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Happy New Year, I hope it is good for you, though looking at the news these days I am not so sure.  The festive period is always billed as the most wonderful time of the year and yes, it is lovely to have some time off from the grinding mill, to spend time with family … Continue reading It’s the most wasteful time of the year

They said that I would be back at work by Christmas. Nobody believed that it would be over for me but with twenty or so working days until the fat man arrives, it looks like they were wrong. I’m happy that I have left it all behind and, to be honest, the thought of going … Continue reading They said I would be back

When Robert and I agreed to go for a walk in the countryside, I said that ten miles was probably my maximum for one day. To be honest I wasn’t sure but this was as far as I think I had been in one day since retiring. So a route of ten miles was decided … Continue reading A walk too far?

How often has someone said to you to try something, you never know, you might like it? When I was young it was something my mother often used to say to me to get me to try different foods. Some I did like and others I didn’t. That’s life. Now that I am retired and … Continue reading Try it, you might not like it

I must say that a leaving do has never really been my thing. I’m not sure why yet every time I have left a job, in brilliant sunshine or under a cloud, I have just left without the seemingly requisite party. Plenty of goodbyes but none of the hanging around, present giving or speech making. … Continue reading Leaving do

With only three weeks to go, my impending retirement is getting closer and closer. Although I (we) have been planning this for almost two years now it has suddenly come upon me. I’ve been telling everyone who would listen that I was going and have added the fact as part of my signature. It is … Continue reading Countdown

Image thanks to Sheaws CyberNorth is undergoing a big change. Just as I am about to leave, indeed just after I will have left, it is taking the enormous step of employing people. Up to this point, everyone engaged with the company has either been contracted or provided their services for free. This feels like … Continue reading Writing policies

Image thanks to The Football Faithful I never believed that I would see it in my lifetime, yet Newcastle United have won some silverware! I was too young to remember the Fairs Cup win of 1969 and wasn’t even born in the great days of the FA Cup wins in the fifties. It has been … Continue reading Finally

Image thanks to MetOpera I know that Wagner has a checkered reputation. His association with Hitler as his allegedly favourite composer has cast a shadow over his work. I am not well enough studied to know whether Wagner’s antisemitism was true or not, deep or shallow, though I am aware of his complaints over the … Continue reading Is it wrong to love Wagner?

Image thanks to Allride I know it’s a bit pathetic but I have tried very hard not to buy from Amazon. I know my efforts will not make a difference to the inexorable creep of the company’s global influence yet I am reluctant to give up. If many people did the same then there would … Continue reading Trying to avoid Amazon