Month: December 2024

Sunday, 22nd December, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

Monday, 23rd December, 2024

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

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

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

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

In 1972, male life expectancy was 72 years.

In 2024, male life expectancy is 82 years.

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

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

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

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

Tuesday, 24th December, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Deloitte Insights – 2024

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

Wednesday, 25th December, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thursday, 26th December, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Friday, 27th December, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saturday, 28th December, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday, 15th December, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monday, 16th December, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tuesday, 17th December, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wednesday, 18th December, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thursday, 19th December, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

Friday, 20th December, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saturday, 21st December, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday, 8th December, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

Monday, 9th December, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tuesday, 10th December, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wednesday, 11th December, 2024

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

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

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

Thursday, 12th December, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

Friday, 13th December, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saturday, 14th December, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday, 1st December, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

Monday, 2nd December, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tuesday, 3rd December, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nothing, like something, happens anywhere.Philip Larkin: The Less Deceived – 1955

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

Wednesday, 4th December, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thursday, 5th December, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Friday, 6th December, 2024

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

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

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

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

Saturday, 7th December, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday, 24th November, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

Monday, 25th November, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

Tuesday, 26th November, 2024

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

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

The lady in the article concludes that:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

T.S. Eliot – The Hollow Men

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

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

Wednesday, 27th November, 2024

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

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

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

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

Thursday, 28th November, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

Friday, 29th November, 2024

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

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

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

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

Dylan Thomas – 1952

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

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

Saturday, 30th November, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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