Yesterday marked twenty years and four weeks since I retired, and decided I’d rather be bald than balding. It also marked twenty years exactly since I took a trip to Brighton for a professional head shave, on the recommendation and in the company of a fellow member of the Yahoo Bald by Choice group. I had joined said group after early experiments had proved somewhat bloody, and hoped to get recommendations from fellow baldies as to suitable razor blades. We had a nice day out, a reasonably good shave apiece and a beer with the late Barbara, to whom I’d offered to bring a shrub for her little a courtyard garden. I’m talking about Martyn, of course: we met the following week for a meal roughly half way between our homes, and found that there was rather more between us than a shared interest in being bald by choice. A year or so later we exchanged rings (sitting in Martyn’s old red Peugeot in Brighton station car park...), and when the law changed we made honest men of each other.
Much has happened in the intervening years. Martyn took a good degree from the University of Kent and embarked on a new career in teaching at secondary and further/higher education levels. And he retired from that ten years ago. I embarked on a new (if unpaid) career in criminal justice, joining the local bench. I retired from that last year: a little early, so as to avoid an unnecessary infection risk. For the last ten years I usually sat in the middle chair at court, and think that my colleagues and I faithfully carried out our judicial oath to do right to all manner of people, without fear or favour, affection or ill will, though with some of the bonny dearies we encountered, the last bit was sometimes difficult. It was a rewarding experience, occasionally distressing, often quite amusing, and latterly very boring, largely spent drinking tea in the retiring room while the parties tried to make progress despite the utter chaos in the prosecution service. I made a few life-long friends in the process, and don’t miss the court sittings - still less the winter drives home from the county town after dark on wet roads.
Anniversary celebrations were modest but enjoyable. I went for my second jab of the Pfizer vaccine, and we lunched on fish and chips from the friendly Turks in the village. On the way home from the jabodrome, I picked up a bottle of Prosecco, which we enjoyed in the evening with cannelloni that I’d slapped together in the afternoon. As I write, Martyn has just left for said jabodrome for his second shot of the Oxford Astra-Zeneca vaccine. The doctor who screened me yesterday said I might have slightly worse side effects than last time, but so far, so good. My arm is sore, sure, and I feel disinclined to exert myself, but that’s a small price to pay.
The pandemic has changed all our lives. By and large, though, apart from our not being able to travel as we’d hoped nor to socialise with friends, it has been pretty tolerable. Refunds from Cunard have paid for the rebuilding of the top of the garden, and help a lot towards the forthcoming garage conversion building work. I hope it will have been worth the modest sacrifices, and hate to think what it would have been like to get through it without Martyn.
Meanwhile, the infection rate hereabouts is the third highest in the region, thanks no doubt to careless socialising in the beer gardens and terraces. We are largely avoiding shopping, and instead having stuff delivered. The butcher and grocer both delivered this morning, so we shall be sharing a slow-cooked lamb shank tonight. And Fortnums’ pastéis de nata with a cup of tea when Martyn gets back.
*Thanks to Thierry Zanada for the latin tag.