Category: Uncategorized

Sunday, 14th March, 2021

Out for an early walk this morning under a weak sun. It is amazing how short 5 miles begin to feel the more you do the same route.

Time and perspective across it have been occupying my thoughts for a while and I suspect my upcoming 70^th birthday is partly the driver of that. There is a desire to look back as much as forward when more stretches behind than appears in front. I have something of an understanding of my origins in family and place. Recently, I have been reaching out to that intermediate time when I left home and started to forge a life for myself.

It is a shock to think that I left home over 50 years ago. A couple of months ago, I put a photo up of Pauline & I celebrating 42 years of marriage. A girl who I knew at College and who I haven’t seen since a party in Rochester, Kent in 1974 saw my posting and contacted me to say she would have been celebrating her 49^th this year had things worked out for her. I immediately felt sorry that my posting had evoked that emotion in her but it left the images of her, her ex-husband who I had shared Digs with, the place, the events, the feelings, the music, the art, the poetry flooding through my head, almost overwhelming my Present. On Friday, I was watching an cricket match in India when she announced she was doing exactly the same thing. A simple thing but an absolutely weird feeling reaching across 50 years!

I have an unbearable desire to reach my hand across the time to touch the past. It’s not so unusual. People like to touch old artefacts – Stonehenge, Roman coins, etc. – in an attempt to feel a connection with past times. My need is almost visceral. I have always had this desire to return to places I have known if only to touch base. Sometimes, they disappoint but it still fulfils a need.

Last night I forced Pauline to endure a difficult, historically-based film. Fanny Lye Deliver’d is a British period drama film, set in Cromwell’s period of 1657 on a Shropshire farm. It stars Maxine Peake who I love. It is a difficult and slow first half hour and an almost unbearable subsequent hour. How anyone really managed to survive the conditions of life in mid-17^th Century England goodness only knows. A life of harshness and cruelty, of cold, dark, smoky, wet and muddy, insanitary existence. I do not have any desire to reach back that far.

Monday, 15th March, 2021

Half way through March already. What is happening? Well, it’s a sunny, mild day but we know that is deceptive because cold weather is due to return later in the week. At least that will be moderated down here.

Went on a blind date with a girl who mixes concrete for a living. Things were going great till I put my foot in it.

I’m a bit set in my ways.

Major panic this morning. The bin men came early. Only black bag today so I just managed to catch them.Wouldn’t want you worrying about me.

Amazing how memories can fade unless they have real meaning. I have never been one for going to pubs or clubs. I prefer small, intimate gatherings. I think I could count all the pubs I’ve been to over the past 50 years on the fingers of two hands. The poorly focussed image above is of our Student Union building where I would make a mad dash at night to be there in time for Last Orders. Actually, the barman, who was called Maurice and who boasted that he regularly drank 12 pints a night, was easily open to extending the deadline for friendly people like me. What worries me is that I probably look as out of date as those cars!

Tuesday, 16th March, 2021

Up early for a 7.00 am Sainsbury’s delivery on a warm morning. The kitchen still smelled of the aromas of Pauline’s activities yesterday afternoon.

She normally makes wholemeal but had white flour to use up or throw away. With one or two lapses, I have not eaten bread for nearly ten years. I have not eaten potatoes, pasta or rice either. The sources of carbohydrate fuelled my blood sugar and Type 2 Diabetes. Cutting them out completely eradicated my Diabetes and absolutely amazed my doctor.

Yesterday, I was contacted on Twitter by Dr. Mitchell. That name haunts me. Having recently retired, he was burning stacks of his old case notes. In May 2000, I went to see him about a back problem. His first words were, Never mind your back. Can I come and view your house? which we had just put on the market. He was in the middle of developing his Practice surgery in Meltham. Our house was in the lovely, nearby, Conservation village of Helme. A Huddersfield Town footballer came to bid for it as well but, eventually it went to the doctor who we’ve stayed in touch with ever since.

It’s turned in to quite a mild day – 15C/59F – but rather grey and uninviting. I’m doing a workout in the gym and watching Politics Live. Later, we will griddle Tuna steaks out in the garden and eat them with green bean salad. If only I’d stuck to this diet while living in Yorkshire. I wouldn’t have to struggle so hard now.

Wednesday, 17th March, 2021

Beautiful, sunny and warm morning. We are going to have a walk on the beach before High Tide. Still feeling like a hand grenade has been thrown in to my life and I can’t understand why. Still picking up the pieces. The header on my Blog carries the T.S. Eliot line:

These fragments I have shored against my ruin ….

and I feel I need them more than ever now. Partly because of that, I am continuing to spend some time digitising and preserving past memories.

Slade House, Helme on the day we moved in – October 1984 – was fairly raw land. It had
¾ acre of garden which attracted me. I wanted to grow things.

We were very busy at work and wanted to develop a good garden with lawns and shrubs on one side but with a deep bed vegetable patch down the other as an antidote to our daily lives.

It was very hard work but great fun. I found I really loved gardening and, particularly, growing vegetables as my father had done before me. A local man installed the hard standing and the beds. Pauline did the weeding. I just enjoyed growing things.

During our time there, I was head of a school housed in a pagoda-style building which first opened in 1891. All the furniture was original, ornate, integrated mahogany. Every classroom, office, toilet had these huge, heavy doors. Every classroom and office had built in storage units/bookcases fashioned just like the doors. When it was finally closed and demolished, I had the door of my office delivered to my Yorkshire home. Pauline stripped it of a century of paint and had it installed as our back door. As a tangible connection with the past and my past, it really appealed to me.

In reality, we probably spent too long there. I loved it and resisted Pauline’s urgings to move on, make a profit and reinvest. We did sell it for 4x the price we bought it and I did finally realise that there was a life beyond Helme.

These images and thoughts swirled round my mind as we walked for an hour this morning. One of the people we will visit when we return to the North will be the doctor and our old property. I wonder what happened to the door?

Thursday, 18th March, 2021

Everything in our house is insured and serviced comprehensively. Nothing is left to chance. Today, the house security system is being serviced. The maintenance contract only cost about £100.00/€117.00 per year and probably isn’t needed so often but we set it up anyway. The boiler/central heating was done recently although at just 5 years old, it shouldn’t really need it. Today, our new house warranty which covered everything from structure to decoration, fittings and white goods comes to an end. Tomorrow, we’ll probably find the dishwasher, washing machine, wine cooler, fridge-freezer, built in oven, etc, will pack up in acknowledgement of the passing deadline. They don’t have to worry. We’ve got them covered.

I’m digitising houses at the moment and this was our first – a 19th century Coaching House in Meltham. In June 1978, all my worldly possessions were packed in to the back of an old, white mini and delivered to this house above. We spent our first 6 years here. It had 3 bedrooms, a bathroom, large kitchen, large lounge and a walk-in pantry. Outside was an open double garage with inspection pit for when the Rolls-Royce was stored there and serviced by the chauffeur of the big house.

Pauline liked to scour the local antique/junk shops for period pieces to furnish it. She found the wallpaper in a Philips television advert in a magazine. I wrote to them and they told me it was from Osborne & Little. We sourced the wallpaper and bought the TV which you can see is state of the art. My one real claim to DIY fame was to open up the fireplace, source the stone surrounds from a local quarry and install them along with the hearth.

Sunday mornings were often spent collecting logs for the fire from our nearby wood. It was all so long ago. We sold this property in 1984 for 10 x the price we bought it and it gave us the platform to move on and up.

Friday, 19th March, 2021

On the 14th April, 2000, I had been 49 for just over a week. We had finished school early for Easter Holidays and dashed home to Helme, got out of our suits and into our jeans. We stuck our pre-packed bags into our car and set off for Manchester Airport. The flight to Athens airport – the now defunct Ellinikon International – was late evening so we ate in their best restaurant before take-off. The flight was timed to arrive at around 3.00 am in time for a bus down to Piraeus Harbour and the F/b Agios Giorgios via Kythnos & Serifos to Sifnos. Leaving at 8.00 am, it was a 5½ hour ferry journey which always left us exhausted.

We were renting Villa Margarita for a fortnight and a small car to get around. Very soon after we arrived and settled in, we were offered a 4 acre field across the valley to purchase. It was far too big and much more than we wanted to pay for land. Back in 2000, it seemed very expensive at £60,000.00/€71,000.00 just for a big field. We hadn’t got that amount sitting in our Bank Account for such an event.

Pauline phoned our bank on her mobile from this little blob of rock in the middle of the Aegean sea. She asked to speak to our personal account manager. She could hear her assistant calling across the office in the 10 Yorkshire Street Branch in Oldham. Sue – our personal account manager, could be heard to shout, What do they want? The assistant said, A bridging loan for £60,000.00 to build a house on a Greek island. Sue’s instant reply was, Tell them ‘Yes’.

We had good jobs and decent salaries but even we were a bit surprised how easy it was to get the money. Sue, our personal manager, who became a friend before she moved on to work for the Private Bank of Coutts, had already visited our island of Sifnos and had dreamed of having a house there. After agreeing the loan, she visited the island again and viewed the field she had helped us invest in. She was personally invested in our project which would take nearly 5 years to fully realise.

More about the Greek Story tomorrow. Yes, I know you’re desperate but, like all good things, it will come later. Today is the most magnificent, warm and sunny day. We have driven out 50 mins in to Hampshire and are visiting Hayling Island and walking on the beach in this wonderful weather. Walk with me.

Saturday, 20th March, 2021

Mild, grey morning. Went out early for some fresh, sea air around Littlehampton. Fishing boats were gutting and preparing their catch, tossing the waste into the sea for the gulls.

Returning to our Greek project which had begun in 1984 by a chance browse through a travel brochure for me. A now defunct company called Freedom Travel specialised in isolated, Greek islands. A picture of a gorgeous, bare chested girl emerging from the sea on the island of Sifnos in the Cyclades caught my eye and I told my wife that was where I wanted to go. We booked for the summer and were absolutely hooked. We returned every year, usually twice a year until we decided to build a property for ourselves. 

Our Greek friend who found the land for us assured me that we could build a small house for around £50,000.00/€59,000.00 on top of the cost of the land. I wanted to believe him and, although sceptical, tried hard to convince myself that it was something I would regret if we didn’t at least try. About 5 years later and at least £200,000.00/€236,000.00 poorer, we were able to move in. It was never going to be easy but we hadn’t realised how demanding it would be. The processes of officialdom the Greek state puts in place are really daunting. We would not have managed without the support of a Greek friend holding our hand all the way.

We had to rely on our Greek friend to manage the project while we worked hard in UK to earn the money to pay for it. We had massive mortgages and were constantly sending additional tranches of £20,000.00 at a time without really knowing what it was funding. We were flying out at Easter for 2 weeks and driving there for 6 weeks and the rest just carried on without us.

I would get calls on my mobile in school from our architect in Athens speaking Greek rapidly which completely stretched my ability but, by 2005, the shipping container we had been urgently filling with beds and tables, chairs and benches, a full IKEA flatpack kitchen, a log burning stove, television, etc., was driven from the port up to our house, installed and we started to live quietly above the port.

We were incredibly pleased to have been the first on the island to have installed underfloor heating and we were able to transport the quality of our English life to a small, Greek island.

We were not there to downgrade our life but to graft the simplicity of Greek island life onto comforts of our UK existence.

We had to have satellite tv, internet access, residential affluence allied to Greek island charm and I think we achieved it.

In late 2014, things started to crash around us and we were so relieved to sell up and get out unhurt. We look back now with such relief. How could we have managed this under a pandemic let alone the iniquitous Brexit! We are about to be 70 but are already thinking of buying abroad again. We can’t just sit around waiting to die.

Sunday, 7th March, 2021

The morning opened beautifully all round. Strong sunshine encouraged us out early. We went down to the beach. We’ve been here almost 5 years now but have never seen the Oyster Pond being cleaned out. The displaced swans were flapping around on the beach.

All around Europe, coastlines have been experiencing extremely low tides. Kamares port on Sifnos has seen its beach stretch well out into the sea over the past week. Littlehampton Beach is usually shingle but consists currently of vast swathes of sand.

The deserted breakwater reaches out as if for a hand to hold but in vain. Sometime soon, the tide will come back in and envelop it in the soothing waters that are its destiny and purpose.

I had a horrible ‘senior moment’ yesterday. When she was 96, Pauline’s lovely Mum was in and out of hospital quite frequently. When she was at home in her apartment, she had a rigorous skincare routine. All the stuff that women plaster their bodies with was applied. In one of her final hospital visits, Pauline was at her bedside and helped her walk to the toilet. As she passed a mirror and not having her creams and lotions with her, the 96 year old exclaimed, Oh no, my wrinkles are coming back. It was one of those seminal, never-give-in moments. Yesterday, I found a wrinkle on my arm!!!

Pauline has asked my help to find some friends from her college in London 1970 – 73. It doesn’t exist anymore having been absorbed by London University. If you don’t know, Pauline is the blonde on the back, left. I always went for the small, intelligent ones but rarely for blondes. I’m proud to say that I never asked a girl out in my life. I always got selected by them. Actually, I don’t think I was capable of such a nerve-wracking move. I didn’t and still don’t understand girls.

Monday, 8th March, 2021

Cold over night and we opened the morning with yet another lovely, sunny day but only around 10C/50F. Feeling a bit of an emptiness this morning. Something is missing. Just going through the humdrum of everyday life. Putting the bins out, unstacking the dishwasher and so on. Had to do my Official INR and email it off to Worthing Hospital. Spent some time in the gym not exercising but servicing the equipment. I’m not practical at all so I had to have an Assistant who is.

I have been trying to find a photo of the College building Pauline spent three years in at the start of the 1970s. I get accused of living in the past but we all need to touch our history at some stage. My need is just much greater than some others. The college was absorbed in to London University by 1978 and the building demolished. We think this is a photo of its last years.

In 1972, a friend and I were looking for teaching jobs. Ironically, one of the first places we looked was in London. I had a job interview in Ealing. I was offered a post teaching English but my friend, who I think was looking in Haringey, wasn’t so we moved on. However, I’ve been sent this unwritten and pristine postcard which features a private residential Club in Lansdowne Road, Tottenham. I knew immediately what it was but not my historical connection to it. I can actually remember walking down Lansdowne Road but did I stay there? I have no memory. Answers on a postcard, please.

Done an hour’s walk in lovely sunshine and I’m now going to finish off with another hour in the gym. Give me strength!

Tuesday, 9th March, 2021

Woke at 5.30 am and felt real optimism and hope. Who knows why. We were having a Sainsbury’s delivery at 7.00 am but that certainly wasn’t it. Quite cold – just 2C/36F – but blue sky and sunshine as far as the eye could see. Pauline’s iPad had given her notification over night that the order would not arrive until 8.00 am and would not contain skimmed milk. No skimmed milk? Who can live without that?

So it was for that we were out to our nearest supermarket, Asda Ferring, at 7.00 am. I was walking round the enormous carpark in the sunshine while Pauline indulged herself and went shopping for skimmed milk. It doesn’t get much better than this!

As soon as we got back, I made a digital card for one of my little sisters – Catherine who prefers to call herself Cathy nowadays. She is 66 which shocks me because it makes me feel old. People tell me not to worry but approaching landmark ages such as 70 does make one question one’s own mortality. In the end, of course, we can run away and hide or seize the day. It is our choice. My day is going to be seized by going for a long walk in the sunshine. Actually, it might be a bit painful because I’ve twisted my knee. This is what you get for carpe diem at (nearly) 70!

My cloud storage system throws up photographs of the past which I haven’t see for years. This morning it is really poking fun at me by putting up a picture taken almost exactly 40 years ago. I was 30 years old and spending 3 weeks on the island of Zakynthos/Zante. The worrying thing is that I remember the island. I remember the villa. I just don’t remember a body like that at all. Unfortunately, not many people do. Oh, my knee hurts!

We should have our second vaccination in early April – 2 days after I’m 70 – and be largely safe by the end of that month. How we will feel and what we will do, I have absolutely no idea. Today in the gym I will be watching a Swedish wartime love story with subtitles which is how I twisted my knee because I find it hard to read and run at the same time. Trouble is, I don’t learn.

Wednesday, 10th March, 2021

First grey day for a while. Not cold but only 8C/46F overnight. As a sun-worshipper, I find greyness depressing. Looking for lightness elsewhere in life instead so I’m continuing to mine the treasure trove of memorabilia I’ve been exploiting recently.

I went to a Grammar School which rather fashioned itself on the Public School ethic of Academic and Sporting excellence. I didn’t excel academically. I did in sport. My school was renowned for its Rugby Union and I was a big, strong, fast-running lad who was up for a fight. I absolutely loved it. I got my First Team colours a year early and played on the Left Wing. I played for Staffordshire. I was a sprinter and was made captain of the school Athletics team. I was constantly training but not revising for exams.

At College in 1969, the dominant sports were Football and Cricket. I was an embarrassment at both of them but there were just not enough ‘men’ to fill the teams so I was drafted in. As more men arrived in subsequent years, I was very understandably dropped. If Kevin is reading this, he will be nodding in agreement. Even so, my hairstyle was more of a joke than my sporting prowess as the photo above illustrates.

A lot of pandemic exercise has involved walking by the sea. My precious smartphone is clutched tightly in my hand and used to photograph anything of interest. It also collects location which is recorded and mapped. Never commit a murder or have an affair! What does it say about my life that my movement map is so restricted?

Thursday, 11th March, 2021

Didn’t sleep well. The night was dominated by the disturbance of strong, blustery wind which is so unsettling. I know I’ve quoted these lines before but they are so apposite.

This house has been far out at sea all night,
The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,
Winds stampeding the fields under the window
Floundering black astride and blinding wet …

Ted Hughes – Wind – The Hawk in the Rain, 1957

In Hughes case, the atmospheric situation mirrored the turmoil in his mind, crashing around in the darkness towards a decision. It is possible to view that as a romantic, dramatic conceit or the attempt to describe an internal struggle.

The morning broke with beautiful sunshine but blustery, cool winds. We went down to the sea where a high tide was boiling on to the beach driven on by the wind. Actually, there were windsurfers out in the huge waves but few takers for coffee in the sunshine.

The afternoon finished in a gym session which will mean I have achieved my effort target every day for the past 30 days and covered 170 miles. Looking forward to expanding horizons again soon and walking in Mediterranean sunshine. The news isn’t good across Europe in that infection rates are surging again while tourism centres of Greece, France, Italy and Spain are hoping to gear up for the Summer. Here, we are told that the vaccine has much weaker effectiveness in Cancer sufferers and those with a depleted immune system which must be worrying.

It has been a dramatic day – for me a dénouement and the evening sky confirmed it. Ever seen something like this? It felt barely real. Let’s hope it portends a better future!

Friday, 12th March, 2021

Up early on an uncertain new day. Sainsbury’s delivery at 7.00 am. Lovely, sunny morning that was quickly interrupted by heavy, driving rain. That seems rather how life is at the moment. Hope for the best but expect the worst ….

“I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”

‘Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’ – W. B. Yeats

The rain stopped and, just needing to get out of the house, we drove out to the nearby historical town of Steyning which dates back to Anglo Saxon times. It has a 12th Century church and many Tudor and earlier buildings. Parts reminded me of Chester, parts of Montreux in Northern France. I can’t stop living in the past.

I must admit, it made me feel rather old just going out for the sake of it – filling the time sight seeing but this is what we seem to have come to.

It is 27 weeks since Pauline had her hair cut. This morning we both remarked that it was looking better than ever. When I first met her in 1973, her long, blonde hair flowed down to her bottom. In recent years and particularly when she went to Sassoons, it has got progressively shorter with age. She hasn’t got even a hint of grey and Lockdown may prove a turning point for style.

Saturday, 13th March, 2021

Torrential rain storm battered the house in the middle of the night … so I’m told. I slept through it. The morning has opened with lovely sunshine but still breezy.

An item on R4 Today programme caught my attention this morning. It was about F.O.R.E or Fear of Re-Entry. For people who have been shielding – at least in part – over the past year, going back in to society raises some anxieties. People teetering around the age of 70 like us will have concerns about the effectiveness of the vaccine, the dangers of becoming infected if we return to ‘normal’ life suddenly. I haven’t been in a shop for so long that I’ve forgotten what they look like on the inside.

The first test will be when Pauline goes for a haircut. I will sit in a coffee shop for an hour or so. Mind you, if it’s as socially distanced as last time I took this photo, it shouldn’t raise concern.

What we really want to be doing is travelling, driving to the North of England and then right across Europe. We normally make two trips to Yorkshire/Lancashire each year to visit old friends and I can’t wait to do it again. We set retirement plans to travel across Europe and have done plenty of it but this year has been so hard – trapped and aging.

We have been so used to just deciding at the drop of a hat that we need some cultural change and booking Gatwick flights and a hotel over the ‘net’ and going. It is one of the joys of a comfortable retirement. Three years ago, on a whim, we spent some time in the city of Valencia. It was an absolute revelation. The weather was wonderful and the people delightful.

If I were to choose one place to move to now, it would be Valencia. Just a little apartment would do which we could run to for a few weeks when we felt like it. Even the flight is only a couple of hours which makes it all so easy. The time is running out. It would need at least £100,000/€117,000 to get something really comfortable which is what we would want. How many years would we use it for?

Sunday, 28th February, 2021

The end of February has been marked by the most wonderful day. From first thing the sun is blazing down. It is only 14C/57F but many in the neighbourhood are in t-shirt and shorts. The Sunday Times featured two items this morning over breakfast. The front page had a stunning photo of our local beach at Rustington.

It also featured a survey of the healthiest and happiest areas of the country to live. West Sussex featured prominently. I have to say, we aren’t surprised.

Even so, after watching the early political programmes, we went down to the sea just because we could. We drove through the old part of the village which is so dilapidated but looks typically of faded fishing community.

Even so, there are small boats going out every day. Down here on Littlehampton Marina, squalls of seagulls were marauding some boats as they moved their catch on to the docks. It is nice, just occasionally to stop and stare. It is quite calming. Let’s hope it presages a good week ahead for all of our readers.

Monday, 1st March, 2021

New month and new resolve to make the best of life. Have had a bit of a rocky week but have come through the other side feeling more reassured and stronger. Maybe I will write about it sometime. Now is not the time.

What a wonderful day it is Today. The weather is fantastic with bright sun from Dawn to Dusk and 15C/59F. Pauline has had a project. She is a chef. She loves cooking. She is making Beetroot Chutney. It is wonderful with cheese and salad. It will store for a year or more. Chutney making can stink the whole kitchen/house out because of the vinegar. We had a lovely, warm day and an outdoor kitchen for the cooking so no problem at all. 

We did a 5 mile walk at mid day to drink in the sunshine and get our hearts pacing. We didn’t have lunch. I am making a concerted attempt to control my appetite. I do so envy skinny people! I’m never going to be one. We griddled Swordfish Steaks out in the sunshine of the garden and ate it with Greek Salad and a bottle of Rioja. I have a feeling I might sleep well for the first time in a week.

Tomorrow, Dear Readers, Irish Partition politics – a subject which is dominating my thoughts this week. I will be looking forward to editorial suggestions as we go.

Tuesday, 2nd March, 2021

Another gorgeous morning. Up at 6.00 am. Sainsbury’s delivery at 7.30 am. And so the day starts. There follows quite a long Blog Post but it could be interesting if you stick with it. What else have you got to do? Certainly nothing more important.

I have recently been accused of living in the past. Very unkind, of course, because I’m a Historian. That’s what we do. Some try to suppress the past for fear of what it may reveal. Others try to embrace it as a guide to the future. During this pandemic and with restriction of movement really stopping us travelling, I have been enjoying filling in the background of my knowledge. My antecedents on my Mother’s side were Irish. My Grandfather was James, Joseph, Jeremiah Coghlan. He was born in Brighton (ironically, just down the road from where I now live) but his parents were from southern Ireland. Unfortunately, the connection is not close enough to claim Irish/EU citizenship.

Grandad’s name was Coghlan (an anglicisation of the Irish surname Ó Coghláin) and my Grandma’s maiden name was Curley which is a Gaelic Irish name. Actually, her Mother was Fanny Curley which conjures up a wholly different image altogether. Born in to poverty and second class citizenship, both made good careers for themselves.

Grandma was a highly respected seamstress and tailor. Grandad started as a Cabinet Maker/French Polisher but with huge effort and enthusiasm taught himself the antique business and he became really adept in his own business of buying up old antiques, restoring and selling them at a big profit. There’s a bit of the Irish Tinker in there somewhere but, when he retired from London to our Midlands village, he would march round in his bowler hat, city coat and silk scarf as if he was still in the city. Like me, living in the past.

People of my age were brought up with a news backdrop of ‘The Troubles’. Effectively the war being waged by the IRA was on what they saw were the occupying forces of oppression – the English. Not many bother to understand the origins of all this. I wasn’t completely clear myself until I started reading and I have enjoyed watching some dramatisations set in it as well.

The 18th Century was known, notably by Thomas Paine, as the Age of Reason and it came to an end rather abruptly with the onset of revolution. The French Revolution (1789-99) put the skids under the established order all round the world. The 1798 Rebellion in Ireland can be traced to the setting up of the Society of United Irishmen in Belfast, preparing to throw off the yoke of their foreign occupiers. Its aim was to remove English control from Irish affairs. Their bloody rebellion of 1798, however, resulted in the 1801 Act of Union, which brought Ireland tighter still under British control.

The treatment of the Irish was unjustifiable and brutal. As the two dramas featured above make clear, the Irish had little choice and were totally justified in their fight back during the post WW1 Irish War of Independence. They won an uneasy partition which still holds but can never hold until the whole of the island of Ireland is one. It has always seemed so obvious to me although I hadn’t bothered to research the background.

I cry at the drop of a hat and I’ve never been too proud to admit it. It is usually for other’s pain rather than my own. I have spent three or so hours exercising in the gym while watching these dramas play out and weeping copiously. It is not a pretty sight watching an old man on a jogging machine running with tears filling his eyes.. It is so hard to believe that human beings can do such unspeakable things to their fellow man. If you watch no other film in life, Ken Loach’s award winning film: The Wind that shakes the Barley is a must. If you have a strong stomach for fortitude and tragedy, the mini-series Rebellion on Netflix since 2016 honours the 100th anniversary of the start of the Easter Uprising in 1916.

It was tantamount to treason to express support for the IRA during the early part of my life. The establishment would brook no idea of it as the border violence continued and the UK mainland was bombed. The history was immaterial. It took Tony Blair and Mo Mowlam to change this view and just last week, Roy Greenslade, former editor of the Daily Mirror, has revealed that he was an active supporter of the cause but couldn’t reveal it because he would lose his job. This week and because of his revelation, he lost his job. Plus ca change plus c’est la meme chose.

Wednesday, 3rd March, 2021

A pleasant, mild if slightly greyer morning. Even so, the world seems to be announcing a move forward. All around us here, the trees, bushes, woodland banks are budding, shooting, displaying Spring flowers and resounding to the gorgeous sound of birdsong.

I  have written about this before so regular readers will know that I love post landing on the mat. I am rather like an overenthusiastic puppy who hears the stimulus sound and bounds to be first to get it. Actually, over the years, my wife has learnt not to interfere. She leaves me to collect and open all post. I even love ‘junk’ mail but, recently, it has become far too targeted for comfort.

I will be 70 in just under 5 weeks time. Age has never really worried me in the past. I haven’t had a wish to go back and be younger. I don’t fear death. Pauline refuses to even acknowledge it. She asserts that she will never die. Both our fathers died at 49 and the genetics did concern me but reaching 50 allayed that concern. However, we both realise that the impending landmark of 70 is significant. For me, although I am reasonably fit and healthy, it is suddenly starting to feel a little bit like time is running out. There are so many things I want to do but time is running out and Covid & Brexit are, in part, stopping me doing them.

I am Type 2 diabetic although in complete remission and have atrial fibrillation which makes me a bit more susceptible to Covid. For that reason, we have been extremely careful over the past year. We were both very shocked when a lovely neighbour in her 40s pushed a note through the door recently saying she hadn’t seen us for a few days and were we alright; did we need any shopping done?

That lovely gesture from our neighbour absolutely shocked us both. She clearly saw us as old and vulnerable. All my life I have seen the vulnerable as in need of my help. Suddenly, the boot was on the other foot. It made me almost feel vulnerable myself.

That vulnerability seems to be being exploited by the commercial world. I put my life out for all to see and my demographic is available to be exploited. I know I can expect this sort of targeting but it doesn’t fit with who I see in myself. A well know sportsman died this week at the age of 82. My first reaction was, That seems very young. He was involved in sport and fitness. Since my youth, I have not been although the past 12 years of retirement have seen me try to readdress this.

I hope I live to 101 and get to resolve so many of my desires. I have made mistakes across my life that I have been trying to address in retirement. Some have been done and some are still pending. However, I am not yet ready to address my funeral. Actually, I have already told my wife that, when necessary, she can put me out in a bin bag and leave me out for the waste collectors. I will try to die on a Sunday night because Black Bag is collected on Mondays.

Thursday, 4th March, 2021

Grey, mild and overcast day. I’m watching Test cricket from India where the weather is quite different. I usually run this on the TV in the Office while doing other work. And so it is today. My Masters Research Degree is in political history. I like politics, history and research. I have been doing it for years.

The web is so valuable. To find people and explore connections I use Ancestry.com, 192 People Finder and UK Census Online. Actually, the Census is coming round again very soon.

While one side of my family originated in Ireland, the Sanders (son of Alexander) side are rooted in the English Midlands. I was born in Repton, the capital of Murcia. In Anglo Saxon times, Paeda was the first Christian King of Mercia and his son was called Piddock. The surname Piddock was first found in Somerset where they held a family seat from early times and their first records appeared on the early census rolls taken by the early Kings of Britain to determine the rate of taxation of their subjects.

The Piddock Family motto was:

Seigneur, je te prie, garde ma vie / Lord, I beseech thee, save my life.

Putting aside the ‘Lord’ bit, I’m beginning to feel that way myself. It is the age old wish. The difference is that we are more likely to be granted this wish than our ancestors.

I am determined to stay alive and, in the past 8 weeks, I’ve walked/cycled/jogged 310 miles or 499 kms. No wonder I’m tired! Looking forward to my meal of homemade salmon fishcakes and homemade baked beans. And so to dream ….

Friday, 5th March, 2021

Had a text conversation with my skinny, little sister, Liz late last night. I hardly ever use text messaging. I much prefer email where I can write in paragraphs and integrate pictures into the text. It is much more conducive to expressing developed thoughts. However, I’ve been using it a bit more recently and quite enjoyed it. It was certainly lovely of Liz to take the trouble out of her busy schedule running London’s Health Service.

I phoned my very old sister, Ruth, this morning. Of course, she is never in when I phone but I spoke at some length to her lovely husband, Kevan. We don’t speak often but, for someone so much older than me, he is extremely understanding and easy to talk to. My motive was to discuss the fact that I had just received an invite to their wedding – on July 1st, 1972. Even he was a bit surprised.

I’ve had a wonderful, difficult, lovely, painful contact from an old friend in the past couple of weeks. It has evoked so many memories of when we were so much younger. I have always been obsessed with the passage of time and the inevitability of events. In the past few days, these obsessions have melded together. I knew this moment would come.

My friend has very kindly sent me a stash of memorabilia which is almost uncomfortable to look at. The passage of time really is a terrible thing. All those hopes and dreams dashed, unfulfilled. In those days, I was going to be a world-renowned poet, a widely published novelist, a genius of letters revered by all. I became a teacher in Oldham. Obscurity incarnate!

I must admit, I’d forgotten how gorgeous and precocious I was back in the early 1970s. How dreams can be dashed and yet we make new lives for ourselves and move forward. 

My wife and I have done challenging and exciting things in life – things I could not have anticipated. We have done interesting jobs in Education. We have bought and sold lots of lovely properties including buying a field, designing and building a house on a Greek island. We have driven around Europe together until it is almost second nature and we have moved, gradually from North to South of the UK in the process. 

We have weathered some incredibly hard times together. In the early 1980s, we had a near fatal car crash which saw us hospitalised and me as close to dead as a living man can be. We had to fight enormous professional pressures from threats to Pauline’s career to attacks on our health and welfare. We have survived all that and, in spite of scarring, carried on.

However, I have always lived with a weight deep inside me. (I’ve carried a weight round my middle but that’s another matter.) It is the weight of responsibility that I can never and do not want to shirk. I will never resile from it. There are significant people in my life who are owed so much more than they will ever know. I have spent my retirement attempting to at least acknowledge that debt. If any of them are reading this now and I know some are, I acknowledge it again now. That debt will always honoured if never fully repaid. 

Saturday, 6th March, 2021

Wonderful sunny and warm day. Sounds like it has been the same across the country. Before our 5 mile walk, however, the highlight was a haircut for me. When I was the age illustrated in yesterday’s Blog, I swore I would never get my haircut. It may have been an instant response to my Mother’s insistence that I had a short back and sides every 6 weeks at home. The local barber was often berated by her for not cutting it short enough. From the age of 40, my father had a bald circle on the top of his head and I swore I would kill myself if it happened to me. I even borrowed a Drama Props Department ginger wig and wore it for my 6 weeks Teaching Practice to avoid cutting my hair.

I don’t want to get even more boring and I have mentioned this before but I haven’t paid for a haircut since September 1969. I have no idea what a haircut costs now. It was 5 shillings for my last one. If I have my haircut about every 6 weeks, it would have been done about 440 times since then. I’ll leave you to work out the savings I’ve made.

In September 1969, I was taken in hand by a new and less experienced hairdresser who did it for me with a razor-comb. That is not a euphemism. I thought the ‘slashed’-look was trendy and it was ‘free’. In my early years of teaching and after my hairdresser had moved on to promotion, I thought I would use the razor-comb myself. How hard could it be?

Sunday evening, bottle of wine, scruffy, dinghy flat, poor lighting, distant mirror, first confident scrape of the razor-comb. Total horror at completely bald patch at the side of my head. Bit of blood. School tomorrow. I had to finish the haircut without too many more disasters. As I walked to school in the morning in my pin-sharp suit, I looked like a total disaster above the ears even though I looked gorgeous below them.

I haven’t had to kill myself although I now enjoy short hair. I’m thinning and lightening but not balding or grey. My wife cuts it expertly every 6 weeks. Symbolically, I sit on my Father’s ‘Richard Chair’ under a hairdresser’s cape for about 40 mins. I’m not the most patient customer and I try to conspire to be watching some interesting discussion programme or sporting event while the operation is performed. At least I lose a bit of weight periodically.

Sunday, 21st February, 2021

A mild but grey morning with temperatures at 13C/55F. The earlier light and warmer temperatures is encouraging and so is the news of our vaccine this morning. We had our first jab on Thursday which should take its full effect by March 11th and expect our second jab by May 12th which should give us the all-clear before June.

I wrote last week of accounts of the Pfizer vaccine showing worrying laboratory test signs of low efficacy against mutant strains of the virus. This morning this has been completely reversed by real life studies. Latest efficacy data from Israeli analysis – real, human data – suggests the following:

I think I’m prepared to live with a 1.1% of dying so we can start to think about travelling again. The Europeans, apparently, are balking at the thought of being given the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine because of its rumoured lack of data of its effectiveness against the South African and UK variants. If we are to travel, we will need Europeans to be vaccinated and to be comfortable opening up their borders. We are all in this together …. apart from the Brextremists, of course, who also tend to be Covid-sceptics and certainly can’t see the value in the whole world’s vaccination for the UK people and economy.

We’ve got our 9th Rapid Lateral Flow Antigen Test tomorrow. Another £50.00/€58.00 in our bank account. Something that should really be helping to boost our immune systems to fight infection is exercise. In the past two months since Boxing Day, (effectively 8 weeks) I have missed my exercise target just 4 times. I have walked/run 310 miles/499 km. Quite pleased with that. I’m going to maintain this standard for another month and then, as the weather improves, hope to increase it.

Monday, 22nd February, 2021

This was supposed to be a Spring day. The birds were expecting it. The flowers were assuming it and we were looking forward to it. The gap between aspiration and reality is great. We have, dark, gloomy skies with a maximum temperature of 9C/48F. It doesn’t feel inviting. Consequently, we are stuck inside once again.

I am reading and doing some Ancestry work in the Office. Pauline has gone back to her painting. She will finish the ground floor today. The whole house is pervaded by a faint whiff of paint. Therein lies the problem. I am static, seated. Pauline is active standing and stretching. She is thin. I am fat.

Even so, we had Artichoke & Minted Peas Stew for our Lunch. instead of soup today. This is one of our long standing Greek favourites which we ate on a cold, March day in a warm corner of Simos’ Taverna in Kamares Port. After Lunch, we had a visit from a Covid Tester – A Brexit supporter (spit) – which took about 20 mins.

This was our 9th test and we will have now been paid £450.00/€520.00 between us for the privilege. It really is not inconvenient for us and provides us with reassurance of our current health while paying us into the bargain. What is there to complain about?

Of course, we are thinking more and more about going abroad either on a medium term basis – renting for 2-3 months at a time or buying a small, apartment on a sunny coast in France/Spain. The outlay for renting, particularly in Spain, is incredibly cheap. A villa with private pool, parking, 3 beds, washing & cooking facilities plus internet and satellite television for, say, June & July is only around £6,000.00/€7,000.00. A studio apartment on the Murcian coast can be had for about £75,000.00/ so an equation has to be done. Whatever, this is the way forward for holiday makers who want to avoid too much social contact.

As I suggested long ago, the Greeks are suddenly staring this conundrum in the face. Full of hope and bravado, they wrote off last year’s season and the debts they incurred while talking up the new one this Summer. Suddenly, they are beginning to realise that this season may be even worse. From the website, Sifnaika-Fos, this:

This is the very real danger of putting all your eggs in one basket. I have been warning of this, with relation to Greece’s reliance on the Tourist Industry, for years never even contemplating a pandemic. Now it has arrived and the warnings become reality. Greeks may have to start considering ‘real’ jobs.

Sunday, 14th February, 2021

What is this Valentine’s rubbish. Every day is one of love-and-gratitude-day in our household. How lucky are we? So many we know no longer have the reassurance of their loved one by their side. It must be scarcely bearable and we feel for them.

At last today the heating can be turned off. We will not fall below 8C/47F over night which is fine. I’ve done my workout for the day. I’ve only missed 3 days in the past 49. When it gets to this stage, it is harder not to do it than to do it. To see my stats with a blemish hurts more than the exercise itself.

We received our Covid jab invitations yesterday. We probably won’t take them up. It is a national letter and the nearest place is in the centre of Brighton about 20 miles/32 km away. Our local one will be in the Community Centre about 10 mins walk away from our house. We will probably wait for that.

I’ve spent the main part of the morning working on our email/address book clients. We use Windows 10 Mail cloud client alongside Outlook mail client. Each have an integrated but separate address books. On our iPads, we use the Apple mail + address book client and, on our smartphones, we use Gmail +address book email client. I have organised the emails to synchronise across different platforms but the address books are a nightmare and the calendars are even worse. I’ve resorted to doing these manually. Still, I’ve got so much slack time at the moment that it doesn’t really matter.

Monday, 15th February, 2021

A damp, mild start that turned in to a grey, mild day. Actually, ‘mild’ is only a relative term. It has been 9C/48F and the breeze makes it feel cooler. We walked down to the Pharmacy attached to our Surgery to collect our repeat prescriptions. The round-trip walk takes about 70 mins and we wouldn’t have even considered it 12 months ago. Now, it doesn’t even occur to us to drive. If the weather’s alright, we walk. Wonderful, homemade Chicken & Sweetcorn soup for Lunch and then some Office work before a session in the Gym.

I am loving using my new computer and I’m organising all my data sets in the cloud. Following that process this morning, the photograph above popped up and took me back to those exciting times 41 years ago on the Pennines. This is the first Christmas cake Pauline made for us and she has made at least one every year since.

I wrote only recently about not being a fan of fiction and it has been true all my life. This pandemic and the restrictions has helped to show me what can be gleaned from good drama. Particularly as national and international sport was restricted in the first half of the year and the empty stadium sport so lacking in atmosphere in the second half, we have searched for alternative forms of entertainment. We subscribed to Sky Cinema and to Netflix and found a wealth of compromises.

The compromise started off as dramas based on actual events. I have really enjoyed Thrillers connected to historical events. For example, Red Joan which is based on the Cambridge graduate of the late 1930s – a Fellow Traveller as they became known – who fed the USSSR with vital information which hastened the pace at which the Soviets developed nuclear bomb technology. Judy dench plays the eponymous Joan and I am comforted in knowing that much of this actually happened.

Recently, this leap of credibility has allowed me to move on to a psychological thriller set in Ireland on the North – South border. The geographical mood music feels right. The psychological tightness of border tensions appears accurate. That drew me in. having watched 2 Series each of 6 episodes, I feel rather committed but I have a hankering suspicion that the plot has spun nonsensically out of control. Although it seems a bit pointless going on, I find myself saying, Well you’ve come this far. This is the essence of my problem with Fiction.

Tuesday, 16th February, 2021

We have found Covid-19 Vaccinations slots at the Chichester Centre which we can attend together and provisionally booked both 1st and 2nd jabs there. If our own Surgery comes in with a booking before we go then we will cancel the Chichester one. Jab-1 is on February 26th and Jab-2 on May 14th exactly 11 weeks later.

We decided to go and look at the Centre to get out of the house and give our car a much needed run. As soon as I put the post code in, I thought we were going abroad. The Centre is on Via Ravenna which is located off Avenue de Chartres. We only deal in cosmopolitan culture down here.

I was amused to see a shop on Sifnos being offered for rent. It was fairly new when we were there and we used it to create our House Sale sign. This was almost 8 years ago now. Unbelievable!

The shop is attached to a grubby little 2* hotel in Kamares. It was quite impressively kitted out for digital Sign Writing and we were one of its early customers. We were so pleased with their work which attracted lots of attention.

Addendum: By chance this afternoon, we became aware of a message from a local person saying that we could book our Covid test at our local Community Centre. The GP website didn’t say we could and their recorded message didn’t say we could. We phoned and booked our jabs for two days time. We learnt that this government is trying to dissuade the public from being jabbed by GPs but pushing them to attend distant, mass vaccination centres instead. Centralised control continues. We now have vaccinations booked in two areas although our local one is much earlier so we will cancel the other but not until the first is successfully completed.

Wednesday, 17th February, 2021

Woke up late today and stayed in bed listening to R4 Today until 7.50 am! Wednesday has added routines for me. Apart from shaving and cleaning my teeth (recharged my tooth brush last night and nearly lost my teeth this morning!), Wednesday is bedlinen changing. My job is to strip the bed and take the linen down to the Utility Room. Pauline is expert in using the washing machine so she puts the white things on to wash. I would almost certainly shrink and re-dye them given a chance. Pauline remakes the bed because I hate doing it. This is how division of labour works in our house.

I forgot to mention. I haven’t got dressed yet. Having stripped the bed stark naked (me & the bed), I go into the dressing room. Having got dressed, I open the blinds and look out on to the back garden. Everything looks fine …. apart from a demented little blob of fur going frantically round and round on the spot on our patio. It is chasing its tail. When I get downstairs and onto the patio, I realise that it is a tiny, Field Mouse. It has obviously been using the plant pots for cover and come out to enjoy the warmer morning and some sunshine.

While we are enjoying warmer weather, Greece is suffering snow – quite heavy snow. Sifnos island has been covered with dramatically heavy snow. Athens has a heavy blanket of snow. As they say, views of the Acropolis surrounded by thick snow are quite rare and some are considering skiing down the side. I, for one, would love to see it.

Vaccinations tomorrow morning. If there’s no Blog tomorrow night, send flowers.

Thursday, 18th February, 2021

On the morning we prepare for our first Covid-19 vaccination, this appears in the news headlines:

The dilemma is immediately obvious. What confidence can one have in returning to normal life after effectively sheltering for a year? Wanting to believe something is effective does not bring that about. What would it be like to sacrifice a year of one’s life to succumb when one least expects it?

No guesses which vaccine we had today. We were at our local Community Hall with rows of chairs spaced out for customers to wait. We were wearing double masks and visor but I felt more vulnerable there than I have anywhere for quite a while. I haven’t been in a closed environment with so many people for almost 12 months. Very efficiently run, we were in and out in about 30 mins including having to wait for 15 mins afterwards to see if the jab had killed us.

We felt comparatively alive as we went home for coffee. I should be alright to do my gym routine later. I’m looking forward to continuing a film I am watching on Netflix called Rebellion which honours the 100th anniversary of the start of the Easter Uprising in 1916, a defining moment in Irish and British history. It is not the best dramatisation I have seen – a bit sanitised and light weight but it does remind one of the sacrifices the Irish have been prepared to make to throw off the yoke of British Imperialism. What none of them could have conceived of is that Membership of the European Union and a foolhardy Brexit is the most likely avenue to delivering a United Ireland.

After all that bloodshed and colonial stiff upper lip, to subjugate a people who were entitled to self determination and who will almost certainly get it by the unthinking hand of British, right wing extremists. How ironic!

Friday, 19th February, 2021

Incredible how light it was at 6.00 am as we got up for our Sainsbury’s delivery. The Spring is creeping up on us. Snowdrops and Daffodils are starting to decorate the landscape. The Summer is coming! Unfortunately, as time marches on, so do we. I have to wish my brother, Bob, a very happy 69th birthday today.

We last shared a bedroom 52 years ago although, perhaps, I shouldn’t talk about it. He certainly seems happy and contented with his life and what else can one ask for? We wish him another 69 years of happiness.

We nipped down to the beach for a few minutes of bracing sea air and it certainly was ‘bracing’. The official temperature at 9.30 am was 8C/46F but the wind chill effect of the sea breeze almost took our breath away.

It was nice to see (from a distance)a crocodile of little kids enjoying the beach. There were even a couple of people in the sea wind surfing fearlessly. You certainly wouldn’t catch me doing it.

Saturday, 20th February, 2021

In Retirement, Saturdays are always difficult days. After that Friday Night Feeling was satisfied by a Chinese Takeaway and a bottle – sometimes two – of wine followed by a complete ‘slump’ at the end of a hard week’s work, we would have been up at the crack of dawn to make the most of our ‘day off’. Usually there were so many jobs to fit in that couldn’t be done during the week. We were always some of the first shoppers in to Sainsbury‘s and home for coffee. Then the house jobs of cleaning, washing, ironing, gardening, car cleaning had to be done. Sunday was papers and politics before school work and other preparation for another hard week ahead.

I still quite often get up and think, I don’t have to go to work; I still dream sometimes of walking the school corridors and hearing the teacher-class hum. Even after 12 years away, I still wake up in a blind sweat occasionally worrying that I haven’t done everything needed for my new day. The Friday Feeling is long gone, Sunday preparations are no longer required and Saturday has lost its impetus. Nothing has to be done. We have all the time in the world to get jobs done.

It will be 12 years in the first week of April since we retired and it will be 5 years in the first week of April since we moved in to our new home. We are now responsible for its complete upkeep. We try to set high standards for ourselves in maintenance of our properties. Cleanliness, tidiness and presentation are important. Fortunately, Pauline loves DIY and, particularly, decorating. We have toured every inch of the house together with clipboard and pen, noting every scratch, chip, smudge, which needs attention. Pauline has done all the repairs, repaints of the walls and is just completing the same with the woodwork.

I used to feel embarrassed about my lack of contribution but, after 43 years of marriage, we have come to the agreement that it is best left to Pauline. I have spent my day exercising, watching football and reading some historical background to the formation of the Irish Republican Army.

I have been transported back to my youth in the 1960s – 70s and how Sinn Féin IRA were spoken of as murderous criminals. It took quite a while before I realised the injustice of that position. I have long believed and supported the concept of a United Ireland. It was a major move forward to see a former IRA Leader and Sinn Féin politician as Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland but it is even better to see the complete failure of the DUP to defend the Union through Brexit.

Sunday, 7th February, 2021

We went down to 3C/37F and this morning had started with some sunshine. I wanted to show you what happened last Friday after we had been to walk in the sea mist. Almost as soon as we left, the sun came out and a phenomenon apparently called a fogbow appeared. Had to rely on someone else’s photo for this.

This was the scene yesterday evening on the same beach. I missed this too and have stolen someone else’s photo. We’ve said for a long time that we must make the effort to get down to the beach for sundown. We’re going to have to stop being lazy.

This morning, I’ve been watching the Test match from India where the temperature was a delicious 30C/86F and then Tottenham v West Brom. where the temperatures were sub-zero and they had light snow falling. It is now 2.00 pm and we have had a bit of sleet and the temperature has fallen from 3C to 2C/36F. I’m going to brave walking across the patio to the gym to do my exercise while watching Wolves v Leicester. I will be well and truly footballed out by the end of the day after Liverpool v Man. City and then Sheffield v Chelsea. Need to get a life!

Monday, 8th February, 2021

We woke up to find an embroidery of snow on the pavements. We were making an early walk down to the Post Office in the village with a clothing ‘return’. We seem to do this a lot. 

The walk took us about 70 mins round trip and was bitterly cold. The temperature was -1C/30F with a biting breeze. The sky looks rather forbidding. If we were in Yorkshire, we would be predicting heavy snow. We walked past a children’s playground where Mothers and toddlers were desperately trying to scrape up something approximating snow to make their first ever snowball.

As we walked, we reflected on that. Years of annual snowfalls, roads closed, schools closed, etc. have made us fairly blasé about the concept of snow – even anti. To think, for these young children on the south coast, this is the first ever experience of snow. It makes us feel, suddenly, very old. We go on through our days feeling the same as we have for years and then something like this pulls us up short. I am old. There are very few things that I will experience for the first time in my life. Well, there is death but then it will be all too late. I will never experience the wonder of my first snow ever again.

At least the cricket is going well. It’s even kicked politics off the early morning screens. I’m really enjoying watching a hot, Indian day being decorated by some excellent Test teams.

Tuesday, 9th February, 2021

Up at 6.00 am. Still -1C/30F outside but we’ve managed to avoid the snow we were fearing. Sainsbury’s delivery by 7.00 am. Before that, Pauline books the next one. New slots are released at midnight but 6.00 am is early enough to get a ‘free’ early delivery slot. We don’t pay anything for our deliveries in this way.

What a wonderful time of day 6.00 am is! Especially when you are watching the cricket while enjoying a huge cup of Yorkshire tea.

India are the No.1 team in the world at the moment and England have beaten them comprehensively on their home soil in the first Test Match. It was a joy to watch.

In spite of the cold, we are going out for a walk. It’s good to see the daylight and feel the fresh air in our faces. I was noticing the uncertain messages in Greek newspapers this week. They report that

Amid fears of new variants of the coronavirus, new restrictions on movement have hit just as people were starting to look ahead to what is usually a busy time of year for travel.

Kathimerini – 8/2/2021

Already, face masks are mandatory in the street. Can you imagine hot sun and face masks? Greece has increased its restrictions on travellers this week including enforced vaccinations and quarantine which adds to this climate of difficulty. The Greek Hotel industry is badly suffering and is central to the economy. They are demanding government support to just survive. 

Wednesday, 10th February, 2021

Up at a reasonable time – 7.00 am – and, although the outside temperature is 0C/32F, their was no ice or frost to be seen. By mid day, the temperature outside has soared to 2C/36F and the sun is shining. We were up early because we had an Asda Click & Collect at 8.00 am.

A week ago, I wrote that our neighbours across the road had put their property up for sale. Exactly a week later, a sold sign has gone up. The speed of sale is both surprising and encouraging. The price is even more encouraging. When we bought and sold in Surrey, our property almost doubled its value in 5 years. Down here, even in the midst of a pandemic, our neighbours’ house has provided a profit of £125,000 in just 5 years and, like ours, it is a new-build which are notorious for normally losing some value in the early stages.

I have been highly amused and infuriated in equal measures by an interview Kate Hoey did with Sky News where she bemoaned the Brexit Agreement for punishing Northern Ireland’s trade. Imagine having the chutzpah of having created this situation, promoted it, ignored the Remain vote of Northern Ireland, and then making this statement. She also blames Southern Ireland for colluding with the EU – completely ignoring the fact that Southern Ireland is the EU. Brexit chickens are really coming home to roost!

I’m off out to the gym now to suffer in every way. The exercise still hurts but I watch television to distract me a bit. Unfortunately, I am currently watching a film called The Photographer of Mauthausen which is based on real events; a photographer tries to save evidence of the horrors committed inside the walls of a Nazi concentration camp in Mauthausen.

It is horrifying and fascinating but it is not easy watching. Sometimes, I am willing myself to get to the end of my exercise just to have a rest from the misery. It is so hard to believe that humans can do such things to humans but then we must remember that this Tory government is still prepared to trade on with a Chinese nation who are persecuting the Uighur people with an inhumanity that closely parallels the Holocaust. 

Thursday, 11th February, 2021

We were up so late this morning that it felt like tomorrow. To get up at 8.00 am is almost unheard of but we weren’t in bed until 1.00 am so feel almost feel justified. The temperature went down to -2/28F last night but has heated up massively to 1C/34F and we are going out for a walk on the beach or, probably a swim because it is High Tide at 11.00 am today.

Actually, we didn’t stay long on the beach. Within a few minutes of getting there, we couldn’t feel our faces. Even so, there were quite a few people around, walking on the beach and along the shoreline path. They would do well in the North.

A former fellow student who now lives on the Cumbrian coast posted this photo of his garden this morning after a night at -15C/5F. Why would you want to live there? Think of the heating bills.

After 40 years living on the Pennines with all the wet, cold and difficult weather that brings, I was genuinely concerned about leaving. I longed to see dry stone walls and heather-covered moors after those views being the daily wallpaper of our working lives. I noticed my brother, Bob – former Antarctic Explorer – longs for snow in sunny Berkshire. He really needs to move to Yorkshire. His skills would really come in to action.

We experienced these conditions just getting to work most winters. We took our lives into our hands just going out to school. In fact, Britain has not experienced such a cold spell for 11 years which is when we last lived in the North of England. There are better ways to spend one’s time than being dragged out of snow drifts by tractors. Now I’m going to brave the 2C/36F in the back garden to go out to the gym which is snugly heated by a radiator. While I’m working out, I’ll be watching a barely credible film of Jews suffering sub zero temperatures with little clothing and even less food in the prison camp of Mauthausen.

Friday, 12th February, 2021

Up at 6.00 am and -1C/30F to welcome the Sainsbury‘s delivery man. Major problem this morning – No Medjool dates!

Along with bananas, Medjool dates are our go-to snack for quick calories. They are healthy but provide a quick hit of energy. If you haven’t tried them, you should. They are like, soft, gooey toffees but are full of nutrients and antioxidants. There are lots of dates but best are Medjool.

Turned in to a lovely, sunny morning but feels raw at just 1C/34F. Pauline’s cooking but we might find space to walk on the beach later.

This was yesterday. It might be a little more inviting today. At least there is still no snow. Five years ago, we were living in P&C’s attic and preparing to make the move down to West Sussex. Only 5 years but it all seems so far away.

I have to apologise for missing Albert, Kevan’s birthday yesterday. It was very remiss of me. My calendar should have reminded me but failed to do so. Yesterday, my brother-in-law, A.K. Butcher was 78 and it should be marked. I hope he had a happy day. I certainly hope I get to that great age.

Saturday, 13th February, 2021

It has been cold again overnight at -2/28F. What it has meant is that the gym has had to be heated all day and all night for the best part of a week.

The gym equipment is controlled by sensitive computer circuits which don’t respond well to low temperatures. Along with the television and Sky-Q box, they amount to about £6,000.00/€6,900.00 worth of equipment and then add to that about £5,000.00/€5,800 of wine to keep in reasonable condition and heating was the only, sensible answer. We installed from the outset a vertical, ‘ladder’, oil-filled radiator which isn’t too expensive to run but can be left on continuously and provides a background heat. Of course, the garage isn’t as well insulated as the house and we may well address that this summer. A small outlay then could pay off in the long run.

This is the coldest Winter for a decade apparently so this may not be a continual problem. Certainly, we haven’t had it as bad down here on the South Coast as many other places. No snow, little frost and moderate temperatures all help.

Sunday, 31st January, 2021

For years we have bought cod and salmon from the wet fish counter at Tesco or Sainsbury‘s. Since the pandemic and wet fish counters have closed, we switched to a local company who we thought only supplied trade with local fish. The result has been quite a revelation. The fish is delivered to our door for ‘free’ in boxes of ice, the price is just as good and the quality is just unbelievably better. Yesterday, we had roast salmon and the difference of quality and taste is so marked that it is hard to believe. Of course, our new suppliers have been formerly supplying high end, London restaurants which are currently closed. Even so, we think they have been shocked by the local, domestic demand and are unlikely to turn away from it when things get back nearer to normal conditions.

Quite a cool night. We got down to 2C/36F and it is only 4C/39F at 8.00 am with grey, monotone sky. Once again, we are not going out. My job today is cleaning the gym before using it for exercise. Pauline is preparing roast chicken for our meal.

We received a letter from the ONS to tell us that our latest Covi-19 test was negative. That is now our 8th negative test result since we began in early October. We have each received £250.00 for this so far. It will continue long after we’ve been vaccinated which is nice.

We have been faithfully completing the Covid Symptom Tracker every day since the end of May. Run by Professor Tim Spector at King’s College London, it has consistently had at least 4.5 million daily contributors and allows the study to track the infectious symptoms across time and across the country. It tells us how our own, small region is doing on a weekly basis. Currently, infection rates are low and stable. Even so, only a vaccination will coax us out into the light of the real world.

Today I begin my 6th week without alcohol. For an addictive personality like mine, this means it will be harder to open a bottle of wine than to not. It will be hard to give up sparkling water and switch to red wine. I’m addicted to the pattern of my life not the substance.

Monday, 1st February, 2021

New month again. New February. I would like to wish you a happy, optimistic one but I’m afraid we all have to remain in the Holding Lounge for quite some time to come. January has been the coldest across UK for 10 years. Let’s hope we have a tropical February. It is as likely as Tories caring for the poor.

Almost a year has disappeared since we knew ‘normal’ life. This time last year, I was more concerned about securing virus software for my computer than worrying about a virus spreading across the globe. Yes, I was aware of it. Yes, I was talking about obtaining and wearing masks even before the Tory government denied their viability but I was also talking about the fact that we had booked 6 flights and 3 holiday stays but the first wasn’t until May so it should be alright. Within a couple of weeks, the doubts were flooding my mind and I was beginning to consider how to retrench and recoup.

Fortunately, the Tories knew just how to deal with the spread of virus. Go back to the Office and to the School encouraged the population to congregate in Workplaces and Classrooms having travelled on crowded public transport spreading infection as they went. Eat out to help Out encouraged millions to congregate in restaurants and exchange infection. Have a merry Little Christmas encouraged millions to visit family members to exchange presents and infection. The Tories definitely put their arms around the population and did everything they could to spread the Virus.

As Brexit narrows our options, increases our isolation and decreases our choices, the pandemic’s effect is magnified. Hope is currently in short supply.

Tuesday, 2nd February, 2021

We are a bit tired this morning. We were not in bed until 12.30 am and were up at 6.00 am. By 7.00 am, the Sainsbury’s delivery had been made and we were completing our breakfast drinks. Pauline is making the latest batch of Chicken Stock out in the garden to avoid that strong smell permeating the kitchen and the extraction system.

We are very disappointed that our neighbours across the road have put their house on the market. As their son has moved on they think their property with 5 bedrooms and a double garage is too big for them. They are both in their 80s and have decided that upkeep will rapidly become too much so are looking to downsize. They are nice people and we will be sorry to see them go.

These are strange days of overcast gloom punctuated by brief periods of light. It is shocking how the weather alters our days. We have been enjoying ‘breaking out’ with walks by the sea but have felt rather confined of late by cold, damp days. We used to live in Woking which is being featured on the media because it is one of the sites of a new, Covid variant originating in South Africa. Mass testing and strict controls are descending on the Woking residents and we are grateful not to be involved in that.

Somewhere else we are glad to have left behind is pictured above. For 40 years, Pauline & I made the journey down the M62 across the Pennines at 7.00 am from Yorkshire to Lancashire and back in the evening. Barely a winter went by without heavy snow problems. On this day in 2009, I was recording heavy snow falling and we were closing the school for 2 days. Fortunately today, most teachers can look out of their windows on to a snowy scene and not have to take their life into their hands as we often had to do. There were times we had to be towed off snow drifts; I almost died of exposure on Standedge Moor trying to dig us out of a drift; we we hit by ‘white outs’ and drifted helplessly on sheet ice. I never want to see those days again.

Currently, I researching 3 month, summer lets on the French/Spanish border around Perpignan and Girona which we might drive to when we are fully vaccinated. You’ve got to live in hope haven’t you?

Wednesday, 3rd February, 2021

Up at 6.30 am and out to Asda for 8.00 am for a Click&Collect. It is not a pleasant morning having rained heavily in the night. It is still gloomy, raining lightly and the roadsides have lots of puddled water. It’s quickly brought out to us when we park outside the store and we are home within 20 mins. The process has been seamless and untroubled other than by the R4 Today programme I am listening to.

Tory after Tory is lining up today – (They have been most reluctant to appear for months.) – to tell us how much they admired Captain Tom Moore who has died. Of course, it would be churlish not to admire an old man struggling to keep purpose in his life, to maintain relevance and, particularly, a centenarian. My Mother-in-Law fought every way to the age of 96 before events overtook her and I found it admirable. What is worrying and why I find it so hard to join in the ‘Captain Marvel’ – ‘Hero of Our Time’ eulogies is the appropriation by the Right of these qualities. The simple ‘Old man shows optimistic spirit.‘ view is absorbed into a Nationalism that speaks to the Right-Wing cause and quickly spills into ugly jingoism.

This is the reason Tories are so keen to pop their heads over the parapet (to borrow a colonial/militaristic metaphor) this morning and to claim this old man and his exploits for themselves. Pictures of Captain Tom wearing his wartime medals are everywhere. The desire to paint him as the embodiment of British, wartime spirit, of stiff upper lip and a never-say-die attitude feeds the frenzy of nationalism engendered by the Tory Right and Brexit.

This morning, Tim Stanley – a Telegraph journalist and Roman Catholic convert – was presenting the Thought for the Day slot on R4 Today. His theme was the wartime and religious fantasy, ‘We’ll meet again’. We won’t and the majority of citizens know it if you question their religious beliefs but it suits the Nationalist, Royalist, British Exceptionalism that has been encouraged through Brexit. It chimes with the Robert Browning lines:

God’s in his heaven—
All’s right with the world!

It also recalls for Tories the All Things Bright and Beautiful description of the world:

The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them, high and lowly,
And ordered their estate.

It encourages us to accept our position in life. The Monarchy is not elected but Anointed by God. They rule with Divine Right which is unchallengeable. In the same way, the social structure of rich man/poor man ‘The Lord God made them all.’ is not to be challenged. You must suffer the things your station in life brings upon you but there will, if you show fortitude and courage, be jam tomorrow.

If this was the mantra of some narrow, political sect as it was for many years after Thatcher, then we would have little reason to worry. Now, the Brexit debate has brought the ugly, national exceptionalism out of the shadows and into the mainstream light. The Labour Party have gleaned from their focus groups that working class Labour voters and particularly those in the Northern seats, want to see this simple patriotism embodied in their politicians. The Labour Party wants to increase its market share and will, inevitably, tack to the Right. In doing so, many of us will be left behind and look for another home. Panic Alert: I may have to vote Green! Jane BG will not stop laughing.

Anyway, home made fish cakes for tea. That will make a nice change from spam fritters and tinned pilchards now rationing is coming back!

Thursday, 4th February, 2021

The Daily Telegraph and The Times were the newspapers of my family home. Conservatism was the dominant political leaning. I was a teenager of the rebellious 1960s. I remember wistfully observing to my Mother that the disparity between different classes wasn’t fair. Her immediate response was, Life isn’t fair. My mental note said, We must do something about this! I have followed a left-leaning, Tertiary education particularly in my Master’s research. Here I learnt to apply Dialectical Materialism, a philosophy of Science, History, and Nature developed in Europe and based on the writings of Marx and Engels. Marxist dialectics emphasizes the importance of real-world conditions, in terms of class, labour, and socio-economic interactions.

Right-wing populism, the leitmotiv of contemporary politics, has been on the rise over the past decade. Trump in America, Modi in India, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Kaczyński in Poland and Get-Brexit-Done-Johnson in UK have all been swimming in this populist tide. The election of Biden is a sign that things may be changing but we have a long way to go. Will I see it in my lifetime? I must admit to some doubts.

I was brought up in a large, matriarchal, Roman Catholic family. I was forced to attend Sunday Mass and forced to appear to be a Believer. Of course, the former was possible until I left home. The latter was merely superficial compliance. I couldn’t wait to leave home and this was one of the drivers. My wife was never subject to this control and, as she grew up, visited several different religious services just to understand them for herself. She rejected religion from an intelligent response to her own investigation. I rejected it largely as a juvenile rejection of authority. You can tell which is the more adult response.

I have spent the whole of my adult life openly opposed to religions of all faiths but Catholicism in particular. The national and international trend away from formal religion is extremely heartening. The Spectator this morning has a piece by a member of the Church of England bemoaning the pandemic’s effect on the Church in speeding up its decline. For years we have been pleased to read of declines in church attendance. Covid-19 has done more for this cause than any of us could have hoped. In essence, a falling attendance has been reinforced by church closures and the church management predict many not returning after the pandemic is over. They are closing churches, sacking staff and urging On-line Giving just to finance and maintain a reducing structure.

 ...  I wonder who
Will be the last, the very last, to seek
This place for what it was; one of the crew
That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?
Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique,
Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff
Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?

Philip Larkin - The Less Deceived (1955)

Philip Larkin prefigured this development 65 years ago in his poem, Church Going where he described the dying away of church communities leaving the structures to the architectural scroungers. After 40 years of persuading kids that religion was fantasy and that their real poverty was not inevitable, Covid-19 may have ridden to my aid.

Friday, 5th February, 2021

Up at 6.00 am on a mild but misty morning. Sainsburys arrived by 6.30 am and the excitement for the day was over. After coffee we decided we needed to get out. Pauline had to take a parcel return down to the Post Office in the village so we just carried on to the Marina after that.

Of course, we were there about an hour too soon. People were greeting each other in an atmosphere of 1950s London. They used to called it a pea-souper in Estuary English although it wasn’t quite that thick.

We didn’t walk for long. We had no one to meet. A quick breeze around the Marina Walk and then back home for coffee. Like magic, almost as we sat down at home the mist lifted, the sky turned the most perfect blue and the sun shone strongly.

Pauline is cleaning the Gym which she says has become very grubby although I’d not noticed it. I have been given the job of photographing and documenting all the manholes around our property in preparation for our 5-Year Warranty ending. We have to seek insurance cover and emergency cover for boilers, central heating, burglar alarm, electrical installations, water pipes including waste water.

The problem is we have about 7 or 8 manholes/drain covers and, looking at the site plan, a number of them are not fed exclusively by us. They are on our property so we need to know who is responsible for their maintenance. I know you will be reading this and finding it hard to control your mounting excitement but these are weighty matters. My documentation will be forwarded to the Developers for their adjudication. We know that the first thing insurance policies want to know is clear ‘liability’. You didn’t know I led such a life on the edge did you?

Saturday, 6th February, 2021

Up late today – 7.30 am. For the rest of the day we went round feeling we had missed a whole chunk of the day. Gorgeous, sunny morning with clear, blue skies. It was great to watch a really good England performance in the Test in India while we started the day.

We thought it would be nice to give our eyes a chance to drink the sun’s rays in so we went for a walk.

We were out for about 90 mins and had time to talk to our favourite robin en route. He was singing away at the top of the same bush we see him in each time we go that way. He’s quite a character and I’m sure he sings louder while we are talking to him. We do have to be careful that walkers around us don’t think we are talking to a bush and send for the men in white coats but we feel old enough to get away with it now.

No jobs to do today so, with a longish walk under my belt, I don’t have to do as much in the gym. I have completed my target in terms of food, wine and exercise every day for 6 weeks now so I am allowing myself a relaxing day watching Cricket, Football and Rugby. Pauline says I’m really going to be fit after all that.

We were remarking only this morning that our car had only done 7,300 miles since we bought it 20 months ago. This is quite remarkable. In the past, we would have expected to have covered 20,000 and be thinking about a new one at the 2 year mark. On this basis, the current one could be kept at least 4 years which is longer than we’ve ever kept a new car in our 43 years of marriage. The alternative would be to keep this one even longer and buy an all electric for all the day-to-day short trip driving that we do and use the bigger, Hybrid car for longer journeys and European travel. Worth considering!

Sunday, 24th January, 2021

A wet morning which had clouds backlit by a rising, red sun. I’m watching England Test cricket in Sri Lanka while starting my Blog.

Looks like we are going to be under house arrest for quite some time to come. We always thought that the nonsense talked about schools reopening by Half Term was exactly that – nonsense. Now the speculation is whether they will reopen after Easter – circa April 12th. I think that is still very debatable. The talk about so many millions who have been vaccinated is equally duplicitous. Very very few have been vaccinated and won’t be until they’ve had their second jab. Everything else is spin.

House arrest drives one back on to one’s own resources. For me, and Ruth’s going to hate this, it forces me to reflect on my history. Ten years ago today, we were drawing up plans to leave our temporary, new-build property in Yorkshire for a new-build property in Surrey we were purchasing. We had sold our Yorkshire home, spent 6 months in Greece and then 6 months in a rented apartment in Salendine Nook, Huddersfield.

At the same time as moving south, we were going back to Greece for six months and planning our journey. I sometimes wonder how we coped with the stress. Not only was I booking ferries but hotels en route. Ten years ago today, I was preparing to book this hotel in Alsace, France and another in Moderna, Italy. Oh to be doing that again this morning. Still, time for the gym!

…. Actually, I wrote too soon. The sky has cleared and strong sun has enticed us out for a walk. It was a reasonably warm and enjoyable hour’s long walk which really raises the spirits. Lots of other people out this afternoon doing exactly the same thing.

Monday, 25th January, 2021

Beautiful morning of clear, blue sky and strong sunshine. Well, we got away without any snow which is wonderful. The sky last night was clear as a bell with beautiful moon and huge, sparkling stars. This morning there was a light frost on the cars but not on the grass so we feel very lucky.

I ordered a webcam for my new computer yesterday. Ordered from Amazon at 2.00 pm on a Sunday and due to be delivered for free by 9.00 pm on Monday. Who needs the High Street anymore? I have no idea what I will use it for because I know no one who is on Zoom at the moment but I’m sure it will come in handy particularly if we want to contact the Doctors’ Surgery.

Something else which has come up this morning involves my INR testing at home. I test myself at home and email the result in to the Hospital. They email back with an official date for the next test. While things are going well, there may be up to 8 weeks between reporting results. In the past – 6 or 7 years ago – I used to have to drive to the hospital, sit in a crowded waiting room for half an hour, have an armful of blood removed and then wait 4 or 5 days before my result arrived by post. Now I test every week and report when I’m told to. In this way, I am in control of my INR which has to remain between 2.0 – 3.0. Last Monday, it was 2.5. Perfect.

In order to do this, I bought a quite expensive – £500.00/€563.00 – machine to test at home. The test strips cost about £80.00/€90.00 for 24 so that costs £160.00/€180.00 per year. It is worth it to avoid the crowds and the travel but it is all getting so much harder. I can order the test strips on prescription but, really, I only have to test every few weeks. I like to micro-manage my condition for safety and, therefore buy one box myself.

I order from Coaguchek, the manufacturers who, in turn, are owned by Roche Diagnostics which is Swiss. Today, it is much harder to order, the price has gone up hugely plus I now have to pay VAT as a purchaser from a ‘Third Country’. At the same time, Pauline has been told she can’t have a medication she has been prescribed for years and has to have an inferior one produced here. Brexit just gets so much better!

We went out for an hour or so walk in the lovely sunshine. I had hoped to have seen our friendly, fat rabbit but he/she was not to be seen and I suddenly realised why. This little chap was also looking for him.

At 2.00 pm, a lady turned up at our house to provide us with our 8th swab test kit. We perform our own throat & nose test. Put it in a test tube and seal it in a bag. Meanwhile, the lady retreats to her car outside. We speak on the phone as she asks us questions about our social contacts over the past month. I find those questions very easy to answer. She returns to our door to collect the tests and we get paid £25.00/€28.15 each. It’s a great system. I’ll be sorry when it ends in December.

Tuesday, 26th January, 2021

A damp start to the day. We are up at 6.00 am for our Sainsbury‘s delivery. As this pandemic and accompanying restrictions continue, we have refined our shopping while trying to retain the quality and variety of produce we buy.

We have stopped going to shops completely at the moment in the light of the new, more contagious strains of the virus. All shopping is done remotely. We don’t pay for deliveries. Sainsbury‘s are the easiest and most accommodating. Tesco is almost impossible to book.

For that reason, we are doing click-&-collect where we drive into their carpark and load the order into our boot. We are doing the same at Asda. In this way, we are able to maintain our choice of product and quality largely uninterrupted. So, this morning was a Sainsbury‘s delivery. Tomorrow is an Asda click-&-collect followed by another on Thursday at Tesco. It amuses me because 60 years ago Mum would phone through our main, Grocery order from Taylors Groceries which was 200 yards up the High Street but she was so hemmed in with children that she chose to have it delivered. The difference is just one of technology she couldn’t have dreamed of.

This morning I was listening to a Tech entrepreneur being interviewed about the impetus the pandemic had given to moving education on line, remote learning. Twenty years ago, I was desperately trying to persuade staff, parents and pupils that on-line learning/working was the way forward. The limiting factors were the resistance of Staff who lacked much IT experience, the reluctance of parents who hadn’t got Broadband and laptops/computers at home. Tablets didn’t exist then. There was little reluctance on the part of the kids.

Now, it is the order of the day. Part of me wishes to be back there leading the troops but most of me says, Let them get on with it. My time is better spent elsewhere.

Thirty years ago, I was teaching kids to build websites using Macromedia Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Flash. It was quite cutting edge at the time. I have built websites in the same way for years. Today, I am trying out a more modern, WYSIWYG site designer/builder called NicePage which still allows one to intervene in the Html.

Wednesday, 27th January, 2021

Up at 6.00 am on a milder morning. Grey and damp but 9C/48F. Drive down to Asda carpark and park in a Disabled Bay.

The Disabled Bays have been taken over by Click & Collect for the pandemic. They are also fortunate that their store designs seem to build in covered walkways along the front of the store so customers can queue in the dry. We received a confirmation email of our order over night and we then just click the button to tell them we’ve arrived and a worker comes out to our car with the goods. They leave; we get out of our car and load stuff in to the boot and drive away. Quite slick, easy and safe. We’ll do that again.

Twelve years ago today, we were on the last day of our last Ofsted inspection which damned us with faint praise by delivering the verdict of Satisfactory. Within 10 weeks we had retired and I had been diagnosed with Atrial Fibrillation. Momentous times for us. In retrospect, they felt even more momentous than current times.

It is International Holocaust Remembrance Day and it is especially good to see the Jewish community use this occasion to draw attention to the existential crisis for the Uighur community at the hands of the Chinese. It appears to be equally catastrophic and Western governments appear to similarly appease the Chinese by continuing to trade with a country who are committing genocide and ethnic cleansing. It is History that gives us this perspective. It is History that should teach us how to deal with them.

Thursday, 28th January, 2021

Up at 6.00 am. Over freshly squeezed orange juice and a large cup of Yorkshire tea my routine is to download the newspapers, check emails, check our bank account and unstack the dishwasher before making a large cup of freshly ground and brewed coffee with a frothy, cappuccino head sprinkled with chocolate.

Today, we had to be at Tesco by 7.00 am for our click & collect so I only got part way through my routine before we had to leave. I did manage to get to checking the bank account and was delighted to find that the insurance money had been put back in. We paid it out 12 months ago and I have been struggling since May, when we were supposed to go to Tenerife for a month but were stopped by the pandemic.

After hours of work, scores of emails and phone calls, of the insurance company denying liability to the legal group employing Spanish lawyers, the whole thing came full circle to the point where it should have been settled 10 months ago. It would have saved our Bank so much cash and me so much nervous energy and effort. However, almost a year on we have recouped the more than £5,000.00/€5,642.00 outlay and can move on.

After returning home and unpacking, Pauline starts on jam making. First more Lemon Curd and then Blackberry which has been a great hit in our house this year. We are surrounded by woods fringed with blackberry bushes and there was an abundance of huge, sweet blackberries very early in August. We got scratched to pieces but the harvest was worth it.

I’m continuing to learn a new piece of web design software, organising our cloud storage and reading/writing Blogs. This picture above taken on a polaroid camera 40 years ago on our first Greek holiday together spilled out of the cloud. Lovely memory!

Feels like Spring today. The sun is out, The temperature is a balmy 12C/54F. I’ve got 90 mins in the gym coming up followed by roast cod loin for my meal. Before that, I have the critical job of chief jam taster from the Setting Test plates. I can tell you now that both jams are incredibly delicious and may well have to be locked away from me.

Friday, 29th January, 2021

After strong rain last night, we’ve woken to a lovely, dry and sunny morning. It feels warm again at 12C/54F. We are going nowhere. I’ve spent my morning trying to get to grips with this new, web design software. I’m still using Dreamweaver at the moment so the impetus to learn is not really strong enough. I am trying to set some imperatives in my head to force me on. I know when it is really needed, I will not let go until I’ve cracked it. 

I regularly check my social media accounts for contacts from friends. I follow ex-colleagues, ex-pupils, former student-days friends, old Greek friends, relatives and then politicians, Historians, political journalists, etc..

It is very much my way of dealing with the world. I like social contact at one remove. It has almost always been that way. I like people very much and I very interested in their lives but it has to be on my terms. I love communicating and exchanging ideas and I don’t mind joining in with those who disagree with me but I don’t pretend about my beliefs if it offends them. They can take it or leave it. I think this has become accentuated with age.

This morning an old friend – Friend? Well, someone I lived in Digs with at College 50 years ago. – Dr. John Ridley,  originally from Whitley Bay, but for the past 50 years from Catterick, North Yorkshire – posted a lovely joke on Faceache. It came from Barry Cryer and was his wife’s favourite. I thought you might like it.

A man says to his doctor, “I think my wife is going deaf, but I don’t want to mention it. It’ll be tactless and insensitive. Is there any way of checking, without her knowing?”

The doctor replies, “Choose a moment when she has her back to you. Say something in a normal voice and, if she doesn’t answer, move a little closer and say it again. Then you’ll get an idea about her hearing.”

So, when he comes home from work, his wife is standing with her back to him in the kitchen. He asks, “What’s for dinner, love?” but gets no answer. He moves in a little closer. “What’s for dinner, love?” he repeats. Again, no response. He moves even closer. “What’s for dinner, love?” Nothing.

By now, he’s right behind her. He says again, “What’s for dinner, love?”

She turns round and shouts, “For the fourth time – chicken!”

My wife understood that immediately because I’m always accusing her of being deaf. She even went to the Doctor to have a Hearing Test and was told it is perfect. I couldn’t understand it.

Five years ago today, we were enjoying an almost month long run of hot sunshine and temperatures in the upper 20Cs. We were also within weeks of moving down to West Sussex and our new house. How the world has changed since then.

Saturday, 30th January, 2021

It gets lighter every morning. Even today as the rain comes down lightly from leaden skies. Time and the passage of time is fascinating and exciting. That’s what grips me about History. In just 8 weeks the clocks go forward and new life begins. Who knows, we might even have been vaccinated by then.

This day in 1965 was also a Saturday. It was the day on which Winston Churchill’s coffin was carried up the steps into St. Paul’s Cathedral. I can see the black & white picture in my head now. I watched it on television. We didn’t have a television but Saturday afternoon/early evening was the time that Bob and I got to watch one round the corner with Nana & Grandad. I guess that I must have watched it there. It was Mum & Dad’s one concession to modernity. Television was the invention of the devil. It distracted people from the serious things in life like Homework! It was safe to allow us a discrete few hours with our Grandparents watching ‘rubbish’.

I was 13 years old and Bob was 12. Saturday afternoons were special. We would walk round to our Grandparents’ house and would be treated to freshly baked Victoria Sponge Cake that had risen so high it was almost impossible to get into mouths. Don’t worry, we managed it! If there was no sponge cake, Grandad would have bought jam doughnuts – my favourite. This was a little snatch of heaven. We would watch Saturday sport including Grandad’s favourite – Wrestling on ATV. We watched the football results while Grandad checked his Littlewoods Pools predictions. Then the pattern was continued every week: Dr Who, Dixon of Dock Green, Laramie followed by a reluctant walk home to bed.

Over the next few months of 1965, Bob would be 13, I would be 14 and dad would die in hospital of a heart attack at the age of 49. It was a life changing year. Over the next few months of 1965, Bob would be 13, I would be 14 and dad would die in hospital of a heart attack at the age of 49. It was a life changing year.

Sunday, 17th January, 2021

We are starting week 4 of our tightened diet, no alcohol and increased exercise. We have not fallen. The greater prize remains in sight provided we stay alive. Wrote to my brother, Bob, to tell him about my prostate cancer test and how fortunate I felt about the result. I felt rather awkward as he is still early in his uncomfortable diagnosis. Didn’t want to sound too celebratory even though I did rather feel it.

Pleasant, sunny and relatively mild day in which Pauline made stock out in the garden for the local cats and dogs to drool over and, later, griddled swordfish steaks out in the late evening sun as seagulls circled overhead. In between doing those jobs, she did some washing and made pots of Lemon Curd jam. I didn’t know but proper Lemon Curd is largely fresh butter mixed with freshly squeezed lemons. Consequently, it has a very short shelf life which is why Pauline only makes three jars at a time. If you like Lemon Curd and you’ve only eaten shop bought jam, Pauline’s would blow your socks off. It is like a totally different animal.

This is where the problem lies. Pauline is constantly active and, consequently, stick thin. I sent my time reading the Sunday Times, writing emails and letters to friends and researching an urgently needed new computer Everything was done sitting down. As a result, it is encumbent on me to spend a 90 mins session in the gym while I watch a football match on Sky. The match – Sheffield Utd. v Tottenham – was not great and the exercise hurt. It was wonderful when I finished and had along, hot power shower. Amazing how reviving that can be. I used to love 20 mins in the jacuzzi after gym work at the health Club. That may have to be the next thing.

The next big (little)thing in my computer choice may turn out to look like this. It will not be a tower but a small, flat box on the desktop. It almost reminds me of the PCs I had 30 years ago where the monitor stood proudly on top of the case. If anyone out there knows of any reason I should go this way, I would be grateful for the advice.

Monday, 18th January, 2021

It is Christmas morning in the Sanders household and quite chilly it is outside. No I haven’t got the date wrong. I have just ordered my new computer system. Quite exciting although it wasn’t easy. Because of the pandemic, manufacturing in all areas is in deficit. A number of the pieces that were my first preference were not in stock and not currently being renewed.

When I finally decided on a reasonable package, and loaded it all in to my on-line basket, put in my credit card and pressed ‘BUY’, a message popped up: Credit Card not validated. Text messages from my credit card company asking me to contact them to discuss suspected fraud arrived. Long, Please Wait phone call to the Fraud Department. All verified and cleared. Go back in to pay again but … website timed out! Have I paid for it or not? Long, Please Wait phone call to HP UK. Eventually answered by wonderful young (30 yrs) lad who longs to be retired. I explained how delightful it is. He sighs, confirms my order hasn’t been paid for and takes payment over the phone. I am told it will arrive tomorrow.

Can’t believe how cheap this system is. I was paying three times as much ten years ago. Twenty years ago, I paid £3,500 for a huge, colour laser printer. It feels lovely. We have gone out for a bracing, one hour, Christmas walk. It’s these moments that I’m tempted to open a bottle of Rioja but … I won’t. It will stay behind me for better times.

Tuesday, 19th January, 2021

A damp but mild day. The temperature has remained 11C/52F overnight although it is a little breezy. Up at 6.00 am and Sainsbury‘s delivered at 6.30 am. I’d hardly finished my freshly squeezed orange juice. Life is shockingly fast paced. It is still largely dark when the doorbell rings although light sky is beginning to appear in the east which seems appropriate.

Ordered my new computer setup yesterday at 1.00 pm. It is being delivered this morning. Great service from HP (Hewlett Packard). What it does mean, however, is that I will have a lot of work and disruption of my systems for the rest of the day.

One of the things that happens with computer systems is that we build layer upon layer of software incrementally just as we add hardware gradually as we need it as well. The software and hardware is not there in its own right but to fulfil a function. It becomes a taken-for-granted facility. I can’t afford a long period of disruption while I try and remember how I performed regular tasks.

I’ve done this so many times over the past 40 years that I know how terrible my memory is in these processes. I now take photos on my phone of every piece of my PC that I will need to replicate on the new machine. I will probably set it up on the kitchen table and not disturb my current system until I have got everything up and working.

Highlights of the day after Sainsbury’s delivery and the arrival of my new PC include a worker coming to sort out our back gate which is malfunctioning and a delivery of fresh swordfish which has suddenly become available. It’s getting so exciting that I’m going to hide in the gym for an hour or two.

Wednesday, 20th January, 2021

Up early on a dark and breezy morning. Looks like it rained over night. We won’t be going out at all today other than to walk across the garden to the gym. I’ve got a day of work installing software on my new computer and learning new routines. I’m looking forward to it but it is also a stress I haven’t felt for a while.

When I’m stressed and determined to sort a problem urgently, the house is thrown in to turmoil. Yesterday, because of space, the new computer boxes had to be unpacked in the kitchen. Because I still needed to keep my work processes going, I will not replace the old PC system until I am completely confident that I’ve got the new one fully replacing it.

Today, Pauline has been thrown out of the Office to make way for my two systems to work in tandem. She does have her own office cum ironing room cum dressing room upstairs but, for now, she is being moved in to the kitchen and on to the dining table.

Currently it is chaos and there are cables everywhere. My current PC is hooked up to a Mono Laser Printer on one side and a Colour Laser Printer on the other via a switchable printer sharer. It is hooked up to a Label Printer and to a Flat Bed Scanner. Obviously, it is also hooked up to the BT Hub.

Also on the desk I’ve got a Hive Hub and a Gigabit Switch plus a wi-fi extender out to the gym so I can run my Sky Q-Box. It’s a lot to get right and it is the reason buying a new set up is rather stressful. Pauline should be allowed back in by Friday.

Thursday, 21st January, 2021

Gorgeous sunny day although only about 10C/50F in the shade. I wasn’t thinking of spending too much time outside today anyway. Emails to our legal rep and to a friend in sunny Rochdale and then rebuilding our Office with the old machine gone and the new one being set up for all services. This is more complex than you might think and it took me all morning.

Printers, printer sharers, scanners, hubs all hooked up as the old system is slowly and methodically dismantled and moved out into the back garden. In the old days, all peripherals had to be installed with their dedicated drivers and software before they can be used. Today, they really are plug & play through 64 bit Windows 10 Professional. Then, before I could do anything else, Pauline insisted on completely cleaning the area. It had 5 years of dust behind our L-shaped desk as we unplugged and threaded cables through the desktop cut outs. All surfaces were vacuumed, wiped and steam cleaned before I was allowed anywhere near it again. For the rest of the day, Pauline kept remarking, Doesn’t it smell wonderfully fresh in here? Of course, I am obsessed with tidiness and Pauline with cleanliness. Perfect match!

My copy of Dreamweaver 8 has become corrupted and it is almost impossible to buy. If you know of anyone who could give/sell me a copy, I would be happy to hear of it. It just remained for me to take my old PC apart in the garden and set about the hard drives with a lump hammer. Looking far the worse for wear, it has gone in the boot of the car to go off to the tip tomorrow.

Friday, 22nd January, 2021

Gorgeous morning in every respect. The sky is blue and the sun is shining. We went off to the Recycle Site to dispose of the old computer. It was so busy that we decided to go back later. On to the beach to enjoy a few rays.

We walked for a while in splendid isolation. The beach was almost deserted and the Marina was little different.

Home by mid-morning and, as we drank coffee, received a phone call from the legal firm my bank had appointed to try and get back £4000.00/€4,500.00 from a Tenerife villa rental last May which we couldn’t take up. Both services are provided by our bank’s Black Account. They use Direct Line to provide us with ‘free’ annual travel cover and Simpson Millar to provide us with ‘free’ Legal Cover. We had already successfully claimed about £1,500.00/€1,700.00 before we asked the insurance company to pay back the rest.

They prevaricated for months and then said they thought it was legally recoverable and asked the legal arm to pursue it. All this time, I am doing lots of paperwork to both teams proving the worthiness of our claim. Lots of people, we know, give up at this stage. The bank’s website encourages this with encouragingly big, clickable buttons to Cancel Claim. We persisted. Today, we were rewarded with the news that our bank’s insurers had accepted the advice of our bank’s legal team that the project was not cost effective and they are going to immediately refund all our money.

If only we had got somewhere to spend our money. Even the efficacy of the vaccine is sounding a little less certain and airlines are not expecting flying to recover much at all this year. We have flights and hotel in Athens rolled over to the end of August. I am desperate to use them but I will not be taking big risks. European tourist destinations are going to see another bleak season this summer.

Pleased to say that I found an old copy of Macromedia Dreamweaver in an old, school file and it installed easily. This has saved me about £480.00 per year which is what Adobe (who bought Macromedia) now charge to rent the software. I’ve accepted MS Office Pro rental at £90.00/€102.00 per year because of the greatly enhanced cloud storage it brings but almost £500.00 year for software I use only once a month for a few hours is going too far. My old copy will do me for the next decade.

Saturday, 23rd January, 2021

Another cool start to a morning. We were up at 6.00 am. Sainsburys delivered at 6.30 am. and, by 8.30 am we were out walking wearing Fleeces and woolly hats. We did an hour’s walk which encompassed taking ‘Returns’ to the Post Office from a mail order.

Really enjoyed the walk. Everywhere was deserted for a Saturday morning. Anyone we do meet is desperate to distance but also communicated at least, Good Morning. Walked past the bush with the same robin singing away and noticed this lovely camellia flowering beautifully in the garden.

This picture is taken from the Post Office door and shows our normally bustling village square totally deserted. Pauline was the only person in the Post Office. The whole experience is quite disconcerting.

The North of England – Yorkshire and Lancashire where we have spent so many years of our lives – is currently experiencing snow. We swore when we left ten years ago that we never wanted to see snow ever again having battled it for the best part of 40 years across the Pennines. Today, Pauline has griddled fish outside in the garden under a lovely, clear and sunny sky. This is the sort of service I expect! Completed four weeks of no-alcohol today. I last drank wine on Boxing Day. I have absolutely no idea why I’m doing it. I love wine. However, I told myself I would so I am.

Sunday, 10th January, 2021

The coldest night of the season so far has left us with a frost which has lingered. We’ve had the heating on upstairs and down. Watched the political programmes. Keir Starmer on Marr was depressingly bad. Can’t face any more of that today. We went out for a long walk although Pauline was complaining about the cold on her face.

Soon, the energy kicked in and we were both roasting hot, over dressed and sweating. We have developed a regular route that is an easy way to fill just over an hour without getting muddy so we took that today. Amazing how many people passed us in cars as we walked. Almost looked busier than a work day.

I have no idea what the Lock Down is supposed to be this time. So many are going to work and so many are going to school that the atmosphere is very busy. This Tory government are playing with fire at all our expenses. You have to hope that it all comes back to bite them and that mini-Trump gets his come-uppance just like Trump is doing. All these populist Nationalists will see their day end badly and we must punish them for their crimes.

At home, it’s FA Cup weekend and, at this stage at least, I can’t really get in to that. Perhaps I’m not a football purist. I am only really attracted by big confrontations of fairly equal sides. We will be downloading something from Sky Cinema / Netflix / Film on 4, etc. Last night we watched a mildly interesting recent film called Greed featuring Steve Coogan and David Mitchell and loosely based on the career of Philip Green. It wasn’t good but it was enough to amuse us for a couple of hours. That’s not a real justification but the best I can do.

I notice that The Skiathanhas finally given up the ghost. Brexit has done for him. Exiled from his island, he no longer has enough to fill his pages. Now, because of Brexit, he would either have to emigrate fully or just holiday there on a short break like so many others. Makes you wonder why he was a Brexiteer.

Monday, 11th January, 2021

A grey, sombre day. We have to stay in because we are having our central heating serviced sometime between 10.00 am – 3.00 pm which virtually destroys the day.

Last night we were in China in the 1920s. We were watching a film based on the Somerset Maugham novel, The Painted Veil. It is essentially a love story (ugh!) but set in the middle of a cholera epidemic in small Chinese enclave which featured a dilapidated old convent building where the Mother Superior – Diana Rigg in what must have been her last performance – was ‘saving’ the children of the town through indoctrination allied to social care and education.

A young and ambitious epidemiologist volunteered to go out from London to replace the previous doctor who had died of cholera in trying to combat the epidemic. He was forcing his new, young, bride to accompany him. Without going through the tedium of the Love Regained theme, the underlying action centred on the inventive, young scientist identifying the water source of the infection and constructing a Heath-Robinson, bamboo construction to deliver an alternative and healthy drinking water for the town. Essentially, he was bringing Colonial can-do of the 1st World to the 3rd World Chinese peasants. Of course, the young scientist caught cholera and died. Even I could have told him that was going to happen.

My Masters thesis integrated an analysis of Historian, R.H.Tawney’s travels in a peasant, and largely pre-industrial China of exactly this period. He was enchanted by its agrarian, peasant, craft society and believed it was what England could return to. This chimed with the Arts & Crafts movement of William Morris, Ruskin and Pugin which had so informed Tawney’s early life. Disease epidemic and savage poverty didn’t feature largely in his account which focussed more on sunshine and socialism. I read his account 43 years ago in the blistering heat of a Greek island beach. Happy days!

Well the boiler service threw up a problem just in time. There is a fault on the Pressure Gauge and we still have 10 weeks of our full warranty left so it will be replaced without cost. We are going to have to take out a service plan for future years.

Tuesday, 12th January, 2021

Up at 6.00 am on a dark, damp but very warm morning. It had remained 9C/48F over night which is only very warm in relative terms but we’re not complaining. Sainsbury‘s were delivering at 7.00 am. It’s a fantastic service and costs only £1.00/€1.12. Next week’s is free so, overall, it is negligible. Of course Brexit has hit our salad order. We’ve had to accept less enjoyable substitutes but that’s what they all voted for – wartime rations! We will also do a Tesco Click & Collect later in the week. We don’t have to go in to the store. The collection point is outside in the fresh air of the carpark which is fine. We will have fresh fish delivered to our door later in the week as well so I don’t think we’re going to starve.

We are taking legal action in Spain for recovery of villa rental of just over €5000.00/£4,480.00 for loss of use because of the pandemic. Our bank account gives us travel insurance and legal cover. The travel insurance arm told me the monies should be recoverable through legal action. The law firm’s Spanish office has told me that it could cost the full value of the claim to take the action to court. I predicted this from the outset. It looks like it will go back to the insurance arm for settlement. We paid it out 12 months ago. Whatever, I will not give it up.

I do 90 mins in the gym every day. I usually start around 2.00 pm. What worries me is that I don’t appear to be getting any fitter. I am completely wiped out by the end and only revive after a long, hot and powerful shower. I would have expected this to get easier and the recovery quicker but that is not the case. Nothing seems to change. If anything, I get more tired and take longer to recover. Is it my age? Still waiting for my second PSA test result to appear in the notes on my surgery’s website. It’s nagging at me a little.

Wednesday, 13th January, 2021

The first Lock Down was greeted by wonderful weather throughout March and April. This latest one is being played out against a dull, damp and fairly unsympathetic backdrop. At times like this, I retreat into my head and other occasions. Yesterday we heard from a dear friend from Sifnos and it reminded me to visit a local Facebook page where I found these photos.

Sifnos is famous for its Keramica or pottery and one product that appeared to be largely confined to the island is its distinctive chimney pots. Above is one example. Below are a few more.

As our house was being designed and built, we decided that a huge, tiled floor area would be better heated by underfloor cables. There was a British company called Warmup who had an Athens office. We bought materials from UK because it was so much cheaper and the Athens office came to the island to supervise installation. It worked excellently although there were only a few weeks at the beginning and the end of our stays that we needed it.

We had considered doing some times in the winter and shipped a log burning stove over from Halifax to the island and had it installed. We soon discovered that, although a number of islanders had open fires for the Winter, the island had almost no reserves of burnable wood. Why hadn’t we noticed that over the 20 years before? Wood has to be brought from the mainland. You only have to experience a cold, winter day in Greece to know it feels much more savage than almost anything we experience here.

We wanted to have underfloor heating installed here but our builders wouldn’t allow it because of their 5 year warranty. They had a formula and wanted to stick to it. We were offered personalisation choices but only within the builders playbook. Having said that, we have smart controlled, dual zone central heating which is wonderfully sensitive and easily controlled. We have smart controlled heating in the garage/gym as well.

I’ve just received a text message from my doctor to say that the result of my second PSA test is reassuring and within reasonable levels for my age range. If I was drinking, I would be opening a bottle of red wine right now. As it is, I’m drinking a cup of fresh coffee.

Thursday, 14th January, 2021

Up early after about 6 hrs sleep because a worker was attending our house at 9.00 am. He was replacing a double glazed, floor-to- ceiling window in our garden area while we are still under warranty. It was just becoming light at 6.30 am and the temperature had not fallen below 10C/50F over night. Eventually, we received a text to say he wouldn’t appear until early afternoon. When he did, he heaved a big sigh of relief and said nothing needed replacing but the drain holes needed cleaning out and the sealant replacing. He was present for 30 minutes and he skipped back to his van and a long lunch break. I know we paid a lot for this house but it almost feels wrong to be claiming for repairs after 5 years of use.

We’ll forget out discomfort because there are more important things to think about. Something strange has happened to Pauline’s OneDrive automatic backup process and I’m getting it in the neck. She is compiling a book of recipes and has been working hard for hours in the evening. Her material is placed on her desktop and it is automatically uploaded to her Cloud Storage – Ms OneDrive. It means she has a Local and a Cloud copy.

Suddenly, over night, OneDrive seemed to decide to reverse the process and download all her old, disorganised material over the top of her newly organised local material. I’ve had to spend a large part of the day investigating that. I won’t bore you any more with the solution but I think I’ve found it and we can move on.

Did a big exercise routine in the gym this afternoon to counterbalance the morning spent at my computer. Actually, I worked out in 1989 East Berlin as I watched Atomic Blonde which revolves around a spy who has to find a list of double agents who are being smuggled into the West on the eve of the collapse of the Berlin Wall. It was during this year that brought Dr Angela Merkel out of scientific research in east Germany and into politics. I like the challenge of mental espionage and it certainly takes me out of the exercise-pain zone although I’m not sure this was the best example of the genre.

Friday, 15th January, 2021

Can you believe that it’s the middle of January already? Even so, we are trying to make use of every single minute. We were up at 6.00 am and had breakfasted and received our Sainsbury’s delivery by 7.00 am. It’s going to be a long day. Hard to believe that it is 12 years since we were getting up at 6.00 am every work day and out on the road by 7.00 am. It’s 10.30 am and it has felt quite a long day already.

We have had a visit from the heating engineer who has removed the old (5yrs) Hot Water Expansion Chamber (No further explanation required.) and fitted a new one. Fortunately, this is a free service. In 3 months time, it would have cost us a fortune apparently.

Costing us money now is a problem as a direct result of the Brextremists’ actions. Of course, most Little Englanders will be blithely unaware of the change at all because they have no desire to communicate with foreigners. When we were sending Christmas cards to Greek friends, we had to download Customs Declaration Forms to be stuck on the back of the envelopes. Postage for each card was £1.70/€1.91 in addition.

Today, the postman delivered this. We believe it is a letter or card from Europe which now attracts additional postage fees. We have to drive down to the Sorting Office to pay our £2.00/€2.25 excess fee to release the letter. This is the sort of country we have become.

Saturday, 16th January, 2021

Up a bit later today. After 7.00 am and it has completely thrown us out for the morning. After Breakfast, we drive out to the Postal Sorting Office. It is only a couple of miles away. We have come to pick the letter that requires £2.00/€2.25 excess fee to release. It is something of an anti-climax. Not from Greece but Rochdale. An elderly former colleague of ours who lost his wife six months ago has sent us a second Christmas card and newsletter but wrongly addressed and without a stamp. It comes on the day that we hear that another, elderly ex-colleague of ours who lost his wife a year ago has had a breakdown and is struggling to hold on to reality. Life can be savage!

We drove back via the beach because Pauline loves to be in contact with the sea. The tide was on its way in and there were a few seagulls on the water and the odd crow on the beach but, otherwise, we were alone.

The dreaded form arrived this morning. I filled it in on-line in about 10 minutes rather than go through the rigmarole of sending it off. I am now on-licence for life. Every 3 years, I have to prove my worthiness. Bring back Ofsted!