30th March 2010 A couple of weeks ago, I headed up to Yorkshire to escort Nan to an eye appointment. All was well, no cataracts or surprises, and she came away with a prescription for a new pair of glasses. While the weather was dry, I made the most of it by digging over the… Continue Reading

  7th March 2010 I’ve had a birthday. Jamie brought a cake, and he and Sue serenaded me with a version of Happy Birthday that could charitably be described as brave. I don’t recall ever having a birthday cake as a child, though that might be selective memory or simple repression, but given my lifelong… Continue Reading

21st February 2010 The original opening paragraph, a perfectly reasoned and articulate tirade on the nonsense of global warming, has, regrettably, been deleted. You see, the new me no longer whinges about tax hikes, council rates, carbon offsets, or anything else likely to raise the blood pressure. I absolutely will not mention the fact that… Continue Reading

7th February 2010 Having just re-read my last blog entry, it seems I’ve officially joined the ranks of the Grumpy Old Men. This suspicion was confirmed earlier in the week while watching Grumpy Old Women on TV, a show I thoroughly enjoyed, not least because I found myself nodding furiously in agreement with most of… Continue Reading

31st January 2010 Time, that slippery eel, has darted past us again. It’s been one of those months where we’ve all been whizzing around in separate orbits, occasionally crashing into each other around mealtimes or when someone needed a lift. Like ships in the night… if the ships had washing to do, jobs to attend,… Continue Reading

17th January 2010 Surprisingly, it’s only been ten days since I last put finger to keyboard, yet it feels like mid-March already. The sun made a rare appearance today, so I took the opportunity to clear away the garden debris and chop a decent pile of logs in readiness for more cold weather (apparently on… Continue Reading

7th January 2010 Like many people, I couldn’t wait to see the back of 2009. Though Sue and I are now officially retired and collecting our teacher pensions, any joy is tinged with apprehension as we brace ourselves for the likely arrival of a new government in spring, and with it, the dreaded tinkering with… Continue Reading

 13th December 2009 There has been a fair bit of news since my last instalment in November. As always, life has a way of keeping us on our toes (or on ladders, in my case, wielding a paintbrush). Sue has been hard at work at the local Catholic school, managing to miss just one day… Continue Reading

29th November 2009 For the past three weeks, I’ve been holed up in Bulgaria helping my stepbrother David “renovate” his house, though ‘renovate’ might be stretching the truth. ‘Systematic destruction’ may be more accurate. Communicating with the outside world proved to be a bigger challenge than rebuilding it. The internet moved slower than a Bulgarian… Continue Reading