It’s at times like these I really feel sorry for the Queen. How on earth is she going to write her broadcast message after the year she’s just had? I’m thinking of that now, because I’m struggling to find a way to start my annual letter, not that I’ve had a bad year (far from it!), but because 2019 has been my first full year of retirement and looking back, all I appear to have done is ride a bike, read books, go on trips (usually on a bike) and attend concerts. Not the sort of fascinating things that will keep anyone engaged for 2,000 words. Anyway, I’ll leave the Queen to her deliberations and I’ll try to summarise the highlights of my own year.
Firstly, let me say that after a few weeks of uncertainty last year, I can now confirm that I’m thoroughly enjoying retirement.
I can recommend it to anyone, and since Gee retired from her full time job in September, (after following my recommendation) I know she feels the same. It took me a while to get used to it, but now I fill my days being very selfish doing stuff that I want to do. There’s an awful lot I want to do, and so my days are very full! Geraldine is still acting as a wedding celebrant – she is performing nine or ten ceremonies per month now, even in the quiet season – and I still help out part time in the bike shop, which means that we are not often at home together. That sounds dreadful, but we’ve never really been in each others’ pockets, and having different interests is no bad thing.
We’ve now (sort-of) agreed that Tuesday is ‘our day’ when we do stuff together. I say sort-of, because when we agreed it in early October, it took several weeks before we could have a day out together since we’d both got existing diary entries on Tuesdays. We’re consciously trying not to fall into the old folks’ habit of saying things like, “I can’t manage Friday because I’m having my hair cut” (for example). Haircuts (for me) last 10-15 minutes but since it appears in my phone just as a calendar entry, there’s a danger that I won’t schedule anything else for the rest of the day because ‘I’m busy on Friday’. Anyway, we spent our first Tuesday together in Hebden Bridge and had a lovely day. Why Hebden Bridge? Well, I’ve not been there for about 40 years, and since then it has apparently undergone a renaissance, with the entire town being taken over by arty types. If a town’s creative wellbeing can be measured by the number of its coffee shops and micro-breweries, it’s certainly up there with the leaders.
My time is mainly spent on a bike. So far this year, I’ve cycled over 6,250 miles and been in the saddle for around 460 hours – that’s like 12 weeks in a full time job.
I’ve had some great trips but don’t worry, I won’t bore you with all the details. One of the more enjoyable yet nerve-wracking trips was touring in Spain with a mate who’s well used to such jaunts. He called me one cold day in March to ask if I fancied joining him on a trip to Spain – in two weeks time! I said yes, and soon we were cycling to Liverpool airport with panniers and a big polythene bag each. I partially dismantled the bike at the airport, wrapped it in the poly bag then sent it through check-in. I next saw it in Málaga airport none the worse for its flight and after a swift reassembly, we were ready to go.
Thanks to a delayed flight we arrived late in the evening and the first task was to navigate to our digs. We typed the address into the Garmin and let it do its stuff. Soon we were zipping along a fast dual carriageway, taking little notice of the signs, even the one that said we were about to join an autovia (like a UK motorway). Once we were on, however, we were committed: we reasoned that it would have been a bigger offence to ride back the wrong way rather than dash to the next junction a couple of kilometres distant. The plan was working fine until another motorway joined from the right, necessitating us to hoik our bikes over the Armco and scurry across a live lane of traffic. But it was quiet at 11pm so we got away with it.
We spent the rest of the week cycling through the beautiful mountains in Andalucía before I flew home alone (I had to be back for a family event in Galway on the Saturday) while Jim continued towards Portugal.
The whole ride was sublime until the last few kilometres into Málaga. I was following a route proposed by Garmin, the same software that usually sends me down rough farm tracks, but this time, probably due to the absence of any farms, it directed me through the busiest part of the city, passing by a new industrial engineering college. This development was full of brand new buildings and roads but without a soul to be seen! And several new cycle tracks that just ended; no explanation or apology, they just stopped. One ended at a tram stop which I guess was convenient for some.
I had worried about my bike getting damaged by the airport baggage handlers, and even though it survived fine going out, this remained an underlying anxiety throughout the trip. The theory goes that since the package is visibly a bike, the staff take more care, but in my risk assessment, I never considered that the Spanish may refuse to carry the bike at all. The conversation at check-in ran along these lines: ‘The bike has to be in a bag’ ‘It is in a bag’ ‘Not a bike bag, though’ ‘Where does it say it has to be a bike bag?’ I spent 10 minutes quarrelling with an official before he finally relented and allowed me to take it. The argument that finally swung it was that Easyjet had carried it out, so why couldn’t they take it back? After rebuilding the bike in Liverpool, I cycled back home on Friday and early the next morning I was driving with the family to Holyhead for the lunchtime ferry to Dublin.
Another great cycling trip was when four of us flew to Switzerland (this time with bikes in disposable boxes) and cycled back home alongside the Rhine. After climbing more than 2000 metres over the Oberalp pass (in the snow, even though it was early September) to the river’s source it was then simply a matter of freewheeling home for the next 900 miles. Well, that was the theory.
Of course, mundane stuff still has to be dealt with, and last month we had builders round to fix a leak in the roof. To help the roofer, we decided to empty the loft of the 30+ years of accumulated junk, and I’ve spent the past few weeks meticulously going through everything deciding what to throw out and what to keep. It’s hard work, and very slow. I keep putting things in the ‘throwing out’ pile, only to have second thoughts and retrieving them. Many of the items really belong to the children – old toys, school reports, keepsakes and mementoes – so we have warned them that this Christmas they’ll be sorting through their childhood memories and deciding what to retain. We don’t mind storing any of it for them: at least then when we’re both in nursing homes and they’re having to sort things out, it’ll be mainly their own possessions they have to deal with and not ours.
Another unexciting issue to be resolved happened in November when half of the downstairs electrics tripped out. We identified the oven as the culprit and once it was isolated, most of the house was back to normal. We contacted an electrician, but before he could come we discovered a flood beneath the kitchen units, and submerged in the water was a jointed cable leading to the oven! So once we’d sorted out the drains issue (after calling in professional help), the electrical problem had resolved itself.
Gee and I do have vague plans for some European trips, but we’ve not had time to arrange any yet (you know what it’s like, with our busy lives…). Until then, we are enjoying going to concerts to see little-known bands at various small venues around the region.
Where possible, we combine these with an overnight stay which means we also get to spend time in a different town or village. We’ve also bought a ‘two together’ railcard which gives us money off rail travel. It’s early days, yet, but in three trips the card has more than paid for itself.
Rail travel in the UK is considerably more expensive than going by car (well it is if you don’t count car depreciation costs) but it encourages a different mentality. For example, if we stop over, we’ll choose a hotel close to the station, which usually has the added advantage of being in the centre of town. We will often stay in a place longer because we’re usually too mean to pay for additional parking if we drive (it’s sad, but true!). It also means that we make the journey part of the holiday which sounds great until you realise that many of our local towns are serviced by Northern, most of whose rolling stock belongs in a museum and their cancellation record is woeful. In our experience so far, however, if a train actually runs, it does keep good time. But don’t get me started on the Trainline.com booking system or I’ll be grumbling for hours.
I joined the Brindle Historical Society when it first launched in 2002. I had a few years off and recently rejoined only to be signed up almost immediately as the booking secretary (I know, I must have that sort of gullible-looking face). Anyway, I have given it my best shot, organising speakers for the latter half of 2019 and I have now arranged a full calendar for next year. I don’t know how well my speakers will be received; I have chosen them primarily for my own interests and I’m simply hoping that members will share my taste. If nothing else, it will be varied, with subjects including Anne Lister (remember Gentleman Jack from TV earlier this year?), jam maker William P Hartley, the history of plastering, and what I think will be my favourite, a talk on technological dead ends. The speaker for this presentation is a mad professor who has a shed in which he makes all manner of mechanical things usually involving engines and chains and wheels. One of his projects is a powered monowheel! It’s just a six-foot steel hoop, inside of which he sits beside the lawnmower engine that powers it. I just hope he doesn’t use it to drive to the talk.
One of the highlights of my year was a party I held to celebrate my 60th birthday. I invited Henry Priestman (formerly of the Christians) and another singer/songwriter called Les Glover to play at our community hall. They helped make the party with 80-odd friends a very special night, keeping everyone hugely entertained with songs containing age-appropriate lyrics – they are both a similar age to me.
Les Glover also has another claim to fame just now since he’s written (and sings) a Christmas single which has just been released by a band called the Occasional Flames starring Don Powell (the drummer from Slade). Listen out for it. It’s called ‘It isn’t really Christmas until Noddy starts to sing’. Which is true. It’s from an album called Taping the Hiss whose title, to people of a certain age, will bring back fond memories of Sunday nights recording the top 30 off the radio.
Unlike HMQ, this letter doesn’t have a ‘message’, so I’ll leave you with a thought. Lamp posts only ever hit cars in self defence.
Have a lovely Christmas break.