A hike to the supermarket

I came back from Hong Kong to the inevitable mountain of mail, including one small Jiffybag, hidden amongst a heap of catalogues and circulars.

Rubber tips for my hiking poles

I gave a wry smile as I opened it up and  tipped out the contents. Two small rubber caps that fit on the metal spikes of my hiking poles so that the poles can be used in an urban environment without slipping and sliding. 

This was a symbolic moment, because you may remember that when I was living in Italy, my use of hiking poles had been met with much hilarity from the locals and cries of "You've forgotten your skis!" 

The charity runners who raced past my front door in Lincoln last month had included Nordic Walkers, who strode effortlessly along with their rubber-tipped hiking poles. They had inspired me to think again about tackling my girth and my overall lack of fitness. I decided that it was time that I should put away my bus pass and walk, not ride. 

The last time I'd carried a back-pack I was a 16 year-old,
hiking from Sarajevo to Jablanica in Bosnia /Herzegovina

With this in mind,  I'd ordered these rubber caps on-line before I went to Hong Kong .

Now I had no more excuses.

However, it wasn't until I reached the checkout and started loading my purchases into my back-pack that I realised that a bargain 5kg mini-sack of onions actually weighed 5kg. 

Once I paid for my carrots, cheese, cabbages, milk, strong flour for bread-making, and tins of  tomatoes, my little back-pack was fast approaching the weight limit for a suitcase on a Club Class air ticket.

LIDL tries to persuade customers to put their purchases back in the trolley and then wheel them across to a packing area where there is a wide shelf for sorting out your shopping. For me, this proved to be a godsend, because once my shopping was stored away, there was no way I could lift the pack. I had to crouch down with my back to the shelf and wriggle my arms through the straps. Then I stood up and wobbled slightly before stabilising myself with my hiking poles and making my way out to the car park.

I set off homewards, but was seduced by the sight of a bus-stop. I was afraid that if I slipped and fell I would just lie on the pavement waiting for a robust, weight-lifting Good Samaritan.

Rescued by my little green bus

I flagged down the little bus and the driver waved me in without asking for my bus-pass. It must have been clear to him that this breathless, staggering man was of pensionable age. He probably thought that it might take me 5 minutes to fumble around through my pockets for the relevant document, and he wanted to get down to the bus-station on schedule.

I had to keep my pack on my back, so sitting down was not an option. Thanks to my shopping, I was totally unstable, and stood, clinging tightly to the rails as the bus veered round corners. I did my best to maintain an air of casual nonchalance, not wanting to admit that the vertebrae of my back were in danger of rearranging themselves. I loosed my grip on the rail just long enough to press the bell, and stepped off with a smile that disguised a pale grimace.

Next time I shall buy less. And there will be lots of next times because, though I hate to admit it, I feel really good for having taken the exercise, and I've been out every day since.

And it's so much healthier than doing the ironing. 

Grandfather goes visiting

Hong Kong has a population of over 7 million, crowded into a land-mass of little over a thousand square kilometres, making it one of the most densely populated areas of the world.

"Compact" is an understatement. Half the population lives in the New Territories which, as the map demonstrates, constitute 86% of the total area.

The other half live in Hong Kong and Kowloon, where any sort of accommodation is at a premium.

Soaring, close-packed tower blocks

The apartment buildings are so huge that it is difficult to find photographs that truly give he impression of the actual size. They are not merely high, they are also closely packed together which accentuates the feeling of being crowded-in-on.

Add narrow streets and laundry drying on poles sticking out from the windows and the atmosphere is truly claustrophobic.

A typical Hong Kong urban canyon

When I booked my trip, I asked my daughter if we could take a side-trip to Macao. Like Hong Kong, it's been a real eye-opener, with the affluence and living standards once again coming as a big surprise.
There are still some quaint pieces of Portuguese colonial architecture, but the bigger surprise are the gambling hotels.
All the big names from Las Vegas are in Macao: MGM, Sands, Venetian and so on, but on a scale that far outshines anything I saw in Vegas.

Old colonial Portuguese architecture

Part of the entrance lobby of The Venetian

A grand staircase to the gaming rooms

Everything is on a huge scale, creating a sort of Disneyworld for adults. The levels of service are very high, the food and drink are excellent and the clientele is 90% Chinese, affluent and out to spend money to enjoy their holiday. There are hundreds of them, shepherded around in crocodiles by their tour guides, who lead the way with a flag on a pole. They take thousands of photographs - Dad in front of the fountain; Mother by the statue, and so forth. The public areas get as crowded as Kings Cross London Underground station in the rush hour. They are unfazed by air of extravagance and sophistication and revel in the opportunity to sample another culture in the security of their own continent. That much, at least, they have in common with the American tourists in Las Vegas, who - I found when I visited - believed that Paris really is like The Paris Hotel on the Strip. 

Gondolas with singing gondoliers on a suitably cleaned-up canal - all indoors

Much of the time I was left speechless by the sheer scale of everything; much of it was hard to believe: Priceless antiques and works of art make one lobby look like a gallery at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
My greatest emotion as we left to return on the high-speed catamaran to Kowloon was probably one of sadness. I was left feeling that Macao exists as a temple to consumerism, greed, affluence and just about everything that is wrong with 21st century society.

But it was an experience I would not have missed, and am extremely grateful to my daughter Samantha for planning and arranging the trip.

Re-telling Retail

It was the sort of mini-crisis that tends to strike at the wrong moment. The end of the week had me locked indoors, fully occupied with the finalisation of a complex proposal document. I left my apartment only on Sunday, to go to the Cathedral in the morning and later, to watch the charity fund-raising runners.

My nice, chunky leather wallet

On Monday I started tidying the place up and sorting out my packing for my trip to visit the family in Hong Kong. 

Such an activity seems to be full of "senior moments" as I panic to locate my travel insurance or my passport or, as yesterday, to find my wallet.

Now, it's not the first time I have lost a wallet, but they tend to reappear in an hour or two. This very wallet disappeared in Mauritius only to reappear a day later, but not before I had rung the alarm bells and stopped my credit and debit cards. Very annoying.

In an uncharacteristic display of common sense, I usually carry a spare card separately, so on such an occasion there will be no real crisis, just the embarrassment of having made a big fuss over what turned out to be no problem at all. 

A choice of men's leather wallets on Amazon

This time was different. I didn't find it and I still haven't found it. Apart from the loss of bank cards and personal documents, there was something of an additional problem: I needed something to put stuff in! I couldn't visit my daughter in Hong Kong and carry my HK Dollars around in the plastic envelope from the foreign exchange bureau. The alternative option of using an old wallet that I found at the back of a drawer was not practical, as that one was literally falling apart.

Fortunately, even at 9.30 in the evening, retailing has changed.

I logged on to Amazon and picked the twin-brother of the nice, chunky wallet that I have mislaid, selecting the dark brown "distressed" finish instead of tan, just in case the missing wallet reappeared.

I paid £3.95 for "1-day delivery" more in hope than confidence and went to bed, lying awake and mentally retracing my steps over the last 5 days. I calculated that I had definitely pulled the wallet out of my pocket last Wednesday, when I was shopping in the market, and I vowed to retrace my steps in the morning. But before I left the house to head down-town at 8am this morning, I booted up the computer and found an email from Amazon. I followed the link to "my orders" on the website.

It had already arrived in Lincoln

Amazing! My wallet reached Birmingham by midnight and was in Lincoln before seven in the morning. 

I hurried off to the market, but alas, my lost wallet had not been handed in. I drew out some cash with the debit card of my second current account, then headed back uphill to get on with my sorting, cleaning and packing

When I returned to the house, I found another email, this time with an update advising me that my new wallet was scheduled for delivery, later the same afternoon .

Retailing has changed dramatically. 

When I look at my credit card record, I realise that I don't use shops much any longer. I buy my clothes on-line, avoiding the embarrassing hunt for anything in my size - from footwear to shirts. 

I do my bulk  supermarket shopping every couple of months; I buy fresh produce from the market, and milk etc. from the corner shop. All my computer needs - ink, paper, labels and so forth, come off the internet and I even upgraded my phone on-line (which was another next-day delivery.) 

But I must procrastinate no longer, and even though I know I'll find the missing item within minutes of blocking my credit and debit card, I know it's the sensible thing to do. I just don't like feeling so incompetent - and knowing all of this is almost certainly age-related. 

Sad, very sad.

I still haven't found my wallet, but my new wallet was delivered, as promised, at 4.30pm.

Charity runs and Croci (Crocuses if you didn't do Latin.)

The keen ones racing around the final bend

The first Sunday in April, and the energetic are out this morning: hundreds of runners are pounding past my front door in the Lincoln "Active Nation" 10 kilometre run for charity. They estimate up to five and a half thousand participants. Some are national-class athletes and most are so lean and fit that it makes me tired just to look at them. 

Royal Air Force veterans warming up before the start

There are a number of wheelchair participants, whether in 3-wheeled Olympic class racers or in standard issue National Health Service 4-wheelers (like these ones, similar to the one Dad had in his later years,) being pushed at a jog by a supporting partner.

Dressed for the occasion

And then there are the people who cannot resist the opportunity to dress up, though if you ever try and get them to a Fancy Dress Ball, they will always find an excuse to stay away.
Even in this wintry weather, I am sure these men in green Morph suits must have been uncomfortably warm by the time they reached the finish. 

I'm sure this participant will also have ended up in a bit of a sweat, and he certainly deserves congratulations on the seasonal attire! (- or maybe he was just Welsh? )

The emphasis behind the event was on getting out and getting some exercise (he writes, as he taps at the keyboard and sips his G&T,) and I do feel I have been letting the family down while my son in Canada has been mountaineering on ice; and my daughter in Oxford and son in Rhode Island are both in training for local charity runs. 

So, time for a resolution, and after seeing the number of participants striding along as Nordic Walkers with their hiking poles, I could be tempted to get some rubber tips for my poles and join the next event, later in the year. 

I enjoy Nordic Walking, but when I used my hiking poles in Italy I received puzzled looks from locals who asked what I had done with the skis.

Spring flowers in a corner of my garden

Meanwhile, the garden is waking up and the Spring flowers are pushing through. 

I can once again walk across the front lawn when I come back from the cathedral, and feel that wonderfully springy turf of grass that hardly feels a footstep from one year to the next.

The boys and girls of the Cathedral School are now on holiday, so we had a guest choir today, singing the Haydn Little Organ Mass. For the anthem  they sang the Easter Carol "This Joyful Eastertide" in a beautiful unaccompanied harmony.

It takes many months to become part of the cathedral community, but I feel less of a visitor now and I'm less hesitant when It comes to chatting to people over coffee. I shall once again miss the community as I fly off this week to visit my daughter in Hong Kong, 

...and I really must clean and tidy up before I leave!

Sat-Navs and Kindles

I have always loved maps. I remember one of my first geography lessons in Primary School, when we had to draw a "map" of our desk, so that we grasped the idea of an overhead view. It was exciting, this idea of floating in the sky and looking directly down on the classroom, or the street and town - all long before Google Earth was even a concept.

That's when my love-affair with cartology all began. I collected  maps of all kind. I can loan you a street-plan of Bruges, a public transport map of Chicago or a pictorial map of the Wine Route in Cape Province, and I keep adding more.

I sought old old maps, too, and had some antique maps of Africa that missed or misplaced major key features. 

No sign of Lake Victoria, and Mount Kilimanjaro was clearly on the wrong side of the Equator. 

When, in my student years, I backpacked up the Nile from Alexandria to Uganda (and beyond) it was the usual publishers that provided the overview - and British War Office WW2 military maps from Stanfords map shop in Long Acre that filled in the detail.

My maps have followed me everywhere, and when I moved to Italy,  it was suggested that many were out of date. To me, this was heresy, because I knew for certain that not a single river, mountain or city had moved anywhere in all the time these maps had been in my possession.

And that is. essence, why I swore I would never use a Satellite navigation device. It's all very well when the coy actor, or - worse - the synthesised robotic voice tells you "...After 500 metres, take the exit..." but it doesn't tell you where you are, what to see, what places to visit or the name of that lake over there. 

The very phrase: "...you have reached your destination" has an ominous foreboding, especially when you look around the car-park in the back-street to which you have been directed. 

So, stubbornly, I shirked the idea of a bossy electronic device giving me orders until I came to drive to Italy, and was loaned a Tom-Tom Sat-Nav. When I motored across Switzerland, through a spaghetti of motorways, I discovered the benefit. All I had to do was change the voice setting from an aggressively feminist dictator to a friendly, knowledgeable bloke whom - had he been real - I would happily have invited for a drink at the end of the journey. I was converted to a new technology, just as this week, I acquired a Kindle.

I love books as much as I love maps. I did have a large collection of Africana, but many were sold; some went to raise capital for the restaurant in 1979, others inevitably went in the constant process of down-sizing over the past 20 years.

I entrusted some of my books and maps to my daughter and son-in-law, because I knew he would drool over them as I have done. I have an early edition of Stanley's "In Darkest Africa" and if I win a couple of lucrative contracts training or writing in the next couple of years, I intend to have them re-bound with leather spines and gold tooling. 

But now it is my Kindle that sits in a shiny leather cover, (though lacking the gold lettering.) 

This was another Italian lesson for me, from when I was hospitalised in Italy in November 2011 for a hip replacement, and borrowed a Kindle loaded with half a dozen books.

Then my trip to Mauritius made me realise how much more convenient it would be to have reading matter constantly to hand, and new material available at the click of a mouse. I can still be positively Luddite, bemoaning the lack of page numbers and getting cramp in my right hand while I still try to find the best way to hold the device, but the benefits are undeniable.

So which piece of technology should I adopt next? I already have an Android Smartphone, and when my contract option permits I shall upgrade to something a bit faster and more reliable.

I'm really not interested in being permanently wired in to music, which is why I never had an MP3 player, and have no interest in an iPod.

The iPad must be useful if you are permanently on the move, or want games and pictures to keep children amused, but I'd rather have my laptop and take along a full-size keyboard when I travel, so that I can write easily, without mis-typing all the time.

So, what is next? Can I see myself wearing my computer in the style of Google glasses? 

Who knows? I said I'd never use Sat-Nav and I swore nothing would persuade me to use electronic books.

Do you think they do them in bi-focals?

Dear Lord - it's ******* cold!

I didn't really want to leave this. . . .

For the last six weeks I've been living in Mauritius.You might have seen the blog I wrote about it.          It was very hot; some days it was very wet, but mostly it was very sunny. After almost six weeks of caution I decided not to bother with sun-cream for my last morning in the pool. As a result, I spent that afternoon, evening and half the night lathering on more and more layers of after-sun lotion. 
When I returned to Lincoln, the effort was worth it, just to see the bleached faces of fellow members of the Cathedral congregation. 

I am now convinced that the early weeks of the year are better spent south of the equator. I just need to find a way to fund this observation, and must keep in touch with my hospitable friends in Mauritius, Kerala and New Zealand. While I think about it, I wouldn't mind tracking down friends in East Africa...hmmm.

Home for 3 days - then this!

As I was saying in January, this weather is all very pretty, but it's also very damp and very cold - to say nothing of dangerous underfoot.

Yes, I did enjoy the heat in Mauritius. Six weeks without socks or proper shoes, six weeks of being pampered by the wonderful maids at The River House and six weeks to do some serious thinking about what I might enjoy over the next decade.

The first part of that started on Friday, when I had my first session as a volunteer mentor for the Prince's Trust. I have been assigned to help someone who is setting up an online retail business. I am not there to coach or consult; my role is to be there to listen and give an opinion - I'm someone to bounce ideas off. I don't know which one of us was more apprehensive about the interview, but once the ice was broken we seemed to get along. 

I rapidly realised that this is a role I shall enjoy.

The choir in full voice

Another aspect of getting into my Lincoln routine was to go back to the Cathedral today and enjoy the wonderful atmosphere that comes when music and tradition combine to create an event. It was Palm Sunday, and we had the symbolic greenery (more evergreen than palms, alas!) carried by the congregation and then tossed into the nave in front of the passage of the Dean and chapter; we had the palm crosses and we had a treatment of the bible reading that I've not heard before. 

The gospel today was the whole of Luke Chapter 23. Instead of being read, this was chanted in plainsong, led by the Precentor with the soloists in the choir taking different parts in the narrative of the story. It was quite breath-taking. I spoke to the Precentor over coffee afterwards and there was a twinkle in his eye when he said: "If you enjoyed that, wait to you see what we do on Good Friday."

My Lincoln life is back in full swing now. Tomorrow, (Monday,) I am off to London for a Conference Industry evening meeting. I would miss the last train so I've found a cheap room at one of the LSE Halls of Residence. On Wednesday I am reading the lesson in one of the additional Holy Week services, and on Thursday I am off down to Kent for a meeting on a potential new project.

The ironing can wait...

... as I just said: "My Lincoln life is back in full swing now."

Time for a change in the weather

Cold, damp, wet and grey - January 21st

There is a downside to living in Lincoln, or indeed to living in many parts of the UK in the winter. Some might say it's not just the winter, because they'll claim that there's always a problem with the  British weather. To some extent, that's true. Contrary to what the rest of the world likes to say about the weather, it isn't always raining but, on the other hand, it is very often grey, dull and rather melancholy.

Breathtakingly pretty - January 22nd

Earlier this month, we had a brief glimpse of how winter can be photogenic. One day was utterly miserable and then we awoke the next morning to a spectacular deep blue sky, and a crisp chill in the air that froze the snow in a delicate filigree on the trees

Yeah, right, and it was bloody cold.

Then there's the national inability to deal with anything other than minimal fluctuations in the weather. In summer, the road surfaces melt; in wet weather, the rivers flood and the drains overflow; in cold weather, the roads are treacherous. To be fair, the Council did a pretty good job with the roads, but the pavements have become a hotbed of litigious argument. Outside the pedestrian shopping areas, not one pavement was so much as brushed. Slush on the pavements froze into a lethal obstacle course. Apparently this is a deliberate course of action. It seems that if the pavements were cleared and then a pedestrian fell and had an accident,  there would be a case for a claim for compensation. So the roads are swept and gritted while the pavements are untouched.

Fortunately the Cathedral Estates department has a different attitude, and the drive outside my house was cleared perfectly and gave me a safe passage as far as the treacherous pavement at the roadside.

Lincoln - Kings Cross - Saint Pancras - Gatwick Airport

Enough is enough. It's time to head south.

I am invited to spend six weeks in Mauritius as a guest of a friend who runs what looks like a very attractive B&B.

I shall be expected to share various onerous tasks like preparing early breakfasts for guests who need an early start so they can swim with the dolphins, - and I shall have to drive them to the dolphin beach and probably go swimming with them. 

Once or twice a week I might have to cook extravagant dishes of seafood for guests who decide they'd like to eat in.  Such a tough call for a retired chef and passionate gourmet

I'll be back for Easter and will continue this blog then, meanwhile, if you're interested in learning about life in a different climate, you can follow my new blog from February 4th.

...not much to see, really!

A Little Bit of Lincolnshire History

Red Arrows at RAF Scampton

Lincolnshire has very few hills. It is flat and largely arable, making it ideal terrain for locating airstrips and aerodromes. Hence it is no surprise to discover that Lincolnshire became an important hub for RAF operations in the Second World War, and remains a prime location for the RAF to this day.There are jump-jets based in the south of the county and the famous Red Arrows display team is based at Scampton, a few miles north of Lincoln. Back in the WW2 days of Hurricanes, Spitfires and Lancasters, RAF Scampton achieved renown as the base from which Wing-Commander Guy Gibson led Operation Chastise, the

The Möhne dam breached by the raid

successful bouncing bomb raid on the Möhne and Edersee Dams that were seen as crucial in supplying hydro-electric power to the industrial heartland of the Ruhr.

There was something quintessentially British about Barnes-Wallis, the eccentric boffin who conjured up the idea of the bouncing bomb. When this character was teamed up with the Brylcreem and moustachioed glamour of the heroic RAF "few," there was material for an Elstree blockbuster, "The Dambusters," that was the Britain's biggest box-office hit in 1955. The film was broadcast again over the Christmas film-fest, and I found myself transported back to my childhood.

Wing-Commander Guy Gibson (centre)

It's a film I well remember, because it was my birthday treat in 1955, especially memorable for one incident. At one point, one of the airmen SWORE. It was in the sequence when the crews are practising low-level flying over Derwent Water and the navigator exclaims: "This is bloody dangerous!"

We four 11-year olds hooted and brayed. The character had said "bloody" - loud and clear, for everyone to hear in the film. "Bloody" was a totally unacceptable swear-word in 1950s Britain (bloody being a mediaeval abbreviation of By Our Lady)  It was shocking; and while we and all the other children in the audience collapsed with roars of laughter, the parents sucked their teeth and tutted audibly. How times have changed!

A different part of the script failed to make any impact in 1955 Britain, but was carefully dubbed for US distribution to avoid possible offence. The word in question was the name of a pet dog. Guy Gibson went everywhere with his beloved black Labrador, affectionately called Nigger. This was deemed inappropriate for American audiences and dubbed as Trigger. It is a sad sign of the times that one of the main talking points surrounding Peter Jackson's plans to shoot a remake of the film is what to call the dog. (The Lancasters needed for the film have already been built, but Jackson is currently seduced by The Hobbit trilogy.) Scriptwriter Stephen Fry proposes Digger while Executive Producer David Frost prefers Guy Gibson's nickname for his pet: Nigsy. Whatever happened to historical accuracy?

A Lancaster bomber flying over Lincoln Cathedral

This part of Lincolnshire relishes both past and present Air-force connections. The Battle of Britain Flight is now just one Lancaster, one Spitfire and one Hurricane, but I recall many occasions as a child, watching several of these WW2 stalwarts in flypasts.

Richard Todd in the role of Guy Gibson

Today, while computerised drones do the lethal work of eliminating targets without risk to the attacker, films of the Second World War depict a very different technology.

It came as a shock in the film to see the cumbersome leather and metal helmet that incorporated the microphone and headphones for the crew in the Lancaster cockpit. In another shot I was brought back to earth with the sight of the navigator using a slide rule to calculate position and time to destination. It is much easier to think of these people as war heroes than it is to admire a man in a bunker with a screen and a computer.

There is a growing debate over the use of drones, but I doubt whether intellectual outrage will change anything for the better. If war can be waged purely with technology, with very little human involvement, then most people living in the land of the aggressor will happily turn a blind eye. 

Drone warfare is probably another step towards Totalitarianism and clandestine operations. There will be no more war heroes, but maybe that's no bad thing.