Value: Home and Away

August 2, 2026 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

My life in retirement is one of pleasant routine interrupted – maybe I should even say disrupted – by occasional events. I get up at about the same time every day and have one of two breakfasts every morning; either fruit and yogurt with a bit of nut butter or, on days following the purchase of the best local sourdough (currently Leola in my opinion), bread or toast with homemade jam or Marmite. Lovely!

When at home, I have the same lunch every day; crunchy salad with feta and toasted seeds. Dinner is more varied since I only do about half the evening cooking and Jane, my wife, likes variety, but baked salmon filets or a two-day batch of dal are almost guaranteed by me each week.

*^{A View Near Ruskin Mill On The Walk To Nailsworth}*

After breakfast I do the 30 minute or so walk into the local town of Nailsworth for the day’s shopping and my, and a neighbour’s, newspaper. Jane can’t believe I’m happy to do this every day but there are about 8 different routes to take so this aspect of my routine does have variety.

*^{Another View On The Way To Nailsworth}*

There is also variety in the activities in late morning and the afternoon. These include regular but short periods of volunteering, gardening, administration of my simple affairs, more walking, reading about current affairs (and almost always snoozing for a bit during that) and, of course, occasionally writing this blog. Then at 5pm Jane and I, almost invariably, have tea and do the Guardian Quick Crossword together.

During the football season all this has to fit around Forest Green Rovers games (it’s so good to get back to proper football after the political and financial extravagances of the World Cup!)

After dinner, when there isn’t a Forest Green Rovers game, Jane and I watch streamed TV series. Usually, our mutual choice settles on European crime series in which there is a gory death in first few minutes (often followed by others) by a serial killer that needs to be found by a police man or woman with terrible personal issues. We are currently watching a Greek thriller of this ilk. At least the subtitles force us away from constantly looking at our mobile phones.

On Sunday’s and Friday evenings and on the monthly quiz night, we visit our local pub. (Incidentally, our Quiz Team insisted recently, and against my protests, on changing our longstanding team name to ‘Paul Hates Change’. Actually, I dislike the prospect of change rather than change itself but there was sufficient truth in the name that I couldn’t argue against the update.)

I think I’m gradually getting better at coping with the unexpected but I love sticking to all of my routine and our Friday evenings in the local pub are special. We go confident that there will be at least someone who we will meet and have a great conversation with; and the beer is great.

If We Don't To The Pub We Can Always Enjoy The View From Our Field's Seat — *^{If We Don’t Make It To The Pub, We Can Always Enjoy The View Of The Route To It}*

I bumped into one of my best local friends earlier this week to ask if, he was going to be in the pub on the coming Friday. He said yes and pointed out that of all the activities we undertake, going to the pub for the informal meeting of a few locals provides one of the best ratios in terms of effort input and value returned. I agreed and his summation got me thinking….

Over the last several years, Jane has made our garden wonderful. Despite the lack of rain over the last couple of months, it has matured and is still full of colour and insect wildlife. It is a pleasure to sit in with a glass of wine on sunny evenings. Of course, we lack the chat and gossip of pub-goers but Jane and I celebrated our 41^st wedding anniversary last week (rest assured that my daily routine was pretty much unchanged that day!) so we have plenty of shared history, offspring and other stuff to talk about. Perhaps this garden lounging is the lowest energy input activity matched against considerable value.

We recently went to the RHS Badminton Flower Show. It was great that such a prestigious flower show was just down the road from us this year. It was good too that we got there as it opened and before the most intense crowds of visitors.

*^{Flowers And Gardens At The RHS Badminton Flower Show}*

The gardens and the flower and plant tents were inspiring. This was especially true of the extensive show garden by Tom Stuart-Smith that was a reflection of the garden he had designed with Julia Rausing at Lasborough Park (which, in another outing and break from the routine, we had visited last month).

Tom Stuart-Smith's Garden At The RHS Flower Show — *^{Tom Stuart-Smith’s Garden At The RHS Flower Show}*

The show included a themed garden by a garden designer who lives in our village which made me feel good. But it was very hot and became increasingly crowded and, after a couple of hours, I’d had enough. It was a break from routine and I know I should do more to get variety into life. However, Jane’s garden feels as good as the individual show gardens at Badminton, its cheaper and easier to get to and a lot less crowded!

Jane's Recently Renovated Potting Shed — *^{Jane’s Recently Renovated Potting Shed}*

One other recent break from routine which was very enjoyable was to meet up with Youngest Son and his wife in Oxford. They had been over from Belfast to attend a wedding the previous day. We met up for coffee and then a very pleasant and sunny lunch on the roof of the Ashmolean Museum. We checked out the famous exhibition of Egyptian mummies and other relics in the museum and then had a good walk together through the Jericho area and along the Oxford Canal.

*^{Views Of Oxford: Bodleian Library, University Church And Divinity School}*

Next month we are having a more complete break from the norm. We are off on a rail trip to France and Italy. That will definitely be high effort and cost input but, of course, the pleasures promise to be huge in return.

I enjoy holidays more than I did when I had the pressure of work at either end of them. Nonetheless, I’m increasingly thinking about how I will cope out of my home comfort zone. Will the trains run on time? What about climate change and wildfires? Given we are staying in a series of hotels, will we have to eat out all the time? How many pairs of socks and other items of clothing will I need to take? Where will we do our laundry? Can I watch the Forest Green Games that I’ll be missing online?

It’ll be fine I’m sure but I’m already looking forward to the first Friday after we return and a reunion with local mates in the pub over a proper English beer.

Getting Back Into The Groove

April 1, 2026 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

We spent the majority of February in Edinburgh and most of March relaxing back into our routine back at home. That home-based groove is pretty nice though. The weather has been mixed – warm and cold, sunny and wet by turns. But we live in a lovely and relatively quiet part of the Cotswolds. When the weather has been good, we have enjoyed rural walks, local pubs and the start of Spring with all the bird song and new growth that brings.

*^{View Across Our Local Town: Nailsworth}*

We have also, courtesy of Jane’s Christmas present to me, renewed our membership of The Newt Gardens in Somerset. We paid our first visit of the year there a couple of weeks ago. We haven’t been for about four years and there have been some notable extensions to the structure of the huge garden space. The weather wasn’t great so we restricted our explorations to the areas already familiar to us and the new ‘Four Seasons Garden’; we saved the ‘Roman Villa Experience’ for another day.

*^{The New ‘Four Seasons Garden’; The Newt, Somerset}*

The garden is very impressive. The centrepiece remains the ‘Parabola’ the top half of which is home to over 300 apple tree varieties. The trees are trained onto trellises or architectural shapes. The attention to detail here, and elsewhere in the garden, is incredible.

*^{Upper Part Of ‘The Parabola’: The Newt}*

We stayed for lunch in the main restaurant and that too was, as on previous visits, very good. We had a great table with a view over the ‘Parabola’. Beyond that we could see the vegetable and fruit garden, the topiary towards the hotel and then, even further on, the orchards on the slopes to the south west. Next time, we will come when more of the planting is in flower and the weather is more conducive to a longer excursion around the property, but we enjoyed the first of our membership visits very much.

Back home, I have slotted back into the normal mix of walking, daily shopping, volunteering at the Food Bank and local school, and watching my football team, Forest Green Rovers, struggle to regain their early season form. On the cultural side, I have increased the pace of my reading of novels (slightly). I have enjoyed that even if it has been at the cost of catching up on the backlog of The Economist magazines that built up while we were in Edinburgh.

^{My First Attendance At A Forest Green Rovers Womens Team Game}

Also, I caught up with an old acquaintance from when he was involved in the local Climate Action Network who had, bravely and impressively, organized an exhibition of portraits of progressives and activists he had painted. Whilst I didn’t like many of them much, they were good likenesses and the reasons for choosing to paint them were explained well.

Jane and I also saw Salt House, a threesome folk band from Scotland and the North of England, at our local Ruskin Mill. We had heard a lot of their music in advance on Spotify and loved it. We often caught each other, before and after the gig, humming the melodies. The gig itself was lovely, intimate and beautifully done. I will renew my attention to the list of future performances at Ruskin Mill since the quality is almost always exceptional.

Other highlights have been involvement in celebrating Second Grandchild’s second birthday in Bristol. Given my love of football, I was encouraged to see that his presents included a small football goal and a child size football. (The football was branded Arsenal to reflect his father’s preference but Forest Green Rovers have merchandise too so watch out……). Plus, last weekend, we hosted a couple from London who have been close friends for decades; it was great to catch up, chat and to eat well at home, at The Crown in Minchinhampton and, especially, Juliet in Stroud.

*^{Local, Village View In Glorious Spring Sunshine}*

Now we are planning a big family Easter get together. Fortuitously, life – whether in Edinburgh or back home – is good.

Going to the Food Bank

May 24, 2023 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

I started working at the Stroud Food Bank about 9 months ago. I only work for about 2 hours a week and, usually, only to put away stock and to fulfil (i.e. pack up) orders for the Food Bank’s ‘clients’. Some weeks I get a bit of extra arm stretching exercise by helping to deliver the (heavy and full) food bags to clients’ homes.

The location is in central Stroud and it operates as one of the outposts for the much larger warehouse, run by the The Trussell Trust, in Brimscombe, a couple of miles away. In the year to March 2023, The Trussell Trust has delivered almost 3m emergency food parcels in the UK. In Stroud district we delivered 8,663 of those – a huge 77% increase on the previous year.

Working at the Food Bank has been eye opening and educational around the everyday problems faced by people less fortunate than me. Often, even with very little income, people learn to manage somehow but what brings them to the Food Bank is something unexpected – sometimes a seemingly small thing – that tips their well-being and ability to cope over the edge. The pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the cost of living surge and the lack of a proper benefits safety net have all made that tipping over the edge more frequent.

To say I enjoy working at the Food Bank would be to undermine or trivialise these very real hardships but the couple of hours a week I spend there does feel worthwhile. What is even better for me is that I am able to walk to the Food Bank (and get the bus back afterwards). That walk has been especially lovely recently due to the advent of a lush Spring and the fortuitousness of good weather when I have to go to the Food Bank.

The first 25 minutes of the walk is my normal route to our local town, Nailsworth. I usually take the direct route along the road but even so, the views over Ruskin Mill’s valley are good and the birdsong at that time in the morning is loud and continuous. Once in town, I pick up my newspaper and then set out to Stroud along two old railway routes now converted to cycling and walking paths.

I love the variety along this route.

*^{Egypt Mill – Now A Popular Bar, Restaurant And Hotel (Deserted At This Time In The Morning)}*

The first part follows Nailsworth Stream and is dominated by mills and their associated mill ponds. This is perhaps where bird life and nature along the route are most evident.

The path then squeezes between vineyards, woodlands and fields on one side and a string of light industrial buildings on the other. These buildings include a micro-brewery, a pizza factory and numerous engineering works alongside which I sometimes pause to watch the drama of welding sparks. Then the birdsong is drowned out by the canine users of a large Playschool for Dogs. I’ve never seen so many dogs in one place!

*^{Under-Bridge Street Art On My Route}*

I walk under bridges covered in frequently changing street art. Then I go past a factory making wind turbines and another associated with Forest Green Rovers Football Club’s Chairman called The Devil’s Kitchen which makes vegan meals for the football club and for schools nationally.

The path runs alongside the main road for a while but from here there are great views up towards Rodborough Common. Past the old and now converted Woodchester Railway Station, there is a new large residential development and its associated children’s playground before the walk returns to another leafy section.

*^{One Of Several Very Large Oaks Along The Way (The Birdsong Is Usually Intense Around Here)}*

The woods continue on one side but on the other are acres of factories, some of which now appear disused and ripe for some sort of development. Most are ugly mass-constructed buildings but some are attractive, Victorian buildings that have new lives as auction houses and bases for hi-tech businesses.

*^{One Of The More Impressive Factory Blocks}*

One of the largest and newest of these industrial buildings is the factory which produces Damien Hirst’s art works. Some of his old works from his Human Anatomy series stand behind the factory and are visible from the path.

Damien Hurst’s Works Partly Obscured By Trees

The route I take then passes briefly through a housing estate and joins another old railway route on the final leg into Stroud. This is in a deep, old railway cutting which shields walkers from the surrounding houses and roads and then passes over the River Frome and Stroudwater Canal.

*^{Tree Lined Walks With (If You Look Carefully) Deer And Old Railway Line Infrastructure}*

By this time my breakfast coffee intake needs attention so I dive into the recently re-modelled shopping centre before heading up through the town to the Food Bank. The shopping centre itself is a mixed bag of street food outlets, depressingly empty up-market clothes and accessories shops, and discount goods outlets. It’s a strange mix of businesses. Even the large and prominent jewelers in the centre is a strange mix of expensive watches, jewelry and garish ornaments.

*^{Not For Me But People Must Like These Ornaments Given Their Surprisingly High Prices}*

In a way, the diversity of the shopping centre, and that of the stock of the jeweler’s shop within it, reflects the unusualness of Stroud and the surrounding district. It has a left wing, ‘woke’, hippy vibe with one of the best Farmers Markets and (arguably) the country’s first fully organic cafe (Woodruffs). But it is also very much a grounded, working town surrounded by historical and current wealth. It is a blend that is also reflected, perhaps, among the mix of ‘clients’ and volunteers at the Food Bank.

Autumn In My Little Town

November 9, 2019November 9, 2019 / fgrtommo / 2 Comments

View Of Nailsworth Looking South

I’ve been retired for well over two years now. New daily routines have shifted as I have settled into retirement and as the seasons have cycled around. However, when I am not away from home, one of the daily constants has been that I walk into the local town of Nailsworth to pick up the newspaper and buy the day’s groceries. It’s been one of my great and most consistent retirement pleasures.

These walks have been particularly splendid recently as the Autumn colours have intensified across the hills and valleys through which I walk. Also, in recent weeks the streams in the valleys have gushed with copious amounts of rainwater and have provided a noisier soundtrack to the burgeoning Autumn colour.

Late Sun Catching The Tops Of Trees In Ruskin Mill Valley

There are multiple routes and detours that I take to create daily variety. However, the most rewarding walk is through the bottom of the valley between our home and Nailsworth centre. I thought I would share a few pictures of this frequent and favourite walk.

Satellite Picture (Courtesy Google) Of My Walk Into Nailsworth – From The Blue Dot (Upper Downend), East Then North-East Up The Valley To Nailsworth

The start point is, of course, my home in the hamlet of Downend near Horsley. Our field has a small stream running through it. This joins the Downend stream nearby and I head north-east down through its valley in which our hamlet nestles. When this reaches another, larger valley I continue north to where it opens out to a confluence of rivers around which Nailsworth has thrived, first as a mill town and now as a small (monthly) market town.

Upper Downend

As I leave Downend, I pass some old cottages and houses and cross the Old Horsley Road. I then dip downwards into the larger, wider valley flanked by dense woods to the east. Following the ever enlarging stream, I pass some small fields and a couple of pretty lakes. The larger of these is often the haunt of a swan, herons, kingfishers and several varieties of duck.

Downend Stream

Autumn Lake, Horsley Bridge

Much of the land in the valley, and up the slopes to the east, is owned and managed by Ruskin Mill Trust. The college here caters for challenged teenagers. The grounds include two historic wool mills, several acres of woodland, a biodynamic livestock and fish farm, a shop where some of the produce is sold, a forge, a popular café, and an arts centre and music venue. Locals like me are privileged to have access to these grounds which are always evolving in interesting ways under the management of the Trust and which often teem with fish and birds.

Craft Workshops And Running Water In Ruskin Mill College Grounds

Views Near Ruskin Mill College

Beyond the college grounds I cross the road and the stream (now a small river) once more. As I approach the outskirts of Nailsworth, I look out for dippers in the stream. I had never heard of these birds before seeing them here and also in Downend itself. They are shy but fascinating to watch as they live up to their name by dipping their heads up and down and dive into the water to catch their prey.

Dipper Habitat On The Outskirts Of Nailsworth

Nailsworth sits at the junction of two valleys and is overlooked by typical Cotswold woodland and hillsides (‘Cotswold Tops’). The best time to visit is early morning when wood smoke and mist often sits above the town but below the hill tops. The floral displays in the town this year have been award winning and many of the narrow streets and Cotswold stone buildings are always attractive.

Nailsworth Clock Tower

Like many such towns in this age of the internet and same day delivery, it is a struggle to establish a thriving retail business in Nailsworth. There is a persistent turnover of small independent shops and probably more shops selling small gifts and vaping equipment than is necessary. However, some good clothes, homeware and hardware shops have prospered. There are also a few decent pubs and café/restaurants, plus – critically for me – a newsagent, a small supermarket and health food store.

Roofs Of Nailsworth

I’m an urban man at heart – the country was always a place to visit rather than live in through the first 60 years of my life. I still hanker after London having left it upon retirement. But this Cotswold landscape I now find myself living in is very attractive. While I still can, my daily walks into the local town will continue to help me experience and appreciate it.

Postscript: I mentioned that Ruskin Mill College have a small music venue and Long-Suffering Wife and I thoroughly enjoyed a gig there last night. The main act was Trio Dhoore who are three young, charming Flemish brothers who play diatronic accordion, guitar and, a first for me, the hurdy gurdy. The music was wonderfully deep, rich and warm and the banter between tunes matched this warmth perfectly. The trio of brothers seemed to enjoy the evening as much as we did; it was a lovely couple of hours.

The Rather Wonderful ‘Trio Dhoore’ At Ruskin Mill

Pleasantly Full Days

June 19, 2018June 19, 2018 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

Life seems to have been particularly busy in the last ten days or so since my last trip to London. There I got a dental check-up (my teeth are fine), visited the Rodin and the Art of Ancient Greece Exhibition (fascinating and beautifully laid out) and took Middle and Eldest Son to dinner and The Lantern Society, my favourite Folk Club (what a treat to catch up with them both!)

At The Lantern Society

Rodin’s The Thinker And The Kiss – Two Items In An Intriguing British Museum Exhibition

The weather has been highly conducive to gardening. We have had long periods of sun, but reasonable temperatures, and just enough rain. As a result, many days have been dominated by clearing weeds, planting out seedlings, localised manual watering and working out how to keep the destructive birds, mammals, molluscs and insects at bay. Almost everything that needs protection now has some form fencing, netting or other damage prevention measure in place. I will now sit back, wait and watch the ways the animals will thwart me anyway.

In my last post, I compared the post-modernist house of Erno Goldfinger to a previous house of ours. My last visit to London and overnight stay in the Barbican reminded me, too, that the post-modernist gardens there are now being echoed by Long-Suffering Wife’s (LSW’s) planting of our new walled garden. Our final load of gravel and the water feature have now arrived and so our new garden just lacks maturity, but there are already some similarities with the Barbican gardens (although the scale there is massive compared to that of our ex-car parking area). It has certainly been pleasant sitting in the new garden in the sun with a glass of wine after sweating over weeds, seedlings, bean poles and netting.

Our New Garden And The Barbican Gardens; Ours Has Some Maturing To Do!

LSW and I have also been enjoying the annual Nailsworth Festival and, especially, two walks arranged under the auspices of the festival. The first was a history walk in the vicinity of our house. It added to our knowledge of the footpaths, industry and religious history of the area – particularly the historic presence of the Quakers and Baptists in what was once one of the largest non-conformist settlements in the country.

An Attentive Audience On The Nailsworth History Walk

The second was a 12 mile walk billed as being a walk from Nailsworth to ‘the sea’. In fact, ‘the sea’ was the tidal estuary of the River Severn at a point where a number of sea going ships were beached to bolster the coastline alongside the canal along which we had walked. The so-called Purton Hulks, were an interesting climax to a full day of walking up and down the Cotswold escarpment and across the Severn valley in perfect walking weather. LSW and I certainly pushed up our daily step count averages that day!

Views During Our Walk Nailsworth To The Sea

Purton Hulks

We also had a good day out walking in New Quay and Aberaeron in West Wales. We were staying with friends who have a second home there in what seems to be a lively and familiar community of second-homers based in London, Birmingham and South Wales. The health benefits of all the recent walking were offset by rather too much tasty food and drink in New Quay. On the route back from Wales, these indulgences continued as we stopped off at a family party celebrating a brief visit of one of LSW’s first cousins (once removed) from Singapore; lovely!

Views Of New Quay, Wales And Nearby Cliffs

The food, drink and merriment isn’t going to stop this week with more of the World Cup to watch and celebrate (I hope), and the marking of LSW’s birthday with dinner in London on the way to a weekend in Paris.

So: busy and full days, full weeks and, as I near 12 months of retirement, I will shortly look back on a full year.

My Retirement Journey

I've Retired! What Next?

Nailsworth