Beep Beep, Beep Beep, The Car Went Beep Beep Beep.

We were in Rochester on Tuesday visiting our family before heading up to Scotland for a couple of weeks. It was great to see Paul and Josephine and see how much Catherine has changed in the eight weeks since we last saw her. She’s become a real chatterbox and it’s lovely to see her running about and hear her starting to talk.

As we started back home a red light came on on the Prius dashboard and a loud beep started. We realised that the interior lights were still on. The dashboard light indicated an open door so we pulled over at the first opportunity and checked them all. The doors were all shut and there were no obvious obstructions in the locks so we had little choice but to drive on with the fault still showing. Have you any idea what two hours of driving with a high-pitched and constant beep is like? I imagine it’s the sort of thing a particularly nasty torturer might come up with. We put Heart FM on the radio at full volume but it didn’t drown out the warning. And no jokes about Heart FM being worse than the beep please – I quite like it.

Arriving home at ten I checked the doors out again with a torch. We’d taken some garden waste to the tip for Paul and a tiny piece of grit had slipped into the boot catch. It must have broken an electronic circuit. Problem solved.

There were no problems with the other car as we headed up to St Andrews yesterday.  It uses such clever technology that it notices subtle changes in your driving and tells you to take a break. We did the 476 miles in just over eight and a half hours and now we’re settling into the caravan and looking forward to seeing Sarah and Duncan and our other grandchildren Rose and Melody. 

There’s not much of a broadband signal here so my use of Facebook and Twitter will be curtailed. I just hope that I can get on Betfair during X Factor. My annual bet is looking okay at the moment with £340 win if Sam is successful but the show has thrown up a few shocks in the final weeks over the past few years and I want to be able to respond and cut my losses if she suddenly ends up in the bottom two.

The Power Of Love In Southwold

The Ways With Words Literary Festival has been running in Southwold for the last few days and we were lucky enough to get tickets for some of the speakers. We had expected an insight into the authors' latest books and perhaps a little background on how they were written and indeed that's what we got with Robert Harris and Salley Vickers but in the other talks, each by a widowed author, we found ourselves witnessing an emotional insight into love and loss - subjects very close to our hearts now that we are in our later years.

Barry Norman, on our screens for over twenty six tears, was widowed in 2011 and it was little surprise to see this veteran presenter fight back welling tears in talking movingly about SeeYou In The Morning the book that he has written about his wife of 53 years. The title is the five words the couple shared each night before going to sleep and it was difficult not to listen to the talk (or even to recall it now) without finding a lump in your throat. We bought the book ( we bought almost all of the books the authors were promoting) and Barry signed it for us. Being passionate about films I thought about what to ask him as we waited in the queue but was for once lost for words when he did the signing - pointedly signing to Marion and John when the man alongside had written John and Marion on his prompting slip. I felt that this demonstrated the importance that he placed on a wife.

But we realised how well Barry had controlled his emotions when, on Saturday morning, we listened to Allan Ahlberg. Anybody who has had children or grandchildren during the past thirty years will be familiar with Allan. I can still recite Each Peach Pear Plum by heart some thirty years after it came into our lives. And it's still in our lives today as Rose, Catherine and, eventually Melody will sit down to hear us read it to them. Allan lost his wife Janet, the illustrator of those wonderful books, almost twenty years ago but from the onset of his talk ,which he gave in the manner of a storyteller gathering children around his feet, it was clear that she has never left him. As he took a teddy bear from his holdall and dressed it in a hat and scarf that had once been Janet's his emotions overtook him and the audience was stunned into silence to see a man who minutes earlier had joshed and joked with us, lose all composure and weep quietly. It was a poignant moment for all who witnessed it and spoke more of the power of love than a thousand words could ever do. I've always resolved to live life as fully as possible and Allan's grief drove home the importance of cherishing every moment we have with those who we love.

Penelope Lively (to whom we will be eternally grateful for giving us the fabulous The Ghost Of Thomas Kempe to read to our kids) was widowed some years ago. Her talk did not dwell on her love for her husband but love was never far behind what she said as there was an overpowering sense of passion for her family in everything she said. She has written a book Ammonites And Leaping Fish a memoir about ageing (again close to our hearts). She's a sprightly and thoroughly modern eighty year old and reminded me of my own mum who is 87 and will probably (like Penelope) be sitting at her iPad using Skype, iTunes or email as i write. I've often asked her about writing down her memories which will one day be lost but she's just too busy to do so.

It's back to Southwold to see Jeremy Paxman tomorrow. I somehow doubt that he'll leave us with tears in our eyes - they'll be for the first person to bring up Russell Brand. Looking forward to it. It's been a brilliant literary festival. We always promised ourselves to get to literary festivals when we retired and have talked about getting to Hay on Wye for years. I'm glad that we finally managed one and I'm sure that we'll be going back next year. It was interesting to see the make up of the audience. The average age must have been over sixty and women outnumbered men by at least four to one. Does this signify the end of reading for young people or did the chosen authors simply appeal to an older crowd?

Here are some of the books we bought while we were there. I'll leave you with a topical and relevant song

Alas Poor Rabbit We Cooked Him Well

If someone had suggested last year that we'd be spending an autumn Saturday sampling sausages at twelve different venues in a small Suffolk town whilst being transported between those venues in a pink stretch limo and that one of those tastings would be at In Da Cottage, a shop selling the unlikely combination of "Antiques And Sourdough Bread",  I'd have said they were having a laugh. But that's what came to pass yesterday as we encountered our first annual sausage festival in our new home town.

The event's fame had spread to Wapping and was listed in The Times' "great days out this weekend" which must have boosted numbers. The £4 fee bought a book of perforated voting slips entitling the holder to sample and vote on sausages at each venue and, in addition, along with the ballot slips were a couple of stretch limo vouchers to reach the sites at the extremities of the town. 

After a very fine coffee at the Lemon Tree, where we managed to finish The Times Jumbo2 crossword without using the iPhone to cheat for the first time in a while, we bought our weekend's provisions at Leo's Deli, Hall Farm Butchers and the greengrocers before heading off on the trail. And what a delicious trail it was too! Fortunately the sausage samples were not too large and artery threatening and we assessed the samples seriously and marked them honestly on three categories. The big problem for me was the question "How likely are you to buy regularly?". However delicious a sausage might be I am hardly likely to drive to Norfolk to buy a packet so our own Co-op and Hall Farm butchers had to score highest here.

After the event I tweeted this and was delighted to hear later that our local butcher had used their home advantage and won. I don't know how my other selections finished.

Although we've lived here for almost nine months now we've not actually been at home for more than a few weeks at a time so it's taking some time to get into a routine but there's certainly plenty going on. In addition to the Sausage Fest yesterday the excellent Crown was holding a small sale of jewellery and accessories in one of their function rooms. Marion bought this lovely and inexpensive pair of gloves (the photo colour is wrong - they're grey) and another present which I won't mention here as the recipient may well read this. We also saw the excellent Roadii outdoor fire cooking system outside The Crown and we will be getting one for next spring.

We ended the day with a rabbit dish. I finally persuaded Marion to give it a try so the butcher jointed one for me and I used The Hairy Bikers' recipe off the BBC website. Slow cooked with prunes, brandy, wine, shallots and finished with double cream it may not have been the healthiest of Saturday night meals but it was very tasty and once Marion had got over the association with Benjamin Bunny and Peter Rabbit I think she enjoyed it.

A very pleasant day ended with watching The X Factor and my annual ritual of betting on it on Betfair whilst reading everyone's comments on Twitter. Someone tweeted "It's S**t" but I can't disagree more. Manipulative perhaps but always entertaining and, at the moment my bets are going in the right direction (all winnings being offset however by Marion's phone bill as she votes for Rough Copy)

On Winter, Strikers And Indian Talent

I'd like to start today with a thank you to the three kind souls who have "flattrd' the blog to date (giant oaks from little acorns and all that). Your support is appreciated.


As I write, it looks like winter has finally started to head our way and in the past hour the house has been buffeted by gale force winds and hailstones and there's a distinct chill in the air. We're off to Ribchester shortly to visit some friends. It's quite hilly up there but I don't think we need to pack the snow gear yet although it's around this time last year that we awoke on our first morning of retirement to a heavy blizzard in Manchester. We're looking forward to visiting Mark and Nita who run the excellent Workhouse Marketing the best creative marketing agency in the North West.

Last time we got together Mark had a try metal detecting with me and I gave him my old machine. I don't think he's had much success to date. Pretty much like me I suppose. Yesterday I headed up to Cumbria with my detecting pal Ed. We put in about five hours on the fields where I found my Roman gold bracelet link in the summer but all I had to show for it was this small Roman bronze coin. Ed had a similar one. At least we didn't go home completely empty handed but we will have to try and come up with some new places to go when we get out again in 2012. I think I will hang up the detector, spade and wellies for a few months now unless we get a very mild spell.

I don't tend to get political at all on here usually but the impending public sector workers' strike is really getting my back up. It's not because our son and daughter in law are flying back into Heathrow on Wednesday night/Thursday morning having been delayed on their outward flight to a wedding in the USA because of fog and now face more misery on their return. No, it's because I just can't see the point. I know that it's hard to discover that you are going to have to work longer before you get your pension and you may have to contribute more to it but it's something that has been coming for years and successive governments have failed to do anything about it. When most pensions were set up the average life expectancy was much lower. It is now heading towards eighty years which is eight years longer than it was even as recently as the 1970's. It doesn't take a mathematician to work out that a scheme set up to fund a pension for say fifteen years on average will run out of money if it has to pay the pensioners for twenty three. And, as these are public sector pensions, it is the UK tax payers that will have to foot the enormous shortfall. So it is common sense to make pensions kick in at a later age. Marion is one of those unlucky women in their fifties who expected a state pension at sixty and now has to wait another five years but, however much she dislikes it, she understands why it is essential to the economy and someone, somewhere, who is organising this strike should know that public sector workers will have to accept change too (unless they want us to end up like Greece that is).


Sorry about that but I can't see the point of damaging our fragile economy to further personal aims. If they've got a proposal of how it's going to be paid for, I would love to hear it. Rant over. Normal blogging resumes.


It's the X Factor quarter final tomorrow night. We've still got our bets on the two favourites Marcus and Little Mix although Marcus's odds went up the other day and Little Mix are now favourites by some way. Which is strange considering that they have not performed since last weekend. Have I missed something in the press? If both survive this week without being in the final two it should be a certainty that one of them will win (unless Janet, the only other act to escape the sing offs so far is a dark horse). It hasn't been a classic series this one, although it's still pulling in huge audiences - like that other Simon Cowell franchise "....'s Got Talent". I said on here that Britain clearly didn't have talent but has India? Judge for yourself.


 

Even I Have To Admit They're Cute

Ever since my seven or eight year old self was chased on my bike by a big, black, one eyed greyhound leaving me mentally scarred for life, I have not been a big fan of dogs. My brother was taking me on a fishing trip and failed to mention that the notorious beast dwelt en route to the pond until about ten seconds before it came hurtling out of its driveway at ninety miles an hour leaving my little legs spinning and my heart pounding as I attempted to outrun it. Being chased by a dog was bad enough but being chased by a greyhound - not exactly known for their lack of pace - was horrendous. It seemed like an eternity before the animal gave up on its sport and left me breathless and sobbing into my maggots.An Alsatian that I had passed on the way to Sunday school every week without prior incident put its paws on my shoulders and barked in my face a couple of days after the encounter with the hound and it was as if a message had gone out on the doggie jungle drums that I was easy pickings. From that day onwards I have shied away from the animals but they always seem to sense my fear and distrust of them. However, on Friday we visited old friends in Llangollen to celebrate a promotion and they introduced us to the new additions to their "family". They have owned two King Charles Cavalier Spaniels for years but when they were left with just Benny after the demise of Bobby they went for a replacement but were torn between these two and ended up with both so now it's Benny, Jack and Jem or as my friend Dave refers to them Benny and the Jets. And even I have to admit that they are extremely cute.

We got to see "Source Code" yesterday after the man from John Lewis finally sorted the curtains. Marion thought it was good but not as good as she expected from all the critical acclaim. I thought it was great. Why? Well it is pacey, and original, with a small but excellent cast who all played their parts to perfection. Jake Gyllenhaal is a very likable leading man and his love interest Michelle Monaghan is charismatic without being over glamorous whilst the officer who controls Gyllenhaal, Vera Farmiga, is also very human. And I think that this is what makes the film a success as the story is an extremely far fetched thriller about a soldier who goes on a mission into the body of a man on a train who is facing imminent death in an attempt to discover who planted the bomb that is going to kill him. If you can't connect with the characters in an outlandish plot like that, the film is doomed. But because you can connect it is easy to go along with what is happening on screen and become immersed in the action. Gyllenhaal is repeatedly sent back to the train to complete his mission and it is a little like "Groundhog Day" with explosions. It's very well thought through and it was good to watch a film that has a very good ending that ties the whole thing up perfectly. I'm with the critics on this one.

When you are retired you get a bit more time to get in control of you bank account and what you are spending your money on. I realised today that I am spending £9 a month on ESPN and have been doing so since September 2009 - so that's about £180. Since I have had it I reckon that I've watched about four football matches which, at £45 per match makes it a bit of a waste of money so I cancelled it. I thought that I would cancel Sky Sports at the same time but I can't as you can't have Sky 3D without the full sports and movie package.

When I wrote about AV on here yesterday and mentioned voting in other "important" matters like X Factor a friend posted a tweet outraged that I should consider X Factor important. Although my tongue was firmly in my cheek when describing it thus, it is a sad fact that it is likely that fewer people will vote on AV than phoned in for the X factor final and, as Midge Benn joked in his slot on Friday's "The Now Show" on Radio 4 with a 15% turn out expected the only certain result is that the electorate don't give a toss.


I started today with some cute dogs. I'll finish with yet another cute baby. And no the recent rash of baby videos have nothing to do with our impending grandparenthood - they are just some of the funniest I've found recently. This one came via @glinner on Twitter.