Tuesday 1 June
It's June already, and I haven't even started on any of the retirement projects that I had lined up for this summer. So far, I've just been enjoying the novelty of having as much free time as I want, not having to go in to work each day, and being able to spend the time doing whatever I please. Some of the things I have been doing have been constructive and useful, like researching the choices for major purchases like the new car and computer. But far too much time has been, frankly, wasted.
One serious cause of wasted time has been Myst III: Exile. Mary gave me this game for Christmas 2002. To be more precise, she asked if I wanted anything for Christmas other than what she had already bought me, and I suggested this game. Since she hadn't any idea what I was talking about, she said that I should get it for myself and give it to her to wrap. Amazon did the rest. I opened the present on Christmas day, with suitable expressions of surprise and gratitude, but discovered to my dismay that it wouldn't run on my computer (too slow, not enough RAM). So Myst III was put aside, but not forgotten. When I bought the eMac a couple of weeks ago, one of the first things I tried on it was Myst III. It started up without any trouble. Since then, I have spent countless hours working my way through the game. It's a demanding intellectual challenge, full of crafty puzzles which give a satisfying feeling of accomplishment when you solve them. There are loads of hints and walkthroughs available on the internet, but so far I have resisted the temptation to cheat and I'm continuing to make (slow) progress.
However, the time has come when I can no longer ignore the little voice of conscience telling me that there are other things I ought to be doing. Yesterday I left the computer switched off and went outside with the intention of repainting the fence beside the garage. When I scraped away the peeling paint I found that several of the wooden slats were completely rotted through and they crumbled away in my hands. It's too late to preserve the fence with a coat of paint, and we'll have to get it replaced. That's not a job I'm inclined to do myself (though I probably would have been happy to do it when I was younger and more energetic) and we'll have to pay someone to do it.
So today I got going on another painting job. The front porch is in need of a paint job. Fortunately it hasn't deteriorated to the stage of rotting away, though I did have to dig out a bit of rotten wood, apply a liberal dose of Ronseal Wet Rot Wood Hardener™ and fill it in with putty before putting on a coat of primer paint. I have a list as long as your arm of projects like that, which need doing with greater or lesser degrees of urgency, around the house and garden. *sigh* Who'd be a property owner?
If I don't update this journal for a while, you'll know that I'm up a ladder painting the house (or, just possibly, that I'm sitting here at the computer immersed in the Ages of Myst).
Tuesday 8 June
Little if anything to report from the past week. I have repainted the porch with five coats of paint: primer, two layers of undercoat and two of gloss. I hope that will mean that it lasts a bit longer than the previous time. The front porch seems to weather very badly, and it's only a couple of years since I last painted it. We spent a very pleasant day with some friends last Wednesday. They have a country cottage in the Yorkshire Dales and invited us and another couple to join them there for the day. Apart from that, I have been coming to terms with the new computer, and I now have it set up more or less the way I want it. I still haven't finished Myst III, though I have been making good progress with it, only very occasionally going online to look for a small hint.
None of that is really worth a journal entry. The only point of making an entry today is to say that tomorrow we're off to Spain for eight days to stay with Steve, Jo and the family. Our grandson David will be one year old on Thursday, and we're looking forward to being there for his first birthday.
Did I mention that Steve and Jo are getting married? They have been together for about ten years, so you can't say they're rushing into it. In fact, they have been trying to get married for several years, but Spanish bureaucracy has always defeated them. If they were catholics they could get married in church there easily enough. But to arrange a civil wedding in Spain is not straightforward. The final straw came when they found that, in order to qualify to marry, each of them would have to produce an official certificate from England proving that they were not already married. Since there is no such thing in England as a certificate of non-marriage, they were stymied. The only way around the problem was for them to come back to England to get married, and this is what they are going to do. The wedding will be in September. Mary is already fretting about whether she can bring herself to wear a hat for the occasion. (Don't tell her I said that.)
Saturday 19 June
After a week of almost unbroken sun in Spain, with temperatures around 30°C, it's a bit of a shock to the system to be back in cold, rainy Leeds. (Maybe summer will reach these parts eventually.) We had a great time staying with the family. Tom, at four and threequarters, is full of fun, and less bouncy and aggressive than when we last saw him. Little David, who had his first birthday while we were there, is very sweet. He isn't walking or talking yet (although it won't be long before he takes his first steps – he can just about stand up unaided), but he's good-natured and happy.
The part of Spain where they live is quite traditional and slow to change. Most of the towns have cobbled streets laid out in attractive patterns of white and black stones, and each town has its central square, where the old men sit to gossip and smoke during the day, and the kids come to play in the evenings. In the town where Steve and Jo live, the older kids usually play football, and the little ones like to have water pistol fights, filling their weapons from the public fountain in the centre of the square. Tom enjoys taking part in these games, and we went there in the evenings to sit in the square or at one of the nearby bars while Tom played.
An incident in the square one evening made us think about the differences between Spanish and English society. While Tom was engaged in a water pistol battle across the other side of the square, a tiny child – he must have been two or three years old – came up to the bench where we were sitting, and squatted on the ground in front of us, sobbing miserably and trying to tell us something. It's hard enough to understand Spanish at the best of times, particularly with the thick Andalusian accent in that part of the country, and Mary and I had no idea what this toddler was incoherently blubbering about. But Steve realised that he was saying that his mother and grandmother had gone off to do some shopping and he was worried that they had been away a long time. Steve managed to get the child to tell him which shop he thought they had gone to. He said it was a "blue shop", but he pointed to a shop with a yellow awning, across the road from the square. Steve took him by the hand and led him across the road to this shop, and emerged a few minutes later without the child, who had been reunited with his family.
Mary and I both had the same thought about this incident. It was not that the child's mother should never have left him alone in the square. In fact, plenty of young children are left in this way while their parents go off to do some shopping or have a drink and some tapas. There is a strong community spirit, so that everybody looks out for each other, and there are always other parents around to keep an eye out for any trouble. What really struck Mary and me was the way that Steve was able to go off holding a strange child, without even stopping to think about whether he was putting himself at risk. In England, if a man did that, he would be in danger of being arrested for attempted abduction. But such a thought never occurred to Steve. He didn't even think it necessary to ask Mary to come with him, to provide a cover of female respectability.
It made us sad that we live in a country where children have to be taught to be suspicious of strange men, but glad that our grandchildren are growing up in a more innocent society.
Friday 25 June
I have put a few pictures of the Spanish trip on the family web site, here.
But no sooner home than I'm away again. This time, it's my favourite week of the year, when I go walking in Scotland with a group of friends. This year we are renting a cottage on the west coast, on the Moidart peninsula. The cottage has five double bedrooms, so a quick calculation tells you that it should sleep ten people. As usual, I'll be sharing a room with my old friend Bob.
To my surprise, Liz asked me a few days ago whether there was any chance that there might be room for her to come too. The last time she came on one of these holidays was in 1989 when she was a teenager. It never occurred to me that she might be interested in a walking holiday after all these years. I phoned Allan, who organises the cottage rental, and asked him if there would be any spare beds available, and it turns out there there will be. Liz will have to share a room with Barbara, but neither of them will mind that. I'm pleased that Liz wants to go on holiday with her old dad and his friends, though it's a bit of a shame that she won't be at home to keep Mary company.
We leave early tomorrow morning for the eight hour drive up to the Highlands, and we'll be away for a week. So no more updates here until July.
