Category: Sanders Blog – Hellas

13 December, 2009 

This is the final week of the Blog’s first year. Let’s hope for thirty more! I suffer from Atrial Fibrillation. It is no big deal but it does increase my risk of strike and heart attack. For that reason, I have to take the blood thinning agent – Warfarin. I also have to be regularly monitored by the hospital Anti-Coagulant Department. There are risks with taking warfarin: a serious cut may not stop and lead to bleeding to death. A fall could cause internal bleeding. I had a heavy fall while gardening in Greece and found the whole of my left side with massive and angry bruising which took three months to disappear. Pauline wants to get me off warfarin and today she found an article in The Sunday Times. It describes a new, implant technique that is being performed by a consultant at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington which obviates the need for warfarin. I attach the newspaper cutting: atrial_fibrilation.pdf

14 December, 2009

Just like buses, you wait for ages then two come along together. This morning another treatment avoiding the use of warfarin was announced. I attach the journal cutting: atrial_fibrilation3.pdf

15 December, 2009

Pauline has complained for the past 40 years that she didn’t have time to indulge her passion for cooking. Well now she does. It’s only half way through December and I’m already mince-pied out. We are on our third batch and we haven’t even started on Christmas Cake or Pudding. She’s made them all. Admittedly, Pauline’s mincemeat is a wonder of the world.

16 December, 2009

Received a lovely collection of photos from Ruth’s belly dancing break. Didn’t look too warm and sunny. I was afraid of that. At least Bolton won.

   

   

17 December, 2009

We are on diet-watch. Ironically, we are not watching our own diets although we definitely need to. We are watching Pauline’s Mum’s diet to make sure she eats enough. Today it was Lasagne with sheets of spinach green pasta. It was wonderful. Pauline made it at home and we set off across the Moors to the Barnes residence where it was cooked. Pauline’s Mum ate a huge plateful. We had set off in a flurry of snow. The Pennine ridge looked sugar dredged and as we crossed from East to West the scenery was beautiful:

 

 

18 December, 2009

Pauline is showing me no mercy. She has completed the Chrismas Cake. With a little historical touch, she has  furnished it with decorative figures she first bought for her GCE ‘O’ Level cooking class 43 years ago. It is quite amazing to think girls at the age of fifteen were making Chrismas Cakes in Home Economics in those days. They don’t get much further than sandwiches nowadays. I have included two photos of the cake. The second one was to provide a sense of scale.

 

19 December, 2009

Memory can be quite painful and often surprising. Pauline & I were married 31 years ago (in about 11 days). It was thick with snow and the Gritters were on strike in Callaghan’s Britain which made the journey difficult for many people. As I write this, waves of snow are coming towards us across the Pennines. How lucky are we? We are tucked up warmly and have every conceivable distraction. The temperature was -13°C last night. Can you imagine the effect on a rough sleeper and we have some of those around Huddersfield. Last night, one group really were sleeping roughly, stuck in Eurotunnel without warmth or sustenance.

Memory of my wedding is neither painful or surprising. I loved it. This week, however, is the anniversary of the execution of Nicolae Ceauşescu.

 

Twenty Years! Can you believe that? I can picture those last days in Romania as if I was there myself. Twenty years! That is very frightening. In twenty years, if I am still alive, I will be 78 years old. It has gone so fast and will go so fast. Time seems to go faster the older one gets. Forty years ago and away from home for the first time fending for myself I was never happier. I did what I wanted, wore what I wanted and ate what I wanted when I wanted to. It was like a dream come true. What came as an absolute shock to me was that these newly found freedoms were of so little significance to my peers. They had taken them for granted during their childhood. I could dine out on stories of family tea times and ‘one plain and one fancy’. Do you remember that? My friends were incredulous when I said that I had never been allowed to choose a single item of clothing for myself and they thought I made up stories of being taken to the Gents Outfitters by Mum and, after the shop assistants had received their obligatory dressing down from Mum, I left with striped nylon shirts to be worn with khaki slacks and a mustard coloured cravat.

Forty years ago this winter was my first away from home. My Best Man at my wedding – Kevin Dagg – was one of the first people I shared digs with. Today I received a card from his wife with a photograph taken in those first few months:

It is a scan of a photocopy of a scan of a photo so the quality is very poor. If you’re unsure, I am the one bottom right with his hand up.

6th December, 2009

We want to downsize, to take a chunk of equity out of our house, to move South for better transport links, to find somewhere which is new-build and more manageable when we are out of the Country for half the year and to have security over that period. We have found an apartment which we think fits the bill but can’t sell our house.

We are not so desperate that we will sell cheaply or buy expensively. In fact, I intend to be a cash buyer when we do go and to extract the full bargaining power that that includes. It did make us a bit depressed today, however, to find it advertised in The Sunday Times & The Sunday Telegraph.

7th December, 2009

We have yet another skip on our drive.

 

Slowly but surely we are throwing away our past. We are known as The Skip People in Quarry Court, not because we live in one but because we are always hiring them. This time it was for emptying the attic, tidying the garden and clearing out umpteen things we brought away from school. Folders of Policies, policy documents, if we’ve written one, we’ve written forty.

• Anti-bullying
• Dealing with Racist Incidents
• Individualised Learning
• Incorporating new technology into pedagogy
• Using the Virtual Learning Environment

And so on and so on. And why? Did it really make any difference? Did it hell! All those hours, all those late nights. What a lot of nonsense. We are so pleased to be out of it. With every skip we feel lighter.

8th December, 2009

I’m thinking of applying for a mobile home in Oldham Hospital car park. I spent another five hours there again yesterday. Pauline’s Mum was taken ill again and an ambulance had to be called. She was suffering from severe dehydration last time and imminent kidney failure. As a result, she was told to eat and drink more. She always does as she is told and has been eating and drinking a lot more but severe dehydration and imminent kidney failure were diagnosed again today after six hours of tests. She is being kept in over night. I just got home to watch a few minutes of Man. U. and Gerry Robinson’s investigation into Dementia Care Homes. Life is just one bundle of laughs.

9th December, 2009

Great swim, toast & coffee and then off to see Pauline’s Mum in Oldham Royal. Yet another accident had blocked the M62 and we had to go across the Moors instead. The Motorway is blocked a couple of times a week regularly because of the pressure of numbers.

Pauline’s Mum is being kept in for more tests but, having been rehydrated, she is bouncing around like a two year old and managing her own care.

Received an email from Jonathan Kelly today. He is a three years older than me and has been living in the US – Masachusetts – for 27 years. He has worked at Foster-Miller, and engineering research and innovation company all this time. Ironically, this company was bought out by a British one called QinetiQ six years ago. Jonathan tells me that he won’t be able to afford to retire at least until he’s 67 because he will lose his Medical cover from his firm. Employers don’t run pension schemes in America. Employees are expected to make there own provision. To make things worse, Jonathan’s Employers are suffering badly in the downturn and going through swathes of redundancies. Jonathan says that they are all permanently on a knife edge but he has survived so far. It doesn’t sound like the great, capitalist dream is quite doing it.

10th December, 2009

Pauline was awarded the Life Saver of the Day award at the Health Club. We were luxuriating in the jacuzzi looking over a totally empty pool. (One of the benefits of being free during work hours is that the facilities are so quiet.) The pool surface was glassy and undisturbed. Suddenly, something broke the surface and zipped across the pool. It stopped. Pauline dashed over. It zipped across the surface, rippling the pool again. Pauline leant forward and, skimming with her hand, pulled out a fly doing the backstroke. She flipped it over on the poolside and, after a couple of moments reorientation, the fly flew off. Pauline was wildly applauded by me from the jacuzzi.

Pauline’s Mum has come out of hospital. The verdict is that, because she is 95, her kidneys are not working efficiently and so she becomes dehydrated. We have no idea or advice on how to deal with this.

I learn today that John Humphreys has a grown up son called Christopher. He is a professional cellist who lives and works in Athens. In the past ten years, Humphreys and his son have bought land and built a house on the Pelopponese. As a result of that, he and his son have contributed to the collection of books that I will feed in to by writing a book about their experiences of building in Greece.

11th December, 2009

It was actually dry all day today – but dark and foggy and uninviting. Wrote a long email to Jonathan Kelly today. I was trying to describe events in my life since I last saw him in 1975. Found myself refering to Middle & Working Classes and realised he would have little memory or concept of that. Jonathan has a SIP  to look forward to when he retires in his mid to late 60s. With the current state of the Markets, it probably won’t be worth much but it is a fore-runner of the pensions for all state employees very soon. Like Jonathan, many Public Sector workers are seeing pay freezes or pay cuts for quite some time to come – maybe three or four years. Final Salary pensions, I predict, will go in the life time of the next Conservative Government. This has to happen. We just can’t afford it. Public Sector pay must be slashed and many jobs must go. We just can’t afford to support them on our pension. Thank goodness we are out of all that. I am thinking of joining The Pensioners’ Party. I might even put myself forward as a parliamentary candidate. Quangocracy, Local Beaurocracy must go! Let’s have slash & burn Conservatism!

29th November, 2009

Pauline’s Mum was just preparing to be discharged from hospital when she had an angina attack. The clinical team decided that they would have to do more tests and keep her in over night again.

30th November, 2009

My turn to go to hospial today for the anti-coagulant clinic. Everything is fine. After lunch it was off to pick Pauline’s Mum up from Oldham Royal. This is it but look how dark it was at 2.30 this afternoon:

I had to drive round for about a week before I could find a parking spot. I drove past all the main car parks which were full. I drove through the reserve car park, the reserve reserve car park and the reserve, reserve, reserve car park and still they were full. I returned to the front entrance and dropped Pauline off. I continued to drive round and round for 40 mins without a single space becoming available. Bear in mind I could have parked in any small corner on double yellow lines because I had Pauline’s Mum’s Disabled Card in the car. As it approached 45 mins of driving, I found a space right outside the front entrance but by this time, Pauline was phoning me to say Mum was not being let out today. I read The Times and listened to Classic fm. Pauline appeared and we drove the 35 mins home.

We had just driven in to the garage when Pauline’s mobile went. We could pick her Mum up. She was being released. 70 mins driving later we got her back to our house where she will spend a few days recuperating.

1st December, 2009

Cold – very cold – and bright this morning. How wonderful. At last we can get in the garden to do some tidying. We’ve had a skip on hire for more than a week and we haven’t had one dry day until this morning. Still had to do the obligatory day’s work at the health club followed by a huge bowl of porridge. Outside for a couple of hours in the garden. The news told us that November has been the wettest on record. That wasn’t news to us.

Many, many years ago – maybe fifty, Granddad Coghlan woke Robert and myself and I think, possibly, Jane at 5.00 am and took us out across the fields to pick mushrooms. I have no recollection which fields we went across but I remember coming back with an empty basket ready for breakfast. The problem with wild mushrooms is not just where to find them but would you trust them. One of our lawns has suddenly become a mushroom farm.

 

As you will all know, these funghi look quite like chanterelles but who would trust them enough to taste them? Not I. I will kill them with weed killer to get my lawn back.

It’s 9.00 pm and Manchester United are thrashing Spurs once again in torrential rain.

2nd December, 2009

Retiree’s dream – mild, dry and bright – did some gardening.

Good luck, Ruth, in the Turkish Belly Dancing Championships. I already have before and after photos.

Before 

After 

Well done, Ruth. Let’s hope Kevan is proud of you and your accomplishments!

3rd December, 2009

Took Pauline’s Mum home to her flat today. She wasn’t completely ready but it is doubtful she ever would be now and I couldn’t stand any more Home & Away, Emmerdale, Deal or No Deal, etc..

4th December, 2009

Lengthy swim today. Found myself in the changing room with two 80 year olds. Told them that when I was their age, they would be 100. We agreed to meet in the Gym on my 80th. As well as exercising my body, I am also exercising my mind. I am preparing to write a book about our experiences as travellers in Greece over the past 25 years. It is a period when Greece has moved from being a third world country almost to the first world. They are members of the European Community and of the Euro although they are under great economic pressure from the EEC at the moment. There is a whole oeuvre of writing in this area. I have twenty or thirty books about people adopting Greece, at least temporarily, finding and renovating or building a house and living in Greece for a while. Our building of a house in Greece started when I read a book by Austen Kark. He was the husband of Nina Bawden, a children’s author who had featured heavily in my early teaching. She wrote books like Carrie’s War, The Finding, etc..

Austen Kark had been Managing Director of The BBC World Service after being manager of its Eastern European Service.During that time he fell in love with Greece.

He and Nina Bawden bought a ruined old classical house in Nauplion (pronounced Nafplion) on the Peloponnese.

Austen Kark wrote a book about the experience of restoring his Greek house. He and his wife would fly out to Athens regularly and stay at the Electra Hotel, Athens.

I was captured and, since then, harboured the ambition to build a house in Greece. We also made The Electra Hotel  our regular haunt when we visited Athens. I also decided that there was a book I could write about the journey to a life in the Cyclades and on Sifnos. Currently, I am reading and analysing other people’s books. This week I am reading a book by Fionnuala Brennan, currently a lecturer in Dublin City University’s Business School. She is married to poet, Rory Brennan, with two daughters Orla and Fiona and they lived on Paros full time from 1971-1979. To be honest, I think I could do a much better job than this.

5th December, 2009

Lovely day today. Man U. beat West Ham who I’ve always hated and Man City beat Chelsea who I’ve come to hate. Happy Days!

 

22nd November, 2009

Do you remember the chimney sweep coming to the fireplace in the Dining Room of 81 High Street? I can’t work out how many of you are old enough for that. It was the first time I learnt the word BRUNCH. It must have been 1956-57. Being sent to bed about 7.30 pm (at the age of 5 or 6) and told that tomorrow we would not be allowed downstairs until the chimney sweep had come and gone. Mum always got het up about the Plan of Campaign she had to put into operation. When we were finally allowed downstairs for BRUNCH it was hard to see what all the fuss was about. One fireplace; one chimney; a few dust sheets; job done. But Mum was certainly red in the face and noughty throughout the whole process.

23rd November, 2009

This morning we had a Plan of Campaign. We had already emptied the loft of literally dozens of boxes containing warranties dating back to 1994 and tens of rolls of carpet off-cuts in the most lurid colours and patterns imaginable. At 7.00 am there was no breakfast, no huge cup of tea or bowl of porridge. All the hall, stairs, landing had to be covered in dust sheets – not for the chimney sweep but for the loft insullation man. Our house was built in 1990 and the loft was insullated to an industry-standard 4″. Currently the industry-standard is 12″. Kirklees Council sent a little man round with twelve huge rolls of Rockwool.

It took him three hours of hard labour. Our loft is boarded but I never go up there so he just laid it over the boards. Throughout the time he was here, neither Pauline or I got red in the face or worked up. The whole thing, after all, was done completely free of charge. Seems strange really that such money should be lavished on a middle class household who could easily afford to pay for it but who are we to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Pauline is loving having the time to indulge her real passion (no, not me!), cooking. She has always made our bread and pasta but she has cured our olives to perfection and the quince jam she made is delicious.  Now she is making minced meat, Christmas Pudding and Christmas Cake. It is a few years since she bothered or had the time to do that. We don’t even celebrate Christmas other than nominally. We do have a Turkey or a Goose. A couple of years ago we had a trendy five bird roast with turkey, goose, pheasant, partridge & pigeon but that was just greedy. We are very keen on game birds nowadays. We usually go to our local farmshop and buy pheasant, mallard, partridge, etc. They are so cheap and low in fat and wonderfully tasty. A brace of pheasants up here cost £5.00 and a couple of partridge would be £6.00. We buy rabbits for £2.00 and they almost give wood pigeons away. Game Pie or Game Pate is wonderful or maybe pheasant breast wrapped with Parma ham.

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 Pheasant breasts wrapped in Parma ham

Serves 6

Ingredients

6 pheasant breasts
12 slices of Parma ham
12 large sage leaves
Salt and pepper
Butter
Olive oil

Method

• Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.
• Season each breast and place two sage leaves on each one. Lie two slices of Parma ham out flat and place a pheasant breast at one end. Roll the pheasant breast up quite tightly. Repeat with each breast.
• Melt a little butter with some olive oil in a large frying pan and sear the pheasant parcels on each side for 1 minute or so. Then place in the oven for 10-12 minutes. Allow to rest for 2-4 minutes before serving.

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Served with garlic mash and red wine jus you can’t beat it. I’m starving!

24th November, 2009

After two hours at the Health Club this morning, we went off to Hinchcliffe’s Farm shop for meat. It’s only a couple of miles away from us and wonderfully stocked. We came away with groaning bags:

• 6 Pheasant
• 4 Woodcock
• 2 huge belly pork
• 2K of best minced beef
• 4 Lamb Shanks
• 8 Lamb chops
• 8 Chicken Livers (for pate)

Should see us through to the weekend! I’ll have to save some and invite Jane BG around. Hinchcliffe’s Farm Shop is renowned round here and well worth the visit as you can see below. They are very happy butchers.

25th November, 2009

I’m sitting in Sainsbury’s carpark after going swimming. Pauline’s gone in to buy some mint sauce for dinner. I’m reading The Times and suddenly I hear a crunch. A scruffy, maroon car comes to rest against my bumper. Out steps a spotty youth who can’t stop saying sorry. I felt sorry for him, really. His car – which turned out to be his Mother’s car – had a small scratch. Mine had a small scratch above and below the bumper. It also damaged the numberplate and its mount. His car was already time-worn and, to him, it must have seemed like nothing. Our car was less than it was before he hit us and is valuable enough to maintain properly. We exchanged insurance details and he went back on his way to College. We went to Honda for assessment. The body man said, I can disguise the scratches for next to nothing but it won’t be the same. I advise a new bumper unit, a new numberplate and mount. We don’t have a price yet but it will come to something around £600.00 – £700.00. The lad’s Mother will think I’m taking them for a ride but it has to be done.

26th November, 2009

A cold, blustery and intermittently soggy day. After an hour or so swimming we prepare to drive over the Pennines to Oldham. Pauline’s Mum is still struggling badly. The shingles are still giving her awful headaches and making her very fed up. We are going to cook lunch for her in her flat. Lamb chops and mashed potato is all she can manage to eat. In fact, she struggles with one, small lamb chop because her appetite is really diminishing. Pauline made a lovely lunch and then her Mum settled down to watch Darling Buds of May. She has seen every episode at least three times but it is rather warm and comforting to live in a perfick world and she is watching it again. We left her to it and she was almost falling asleep before we got out of the door. She is spending more and more time sleeping now.

As we drove home, we had the wild Pennine Moorland in our eyes

 

but we still had her and her frailties in our hearts. Growing so old is no great fun if you become increasingly dependent. If she thinks of doing something, it doesn’t matter what the time-frame is, she has to do it straight away. When she was strong enough to travel, we only had to say to her in October that we would take her to Surrey in December and she would select her clothes and pack immediately. Her suitcase would be packed and under the bed for a couple of months. We received a Christmast card from her two weeks ago and a card for our 31st wedding anniversary on December 30th at the same time.

27th November, 2009

One of the things we have lost by retiring is that ‘Friday Feeling’, a phrase that  originated from a ‘Crunchy’ advert and used to sum up a host of feelings like: Thank Goodness for That’, ‘We can actually put our Life (Garden / House / Etc.) in order’. Friday night was eating out or Chinese Takeaway night depending on how tired we felt. It was probably two bottles of wine evening and general wind down evening. When the weekday constraints no longer pertain, the weekend loses a little of its edge. I still love Saturday sport and Sunday papers but the release of Friday evening is not quite the same.

We have found a way to put Feeling back in to Friday by making our morning trip to the Health Club the equivalent of going to work. We have to get up at 7.00 am each week day. We have to leave the house by 8.30 am and do a solid 30 mins swimming. In that time we complete circa 50 lengths of our 20 metre pool or one kilometre. We spend 10 – 15 minutes in the huge jacuzzi and about the same time again in the steam room. After that the day purrs. We only do this Monday – Friday so Saturday & Sunday are indulgence days restoring the demarcation by that Friday Feeling.

28th November, 2009

Pauline & I have always tried to avoid the crowds. We would always go to Sainsburys at 7.30 am on Saturdays when we were working just to avoid the crush. When we retired, we thought that we could access services off-peak and avoid the crowds. We were totally wrong. Sainsburys  at 11.00 am on a Wednesday is an absolute nightmare. It is jammed with old people who think doing the weekly shop is the social event of their week. They shuffle down the aisles and stand in groups chatting and blocking the way. They are slow in thought and slow in movement. After all, they’ve got all day and all week! We have reverted to Saturday at 7.30 am when like-minded shoppers zip around, grabbing items for their list and fight to be first out of the car park and on their way.

We set off today at 7.30 am in a blizzard of snow. It was 4C and thick with snow. Although it quickly melted around our house, all day the Pennines were covered in white.

Pauline’s Mum was unwell and Pauline went over to see her. They spent the day in hospital and Mum will not be home until tomorrow. Irritable Bowel Syndrome has been diagnosed. She was so dehydrated from constantly going to the loo that they are keeping her on a drip all night.

15th & 16th November, 2009

Spent the whole two days researching our trip to Kent. We are determined to have new-build and to have excellent facilities close at hand – Health Club, shops, restaurants, theatre/opera, etc. Pauline is quite keen to see the sea or be close to it as well. Hours and hours of Googling New Build Kent produced reams of Builders, Estate Agents and properties. I worked out an itinerary in best teacher fashion. On Tuesday we will drive down early and, in the afternoon, look at all the developments in Maidstone where we were staying followed by a trip down to Ashford, Folkestone, Hythe, Dover & Deal. On Wednesday, we will do the Medway towns of Rochester, Gillingham & Chatham followed by Sittingbourne. Pauline thought I was being optimistic.

17th November, 2009

We set off at 6.00 am up the M62 and down the M1. We had been told the weather would be foul – wet and windy. In fact, it was bright, beautiful and warm. There was little or no traffic. It was one of those occasions when cruise control works uninterrupted. Stopping only at Watford Gap for a revolting breakfast, we reached the Hilton Hotel, Maidstone by 10.00 am..

They don’t ‘check-in’ until 2.00 pm so we started straight in to our tour of the new build sites of Maidstone. Crest Nicholson, Bryant and Ward Homes. We toured Site Office with pushy sales woman (no men) after Site Office with pushy sales woman (no men) looking at badly built match boxes with ghastly decorations in much vaunted show homes.

Although the drive down had been wonderful and the optimism had been high, by the time we left our last Maidstone site, it was 3.30 pm and our spirits were on the floor. We hated everything we saw and everyone who showed them to us. We thought we were prepared for downsizing but there is a limit! The itinerary said we should go on to Ashford, Folkestone, Hythe, Dover & Deal. Our hearts said, No chance! We stopped at the nearest Sainsburys, bought a lovely bottle of red wine and some nuts and checked in to the hotel. We had booked a double room with breakfast. The gave us what they call a Double Double. This is a huge room with two double beds in it. In what circumstances would anyone want two double beds. I have led a very sheltered life and there may be certain positions that require two enormous beds but I am past all that. We drank our wine, ate our peanuts and watched Countdown.

We had dinner in the hotel and it was very pleasant. Our room was too. It had a settee and armchairs and a large, flatscreen television. There were coffee/tee making facilities and, although there were too many beds, the one we slept in was magical. There was a pool and gym, etc but we were too deflated to use it. We did, however, sleep like logs. During the night, a copy of tomorrows Times newspaper is slipped under the door.

18th November, 2009

Up at 7.00 am for breakfast. Normally, we have a huge cup of Breakfast tea and a plate of hot buttered toast (Pauline’s home made bread & home made raspberry jam) or we have porridge which I am really learning to like again. Neither of us can eat much at that time in the morning. Why does one’s constitution change, I wonder, when one wakes up in a hotel? Pauline washes her hair and dries it every morning of her life. It is 8.00 am before we get to the restaurant. A buffet breakfast of fresh fruit, fruit juice, bacon, fried eggs, scrambled eggs, hash browns (sic), black pudding and sausages is accompanied by slices of toast and completed by a couple of croissants with apricot jam.

We staggered out to the car and programmed the Sat. Nav. for Sittingbourne. More unmentionable houses that we were desperately trying to like built by Barratt, Bryant, Bovis, etc.. We drove on to Rochester trying to tell each other we had seen something worth coming for. The drive from Sittingbourne to Rochester was delightful – lots of fruit fields  and autumn trees, small villages and quaint old pubs.

 

That’s not what we want but at least we could relate to it. Rochester was impoverished and run down – much more than I had remembered or expected. Chatham wasn’t much better. We even went to Snodland but decided we couldn’t possibly live in a place called SNODLAND. We were fairly dispirited as we drove into the Sainsburys carpark in Maidstone for another bottle of red. We shared it sitting on the settee in our room with salted peanuts and watching Place in the Country. It’s a programme that retired people watch about retired people leaving their urban/city homes from which they have set out to work each day for the past 40 years and who now want to realise their rural idyll with a thatched roof, dark low beams, an Aga and enough land to keep chickens, pigs, llamas, etc..

Pauline & I want just the opposite. We have lived the rural life and we now want minimal, town life. We found a version of that but we didn’t want it made out of second hand Lego.

19th November, 2009

Another breakfast to contend with. We settled the bill and left Kent feeling quite fed up. (Us that is not Kent. Kent didn’t really express an opinion although a number of the sales staff at the site offices almost threw us out on the spot when we admitted our property was still on the market. We drove up to Surrey at about 10.00 am on an earily empty M25. We were going to stay the night with Pauline’s sister, Phyllis and her husband, Colin who retired down there to be near their daughter, Mandy (Director and General Manager Xerox Global Services) This is Phyllis and Pauline:

They live in West Byfleet and, out of idle curiosity and thinking we wouldn’t be able to afford anything there, I looked for new builds in West Byfleet. It threw up a couple of places and we called at the first one as we drove there for lunch. It was an apartment in a gated community with high tech security and covered courtyard parking. It was a two bedroomed apartment on the first floor with a lovely big lounge, a fully fitted kitchen, a good bathroom and an excellent en-suite. The whole apartment had underfloor heating. It was absolutely ideal if a little expensive for what we want to pay knowing that we would only be there for 6 months per year. It was within walking distance of two excelklent Italian restaurants, a Waitrose and a Sainsburys, a Health Club with a pool and is not far from a theatre. We would have bought it on the spot if we could but we need to sell our house and then, as a cash buyer, we will negotiate on the price – if the apartment hasn’t gone. There are ten left so we have a chance.

Mandy had a career break from a very high powered job and adopted three little boys from one family. They came from a drug addict in Newcastle. They are delightful but very tiring. They all attend private schools. David is now 11 and goes to a fee-paying Grammar School. James is 9 and is a very good rugby player. Daniel is 6 and he is currently having trials for Fulham F.C.. Yes, you read it right. He was spotted playing for his local little boys team. They like his aggression, apparently. He likes kicking other boys and why not?

20th November, 2009

We set off thinking it would be a bad journey back to the North. We expected terrible traffic and awful weather. We had neither. The M25 & M1 were wonderfully quiet at 8.30 am  although we did have to shield our eyes from the sun. We were back in Huddersfield for 1.00 pm. It doesn’t matter where one goes or wants to go, arriving home is delightful. And yet, what this week has taught us is that we consider nowhere particular home. We can be happy anywhere as long as the property is right. As soon as we got home, all the stress and tiredness of the past four days overwhelmed us. How do these travelling salespeople survive? Drive 200 or 300 miles and then bound enthusiastically in to a client meeting as if nothing had happened. Amazing.

21st November, 2009

Watched England lose to the All Blacks again. Pathetic! In a week when we have been away for four days we have still used 1.5 cm of water. I got an email from Jane BG this week to say that she only used 14cm in six months. I really do think I must be washing too much.

8th November, 2009

Man. U. were robbed this afternoon. Did you see it? They were definitely the better team.

9th November, 2009

Still the requests for references roll in from ex-staff. We spent part of the day planning our trip down to Kent next week. We think we will stay in Maidstone and then spend one day looking around the Ashford, Folkestone, Dover, Sandwich, Canterbury areas and the second day looking round Rochester, Gillingham, Chatham area.

Spent a couple of hours swimming, steaming, jacuzzi-ing this morning and then Pauline went for a Facial (£55.00!!!) at the local Beauty Parlour. I got the job of taking rubbish to the tip. It was such a beautiful day I didn’t mind. I still had time to take some photos over the Colne Valley from the front of our house.

 

 

10th November, 2009

Pauline’s Mum has been desperate for a new chair. At 95 she is rather flat-bound. Any chance to break out is an adventure. We were going to a shop in Dewsbury where she had seen a chair advertised. Unfortunately, we had only got her down to the ground floor of her flats when she couldn’t go any further and we had to take her back up to her flat. It was all too much for her. She said that the Spirit was willing but the flesh failed her. Pauline & I were delegated to get the chair.

We drove over to Dewsbury to a shop called HSL Chairs. A long established chain of shops specialising in ‘comfy’ arm chairs.

 

Pride of place in the showroom were Parker Knoll chairs. Do you remember those? The two, green, wing backed chairs in the Front Room at 81 High Street. Some of the younger ones, perhaps, won’t remember that not only were we barred from the Front Room but, on the exceptional occasions, we definitely were not allowed to sit on the Parker Knoll chairs. They were distinguishable by one have a black and yellow striped panel in the head rest position. I can’t quite remember the other one. The Front Room had a fairly undistinguished bookcase with remarkably few books for a Mother who prided herself in literacy and Art. There was a highly polished small table by the french windows with a highly polished wireless on it.When the inglenook fireplace was replaced with a coke stove, the hearth was fronted by a lemon yellow mat the we were told not to walk on. You wouldn’t believe the memories a trip to a chair shop can evoke.

Pauline’s mum had seen the chair she wanted, she knew exactly which colour she wanted. We had our orders. When we got to the shop we were confronted with ‘Special Offers’. Unbelievably, the very chair we had been despatched for was half price at £300.00. The same chair in a different colour was £600.00. We were able to fit it into our car with the seats down and rush the 30 miles or so over the Pennines to Oldham with it. A 95 year old lady was very pleased when we took it up in the lift and placed it exactly in her lounge.

12th November, 2009

The days are so dark and uninviting but Pauline still gets us up at 7.00 am. There’s no time for breakfast now. Just a huge cup of tea. Then it’s off to the Health Club. Thirty minutes hard swimming followed bu Jacuzzi and the Steam Room. Home for coffee and toast with The Times before catching up on correspondence. Before you know where you are, it’s lunchtime. Pauline’s Mum fell last night and sprained her hand. After breakfast Pauline had to drive over to Oldham and get the doctor to check her over. She might have cracked a rib but there is no treatment for it only painkillers which upset her stomach.

We have also upset her. We have an awful dilemma. We have a Greek house and the plan to spend six months there. We have our house up for sale and want to move to the South of England. Although Pauline’s Mum knows all this, she doesn’t really believe it. Recently we told her we were going down to Kent house hunting. This has thrown her and us in to turmoil. Should we give up our lives and wait for her to die before we start to live again? Should we try to persuade her to move South to be near us in the Winter and Phyllis & Colin in the Summer? At 95 that will be a difficult trick to achieve. Should we try to build up a network around her so we feel free to go our own way? This latter is what we have been doing but it feels treacherous.  What should we do? Answers on a postcard.

13th November, 2009

Diabetic Clinic at 7.50 am with the gorgeous Doctor Judith. This is the Lindley Street Practice.

Doctor Judith said she had never seen me looking better. I should have retired years ago, she said. I couldn’t disagree.

14th November, 2009

Off to Leeds at 8.00 am today. Pauline has her hair done at Vidal Sassoon’s there.

It’s only £90.00 to have your hair cut there. Here I am saving water by not washing and she blows the entire savings on a hair cut. Thankfully my haircut has been free since 1969 so I’m just about breaking even.

In the three weeks we have been on a meter, we have used 12 cubic metres of water – 4 cubic meters per week. Is that reasonable for two people, do you think? According to Yorkshire Water, that is the equivalent of 132 baths in 3 weeks. I am getting Athlete’s Foot. Maybe I’ve just been too wet! We have been measuring our Gas consumption for the past six weeks and, in that time, we have used 61 KWH at a total cost of £18.06. It is the electricity which is charging away. From the end of August to the middle of October and empty house (lights on timers, Fridge, Freezer) used 544 KWH and, to date, we have used another £17.38 worth of electricity per week. I hope you’re keeping up with this.

 1st November, 2009

 

We have used 4 cubic metres of water in one week! Yorkshire Water say that one cubic meter is equivalent to eleven baths. We each have a shower in the morning and we have always shared a bath every night. We have a huge corner bath and it has been a ritual of our marriage for over 30 years that we have a bath together and talk over the day before going to bed. Be that as it may, we can’t believe we’ve used the equivalent of 44 baths in a week. One of us is washing too much. And it is not me!

2nd November ,  2009

I’m beginning to worry that I rattle. Because I am so fat, I am a type 2 diabetic. My blood pressure was high and so was my blood sugar. When I can be bothered, I measure these things. Usually that is before I see my doctor who is a bit scarey. Dr Judith is a gorgeous blond. When I see her for Diabetic Clinic, my blood pressure goes sky high. She calls it ‘white coat’ syndrome. I know different. Most of the time, however, my blood sugar , blood pressure and heart rate are all fine. I monitored them every day for three months in Greece. The average of my blood pressure readings over 90 days taken at 8.00 pm was 114/68. My resting pulse was 63. Even Jane BG would be hard pushed to beat that. My blood sugar reading averaged 6.4 which is not bad. Of course, none of this is down to me. It is entirely resting on the gorgeous Judith and the pills she prescribes:

• Amlodipine
• Atorvastatin
• Doxazosin
• Lossartan
• Metformin
• Pioglitazone
• Warfarin

I am the original junkie. Pauline calculated the other day that these drugs alone would cost me £70.00 per month if my prescriptions weren’t all free. I also get eye tests free. It’s a wonderful world even though I rattle.

3rd November, 2009

We can’t shake school off however much we try. Today, we had three phone calls from our old school plus a letter. In each case it was someone wanting information that nobody else in the school could provide. I had one chap who is doing a teaching qualification on-site asking me to Mentor him because I did it last year as well. I then had a lad who I appointed over a year ago wanting to catch up on things. Then a request for a reference arrived for a girl I managed two years ago. Then Pauline had a visit from the police to discuss a child molestation case she had dealt with twelve months ago.  It may seem strange but we don’t want this. We want to make a clean break and move forward. That is why three months in Greece was so useful. We are looking forward to going back.

4th November, 2009

Pauline & I lived in Meltham & Helme for a long time 1978 – 2000. Our dentist is still there. Today we had to go for a check-up and driving through reminded me how beautiful it is and how wonderful Yorkshire is. I may miss it a bit when we leave.

This is the centre of the village and the road leading up to Marsden Moor.

   

5th November, 2009

Our house is south facing which makes it incredibly hot but it looks over the Valley and to the Pennines. We can see a long way and we are looking down from quite a height. On Bonfire Night, we have the benefit of dozens of spectacular firework displays without leaving our lounge. Unfortunately, I find it very hard to photograph as you will see.

6th November, 2009

In my spare time this week I have been finalising investment opportunities (I have begun to sound like Mum.) and researching Granddad Coghlan and his father, Daniel – our Great Grandfather.

Our Great Grandmother Coghlan was Mary and she was born in 1856 in Brighton but I don’t know her Maiden name yet. By 1881, she was described as a wardrobe dealer. I don’t know if she dealt in clothes or wardrobes. Great Granddad Daniel Coghlan was born in 1851 but he gave a number of different places of birth. In 1881, he said he was born in Craford, Kent. In 1891, he said he was born in Farningham, Sussex. In 1901, he said he was born in Mary Cray, Kent. In 1881, at the age of 30, he describes himself as a Greengrocer. By 1891 & 1901, he describes himself as a Gardener.

In 1881, Daniel was 30 and Mary was 25. They were living at 35 Jubilee Street, Brighton with two children: Mary aged 2 and Catherine aged 5 months. Ten years later, they had moved down the street to 24 Jubilee Street and had three more sons and another daughter: Daniel aged 9, Julia aged 7, John aged 4 and ‘William M’ aged 1. In 1901, at the ages of 50 and 45 respectively, Daniel and Mary were still living in Jubilee Street and had three more children: ‘James J’ (our Granddad) aged 7, Ellen aged 5 and ‘Maurice P’ aged 3. In all, I have found nine children.

7th November, 2009

We are going back to the Health Club. We are missing our swimming. We have been members of the Spirit Health Club for years. Now we actually have time to use it. We belong to the Leeds/Brighouse one (or we did) with these facilities:

• Fitness
• Pool
• Jacuzzi
• Steam
• Sauna
• Reflexology

The wonderful thing is that now we are old and wrinkly, it only costs £70.00 per month for two of us. It is based inside the Holiday Inn Hotel.

 

25th October, 2009

This time last year we were blanketed with snow in Huddersfield. It was extremely cold. We were preparing for an Ofsted Inspection and feeling frazzled. How things change. It hasn’t been great weather but at least it’s warm. We aren’t using our central heating yet. We are on an Energy Project. It has nothing to do with environmentalism – we don’t wear sandals – but an experiment in monitoring costs. It is just for fun. I’ve told you before that Pauline records on a spreadsheet-based financial package every item of expenditure. She has done it since 1978 when we got married. Recently, I’ve found out where she got this from.

Pauline’s Mum is still struggling with Shingles and we’ve made a trip or two to Oldham to see her. The other day a bill arrived in the post while we were there. Pauline’s Mum – Jane – got out her accounts book and began recording the payment while murmuring to herself: “Yes, that’s what I had expected.” This could have been Pauline but (a bit) more wrinkly. Pauline forward accounts, spreading annual costs on a monthly basis, setting out contingencies, predicting surpluses, etc.. Now we’ve started to invest money in institutions and not property she is in her element.

26th October, 2009

Over to Oldham from Huddersfield. There are two main ways: the M62 which is the highest and one of the most congested motorway stretches in Britain or the parallel road across the moors known as Nont Sarah’s. When you are a worker, you take the M62 because you kid yourself it is quicker. So often it isn’t. When you’re retired, you go across the moors and savour the view.

  

   

The Nont Sarah’s road is particularly tranquil and picturesque at the moment.

27th October, 2009

Pauline & I are very sad people. We record and tabulate everything. We were made for each other. I know nothing about astrology but I was told that Aries (me) and Libra (Pauline) are a natural pair. Pair of what I don’t know but we do complement each other perfectly. Before I wrote this, I did some research. Aries and  Libra: the god of war and the goddess of beauty. How do they know us? Aries is solely concerned about the “I”; the “we” is left to Libra. Something spooky going on there!

More prosaically, I design spreadsheets, Pauline loves to record things on spreadsheets. For 31 years Pauline has maintained our accounts. For the past 5 I’ve been recording Blood Sugar Levels, Blood Pressure and Pulse rate twice a day. Now we are recording Electricity, Gas and Water meter readings every Saturday. I nearly got into the habit of recording petrol consumption in the car but suddenly saw Dad doing that in his little notebook he kept in the car. Does anyone remember that?

28th October, 2009

Northern Rock sent us our house deeds today and confirmed the completion of our mortgage_settlement.

It probably won’t seem it on re-reading but £270,000.00 felt a lot to get off our minds. Having been burdened with a big mortgage for more than thirty years, we had a bowl of porridge to celebrate. Do you like porridge? I’m hooked on it. I learnt 40 years ago that I have a compulsive nature. If I do anything five times in short succession, I get addicted to it. So smoking, red wine, Greece, etc all became habitual. Equally, if you give me porridge for breakfast, salad for lunch water for dinner, etc often enough, I become addicted to them. Pauline is trying to get me addicted to housework at the moment. I should have told her that was the one exception.

29th October, 2009

Pauline & I agree on most things. Particularly, we agree on Global Warming. We are confirmed deniers but the warmer it gets for us the better. Our Local Authority, Kirklees, however, are totally committed to saving the planet. They try to get everyone separating their rubbish into categories, for example. They try to pretend that they are generating power and other useful things from people like us who they charge for the privilege of being told to separate our rubbish into categories. Can you believe it? Rubbish by definition is something to be thrown away not played with. We pay for Kirklees to collect and throw our rubbish away. Why on earth would we choose to do that for them? However, Kirklees have gone up in our estimation recently. They have Project Warmzone.

Along with about a dozen other companies in the country, they have employed the Government funded agency, Warmzone Ltd, to supply insulation to houses in the Borough. The thrust of this project is to reduce fuel poverty and, in Oldham, the LA is means testing households and targeting the needy. In Kirklees, every single household is being offered additional loft insulation and cavity wall insulation free of charge. Kirklees have employed Miller Pattison to supply this service to us.

They are coming to survey our house next week to tell us what we need. They also provide free energy saving light bulbs and support with maximising central heating efficiency. Nice to see they are taking Global Warming seriously. We pensioners could freeze to death!

30th October, 2009

Yorkshire Water sent us £350.00 back today because we’ve opted for a meter. They wanted to say thank you. Such lovely people Yorkshire Water.

18th October, 2009 

We’ve been back in UK for a fortnight and we are still struggling to come to terms with the temperatures in Yorkshire. The last couple of weeks in Greece were 25-26C. The past couple of weeks here it has been 11 – 12C.  Of course, as newly retired persons we are still a little unsure of our finances. Our joint Electricity and Gas bills over twelve months amount to about £2000.00. Now we are at home all day and the LA are not heating us. Today we switched, using USwitch, from British Gas to First:Utility who say they will save us £420.00 per year. That’s worth a good couple of meals out at least. We have done this a couple of times over the past few years but now we’ve got time to torment all these companies with our fecklessness.

19th October, 2009 

Our water bill from Yorkshire Water is £1100.00 per year. We are not metered. We are the only people in the Quarry who are not and our bill is related directly to our Council Tax band. We’ve always resisted a meter because we water our garden so much. In fact, we have become the communal tap when someone else wants to water their garden as well. Our neighbours told us recently that they pay less than £20.00 per month for water and our jaws dropped. We will not be watering the garden now we are away so much so we asked Yorkshire Water for a meter. We emailed them from Greece and they came today. Ten minutes fiddling about in our garage which is where our stop-cock is and the meter was fitted. The whole service was free. We now save about £70.00 a month and I’ve got an excuse not to wash too often!

I knew you wouldn’t be able to live without a view of our stop-cock and new water meter.

20th October, 2009 

Our mobile contracts have been with Three for the past couple of years. That was fine while we were mainly in England. In Greece and on Sifnos the main providers and best reception comes from Vodaphone. In fact, the fastest transport back to Athens apart from a helicopter is the High-Speed Hydrofoil which sponsored by Vodaphone.

What is particularly good about Vodaphone is their International Passport which allows one to use contract minutes abroad as if from UK. Our new contracts bring a smart new touch-screen phone with excellent web browsing and email facilities. Graphics can be snatched from the web, edited and emailed on on the hoof.

21st October, 2009 

On Monday the Waterboard were in our garage. Today it was the turn of the AA. Yesterday, I had spent time in the garage connecting our new mobiles to the voice operated Sat. Nav./Radio/DVD/CD by bluetooth. As a retired person, I am quite slow and had to read the book carefully before completing the operation. To do that, I had to put on all the reading lights. When our phones eventually reported successful communication with Honda HFT, I excitedly returned upstairs to my wife to get praise for being so clever.

This morning I walked downstairs to the car to find the battery completely flat. I had left the reading lights on all night. Fortunately, our car comes with Hondacare – full AA Home and Abroad cover – and within half an hour an nice young man on a bright yellow bike was recharging the battery.

He left with a bottle of wine for his troubles. He was looking round our garage as he charged the battery and couldn’t help seeing a spare bottle. I really like our garage. It is triple size with a double and a single door. As soon as we moved there, nearly ten years ago now, we had it automated so we can drive straight in and walk up the stairs on the inside to the house.

   

22nd October, 2009 

How does the time fly so quickly? Every day we are up at 7.00 am but, before I’ve really achieved anything, it’s Tea Time. Not today. By 10.00 am we had paid off our mortgage and about five accompanying Mortgage insurance policies. Pauline and I are flying around the lounge with the lightness of being mortgage-free. Indulge me if this is getting you down but writing about it is the only way I can come to terms with what is happening to me. I am sitting at home reading The Times and eating buttered toast while receiving substantially more income than when I battled down the motorway at 7.00 am each day to a shabby, old school building and some fairly shabby kids. All of this at the age of 58! Is this really happening? I keep expecting the phone to go and somebody to tell me to get back to work. Indeed, Pauline & I had thought we might do a bit of Tutoring or Consultancy work but now we don’t need to, we can’t be bothered.

I spend my time now searching out good investments, special deals for this and that. In a week or so we are off to the South to look at potential properties. Gillingham, Chatham, Sittingbourne, Faversham, Ashford – those sorts of places we intend to explore. Anywhere in the centre of a flood plain.

France may have to wait until the pound strengthens if that happens in my life time. At least we can pop over there from these towns quite quickly and easily.

23rd October, 2009 

Spent quite a chunk of the day with Pauline’s Mum. At 95, it’s hard to cope with shingles. It’s in her hair and across her face and it’s giving her real pain. Pauline’s sister, Phyllis, and her husband, Colin, drove down from Chertsey, West Byfleet to stay with her for a couple of days. We sat and chatted for a few hours. When we go down to Kent, I will call on them and set them up with a colour printer and some internet training.

24th October, 2009 

Desperate day today. Dark, wet, blowing a gale. At least Stoke beat Spurs. Looking forward to United v Liverpool tomorrow. What am I saying? Get a life, John!

11th October, 2009

Even after six weeks away, it is wonderful to sleep in your own bed again and that is how it has felt for the past thirty years on the first night after returning from Greece. Not this time! After three months in Greece, Huddersfield doesn’t completely feel like HOME. Our bed, which we bought from And So To Bed in 1980 for £500.00 and which we thought was a massive luxury, now feels tired and ordinary. Rather creaky actually. The bed we had made for us and shipped to Greece six years ago is an absolute delight to sleep in. One of the problems was that I got up in the night, thought I was still in Greece and turned right instead of left for the toilet. I nearly ended up stark naked on the garage roof. I thought I’d grown out of that!

When you’re away for six weeks, the waiting post is colossal. We usually do Keep Safe with the Post Office where, for a fee, they keep all your post until you return. (Of course, nowadays, they just don’t bother delivering it at all.) We have a fantastic postman and, apparently, he needed two bags just for our post and he had to make two trips to deliver it because it was so heavy. Huge piles of post wrapped in thick elastic bands completely covered our dining room table and it took us jointly six hours to open and allocate to new piles of:

• Must Deal with on Monday
• Must Deal with during the Week
• Put in the Diary
• Interesting – To be read in time
• Put in the bin
• Shred & Put in the bin

All the time, I was looking for two envelopes worth our entire year’s salaries. In Greece we could check our Bank Account and we saw our wonderful lump sums arrive. We even saw our pensions arrive but the Redundancy payments that we had worked so hard for failed to materialise. We even phoned our legal adviser to follow it up. She told us the Local Authority had posted them. I had visions of striking postal workers steaming open envelopes. As we worked our way methodically through the mounted piles, we began to form the opinion that Sod’s Law would prevail and they would be the last two envelopes left on the table. True to the Law, we got down to the last two envelopes but there were no Cheques.

The concern level rose distinctly. We went through all the possibilities including that they wanted us to go back and teach. We heard while we were away that two of our colleagues who were desperate to finish and who had been lined up for redundancy had had it snatched away at the last minute. Our Legal Adviser was away until Monday. We had to wait. Meanwhile, I thought I had better try a suit on just in case.

12th October, 2009

Our Legal Adviser is a wonderful woman who works for AMiE, the Professional Association for Leaders and Managers in Colleges and Schools. She was responsible for negotiating a fantastic deal with the Local Authority. We contacted her immediately this morning. She called back to say that the HR representative who she had destroyed in our negotiations had been moved over the summer and had ‘forgotten’ to action our settlement. She gave the HR twenty four hours to sort it out or face legal action.

13th October, 2009

By 9.00 am this morning, the money appeared in our Nat. West Account. That settled, we just prepared for a comfortable day when Pauline’s Mum phoned. She had been in agony all night with a headache. We shot over there. She didn’t look good. In fact she had a suspicious rash diagonally across the front of her face and her left eye was sore and swollen. We called the doctor who confirmed she had shingles. In a 95 year old and affecting her eye that is serious. We had to take her straight to hospital. We were there for five hours. I hate hospitals and yet I’ve been to some wonderful ones recently – public & private. Oldham’s is not pleasant, not well equipped and fairly depressing. What gets me most of all is the modern facade masking the Nineteenth Century mill-style building. I also hate the cripples in gowns and slippers who have escaped the lung cancer wards to smoke in the carpark. You need an oxygen mask to get through the front entrance.

 

Pauline’s Mum was discharged with enough pain killers to subdue a herd of bison and told to take it easy. To be honest, if she took it any easier she would be permanently horizontal.

15th October, 2009

It is six days since we arrived from Greece. We drove over to Oldham to see Pauline’s Mum. It is a simple drive over the moors but it looked like the middle of winter. If we had got stuck in a snow drift, we wouldn’t have been surprised. Only one week before we needed sunglasses constantly. The contrasting shots below show Oldham Moor today and the port of Igoumenitsa, the last stop in Greece on the way up the Adriatic before we reach Italy. If you ever buy Sea Bream from the supermarket, the odds are it comes from the fish farms in Igoumenitsa bay.

 

16th October, 2009

Pauline’s Mum feels a bit better today and has got other visitors so we are free to get jobs done. Off to the Refuse Disposal Tip today. I refuse to pay and sort my own rubbish so I stick sacks in the car and dump them in the General Waste skip. It’s no hardship and it’s on the way to Sainsburys for some more rubbish. Unless you go early in the morning, the lane leading to the Refuse Disposal Tip is absolutely full of like-minded citizens who refuse to bow to the Stasi Council officials in Environmental Health.

Coming home to find our neighbours mowing our lawns, we phone Northern Rock to get a Redemption figure for our mortgage. We want to settle it next week. Pauline and I have met mortgage payments every month since 1974. Not doing so now will be a lovely feeling. A year ago, when our fix ended, we decided to go on Standard Variable rate just so we didn’t have any costly tie-in at this point. We will be £2670.00 per month better off immediately. Ironically, they had written to us yesterday to offer us a rate reduction for loyalty. We weren’t tempted.

17th October, 2009

Pauline did the dutiful daughter thing by driving over to Oldham. I watch Aston Villa thrash Chelsea. Couldn’t be better.

Received a lovely letter today from Coutts Bank Manager, Sue Riding. While at Nat. West, she was the Accounts Manager who helped us with bridging finance and great encouragement in buying our Greek land and building the house. Not only that, she visited our island to view the land. Like us, she has just retired at the age of 57 and sent us pensioners’ greetings.