Altogether a less dramatic year, though we’re constantly reminded by our bodies that we are no spring chickens: Martyn turned 70 this year, and I’ve progressed into my 75th. I’ve passed my year one check-ups following last year’s treatment and surgery, so am feeling positive.
On the basis that the rainy day we’ve been saving for has already been and gone, we’ve been spending a bit on the house and the mews. We now have an array of solar panels on the roof, and enjoy watching how they perform, even on dull days.
It has been a pleasure to be able to travel again, even though we find it a bit strenuous these days. The garden keeps us busy (or feeling guilty about not getting busy out there), and has given us modest crops of fruit and veg.
As for matters political, I keep wondering each year at this time how the coming year will turn out, and how looming disaster can be avoided. At least we are rid of an - at best - incompetent, rudderless government, though the new lot aren’t exactly covering themselves in glory. Our relatively decent Tory MP decided not to stand for re-election, and now both the MP and the Local Council are LibDem. Our solidly bourgeois ward has two Labour and one TW Alliance councillors. Who’d ha’ thunk it?
Garden
We grew some of our favourite charlotte potatoes this year, but in the raised bed rather than in bags. No significant difference in crop yield, so we’ll do that again. We’d been impressed by the alexandra variety of salad potatoes supplied by good old Fortnums (as we nickname Lidl), so I tried - and failed - to find seed potatoes thereof. Nothing ventured, I chitted a bag of supermarket alexandras and planted them out. We won’t try that again: the yield was poor, and after all, newly dug charlottes are delicious anyway. The Bramley apple tree yielded well this year following a bit of judicious thinning, and we still have some puree in the freezer. We even had a couple of handfuls of blueberries and strawberries.
The moth having devastated our box hedging again last year, we took dozens of cuttings from the rather overgrown rosemary bush, and brought them on over the winter in a raised bed. We’ve planted them out where the box used to be, and so far they’ve mostly survived and grown quite a bit. There are a few gaps, but we have more cuttings coming on.
Recent storms have brought down a stretch of fencing (again) and led to an alarming list on the one we had put up mere months ago. Oh well, it’s only money. The usual contractors are coming to estimate before Christmas, but I guess we’ll be wide open well into the New Year. The grass has had its last cut of the year - I hope. A soggy business at this time of year, not helped by hundreds of worm casts and lots of twigs blown down from the willow trees.
Arrivals
We had an enjoyable visit from Annie at New Year, but otherwise have offered little hospitality other than a few lunches. In September we held a Macmillan Coffee Morning for around 30 neighbours and friends, and raised over three times as much as we did last time, five years ago. That coincided with a visit from Martyn and Sandra’s cousin Susan who was visiting from the USA. We’ve also had a pleasant gathering with Chez and Lorraine, whom we met on a cruise some years ago, and who were visiting relatives in town.
Departures
The cruise was on Cunard’s new Queen Anne, which is a fair bit larger than the Elizabeth and the Victoria, and we found it a bit crowded. One evening up on deck, Martyn spotted someone luxuriating in the hot tub whom he recognised: Luke, one of a couple who publish on YouTube as the Cruise Monkeys. His other half Gavin was nearby, and we had a pleasant chat with them. (They agreed with us that the main advantage of the QA over its little sisters was the glazed door to the shower.)
Our next jolly jaunt was to Switzerland, where we rented a flat not far from Pam’s for a week, and toured as usual on trams, buses, trains and ships. We flew from London City to Zürich and back, and took Swiss travel passes which covered us from arrival to departure, and as usual we used them to the full.
We saw both old friends and familiar places, and new ones. I’d corresponded with another YouTuber, Matthias Hänni, so arranged to meet him one Sunday morning at Bern airport. Nice chap: his YouTube persona is Matt’s Aviation Channel. We had a sandwich together and watched various flights come and go, then he kindly drove us to Münsingen, where we picked up our next train of the day. Intending to return from Brig by the base tunnel, I suggested we go round by Lausanne instead, so we had quite an orgy of scenery.
As you see, we tended to build our itineraries as we went along, which is much easier now you can look up timetables on the smartphone. We rarely did the exact trips we’d planned, but the public transport is so extensive and reliable that it’s easy to build a mystery tour ad hoc.
On our last full day in Switzerland we went to visit the Kaeserberg model railway near Fribourg, not helped by the fact that I put us on the right bus, but in the wrong direction). Martyn picked up some ideas from this rather impressive layout, and we’ll see soon how he’s using them up in the railway room. Later, we had a guided tour of Fribourg with an old colleague, Josy Pitteloud, whom I hadn’t seen this century. We couldn’t accept his dinner invitation since we’d arranged to take Pam out later, but we had a pleasant aperitif with him on the terrace of a café overlooking the old town and the valley of the Sarine before returning to Bern.
Food and drink
We have shifted our fish and chips allegiance to a shop the other side of town, where they do a rather better job than our Turkish friends in the village. The distance is a disincentive to indulging too often! We had a nice lunch on our wedding anniversary at Sankey’s. Not cheap, but good quality and a nice pub environment. I’ve been experimenting with things like home-made tapenade and houmous, and inspired by a lunch at the National Trust property at Standen, Coronation chick peas! We make a lot of use of the air fryer: it’s just so easy, for example, to do spice-coated chicken thighs on or off the bone. I haven’t succeeded with bread yet, and in any case, I seem to be losing my touch. If I get the bread to rise enough, it tends to be full of holes, and otherwise finishes up as rather small loaves. (We also get rather good sourdough bloomers at Fortnums’…).
I’m gradually discovering what I can and can’t safely eat given my abbreviated plumbing. Big salads are off the agenda - well, big anything, really.
Wheels
Since Martyn’s Altea was getting on for sixteen years old, and hence Green Flag wouldn’t provide roadside assistance any longer, we started researching electric cars. On test driving a Fiat 600e, we were so impressed that we placed an order there and then. It is not the roomiest of cars, but is quiet, very responsive and nippy around town. Driving it for a month or so persuaded me that my Ateca felt a bit coarse and sluggish by comparison. So both our diesels are off to new homes, and for my new car I’ve gone back to Renault after a gap of 27 years: a Scenic E-tech. Roomy and refined, and quite brisk enough for an old geezer like me. Charging can be frustrating: getting the charger to work in the first place took several visits from the fitters (one of whom put his foot through the garage ceiling). I think I’ve got the hang of it now.
Arts
Another meagre year. I was quite attracted by an exhibition of paintings by a former neighbour who has gone on to wealth and fame, but was disappointed by the work - and shocked by the prices. On our cruise, Cunard routed us to the dining room via an art sales shop as usual. Some nice stuff in there, but nothing within our budget. In any case, we have an attic full of paintings and prints, and very little remaining wall space.
I joined a u3a art group for a few sessions, but it didn’t suit me: I need lots of space, and it just wasn’t available where we met. It was well suited to disciplined watercolour painters, and I’m neither of the above. I’ve banged out a pot-boiler in acrylics for the Christmas card, but little else.
2025
As I mentioned at the top, HMG has got off to a disappointingly clumsy start. Clearly, it was handed a poisoned chalice, but it didn’t help that, for electoral reasons, it had ruled out particular varieties of tax increase. At least the batshit crazy Rwanda scheme was promptly dropped and the grisly Bibby Stockholm cleared out, but there are few signs of an approach that goes to the many roots of the small boat immigration problem and the hopeless asylum application ‘system’. Given the success of the vast majority of asylum applications, it is scandalous that so many cases are outstanding, and that we can’t get this vast pool of labour and talent into productive work and decent homes.
As for the Land of the Free, it was hardly surprising that the Orange One was re-elected, given that Biden was dissuaded from standing at far too late a stage. Well, there’s nothing we lesser mortals can do about it, so we’ll just have to wait and see. We hope that 2025 will be as kind to you as the political surroundings will allow.
Martyn & David
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