OR TRYING TO.
Current movement in this house is comparable to that of the cat Angel pictured at the end of my last post and the picture shown above. It ain't startling.
I am trying to stay upbeat. A variety of favourite music on the Steepletone; the fan heater warming up the garden room; writing the blog; it keeps me pushing along. All in all it's an immense privilege whether I can afford it or not. We hang on here by the skin of our teeth: an amalgam of stubbornness, disinclination to broach finances, and despair at any possibility of a fourth move since my retirement in 1989.
Now there is a rumbling that all elderly folk in large houses could be forced to downsize or get themselves tucked away in an old people's home. This, the theorist posits, would free thousands of large houses for young people to buy, especially those with families. A reasonable theory.
I am trying to stay upbeat. A variety of favourite music on the Steepletone; the fan heater warming up the garden room; writing the blog; it keeps me pushing along. All in all it's an immense privilege whether I can afford it or not. We hang on here by the skin of our teeth: an amalgam of stubbornness, disinclination to broach finances, and despair at any possibility of a fourth move since my retirement in 1989.
Now there is a rumbling that all elderly folk in large houses could be forced to downsize or get themselves tucked away in an old people's home. This, the theorist posits, would free thousands of large houses for young people to buy, especially those with families. A reasonable theory.
In practice young people need sensibly priced family homes, not overpriced barns. The majority of the homes abandoned by downsizing oldies would be bought by greedy property dealers intent on transforming them into grotty flats from which to obtain exorbitant rents.
Don't talk entrepreneurs to me, a WW2 kid. Spivs are just spivs: nothing more, nothing less.
Morally we are property paragons anyway. Though set in a vast garden this is not a large property, our grandson still lives with us - and hopefully will at least until he completes his time at Platform One College of Music - so we are well placed on the desirable old fart's ladder. By the time we reach the stage where kicking that ladder away makes sense, I shall probably have kicked the bucket and the family will be debating: 'What shall we do about mother?' or in this family: 'What does Mum say she wants to do?' (It had better be the latter or I'll bloody well come back and haunt them.)
Which is enough about us for now. I'm still all adrift from that confounded hour change.
TELEVISION
The box across the room becomes more and more a home cinema, less and less a radio with pictures. Oh, we still watch the news on BBC1, a reasonable selection of quiz shows, select bits of a boring morning (well, there's nothing else on) chat show, most of the competitive prancing dancing, cooking, sewing stuff, and the proliferation of celebrity walking and talking Britain documentaries, presumably launched because it works when undertaken by Julia \Bradbury (for whom we have considerable regard. Get well, lovely girl, get well).
RIGHT NOW
Morally we are property paragons anyway. Though set in a vast garden this is not a large property, our grandson still lives with us - and hopefully will at least until he completes his time at Platform One College of Music - so we are well placed on the desirable old fart's ladder. By the time we reach the stage where kicking that ladder away makes sense, I shall probably have kicked the bucket and the family will be debating: 'What shall we do about mother?' or in this family: 'What does Mum say she wants to do?' (It had better be the latter or I'll bloody well come back and haunt them.)
Which is enough about us for now. I'm still all adrift from that confounded hour change.
TELEVISION
The box across the room becomes more and more a home cinema, less and less a radio with pictures. Oh, we still watch the news on BBC1, a reasonable selection of quiz shows, select bits of a boring morning (well, there's nothing else on) chat show, most of the competitive prancing dancing, cooking, sewing stuff, and the proliferation of celebrity walking and talking Britain documentaries, presumably launched because it works when undertaken by Julia \Bradbury (for whom we have considerable regard. Get well, lovely girl, get well).
RIGHT NOW
It is ten to five in the evening GMT here.
Almost dark and I need to put my feet up.
I think we'll ignore the adverts and have a quiet Christmas.
I think we'll ignore the adverts and have a quiet Christmas.
Why am I even thinking about it?
BACK BEFORE THEY ARRIVE
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