Civilisation in decline

Our water supply failed twice yesterday.  I’ve been driving gingerly of late to avoid potholes that threaten to wreck tyres and suspension, and the water station was a severe test.  It seems I was caught on film when I went to collect bottled drinking water, and the clip has now been shown on national tv.  It would be nice to be recorded for something a bit more positive.  What is our little world coming to? 

It’s a great comfort to have kind friends in our life.  We had a good lunchtime bash on Saturday as guests of  Jenny and Andy, together with their family and friends.  Today I had the company of a German conversation group at the home of one of our out of town members.  I gathered up three of our local members on the way, and enjoyed their company en route just as much as the conversation session.

Technology: I spoke too soon…

The change to a greater bit rate has helped a bit, but it didn’t resolve the problem of our being unable to access the internet while the TV was on.  Martyn has now hard-wired the TV box to the router, and I think that has helped.  

Today our new SIMs arrived.  In order to continue our mobile service, we’ve had to move from one department of BT to another, expecting that the old numbers would have moved over automatically.  Oh, no!  After endless fannying about on line, and after Martyn had grovelled through the garbage to recover his old SIM card, I got on to BT customer service to enquire what we had to do to get continued service.  Half an hour later, after yet more muzak on hold, we think it’s sorted, but must wait till some time tomorrow to find out whether it has worked.  Paciência.

We’ve had a modest fall of snow, so haven’t been out and about much.  I did venture out to the shops yesterday, and as usual the worst part of the drive was the slope down the hill to the through road.  I used to be able to defrost the car by using the app on my mobile phone.  That no longer works, so that’s another item on the list for the Renault shop.

OK, we’re elderly, but we are compos mentis and not stupid.  We’re also grateful for all the wonderful things that technology has given us.  But bloody hell: it’s often hard to get - and keep - it working as it oughter.

Satisfactory year-end

It has as always been a delight to hear from friends and relatives through Christmas cards and on-line messages.  The sitting room is festooned with cards again, and we shall remember the kind thoughts they brought long after they’re taken down.

We had a select family Christmas at home: Martyn’s sister Sandra joined us for the day and stayed overnight.  Simple meal: a half leg of lamb from Lidl and a shop-bought small Christmas pudding.  We can’t do big eats these days!  There was enough lamb left for a shepherd’s pie, using up all the leftover veggies, including the roast potatoes, crumbled over the meat and veg, and topped with grated cheese.

Pleasant day here on Tuesday with the Gandon family: Richard and I were colleagues in the eighties and nineties, and were neighbours back in Tonbridge days.  Their daughter and son have developed into sociable and thoughtful adults, and we always enjoy their company.  We had apéritifs in the sitooterie, with simple palmiers made with Serrano ham and passata.  Mary Berry lamb casserole, a modest cheeseboard and apple crumble for those who had room for it (I didn’t….).

I spent about an hour on the phone yesterday with BT customer service (much of it listening to raucous muzak on hold).  The reason I called was that, since we were connected by fibre optic cable, our internet service has deteriorated sharply.  We used to have a bundle that included fixed and two mobile phones, broadband and tv.  As we haven’t used the tv service more than a few times, we’ve discontinued that.  The mobile phones are about to switch over to EE which offers a huge data allowance.  It’ll cost a little more, but the whole deal is considerably cheaper than before - and I blagged a further modest discount as a BT pensioner.  I did a speed test just now, and was getting about 450-480 Mbit/s.  The person who handled the business was friendly and capable.  So we’re hoping that’s one problem solved for the new year - which we hope will be a good and healthy one for our readers.

Christmas Eve

For the annual ramblings, scroll up to the 14 December entry

Quite a bit of baking hereabouts: yesterday we did a batch of mince pies, using some of Mary Berry’s tricks.  We cut the mincemeat with chopped apricots, which makes the filling a bit less cloying.  We added orange zest to the pastry, but decided this year to use the Good Housekeeping shortcrust rather than Mary’s much richer dough, which was a pain in the arse to roll last year.  Today we’ve knocked out a modest batch of sausage rolls, so we’re all set up for late lunch/afternoon tea tomorrow.

Incidentally, the Good Housekeeping basic cookery book - a present from Mum over 50 years ago - continues to serve us well.  I remember being amused to see a copy at the brocante in Ribaute some years ago.  I ought to have bought it:  my copy is starting to fall to bits, and the slip cover gave up years ago.

Well, I may post again before the end of the month, es sei denn I wish everyone all the best for the coming year.

Annual ramblings 2025

Greetings!

The world of politics becomes ever more disturbing.  The awfulness of Trump beggars belief, and his pretentions to become a Nobel Peace Prize medallist do little more than underline his malignant narcissism and cognitive decline.  Putin is clearly laughing behind his hand as he watches on, and is simply waiting for concessions forced by Trump to reinforce his imperialistic ambitions.  Closer to home, our county council has a majority of the far right Reform party, which is becoming known for its nastiness and incompetence.  Fortunately, our toon cooncil is controlled by the Liberal Democrats, and our newish LibDem MP is making quite a name for himself.  In particular, he has filled the communication vacuum during the recent water supply problems here in Disgustedville.  The water company has distinguished itself by its truculence and the failure of its head honcho to make himself available to the media.  (The supply at our end of town was not interrupted, but tens of thousands of homes were without water for several days.)  [Later: the water went off for six hours here, following a burst water main just down the hill from us.]  As for HMG, we despair, and will leave it at that.

 

One way and another, we've seen rather too much of the insides of hospitals this year.  I spent five pretty comfortable nights in our excellent NHS hospital having a complication of my 2023 surgery corrected.  It was like a reunion of old friends: several of the care staff I'd met last time in Ward 32 were still there, and I was again under the care of a surgeon we have got used to and like.  I had a nice room with a view across the Weald to the North Downs.  Before that, my year 2 checks revealed no recurrence of the cancer, so we carry on with fingers crossed.  We're both of us feeling our septuagenarian age.

I was shocked to learn this autumn that my pen-friend Ria had died.  I’d assumed that she was as fit as the proverbial butcher’s dog, having undertaken so many long hikes in recent years, and run round the show ring with her dog, Jessie, just weeks before she died.  We had corresponded for over 60 years and met a few times.  I shall miss her.

One consolation of aging is our local u3a (University of the Third Age).  We both go to a monthly Computers group, where we do a tour de table, reporting problems and sharing fixes.  I take part twice a month in a German conversation group: members take turns to host at home, and the host circulates a text or two beforehand.  We then read it aloud round the table to give each of us a chance to speak a bit of German, and go on to discuss the subject - and the errors in the original German texts.  I used to belong to a group called the Amblers, and thoroughly enjoyed our strolls, even though they reminded me how unfit I'd become.  I'd to drop out of that for health reasons, but was still up for a guided walk round the Common back in the autumn, with much fascinating commentary from the rangers.

Garden

We are doing less ourselves in the garden, which may be why it did so well.  We'd a record

crop of apples, so the freezers are well stocked, and there are dozens of apples wrapped and stored in the summer house.  Tomatoes also yielded pretty well, except that the variety that germinated was not what I thought I'd bought.  I ought perhaps to have twigged when, instead of the six seeds I usually get, there were a couple of dozen in the packet.  Rather than our old favourite Sweet Olive, I think what we got was Chocolate Cherry, a variety that ripens to chocolate brown.  It tasted really good, but many find the colour a turn-off.  So I got most of them to myself!

Gardener Ben comes for a couple of hours twice a month, and does the heavy stuff - or the stuff I'm too idle to do myself.  After my surgery I was told to take it easy for a while, so have left the care of the grass to Ben.  Roses have done pretty well again this year, and the little rosemary hedge that we planted round the front of the garden is thriving, much to the amusement of a few doubters.  After all, rosemary thrives in the garrigue, and the poor soil and hotter summers hereabouts probably suit it well.

Arrivals

Fewer visitors of late, though we've had some nice simple lunch gatherings here.  We decided against a Macmillan Coffee Morning this year, somewhat in protest at Macmillan's cuts to care and financial support, and its ill-timed advertising of highly paid jobs with airy-fairy job descriptions.  In any case, my short-notice surgery appointment would have stymied it.  (We've since relented a bit, to the extent of buying their Christmas cards...)   We had the pleasure of meeting Martyn's Canadian cousins, the Relyeas, who were over to see their son John singing in Parsifal at Glyndebourne.  We met them in Rochester Cathedral, where Sandra had given them a guided tour, and repaired to the Crown for lunch. 

 

 

 

 

We had a most enjoyable lunch here with brother John and his dynasty.  We are slowly getting stuff out of the attic, and one candidate for de-cluttering was the Scalextric set that Martyn bought me years ago.  Much as we enjoyed it, our days of playing on hands and knees are behind us, so I enquired if our great-nephews might like it.  Martyn set up a little loop to check that it was still working, which I'm glad to say it was. 

Departures

Fewer this year than we'd hoped.  We took a trip to the Isle of Wight in April: the first time I'd been there.  We rented a flat for a few nights: it was just about adequate in most respects.  It had a superb view out to sea: we watched sundry big ships sailing from Southampton, including the Queen Mary 2.  We loved the donkey sanctuary, and made a rare use of our English Heritage cards to take a look at Osborne - tasteless in the extreme, but one has to admire the workmanship.

 

We'd planned a cruise in October to Madeira, the Açores and Porto, but that too was stymied by my short-notice surgery a couple of weeks before the day we were due to sail.  We got 25% back from Cunard: a bit of a hit in the wallet, but worth it to get things moving on the health front.  And we've ploughed the refund into a cruise next February - familiar ports, but it'll get us away from the February gloom for a couple of weeks

 

Food and drink

 

A few new recipes and venues, one of which looks like going under because of the losses they have been suffering during the water débâcle.  We've used the Crown in Rochester a few times, and like it.  It is reasonably quiet, and the food is good: they are flexible too when it comes to dietary restrictions.

 

I've been doing the occasional casserole with lamb neck fillet, and we enjoy it.  Only problem is that the butcher charges the earth for local lamb, so it's a treat for special occasions.  We're continuing to make good use of the air fryer - though when the oven gave up the ghost earlier this year, unfortunately on a day when we'd planned a roast lunch for a visitor, it wasn't big enough for a leg of lamb, and we had to use the feeble top oven.  Anyway, as our Swedish friends would say, nobody threw up and nobody died.   

 

Our favourite pizzas figure sparingly on the menu, notably the Norvégienne we copied, somewhat augmented, from the menu at the Grand Café in Limoux.  Base anointed with a mix of crème fraîche and chopped spinach, smoked and fresh salmon and some big shrimps, topped with fresh or dried herbs and mozzarella.  Pizzas are a good way of using leftovers: ham, chicken, even new potatoes - another trick we learned from said café.

 

Wheels

 

We're glad we made the change to EVs, much though we enjoyed our diesel SEATs.  We enjoy the quiet - and brisk! - power delivery, and decent range, particularly in the Scénic.  When we did our IoW trip, we'd probably have had enough range to get us there and home again.  But topping up the battery in a car park in Ryde got us home with a week's charge to spare, and we had time to explore the town and have fish and chips while the charge went ahead.  It's a good bit more expensive than charging at home, but that's the only time in over a year of EV ownership that we've had to use public infrastructure.  Of course, we're not being taxed like combustion engined vehicle owners, so we suppose it's reasonable that we should pay a bit towards road maintenance.  Provided it's actually done, and done well. 

 

We took Martyn's bike along to the local repair café earlier in the year: the dérailleur had seized up, and Chris the bike fettler diagnosed problems with the shift levers.  He sent us off with details of the parts he needed and where to find them, and at the next gathering fitted them for a donation to the village hall charity.  It occurred to me to ask him whether he knew one of my former neighbours, who was a keen competitive cyclist, and it turns out that the two of them are now next-door neighbours.  The older you get, the thicker and faster the coincidence fall.

 

Arts

 

To our shame, we have produced little or nothing in the way of original artwork, and had to resort, as I mention above, to buying cards this year.  I have a work in progress for next year, but am not sure it's going anywhere.  

 

We've been to a couple of concerts this year: we're fortunate to have two decent concert venues in town.  One of them also hosted Susie Dent for her admirable one-woman show, Word Perfect.  We'd hoped to go to a performance of the Nutcracker at Benenden School, but on the day the traffic was so awful, even before we got to the middle of town, that we gave up and came home.

 

As for cinema, our neighbouring village hall offers a community cinema service, and we've enjoyed quite a few fillums there, notably The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and the outstanding Conclave.  It's a friendly place, and one of our neighbours runs a café while someone else administers cocktails and mocktails.  It also hosts the repair café, where, in addition to the bike, we've had clocks seen to and secateurs sharpened: art in its most practical form!

 

2026

 

Not that we're in a hurry to fall off the twig, we do feel at times that it's not so bad to be old and childless.  But there's scope for cautious optimism: the coming year ought to see the Republican majorities shrivel, which might help the Untied (sic) States to return to democracy.  Unless, of course, the orange one declares a state of emergency and cancels the mid-terms.  But turning to matters of real importance, I'm determined to get the right variety of tomatoes this time.

 

Every good wish for health, happiness and prosperity in the new year,

 

Martyn & David 

Amazon (and SE Water) bashing

Reluctant as one is to line the pockets of Mr Bezos, I have to say that the service is pretty good.  Having left it 72 hours after the failed delivery of a new monitor, I got on the phone this morning, and after the usual press this, press that and music on hold, I got to speak to a sentient being.  Not only sentient, but polite, empathetic and efficient.  He made no bones about issuing a refund, which I should see in a week or so.

An order I placed with Amazon one morning a few weeks ago arrived that same afternoon, and most stuff arrives the day after order.  It’s a shame that on-line shopping has been so damaging to the old fashioned kind: our local mall has several empty units, and when we went to London a while back, it was worrying to see row after row of shops shuttered and graffiti’d.  It’s an ill wind, of course: when I went to buy a monitor from a proper shop this week, the service was exemplary: they’re obviously trying harder.

We’ve been among the lucky minority of Disgustedville residents who have not lost their water supply.  Businesses in the town have lost tens of thousands, particularly in hospitality.  Self-employed people are also hit: on Monday alone, our cleaners lost £150 through cancellations.  Most people have now had their supply restored, but have to boil water indefinitely for cooking and tooth brushing.  When we went to our u3a computer group meeting on Wednesday, the roads were jammed with cars going to collect bottled water.  The venue had no water supply, and the planned lunch afterwards was cancelled.  

The water company, not content with sitting on its hands despite warnings over the years, has failed miserably in communicating with customers.  Our local MP has been breaking his arse filling the communication void - top marks - and has understandably called for the resignation of the head man of the water company.  He even got his boss to visit, so some collectors of bottled water had their supplies handed over by Sir Ed himself.  Meanwhile the water company continues to issue vague and conflicting announcements, and the head honcho has not made himself available for interviews.  He has been thoroughly abusive to our MP, and the minions he sends out to meet the press are becoming increasingly truculent.  Well, I suppose that’s what you get when you privatise natural monopolies.

Oh, how I love computers in these modern times!

My laptop, which is over nine years old, has been getting a bit tired.  After much agonising, I finally bought a new computer, and it was delivered a few days ago.  I should add that the DPD delivery man dumped it on the doorstep, clearly labelled HP, rang the bell without checking that anyone was home, and buggered off.  Well, it wasn’t nicked, but proved incapable of communicating with the monitor that I’d hoped to use.  So, back to Amazon to choose a new monitor.  It was supposed to arrive today, but the same  DPD driver brought someone else’s large bale of kitchen paper rolls, marked my order as delivered even though I’d told him to take it away, and once again, buggered off. 

After about an hour on the phone, first to DPD, who bumped me on to Amazon, and I gave up and went to a local Curry’s and bought a less expensive product, which works well enough.  I’ll return to the charge two days hence, before which Amazon declines to assist.

Meanwhile, having moved the laptop upstairs, I find that it has defaulted to that abomination, the AZERTY keyboard.  Given that I’d bought it with the Swiss French QWERTZ, this is a puzzle.  I shall ask the clever guys at the u3a computer group tomorrow.  I’m getting a bit old for this shit: is it any wonder I drink?