Finished At Last!

August 22, 2018March 2, 2020 / fgrtommo / 1 Comment

Those of you following this blog for a while will know that I have been painting the woodwork in our ‘TV Room’ – new shutters, skirting and panelling and the old doors – for the last 8 months. This week, I finally finished!

Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) remains astonished at how long I have taken over this but at least she hasn’t changed her mind about the dark blue colour during the protracted execution and she likes the result. The parts I did towards the end of the exercise are better than the early efforts but it looks alright if you don’t look too closely. We now have to paint the walls. LSW is planning to impress me up by doing those in a matter of a few days. Maybe hiring a professional is a better idea; we’ll see.

Of course, the primary reason why it took so long to complete this apparently simple painting task, apart from my inexperience, was my reluctance to devote more than 1-2 hours a day to the (admittedly intermittent) work. Although I’m still a bit frustrated by the patchiness of the end product, I did enjoy the work overall. I especially liked that I could paint to the rhythm of some of my CDs. I’ve always wanted a job where I could listen to my favourite music at the same time as working, and retirement has enabled that!

Now I have finished, I have to find a productive way of utilising the hours per week that are freed up. No problem; there are plenty of competing options and in any case there are lots of events already in the diary over the next couple months.

For example, the football season has re-started. I plan to attend several Forest Green Rovers (FGR) games, both home and away, in the next few months. While I attended the Cambridge Folk Festival, which I talked about in my last blog post, FGR enhanced my enjoyment by winning their first game. Somehow, the music seemed to sound a lot better once I knew FGR had secured three points!

Since then I have seen three games and we remain unbeaten; a very promising start. I especially enjoyed our win at Swindon who have become local rivals as we have risen and they have fallen (they were in the Premier League just 25 years ago). I enjoyed joining in on the mischievous chants: ‘Premier League to village team/Forest Green’ and ‘Your ground’s too big for you’; it is, as the picture below shows.

Swindon’s Empty Don Rogers Stand During Warm Up Versus FGR – How The Mighty Have Fallen

Between the football commitments, LSWs work and the rush to complete the TV Room paintwork (so I could show it off to weekend visitors from London and then my parents when they visited us), LSW and I have resumed our ‘days out’.

We really enjoyed a trip to East Somerset. We went primarily to see the Alexander Calder exhibition at Hauser & Wirth in Somerset. This was notable for containing a large number of personal, functional items designed and made by Calder alongside a splendid sample of his sculpture and mobiles. It was an excellent exhibition and a visit to Hauser & Wirth, including the adjoining garden, is always a treat.

Piet Oudolf Gardens At Hauser & Wirth

Following a very good lunch at the light and airy Chapel in Bruton, the sun came out and we paid an impromptu visit to Iford Manor Garden. This was a rather unexpected joy. It was an intimate, Italianate garden full of 100 year old mock-Italian buildings adorned with original, imported Italian sculpture and friezes. It adjoined an archetypally English river scene and old, golden manor buildings, and looked wonderful in the sun.

Iford Manor And Gardens

More day trips like this – as well as longer excursions once LSW’s work is on pause – are being planned to fill my retirement itinerary.

Trips, Royals and Trophies

May 26, 2018May 26, 2018 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

Recently, Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) and I have tried to arrange at least one mid-week trip out from home each week. This is, as LSW puts it, to mark that I am now retired and so have the flexibility to visit places during the week rather than during the more crowded weekends. These have to fit around her continuing part time work commitments and, to a lesser extent, my trips to London but we have managed them with reasonable regularity.

Last week, we capitalised on the excellent weather and visited two gardens in the North Cotswolds. Bourton House Gardens is relatively new having been laid out and planted around a beautiful 18th century manor house just 30 years ago. The colourful flower beds, potted tulips, box bush topiary and knot garden were inspiring. Best of all, for me, was a walk around an arboretum, with a simple pamphlet guide, that helped us decide which sorts of trees to plant in our own field alongside the few fruit trees we have already established. Current favourites are Whitebeam and Poplar.

Bourton House Gardens

We then went to Snowshill Manor. This turned out to be an interesting, coincidental adjunct to my pondering a couple of weeks ago about the accumulation of material goods and de-cluttering. Prior to being given to the National Trust, the house and garden was owned by Charles Wade, a compulsive collector of items recording craft and workmanship. He lived in a small cottage adjacent to the medieval manor house which he bought specifically to accommodate his large and varied collection of cabinets, artwork, costumes, musical instruments, tools and other artefacts. The dusting challenge for his housekeeper and, now, the National Trust, must be huge!

Part Of Charles Wade’s Collection (Masks And Musical Instruments) at Snowshill Manor

Part of Charles Wade’s Collection (Masks And Musical Instruments Are Shown Here) At Snowshill Manor

The collection, and his compact personal accommodation, were interesting but even better were the gardens and the views from them. In weather such as that we have enjoyed through much of May, England can look marvellous and it certainly was in the Cotswolds that day.

Snowshill Manor Gardens

We rounded off the trip with a visit to Daylesford luxury farm shop which LSW loves. The shops – even the grocery shelves and the food counters – look rather like art shows. The prices are almost prohibitively geared to out-of-London trippers but the quality is high and several pieces inspired ideas for things that we might try to replicate in some way at home. We stuck with those ideas rather than buy anything more than lunch in the sun.

LSW really enjoyed the Royal wedding last week. Whilst not being particularly interested in the Royal Family myself, I can understand her positive sentiments about the wedding. The bride and groom looked adoring and very happy. Meghan’s mixed race heritage is a welcome extension to the Royal’s outlook, diversity and modernism.

LSW watched the wedding proceedings for hours and then watched the replays. At one point she was watching a replay while I was watching a replay of Forest Green Rovers’ promotion playoff-winning performance at Wembley exactly a year ago. We both had tears of joy in our eyes!

This season, Forest Green Rovers (FGR) barely avoided relegation from their newly elevated status in League 2 of the English Football League. That was good enough for me. The performance was burnished for me by my pride in winning the FGR Prediction League competition (for the second time in 10 years). The competition trophy will have to be found a small space somewhere as other stuff is bundled off to car-boot sales, charity shops or the dump – but only for a year since I doubt I will be so lucky to win next season.

The Forest Green Rovers Prediction League Trophy

The Forest Green Rovers Football Club Prediction League Trophy (The Colin Gardner Shield)

The Cost of Entertainment

April 13, 2018April 13, 2018 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

So, still not much Spring in the air and the water-courses have been full. But lambs are starting to pop out and Spring weather is apparently going to finally arrive next week. Such a relief!

Full Local Water Courses and New Lambs

Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) and I went to the Theatre Royal in Bath last week to see Mary Stuart starring Juliette Stephenson and Lia Williams. The last time I went to the theatre was years ago when I saw War Horse in London. I really can’t recall when, before that, I saw a play. In retrospect, it’s surprising that I didn’t do more theatre-going while I was in London – one of the theatre capitals of the world. I love cinema, which is perhaps the closest art form, and I love live music which provides similar intimacy. So why not go to more theatre?

Part of the reason is that a large part of good acting is in facial expression. My eyesight is just not good enough to be able to discern the subtlety of such expression from the distances I expect to find myself away from the stage and so I feel I will miss out. That was true in Bath earlier this week but, in truth, the performance was very enjoyable anyway.

The other reason for not going to many shows in London was my perception of the expense of the ticket relative to my knowledge of the theatre and, therefore, my chances of enjoying the experience. However, the costs of going to the theatre are lower outside of London and we knew the play LSW and I saw in Bath would be good because we’d seen the reviews and it had already had a successful run in London. In any case, I have been thinking more about the relative cost of the entertainments I choose.

The tickets for Theatre Royal cost £33 each. That is quite a lot of money in absolute terms and, given that the theatre has a capacity of 900 and was packed, that creates a decent revenue stream for the theatre. But then we were seeing a couple of near-top actresses, and a cast of 20 or so, all directed and acting in front of a backdrop and lighting that all needs to be maintained and manned. This production is a success but not all are and so maybe Mary Stuart has to cover losses on other plays. Also, the play was a pretty compelling three hours long – so that’s around £11 per hour of (dramatic, absorbing and memorable) entertainment.

A week before, I had travelled up to London to see Forest Green Rovers (FGR) Football Club lose against our relegation rivals Barnet. The ticket cost £23 which is above average for English Football League 2. For that, over 90 minutes, I saw a poor game of football with a bad result for us. I can’t say I enjoyed the experience and it cost of over £15 per hour. Of course, had FGR played well and won, I would have been overjoyed and very pleased to have seen the game. But FGR’s away form is such that I could have expected disappointment.

Small scale live music gigs are very good relative value. Many I have attended in recent years have cost less than £10 and, with support bands, provide around two hours of entertainment at £5-8 per hour. The latest band I saw was a (supposedly) up and coming band called Goat Girl. For the cost of a CD (£11), I got in to see them live in the intimate surroundings of Rough Trade East record store in Shoreditch, London. It was a lively hour, I liked much of the music and it was very good value (given I have the CD memento).

Goat Girl at Rough Trade (With Goat Props!)

Of course, the quality of music venue (the comfy seats available at Theatre Royal Bath are not an option in the small venues I tend to go to!) and the quality of the music is variable. Generally though, I will have listened to the band on Spotify or CD in advance and have enough knowledge to aim at events I enjoy. The good value of live music has, for me, been pretty consistent over several years.

The other thing I did on my football and music trip to London was go to a couple of art galleries. Both shows, at the Hayward Gallery and the Barbican, entertained me for about 90 minutes. By far the most interesting was the excellent exhibition of Andreas Gursky photographs at the Hayward. It provided a fascinating insight into the work of someone I had never heard of before at a rate of about £10 per hour. Thinking back to other exhibitions I have seen recently, that rate of entertainment cost per hour seems about the norm for me. I like free art shows but having to pay focuses my attention of what I am seeing.

Example of Andreas Gursky’s Photos: Paris, Montparnasse

Further Example of Andreas Gursky’s Photos: Bahrain Racetrack

Exhibition: Another Kind of Life, Photography on the Margins (Here, A Nigerian Man With His Hyena by Peter Hugo)

I might consider further the relative value of other entertainments such as restaurants, cinema, watching catch-up TV, gardening and walking (which is certainly cheapest!) Clearly cost per hour is not the only factor. However, from the past week I conclude that:

Theatre (out of London at least) is better value than I previously thought – I really enjoyed it
Music events are high value entertainment provided I keep my knowledge of what I am going to see current
Art exhibitions are good entertainment value despite the high absolute cost of tickets; indeed, I suspect the fact there is a high cost drives me to concentrate more on what I am seeing and get more out of it
following Forest Green Rovers away from home is bad value unless we win (just twice in the last 9 months!).

Nonetheless, the pain of the football fan is to carry on ploughing the same furrow regardless of results so I’ll be handing over my cash at Cheltenham on Saturday and hoping for value for money and, rather desperately, three points for FGR.

February Ups and Downs

February 12, 2018February 12, 2018 / fgrtommo / 2 Comments

Long Suffering Wife (LSW) and I have decided February is the month to avoid in the UK. There are just too many dismal weather days in February. We will escape to Cape Town’s drought at the end of February but will plan next year’s holiday abroad to be a bit earlier.

Actually, this week, the weather has been very variable rather than poor. We have had clear blue skies and relentlessly grey drizzle on almost alternate days throughout the last week. LSW and I even managed to get a pretty massive bonfire going to clear a load of long standing bramble piles, broken pallets and old fence posts.

Bonfire As An Art Work? No, Just A Task On The List Done

Like the weather, my week has also been rather up and down.

The lowest point was travelling to Newport in Wales for a Forest Green Rovers game. It was postponed about 15 minutes after I arrived due to a waterlogged pitch (or the fact that Newport were tired after their FA Cup tie in midweek against Tottenham Hotspur depending on one’s level of scepticism). What a waste of time and money!

Newport In The Rain On The Way To A Cancelled Match. Grim!

The week had started well with a visit to my parents in Nottingham. I travel up to see them too infrequently but, now I have retired, I have no excuse. I will take the rusting old Saab up to them more often in the future. The journey up and back wasn’t without its delays but it’s a relatively easy trip. I drive very little – much to LSW’s annoyance – and I had forgotten how good it is to have the stereo and my favourite CDs in the car; it’s a real music cocoon and, in it, no-one cares about the volume except me.

It was good to see my parents. They are in their mid-eighties but continue to live independently and well. Despite my Mum’s troublesome back and a recently replaced knee, they are still mobile and going to occasional films and concerts.

Mum and Dad At Home

They took me to a local gastro-pub that was a cut above the average. One of the things we chatted about was retirement and my Dad’s experience of going through that about 20 years ago. He thought the lessons I felt I had learnt that I described in this blog in December were fair. Like me, he didn’t miss work after retirement. However, he now works very part time in a charity shop and that is something I might consider at some point.

The only wrinkle arising from the evening in a pub was that I was tempted to drink on what I had planned to be a non-alcohol day and to help my Mum out with her (very tasty) venison main course. This early in the year, I think I can spare a bit of slippage against my New Year resolutions regarding drink and weight. Anyway, it’s not every week that I’ll be enjoying my parents company. It was a very good evening.

I slept in my sister’s old bedroom. Like much of the rest of the upstairs, it contains a lot of books. My Dad is gradually reducing the number but I sense that working in a charity bookshop is not helping with the reduction process; he likes books! De-cluttering is not a focus for my parents and it was nice to see lots of things that I remember from my childhood.

Fred: Not My First Teddy Bear But My Biggest

Back at home, LSW maintains a pretty tight, minimalist ship. I brought back a few old board games with some trepidation of her reaction to having more ‘stuff’. I stashed them out of the way in the top floor cupboards but have promised to do a cull of old toys to compensate.

After my return from Nottingham, LSW and I visited Ledbury in Herefordshire with her Mum. It was one of those grey February days but pleasant enough; we’ll return later in the year. Most interesting was a brief sojourn in an unprepossessing pub while I was waiting for LSW and Mother-in-Laws’ shopping to conclude. The pub just had an unsmiling barman, someone determinedly playing the slot machine, a few near-silent individuals standing at the bar and another, like me, sitting at tables at the sides. The pub was ominously silent for long periods but conversations would occasionally break out that were dominated by references to fights and ‘trouble’; it was a glimpse into a different world…..

Ledbury Church Street

I can sense LSW getting impatient with the lack of TV room decoration progress – I need to make the most of the unappealing February weather by getting on with that in this coming week. I have no excuse there either.

Bottoms Up!

September 24, 2017 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

Followers of the blog will recall that Forest Green Rovers (FGR) is the football team I follow – rather too avidly in Long Suffering Wife’s (LSW’s) view. You will also know that FGR are the most sustainable and green football club in the world (see here) and that it won promotion to the English Football League proper for the first time just 4 months ago. The winning of the playoff final at Wembley was an incredibly emotional high point.

2017 National League Playoff Final: Forest Green Rovers 3 Tranmere Rovers 1

Now we are up against the ‘big boys’ of League 2 and we are struggling. A couple of Saturdays ago I went to fellow strugglers Port Vale (north of Stoke) to see the bottom two clubs thrash out a draw. The scale of the ground underlined what a step up we have made.

I thought from the warm ups that there was going to be a concession to both sides’ lack of quality by having two goals to aim at each (see picture) but that proved wrong. We played out a 1-1 draw and, following another defeat since, we are now at the bottom of the league.

FGR Warming Up at Port : Having Two Goals Didn’t Help

None of this is particularly pertinent to my recent retirement since I have supported FGR for almost 20 years. However, retirement has affected the pattern of my attendance at games. Now I can travel on the supporters coach to more away games and get to see home games in midweek not just at the weekends. Also, I can get to Supporters Club meetings and the informative, midweek forums with the Manager and Chairman.

FGRs Away Supporters Coach – The Height of Supporter Luxury!

On the other hand, when LSW and I are away on our more extended holidays, I will miss large chunks of the football season. While we are on our way to Australia and back, I shall miss 5, and possibly 6, FGR games – more than I have ever missed in succession before. I regret that but I am hoping to see a football match in Brisbane and, by the time I am back, I’m confident FGR won’t be propping up the league table any more. Fingers crossed!

Buongiorno!

August 9, 2017 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

I have started to put a bit more structure into my days.

Previously, at work, most days were run around a cycle of regular meetings. Lots of more ad hoc meetings were inserted between these and, when possible, time was blocked out to catch up on the avalanche of mail or to develop some presentation or other. Time didn’t always exactly fly by but it rarely felt my own; there was always some pressure to fit in one more meeting or to respond to a deadline or request.

Now there are lots of things I could do. Indeed, there are lots of things I want to do. But, in most cases, the time pressure isn’t there; ‘tomorrow’ will do. As ever, where there are important deadlines (for example, choosing my Fantasy Football Team for the new season by this Friday!) the tasks are tending to drift to the last minute. Some things never change perhaps!

So, to add a bit of drive and structure, I have exercised my penchant for lists by extending my retirement ‘bucket list’ into a more sophisticated set of lists of things to do – today, this week and medium term. Each day, I am moving the weekly items into the daily list and then challenging myself to complete at least the majority.

Some daily items are semi-permanent. From this week, I have included Learning Italian amongst these items. This is in preparation for a potentially extended visit to Italy next year. I plan to spend 45 minutes a day working my way through an Italian for Absolute Beginners book and CD. In practice, this might only be on days when LSW is out of the house and so out of earshot of my embarrassingly slow progress. Given my paltry linguistic skills, learning basic Italian is the toughest thing on my retirement ‘bucket list’ and, having stumbled my way to page 5, I am as daunted as ever. But it’s on the daily list so I’m giving it a go!

By the way, for the minority who may be interested in how Forest Green Rovers got on at the weekend in their first League 2 game: we drew. It was an exciting, entertaining game in front of well over 3,000 fans. What seems clear already is that not only is the quality of the football superior in this higher league, but also that the refereeing is significantly better. So far so good although after a draw and then a loss last night, we could do with a win sometime soon.

Meanwhile: arrivederci!

FGR's First English Football League Game

Australia – We Are Coming!

August 4, 2017August 4, 2017 / fgrtommo / 3 Comments

One month into retirement and it’s generally been an unremarkable week as I have rested my dodgy knee.

However, we have had news from Australia from our Youngest Son (YS) that his application for a visa extension has been granted. He will be staying down under for at least another year. That new certainty has allowed Long Suffering Wife (LSW) and I to book a holiday there during which we will be able to see him (and his girlfriend, who is the one actually doing the job Australia needs) in his new found paradise.

What is great of course is that we can go for longer than would have been the case had I not been retired. We still have to fit the holiday around LSW’s part time work commitments but we will have almost all of October to skip through Singapore and Hong Kong and spend time around Brisbane and Melbourne.

We have friends and relatives in Singapore, and YS has been based in Brisbane for over a year now, so we are going to be well guided there. However, any ideas for ‘must-do’ things in Hong Kong and Melbourne would be welcome.

The only down-side is that I will miss several Forest Green Rovers games while I’m away. The build up to our first season in the Football League proper has been impressive. The sustainability and green agenda espoused by the Chairman, allied to the fact that the club represents the smallest settlement in the country, has attracted a lot of media interest (for example: The Guardian: Forest Green Rovers in League 2 and slots on Sky, ESPN and even Al Jazeera TV.

Last season’s playoff win at Wembley was so emotional but tomorrow we will find out if the team are likely to back up the recent hype with quality performances on the pitch in League 2! Of course there is trepidation about what the new season might bring. We could win or lose our first game 4-0 – there are just no benchmarks yet. Either way, the build-up is tense and exciting. I can barely wait!

Victory at Wembley 2017

Changing Routines

July 18, 2017July 24, 2023 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

Two (relatively) big events have occurred in the last week. I saw my first two Forest Green Rovers Football Club games of the new season (both friendlies against much smaller clubs). The new football season is starting at last and I have my ticket for our first game in League 2. I can’t wait.

Goal!

Brimscombe & Thrupp vs Forest Green Rovers

Brimscombe & Thrupp vs FGR

Second thing was the celebration of the replacement of the collapsed and then stolen local post box. I’m now in a rural community (Downend, Horsley) that comes together for things like this and pulls out all the stops – rather different from the polite insularity of the Barbican in London. So, we had our local MP, speeches, balloons, tea and cake including one decorated as a parcel; lovely!

Celebrating Reinstatement of Downend’s Post Box

Cake to celebrate reinstatement of Downend’s post box

I wouldn’t say that I have found a new routine yet but there has certainly been breakage of the old one. Obviously the structure of weekends and weekdays has gone. As someone already retired told me, “Every day is a Sunday”. Also the routine of getting up and changed for work and then the whole structure of work, coffee, work, lunch, work, tea, work, home has gone. So far, that is not missed at all!

I have kept some things the same. For example, I’m still getting out of bed pretty early, I’m drinking coffee in the morning (if only to keep the addict headaches away!) and I’m only having bread at weekends. Some things that I only did at the weekends are now happening every day such as the 50 minute return walk to the local town (Nailsworth) to get the newspaper. I’m a creature of habit at heart.

Some routines I’d like to preserve have been harder to maintain. For the last 12 years I have been counting the number of no-alcohol days I have each year. The intention has been to increase them each year. The graphs I maintain show I have been partially successful over the years but this year’s target of 125 days is in serious jeopardy now I have retired.

It’s just so tempting – especially in this sunny weather – to slip onto the terrace with a beer or stroll up to the pub for a pint (or two). The temptation is even greater after I have undertaken things on LSW’s list of activities long postponed in anticipation of my retirement. A start was made yesterday to clearing out the stables – starting with twenty 30kg sacks of render that was massively over-ordered last year and is now past its use by date. After filling a skip with stuff like that, a beer was definitely required! And so another no-alcohol day slides out of reach….. oh well….

My Retirement Journey

I've Retired! What Next?

Forest Green Rovers