry a file up or downstairs, having a job for life, etc.

25th February, 2010

Yesterday there was a general strike across Greece. They refuse to accept the harsh measures that the EU are forcing on them. The strike paralysed Greece not least because there was no transport apart from that taking strikers to their rallies. Below is a photo of a cafe on Syntagma (Constitution) Square which has been vandalised by the strikers. Unfortunately, they are frightening off their lifeblood – the tourists.

Even the Greek Government are attempting to bite the hand that feeds them. Germany will eventually have to bail them out. The Greeks won’t kowtow to them. They are demanding of the Germans 56 billion Euros in reparation for Second World War damages.

27th February, 2010

We are within six weeks of leaving Pauline’s Mum for six months. It was always assumed that, when she became unable to look after herself, she would move from the Anchor Housing ‘Residential’ home to the  Anchor Housing ‘Care’ home just further up the hill. Below are the two properties. They are about 200 yards apart. Pauline & I secured the last flat in the newly opened  Anchor Housing ‘Residential’ home – Spring Hill Court – 28 years ago. She was thrilled with it and has loved living there. She was 67 when she moved in and Pauline & I bought all the furniture for her. It is a warden-assisted place but it has always been absolutely delightful because of the management of the property. Many people have to sell their own homes in order to afford a flat. Pauline’s Mum had nothing – still has nothing – and everything is funded for her.

The second photo is of the Anchor Housing ‘Care’ home – Millfield – which has had two inspections and come out of both with an Excellent report.

Ultimately, we would like her to move from one to another when she feels the time is right. We think that time is not far away but she isn’t quite ready now. We think that after we have been away for 6 months and she has lost part of her safety net, she may feel differently. On that basis, we are going to talk to the Millfield Management before we go just to find out entry requirements. We know it is an expensive place to get in to normally but Pauline’s Mum should be fully funded. Next week is a busy one ferrying Pauline’s Mum to hospital, etc and we hope to fit a visit to Millfield in as well.

14th February, 2010

Be still my beating heart!

Click Heart for Passion.

I walked in to Sainsburys yesterday morning and was hit by an overwhelming perfume. At the doors they always display the fresh flowers and they seemed to be overwhelmingly roses – red roses. I remember thinking how strange it was as I almost fell over a display of pink champagne on my way to pick up a paper. Suddenly, I twigged – Valentine’s Day. Of course, in school one was never allowed to forget that. Kids sending cards to kids. Kids sending cards to teachers. It was a hothouse of hormones. Then one would smile indulgently at the never changing merry-go-round of the cycle of development. But now how irrelevant and tacky it seemed.

Much more importantly, the downward spiral of the Climate Change religion goes on apace. The Sunday Times ran a story of a report by leading scientist who cast doubt on the accuracy of the warming data because of where the weather stations are sited. their siting is clearly important to their accuracy and conditions have changed since some or many were put in place. For example, a weather station at Manchester Airport was originally set in green fields but has been gradually built around until it is now based on and surrounded by concrete. Concrete absorbs and emits heat thus providing falsely higher  temperatures. Other stations are positioned near air conditioning units, etc. It is this data upon which we are building costly plans for the future. You can read the full article below:

15th February, 2010

Having survived Valentine’s Day, I now find myself having to survive Half Term. Pauline & I have had some memorable Half Term breaks –

Milan was great but cold and foggy.

Furteventura in the Canaries was hot and humid:

Lille was very French:

Venice was just unforgettable:

Paris was all restaurants:

Arras was medieval:

This Half Term we went to the Health Club to find Mothers taking their children to swimming lessons – in our pool! We went home and resolved not to return until next Monday. I honestly think Half Terms are an unnecessary distraction from school work, an unwarranted interruption to learning. These sorts of hiatus could scar children for life. I think we should be arguing for a 5 Term Year with a week’s break at the end of each one. Five weeks holiday should be enough for anyone.

The Greeks, of course, who are really in the mire and are desperately trying to drag everyone into it with them, the Greeks are on holiday. Today is ‘Clean Monday’ (Καθαρή Δευτέρα). This is the first day of the Greek Orthodox Lent. The common term for this day, “Clean Monday”, refers to the leaving behind of sinful attitudes and non-fasting foods. (I’ll drink to that!) Eating meat, eggs and dairy products is traditionally forbidden to Christians throughout Lent, with fish being eaten only on major days, but shellfish is permitted. The other activity on Clean Monday is to fly kites. All Greeks go out to fly their kites after lunch. Lent is the beginning of spring. We must go out to greet the first outdoor day of the new year. The community celebrates this day by climbing the nearest hill and flying kites on the fresh spring wind!

16th February, 2010

Mum was a big admirer of the Jesuits and she would not have enjoyed the article in The Times today that started:

The sexual abuse scandal in Jesuit-run German schools is spreading rapidly and is likely to involve more than a hundred former pupils, according to the head of one of the affected colleges

This is classic Roman Catholicism and beats the Climate Change scandal into a cocked hat in all but the cost to us. Read the full article here:

17th February, 2010

Found a fascinating string of Blogs today. Firstly, a Japanese girl who has married a Greek from Piraeus. She has studied in England (Birmingham) and Italy (Pisa) as well as Japan and Greece. She is a Doctor of Philosophy but her Blog is about living in Greece and focusses on Greek food. It can be found here:

18th February, 2010

Got an email from Liz today. She sounded very up-beat:

John
I have been to lunch today at house of Lords. Really wish Mum was alive to tell her.
You know how easily impressed she was. Me Lizzie dripping hob nobbing with Lords
There are 17 bars there! And I met the speaker. I was so excited.

I replied:

Well Lizzie Dripping
What were you doing there? Did you drink in all 17 bars

Liz got back to me to say she was lobbying Lord Victor Abedowale who looks a bit like the Tories answer to Bob Marley. Apparently, he is the CEO of Turning Point.

19th February, 2010

Bob’s 58th birthday. Got a nice email from him. Had to be up and out by 8.30 this morning because Pauline’s Mum had final assessment in Oldham Royal before cataract operation. As usual, travelling was a nightmare. Five or six hours of snow had fallen last night. The M62 was completely closed. It had police cars across it. A car was stranded half way up the grass of the roundabout with its back end staved in from an earlier collision.There had been accidents at 5.30 am, 6.15 am, 6.45 am and 7.00 am. Black ice was said to be the problem and there was a 12 mile tail back amounting to 2.5 hours. Of course, the mooors road was out of the question because that would have been impassable. We had to go on a long, circuitous route many miles out of our way in huge lines of frustrated cars. We got there in the end but it was scarey and not fun.

Pauline’s Mum is our post office. We do most of our shopping on-line and have everything delivered to her. She’s always in and it means she gets visitors. Today we collected three parcels: some 6 x Kingsize Egyptian Cotton Sheets from BHS central delivery; Magix Video & Audio Editing software package from Amazon and some kitchenware from Lakeland.

20th February, 2010

Saturday is always Sainsburys Day even in retirement. It is hard to believe but early on Saturday morning is still the quietest time to get through the weekly shop. I am indulging my love of offal again this week. I am addicted to liver and kidney in red wine sauce. This is eaten with shredded savoy cabbage cooked in butter and garlic. Wonderful. I love it. It will take my mind off Man U..

I bet you just want it!

7th February, 2010

I can’t believe I’ve managed to sustain this for 60 weeks. If only I could diet with that determination. Started snowing again today. After an initial foray out for the Sunday Papers, it was a lovely, relaxing day of reading, Rugby Union and Premier League football. Just a pity Arsenal were so spineless!

Wonderful but horrifying article by Christopher Booker in The Sunday Telegraph in which he ferrets out money – our taxpayer money – given by our government under various guises to spurious foreign organisation under the heading of fighting climate change. Amongst other outrageous items of expenditure, he lists the £239, 538.00 we spent for study of ‘Climate Change Impacts on Chinese Agriculture’. The whole article can be read here.

8th February,  2010

Aren’t Monday mornings wonderful? Went for a wonderful swim although the Steam Room was out of order. It is the Spirit Health Club chain and there are clear signs of economic tightening. The Managers are definitely less specialist and expensive to employ than they were ten years ago. The temperatures of the pools are lower – or is it me?

The next hospital visit for Pauline’s Mum this afternoon. We’ve got two this week. To add to her problems, her gout has flared up again. This afternoon it is skin cancer on her nose – post operative – that we are checking. She was signed off. I can’t remember what I was looking for help with for Pauline’s Mum but suddenly I found myself staring at this cherubic face. It was someone called Liz Bruce. I thought, I know that girl! Suddenly realised it was our Liz.

There is a comment box at the bottom of this webpage. I sent in the following message:

What a wonderful new Strategic Director you’ve got and she looks gorgeous!

John Sanders – Huddersfield Home for the Bewildered

9th February,  2010

More snow today. Thought I’d do a search for Liz Bruce in an idle moment. Up popped a copy of  The Daily Telegraph. Mum would have been so proud. You can read the article below:

10th February,  2010

The Health Club was really quiet – probably the snow put them off. The Steam Room had been repaired. I met a Hungarian in the changing rooms. He decided to tell me a joke:

A woman got on a train with her strange looking child and they both sat down. The train moved on one stop and a man sitting opposite prepared to get off. As he did so, he leaned over to the woman and said, You’ve got a very ugly child. The man got off, leaving the woman visibly upset. Another, seeing her distress went over and said, I’ll get you a cup of tea to settle your upset. He went off down the carriage and came back with a cup of tea and a banana. He said, Here you are love. This will make you feel better and I’ve got a banana for your monkey!

I’d heard it before but I laughed all the same. It made him feel better. Well, he was Hungarian.

Spent the rest of the day tightening up the plans for our European trip. We leave England on April 13th and arrive on our island on April 19th. We leave our island on October 4th and arrive back in England on October 9th – 180 days after leaving it.

11th February,  2010

Interesting day today. A young, trainee teacher from my old school who I had been mentoring and supervising last year called round in the morning to ask me to continue in that role. I am very reluctant to get involved. He is a higher order ICT instructor but with weak literacy skills. This latter point seems to count for so little these days but it is essential in my view. We agreed someone else should mentor him. I am free!

Took Pauline’s Mum for pacemaker check. She passed. It is 8 years old and still working well. She will be 96 in August. We will be away but will fly home for a few days if necessary.

12th February,  2010

Had a day off from the Health Club today. Pauline has spent the morning speaking to insurance companies. We now have the house and contents insured for the whole of the 6 months it is unoccupied. We don’t even need to have neighbours coming in to check. We probably will but it is reassuring that it is not a requirement. If you’ve never left your house unoccupied for more than a couple of weeks, you would probably not be aware of insurance requirements. Most House and Contents insurance policies stipulate a limit of 30 days that the property can be left unoccupied. After that, insurance policies are void. Leaving the house for 180 days can be quite daunting. Today we found Intasure, a Lloyds registered insurance company who will insure us for the whole period at a cost of £330.00 for the year. Health insurance and Travel insurance are being provided by Columbus Direct and cost £260.00. Car insurance comes from Fortis. Once again, this is not easy to get for more than a couple of months. We have had to negotiate individually with Fortis and have agreed to pay £20.00 per month extra for the six months we are away so £120.00 on top of our annual comprehensive policy.

We seasoned Hellas travellers know there is only one reliable place to go for inter-island ferry information. GTP or Greek Travel Pages has been published for decades but now is also on the web. Today I was able to fit the last connection into the outward itinerary by fixing the third ferry connection of the trip. We have to cross the British Channel, the Adriatic Sea and the Aegean Sea. This latter crossing is expensive and infrequent at this time of the year. Fortunately, the Hydrofoil service – Aegean Speedrunner – will have started its Summer service. The ferry takes between 5 – 6 hours from Piraeus – Sifnos. The Hydrofoil takes half that. It still costs £120.00 for two with car.

13th February,  2010

Pauline & I have lived together for nearly 32 years. When I say ‘lived together’, I really mean it. We haven’t spent a night apart in that time – or a day. We have worked together on the same campus, often in the same building and, at one point, even shared the same office. We know each other and each knows what the other is thinking often before they do themselves. It will soon be twelve months since we last went to work. As well as wonderful, it has been strange. All our lives we have been running, trying to achieve something. Suddenly, we are not and yet we have both found ourselves substituting future goals which are of no great consequence and pushing ourselves towards them.

I am reminded of the Lines from Elliot’s Ash Wednesday:

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn ……
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still

Even in our travelling, we must learn to sit still.

31st January, 2010

When we were teaching, we could tell you immediately what conditions we needed to deliver successful lessons. If we had been advising parents what classroom conditions they should be looking for to ensure their child would receive the best education, we might come up with a whole list of requirements from skilful and knowledgable teachers with good discipline to innovative ICT to warm and attractive classrooms BUT, the top of any list would always feature class size. Ask any parents who sacrifice thousands of pounds each year in private school fees and they will tell you that one of the most important privileges they are buying is smaller class size.

You can imagine our amazement and then our amusement when, first under Thatcher and then under Blair (War criminal & Roman Catholic)/Ruth Kelly (Education Minister & Roman Catholic), we were told when extra teachers could not be afforded, that bigger class size actually led to better teaching.

There are several different advantages to bigger class sizes relating to teacher quality and teacher pay that often get overlooked in the political posturing known as educational policy. Smaller classes require more teachers, which drives down both the quality of teachers as a whole as well as their pay. The only people who benefit from more teachers are politicians who can claim they have done something for education and teachers unions who get more members. Larger classes, with high quality teachers, actually benefits both the children and the teachers.

This is Bonkers in the Head thinking which could only come from someone who has never faced a clas of 50 – 60 kids and tried to teach them. Actually Thatcher, Blair and Kelly all sent their children to private schools in some perverse sense of punishment by smaller class size. Politics is cynical and politicians say what they need to say particularly when in office. The really annoying thing is that you can always find gullible members of the public to support them when caught on the vox pop hoof. Oh yes. I’ve never really thought about it but, now you come to mention it, I suppose bigger classes must be much better for our children.And then the Government will find a polling organisation who can persude a majority of the 20 people asked to agree with the Bigger Classes – Better Chances slogan. Below are pictures of the classrooms Ruth inhabited as a child:

1st February, 2010

Today, of course, it is not shortage of teachers that is on the agenda. Today we are being told to believe that people are clamouring to keep working. Surveys tell us that 65% of those questioned are desperate to keep working. They love it so much, there is nothing they would rather do. Forget hobbies, forget travelling, forget self indulgence! What 65% of the adult population are desperate to do is get up every morning and decide not to follow their dreams but to commute across town in order to build that house, attend that meeting, sell that coffee, sweep that road. Do me a favour! This is  state-driven propaganda.

2nd February, 2010

While the rest of the world was out at work, I was down at PCWorld buying a new laptop for my wife, installing all my school-bought software and setting up the wireless network. When I bought my first laptop (with school money) ten years ago, it cost £2500.00. It had short battery life, weighed heavier than a hod of bricks and, I think, had a 10″ screen. It was a Toshiba. It has long since dropped in a skip. I must have had five more school laptops since then. Buying my own was a strange experience. Once again I bought a Toshiba but, this time, it has a 17″ screen, a 2.5 hrs battery, a built-in webcam & microphone and an on-line healthcheck and repair system. And it only cost £500.00.

Had an email from Cal that I would like to share with you:

Some new pics for you. These boyo’s (deer) ran out in front of me on my way to work again the other morning. Part of a local lake frozen, pics of the extension, storm damage in the garden, our river flooding and road closureIt will be a year in March since we began the extension, what a year to pick, what an adventure! Between having to dismantle the central heating boiler which means no central heating in the coldest winter for years, floods and storms and the well freezing tis certainly an adventure. We have the start of the roof with most of the joists in place the timber plates on the top of the blocks and most of the blocking of the chimney complete. We have the ceiling height measured and positioning of the velux windows and french doors organised. So it’s the roof struts, felting and tiling next and spring official starts tomorrow in Ireland, yippee.

The pay cut is on hold at the minute as the section 39 agencies battle it out with the HSE and strikes and work to rule look likely, however, some bright spark in HR instructed payroll to deduct the paycut in my pay by accident, they will reimburse me now the error is discovered. Ah well now I know my pay is going to be down by €278 per month when it eventually gets implemented. But I love my job and I am working with 5 children under 5 with multiple disabilities at the moment which is great fun.

Cal seems to live in such a stunningly beautiful place, some of the hardships she describes may be mitigated. I have to say, she seems supremely happy with her lot. Below are the first two of a number of photos that she sent me and which I will post on the Blog/Website. The first is of the frozen fringes of the lake. I’m not sure what the second is centred on but the mountains look spectacular.

It took me a while to work out the next two although the woodland scene is beautiful. When I blew it up to full size, I spotted a number of deer that Cal was talking about. I have enlarged that section for for delight.

3rd February, 2010

Pauline’s Mum is going through a bad patch again. We are currently exploring the possibility that she is wheat-intolerant. The doctor has prescribed a drug that treats irritable bowel syndrome and we have been out to buy the latest product on the market – Genius Bread. I’ve tasted it today and the brown bread tastes almost like bread.

We have had heavy snow this morning and tonight. Only we superior beings with 4xwheel drive vehicles can get about the streets. One of the positives from this weather in January has been the marked upturn in sales of 4xwheel drives. Some were beginning to feel battered by the balmy army of climate changers. Now that it is obvious that they are all cheats and criminals, the 4xwheel drivers feel able to crawl back into the sunlight – or in their case, the snow.

4th February, 2010

It is nice to see the new religion – Climate Change – in retreat. The Church has been brought low by sexual cheats. ( If only Mum had lived to discover the full extent of the Irish Catholics’ degeneracy.) and Climate Change desciples are being demoralised by the data cheats upon whose sand they build their castles. One is almost tempted to shout, There is a God!

You may or may not have heard of Steve Penk. He has compered a film clip show on TV but is also a DJ.

He is based in Oldham and when someone rang in to his radio programme to say the traffic was snarled up under a bridge in Chadderton where a woman was poised to throw herself off, he immediately played, after careful consideration, “the classic rock track ‘Jump’ by Van Halen” in order to show empathy with the frustrated motorists. The woman did jump and, as an unrepentant Penk pointed out, “only shattered her feet”. The people of Oldham, the people that I have given 40 years of service to educate, are nothing if not subtle.

5th February, 2010

Pauline & I have been travelling across Europe in one way or another for more than 30 years. Over the past 10 years, we have spent a minimum of 2 months abroad each year. In spite of this and in spite of being meticulous planners, we still get real excitement when we book the next trip and genuine flutters of destabilisation in the week before we set off. Today we had to start arranging medical insurance for six months in Greece, car insurance to cover the period away and, in order to do that, we had to fix our dates exactly. We have changed our minds again and decided to set off from Hull with P&O.

We will leave England on April 13th and return on October 9th. This represents 179 days – one short of the statutory limit for tax purposes. We booked our P&O crossing which is just over 12 hours and costs £470.00. For that we get a Luxury cabin with settee and satellite TV, return passage for us and our car and Dinner & Breakfast.

6th February, 2010

Today we booked the other major leg of our journey – Ferry from Ancona in Italy to Patras in Greece.

Normally, this will cost us a minimum of £750.00 but travelling in Low Season has halved the cost. We have booked with Anek Lines. I also had a meeting with my Doctor. She is a wonderful woman as well as a gorgeous blonde. I raised the fact that I was intending to live abroad for six months each year but would still be relying on her for drugs all of which I get free. She was immediately supportive. We have fixed appointments for the end of March and the middle of October.

24th January,  2010

For some reason, Sundays are not quite the same anymore. For 40 years I have got up between 6.00 – 7.00 am and urgently gone out to buy the newspapers. It has always been, for as long as I can remember, the most important thing about Sunday. It has been my religion. In the early ’70s, I would get up and walk two miles to the nearest paper shop to buy The Sunday Times and The Observer. Living in Oldham, I had to get up at an early hour to buy these papers because the paper shop would only carry two or three of them. They were not popular in Oldham. The Sunday Mirror or News of the World – No problem. The shop would have hundreds of them but not the ‘posh’ papers. I’ve never had them delivered because they arrive far too late. I read them avidly from cover to cover. They take me about 4-5 hours. If I waited for them to be delivered, I’d never get them finished. In Greece, they cost me about £10.00 and last two or three days.

For some reason, now that I have got all day every day to read the newspapers, they have lost a little of their specialness. I no longer read The Observer, anyway. It hasn’t been the same since Tiny Rowlands relinquished it. Nowadays, The Observer competes to be the most boring paper in the world – and wins. I have had to file it under ‘Life’s too short’. Nowadays (I hate that word.) I read The Sunday Telegraph. I particularly like it for the City/Financial pages. I also find it provides an interesting support in opposing the whole Climate Change lobby.

25th January,  2010

Had the entire Health Club to ourselves today. As we sat in the jacuzzi overloooking an empty and glassy pool, we pretended that we were in our own private facility. This dream was soon shattered, however, when I called the butler to bring us a drink and no-one came.

It is so nice to have the time to explore the world and, in my own small way, document it. I love photographing things. I bought left, a digital camera. It cost £700.00. It is a Cannon EOS 500D and I absolutely love it. I forgot to leave it in my office when I left but never mind.

I used to video everything at one time. I have dozens of tapes of Greek Islands in the 1980s & ’90s on analogue tape. As part of my Retirement Project I have bought a VHS – DVD copier/recorder. School provided me with boxes of re-recordable DVDs, which I forgot to leave in my office. I am starting to digitise the old tapes so that I can edit them on my computer. As a result, I have started to get interested in videoing again. I went out and bought a small camcorder today. It is a Samsung and so tiny you can stick it in your pocket. It only cost about £150.00 which is half the price I paid for an Analogue one 15 years ago. That was huge and cumbersome. If I get in to it again, I will buy a better one.

27th January,  2010

Fun-packed day after a wonderful work out at the Health club. We drove to Leeds – up the M62 – to IKEA. It is always amazing how quickly we can get to Leeds on a weekday off peak time. First thing in the morning, it might take up to an hour but by 11.00 am we can do it in 20 minutes. We want to shade the sides of our pergola in Greece with white, cotton curtains in a tented effect to moderate the sun. Pauline was all ready for buying material and making 15  3m x 1m curtains. This would have taken her a fair while. We suddenly noticed that IKEA sold packs of two, cotton white curtains in exactly the right size with attachments for £10.00. We bought 8 packs. If you’ve ever walked round IKEA, you will know that it is a hideous and extremely trying place. We arrived home shattered and fell asleep.

We were awake well in time for the big match. (well I was) I thought City played well but United were undoubtedly the better team and Rooney, Giggs and Scholes were in a class of their own.

28th January,  2010

Went to Oldham to see my friend and ex-colleague, Brian Robinson. He has just retired too and is completing the doing up of his cottage in the Dordogne. Then we went on to Pauline’s Mum to make Lunch for her. She wolfed down cheese omlette with potatoes and mushroom sauce.

The Pound has strengthened against the Euro so we took the opportunity to send £7000.00 over to our Greek Bank. It always annoys me how much Nat West charge us for the privilege. I also received a phone call from the Manager of Tesco’s On-Line Savings Bank. We had intended using it for some of our regular savings but it’s procedures are so convoluted that we gave up. I am fairly ICT literate and I was even a member of the pilot group for Nat West’s first foray into internet banking about ten years ago. Tesco defeated me and I wrote to point that out. We switched to Principality BS on-line accounts quite easily and told Tesco so. They rang to say that they were going to forward my plans to Head Office. I am expecting a call any day to use me as a National Advisor.

29th January,  2010

Went swimming at 8.45 am. Arrived home at 9.15 am. Pool was full of madly aggressive old ladies. I ran away. Pauline went out to meet a friend and left me quivering in the lounge watching Blair give his evidence to the Iraq Enquiry.

30th January,  2010

Absolutely gorgeous day today. How did I spend it – cleaning the windows! Exactly a year ago we spent about £15,000.00 replacing our sofwood windows with PVCu (dark wood effect) windows. Our house is south facing and the windows had taken a pasting from the sun. Our house is three storeys and the drive is sloping up to a half height roof. These things combined mean that no one in Quarry Court can get a window cleaner to risk life and limb. We bought our replacement windows in the depth of recession on a half price offer from a local and long established firm , Coral Windows of Bradford. They were an excellent firm and we are delighted with our windows. However, Pauline pointed out this morning as the sun streamed in making the windows look filthy, we haven’t cleaned them once yet. Of course, a lot of the time we were in Greece but that is no excuse. We bought designs which open and turn so that the outside can be cleaned from the inside. That was the excitement for the day.