Never Quite Enough Time

  Although it is looking a little low this month so far, in each of the last three months I have doubled my number of views.     These are no where even remotely near ‘influencer’ territory but I checked out the analytics anyway.     The UK is only just inching ahead overall and I suspect that may be, in some not inconsiderable part, S.     The USA is not miles behind but behind that is a worldwide mix.     As large land masses go it seems Greenland has absolutely no interest in anything I might have to say.     To be fair I get that.     It does, however, have me wondering who and why are people checking in.     How much do VPNs play a part?     I have no idea.     No one seems to be ‘following’ (then again I’m not sure how they would) and I have had very few comments.     The few I have had have all been Brits.     Very welcome they have been too save possibly for S’s! So...

  The problem with leaving S at home, unsupervised, for a weekend is that he’s prone to talking himself into something being a good idea when it does not meet the criteria that we were working to.     Or, at any rate, the criteria I thought we were working to.     So we set off this morning on a road trip to West Yorkshire to see a motorhome that is a little older than I was told was the preference, has a couple of times the preferred mileage, is at the very top of the size category that was under consideration and right rather than left hand drive. I was told that there will have to be some compromises regardless.    I get that.    I just wasn’t expecting these to be the areas we would be compromising on.    We hadn’t considered any right hand drive ones before this one hoved into view for starters.    The last one we went to see was of a similar age but this one has 2.5 times+ more mileage.     This is als...

  S cut back the currant bushes while I was away.    As pruning goes it works ok for the red and white currants, not so much for the black currants.    They need the old stems taking out in full and possibly not just at this time of year.    However, access and parking were getting a little tight (especially after rain (remember that?) when the plants are wet) so they have been pushed back.    This has enabled some better access to the last of both black and red currants.    I’m not convinced this was something I was looking for and I am definitely not fretting about picking every last one but a few more in the freezer, since I made room, is not necesssarily a bad thing.    Just so long as we remember to eat them! The white currants are nearly ready.    That is those that have not been trimmed off.    I’m    struggling to celebrate this as I still have two large freezer bags full from last yea...

  S dropped me off at the nearest station on Saturday as he took the car in for an MoT.     A further use of my Senior Railcard so, although not a frequent user by any stretch of the imagination, it is looking increasingly likely that I will make a save more than the £80 cost over three years.     That was not a certainty in my mind at the outset.     I don’t consider myself a frequent rail user but I may be doing enough.     If I can work out the extent to which/how it can be used in and around London I may end up quids in. My friend had arrived at Euston very shortly before so that was an easy meet up at Kings Cross before tackling the tube to Kensington High Street.    The hotel is a very short walk from the tube station.    We were too early to check in so left the bags with the conciege and headed into town to see the Pride parade.     This was Pride so there was always going to be an element of outrage...

  We have been keeping an eye open as to what is on the market motorhome wise.     Retirement travel plans start, but do not end, with exploring France.     A new Motorhome is well outside our price range and buying any motor vehicle new would be something of a departure from the norm for us. We have also been watching a fair number of motorhome adventurers on YouTube to get a bit more of a feel for what we might like and where we want to go with it. We have limited experience but are not completely at a standing start.    We had one of our own for a year about 10-15 years ago.    Long story.    It was bought for a specific purpose but we managed to get a couple of weeks travelling in France in it ourselves and were a little surprised at how much we enjoyed it.    Given our particular circumstances we really could not justify keeping it, at that time, so it had to go but we hired one the following year for another couple o...

  I am now a good six months into this blog as well as half way through 2026.     The purpose of the blog, in between general ramblings, is supposed to be keeping me on track as regards preparing for retirement.     That is all the stuff other than financial.       That is working away in the background and will be ok albeit things might well be better if various politicians stopped giving the markets the jitters. I could, however, do without constant increasingly upward projections in the press as to what is needed for a basic/moderate/comfortable retirement.    Some of these figures are considerably more than many, people earn so it seems unlikely they are going to suddenly materialise in retirement for the majority. Anyway, leaving that rant to one side, back to my actual point.    The idea of leaving the office at 5.00pm on my last Friday pausing briefly to collect a case of Provençal rose and another of old world red from ...