Getting ready for the paraffin budgie

Unlike this snail, charmingly photographed by Ronnie Kier, I am unable to carry my home on my back and I rather need the money from the house sale to support us initially in retirement. So I was rather pleased when it sold immediately, even before the selling began in earnest. I suspect that the estate agent was even more pleased since I am bound to pay him his percentage whether or not he has incurred any costs. So in fact I suspect that he is the one most jumping for joy, rather than myself. However, we are well on the way to getting all these encumbrances behind us and settling down in Cebu.

We have got Alice's visa in her passport, booked a hotel in UK and are about to buy the airtickets. Since Alistair is off to boarding school he is naturally going one way only. I am not at all sure that he is fully aware of the cold in winter and am glad that we will be in the Phils and avoiding the cold.

All I have to do now is look out some of my old UK style clothes and I am ready for the trip.

Another Milestone Passed

While I should like to say it was the end of my fulltime working life in fact I merely refer to the World Cup. Not a great football lover, I was prepared to cheer for my team, below, but since they did not really play I was spared actually having to watch any matches.

We did see some splendid tennis matches from Wimbledon though and that was quite sufficient couch potato sport for me. I am more into energetic things these days and am building up my sixpack beautifully. All this is helped by my firm conviction that I am to grow old disgracefully. After all this natty comment seems to embody my intentions rather well. With Alice around to keep me reasonably active and ensuring I assist with certain of the household chores I feel hopeful that I will retain my youthful exuberance for quite some time. Which is just as well since I may need to turn to the method of travel that I perfected in my real youth so many decades ago. The much reduced income of retirement and old age awaits and airfares are not within the budget!

Still I consider that being in Cebu with family and others who have a respect for age will be far better than dragging out my days in an old folks home in UK, where unfortunately it seems that everyone treats the aged as if they were

Life is just a bowl . .

I noticed a pleasant photo of cherries on the Beeb today which threw me back to childhood when we were living in a house with quite a large garden in Germany, which I gather had been commandeered from a SS officer. It was quite nice but on occasion big aggressive looking ex-German army men would hang about outside muttering and looking rather menacing, although in fact we were never directly threatened. Just in case though we did get a large German shepherd, which managed to knock me over regularly when wagging its tail!

This house had a few different types of cherry tree in the gardens, a yellowish one and two rather solidly red. Both types were delicious although my recollection is that the yellow were rather more tart. Maybe that explains why I still like sharp or sour tastes even today. At least we were lucky enough that they did grow in the garden and not as shown above, which to my mind is just a shade over the top! But I wonder if the regular bowls that were available each year led me to have a future that contained two good marriages and in many ways has seemed like a bowl of cherries for much of the time.

The one unfortunate thing is that they are hardly a Philippine fruit so while I may be able to indulge in many good things from our own farm I suspect that cherries will not be included.

Never mind, my memories of the taste and immense size are probably flawed anyway, but I do seem to remember my mother looking like this when the season came round again.

Or is this a generic memory of Eve?

Reinventing ourselves

As retirement looms ever closer I suppose I should admit that I will actually be on call to my friend's consultancy with the expectation of getting the odd bit of work around the Pacific Rim. This does mean that we cannot go the entire hog, and wholly change our image. But if we don't go this far then at least I feel that cameras and wines will still be a part of our new lives.

Should insufficient work come my way to amuse me on occasion then perhaps we can hold our own pig triathlons, I can see they can manage the swimming and we already know they can run (especially when they are after more food!); but I suspect that the bicycles will be more difficult. Although if elephants can do it surely the pig, a most intelligent animal, can get the idea?

But one thing I must keep in mind, if Alice is prepared to give up the many and various pleasures of tennis in Singapore then I shall have to restrict my own hobby and share my time with her rather than heading out to what must surely be my spiritual home. While the many pleasures that must surely exist in such a well named place might attract I feel that a glass of rum and thou (well, Alice) at home is the better bargain.

Sporty Weekend

As earlier mentioned we had quite a busy weekend, mainly as Alistair was in a tennis tournament (a younger "AS" instead of his mother!). We stayed and watched for the first day. Not the world's greatest pleasure in fact since Alistair was playing pretty crappily, admittedly not having played for a while, and regrettably was showing his chagrin rather too much, particularly when trounced by a girl hardly to his shoulder height.

He did get to play on the Sunday but we didn't stay, both in case we were putting him off and to prevent us seeing him displaying a face rather less appealing than Henman when he, poor soul, so regularly gets knocked out these days.

So Alice dragged me, kicking and screaming naturally, to that horror of horrors shopping. However it wasn't too bad, we got a couple of small safes, numerous gifts for Alice to hand out at the many farewell lunches which she will be attending with her Japanese tennis friends, which are a shade early to accommodate the fact that many of them will shortly vanish back to Japan on holiday. We also found cold weather clothing stores and so can ensure that Alistair will be able to cope in a winter that he has not seen for ten years!

But then the most marvellous phone call arrived from the coach and tournament organiser, Alistair had not only won the Silver grade, but had beaten his opponent by going from 6-3 down to 6-8 up. So we rushed back for the trophy presentation and decided that we would keep him after all!

Buy the tickets!

Having had rather an exciting day yesterday I then relaxed by watching a few of my music vids. An eclectic mix in some ways since I watched the "Doors in Europe" and concerts from the Dixie Chicks and Cannibal Corpse. I rather like the Dixie Chicks and this was them performing most of a then new album, but with both "Sin Wagon" and "White Trash Wedding" being sung. I am particularly fond of those tracks which may, of course say something about me and my relationship with country music. Although thinking about it "Jolene" by Dolly Parton is maybe my total favourite if a single choice had to be made.

The Doors were of course one of my favourites from long ago, particularly the whole of the "Celebration of the Lizard" on the double live album, how nice it was to view them again and discover that they still hold undisputed thrall over me.

As for Cannibal Corpse it is just so pleasant to see the long hair billowing in unison, one wonders how the baldie headed one feels on stage when he is at times the only guy with a visible face.

But this is all by the by in reality, since my thoughts are mainly on how I bought the Dixie Chicks new album and was delighted to find that it was going well up the listings. And yet the tickets for their concerts around the States are selling very badly, are they still suffering because of a single poorly thought out comment made by the lead singer in concert some time ago? I personally am not a great believer in protesting, although many years ago I did walk in a few "Ban the Bomb" demonstrations, always feeling slightly embarrassed for some reason, nevertheless I strongly suggest that all those concerned about the American President and his desires to invade all and sundry should immediately go and buy tickets to see the Dixie Chicks as a statement of policy, if nothing more. And should you use the tickets you will have an extremely enjoyable evening in any case; quite apart from your helping to prevent the return of days when such signs as this were rife.