What is it the song says – regrets I’ve had a few? In our case it’s definitely true that they’ve been too few to mention. On the whole we’ve taken our chances and experienced a pretty rich life, though I say it myself. One possible exception was coming home to the UK having lived in…
Friends, what are they for?
Well, what are friends for? The answer right now seems to be to do with helping me fill that musical gap / void left when I stopped being a part of the Folk Fiddle group*. I rather despaired that I would ever play any music again with other people that is. In fact I had…
Vineyard 97 : Unexpected happening
As I write this blog there are men on our roof. It’s OK because I want them there. They are repointing the ridge tiles and replacing a number of perished tiles. For this they are charging me about £1300. Oh for the days when I would have thought nothing of shimmying (is that…
One last adventure?
In my most recent blog I wrote about the time pre Covid and pre my ill health when I thought about buying land in Ireland and planting a vineyard. Making wine in Ireland from Irish grapes. This idea / scheme came in under the heading of did we have one last adventure left in us?…
Vineyard 96: Irish wines ‘revisited’
I had the idea for this blog when I came across an article in last weekend’s Guardian. Looking for ideas for a new life-style, as you ask. As in the picture above. I would have to say that the title was at least misleading and probably darn right inaccurate. It gave the impression that they…
Recovering health and starting again?
There’s many a time I have an idea for one of these retirement blogs and I might not start writing it straight away then I come back to it and I think, nah, that won’t work and I have to think of another topic. Well this is like that only different. In this case I’m…
Simplification, the way forward?
Given there is a definite view of retirement, mainly from retired people themselves, that, as they get older, their life choices become restricted ( I feel the world is closing in on me as one acquaintance put it), that deliberately limiting one’s own choices is perverse, to say the least and maybe outright foolish. I…
Change of plan, really?
I’m not sure I dare even write this but here I go. And after all I’ve written over the last few months about wanting to return my retirement life to what I’ve persistently called ‘normal’, you might think I’ve got some damned cheek but as The Animals once sang many years ago, ‘It’s my life…
Into 2024, what’s in store?
So here we are half way through January, 2024 and how am I doing in my continuing efforts to return to my life pre all my health problems of last year? What I’m choosing to call normality. You may recall that my carefully considered retirement life was made up of a number of deliberately chosen…
2024, new start?
Well the first day of 2024, so no more 2023 which was an annus horribilis indeed (if that is how you spell it, certainly my spell checker doesn’t think so). It would, of course be foolish to think all our health problems will end with a new year. New start? No, more like setting ourselves…