Saturday 1 January Happy New Year!
Tching prayed on the mountain and
wrote make it new
on his bath tub.
Day by day make it new
cut underbrush,
pile the logs
keep it growing.
Ezra Pound, Cantos (1954) no. 53.
I have never made New Year resolutions. (It saves the humiliation of breaking them.) Instead, I often find a quotation or a poem to act as a motto for the year. In fact, looking back through this journal I see that five of the six entries for 1 January have a quotation as a theme for the year. This year, I was at a loss for a quotation to choose, and it struck me that for once I really ought to be making a resolution instead. The reason is that I know I'm getting lazy. As I settle into partial retirement, I find that the days pass all too easily without me achieving anything worthwhile. I have no trouble spending day after day reading, doing crosswords and surfing the web, instead of starting any of the projects that I had been saving up for retirement.
What I need to do is to make a fresh start: make it new. Then I happened to come across the quotation at the head of the entry. Ezra Pound is not a poet I have ever read, and I don't know anything about the context of this quotation except that it comes from a series of "Chinese Cantos" and is said to be translated from Confucius. But it leapt out at me when I chanced upon it in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, and I knew that it was aimed at me.
So I'll scrap the idea of a resolution, or at least downgrade it to a motto: make it new. I will try to turn over a new leaf and aim to do something practical and constructive each day. (Well, maybe I'll make an exception at weekends.) I made a good start today by clearing up some of the mess in the loft and laying down some of the insulation that I bought, oh, probably 20 years ago.
When we moved in to this house, the loft insulation was pathetically inadequate – just a couple of inches of material – and all the heat from the boiler was going straight up through the roof. I bought several rolls of 150mm thick fibreglass insulation and started laying it down between the joists in place of the old stuff, covering it with floorboards so that we could use the space for storage. But somehow the project ran out of steam half way through, and the remaining rolls of fibreglass have been gathering dust up there ever since. That's just one small illustration of the sort of jobs that I have lined up, and it really is time for me to get going on them. make it new!
When I was looking back through the journal to see the quotations I used in previous years, I was shocked to find Thomas Campion's poem at the head of the entry for 1 January 2000, with the line referring to "The horrors of the deep, and terrors of the skies." At the time, the horror that people were anticipating was the long-forgotten Millennium Bug that never materialised. But that line has come back to haunt the 21st Century, with the terror coming from the skies in September 2001, and the horrors of the deep that we have seen during the past week. What a godawful century it has been so far. Let's hope that things will take a turn for the better in 2005.
Thursday 6 January
Twelfth Night has arrived, and by tradition that is when the Christmas decorations should come down. My mother always used to insist that the decorations should be packed away on 6 January. In many ways, she was a very practical and rational person, but she was very firm about sticking to old traditions and superstitions like that. She used to say that if the decorations didn't come down on Twelfth Night they must be left in place until Candlemas on 2 February, a date known more prosaically in America as Groundhog Day. One year, for some reason that I don't remember, we were unable to take down the decorations on Twelfth Night, and Mum really did insist that they should stay up, gathering dust, for another four weeks, by which time we were sick and tired of them.
So today I have dutifully taken down all the Christmas decorations and packed them away in the attic for another year. By my reckoning that counts as a useful and constructive activity, and that means that I have so far kept my New Year's Non-resolution to do something practical and useful every day. Yes, I have completed laying down the insulation in the loft, and I have made a start on cleaning out the landing cupboard (which is in sore need of attention, not having received any during the 24 years that we have been in this house). Jobs like that are going to occupy most of my time from now on, but since I know of no way to make housework sound interesting I shall have to find something else to write about here. Of course, if you really want to know how I get on when I start painting the hall radiator, tiling the porch floor, rehanging the dining room door that's falling off its hinges, etc., etc., just let me know. But I don't want this journal to start sounding like the annual circular letter from our friends in California, which consisted of two pages of details about how they had their kitchen remodelled and the exterior walls strengthened against earthquakes and so on, and on, and on ….
Tuesday 11 January
Patience and perseverance have been rewarded – but only partially, there is still a way to go.
This saga started almost a year ago, on 1 February, the first day of our round the world trip, when our luggage went astray. We flew from Manchester to Heathrow, then on to Los Angeles and Honolulu, but the baggage never made the transfer at Heathrow. We had to clear US Customs in LA, and that was when we discovered that the luggage was missing. It took three days for British Airways to locate it and send it on to us. In the meantime we had to go out and buy some clothes, since we could hardly keep on wearing the British winter clothing that we set out in. We also had to stock up on some of the medications and dietary supplements that Mary needs.
When we got back to England, in April, I wrote to British Airways (BA) asking for compensation, enclosing an itemised list of items bought together with receipts. Admittedly this was perhaps slightly inflated, because we had actually treated ourselves to rather more in the way of new clothing than we really needed. Well I mean, you can hardly go to Hawaii without picking up a few colourful shirts and shorts, can you? Also, it can't be denied that Mary went a bit overboard stocking up on cotton dresses.
BA replied fairly promptly to my letter, explaining that there is an arrangement within the airline industry that, regardless of which company is actually responsible for loss of baggage, it is the airline you report the problem to that deals with the complaint and any claim for compensation. Since there was no BA office open in LA International when we discovered the loss, we reported it to American Airlines (which was the carrier for the LA–Honolulu leg of our journey). BA therefore forwarded our claim to American Airlines (AA).
After that, I heard nothing. I waited patiently for four months before writing again to BA, asking them to prod AA into taking some action since I had no way of contacting AA directly. They wrote back asking me to supply my lost baggage reference. They already knew this, since it was on every letter that I had written to them, but I meekly wrote once more to them supplying the reference yet again. They wrote back (this is getting tedious, which is how it felt at the time) saying that they could not recognise the reference I had given them, and adding "If you reported your bags missing in Honolulu with American Airlines, your reference should look like this AHLHNLAA12345." I wrote back patiently reminding them that the loss was not reported in Honolulu but in LA.
There followed another long silence. Early in December I was on the point of writing yet again to BA, when out of the blue I had a letter from the AA office in London: "We have been authorised by our Central Baggage Service Office in Dallas/Ft Worth, Texas, to make payment towards the cost of consequential expenses as a gesture of goodwill, in full and final settlement for your claim against American Airlines." It went on to ask for my bank details so that they could transfer an (unspecified) amount to my account.
Another month passed. I made a note to remind myself to phone AA's London office to ask when the money might be coming. But this morning I received a letter from AA saying that payment was on its way. Sure enough, my online bank statement shows a payment from AA. It is only for £128, against the £268 that I originally (optimistically) claimed, and there is no indication at all of how they arrived at that figure. But it's better than nothing.
I'm not going to leave it at that, however. The next step is to make a claim under our travel insurance. That has a limit of £100 for delayed baggage claims, so I'll never get the full amount that I wanted. But I'm pleased that we're getting somewhere, and now I'll keep plugging away at the insurance company. I just hope it doesn't take another year to get something out of them.
Monday 17 January Will you still need me, ...
... will you still feed me, when I'm sixty-four?
Mary and I had been married for just over one year when the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album was released in 1967. We were renting a little flat in Newcastle and we were desperately hard up. We still joke about the time when we had to save up for a nailbrush. But it wasn't a joke at the time. The nailbrush cost 11 old pence (just under 5p in decimal money, or about 10¢ in US money) and it put a real strain on our weekly budget. So there was no question of being able to buy the Beatles' LP. But we listened to the songs on the radio. One of the tracks that was played most often was When I'm Sixty-Four, and I wondered in a vague sort of way what it must feel like to be sixty-four, where we would be and what we would be doing at that impossibly remote date of 2005.
But now that time has come, and today is my 64th birthday. So what does it feel like to be sixty-four? The answer is that I don't feel much different from how I did then. True, our external circumstances have changed and we no longer have to save up for a nailbrush or dread the phone call from the garage when the car goes in for servicing. But my internal clock stopped at around the age of 25 and hasn't really moved on since.
Best of all, Mary and I are still together to look after each other as we move towards old age (and even I can't deny that old age is only just around the corner). So, does she still need me, will she still feed me, now that I'm sixty-four? The answer is yes, pretty much. Of course, it's mutual – we both need and feed each other. In fact, we probably need each other more and more as time goes on. When you're younger, you can more or less take care of yourself, but as you get older and frailer it's a great comfort to have a partner around to support you. Until now, Mary has been the one who needed the support, with her chronic ill health. But I can easily see that in a few years things may be the other way round. What neither of us likes is the thought that one of us will presumably die before the other one. Life as a widow or widower, without the support of a partner, is not something either of us looks forward to. Hopefully it will still be a long time before that happens. But that's not a very uplifting thought for a birthday.
What about "Will you still feed me"? To some extent we take turns in cooking. Recently Mary has been cooking most evenings, because she is on a weight-watchers' programme and wants to keep a close eye on the points-count value of the ingredients. When I'm cooking, I tend to be a bit too free with the butter, wine and other points-laden substances. But for the past couple of days Mary has had a stomach complaint and hasn't wanted to eat at all. So I have had to fend for myself. For my birthday dinner this evening I heated up yesterday's left-over steak and fried some leeks. When I finished eating, I told Mary that I now know the answer to the question "Will you still feed me, when I'm sixty-four?" Despite her gastric troubles, she saw the funny side and was suitably contrite.
According to this web site, Paul McCartney wrote When I'm Sixty-Four as a tribute to his father and the music of the thirties, and actually composed the melody when he was only fifteen. There are several web sites that have the lyrics to the song (you can even listen to the tune here). That surprised me, because I thought the copyright owners would not have allowed it to be reproduced so freely. Having been involved with the publishing business myself, I understand publishers' concern to protect their intellectual property rights, and I don't have much sympathy with people who think that such material should be freely available for anyone to copy. However, if other people can get away with it, so can I. So here are the perfect lyrics for a sixty-fourth birthday (together with the appropriate copyright acknowledgement).
When I get older losing my hair, many years from now
Will you still be sending me a valentine, birthday greeting, bottle of wine
If I'd been out till quarter to three, would you lock the door,
Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm sixty-four?
Oh you'll be older too,
and if you say the word, I could stay with you.
I could be handy mending a fuse, when your lights have gone
You can knit a sweater by the fireside, Sunday mornings, go for a ride
Doing the garden, digging the weeds, who could ask for more
Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm sixty-four?
Every summer we can rent a cottage on the Isle of Wight,
if it's not too dear
We shall scrimp and save, grandchildren on your knee,
Vera, Chuck, and Dave.
Send me a postcard, drop me a line, stating point of view
Indicate precisely what you mean to say, yours sincerely wasting away
Give me your answer, fill in a form, mine for evermore
Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm sixty-four?
© Copyright 1967 Northern Songs
Monday 24 January
It didn't snow again today. Yes, I know it's been snowing (hard) across the Atlantic, but not here in England. They forecast snow for today, but all we got was a slight flurry that cleared up after a few minutes. They also forecast snow at the weekend, but none of it came our way. It's a long time since we had a proper snowfall in Leeds.
When we first moved here, in the 1980s, we used to get at least one good fall of snow every winter without fail. (Around here, that means anything deeper than a foot or so.) I quite enjoy the sensation of being cut off from the outside world that a good snow storm brings, when visibility is down to zero, sounds are deadened and there is no traffic past the house. It makes a good break from one's usual routine, and the neighbourhood looks transformed under a coat of fresh white snow (so long as it doesn't stay around for too long before melting). But we don't get snow like that any more. It must be at least five years since we last had a proper snowfall. In fact, come to think of it, I have been saying for several years that it's five years since we last saw proper snow. So it's probably nearer ten years. To add to this clear evidence of global warming, we already have flowers in the garden. Mary counted ten different species in flower yesterday. Not being a gardener myself, I wouldn't know what most of them are. But I do know that there are snowdrops and crocuses in bloom in the front garden, and daffodils are already in bud. That's at least a month earlier than in a normal year. But 'normal' isn't normal any more.
Sunday 30 January
This time last year, we were getting ready to leave for our trip round the world. We were away for the whole of February and March. This year, we can't be quite that ambitious. But we are going to be away for the whole of February. We are staying in the same village in Gran Canaria where we have been several times previously. Usually, we go there for a couple of weeks in January, then I come home and Mary stays on for another month or two, to escape the English winter. This year, since I am no longer bound to the world of work (hurray!), we are both going to stay there for the whole month. Hopefully, this will give us time to explore some of the other parts of the island. Previously we have stayed in the south-west corner, where it is warmest and driest. When you can spend the mornings swimming in the sea and the afternoons wandering in the sand dunes of Maspalomas there doesn't seem to be much incentive to look further afield. But I suspect I might begin to tire of that if I had a whole month of it. So it will be interesting to see some of the other areas of the island.
This weekend, as well as getting ready to go away, we have a houseful of guests. A couple of old friends are visiting, and Liz also decided to come home for the weekend. We told her that she needn't feel obliged to come and see us before we leave, but she said plaintively "Oh, but you might have a crash and I'd never see you again!" Strange how people worry about the dangers of air travel – statistically, it is far more likely for her to have an accident driving up from Bristol to see us than for us to be involved in an air crash. But anyway, it's always nice to see her.
That's all I have time for now. Next update will be in March.
