Thirty-Seven Years!

On this day the 31^st March 1978 I was in my final hours of bachelor hood. Tomorrow is our wedding anniversary, when I think about this I could easily make this blog very clichéd, you know things about the rough with the smooth, about it being a rollercoaster of a ride etc. The problem is that after this amount of time married life is the normal state and it is difficult to remember what life was like before that.

The first thing to say is that it is wrong to preach to other people, what has worked and not worked for us is unique to us and is certainly not applicable to anybody else. I am sure a lot of people look at us with great puzzlement.

What is great is that I probably look forward to 1 April, yes we were married on April Fools Day with more pleasure than birthdays or festivals, because it really is an affirmation as to what has gone before. Also because of circumstance so many of our anniversaries have been spent apart, but as new retirees we will be together tomorrow on a weekday. It will start with me delivering a breakfast tray to Marion with a red rose and a glass of bubbling champagne. OK so that bit is the April Fools joke, one thing that I have learnt in thirty-seven years is that Marion does not like to consume any sort of food in bed. I cannot remember her even drinking coffee in bed, as to eating in bed there is some fetish to do with toast crumbs and sheets, don’t ask.

No we will have a super friendly but very humdrum day. It will start with a simple breakfast and be followed by a visit to the gym to get those endorphins going as per yesterday. We have booked lunch at our favourite café and will probably have fish and chips. In the evening we will crack a bottle of champagne and probably have a reminisce. This will be followed by an episode of House of Cards.

We have had some wonderful and exciting times together, have produced two lovely children who have in turn the fantastic grandchildren. We have experienced some of the most fantastic sites in the world, dined at lovely restaurants and seen world-class theatre, but it is the days like tomorrow that I have described that will always remain memorable.

The Hidden Benefits and Dis-benefits of Exercise

It is Monday and even for us retirees Monday seems to be the least appealing morning of the week. Today was no exception after the lovely and unexpected weekend with our grandchildren. Although the sun shone through our bedroom window, though not as much as recently due to the clock change there was a marked reluctance to cast aside the duvet.

This was particularly true of Marion who took some coaxing to get out of bed. Partly it is because we have developed a routine, you may laugh, which involves having our breakfast while watching the pageant at our window that is people catching the bus to work, children and their parents being going to the local school. Well as today was the first of the school holidays everything seemed different,  somewhat slower, and greyer.

So it was somewhat reluctantly that we donned our exercise clothing and headed for the gym. I downloaded a podcast, aside here – part of it was an interview with Russell Crowe who made laugh out loud when he said that when talking of his directorial debut that he could not only direct but had to act as he was a “famous bastard”. I was not expecting a Russell Crowe interview to be quite as sympathetic.

Let me get back to the main purpose of this blog. Both Marion and I sweated away for an hour, and as we drove away from the gym, Marion said, “I feel better for that”: It was with a lightness of spirit that we approached the rest of the day. The sole cause was exercise. However for every upside there is also a down, it becomes addictive like alcohol or drugs (note for the readership I am not very experienced with the latter except under controlled circumstances). So now I am getting twitchy because I may not be able to exercise tomorrow. Those pesky little, I assume they are little, endorphins have got me in their grip.

So the exercise is great, but you have to undertake more each day for it to have an effect!!!!!!

A Change of Schedule

The keen eyed amongst you, or the merely disappointed may have noticed that there was no blog yesterday. This was due to spontaneity, not a trait normally associated with our family. It was a fairly routine Saturday, we had done some chores in the morning, I had got my hair cut (boy is this blog at the cutting edge), and we were both sat reading at about 3pm. My mobile rings, it is my son would you like to come over and see the grandchildren. Well yes great, it always good to see those bright little things. Just as we are in the car the phone rings again, pack an overnight bag says son. So we rush back into the house and pack an overnight bag.

Of course in our hurry I forget to pack my laptop so no blog. I also forget to pack a number of other essentials for an overnight stay but that is another story. It turns out that we need to undertake a little babysitting as a new bunk bed is being constructed, but looking after the two girls is always a pleasure.

We thoroughly enjoyed our stay, and it was all the better because we had not looked forward to it as it was at short notice.

The clocks went forward in the UK last night as we moved to British Summer Time. Now in itself that would not normally have impacted us as we would probably have had an extra hours sleep to compensate. However small children’s bodies are not regulated by real time, so it was still quite early when there was a little knock at the door and two beaming faces appeared for a cuddle, story reading, and educational games. When this was allied to quite a late night due to lots of talk over an Indian meal and a few beers mean that we are not quite as sprightly this afternoon as we might be!!!

This leads me to the necessity of changing the clocks. I think that it was introduced so that the agricultural industry could maximise production in the summer months. I am not sure that in these days of mechanisation this is any longer a factor. Any way from a personal perspective it is always depressing when the clocks go back and the light fades from the sky at around 16:30, just as it will be uplifting tonight when it is light to past 20:00. I am sure that it is easier to cope with dark mornings rather than gloomy evenings. Perhaps this is a reform that the next government would care to make, and perhaps we could harmonise times across Europe.

Miscellany

I now know the answer to the question about Richard III after listening to a discussion programme this morning. It is of course all generated by the Leicester tourist industry. It was an interesting discussion because it asked how far back is it necessary to go before a despot is given a funeral with honours. I will leave that to my readership to consider, as it is a very interesting moral question. Still all power to the Leicester Tourist Board, it is an interesting city that is a long way off the tourist map, and probably after a brief up-surge will remain so.

Those of you who are observant will notice that this is my one hundredth blog, writing that started way back in November. I have thoroughly enjoyed writing these; often they are therapeutic after long days. It was more difficult than I thought to write a blog every day, but this was because of illness in February that of course I could not predict. I have not been laid as low for a long time and it was impossible to write or indeed to have any coherent thoughts as to what to write.

I think that the blogs have reflected my eclectic interests, although I rather think that UK politics have taken a little too much of the blog. I think that this is because of the up-coming UK General Election, which is inevitably taking centre stage. It is also because I am becoming increasingly frustrated at the sterility of the political debate and the way that it does reflect real world problems.

I have most enjoyed writing the blogs about personal experiences such as the long weekend in Majorca recently. I have also enjoyed the comments from my readership, particularly the North American perspective from Karin and the doses of reality from my family.

I hope that the next one hundred blogs both inspire my readership and me.

Richard of Leicester or York?

You may have seen the spectacular re-burial of Richard III at Leicester Cathedral today. There were elements of British pageantry, eccentricity, and controversy all in the one occasion. The ceremony was a celebration of his life over five hundred years ago. As well as the great and the good in attendance, people came dressed in period costume. Below the surface there simmered a controversy as the whether Richard should be buried in Leicester at all, but rather in York.

He was of course the last of the Yorkist kings, whose demise on the battlefield of Bosworth directly led to the rule of the Tudor kings and a period of profound change and renaissance for England. So a hugely significant historical figure, but is he one deserving of the pomp of a state funeral. After all if you believe Shakespeare he murdered the princes in the tower as well as being an all round despot. However Shakespeare was writing from the perspective of the victor who in a form of propaganda was trying to burnish the image of the Tudors. In all probability Richard was no better or worse than any other contemporary ruler. In such bloody and unstable times it is probable that a king had to be ruthless in order to maintain his throne. At what point does a figure become rehabilitated? I am not sure that this can be quantified, but had Richard lived and the Plantagenet line been maintained it could be argued that England would have been more riven by bloody dispute. So by all means bury Richard with ceremonial, but do so in the knowledge that he was in all probability a ruthless ruler who probably should not serve as a contemporary role model.

So the burial in Leicester was a recognition that Richard had been brought to Leicester from the nearby battlefield of Bosworth Field. There he was buried in a monastery that in the due course of time became a car park. Now the good burghers of York became very excited by this. It is a travesty that Richard is not buried in his home county of Yorkshire. By some un-known logic they it is what he would have wanted. I suspect that actually what he wanted was to win the Battle of Bosworth and establish himself as a powerful monarch. Indeed if we look a English kings since 1066 it is only a small exceptional few who are not buried in either Windsor or London, and none in the North of England.

So I think any argument about the location of his burial is more about how many tourists a town attracts rather than a logical argument in favour of either Leicester or York.

I think the argument about giving him a state funeral is much more interesting and means that I will devote some more time to studying his real behaviour and characteristics. So to me the jury remains out, but I do hope that Leicester gains tourist numbers from the burial.