Month: September 2025

Sunday, 21st September, 2025

Bloody Sunday … again. They don’t stop, do they? A bit like the rain in Manchester and Wales. Anyway, this morning is glorious with clear, blue skies and strong sunshine, warm and wonderful. Unlike in the 1950s, Sundays no longer represent slower times for most people. For the Retired, most days are slower times. In fact, the problem is challenging lethargy by moving around at all.

This article features in the morning’s Sunday Times. I must say it is years since I had a speeding fine. I’ve had two in my driving lifetime. Most young men are in a hurry to get there. With age, we learn to take our time and enjoy the ride.

If anything, the most significant element of driving back and forth across the Pennines each day, back and forth across Europe each year, always in a hurry to get to the next stage for work or pleasure, my eyes were always on alert for police and camera surveillance. I had a couple of speeding camera captures in the North of England and I was once stopped at a Toll Barrier by police as I was leaving France to enter Switzerland. They asked me if I realised I was doing 180km/h on a 130km/h motorway. I told them I was desperate to meet a ferry in Ancona and handed over 70 Euros for their Lunch which seemed to do the trick.

There has been a general toning down of speed limits here in UK as the density of vehicles on the roads has increased. You would be hard put to do the speed limit in many major cities now anyway and it would almost be quicker to walk. Even the little lane I drove up and down every week day for years near my school is going 20 mph. The increased housing and consequent car driving access has to be legislated for.

I no longer speed or even try to speed. I drive almost permanently on the setting of Adaptive Cruise Control set to the speed limit and adjusted to the car in front. With Lane Keep Assist on as well and Automatic Breaking, the only reason I hold the steering wheel at all is because it bleeps and flashes me if I let go for more than 30 secs. Driving is a much more relaxing activity. The roads around us are 20mph limits. The car just reads the signs and sets the speed. I know the Welsh have had a problem adjusting to that principle but, with all that rain, they must be very sad people anyway.

Rain cuts the place we tread,
A sparkling fountain for us
With no fountain boy but me
To balance on my palms
The water from a street of clouds.

Dylan Thomas - 1931

Soggy, Welsh and sad. No wonder Dylan Thomas turned to drink although I don’t think he could drive anyway.

Monday, 22nd September, 2025

The Autumn Equinox was ushered with magnificent skies last evening. The sea and sky across Littlehampton Beach were on fire.

Coincidentally, that Wordsworthian theme of Trailing clouds of glory do we come … was echoed in a photograph from 55 years ago that was sent to me by a friend yesterday. Certainly trailing lots of hair, anyway.

Almost cut my hair
It happened just the other day
It’s gettin’ kinda long
I coulda said it wasn’t in my way…

Well, I didn’t need to cut my hair in the end. It just fell out of its own accord. Trailing clouds of hairy did I come …. On this day in 2009 when I was just 58 years old I was recording the night sky from my Greek house:

Distinct change in overnight temperature is what the garden will be feeling. Although we’ve now got a completely dry and quite warm week ahead, the nights are cooler and the trees, plants, and animals will react and start to turn down, prepare for shut down, look to ensure their survival through the months of Winter. The one thing we are lucky with down here is that the extremes are far less than the further North one goes.

Tuesday, 23rd September, 2025

Another glorious morning – a bit cool but bright, clear blue skies and strong sunshine. It is our long term friend, Little Viv’s Birthday today and we wish her a happy day. She might be tiny but she’s 71 today. Unbelievable!

A big day today. Going to valet the car myself. Lovely day for doing it and I need the exercise. Every new Honda comes with an elaborate canvas bag full of maintenance products – leather polish for the seats, wax shampoo for the paintwork outside and another for the inside, glass cleaner for the windows and mirrors, vinyl & rubber care, wheel cleaner and tyre dresser. You have to be retired just to have the time or inclination to use them all.

I bought my first new Honda – an Accord – in 1984. I found my bag of maintenance products in the boot and my wife had a bouquet of flowers on the back seat. Little has changed with each successive new car but attitudes have. Back then just over 40 years ago, I was busy working, occasionally took my car in for cleaning but had no time to do it myself and, when I took the car in for its first service, I knew it was going to be given a full, inclusive valet by Honda anyway so I didn’t bother myself. The Service Manager actually reprimanded me for bringing in a dirty car. It was bad for Honda’s image he said. He wouldn’t dare do that now.

Down at the beach this morning, Life was busy. No stone unturned. Mackerel cloud was starting to filter over from France. I will take it back with me when I go over shortly.

Wednesday, 24th September, 2025

A grey, overcast and quite chilly start compared with yesterday. It’s not cold but lack of sun makes it feeel so. Of course, living inland makes you far more susceptible to temperature extremes. Living on the coast mitigates those extremes.

The oceans mitigate global temperature by absorbing large amounts of the Earth’s heat, acting as a massive heat sink that distributes this energy through ocean currents and stabilizes climate. Water’s high heat capacity allows it to store and release heat slowly, preventing rapid temperature swings and moderating coastal climates, making them cooler in summer and warmer in winter compared to inland locations.

I haven’t done Geography since O Level in 1967. I knew the basic principle but wasn’t really understanding of the complexities. When you live in the North of England, in general, and on the Pennines, in particular, for decades, you take being cold and miserable in Winter for granted. It is an incentive to move South and to the coast. I was watching people living in Alaska and wondering, Why would you choose to do that? Move to Florida and enjoy your life.

Of course, some people just like the safety of the place they know. Some people live in the same house for most or all of their lives. It is unambitious but safe. I understand that even if I haven’t practised it myself. I belong nowhere. I have my foundations in nothing. I have no home. I am rootless. I have no affinity. I walk alone. It is a lonely, independent journey. Occasionally I regret it but wouldn’t change it at all. We grow through change and ambition, through new experiences and locations, through new ideas and challenging the old. And so it is just like you said it would be …

One of the downsides of living by the sea is that the demographic is much more concentratedly OLD. It is a popular place for people to retire to. Most of the people we come across out during the day are old people. They clog up the shops hunched over trolleys, they clog up the roads peering out for road signs, they clog up the doctors and hospitals desperate for healthcare. They are just there, silver haired and slow. Yes, I know I’m old as well but … not that old.

I love Data and Economics much more than Geography. I listen to a wonderful radio programme that combines the two – More or Less. It is a fact checking data analysis programme which is exactly what I like.

This morning it was examining a statement made by the Governor of the Bank of England about the viability of pensions as the proportion of elderly increased in the UK and across the world. What I found out was that by 2040, almost a quarter of the adult population will be over 65. What pensioners need to remember is that publically funded pensions, health services and social care are not funded out of some already established pot of savings. It is funded by current workers through their taxes. The Faragists who live long enough will suddenly realise why they need immigrants here working and paying taxes or the population pyramid will be so inverted , their very existence will be challenged. Assisted dying will be compulsory.

Thursday, 25th September, 2025

It’s funny how Nature knows the date. How does it know that the ‘official’ start of Autumn has begun? But it does. Suddenly, the nights have got a bit cooler. The skies are clearer. The stars are brighter and the morning’s blue skies are sharper. The trees have suddenly picked up on this and their leaves are beginning to turn from green to yellow with brown edges. One or two are falling and helicoptering down onto the grass below which is growing more slowly now. Even the squirrels are coming out in sympathy and streaking across the road.

The monthly village magazine delivered free to our door features one on its front cover as a symbol of the season. The national psyche still harbours cultural undertones of the harder times in the past when food had to be stored up in the good times for leaner times to come … squirreling it away to get through the Winter.

I live in a community and I have a conscience, I care for people less well off than myself but I’m really not a communitarian. I’ve always had a natural affinity with people who shied away from that style of living, who value their independence and separateness. The Germans have a phrase for it – Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft – Community and (Association) Society. It is a dichotomy developed from Thomas Hobbes through Ferdinand Tonnes and then Max Weber. The village magazine continues to promulgate the traditional Gemeinschaft concept of cooperation. I am still firmly in the atomised Gesellschaft movement. I support in my own way on my own terms. I am not a natural joiner.

I suppose with old age, we see the need more for community and support. We anticipate our infirmity. There could be a time when we need people around us to care. In fact, I see my aging as a a juggler keeping the plates spinning by taking remedial action immediately on my material world maintaining the house and car and on my physical self by addressing health issues as they arise. Keeping at bay deterioration

Eating well, trying to keep fit, having regular health checks just like servicing the car and maintaining house services are all part of the plan. Currently, and I hate to admit it even to myself but, I have a bit of a hearing problem in my left ear. It has always been a little suspect but over the past three months has got seriously worse.

The one thing that my area has is great services for the elderly. Many of them are featured and advertised in our monthly magazine. Hearing deterioration is certainly a feature of aging. Looks like I may be visiting the Sussex Audiology Centre. I’m just happy that this day deep into September has reached 22C/70F with gorgeous sunshine. Reunification is at hand. The world is getting better. Time is cyclical as Einstein would tell you.

Friday, 26th September, 2025

Grey and cool start again. Hope the day turns round as it did yesterday. At least I don’t have to drive to the hairdresser’s this morning. Each morning at the moment, while other people are eating mueseli, I go out into the garden to pick tomatoes. I have picked so many cherry tomatoes from plants which accidentally seeded themselves from past plants that the freezer can’t take much more tomato and basil sauce. Still, it is nice to have.

I finished yesterday’s Blog acknowledging the great Health Services down here on the South Coast. It was ironic because yesterday marked the 60th year since my Dad died in hospital of a heart attack in 1965. He was in hospital in the first place for investigations on his heart. I have always been struck by the irony and angry that systems weren’t in place to save him.

Of course, now a simple stent would have solved the problem of blocked arteries so maybe there just wasn’t the knowledge and/or technology to save him. I’ve found that the first stent was not patented until 7 years after Dad died. Whatever, his death had a resounding effect on our lives, on Mum’s life for years afterwards and on my life in terms of career choice.

It was expected that I would go into the family Building firm – Sanders & Son and I was sent off to evening classes in the local Training College to do a Architect and Estimator module while, at the same time, also doing my O Levels at Grammar School. The original business was started in the 1880s and expanded from coffin-making to general carpentry and then to general building work. It was re-registered when my Grandfather bought out his father’s, my Great Grandfather’s partner and formally registered it as Builders & Contractors. When Dad died he was building numbers of houses and employed about 20 permanent skilled men along with many more from the ‘Lump’ – a form of labour-only subcontracting where workers are paid a lump sum of money for a job, often in cash-in-hand, rather than through PAYE. 

As it was, when Dad died I was just 14 years old and although Grandad stepped back in to keep the business going, it was only until it could be sold to a house building concern in Derby.

I would have been a rubbish Builder anyway although I would have been a good, Man-Manager. I would have been terrible as an Architect and a Constructor but I would have been good as an Estimator and Data Manager. It wouldn’t have been enough although I often thought that combining my brother, Bob’s skills with my own might have made a winning team. Still, it wasn’t to be. I turned to my Mother’s profession as a teacher.

I found that I was a natural educator. I was good at it and enjoyed my ability. I felt utterly at home in Education and in making reluctant kids want to learn. I loved to innovate and bring the age old process of teaching and learning into the modern world of the internet although in the final years I was becoming a bit disenchanted and ready to go. Even so, for many years in my dreams I walked the corridors of my history and continued to talk to and advise former pupils and staff still needing support.

In the past few days, I have been watching the Emmy winning, British psychological crime drama, Adolescence about a teeage boy who murders a girl in his school as he struggles to come to terms with personality development and his developing sexuality. Adolescence illustrates a classic dilemma that one saw time and time again over the years in school. It took me back to my early years of teaching and moved me greatly.

The drama was a slice-of-life style and the school scenes gave me the shivers they were so close to actuality. The poor, caring parents, uneducated but loving, thoughtful, caring people who had obviously worked hard at being good parents but were feeling blamed by the world for their son’s crime. They searched themselves in vain. How often did schools in working class areas constantly under the Oftsted cosh, search their consciences for the source of failure when the system built it in from the outset.

Saturday, 27th September, 2025

The rule is that, as the pips sound for the 7 o’clock News, I have to spring out of bed and get going. Just as I do, I ask Alexa, What’s on the calendar today? She will announce, John, you have four entries on your calendar today and then she will go on to list them and place in text scrolling across the screen. Great, I know how to plan out my day.

This morning, I got a glum, John, there is nothing on your calendar for today. When I was working, I would have rejoiced in having a free Saturday. Now not so.

It is a lovely day. After a warm night we have sunny skies. Might drive down to the beach. Might pick tomatoes. Might check the back garden for jobs. Might …. I hate drift.

I’ve visited Sifnos, Thessaloniki and Athens this morning by webcam. It is overcast and distinctly grey. That is what happens in the dog days of September. I recorded that on this day 16 years ago we lit the log fire for the first time and put on the underfloor heating in our Greek home. The next day, we were swimming across the bay in 30C/85F of sunshine. We had one more week before we left for the drive back to UK and I recorded that I was being forced to eat pork chops twice that week and Bolognese Sauce twice as well as we had to eat down the freezer prior to turning it off for six months.

Anyway, in the here and now, I’ve done a lovely 2hr walk in gorgeously warm sunshine and I’m going in the Gym to move while I watch the football rather than sit as a couch potato and vegetate. I looked at myself in the shower last night and I need to get a grip and work harder. Aging is a terrible thing. If the football is rubbish and it hasn’t been great recently, I’m watching a fantastic dramatisation of the phone hacking scandal that cost Murdoch so dearly. It is called The Hack and is brilliantly carried by Toby Jones as the famed editor, Alan Rusbridger and David Tennant as the intrepid Investigator/Reporter, Nick Davies.

The storyline is cleverly interwoven with Murder of Daniel Morgan, a private investigator who was found dead in a South London carpark with an axe in his head 38 years ago. Officially, the murder is still unsolved although police corruption and phone hacking seem to have been involved as well. The connection between the two stories is that both were linked to the now defunct Murdoch newspaper – The News of the World. It is a story that involves Journalism, Politics and Espionage and History. I am in heaven.

Sunday, 21st September, 2025

Sad Sunday. Never been keen on them. Especially as a child, I hated them. The routine was obligatory Church Service followed by a quite formal and obligatory Sunday Lunch followed by an obligatory Family Outing either driving or walking or both. I have been encouraged throughout my adult lifetime by the decline in formal religion, the opening up of the secular and commercial world into Sundays, making it rather more of a ‘normal’ day.

Only in separation – marriage, and birth,
And death, and thoughts of these – for which was built
This special shell?

Church Going – Philip Larkin, 1954

When Philip Larkin wrote his poem, Church Going, more than 70 years ago, the decline was barely under way. The title is deliberately double entendre. It implies that people are going to church while the church is leaving. And so they are although there has been an attempt to show that there is a resurgence. Recently, we have been told that Gen Z is returning to the church. I am sceptical but it has to be taken seriously.

I’ve spent a career of 40 years in Teaching telling pupils that god doesn’t exist and that they need to face reality. It is to be expected that there would be an equal and opposite reaction. The ‘Tommy Robinson‘ demonstration in London yesterday was ostensibly arguing that Britains should unite and become Christian again while beating up policemen. It always amuses/shocks me how right wing christians rarely espouse Christianity at all. I know of people who are self professed Christians but set out to hurt others in the most un-Christian way. For them, Christianity is more of a socio-politcal construct than a belief system. They use religion as a tool more than a support system.

My shadow is in need of Medical Investigation. Struggling to get the NHS to do it so we are on the verge of breaking our rules and seeking Private Health help. The nearest private hospital in Goring looks the most likely place. We are going to seek help from them. We are certainly not going to be looking for Divine Intervention or the solace of the promiscuous God Squadders.

Monday, 15th September, 2025

Happy Monday after a windy night. Warm and sunny with fast scudding clouds overhead. Out for an early walk where the debris from the night is scattered. In the park, the apple trees are scattered as wind falls.

Unfortunately, it is Bin Day and empty ones are dancing in the road. Well, it is Autumn. In fact, we are half way through September already. You can’t hold back time, Dear Reader, although a lot of us are trying to.

I get my Mobile and Broadband contracts from EE. I have two all-in smartphone contracts which allow me to use as much data, texts and phone calls as I like. I can use it in UK and right across Europe equally. Well, that’s whet I thought. Last month my bill showed one anomaly which was an extra charge for using emojis in texts from Abroad. I got my bill for this month and found another anomaly – an extra charge for phoning Athens from UK.

It feels strange because, when I asked them, they said I could have phoned London from Athens for free. I could phone Athens from Paris for free but I am charged for phoning Athens from UK. It’s not a big cost. I phoned my hotel for a couple of minutes and incurred a charge of 49p but I might have needed a much longer call and I need to find a work around. In the past it was to use Skype. I’ve eventually found a Voice Over Internet Protocol alternative called Yolla.

Out on my second walk of the day through the park and the Autumnal decaying of Nature, I came across this little chap scurrying through the tree’s debris. I photographed it with Google Lens which is an absolutely brilliant (and free) app which allows one to photograph anything and Google will identify it for you within seconds – trees, plants, birds, insects, cars, clothes, anything. Google is almost guarranteed to have a similar photograph in its image database of billions and billions of images.

Google Lens told me that it was called Calliteara pudibunda – a poisonous caterpillar which produces a poisonous moth which is pale in colour hence the name: Pale Tussock. It goes on to give more background than you could ever want. I particularly use it for identifying plants I want to grow. Well worth a look, Dear Reader … and free.

Tuesday, 16th September, 2025

Warm and sunny again but without the wind. Been out for an early walk and it is delightful to feel the sun on my limbs. While I’m walking, I’m tossing a couple of things around my head. I hate indecision and I can’t resolve these two very different but related things.

I have to pay an €800.00 deposit on a holiday rental in Spain next year. The problem is that I’m transferring money to a Spanish company’s account in a Spanish bank. There are two, basic methods I can use:

• IBAN – International Bank Account Number
• BIC / Swift – Business Identifier Code

These processes were every other day occurences when I was building in Greece but I feel so out of the the centre of this now. Maybe it is my age but I am far less confident of filing off £20,000.00 lumps of cash into the ether as I was doing most months 25 years ago.

Anyway, IBAN has done the trick this morning and the 28 night stay is secured in June-July next year. It allowed me to immediately buy return flights but this time to Alicante Airport. We loved Murcia Airport for being small and quiet and easy. Unfortunately, that scale means it has less flights from London each day and the timings just aren’t right for us next year. It will be interesting to see a new airport next year and at least it has an Executive Lounge which Murcia didn’t.

A 4 week stay in Spain will cost me £3,200.00 plus £500.00 for return flights. If I do it twice a year for 10 years, that would work out at something just under £80,000.00. This morning I received an invite from a Developer who has a small block of 8 new apartments in Torrevieja with a communal roof pool for £137,000.00. Property in Spain seems to be so cheap compared with Greece. So, while I am walking, I am tossing that around my head. Would it be cost effective? Am I too old? Would we use it enough knowing there are other places to go?

When I got home, reality bit back. A letter arrived from the Oncology Team in Worthing preparing me for my next set of Blood Tests and a CT Scan before meeting them for a Review at the end of the year. Everything is predicated on remaining alive, doesn’t it Dear Reader?

Wednesday, 17th September, 2025

Disappointingly drizzly and grey this morning. Not that warm either. Good to see we have set the scene well for Trump’s visit. Spending it preparing a guide for a girl to see as much of Athens in a two day visit. Fun but tricky. Google Maps is invaluable but I also took photos while we there in preparation.

I’ve tried to point out ways to move around the capital city, things worth seeing, places for eating and shopping. There is only so much you can do in 36 hours without killing yourself.

Having visited 80 times over the past 40 years and spent the equivalent of about a year and a half living there, my advice to newcomers with little time would be to find a central cafe, order some wine and just sit and watch and listen to the world around them. There is no better way to experience Athens than this.

Won’t be long before we can Check-in on line for our next trip to Tenerife. If the weather continues like this, I will be desperate for warm sunshine by then. First, however, we have some medical issues to sort out. My shadow is still not completely well and we are expecting further investigations. I’ve got my Oncology Review coming up at the end of the year and have to have blood tests for PSA and Testosterone plus a full body scan. They have just contacted me about it.

Thursday, 18th September, 2025

Very warm, grey day when the news is interesting. Today, the Bank of England held interest rates steady at 4% when there was clamour for a reduction and America had prefigured it by reducing their rate under pressure from Trump.

It may not mean much to the masses but it would if they realised its significance. We affluent oldies will gain. We don’t borrow money and pay interest. We tend to invest money and receive interest. Inflation attacks us and we need interest to counterbalance that. Inflation informs our pensions which we have no way to influence.

Triple Lock State Pensions will be uprated by Average Earnings at 4.7%. Teachers Pensions will be uprated by Consumer Price Index (CPI) which is predicted to be 4.0% for September. These are important factors for we poor people. It is important that Pensioners keep up with developing earnings in the real world.

Of course, for we poor Teacher pensioners, it’s equally important to maintain our position. After all, we’ve got our travel to pay for. We have a Juke to insure. Prices are rising and our pensions must rise with them. Fortunately, that’s what Teachers’ Pensions do. Index Linking is part of the gold plating we received to compensate for low salaries.

In these politically uncertain times, Keir Starmer has managed a wonderful American visit reaping £Billions in inward investment. I just hope I live to see the rewards. He is under pressure from his base and Andy Burnham, Greater Manchester Mayor and King across the Water, is being touted as an alternative with stronger left wing credentials. We will see.

If the unsophisticated, uncultured Northerners feel strongly enough maybe his case will be advanced. If Starmer produces the goods, maybe we will stick with the cultured intelligentsia from Highgate. I’m hoping Starmer can make it but Burnham would be an acceptable alternative.

Talking of sophistication, my sister in law is making her first trip to Athens as a prelude to a Mediterranean cruise. I was tasked to find her a hotel for a couple of nights and suggest how she might spend a couple of days exploring. For me, it was quite fun condensing over 40 years of experience into a few pages. I managed to produce a quick guide and fired it off today just as they were setting out for Croatia – which we are told is at an early Greek stage of development.

Friday, 19th September, 2025

Happy Hair Day Friday, Dear Reader. I am home alone and my wife has gone to the hairdressers again. She seems to go a bit more frequently these days. Probably trying too hard. Her hair has hardly changed over the past 50 years although it has always been fine, it is perhaps a little thinner now. Still, at £75.00 a go, it’s cheap compared with the old, Sassoon days in Manchester. I haven’t chauffeured her because I drank wine last night and she has a 9.00 am appointment.

I am outside mowing everyone’s lawns. Summer is well and truly back with blue skies, strong sunshine aand 25C/77F of joyous warmth. The birds are really confused. My huge crop of cherry tomatoes are taking every opportunity to ripen and the grass is green and luscious.

It’s always touch and go with outdoor tomatoes and we are usually left with lots of green ones at the end of the season.This year will be better than most but the slugs are really feasting on them as well.

I remember the ritual at home as a child when the country had just emerged from wartime economy and Dig for Victory movements. We grew large proportions of our household vegetables in our own garden with a waste-not-want-not theme. Mum always ended up making Green Tomato Chutney but I don’t know who ate it. I didn’t.

The end of the season and my mower is showing its age. Over five years old and bought in a time when I had real grass. Now I just do public areas. Will I buy another? The neighbours have said they will club together to buy me a sit-on tractor but that would defeat the fitness effort. Still shelling out £500.00 to help the neighbours feels a bit extreme.

Conversation today has turned to see places that we think we should. Destinations like Venice, Florence, Parma and Bologna were great but we haven’t been to Rome and feel we should. Just a short break of about 4 days would be enough to taste and decide if it merits a longer return.

And Madrid has rave reviews from our friends. Now we have got the Spanish vibe, a few days there and/or Barcelona would be a good thing to do. My 75 birthday in April could be the perfect opportunity/excuse. I think I fancy Barcelona. Any tips, Dear Reader?

Saturday, 20th September, 2025

A very warm but rather grey morning. Every morning starts at 5.45 am with Alexa announcing the time and playing BBC Radio 4. At that time, it is Farming Today. Not a natural interest of mine although it can be fascinating. I remember Margaret Thatcher saying her day began with that.

This week, the theme has been Rural Services and today it was bus services. I haven’t been on a bus for years other than the Long Stay Car Park Shuttle bus at the airport. I drive past people here standing at bus stops and I want to give them a lift. I can’t bear seeing people standing in the cold and wet for hours just because they can’t afford a car. Other than that, I didn’t think about it much until elderly relatives lost the use of their car and found bus services were appalling. They had to rely on taxis just to go to the doctors/dentist at a cost of £9.00 each way.

Down here, we have a Coastliner bus service that links Brighton & Portsmouth and many places in between. One goes every 20 minutes and a day ticket of unlimited travel costs £8.50. However, we would have to walk quite a way to a bus stop and getting anywhere would mean visiting many other places we didn’t want in between. It would be long winded and tiring. I certainly wouldn’t choose it.

This morning, I felt myself really moved by a girl in Hull who couldn’t afford a car. She said she couldn’t even afford the lessons to learn to drive a car and she had to travel from a rural village to Hull to work. The bus was infrequent and, when she finished her shift at 5.30 pm, she had to wait for the next bus which wasn’t until 7.10 pm. Totally unacceptable after a hard day’s work but what could she do? I tried to put myself in that situation and it upset me.

Despite a Labour Government reinstituting subsidies for bus companies to hold down fares it hasn’t encouraged the increase in services so working people can go about their lives. The problem is where to find the money. There just isn’t any to spare.

My eye sight has never been good and it has got marginally worse over the years. Although I am no longer Type 2 Diabetic, I still have Diabetic Retinopathy Eye Screen invitations twice a year at the local hospital. I take them up because my eyesight is so important. I can’t imagine what it woud be like to lose my driving licence because of my sight. My letter arrived this morning.

The day has turned out to be another lovely one. We got some sunshine and 22C/70F of warmth. My Gardener cut the hedge for one of the last cuts this year – well until we return from travels in December. Looking forward to seeing friends in the North and then sunning myself in the Canarian warmth for a month.

Home made pizzas for Supper tonight while watching Man.Utd. v Chelsea. Pauline’s made the dough. I’ve chosen the toppings. I want a Margharita and a Seafood one. That is prepared. The pizzas are in the ovens and take just 6 minutes at 300C. Absolutely gorgeous! And Man. Utd. won.

Sunday, 7th September, 2025

Gorgeous morning of blue sky and sunshine with a temperature of 22C/70F at 8.00 am after a really warm, moonlit night. Haircut day. At least I don’t need it dyeing. It’s dying of its own accord.

Yesterday, I had to chaffeur my Housekeeper in to Worthing to try on some shoes she had ordered. I am always asked for my opinion and I try to be optimistic. These are suede and I have a pathological dislike of suede. I have no idea why. I think these shoes were about £50.00 a pair so relatively cheap – giving me all the reason I needed to overcome my feelings about suede. I appealed for help to rescue me from this dilemma but no help came. However, reality was all it took to reject the cheap and nasty objects that even Housekeeper couldn’t accept.

Worthing had returned to holiday vibe as the weekend developed. Haven’t been down there for a bit and it was nice to be amongst people – young people, active and happy people enjoying the restaurants, coffee shops, wine bars and the beach. Even The Worthing Wheel was busy and moving.

I’m still reeling from the DVLA letter which arrived while I was out. My car is extremely fuel efficient being a petrol Hybrid. I am still being asked to pay a fortune for Road Fund Tax that the Tories brought in. I really don’t think I get what I’m paying for. Over £600.00 to tax the car is crazy and I have to pay it every year for 5 years when it reduces to the standard £180.00. Who can keep a car for 5 years? I will have traded it in long before that and be back on the high charge treadmill …. if I don’t die first.

I have done a 90 mins walk in the sunshine but I am feeling tired today. All the jobs I’ve planned are going to take mind over matter. I don’t feel as if I’ve got enough energy. I’m being told that it’s my age but I refuse to accept that. I was just 58 on this day 16 years ago as I lunched in a Vathy beach taverna. I was in the first Summer of Retirement and everything felt new, strange but exciting. The first year that school had gone back without me. I still get that feeling even now. School went back this week without me. Still feels a bit wrong.

Monday, 8th September, 2025

A warm clear night of stars and a Blood Moon last night. Were you looking at the moon last night, Dear Reader, because it was certainly looking at you.

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

Deliciously warm night which didn’t fall below the palindromic 16C/61F. It will probably be one of the last of the season although we are forecast for a return down here at the end of the week.

Another week. Another week of Retirement. Another week of generating activity … for the sake of activity. Sometimes, I long to add meaning to the days. I talk to friends; I try to keep fit; I maintain my world as best I can but, so often, I think there has to be more to it than this. I’ve decided that I am going to major on travel.

I cannot trivialise my time. I am unfortunately unable to accept the simple, momentary pleasures of sparkling lights and popcorn. Ferris wheels and ‘Pop’ music leave me cold and feeling that there has to be something better than this. There is a Void that has to be filled with meaning that is deeper than the superficial. Not the enjoyment of the sunset but what it means.

This morning is bin day so one of high excitement and activity. Not only do I have to put them out but collect them and put them back – for myself and for my neighbour who is in Australia on business. What more could one want?

I am cooking tonight which will be fun. I am doing Roast Chicken Thighs with Garlic Parmesan White Beans which is billed as the SEXIEST white beans you’ll ever try! in this recipe. I’ll be the judge of that.

Tuesday, 9th September, 2025

Beautiful, warm and sunny morning. Promising to be a good day. Last night finished quite well. The meal I cooked was a success although I burnt my finger on a pan which put a bit of a dampener on it. Otherwise, the food was good. Just done an early walk in wonderful warmth. I’m looking forward to spending the whole of November doing that in the Canaries.

I was struck by a report in the M.E.N. this morning about the expansion of a windfarm in Rochdale. I’m all in favour of renewable energy. We should have been embracing it years ago. You know that Greeks have heated water by the sun almost since we started going their 45 years ago. In those days, it was really common to see solar heated water containers on the flat roofs of every house.

It made sense in Greece. In UK, we have more wind than sun so it makes sense to farm the wind in places renowned for it. Having lived on the edge of the Pennines for 40 years, I know it can be windy although I do fear for the compromise it brings to the stark beauty of the landscape and the report is that this site is going to be massively increased..

Where I live, the sea accompanies wind and we have a seascape involving turbines. I have no problem with that. They are far enough out to be inoffensive. I am happy for this to be expanded as is suggested but solar power down here is increasingly becoming a viable alternative. There is no reason why every house should not be clad with solar panels, no reason why every public building should not do the same. Electricity is clearly going to dominate the rest of my life. It’s going to power everything I use. It may well be that Fusion Power will eventually produce unlimited, cheap electricity in the future but for now, renewable energy will increasingly dominate.

This morning I’ve been booking flights for next year and Channel crossings for next month. Travel is certainly no longer cheap. Admittedly, we do choose the most expensive seats and services but Four flights (2 Returns) from Gatwick to Greece on a ‘Budget Airline’ now cost £1,500.00 and return tickets with Le Shuttle to France in October cost £210.00 whereas we used to get £20.00 promotions.

Wednesday, 10th September, 2025

A bit of Autumn arrives this morning. Still very warm but starting wet. One of us is visiting The Beauty Clinic this morning to give another woman £100.00 to help with her Groceries.

When you see what they do, I shudder. Can you imagine, Dear Reader, paying for this? What’s going on up there, goodness knows but I thought shock treatment (ECT) had been largely discredited even in treatment of mental patients.

Meanwhile, another Beauty Show was going on in Worcester. It was Graduation Day. Rather laughably, as a life long atheist, I am a God Father to a lovely girl called Julia. Yesterday, one of her three children graduated from Worcester University. I don’t have children of my own but can seen why old people feel a sense of pride when their offspring achieve. Rebecca-Jane would certainly have been brilliant.

It’s pouring with heavy rain again so I’m going in the Gym and I need something gripping to watch while I work.

While I am feeling sad, I just came across a holiday maker’s post of their beach photograph this morning. I wasn’t interested in that but I was when I saw our former house, the one we designed and built standing out in the background. Gone are the days … I can’t take my mind of of you.

Thursday, 11th September, 2025

Very warm but with frequent bouts of heavy rain this morning. I am driving up to Surrey to see C in his Dementia Facility. He loves Christmas cake and sweets. We are taking both.

C is a natural performer/entertainer. He loves to sing and entertain the crowds. His idol is Frank Sinatra and he reacts volubly to photos of him. His Facility really goes the extra mile for its residents with daily forms of entertainment. These are ideal for C who really gets involved. Could be a difficult drive in wet conditions today but it has to be done. …. Actually, the forecast turned out to be completely wrong and we had lovely, warm sunshine and gloriously clear roads for our trip. Even managed a 90 mins walk when I got home.

The new Energy Price Cap comes into force soon. October 1st – now I’ve got your riveted attention, Dear Reader! We buy our dual fuel energy from British Gas because that is what we inherited from the builders when we bought the house off-plan. The smart meter is set up for British Gas. My phone app is set up for British Gas and, every time I check there is very little to gain from leaving them. They are still a bit monolithic but we’ve used them in the last four properties before this so there didn’t seem much point in switching.

We hardly use any gas and most that we do is for cooking on a hob. The central heating is on so rarely down here. We are extremely electricity greedy with all the appliances/applications we use. Our bill is 15% gas to 85% electricity and will annualise at around £3000.00. Even so, I monitor our usage monthly and record it on a spreadsheet so I can compare it historically. I know how many units of gas/electricity we used each month of September since we moved into this house so we can see our trends. I follow whether it is better to fix our price for the following year or leave it floating until conditions improve and for a while now it has paid to fix.

While I was in Athens, British Gas contacted me and told me my contract was coming to a close and advising me to fix. I went on line and did that immediately. When I got home, they contacted me with the same advice. I phoned them and they insisted I had’t. They did it for me again there and then and reduced my unit price “as an apology for the error”. Two weeks later, they contacted me to say I really should fix before October 1st price rises. I went through the saga and they ‘fixed’ again for me – reducing the unit price again “as an apology”.

It’s a good game and saves me money but I do worry about the competence of UK’s foremost energy supplier and I’m writing to the Management to point that out. Their systems in general and their online systems in particular leave a lot to be desired. All a bit nerdy, I know, Dear Reader but why give them money when you could be spending it on yourself?

I’ve found the Dementia trip has affected me more than I expected. It has made me examine myself and my own human interrelationships, my memories of long and short term past. The human brain is such a scary engine.

Friday, 12th September, 2025

Glorious morning to be alive and mainly in full possession of most of my faculties. What yesterday underlined for me is that there is nothing more important than the present and delay is unacceptable. We have to sieze the day while it is still available. It also increased my determination to keep the context of my actions in all round focus – past, present, future – as much as possible.

Our grip on reality and imagination can be a tenuous one at times. I have strong abilities to remember and link events of Past & Present and interpret one in the light of another. It is what Historians do. Even then, there are debates and disputes over the empirical evidence set against the philosophical/political beliefs informing them. Where I have no abilities at all is in Geographical memory and direction. I have driven between Sussex & Surrey so many times over the past 15 years that you would think the car would almost drive itself. Actually, I would be absolutely lost without sat. nav..

I was amused and heartened by a story on the BBC webpage which could easily be about me. It features a wedding in Scotland and the photographs taken on the day revealed the presence of a very tall mystery man. Nobody invited him and nobody knew who he was. Only when it was uploaded to the web did someone solve the mystery and name the gatecrasher. Apparently, he was expected at another wedding a couple of miles away but didn’t realise he was at the wrong wedding until the bride walked down the aisle. Well, Dear Reader, I could have been the mystery man who nobody invited and nobody knew …. at the wrong wedding.

I don’t like to leave things to chance. I prefer to be in charge of my own destiny. I like to see my time ahead planned out and ordered. I am frustrated that the property I want to book in Spain for a month next June/July has not yet been released and I am having to wait to secure it. I made a contact in the company which Manages it so I’m hoping to pull a few strings to hurry it along this afternoon.

A bit cooler this morning. Just 16C/61F with clear blue skies and strong sunshine. It will soon warm up. The cherry tomatoes out in the garden are covered in fruit and it is still ripening. I suspect they will have another couple of weeks or so before I grub them up.

If you thought Greece was year round sunshine then this suggests not. Our first stay extended from April into October shocked us with the rapidity in which the Seasons changed as rain and low cloud obliterated the beach and the Port.

Saturday, 13th September, 2025

At least it’s Saturday. I was woken in the early hours by torrential rain and that has continued into the morning accompanied by loud cracks of thunder. It is dark and the whole atmosphere is very Shakespearian. The old world decays and dies and gives way to a new world with a bright, new future. We have to be optimistic.

The Tempest breaks up the old order and gives way to a fresh and shiny new beginning. Miranda, pictured here by one of my favourite artists, John William Waterhouse at the very time the storm of war was rending the world, finds love with Ferdinand and they inherit the new world. The older generation,in the form of her father, Prospero, leaves the stage just as in all our lives.

Occasionally, memories come back to bite us. And so it is, just like you said it would be ….. This morning my Digital Memory Box shocked me. It threw up pictures across the last two decades. Back in 2006, I was 55 and still working but walking around with our Greek home in my head as a retreat. In 2011, I was 60 and desperately trying to get fitter by swimming across the bay while living in Greece. In 2015, at the age of 64, I was homeless. Well, we were between houses and spending two months in a hotel in Tennerife while waiting for our new home to be ready. Just two years ago in 2023 I was 72, I had cancer and was undergoing Radiotherapy in Brighton. All events in the graduation of time.

What did shock me – and I won’t be sharing this naked image with you – was a short video recording that I made in Summer 2006 in the Greek house to remind us of things we had to return from UK with in 2007. The video caught a glimpse of me in one of the bathrooms in the mirror. As I played it back this morning, I found myself seriously asking, Who is that? before realising it was me nearly 20 years younger.

I go about my life thinking I haven’t changed much while everyone else has. Everybody we meet swears that Pauline is 20 years younger than her age and then says, Sorry about you, John. To see a live edition of a 55 year old me was shocking. My skin looked so Healthy, Smooth, Shiny and …. YOUNG! I am shocked! I’m not taking it well. At least I don’t need a wig!

I am consoling myself with more travel bookings. My contact girl in Spain has come through with an offer on the property we rented in June. Four weeks spanning June/July next year will cost me just €3,700.00. Fantastic value and I can’t wait to sign the contract. That’s something to anticipate across the Winter. Now, all I have to do is stay alive.

Sunday, 31st August, 2025

August is on its way out with warmth and sunshine. Didn’t drop below 18C/65F over night. The aim is to stay in shorts and tee shirts, to keep the window vents open and not to get the quilt on the bed until we return from Tenerife in December.

Don’t you just love human beings and their idiosyncrasies. We are all weird when you focus down on us. OK, I may be more weird than most but it is our differences as much as our similarities that make us what we are – human. The longer we live together, there is a chance our tastes become integrated but there are also many indivdual things we cling to and require negotiation.

We have done six flights so far this year and we’ve got a couple more (so far) which will be the longest by some mark. The Tenerife flights are 4hrs 35 mins which can get boring. I usually try to catch up on sleep but my travelling companion has decided she wants to watch a Netflix film to get her through the time. That means downloading it to her iPad and then wearing ear phones to listen silently. She hates ear buds so I’ve had to buy her noise cancelling, blue tooth Headphones. I am persisting with ear buds because I want to look young and cool!

I have an EE account with two smartphones on it. They are both Samsung S24 Ultra 5G on which I have a 2 year contract at 2 x £80.00 per month. It ends soon and I will be offered an upgrade for each phone to Samsung S25 Ultra 5G, each of which would cost me £1,250.00 to buy but will be free from EE on another two year contract at 2 x £90.00 per month. That contract gives me free roaming as if I was in UK where I have unlimited calls, texts and data. The difference is that the new phones come ‘free’ but the current ones remain my property and I can sell the two for £1000.00. Discussions suggest that one of us will require a transparent phone cover while I will be getting another new, green one

Feel really tired today. Had to really push myself to do stuff. My 90 mins walk felt like 90 hours. I have a cold and my ears are blocked. I’m very rarely ill but, when I am, I’m ILL and it affects everything.

Just to make things worse, the new artificial lawn sweeper arrived yesterday and I had the impossible job of constructing it this afternoon. Well, I must admit I was forced to watch a friend construct it for me while I supplied the brute force in screwing it together. Made in China guarantees the instructions are impossible to follow and we had to intuit the process. Intuition is my middle name, of course. Constructed and working, I’m pleased with my efforts and could get round to using it when I feel better.

M&K continue their road trip from Surrey to Florida via Newfoundland, New Jersey, Washington D.C., North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. It’s beginning to sound epic!

Monday, 1st September, 2025

And so it is just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
most of the time
And so it is the shorter story
No love, no glory
No hero in her sky

And so it is Time goes on. Summer morphs into Autumn. Warm fades out into cool. Youth fades into Age. And so it is. Yes, Life goes easy, maybe too easy because reality requires the rough edge of experience, abrasive and sharpening perspectives. And so it is.

It is has been a popular belief that time – day and night, Summer and Autumn, Waves and Tides, Life and Death are immutable truths. The movement of time weaves through them all so that poets, writers, artists, composers have used one to describe the other across the ages from Chaucer’s 14th Century Canterbury Tales: “Time and Tide wait for no Man” to Larkin’s 20th Century Days: “What are days for?
Days are where we live.“

The hypnotic to & fro of the metronome, the tick of the clock, the roar, crash and withdrawal of the waves on the shingle beach where the sea meets the sky and clouds bring winds and changing seasons from across the continents and the hemispheres of the globe.

The sea and the tides have always had a hypnotic attraction for human beings just as the changing skies, stars and moon have too. Nobody says it better than Eliot.

The menace and caress of wave that breaks on water,
The distant rote in the granite teeth,
And the wailing warning from the approaching headland
Are all sea voices, and the heaving groaner
Rounded homewards, and the seagull:
And under the oppression of the silent fog
The tolling bell
Measures time not our time, rung by the unhurried
Ground swell, a time
Older than the time of chronometers, older
Than time counted by anxious worried women
Lying awake, calculating the future,
Trying to unweave, unwind, unravel

T.S. Eliot – Four Quartets 3: The Dry Salvages

We may not all consciously think about it, reason it out but we all, at the very least, subconsiously feel the temporal nature of our existence and the circularity of our lives – Dust to Dust, Ashes to Ashes. The phrase born from the sea and return to die in the sea is a common metaphorical concept, especially in Buddhist philosophy, where a life is seen as a wave returning to the ocean.

Just as in the macrocosm, so we humans mirror that need to return in the microcosm. I see it in myself and the people of my life. After living and working a large, central part of my life I have spent recent times going back to people and places of earlier times. I’m not the only one. We all seek out and attempt to define the significance of our experiences, to reconnect, re-examine and re-evaluate.

I was amused and provoked by this group photo repeated almost 40 years apart. These people were standing where I stood but many years earlier. Their impulse, like mine and others of my experience is to do just that: to reclaim the past before we are all engulfed by the tsunami of time.

Tuesday, 2nd September, 2025

At 9.30 am on the second day of Meteorological Autumn, we’ve just had a incredible cloud burst. Everywhere, the trees are looking stressed and aging. We are told that they have advanced two months ahead of ‘normal’ seasons because this has been the hottest year on record and I remember the long, hot, lonely Summer of 1976. I spent it doing my English Degree, going to Keele University and running to get fit. It was long, hot and lonely but productive and effective. Just looking up the link for the university led me back into a longing for academic work again.

I looked up Research for a Doctorate in the History of Political Thought which I would have to do from a distance. There is no way I’m going to rough it on a student campus at my age. It would take 6 years. I would be 80 by then and it would cost a fortune although I could get a University grant if my topic hit the right spot. It certainly wouldn’t be from Keele. Anyway, I’m too old don’t you think, Dear Reader? Have to try and dismiss it from my mind. Maybe I could do it in Manchester ….

Actually, one of my tasks for this week is to prepare a starter pack for my sister in law who is going to Athens for the first time and will only be there for two days en route to a Cruise ship which she picks up in Piraeus. I found her a hotel and now need to give her advice on how to make the most of such a short time in the city. Wherever she goes in Athens, it will certainly be a culture shock.

As a long term Grecophile, I had grown up with the belief that, unlike UK, Greece lacked the variation of Seasons. Sixteen years ago, was the first time I could test that theory and it wasn’t true. Having retired and spent 6 months in our house, I recorded the last week of August with this photo from the patio on a hot, dark night across the port ….

…. and one week later, at the beginning of September, this scene quite shocked me as sea mist thickened and filled the valley, rain came and washed the island of its Summer dust.

Here the rain clouds scurry across the sky, occasionally choosing to douse us in showers and sometimes more. Our lovely neighbours, who have just returned from sunny Corfu, chose to day to hold a Coffee Morning in an aid of the local Hospice. It looks like they are rapidly trying to construct an awning in their garden for guests to shelter. Good luck with that. I’m going in the Gym.

Wednesday, 3rd September, 2025

A very warm but windy night. We didn’t drop below 18C/65F. It is grey and uninviting and rain is forecast. It will be a Gym day today. I’m quite happy about that because I’m watching a facinating serialisation of Joseph Conrad’s novel, The Secret Agent.

It was the sort of novel and novelist that was popular in my educational youth. Joseph Conrad was a Polish émigré born Józef Konrad Korzeniowski and is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language even though he did not speak English fluently until his twenties and he died in 1924 but his writing seems to have anticipated later world events reflecting aspects of a European-dominated world—including imperialism and colonialism.

I’m afraid, my experience of this novel goes back to a small, tutorial room in 1970. I was one of five students asked to read and discuss The Secret Agent and I had been given a week to do it. I am a very slow reader. I don’t read fiction out of choice and, to be honest with you, I had much more enjoyable things to do, Dear Reader. When it came to my turn, I just winged it. Remember, we had no internet to ask. I talked for about 10 mins about a book of which I had only read the blurb on the back. I came out quite pleased with myself. I thought I had got away with it and went back to enjoying myself. It was only on the day I left that my tutor confirmed she knew I hadn’t done the reading

I still haven’t but I am trying to make up for it by watching a dramatisation on Netflix while on the Treadmill in the Gym. It is quality Drama made by the BBC and doesn’t require the effort of reading. What it has done is transport me back to that Tutorial Room and my shallow sensation of deception and the callow arrogance of youth. Very little mattered back then. Now, everything matters desperately. I have to be honest, to be true to myself. Deception is no longer necessary. I wear my heart on my sleeve.

Outside the warm rain is falling already. The wind is blustering off the sea. Inside, the soft, warm memories of youth are folding over me. The Secret Agent is calling, searching, looking for me with gentle reproach. Can’t take my mind off of you. Can I rise to the challenge? I will not let it go by unanswered. Joseph Conrad has been dead for 100 years but I am still here.

I went down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky. It was warm, windy and wet and very deserted.

Thursday, 4th September, 2025

The weather in September is certainly hitting back with variety. At 5.00 am, a cloudburst hit the house. Torrential rain bouncing on the earth. By 8.00 am, clear blue skies and strong uninterrupted sunshine bathed the earth in warm light. It is almost Mediterranean in its pattern.

This morning, I’ve been buying the Mediterranean in the form of a return to Athens for the 81st time. At the risk of sounding monotonous, I have secured a suite in Thessaloniki and a suite in Athens for 2026. It is important to keep in touch with old friends and that is a sign of optimism. I will book a month in Spain as soon as the bookings are released and then think about the later part of 2006 and where we want to be.

By 10.00 am and a trip to the beach for fresh fish, I parked up and remotely opened the tailgate so a shopping bag could be picked up. Before I could, the skies opened and a cloudburst deluged the area. I sat in the car. When it was over, I went to get the bag and realised I’d forgotten to close the boot. Looked almost as if I could catch my own fish in it.

About 40 years ago, I did the same in the school carpark. I parked up and forgot I had the sunroof open on a cold but sunny morning. I got back in the evening to find the seats covered in an avalanche of snow. Anyway, not a problem. I have a little woman for these crises. All sorted out. Even managed to walk along the Marina in the lovely warm sunshine before the next downpour.

One of my tasks today is to prepare a guide for an Athens novice who only has two days to see the sights. Impossible but I’m trying to help so I’m giving a number of suggestions to choose from. There are the formal places people like to say they’ve seen – The Acropolis and it’s new Museum, the Parliament Building, changing of the Guard and Syndagma Square and Metro.

Then, of course, there are the cultural places that really describe Athens like the Plaka (Flea Market), Ermou Street (Athens Oxford Road) and the Central Fish & Meat Market.

Finally, I am offering some eating places of differing types and prices. There is one, old style taverna opposite their hotel but the more ‘reliable’ ones are a short walk away in Mitropoleos Street. It is so difficult to recommend to other people.

There is one way they might ‘See Athens’ in a day and it would be to take the hop-on-hop-off Bus. I’ve not done it myself and it would be exhausting but, if you’re desperate to see everything, that would be it.

Friday, 5th September, 2025

Gorgeous morning as Summer returns for a few days. At 11.00 am, we are feeling warm and content with 22C/70F. Down at the sea, the scene is glorious … so I turned my camera the other way.

Of course, this is the best time to see the beach. All the little, noisy sods are back annoying teachers and the world is left to the adults to enjoy.

About 8 years ago, I had an automated garage door installed. The company tried to get me to sign a maintenance agreement but I resisted. What can go wrong with a garage door? Yesterday, I began to question the wisdom of that idea. We both have a remote control on our car fobs and neither worked. I had visions of major and costly refurbishment but my resident technical adviser suggested checking and replacing the batteries. The nearest place to get them from was Argos. I ordered and paid for them online to collect in my local store.

There is definitely something wrong with me at the moment. I presented my code at the Argos in Rusting Sainsburys/Argos only to be told I had ordered it from an Argos miles away in Littlehampton. Argos is inside Sainsburys there as well. It made quite a change to come down to this rather quaint, old fishing town and in such lovely weather. And it soon proved that new batteries were the solution. The whole problem solved at the cost of £5.00. My sort of solution!

At last this afternoon I can get on with some gardening. Today is public space day. I will mow the street’s lawns and tidy up the flower beds. Tomorrow will be private space day. I will tidy up the beds and sweep/renovate the lawn/carpet. It’s a pleasure to be active in the sunshine.

Saturday, 6th September, 2025

A lovely, warm morning and now we learn that this will go on until at least Wednesday so there is plenty of time to get garden jobs completed. What I do outside in the street; what I did yesterday mowing and tidying in the sunshine which does me good is so appreciated by my neighbours. They are lovely people and are constantly messaging with thanks. I would do it anyway but it is nice to be appreciated.

Fourteen years ago – can hardly believe that now – we were having a new pergola errected on our patio in Greece. The Mediterranean is famously mañana. Greece was at the extreme end of that. We had been asking the Woodman to come and fit a new pergola for us since the first week we arrived in April. Of course he would. He’ll be with us tomorrow. He wasn’t, of course. Nor was he there in May when we called round to talk to him.

A more lovely man you could not meet. We arrived at his workshop and he insisted we sit down with a glass of wine and some mezzedes – bread, cheese, tomatoes, olives. We would talk for an hour and then say we had to go. He swore he would be there tomorrow but this would happen every month for the next six. The shock was when he arrived at the start of our last month in October before we left for UK. He turned up with his brother without any warning and proceeded to fit the new structure.

After a couple of days and less than five days before we left, he told us that we must get it waterproofed against the winter rains by having a rubber solution installed on top. That was something he didn’t do. He suggested a friend who would do it at a price and we were left to organise it. Our new pergola also needed painting. Fortunately, the rubberisation was done and I had a resident painter to do the rest. It all got done at the last minute just as Greeks like it but a ‘planner’ like me was developing an ulcer with anxiety.

The other thing we were anxious about was the fact that we were leaving, driving home and not returning for 6 months. We had to appoint a caretaker to look after things. For a long period, our friend, Stavros, did that but, eventually, I had to pay people to take over. The other concern was the three ferral cats which had adopted us. They had to be left to cope in the Winter months. Little Ginge is just about 10 months old here with gorgeous, big eyes sent by the others to beg for food. They knew how to seduce me. She is almost certainly dead now, 14 years on.