Friends

October 8, 2025 / fgrtommo / 5 Comments

A couple of recent events have got me thinking about friends. Friendship is a nebulous and sometimes transitory thing. I looked up a definition on Wikipedia:

Friendship is a relationship of mutual affection between people. It is a stronger form of interpersonal bond than an “acquaintance” or an “association”, such as a classmate, neighbour, coworker, or colleague.

Although there are many forms of friendship, certain features are common to many such bonds, such as choosing to be with one another, enjoying time spent together, and being able to engage in a positive and supportive role to one another.

Using that definition, I can see that I have been fortunate and have had a lot of friends in my life. I’ve been supported by, and enjoyed time with, friends at school, university, work and, now, in retirement. I have not felt the need for a lot of friends at any one time. I seem to prefer relatively deep friendships with a few rather than broad but shallower relationships with many.

Painting Depicting Friendship By Samuel Peploe (Scottish Colourist We Encountered In an Exhibition Of Scottish Colourists Earlier This Year) — *^{Painting Depicting Friendship By Samuel Peploe (Scottish Colourist We Encountered In An Exhibition at Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh Earlier This Year)}*

Having said that, two of my biggest life regrets are to have failed to keep in touch with any school friends and not making the most of a network of colleagues at work. I would like to know what some of my best mates at school are doing with their lives now and whether we still have things in common. And putting more effort into maintaining a network of work colleagues would have made my life in jobs, and between jobs, a little easier and, perhaps, more rewarding.

Two of my four main friends at university have died recently. The preparation for and conduct of a memorial service for one of these a few weeks ago, has been one of the events that has got me contemplating the value and meaning of friendship. Indeed, these deaths got me thinking more about mortality as well as friendship.

The remaining two best friends from my university era and I got together in London for lunch and a few beers to discuss our prospective speeches at our friend’s memorial service. There was a lot of catching up on what we were each doing, a bit of nostalgia and many funny reminiscences. But what struck me most was that, despite not meeting either of these guys for many months, we slipped into a shared history and conversation as if we talked together all the time.

We have been in contact with each other with varying degrees of intensity over 50 years and there have been many events together over that time. However, the other surprising thing for me was how much of that shared experience I have forgotten. As the old stories came out over the drinks, I could have sworn that I hadn’t been at several of the occasions that were being recalled. But the photos did not lie; I was usually there!

The memorial service itself was in Oxford. Jane and I were able to spend a very pleasant morning there before the memorial ceremony. Oxford centre was busy with tourists and a fresh batch of students. In a bit of free time, I visited the site of the old castle – a large mound next to the newer castle but one without good views across the city as I had hoped. I also strolled out of the crowds along the Oxford and Coventry canal and then through the pretty and interesting area of Oxford called Jericho. I had a very calming hour or so.

The ceremony in the Oxford Friends Meeting House was moving and the speeches (including my short one I think) were well received. Then we adjourned briefly to a packed pub and continued some of the reminiscences and the catching up with current lives. The whole process was very friendship affirming even though we had just lost a very good friend.

Post Memorial Service Catching Up — *^{Post-Memorial Service Catching Up}*

It’s been harder to keep up friendships with people I met during my 30 or so years in London since I moved completely out of the city a few years after retirement. I managed to stay in touch with a small group of friends in London who met every few months to work our way through the alphabet of cuisines. I made it to most of those sessions but they came to a natural end once we reached ‘Z’. I’ll need to redouble efforts to stay in touch with the participants.

Meanwhile, I have invested time in building up a new friendship group in and around our local village. And yes, building friendships does take effort and time. I have been lucky after moving to Gloucestershire post-retirement in that this is Jane, my wife’s, home territory. She has a large network of friends here and that provided a ready-made group of acquaintances.

Also, many of her family are based nearby. And, of course, family can be friends even though, apart from one’s partner, they are not chosen. Jane’s sister has recently moved to the local area and I’m looking forward to getting to know her and her husband a lot better as we become able to meet up more often. Plus, one of the things I am continually thankful for is that the relationships I have with my sons and their partners is akin to great friendships; I feel we both get on very well with them all.

My strongest local friendships have been built through my personal involvement in the local football team (Forest Green Rovers) and village events including Parish Council meetings, the Village Fete and Festival, the Pub Quiz and Crawl and, especially, the village’s Horsley Climate Action Network. These friendships may not have the longevity of some from my education or working life but they are some of the best.

Variable Weather During Prep For This Year's Village Fete — *^{Variable Weather During Prep For This Year’s Village Fete}*

This leads me onto the second recent event that got me thinking about friendship.

I am a frequent attendee at the local Talk Club (a session for men who generally don’t talk about feelings much, to talk about feelings). When this was on pause two summers ago, one of the other attendees and I decided that we would continue meeting up on walks. We would use these to keep tabs on each other thoughts and feelings and provide any support we could while enjoying the countryside, keeping our fitness up and providing custom to a few of the local pubs. That continued until my friend needed to go into hospital to have a fairly major operation.

*^{Peaceful, Sunny Scene On The Walk To A Friend}*

A month or so after that, I walked over to his neighbouring village to see him. It was a beautiful sunny day and a long leisurely walk. On the way, I was struck by how much I had missed him and had enjoyed our chats. Even after almost 70 years of making friends (and losing them again), it is still possible – indeed, easy – to make and maintain friends if one puts in the time and effort and are lucky enough to find people who are open, who listen as well as talk, and are fun to be with.

A Birthday and Christmas Prep

December 20, 2024 / fgrtommo / 1 Comment

Having grandchildren coming to stay with us at Christmas has added a higher than ever level of expectation of fun around the festive period. I keep envisaging their excitement when the big day comes. For example, I’m looking forward to the wonderment of First Grandchild (who is now three years old) when the sherry, mince pie and carrots we will leave out for Father Christmas and his reindeer disappear overnight, to be replaced by present-filled stockings. We are ready!

But first, the last few weeks have contained much enjoyment of different kinds. First there was FG’s third birthday and a visit to Edinburgh to share in that. Then we had friends from London staying with us, followed by a choral concert in the nearby town of Tetbury and a test of our grandparenting skills while looking after Second Grandchild unsupervised.

In between, there has been preparation for Christmas, a bit of physiotherapy for my knee, wrapping up of my volunteering duties for the year at the local school and food bank, and the writing of a draft Parish Nature Action Plan for the Parish Council. It’s not work but it’s felt quite busy.

As usual, we loved our time in Edinburgh. The trip up in the car was pretty smooth (though the freezing cold weather slowing operation of some of the electric vehicle chargers on the way back was problematic).

*^{Freezing Weather On The Way South From Edinburgh – Lovely To See But Limiting On EV Battery Capacity And Charging Rates!}*

Once in Edinburgh, the hospitality Eldest Son (ES) and his wife lay on was as lovely as ever and further enhanced by their newly refurbished kitchen. It was great too to see ES’s parents in law, as we usually do, over a big Indian takeaway. We got out and about to see some of the sights that are now becoming familiar to us. Plus, of course, the centrepiece of our visit was FG’s birthday party.

FG’s birthday party was shared with that of his best male friend and it was very successful. The bouncy castle was very popular and FG spent a lot of time on that. There were a variety of other toys and activities around the room and these were also well used. The brutal beating of a Piñata in the form of a cardboard donkey full of sweets felt a little incongruous and unsettling but was a highlight for the birthday boys. For the adults, there were a few beers to provide some relaxation amid the hubbub of the kids scurrying around and the simple, raw excitement in the room.

*^{Along The Water Of Leith Near Dean Villag}*^{e, Edinburgh}

I skipped out of some of the post-party clearing up to watch Forest Green Rovers Football Club play (and win!) a vital top-of-the-table game on the television. I also skipped out on one, sunny afternoon to walk down the Water of Leith to Dean Village and then to the Modern Art Galleries.

*^{View From Outside Modern One Gallery, Edinburgh}*

At Modern One gallery (there are two separate national galleries of modern art) I saw an exhibition by Everlyn Nicodemus. It was a larger exhibition than I expected (especially given that it was free) and, by the end, I was also surprised by its variety. I can’t confess to have been moved much by the work but a lot of it was wonderfully colourful and vibrant. The whole experience of walking around the exhibition with so few others was quietly pleasing. It always seems worthwhile visiting Edinburgh’s art galleries.

*^{Some Of The Colourful Paintings By Everlyn Nicodemus}*

We also always seem to make time to take FG to the Royal Botanic Garden and the National Museum of Scotland. The Botanic Gardens are great year-round and FG likes the visits to the café there. FG also loves both seeing the exhibits at the National Museum – especially the natural history section – and getting to and from it on the bus. Watching FG’s mind take in all the sights in the museum is very rewarding and I never tire of going there.

*^{Natural History Hall At The National Museum Of Scotland}*

Next month we are visiting Edinburgh again and, this time, for a month. It will be a very different experience our usual long weekends with ES and his wife. I hope the Air BnB we have chosen is as good as it looks.

Although the weather is bound to be wintery, our stay will, at one level, feel like an extended holiday and we will be a couple of tourists taking in the sights again. But, on another level, it is a bit of a trial run for seeing if we would like to move more substantially to Edinburgh. We are both excited by the prospect of spending more time in the city; Edinburgh is such a wonderful place and being near ES’s family for a few weeks will enable a different relationship with all of them, at least temporarily.

Back home, we entertained our London guests with extended chat, Jane’s cooking, plenty of drink, a lunch at The Woolpack Inn in Slad (in our opinion, the best local pub food) and a walk by the Severn to see the Purton Hulks.

*^{Along The Canal Walk Towards The Severn And The Purton Hulks}*

These ‘hulks’ are boats deliberately run ashore and filled with debris and concrete to form a barrier between the tidal Severn River and the adjacent canal. They create a rather ghostly atmosphere and an interesting historical distraction from the huge views up and down the Severn estuary.

*^{One Of The Purton Hulks Overlooking The Severn Estuary (Tide Out)}*

Our entertaining skills were also tested when we looked after Second Grandchild (SG) for a few hours while Middle Son and his fiancée went out for lunch – their first outing together without SG since he arrived. It turned out to be a breeze. SG seemed curious about us substituting for his parents but calm and quietly playful. When he refused to have a nap in his nursery, I took him out in his buggy. While we were out, he was attentive to his surroundings, regarded me with apparent interest and occasional smiles, and then gently fell asleep. What a pleasure retirement is when one can do things like that with a grandchild!

Now Christmas is approaching. To get in the mood we went to a choral concert in a very Christmassy Tetbury. The concert was in the main church which is very spacious and dominated by rows of high, enclosed pews. The church looked marvellous with so many candles lit on huge chandeliers and elsewhere, and the concert sounded great when the choir was in full blooded flow.

*^{The Standish Consort And Ensemble La Notte at St Mary’s Church, Tetbury}*

Now we look forward to our sons arriving for Christmas. Youngest Son arrives later today (unfortunately without new wife who is bound to Belfast by their dog for this trip). Then Eldest Son’s entourage arrives next week before Middle Son, his fiancée and SG arrive on Christmas Eve. The semi-planned Christmas schedule is full of fun and games, walks and meals, Secret Santa, and sitting around the wood-burner and kitchen playing and chatting with the little ones and adults alike.

Now I have retired and I have no background (or foreground!) thoughts of work to contend with during the festive period, I can focus on all of the above. It’s a treat and a luxury.

Resolutions And Houghton Hall

July 26, 2024 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

I have made patchy progress in adhering to my 2024 New Year resolutions during the first half of this year. I’m ok with alcohol targets and weight management. As planned, I’m spending more quality time reading books and I’m listening to less (largely agitating or depressing) news on the radio and television. However, I’m not doing enough back exercises despite grumbling about a stiff back. Also, my resolve to step up my creative activity has been weak since my visible darning of a load of socks and my devising of an Easter treasure hunt for First Grandchild.

Additionally, since a good start early in the year, Jane and I have not been consistent in addressing our joint aim of embarking on more short trips away from home. We set this target with the intention of responding to periods of good weather and our relatively flexible diaries to see bits of the UK we are not familiar with. In part that has been because the abnormally cool, wet weather hasn’t been particularly conducive to such thinking. Also, my diary has been less flexible since I took up a new commitment on Wednesday afternoons to listen to children read as part of the local ‘Read With Me’ scheme.

We have done much better as the weather has improved and the school term drew to a close. We have followed up our trip to Sissinghurst, Rye and Lewes with another lengthy excursion to Houghton Hall and Gardens in north Norfolk, and then on to visit friends in north Suffolk. On all these travels this month, we were blessed with very good weather.

Houghton Hall was impressive, the gardens-cum-sculpture park there were interesting and it was great to see our longstanding friends again.

^{Houghton Hall West Wing (From The Cafe)}

We left early with the intention of arriving at the Houghton Hall at opening time but, after encountering tedious traffic jams around Kings Lynn, arrived a little after midday. The car park was already extending into the overflow area but the grounds of the house are so huge that, once we got into them past the café and exhibitions (including a truly remarkable exhibition of the Cholmondeley Collection of Model Soldiers) in the splendid West Wing, the crowds seemed to melt away.

^{The Remarkable Model Soldier Collection of the 6th Marquess of Cholmondeley Spanning Two Densely Packed Rooms}

The gardens double up as a sculpture park and, immediately, we could see Antony Gormley statues dotting the acres of lawn. Jane explained that the 100 statues comprising his work called ‘Time Horizon’ had been installed so that they were all standing at the same height above sea level. Given the undulating land of the gardens, this concept meant that some statues barely were barely visible – with just their heads showing – while others were on tall plinths. We have seen the multiple statues (of himself) several times before in a variety of settings but this idea of consistent altitude was a new and amusing one for me.

^{Antony Gormley Statues – All At The Same Height Above Sea Level – At Houghton Hall Gardens}

In the South Wing there was a small, temporary exhibition of Magdalene Odundo’s work called ‘Metamorphosis and Transformation’, an installation of blown glass vessels apparently based on an ancient Egyptian ear stud found. That was impressive although I found some of her other work set out in the main house elegant but a little distracting in its contrast with the heavy furnishings and wall art there.

*^{Metamorphosis and Transformation (2011) By Magdalene Odundo}*

Elsewhere in the gardens, we saw sculpture by other artists we have encountered before such as Richard Long, Sean Scully and Rachel Whiteread, plus several others I wasn’t familiar with. I particularly enjoyed ‘Sybil Hedge’ by Anya Gallaccio. This was an unusual ‘sculpture’ made from a large, winding beech hedge that worked well in the large scale of the garden.

*^{A Section Of ‘Sybil Hedge’ By Anya Gallaccio At Houghton Hall Gardens}*

The Palladian style house was bathed in sun but, inside, the rooms were dark to preserve the furnishings, tapestries and artworks. As Jane remarked, despite the size of the rooms, they felt almost claustrophobic after the expanses of the grounds. The tapestries that adorned many of the walls contributed to that feeling but they were remarkably well preserved and had interesting content. The sumptuous rooms, with their blurry views out onto the lawns and deer park though original, handmade glass, were well worth the extra visit fee.

The highlight of the visit for me was the Walled Garden. This was beautiful at every turn and a riot of colour. An interesting twist was that vegetables were grown between the flowers and, here too, Gormley’s statues (on plinths here because of the lower altitude) were watching over us. It was clear that the volunteers and gardeners that manage the garden are not blighted by the multitude of slugs and snails as we are back at home; everything looked vibrant and healthy.

From Houghton Hall we drove south to Eye in Suffolk. By this time, we needed to charge up the car. We have noticed a huge improvement in the availability of electric vehicle charging points during our last few trips around the United Kingdom. Certainly, both our charge ups on this trip were very quick and easy.

*^{Another of Gormley’s Statues, This Time In Houghton Hall Looking Out At Others (Incredibly, Given The Amount Of Work Involved In Setting It Up, The Installation Is Only Until October 2024)}*

We arrived at our friend’s house in time for drinks in the sunshine. There was also time for an evening tour of their garden, the private allotments adjoining the garden which they own and manage, and the entrance to the woodland/wetlands beyond the allotments that are now owned by our friends and others in the community. The various types of land they look after are lovely slices of nature. They are also a labour of love although one task not needed is slug management – their chickens prodding around in the allotments seem to deal with that!

The excellent and copious hospitality we were given in terms of food and drink put my New Year resolution targets for weight and alcohol consumption under pressure but, as ever, it was great to catch up with old friends. Plus, our target to have more days away from home exploring the UK was helped along.

Breaking the Routine – To Visit and Be Visited

June 11, 2023October 7, 2024 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

After Jane’s Mother’s funeral early last month, we had visits from my Dad and my sister and then my Best Man (BM). A quiet week followed before we headed off to Belfast to see Youngest Son (YS) and his partner. I’ve written a lot about my retirement settling me into a new structure of daily routine but these visits were a nice break from that and forced changes to our settled pattern of everyday life – a beneficial shake up.

It had been quite a while since my Dad and sister had visited us. Whilst there have been no structural changes to the house or garden since their last visit, the garden has matured. The weather was largely fine and the garden was approaching its best in terms of colour and variety. This, despite the loss of several small shrubs and many of the ornamental grasses during the cold and wet of late Winter and early Spring.

We ventured out on a few short local walks together while my Dad and sister were with us. Unfortunately, the bluebells in the woods on the way into town were well past their best but there was enough to see and the strolls were pleasant and largely sunlit.

We also had an excellent dinner at The Woolpack Inn in Slad near Stroud (thanks Dad!). This pub was made famous by the poet, Laurie Lee and it’s a great venue to go to with visitors to Gloucestershire. On one hand it looks like what people typically envisage an old rural pub to be (the toilets are still outside!) and the atmosphere is intimate and cosy. On the other hand, it offers modern, excellent food, and smiling but unoppressive service. In addition, I had a really well-kept pint of India Pale Ale.

*^{Double Rainbow From Our Dinner Table Window At The Woolpack}*

Later in the week, the arrival of my BM, an old friend from university, was dominated by his exciting news that he is getting married. We met his fiancé, a lovely Chinese woman, in 2020 just before the Covid lockdown. After a lockdown apart, they are now together in Kenya and planning their wedding. It’s a lovely story of late life (for him, anyway) romance and we enjoyed catching up with that and the other developments in BM’s life during good food and long walks.

Our trip to Belfast was long awaited. YS and his partner bought a house there at the end of last year and we have been keen to visit it and them since then. YS wanted to settle into the house – and get the spare bedroom renovated – before inviting us. Then that invitation was postponed by YS and his partner taking on the responsibility for a large and lively puppy. We finally arrived to meet ‘Reggie’! He is a disruptive handful but they love him despite his chewing of the furniture and the digging up of the lawn.

The house is already great and has a lot of potential. I liked the local area, Ormeau, very much; it is a much larger residential area than I remembered with several roads with pretty Victorian terraces and later rows of larger, well-built houses. There are a smattering of attractive independent businesses on the main road and river walks and the Belfast Botanic Gardens and Ulster Museum are nearby.

*^{Inside The Belfast Botanic Gardens Palm House}*

We visited the Botanical Garden Palm House briefly but spent far longer in the Ulster Museum. This has a very diverse set of exhibits and attractions set in an airy combination of old and new buildings. Since YS moved to Belfast, I have focused more than before on articles and television programmes about Ireland but my understanding of its history remains thin; the museum provided a lot of reminders and filled in a lot of gaps.

*^{Inside The Ulster Museum With Porcelain Works By Frances Lambe And Nuala O’Donovan}*

As well as displays about Ulster and Northern Ireland history there was some beautiful craftmanship on show. Overall, it is well worth a (free!) visit and I’m sure we will go again.

The weather in Belfast was noticeably cooler than back in England but it was mainly sunny and clear; perfect for walks along the coast to the east of Belfast and around the green enclaves of Belfast along the Lagan River – both with and without Reggie.

*^{Walking With Reggie in Belvoir Park Forest, Belfast}*

*^{The Path On The South Side Of The Lagan Estuary}*

We were also able to leave Reggie so we could visit YS’s place of work in a renovated set of warehouses and factories in East Belfast. His offices weren’t open but we were able to sample a beer (and a few games of Bananagrams – YS loves games!) in the Boundary Brewing Taproom next door.

YS’s partner’s business (Restore Osteopathy) is more centrally located in the Cathedral Quarter. Here she practices not only osteopathy in a very attractive treatment room but also leads yoga and Pilates classes in two large, ideally suited rooms. It’s a wonderful space for what she does. Both YS and his partner have more than found their feet in Belfast.

*^{YS’s Partner’s Yoga Spaces And Treatment Room}*

Belfast itself is very lively and seems to have so much potential if only the politics would calm down and business could invest with even more certainty. It is a small city compared to London. But, like Edinburgh (which is about 50% bigger) it is a capital city, has some impressive things to see and is attracting increasing numbers of young people setting up new businesses.

Great coffee houses and interesting and enjoyable restaurants are popping up across the city. On this trip we ate at EDŌ where we had a welcome chance to catch up with YS’s partner’s parents (thanks for dinner guys!) and Waterman House. We breakfasted on trendy bread from an bakery (Bakari) apparently using Icelandic recipes.

*^{Waterman House Restaurant With A Large Painting Of Belfast By Colin Davidson}*

Being visited and visiting others disrupts our well-worn micro-routines. This is a good thing. Having YS ask us whether we want a beer at 4.30pm instead of waiting till our traditional 6pm drinking time is a good challenge. Not finding time to do the Quick Crossword at 5pm is actually ok for a day or two. Having to scrabble around in the depths of a cupboard for our sugar bowl for a visitor that takes sugar in their coffee isn’t much trouble really. Dealing with the issues of a new puppy is unsettling but helps to keep us on our toes. Seeing new places and finding out about them is always interesting. We should, and will, do more and I should avoid getting stuck in my ways.

Task Oriented Autumn

November 9, 2022June 9, 2023 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

A few posts ago I mentioned that I had started going to a Mental Fitness For Men group under the auspices of Talk Club. Our local pub landlord has arranged weekly Talk Club sessions and I have made it to most of them since they started a few months ago. The sessions are of fixed format but the people who turn up each week vary so there is always something new to listen to as well as, usually, something new to say.

I’ve found the meetings useful in that they help me frame what I am grateful for and what I’m going to do in the next week to make things feel better for myself. However, I do often feel daunted by the lucidity with which most others in the weekly groups talk about the way they feel. In comparison I tend to fall back into talking about things I have done and things I’m going to do. I have explained to the group (and myself) that I tend to feel happiest when I am ticking off tasks on my to-do list but I suspect that I need to get deeper into how I feel about life rather than describing tasks.

Having said that, I have felt a certain contentment that, by and large, I have done what I said I would do over the last few weeks. The tasks have varied from raking up the scythed and strimmed grass in the meadow (into piles I don’t quite know what to do with), to harvesting the last summer crops and gathering seed for next year, to production of a string of documents I promised for the local Climate Action Network group that I belong to.

*^{Not Quite A Crown Prince Squash. Grown From Gathered 2021 Seed And Reverted From F1 Hybrid – Tasty Though!}*

Today, post-Foodbank duties, I am even finally managing to get around to making crab apple jelly which is a task that has been on my to-do list for a few weeks. Overall, October and early November has been a good month for tiny achievements amongst my retirement routine!

*^{Making Crab Apple Jelly – Tree -> Apples -> Straining -> Jelly! (First Of Two Batches)}*

There have been a few other high points recently. Middle Son (MS) and his partner have moved from London to Bristol – just 45 minutes away. That means that we will see them more often. For example, Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) and I were delighted when they popped over for an impromptu dinner a couple of Fridays ago. It was lovely to have a normalised drop-in-type arrangement with one of our sons rather than have to think about days packing, travelling and staying away from home.

Not that those sorts of visits are not welcome. We are off to Edinburgh again later this week and can’t wait to see First Grandchild (FG) again (and his parents!) for the first time in over two months. It’s going to be a special visit this time to celebrate not only FG’s first birthday, but also Eldest Son (ES) and his partner’s marriage. I’m so glad they have chosen a relatively low key way of getting married and celebrating that with a few close relatives. However, the event is momentous nonetheless and it will be lovely to have all our boys, their partners, my Dad and my sister all together with FG in one place at the same time.

We have also had some old friends come to visit us for a weekend. We have been rather poor at inviting people over for almost anything since the Covid pandemic; we seem to have just got out of that pattern of being. But it was great to see these long standing and close friends again. We had an active but relaxed time with them that culminated in a delightful walk in the Slad Valley and then an excellent lunch at The Woolpack (of Laurie Lee fame).

*^{The Slad Valley Near Stroud Between Autumn Showers}*

Much of the rest of the time in the last few weeks has been more routine. However, I helped to advertise a talk that our village Climate Action Network group arranged with the Parish Council on rewilding and the impact of climate change on our local trees. The theme of this talk, and a continuing series we have planned for next year, is ‘hope’. This is to counteract the inevitable descent into gloom if we consider and talk too much about the climate and biodiversity emergencies alongside other current preoccupations such as the war in Ukraine and the cost of living crisis.

The first talk in the ‘Hope Talks’ series was almost wildly successful. We have a hard act to follow as we go into next year. The talks themselves bring the village together and just the fact they happen adds to the resilience of the community and its cohesiveness. I edit a quarterly newsletter (another task done this week!) and submit articles to the monthly village magazine but these ‘Hope Talks’ hold out greater promise for conveying useful information while being a great relationship building mechanism.

*^{Our Learned ‘Hope Talk’ Speaker – Local Resident, Dr David Bullock (With Props)}*

Of course, other continuing elements of my recent retirement routine have been steadfast support of local football teams (Forest Green Rovers but also Shortwood United and Horsley United) and more of the Autumnal walks I talked about in my last post.

*^{Local Team Shortwood United In The Process Of Winning 5-0}*

The Autumn weather has been so mild and, until recently, so dry that the walks have been particularly pleasant. The colours in the trees have been changing quite variably from species to species. That has meant that while the reds and yellows have perhaps not been as spectacular as in some past years, the blending of different colours across the valley slopes has been very attractive.

*^{Local Walk Lined With Lime And Hazel Trees}*

I plan to keep up the local walks even as the winter weather closes in. However, I do also plan to reduce the number of discretionary, extraneous things I commit to in the next few months. At least that way I may be able to think more about abstract feelings rather than worrying about the state of my to-do list and the rate of knocking items off it. I may even resort to that old trick of adding things to the to-do list that I have already done…..

*^{Lovely Valley, Lovely Weather, Long Shadows}*

Active Autumn

October 6, 2022 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

As I walked through woodland this morning amid a cascade of falling leaves, it was clear that Autumn is very much here again. September has been a time for harvest but also the last throes of summer-style travel and partying. I now see October as a time for buckling down for some rather delayed home-based administration and task tidy up before our next trip to Edinburgh in November and then the excitement of Christmas.

*^{Autumn Colour (In This Case, The Incongrouously Named Black Bryony)}*

September was certainly busy and was capped last weekend by a long-delayed visit to us by my Dad and my sister. That was quietly relaxing and allowed my Dad to catch up with developments in our house since his last, pre-Covid visit, and meet up with a few other local relatives. It also allowed us to jointly celebrate Middle Son (MS) and his partner moving into their newly-purchased, pretty, terraced house in Bristol. A few days ago, that hard-won purchase suddenly seemed in jeopardy as the Government made a big misstep that caused interest rates to surge and mortgage deals to be pulled from the market. Our very happy afternoon with MS and his partner was blessed by Virgin Money’s forbearance and lovely sunshine.

Earlier in the month, not only did I manage to visit London and Edinburgh, but I also attended Long-Suffering Wife’s (LSW’s) college reunion with a bunch of her fellow physiotherapy students 40 years on from their graduation in Leeds.

The reunion was held in Buxton which I had not visited for decades. We stayed in a very comfortable and central hotel (The Buxton Crescent Hotel) which produced substantial breakfasts and very good evening meals for the group. The whole event over a long weekend was an enjoyable mix of free time, a long walk across the local Peak District, and organised eating, drinking and socialising both in the hotel and in nearby bars and restaurants. There were a few other (non-physio) partners of LSW’s fellow graduates in attendance so I didn’t feel too out of place. There was a wide variety of personalities, and everyone was interesting in some way. It was a nice thing to do and LSW really enjoyed the mass catch-up.

^{On The Three Shires Walk Near Buxton (Starting In Mist At The Cat And Fiddle Pub, Finishing In A Bit Of Sun)}

Buxton itself is a lovely spa town with many impressive Georgian and Victorian limestone buildings – like a smaller version of Bath, which we know well, and similar to Harrogate which we visited on the way to Edinburgh last year. The evening/night life was surprisingly lively and well catered for by a large number of busy and interesting craft beer bars. We sampled a couple of those with and without the reunion entourage.

*^{A Variety Of Attractive Buildings In Buxton}*

On our ‘free day’, LSW and I went off for a fairly long but pleasant drive to Hardwick Hall. It’s an impressive late-Tudor building surrounded by attractive gardens that I recall – as I do Buxton – from holidays with my parents very many years ago. The weather was kind, the afternoon was lovely and it was great to get value from the life National Trust Membership that my parents bought us so generously when, I think, we got married.

Back in our home village, my schedule has been peppered by the normal smattering of walks, gardening, short shifts at the local Food Bank, my team’s football matches and Men’s Mental Fitness nights (which have helped salve the depression cause by the poor football results!).

*^{A Local Walk Under A Luminous Autumn Sky}*

LSW and I also went to a film showing – ‘Drawn to War’, a film about the life and work of the painter and Second World War artist Eric Ravilious. It was our first cinema outing together of the year and was very enjoyable due both to the content of the film and the novelty of the evening outing.

However, the recent Autumn highlight in the village was a substantial, superbly organised and hugely entertaining 50th birthday party of a friend of ours. The invitees were a mix of her relatives, long standing friends and more recently acquired friends from the village like ourselves. The entertainment was a combination of a bar, a wonderful buffet, an open sided marquee with a dance floor, a DJ, a couple of fire eaters (believe it or not – see below!) and varied, if increasingly inebriated, conversation. I’ve not danced so much for a decade and LSW and I both had great fun.

September has also been a time when I have reaped a harvest of onions and potatoes. Both have been surprisingly productive given the lack of rain during much of the summer. That shortage of rain hampered bean germination but judicious watering has saved some of the squash and chard.

*^{A Fraction Of This Year’s Garden Produce}*

Also, the dry, hot summer enabled me to grow a lot of tomatoes in an open vegetable plot for the first time since I left my allotment in London 25 years ago. Inevitably perhaps, most of the tomatoes are very green but, with our climate inexorably warming, I will try tomato growing again next year.

Finally, as I have in previous years, I find I have to comment on the late summer/early autumn flowering of our remaining two dahlia plants. I have simply never enjoyed cutting flowers and then displaying them in our kitchen/diner so much as I have these Café Au Lait dahlias. Their blooms are large, subtly coloured and, once they start, simply go on and on until the first frost. Now we are in October, those frosts will come soon enough but, for now, these dahlias continue to be a splendid echo of summer and a thoroughly rewarding aspect of Autumn.

Seeing Football, Missing Football

September 15, 2022September 15, 2022 / fgrtommo / 2 Comments

To Long-Suffering Wife’s (LSW’s) occasional frustration, I have been careful up to now to ensure that our trips to Edinburgh to see First Grandchild and his parents haven’t clashed with home fixtures for my football club, Forest Green Rovers (FGR). I have a season ticket and, quite apart from my desire (obsession?) to see my team play whenever I reasonably can, I’m the sort of person that wants to get full value from my season ticket investment.

However, I am not going to be able to keep this up since First Grandchild (FG) has a birthday around a weekend when FGR are playing at home. Even football doesn’t take precedence over celebrating the end of his first year with us.

That birthday is in November but I am already going to miss another home game later this week when I am accompanying LSW to her long-weekend college reunion in Buxton, Derbyshire. I regret missing the game but, in truth, it is going to be nice to get away for a change of scene again given that we haven’t had a proper holiday this year.

In any case, I have just been able to engineer seeing an away game at Charlton in London during a trip ostensibly to attend my annual dental check-up and to fix a recently broken tooth. So, I have managed to keep up my support in person at a good number of FGR’s games so far this season.

Unfortunately, following promotion as Champions from English Football League 2 last May, this season in a higher league is a struggle. The scale of the clubs we are playing, the impressiveness of their stadiums and the quality of the football is all much greater than in the past. As a result, positive results have, so far, been hard to come by.

*^{A Minutes Silence For The Queen at Charlton Athletic}*

So, it was great that I was able to see us wobble through to secure a draw and a well-earned point at Charlton Athletic – one of the ‘big’ teams who were once in the English Premier League but who now have to cope with us in English Football League 1 (EFL1). Even better, I was able to meet up with a great Australian friend of Youngest Son (and devoted supporter of FGR) at the game and catch up, and sing along, with him. Based on the performance in our last two games, I remain hopeful that we can consolidate our position in EFL1.

*^{Edinburgh’s Inverleith Park: Picnic Panorama}*

More on my brief London trip another time….. Earlier, our August trip to Edinburgh was, as usual, lovely. It was, of course, great to see how much First Grandchild had developed since the last time we have seen him some 6 weeks or so previously. It was nice too to see how Eldest Son (ES) and his partner have settled into their new flat (including a newly decorated kitchen) and have got FGs sleeping at night more under control.

A major change since visits earlier in the year was that, whereas we used to take FG out in his buggy when it was time for him to sleep, now we take him out between naps to keep him awake. That makes the walks around Edinburgh more interesting for him and us. I can envisage that by the time of our next visit, FG won’t be so content to be in his buggy and will want to try out his embryonic walking skills.

*^{Aerial View Of Part Of The Royal Botanical Gardens, Edinburgh}*

We did our usual trip to, and around, the Royal Botanic Gardens. The gardens are interesting all year around and FG particularly likes the running water and waterfalls in the Rockery. For me, the highlight was the Kitchen Garden in front of the Botanic Cottage which was planted with wild flowers. The mix was varied cleverly throughout the planted space so that, when standing in the middle, the colour palette shifted as one turned around.

FG was much more impressed by our visit to the National Museum of Scotland. I’m going to love taking him here every time I get up to Edinburgh. For a small child, there is so much going on, so many buttons to push and so much movement. At this stage, FG seems more interested in the other children than the exhibits but I can see hours of fun ahead.

*^{National Museum Of Scotland, Edinburgh}*

We also had a lengthy walk to The Meadows to the south of Edinburgh centre. Because the timing of our trip coincided with the Edinburgh Fringe – a gathering over a few weeks of a staggering multitude of performance artists from all over the UK and, indeed, the World – the central streets and cafes were crowded.

The streets were also dominated by piles of rubbish because our visit also coincided with a strike by rubbish clearance workers in Edinburgh that had been going on for over a week. The huge piles of trash everywhere underlined how much rubbish we generate in a typical big city and how dependent we are on public services to hide the issue of rubbish disposal from our day to day lives.

Although the overflowing rubbish bins were not a great advertisement for Edinburgh (the workers dispute is now resolved), the city remains a great attraction for LSW and I. The architecture in the centre is stunning, the galleries and museums are befitting of a capital city, the area ES and his partner live in is close to interesting shops, and even the playgrounds we took FG to seemed better appointed but more accessible than average.

We are both looking forward to our November birthday party visit hugely – even though I will miss the delights of watching Forest Green Rovers play live!

Friends, Family and Parochial Busyness

June 16, 2022 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

Since retiring almost five years ago, I have frequently been surprised by how busy I have felt. Late May and Early June have certainly felt that way although, when I look back, I’m not sure why.

Certainly, I have done a one or two weeks of work on follow up activities relating to a Village Meeting that the local Climate Action Network group I belong to arranged with the Parish Council. And, ok, we have had visitors other than family coming to stay for the first time since the start of the pandemic.

We also had the festivities around the Queens Jubilee (though in our village, these only really stretched to installation of a new commemorative bench and, more engagingly, a four day beer festival in the village pub). We even hosted a long-promised but long awaited drinks event for a few locals in our garden. Plus we had a really lovely visit from our First Grandchild (FG), his parents and his other Grandparents. Oh, and the London Barbican flat that I used before retirement was sold!

*^{Village Pub (The Hog) Ju-Beer-Lee Beer Festival}*

Does that sound like a busy month?

In any case, almost all of it has been a lot of fun and, in the case of the work on the presentations of the summary of feedback from the Village Meeting, I feel like I have achieved something worthwhile for the greater good. I get to present most of it to the Parish Council next week so I hope they will feel the same way.

Lacing all these little events together has been the routine of shopping, cooking, gardening and walking.

Shopping and cooking has been marked by an uptick (in my perception, at least) in the frequency and innovation of my evening meal preparation. I am enjoying cooking more and more as I gain confidence in swapping out recipe ingredients for others to add variety and to use up vegetables otherwise likely to be wasted. ‘Important’ meals for most visitors usually remain the in the ambit of Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) but no longer is this a golden rule and my (in)famous Coronation Chicken (courtesy of Thomasina Miers) got an outing when my Best Man came to visit during the village pub beer festival a couple of weeks ago.

*^{This Coronation Chicken Recipe From Thomasina Miers Is Easy But Creates A Delicious, Colourful, Warm Salad}*

Gardening has been more fraught with the need to focus on the Village Meeting, days of relatively inclement weather, and early afternoon indolence combining to delay planting out of straggly, pot bound vegetable seedlings. Now almost everything is in the ground the slugs are having a better time of it, but at least my seedlings have a chance of producing something.

The local walks have been increasingly pleasant as the weather has improved on our way to the longest day and summer. Plus I have got real enjoyment from using a mobile phone app that identifies birds from their birdsong. The app is called Merlin Bird ID (although I understand from others I have spoken to that there are several alternatives). When I first tried it a few months ago, I wasn’t sure it was accurate. Now I believe it is and using it has begun to help me learn to identify birds before I even open the app and turn the recording/identification function on. It’s adding another pleasurable dimension to my walks in much the same way the app Candide did for me from sometime last year as I tried to identify plants as I went.

*^{Much Loved Sycamore At The Top Of Our Lane}*

LSW and I are off to Lyme Regis this coming weekend where, Covid permitting, we will meet up with Middle Son, Youngest Son and their partners. I’m looking forward to that – and the break in my (busy) routine – immensely.

*^{Last View Of The Barbican Flat – Empty And Sold!}*

Old Mates, New Gig

March 13, 2022 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

In the last two weeks I have revived two lines of enjoyment that have been very constrained since the start of the pandemic two years ago: going to a gig and meeting up with groups of old friends on London.

^{London – Always A Treat To Visit This Great City}

It was on the 13 March 2020 that Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) and I went to Bath to see a concert by Faeland. It was a similar length of time ago when I last met up with a bunch of old, London-based friends as part of an ongoing set of get-togethers to visit restaurants representing each, in turn, a letter of the alphabet. We had been stuck on ‘S’ (for Spain as it turned out) for around two years.

It’s always good to visit London and always great to catch up with old friends there. Not only did I get to meet with my alphabetically-sequenced restaurant group of mates (at Donostia) but I also separately caught up with a few other long-standing ex-workmates and friends over lunch at Ombra. Both restaurants were small-dish-based (Basque and Italian respectively). Neither was inexpensive but the food was tasty, the wine flowed and the company was very welcome after such a long break from group conviviality.

^{Views From Our Barbican Flat – Now For Sale (Sadly)}

LSW and I also caught up with some old friends before going on to a concert by Hope Tala at Village Underground. This is a great, medium-sized venue that I have been to many times before, but not since retirement getting on for 5 years ago. We met up beforehand at the bar at Tavla with a couple of female friends from our time living in Kew. At this moment in the Covid pandemic recovery, it’s a very relaxed and convenient bar for these purposes – buzzy but not too crowded with good value drinks and friendly service – and it has become our go-to bar in East London.

*^{Getting Busier Again – Whitecross Street Lunch Market Next To Our Flat}*

Hope Tala is a good friend of the daughter of one of these Kew friends – hence the choice of concert. The daughter is now doing many of Hope’s music videos. This is a line of work that has become more interesting to me since Youngest Son (YS) dabbled in music video as part his mainstream video business (at Wilson Archer Films). Hope played an energetic and vibrant gig that was full of poppy riffs with a Latin tinge. I’ve surprised myself with the extent the songs have stayed in my head for the days since. Based on what I heard, Hope Tala will go far and I hope that creates a platform for more video creation for our friend’s daughter.

*^{Hope Tala And Band At Village Underground}*

While in London, I fitted in a three exhibitions but I’ll take a breath and post separately on those. Following the recent meetings of groups of London-based friends, a gig (at last!), and a few exhibition visits, life seems to be returning to normal. Next week we are off to Edinburgh to see First Grandchild (FG) again. This time we are planning to take my Dad up in our new electric car so he can meet his great grandchild for the first time. We saw FG just a couple of weeks ago when he and his parents flew down to see us for FG’s first trip out of Edinburgh. Now I can’t wait to see his further development since (which seems to include the discovery of his ability to squeal loudly!)

In the midst of the dreadfulness of what is going on in Ukraine it seems incongruous to be having a good time and moving back fully to what I would probably call normality. All we can do is hope that some semblance of normality returns quickly in Eastern Europe too. It seems that maybe only one man can make that happen!

*^{Late Winter Skies On A Local Walk Home}*

Old Friends

June 19, 2021August 6, 2021 / fgrtommo / 2 Comments

With the relaxing of the coronavirus lock down we have been emboldened to travel further afield to see friends and relatives. At the end of last month we went to Nottingham and Edinburgh and last week we visited friends in Eye, Suffolk. It had been over a year since we had seen these old friends and over two years since our last visit to Suffolk. There was much to catch up on.

*Unexpectedly Spectacular View At Diss, Just North Of Eye*

Once again, we had great Suffolk weather. That showed off to best effect the improvements to our friends’ house and outbuildings, which had continued up to the lock down last year, and the private allotments that they have recently purchased and taken fuller control of.

*The Entrance To, And The Developing Harvest Of, Our Friend’s Allotments*

These allotments are tremendous; they are colourful, well-tended and, judging from the health of the vegetables on show, fertile and not by savaged by deer or badgers. I am particularly jealous of this last point having seen all my Jerusalem artichokes on my own tiny allotment plot excavated and eaten by relentless badgers in recent weeks.

Since our last visit to the Eye allotments, the wife in the couple has extended her animal husbandry alongside the vegetables, flower beds and an orchard cum meadow. There are now pigs in addition to the squad of chickens and a grumpy, blind duck.

There has already been a cycle of acquiring pigs, feeding them up and sending them to slaughter that the current pair Oxford Sandy and Blacks/Gloucester Old Spot crosses are blissfully unaware of. Given how friendly and enthusiastic for life that they are, I’m not sure I could bear the emotion of farming pigs in this way but I have to say that the pork we had at dinner on the first night of our stay was delicious!

Eye itself is a pretty town in which the wife in the couple seems to know everyone. The town is a good size with a market and a nice range of independent shops. It is surrounded by a mix of chicken factories and old airfields that are starting to be homes for small businesses. One such is Bruha Brewing which we were able to visit (following my first and rather precarious cycle ride for several years) to sample their very satisfying craft beer.

The town is also surrounded by arable farms criss-crossed by lanes and footpaths and we took ample opportunity afforded by the sunny weather to get our steps up to normal levels after the long drive to Suffolk. There was time, too, to visit Wyken Hall Gardens and have a lovely lunch (again) at its restaurant, The Leaping Hare. We have a lot of shared history with our Suffolk friends and it was great to catch up in such relaxed and attractive surroundings.

Then, this week, we had a visit from my best man (BM) who is another long standing friend from university. Again, the formula of a pub visit, walking and a nice meal was a good, solid backdrop for a great mutual sharing of recent events and life developments. BM’s life rarely seems dull and a recent hip replacement and impending retirement added to the normal interest. If he doesn’t move on to a new job after all, perhaps we will be able to catch up more often.

*Some Big Fields In Gloucestershire Too!*

*And We Have Sandy And Black Pigs In Gloucestershire Too!*

Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) and I are starting to enjoy and plan more trips and visits as Covid lockdowns are eased to allow them. Last month, for the first time for me in ages, we visited LSW’s aunt, cousin and his wife for dinner. It was an evening enlivened by their dog amusingly pinching a third of the quiche (the rest that he left for us was lush!) and a spectacular view of a sunset over the Severn valley from their house.

Now we are starting to schedule trips to Ireland, London, Scotland, Bath plus dates for local get-togethers with local village friends and neighbours. Normality in retirement is returning.

My Retirement Journey

I've Retired! What Next?

Friends

Friends

A Birthday and Christmas Prep

Resolutions And Houghton Hall

Breaking the Routine – To Visit and Be Visited

Task Oriented Autumn

Active Autumn

Seeing Football, Missing Football

Friends, Family and Parochial Busyness

Old Mates, New Gig

Old Friends