Month: May 2026

Sunday, 10th May, 2026

What a difference a day makes …. It really does. Yesterday, we enjoyed 26.5C/80F for the first time this year. It was absolutely glorious. Lots of sun tan lotion, lots of gardening, cooking outside. This morning it is half that at 13C/55F, grey over head and raining lightly but persistently.

The week ahead is not brilliant in prospect – cool and quite wet just as plants go out to face their destiny. Even the Ripon Reunion does not escape.

Actually, one of our ‘problems’ this year is how to cope with the garden. We are sowing and planting as usual but we will not be here to maintain it as usual. We want it to be productive and attractive as usual when we are here but the problem is how to keep that going when we are not. We are going to Thessaloniki in three weeks time, come back for just five days and are off to Murcia for another four weeks.

So, at a crucial time in the gardening year, we are going to be away for 5 out of 6 weeks. I knew it when I booked but the reality is hitting home now and I am hoping the weather at home will allow me to move things on so they establish before we go away. Automatic watering systems can only go so far. Still, this year I’ve voted for sunshine.

We are home from Spain for five weeks and then we are off to our old friend, Athens. Couldn’t miss that whatever else goes on. Then we’ve got a few weeks to breathe and collect in the vegetables and herbs, tidy up the garden re-acquaint ourselves with our home.

A week in the sun on the Costa Oldham will be followed by four weeks in Tenerife on the Costa Adeje for a bit more sunshine before Christmas.

Monday, 11th May, 2026

Very sunny and clear but cold this morning. It’s going to be a big, Politics morning with a Prime Minister’s reset speech. Busy week of travelling and investment decisions. Got to concentrate. Unfortunately, I’ve got to move some money around and it has to be before interest rates have risen as they almost certainly will in the next couple of months. Doing research in my down time.

Haven’t been back to Yorkshire recently. Looking forward to visiting our old house on the Pennines which the Doctor has now sold. I noticed on Google Earth that they’ve put new gates on the drive with garish, gold lettering.

First, there is the political moment. Keir Starmer, an honest and decent man has to fight for his political life and for the Labour Centrists against the left wing of his party and the right wing of the UK media. Whether he can bring himself to define specific policies rather than bland values is in doubt.

After the speech, there are still a lot of questions to answer and little specific in response. We will have to see the King’s Speech at the re-opening of Parliament to make a final decision. On the plus side, the weather has really looked up outside. My Under Gardener is pricking out and potting up Lettuce and Endive seedlings.

At the same time, I’m working hard to resolve technical, I.T. problems. I think I’ve sorted out the Ring Door Video app with two smartphones, two iPads and two Alexa Echo units. The Window Cleaner tested the system for me. He triggered my phone numerous times as did a Waitrose delivery van so I may have to reduce the sensitivity.

I’ve also got some Banking apps to bend to my will. I need a home for some money for the next couple of years with access from abroad …. I’m pleased to report that after a couple of hour’s work, the app is back under control and life is working again.

Tuesday, 12th May, 2026

Lovely blue sky and strong sunshine. Quite a cold night but quickly warming up this morning. I’ve got to prepare the car for my long journey. It doesn’t take much these days. Do you remember when we had to check the petrol, oil, radiator, tyre pressure and washer bottle – even the wiper blades? Everything these days is electronically indicated. Haven’t put air in the tyres since the first week after service. The automatic, electronic gauge alerts me to loss of the minimum psi and it hasn’t.

The only thing I have to monitor is the washer bottle and that is now so economical because the watered is not crudely squirted in a jet onto the screen. It now comes out of the wiper blades and just delivers the minimum needed.

One thing you do dread as you set off, is to see this flash up on the screen and the dinging of a warning symbol to say there is a problem with a tyre. In the early days with this model, I would stop quickly and check to find that, after the pressure had been ‘set’, one tyre had lost just 0.25 psi. It is a rounding error that wouldn’t have been picked up in the past. Experience has made me a bit blasé about it now.

There is plenty to entertain/distract me with the political situation at the moment. Will he stay or will he go. Lots to listen to, talk and think about. My immediate feeling is that Starmer will not resign and he will be right because we cannot repeat the chaos of the Tories. But, what do I know?

Obviously I will be relying on iPads and phones for wifi and media relay. Couldn’t they have chosen a quieter time?

Meanwhile, I’m musing on September 13th, 1970 – 56 years ago when I was just 19 years old. And oh so young.

Wednesday, 13th May, 2026

When Life doesn’t go your way, escape to France. There is always another chance. Certainly the sunshine was beautiful across the Channel yesterday and the temperature was warmer. The drive down was wonderfully quiet although the crossing was busier than in February. At least we were driving away from the rain in the North to the sunshine in the South.

One of the reasons for this journey, as in February, was to go through the new EES or European Digital Entry Exit System before we fly to Europe. Unfortunately, the multi million pound new building at Folkestone was completed but not in use so the pain is postponed.

In France, the day was beautiful. I heaved a huge sigh of relief and bathed in the sunshine. We have to get our warmth where we can.

Thursday, 14th May, 2026

The drive home last night was through patches of very heavy rain. Visibility at times was very poor. I got in to a mini aquaplaning situation at one point where the drainage on the M20 was so poor that unpredicatable patches of standing water made life difficult, Anyway, we got back in one piece and with our cargo intact.

Late evening and tired from 4 hours driving over the day, I was unloading the car of 80 bottles of delicious Bordeaux Wine to dull my sorrows along with another 20 bottles of dry, Champagne and 15 litres of wine boxed wine to get me over the evening. Some, eagle-eyed observers may have noticed that I exceeded my allowance by 100% but, when you’ve got an honest face like mine, who is going to challenge?

You know that, at the moment we are not supposed to bring meat or dairy products back into the UK because of the risk of foot & mouth disease. As an essential reason for shopping in France is to buy Cheeses and Cooked Meats, this is quite a dissincentive. Even so, nobody ever checks us. We could bring the contents of an entire abattoir with us and it would have been fine. To make life even simpler, just as we came back through French Customs, the skies opened and torrential rain began to fall. All the Customs Officers scurried for shelter and left us to go though without checks.

After emptying the car and racking up the wine, I was able to view photos of the old boys’ afternoon in Ripon. They seem to have enjoyed it. Some girls went as well. One day ….

Friday, 15th May, 2026

Gorgeous morning – warm and sunny. Let’s hope it lasts. Anyway, never give in! Lots of jobs to get through outside. I must admit I feel distinctly unsettled by the National Drama as the Labour Party has a collective nervous breakdown. The risk is that we could lose a Byelection in Makerfield and then go on to lose the Mayoralty of Greater Manchester. There is also a bit of a risk of overselling the electoral powers of Andy Burnham.

Andy Burnham’s politics are my politics. He is on the soft Left and describes himself as an aspirational socialist. He is 20 years younger than me, brought up as a Roman Catholic which he later rejected at university. He married his university girlfriend. His brother is the principal of Cardinal Newman College in Preston.

He was opposed to Brexit like all sensible people but has felt it difficult to address after the vote because he wanted to be elected. Only this week he has vascilated between ‘wanting to make Brexit work and my position which demands another vote. He is in favour of an elected second chamber to replace the Lords which I completely favour and he supports proportional representation which I see as the only answer to the changing swirl of 21st Century politics.

I love looking at other people’s lives. There is something of the Historian and something of the geek about that. The set book in my 2nd Year in Grammar School in 1963 when I was 12 years old was Winston Churchill’s, My Early Life. It was about his exploits as a young man during the Boer War and taught me how to follow the clues of the youth to the development of the man. I was absolutely fascinated. Most of my classmates were not.

I am quite happy to accept I am strange. I am me and I put myself before you. People’s lives, their similarities and differences are what makes Life interesting. I was listening to the actor, David Morrissey this morning. He was talking about how his early life informed his later life. He is a wonderful and sensitive man. He is intelligent and thoughtful. He is rooted in the working class North of England. He feels a lot as I do. He cries a lot as I do. He is not ashamed of that and nor am I.

Lives are raw and we shouldn’t be ashamed of raw emotion. Lives are not rehearsals and we shouldn’t prevaricate, shouldn’t put things off because they are difficult or risky. Bridges are meant to be burnt.

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime

It is all too late for ‘coyness’. David Morrissey chose Joni Mitchell to illustrate his life and I had forgotten. It hit me like a hammer:

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone?

I hope Andy Burnham doesn’t feel like that in a few weeks time. A settled government with a renewed agenda and energy would be a good reward.

Saturday, 16th May, 2026

A beautiful warm and sunny day. Up early because tomorrow I am driving up to Surrey to attend a 90th Birthday Party and someone has discovered at 5.00 this morning that she needs to give him a personalised T-shirt tomorrow Lunchtime. I am in the Office with breakfast orange juice in hand searching for local t-shirt printers. No, I’m not prepared to drive to London to have some words put on a t-shirt quickly. Bognor Regis is about 30 mins drive away but possible.

We found one which is about 15 mins away and said they opened at 10.00 am. We phoned at 8.00 am and followed up with a Whatsapp. To our amazement, they replied immediately.

I mocked up what we wanted and sent it over to them and they laughed and said it was quick and easy and could be done while we wait. They could even supply the t-shirt if we needed it. We have one and it will be printed at Lunchtime. Never give up, Dear Reader.

Good, I will be home in time for the Cup Final. Fortunately, we had sourced the card in advance. Before we go out, we have some gardening to get through in the public spaces. It will be nice to be out in the sunshine.

Ten years ago today, we had been in our house for about a month and the Kitchen Dining Table had at last arrived ….. from Lithuania via Oldham in Lancashire. Housing Units to be precise. I loved it. The first thing my Odd Job Lady did was coat it in beeswax. Made from reclaimed timber, it cost just £350.00. Absolute bargain and it will see me out.

Sunday, 3rd May, 2026

We had some rain yesterday evening. How wonderful. The evening world smelled fresh and replenished. A very warm night I woke at 3.30 am and resorted to listening to political podcasts.

These are my current favourites but The News Agents really tops them all. They can all be found on the Global Player platform which is free to access as are the podcasts.

I used to work with a lad who ate the same thing every single day of his working life for Lunch. It stopped me visiting his office because it stank. I must point out that I hate spicy food. I hate curry, chilli and corriander. I love softer, gentler styles of the French an Italian cuisine. Every single day for his Lunch this lad, who was Head of I.T., opened a tin of Spicy tomato & chilli Mackerel and ate it with a spoon. It made me heave and I swore I would never sink that low.

These days, Dear Reader, I have to admit that I eat a tin of fish most days for my Lunch with a spoon. No, it doesn’t involve spices but it does make my wife heave because she says it smells like cat food. It is the only occasion that I volunteer to kiss her and and get rejected. I have been eating a tin of kippers in sunflower oil for a few years for my Lunch. Oily fish such as salmon, mackerel, kippers, sardines, and anchovies—are packed with long-chain omega-3 fatty acids (EPA and DHA), which are essential for heart health, reducing blood pressure but increasing brain function & mental health as regular intake is associated with reduced risk of dementia. I am tapping in to that hope.

Why does talk of childhood make me sad? I watched an interview of Keir Starmer talking about his children listening to him speak and laughing at him. How he loved it. I suddenly felt, I would love to be laughed at by children – by my children. Children are the future – a future  we have virtually no say over. It makes me sad that I have no child to speak for that future or to laugh at me. I want to be laughed at.

I was watching a political drama where a baby was born and the grandfather picked it up as it cried. He smiled and gurgled to the baby who smiled and gurgled back and reached out with tiny fingers to explore his face and I felt the warmth of tears on my face and felt pathetic. It is something I will never know.

Having cleaned the car inside and out, it suddenly struck me it was nearly 2 years old and looked just as it did when I picked it up. It only has 6500 miles on the clock and I will be abroad for 3 months of this year without it. I can’t live with an old car but this feels ridiculous.

Anyway, there is a new model coming on the market towards the end of the year I have learnt. The plug-in hybrid is what I am thinking of moving to and the redefined body with a slightly rakish, more sporty style quite appeals to me over the currently more ‘boxy’ style.

Monday, 4th May, 2026

Bank Holiday. Who are these bloody bankers who need special holidays? They always ruin the weather. This morning, after days of lovely, sunny weather, it is heavily overcast. I am trying to ignore the event altogether.

Every year, one of the most important events of the garden calendar is the production of a large harvest of sweet, basil leaves which are turned into enough Pesto to get us through the year. Basil is not the easiest plant to germinate and grow on ready for planting out. We have sown seed but need a backup so are going out this morning to a small, local garden centre to source seedlings for potting up.

There are rhythms to the year which a 75 year old has experienced and developed across their life. Nature informs them and gardening in particular. National holidays are part of that rhythm even if I resent them. My working neighbours are going to be busily enjoying their long weekend. For me, the pattern of the annual cycle includes travel – travel in Europe and revisiting old friends reinforces the passing of time. In a week, a regular trip to France will be renewed and a week later we will attend a 90th birthday party. There was a time when that would have been quite remarkable. Now, it almost feels normal, expectable.

I was sent two photographs of the past this weekend. They are both from 57 years ago. Can you imagine 57 years ago, Dear Reader? The first is of a lovely, mild mannered, Liverpudlian lad who was 4 years older than me when I met him but who died 6 years ago having been bedridden for several years before. There are few photos of him in my collection and this quirky one from his student digs has all the moody shambles of student life in gloomy monochrome. The photo on the right is a group of girls at the Christmas Ball. I knew a few of them but not all. I do know that at least one is dead and has been for some years now. The whole lesson one can extract from these memories is carpe diem. There is no time to waste.

With four weeks until we fly to Thessaloniki and reunite ourselves with this lovely airport, we have been assured that the new European Entry/Exit system will not be in use and queuing will not be a feature. EasyJet have assured us that there is no fuel shortage or surcharge. I checked-in online last night and downloaded the Boarding Passes. Everything is set for a happy time and we need as many of those as we can fit in to what time we have left.

Tuesday, 5th May, 2026

The sun is out after a warm night. We were 13C/56F as Gt. Manchester was 3C/37F and my friend, Kevin Sellers in Northern Scotland had snowfall. Nature all around is bursting with energy, trees in full, new leaf; birds calling for mates from rooftops; bees constantly feeding and fertilising flowers as their bright colours advertise their wares; snails, slugs, ants, butterflies everywhere out on the hunt.

Spotted this on my walk yesterday, Never seen one before. The colour blue is not so common in nature and the translucent, pale blue here caught my eye. The Holly-Blue is a small blue butterfly that emerges in early spring and is reasonably common in UK. Who knew?

I was writing about the rhythms of the year yesterday and this morning my Digital Memory Box threw up this photo from 2006. It is a photo of our house which we built in Greece in 2000. By this time, the house was finished and we were living in it during our school holidays and particularly for 5 of our 6 week summer break. It became the pattern until we retired when the 6 weeks became 6 months. That’s when we had time to develop the gardens – well part of them because we bought a 4 acre field initially. The Greek island survived on annual patterns.

Throughout the year, Boulis would walk past our house in the morning, taking his sheep up the mountain to graze and then bring them back down in the evening. He had a limp and I always thought what a hard and lonely life it was for him. However, it suited him. He always seemed perfectly content with his sheep and his dog.

On this day in 2010, we were retired and embarking on a 6 month stay in the house. Regularly we would drive out to a small fishing bay called Φάρος / Faros (Lighthouse) for Lunch and to enjoy the view. Here, the boats which go out fishing in the dusk of evening, are moored up while fisherment clean and sell their catch, mend their nets and smoke quietly chatting amongst themselves. It is their pattern of life.

My wife is walking on air. She had to book a blood test and couldn’t do it online. At the surgery, the Receptionist asked her date of birth. When she told her, the Receptionist asked the question twice more in astonishment.

Pauline thought she must have been mumbling and apologised. The man behind her in the queue pointed out that they were questioning her date of birth and that she didn’t look anything like her age. He said, You’re older than me. as if that was an achievement.

It’s been hard to bring her down since then although I have been counting and announcing at least three grey hairs. Still, she’s not looking bad for a 74½ year old. She’s always been an annoying pixie. Going out for an hour’s walk in the sunshine now. Got to keep the fitness up even though I’ll never look young again.

Out on my walk, I saw this gorgeous Hawthorn Bush/Tree – Crataegus ‘Crimson Cloud‘. It doesn’t look good like this for long so it is worth savouring while it’s here. The white version is most common and can be seen all over the South Downs of Sussex.

This Crimson Cloud is special just like the crimson flowering Horse Chestnut with its glorious candles of flower.

Wednesday, 6th May, 2026

The week’s going on. Wednesday already. Hope you’re enjoying it, Dear Reader. I’m busy. I’m happy when I’m busy. Found a new, local electrician yesterday. Contacted and booked for later this week within hours which is always a good sign. It’s a small job – renewing an outdoor power supply – but one I can’t do so I’m pleased. I’ve also finally made a decision about something I’ve prevaricated about for weeks but which I want to resolve before travelling times.

Having asked around with my neighbours and friends, I’ve decided to go with an Amazon Ring Video Doorbell. You may laugh but one of the things that put me off was the practical one of screwing into my door, connecting up wiring, removing the existing system. These are the things I am scared of. Connecting up to the wifi, installing it on smartphones and iPads, making sure that the Alexa Echo screens in the house can integrate with the door is my area of expertise. I will love doing all that.

What pursuaded me was my great near neighbour, Richard, a Cambridge graduate and I.T. adviser who had similar technical concerns. He installed a Door Spy Hole camera doorbell system that I didn’t even know existed. It doesn’t involve damaging the door at all. It just replaces the existing spy hole. Just as important, it is wireless and runs off a rechargeable battery with 2 months life which will be fine.

I heaved a sigh of relief when I was told of this solution. The one thing I wanted to avoid was an ongoing cloud storage charge but I have had to bite the bullet and accept a £50.00 per year service charge which saves all the video footage in the cloud for 180 days and provides immediate video alert online to our smartphones and computers. While we are away from home – roaming Lancashire & Yorkshire or walking around Spain and Greece – we will be automatically alerted to people at our door in Sussex.

It is only 4.00 pm and I am absolutely exhausted. I must be getting old. I’ve been working on the public flower beds in the street outside my house, weeding, edging, replenishing with compost mulch. They look good and will be ready for planting up in a couple of weeks. I thought I was fitter than this!

Thursday, 7th May, 2026

Glorious morning with clear blue sky and strong sunshine. Busy day with a list of jobs to get through, targets to accomplish and a trip to the Polling Station in the morning followed by an appointment at the Surgery for Part 2 of my Annual Medical Review.

Going out to vote to Keep Reform Out even if it means voting tactically. We have a wonderful Labour MP but our Council Ward is Conservative and I may have to hold my nose and vote Conservative for the first time in my life just to keep Deform out.

No, I couldn’t do it in the end. I voted Labour more in hope than anticipation. It wasn’t very busy at the polling booth. I had thought it might be with all the media frenzy.

Be interesting if all this media hype increases the turn out or not. We don’t have so many Racists down here so the motivation won’t be quite as strong as in the forgotten North. Actually, after a bit of research, it looks as if Green Candidate will my best alternative to Stop Deform. Sigh of relief. Trip to the Garden Centre to collect a few plants that we haven’t got time to grow ourselves.

It turned out that a dozen plants for £7.75 were no better than the ones I am growing on in my cold frames so I left them.

On my walk every day through the park, I go past a house where they have the most wonderful, white-flowing wisteria I have ever seen. It is called Wisteria sinensis ‘alba’ or white chinese wisteria. The house owner saw me photographing it one day and came out to (well I thought remonstrate with me) offer some seed pods to grow my own. I did but they failed.

A few weeks ago, he came out to tell me he had been growing some cuttings on in pots and would give me one. This morning, he did. What a lovely thought. You would have to pay £50.00 to buy one they are that unusual. I didn’t even want it for me but for my lovely, next door neighbour who had been upset when her’s died. So that’s where it is going and I will take a bottle of wine round to the kind donor as a thank you. I’ll also suggest we start a business together selling them. He can grow them and I’ll run the shop online.

I forgot to report because I forgot to check the Premium Bonds draw for May 1st. Sorry to report that after 8 wins over the first 5 months, the last 3 have been fallow which begins to give pause for thought. In the first 8 months, 8 prizes totally £375.00 is not good enough.

Friday, 8th May, 2026

Warm but overcast today. I’ve got a number of tasks to get through. I’ve got a trip to the Refuse Disposal site booked. I’m getting rid of the heavy, old, commercial griddle, an old garden table and more cardboard packaging than I can cope with. The staff are so helpful and the house heaves a sigh of relief when I return empty handed. The new griddle will be prepared and an electrician is coming this afternoon to replace the outdoor sockets.

When I got home, I had received the latest iteration of the National Bowel Screening Programme. I actually had to request this because I am over 75. My wife still gets hers automatically because she is so young.

Next, my new Ring Peephole Camera (Door View Cam) was delivered last night and it has to be installed this afternoon. I’m sure my Housekeeper will do it successfully because I’ve provided her with an instructive video. When she’s done that, I will link it to the apps on our phones and iPads.

Now a proud owner of a Door Cam which is working, linked to two smartphone, two iPads and one Alexa Echo. Hardly a hitch … or that’s what my Housekeeper reports. It only looks wonky because I took the photo. It sits straight and proud on the door because someone else fixed it on. There are going to be hours of fun this weekend as we receive a never ending stream of deliveries from Amazon – most of them ordered just to hear and see the video cam working. I just hope next door’s cats don’t get too inquisitive in the middle of the night.

Saturday, 9th May, 2026

Got to wish my old, Greek island friend, Martin a Happy Birthday. It is 15 years since we both saw each other because he left early. Bet we both look the same.

Blue sky, sunshine here today and on we go. Up early this morning with lots to get through. The Poo Test has been achieved early and prepared for posting this morning. I didn’t include you in that process, Dear Reader. Thought that would be a step too far.

Firstly, if you thought spider season was open, we’ve also got to find the source of some ants which appear from nowhere in the kitchen. We think it may be through air vents in the conservatory. It is a problem we had in the heat of our Greek home and it was solved with Ant Boxes. Been out to get some this morning.

My Housekeeper took with her a collection of clothes she no longer wears and cooking pans she no longer uses to Age Concern UK. We went on to the Garden Centre because, although I have grown hundreds of flowering plants this year, I love Geraniums and particularly bright, red ones. Don’t know where that came from because my parents despised them. Perhaps that’s why.

Of course, the Garden Centre on a Saturday morning in May is not the best place to go because it is so busy. Still, the display of healthy, flowering plants is sumptuous and irresistible. I’m a sucker for plants. They were being sold at 3 for £15.00 so I bought 15 to supplement my own in the back garden.

Geraniums, Impatiens and Osteospurmums are fairly hardy and all Summer flowering plants for our patio pots. We’ve been growing on Lettuces to plant out in the deep beds this morning. Basil seedlings are being potted up and everywhere is being watered because we don’t know what rain is down here at the moment.

Potatoes – early ones for lifting in about 6 weeks – are growing strongly but need water to swell. I just hope it rains a lot while I am away.

The new griddle has been unpacked and will be trialled tonight in the garden. The new socket was installed last night so everything should be back to normal. Tonight it will be Tuna Steaks with Green Salad but there is work to be done before then.

Sunday, 26th April, 2026

Well, April 2026 is going out on a beautiful stretch of weather. Gorgeous morning again. I almost resent the need to keep up with political discussion programmes – Trevor Phillips & Laura Kuenssberg – before getting out in the sunshine. In spite of popular opinion and whatever the local elections produce, there is a movement that can save Labour at the next General Election and it is the subject close to my heart – Europe.

The majority of economists believe that Brexit has harmed the UK’s economy and reduced its real per capita income in the long term, and the referendum itself damaged the economy. A decade on from the vote, every major data poll indicates that the majority of Britains regret leaving. Large numbers of Labour voters have always been against it but the government has believed it electoral suicide to acknowledge that.

As the government’s popularity has fallen and electoral success is in need of a boost, the obvious way is to address the elephant in the room and embrace Europe. Trump, of course, has helped. He has forced us to reassess our alliances. A united Europe is becoming a necessity. The mood music is clear. The Labour Party have to reset and the next election must be an EU-return referendum.

So pleased to be spending 12 weeks in Europe this summer/Autumn. France again soon and then Thessaloniki in June followed almost immediately by Murcia. Can’t wait.

Monday, 27th April, 2026

Glorious day. My wife has left me …. to go up to London to meet her friends from College. One of them, she hasn’t seen since 1973. They are going to Lunch at Battersea Power Station which is quite swish these days.

I took her to the train at 8.30 am and began a life of freedom. Actually, I read the newspapers and focussed on a leading news item reporting the latest findings from The Health Foundation‘s analysis of the Office for National Statistics research into Life Expectancy and Healthy Life Expectancy.

For a 75 year old, Dear Reader, it is quite a stark finding. There is no point in living a long time if you are not healthy enough to enjoy it. Quite clearly, 14 years of Tory management of the economy and the Health Service has brought us to this parlous state.

If you baulk at my politicising it, you only have to realise that poorer, Northern areas do so much worse than more affluent, Southern areas to see where the traditional parties have drawn the line.

With much talk about Farage making a diference. You can be absolutely sure he will. Deform Party voters will be shocked to find proposals to change the arrangements coming from Farage who has said the country cannot afford the NHS and has advocated an insurance system. Of course, as Local Elections loom he denies saying it in spite of the records. Which of his ill-educated voters will bother to check?

Lack of financial stress, comfortable living conditions, good food, lots of exercise, friendship and holidays, education and life-long-learning are all contributory factors to a long and healthy life. Of course luck and genetics play their part but that applies to us all. If Levelling Up had meant anything – and for Boris Johnson it meant a good slogan on which to get re-elected – it has to mean equalising expectations for a long and healthy life.

Time eats away at memory and connection. It constantly needs to be refreshed and strengthened to avoid the mists enveloping them. I work hard at it even to the point of annoying people who don’t want to be remembered.

I talk to people who don’t want to talk to me, keeping the piplelines of memory and human spirit alive until the end. It may well be that I say things they don’t like, remember things they want to forget, celebrate things they don’t. We all do things in our own way.

Hard to believe that my Mum died 18 years ago today. I can see her laying motionless and tiny in the hospital bed acutely now. I can see the contact telling me to come, the long, edgy drive from Yorkshire to Staffordshire knowing that I could be too late. Essentially I was and I regretted it. It would have been right to say a personal goodbye however much we had parted ways in recent years.

Tuesday, 28th April, 2026

I picked up the happy traveller from the station last night. Sounded like she had had an enjoyable day. She didn’t spend much money which cheered me up. This was even though it costs £24.00 to get the lift up to the top of the power station viewing platform. Why she didn’t take the stairs I don’t know.

A meeting of the 3 old friends after 53 long years when the other two had married, had kids, lost husbands and lived lives very different to ours meant a lot of catching up.

In this week 16 years ago, we had been retired for just one year and were very relaxed, sitting having lunch under the pergola on the patio of our Greek home. Everything was wonderful. The weather was warm. The cicadas were humming in the olive trees. Goat collar bells were tinkling on the hillside. We were looking down over the port as the mid day ferry was arriving – hopefully with newspapers from Athens.

I only have to look at the photo to be back there instantly but why this event of a relaxed Lunch in the sunshine on a Greek island is particularly significant is because of the events that followed. Our house in Yorkshire had been on the market for almost a year and we hadn’t managed to sell it. Suddenly, as we drove across Europe to Greece, I received a phone call from our Estate Agent to say they had a buyer. We were on the Autostrada del Sole through Italy en route to Ancona. All that was required was negotiation on price, contents and timing.

Suddenly excitement rose but concerns rose with it. In those days a mobile phone call from Greece to UK was very expensive. We had to do everything via Skype. We had nowhere to move to and nowhere to store furniture. We had bookings for a return drive in October yet expected to exchange contracts on the sale in June/July. Eventually, we left our car in Greece, flew home and hired one for a month as we sorted out the house sale. We had to open accounts with multiple banks so we could safely deposit the house sale proceeds until we needed them.

We flew back to Greece at the end of July and carried on an idyllic Summer with this uncertainty hovering over us but knowing we had the money in the bank to deal with any immediate problem. It was a Summer of infinite possibilities ….

Wednesday, 29th April, 2026

The penultimate day of April already. Sunny and warm, the garden is starting to look busy again. I earthed the potatoes up a couple of days ago and they are already pushing back up through the soil. Shallots are attracting interest of blackbirds. I can’t really complain. One blackbird sits on the corner of a house roof away in the distance and treats us to non stop music for hours in the early evening. How such a little thing can generate such a volume is amazing. Then, little things are like that in my experience.

I am receiving another 80 plantlets this morning which will need potting up. I have never grown Gaillardia before. They are suitable for planting out in our street because they thrive in full sun, well-drained soil, are drought-tolerant and ideal for borders, and coastal gardens. If you were to go out and buy one fully grown plant, it would cost you about £16.00 today. I have 80 plantlets which each cost me about £0.16 and just need a few weeks effort on my part.

Ten years ago today, we were still unpacking boxes after our move from Surrey a couple of weeks before. We had the conservatory doors open at Breakfast and we were enjoying the South Coast air. On that same day ten years ago, my sister Jane posted this scene from her window in Yorkshire and I realised why I didn’t live there any more.

Like Sifnos, I still miss Yorkshire at times. Both feature barren moorland and dry stone walls, both featured some lovely people who still populate my mind and memory. The weather is where they part company. Sifnos will be girding its loins for months of dry, hot Summer. Yorkshire will have the occasional day of real warmth.

Been out watering 100s of lively, thrusting plants, desperate for sunlight and sustenance, desperate for adulthood and parentage. We all understand that need, don’t we Dear Reader?

Thursday, 30th April, 2026

April 2026 goes out on the most beautiful day. The thread of time slips through the eye of memory. Soon, I will have to re-read my Blog to remember what happened. On this day, we mark Kieron’s 61st Birthday. Retired and living in Florida, he is luckily nothing but a boy.

It is always interesting how Émigrés cling to and even elevate the fondness for elements of their Homeland. Kieron is a keen Man. Utd. fan so I thought he would appreciate best wishes from Bobby Charlton from beyond the grave.

I am always fascinated by moments frozen in time like insects from millions of years ago. Not that this applies to Kieron because he will long outlive me but life is kinetic and lack of life is stasis. Here, a mosquito that lived a hundred million years ago, flying, feeling the air and biting beings to feed on their blood is now frozen in the stasis of amber. A moment from the Jurassic period with us for ever.

One of the photos that came up in my Memory Box this morning was taken from my Mother’s effects. I recorded on Monday that it was 18 years since she had died. What accompanies that are the sharp and personal memories of the event along with the hazy memories of less pertinent occasions involving her which I struggle desperately and ineffectually to recall.

You only have to look at this pair of old, monochrome photos to imbibe the scene, the relationships, the time, the technology and then link it to the future that I knew of her. This was the year before she married Dad and everything that flowed from that – 7 kids, widowhood, and so on. And now, here she is frozen in time, a time I can only imagine.

Friday, 1st May, 2026

Happy May, Dear Reader. Happy new month. We reached 25C/77F yesterday and were warmer than Athens. It looks like another beautiful one today.

I’m going to the Beautician’s this morning but not for myself. I am beyond saving. The pixie I live with still has hope of warding off her age and is prepared to get me to pay for it. Who am I to argue? I have a long, hot day in the garden. We may actually get a bit of rain tomorrow evening and it will be very welcome especially if it’s over night.

One of the joys of our Greek home and worries when we locked it up for 6 months and left it was the fate of the cat family who had adopted us 15 years ago. On this day in 2013, we had been back in Greece for over a week and our main cat called Mother had not returned. On this day 13 years ago, we had eaten Supper out on the verandah watching the sun go down which it does very quickly and suddenly in Greece. It was very warm and we were watching the Greek News on television.

Suddenly, through the olive trees and the murky gloom of nightfall, we spotted something coming over the dry stone wall. Pauline called and with a loud shriek, a cat came bounding across the land and up the steps to our patio. This ferral cat, aka Mother, greeted us with affection and recognition after 6 months abandonment. It was one of those delightful moments of life that stick in the memory for ever.

Now, 13 years on, Mother Cat is almost certainly dead especially surviving the harsh world of Greek winters and scavenging for food but her children, Little Ginge & Tabs – the only children I’ve had – may well be out there fighting for survival still with their families.

Saturday, 2nd May, 2026

Summer means cooking outside. Well more cooking outside. Chef does it all year round but more in the warmer weather. More often than anything else, it means outdoor griddling – usually fish and vegetables. Yesterday it was Tuna Steaks with courgette strips and mushroom slices. They are cooked on a commercial electric steel griddle usually outside in the garden because of the all-pervasive smell.

Unfortunately yesterday, by the time the food was cooked, the plug was too hot to touch and the outdoor socket had almost melted. We have been using this method for longer than I can remember – certainly all the way through our Greek life and for the ten years down here. It is time for an electrician to replace the weatherproof socket and for me to source a new griddle. They are so easy to use and such a healthy way to cook that we use it two or three times a week at least.

It is contact cooking which requires virtually no fat/oil and cooks a fish steak in about 4 minutes. We used to have to go to a commercial cooking appliance supplier but guess who offers the best choice and price today? Yes, our old friend Amazon.

Feeling old and sensitive today. Pathetic, I know but it is only occasionally I give in to it. When I feel like this, I listen to music and dream ….

This morning it is Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85. There is something about it that reaches deep down inside me a pulls the past up to the present. How could he write such beautiful and evocative music? It is just genius.

Enough of that. I’ve got to clean the car but first (and I usually prevaricate at this point.) I want to show you this photo from 56 years ago today. It is of my old friend, John aka Tash because he had one. Every picture tells a story. I knew nothing about the North of England when I arrived there in 1969.

Tash was from the Bradford area that he taught me was called Pudsey. He was proud of it being in the Rhubarb Triangle. This was renowned for growing the best rhubarb in dark tunnels lit only by candles becausing excluding the light forced rhubarb to grow quickly and be picked early while it was red and sweet. All very interesting but this photograph strikes me so acutely of its time.

The elements that leap out of this captured 1970 moment of Tash in his student digs include the wallpaper – something we haven’t used for decades now. The curtains are striking for their design which was almost out of date when this photo was originally taken. We haven’t had curtains for at least 20 years now. The television goes without saying and it would have received just 3 main, analogue channels. The Windsor hooped back chair is a relic of its time now just as it was in 1970 when it harked back to the 19th century. And then there is the calendar on the wall. Who has a physical calendar on the wall these days? Oh, don’t say you do, Dear Reader. Everyone should keep their calendar on line these days to be accessible wherever and whenever they need it. Come on!