You’ll be relieved to learn I’ve got into the Christmas spirit. This is evidenced by adding my Crimbo tunes to my iPhone. This decision was taken whilst listening to Mariah Carey in a cafe, it came as a shock! Apparently I’m all she wants for Christmas. It will shortly be the time for lists and before you ask then my favourite Christmas record is “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” by John Lennon. It looks like both sprogs will join the Ives peloton on Christmas Day. However it would be an understatement to say things are a little uncertain at the moment. As regards the virus then the first vaccines have been administered to some folk on the street. I’m glad to say I’m a few age groups behind these octogenarians but I can hear the hooves of the arriving cavalry. 

The badger has been back. We’ve hosted it four times now and an untidy chap/chapess it is. However in the spirit of Christmas I’ve given him a name. Picking up on names like ‘Frosty the Snowman’ or ‘Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer ‘ I’ve called it Bastard – ‘Bastard the Badger’. His fourth trip to our garden resulted in considerable damage and over an hour of attempting to restore the lawn. It’s like a jigsaw of gaps and little pieces of turf.

Unfortunately the gaps and the turf don’t match. Bastard has ripped up the lawn in such a way that it’s impossible to repair it properly. I was prepared to forfeit all my Christmas presents to buy a contract for someone to shoot it. Apparently they are a protected species and you need a licence to kill one. Legislation was passed in 1992; clearly the MP’s didn’t have one visiting their gardens overnight as they trooped into the Lobby. I suspect ruining my lawn isn’t a good enough reason to despatch him to that giant sett in the sky. Our particular problem arises with their sense of smell, it’s 800 times more powerful than a human and it’s been detecting delicious chaff bugs beneath the turf. Ridding ourselves of this badger candy is impossible. Fencing or netting seemed the only solution. As a consequence we spent £60 at B&Q to slow his progress. After this investment one neighbour casually asked me how we were getting on with our nocturnal intruder? Repressing my nervous tic I reported the situation. At this point he casually commented he’d seen it departing our garden via the open gate on the drive. So maybe lawn covering strategies are unnecessary and shutting the gate might be an answer? Watch this space, I need to organise psychotherapy shortly.

In my transcribing of Eric’s epic life story (as reported in earlier blogs) I have regularly had to type up the phrase ‘bungy sandwiches’. This delicacy is a cheese sandwich, however, such was the quality of cheese that it led to constipation; hence the name. In researching this further then rationing meant that the production of most varieties of cheese was stopped until 1954. That’s nine years of ‘bungy’ cheddar being the only cheese you could buy. Can you imagine the riots and street protests today if this was the only cheese you could buy? The stoicism of the war generation and its fortitude with rationing was literally heroic. If there was a plus then waistlines were more trim and folk were healthier. 

If there were problems today with cheese I would advocate various cheese Tiers. Tier 1 would be all cheeses banned other than Dairylea. I’ve always been suspicious that this and Babybel aren’t dairy products but petroleum derivatives. Tier 2 would allow production and consumption of all British cheeses. (Maybe not much of a concession I grant you). Tier 3, or ‘Tier Barnier,’ would allow all cheeses other than French or that rubbery smoked German stuff that comes in an orange plastic sheath. Clearly this can be relaxed when they move on the Brexit trade deal.

Talking of the war then I’ve been reading the regular articles in The Driffield and Wolds Weekly newspaper that has been carrying a ‘special feature’ week after week on air crashes during the war. In the area were many RAF airfields, all operational during the war. The loss of life was considerable through bombing raids over continental Europe but the loss of life on training flights over the county are frankly numerous and terrible. There are too many to report here but the inexperience of the crews seems to have been the reason. In November 1943 a Halifax took off for a test flight for an ‘air and gun test’. There were six crew on board plus a female civilian passenger. Miss Dorothy Robson was an expert on bombsights. She instructed crews on their use and worked across Bomber Command. In the test flight the aircraft flew into the ground in East Yorkshire. The crew’s ages were 20, 27, 20, 20, 25 and 25 with four from the UK and one each from Canada and Australia. Dorothy was 23 years old. The aircraft only had had five hours of flying time.

I then got to thinking about the financial cost, let alone the human one. Google tells me that a Halifax bomber cost about £45,000 in 1945. In today’s money that is £1.75m. (As a comparison a much more sophisticated, faster and heavier Boeing 747 costs £65m for the entry level model). Would you then let these raw young men with no real proper flying experience, by today’s standards, and without several years of examination and graduation (through types of aircraft) to fly a 25 ton Halifax plus over 5 tons of bombs on board (and enough fuel to get to Dresden and back)? It’s a considerable gamble and was a sign of the times and desperation to end a hateful war. Today can you imagine a news conference with some sanctimonious journalist, worried about their viewing figures, standing up to berate a politician about the lack of training, management involvement and astronomic cost in such tragedies? We’d have never got a bomber in the sky or defeated fascism.

In my last blog I reported on our every other day alcohol regime. This was to stop us boozing during the boring days of lockdown. Another regime change involves the burning of 300 to 400 calories a day. These are easy to lose calories and the solution is known to you all but I’ve only just quantified it. The plan is to walk 10,000 steps a day, which equates to 400 calories being burned. My ideal calorie intake per day is between 2,000 and 2,500 calories: you can see what a bit of a walk helps you burn. It’s not all great as I’ve found as after walk I like the odd biscuit or two and maybe a mince pie with a cup of tea on my return! In fairness I should put on my coat and do another lap after this snack break! 

However I have been moving this year. I’m 111 miles short of 6,000 miles this year. That is a long way and probably a lot more than I’ve driven. The cycling has taken place in the most different of places: either down wet local muddy lanes in chilly drizzle, up gruelling mountain sides with a heavy touring bike in the Central Massif, France in 35℃ or riding in Victoria, Australia past endless fields seeing only the occasional pick up whilst avoiding stopping and being covered in flies. I’ve loved every mile.

Lastly, it has been a year of watching some TV and it may be interesting to share the highlights. Eurosport and ITV were fabulous on their coverage of the grand cycling tours – Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and Vuelta e España. I sat and watched hours of it. The countryside was sumptuous and often the racing was exciting. Even the present Mrs Ives was alongside me on the sofa. It’s only taken 26 years for her to catch the bug. Netflix threw up some gems. Call My Agent was a French language drama comedy set in a Parisian actor’s agency. Office politics and wacky actors with their hysterical ways and enormous egos were either calmed or massaged. The principle actors were compelling and over three seasons I got to love them. The Eddy was another Parisienne setting. This time at a jazz club with an American pianist owner who gets caught up in acres of malarky. The soundtrack was fantastic. A further season is in production,  bring it on. The Queen’s Gambit was a very unlikely plot about a child genius and her ascent to the top of the chess world via an orphanage, lots of alcohol, pill dependency and shady Russians.

Predictably I watched the fly on the wall documentary about Leeds United. Take Us Home was wonderful as in season 2 we got promotion! (I couldn’t watch the series until I knew it had a happy ending). In addition I watched quite a few films on the streaming services. This also included inside my little tent before I fell into a deep slumber in a foreign field. Which is where you must be after all this. Hasta la vista (baby).

My Favourite Eldest daughter was instructing me how to prepare dan dan noodles when I, also thinking I was on a roll and might impress Ancoats’ answer to Nigella Lawson, added the weekend might also see me stretching to prepare chicken chasseur. The response started with her expressing incredulity at my developing culinary prowess and then recalling that she thought I survived on Birds Eye chicken pies and peas? (There is some truth in this). As an after thought she lamented that she personally hated chicken chasseur because it was always served at school. I’m now planning my next blog to be called ‘First World Problems with Private Education Menus’ with a foreword by Marcus Rashford.

The badger has returned with more lawn digging. Anna sought neighbourly advice and was advised that one villager had erected an electric fence around their lawn. This runs off a car battery, which I suspect nullifies the added benefit of converting the stout carnivore to a crisp. However, further solutions, literally, were promoted such as liberally covering the ground in male urine. This apparently isn’t Bertie the Badger’s favourite tipple. Given their nocturnal raids and my trips through the night this might not be an impractical arrangement.

I was discussing Sledmere House with Shirley. This stately home was out her way, eight miles north east of Driffield. It is a truly spectacular property not least for the first floor library that looks out on to magnificent sculptured grounds. The house and grounds and stables had a Downton Abbey feel. No sooner had I opened my big mouth than I was being handed across a c400 page book “that I might like to read”. Oh no! Anyway I thought, out of a basic courtesy I should have a look, not least so I could spout something from it (if not necessarily plough my way through it) when I handed it back. Well, what a page turner! The house was built, the first time in the 18^th Century and the family and occupants led remarkable if not commendable lives. The family fortune came from originally being merchants in Hull and then it seems from being landlords over vast areas of East Yorkshire and the nice little earner of breeding champion race horses. Along the way we had periods in Parliament, illegitimate children, international travel, alcoholism, military service, prodigious production of children, a world class library, adultery, Spanish flu and entertaining Royals whether the Prince of Wales (Edward VII) or the last Queen Mother. Most of this before it burnt down. Not what I expected. You must go and see this palace, grounds and various buildings, including a chapel and stables, when the virus departs and maybe beg, borrow or preferably steal the book.

As a man with a PhD in procrastination then this gift can be balanced by suffering from that other male condition: hoarding. Lurking in the loft awaiting a day when I could be bothered to sort things out are a vast collection of old 16mm and 9mm cine films. These are mainly my grandfather’s from the late 1940s and early 1950s. The plan is to have them converted to a digital format for viewing.

There are also some Super 8 cine taken by my father that include hours of Valetta harbour wall from a boat trip when holidaying in Malta. Funnily enough he found it difficult to corral an audience to view his latest picture show after this epic. The intriguing/difficult part of viewing my grandfather’s cine film will be trying to recognise my long departed forebears. Hopefully my sister will have a clue; even Anna may be able to help. She’s been hard at work on ancestry.com putting together her (Pettersen) and the Ives family trees. Who knew I was able to trace Irish and Russian antecedents? I’m actually part Polish but the place they descended from was occupied by Russia at the time! (Old habits still die hard). On the cine boxes is the home address of my grandparents at this time in Leeds. How amazed they would be that I could sit at my desk and simply go to Google Street View and look at their old property today.

So more lockdown. We’ve cancelled exotic holidays, done the garden, spent £000’s on the house and even done some of those wearying chores that always remained on the ‘To Do List.’ Now excitement centres around trying to get to 10,000 steps or whether it’s ‘Alcohol Night’. The latter is a joyous event that comes around every other night in Acaster Malbis. We thought it unwise to allow a looser regime to help us through the incarceration. Fortunately I can ride my bike but the weather is increasingly wet, cold and dark. How long until spring and the vaccine? Pray for me.

I’ve accumulated 5,300 miles on my bike. This is the total distance I’ve cycled this year; it’s probably further than I’ve driven in a car. For a year blighted by the restrictions of Covid-19 it’s worth noting that my miles have been achieved in Yorkshire, East Anglia, Northumberland, Scotland, Australia, France, Belgium and Holland. As it’s October (just) then I’ve more tarmac to cover for the rest of the year but it won’t reach my biggest total, in 2014, of 6,775 miles.

One of the ‘new norms’ is talking to my father-in-law, Eric, through his room window. The care home does have a ‘pod’, which is a relatively recent new construction for meeting relatives, but that’s often booked up. So it’s back to talking to him through the window. In cold or wet weather the window is shut and the parties speak to each other on the phone whilst looking at each other, either side of the pane. With autumn here and winter coming then it will be the modus operandi for the next few months. The only hope of getting in the same room is a vaccine. Not easy for families is it?

Talking of inoculations then I’ve tried to spend a lifetime avoiding injections. It’s not natural to stick metal in your arm. My terror started when at lunch in the Ford canteen in the early 80s I was canvassed to see if I’d like to give blood? The very thought of it had me feeling faint and I ended up in the company sanatorium lying down. As you get older then the damn things are harder to avoid and two DVT’s meant a grim regime of daily blood taking etc. Despite my intensive period of being stabbed, I have never got over the phobia.  So when the local doctor’s surgery emailed about a flu jab I ‘parked’ this opportunity for more metal to be stuck in my arm. At the same time one of Anna’s elderly gentlemen (yes, even older than me) accosted us as we walked down the street very agitated. He couldn’t get on the NHS website to let him book a flu jab appointment. So step forward ‘Mr IT’. Our friend came round and he was correct; the website link was awful with the necessity to click one calendar nearly 1,000 times for him to put in his date of birth: not easy on a smart phone.

As I’m sorting out the NHS website challenges it did seem timely/manly to book my own appointment. I did. You’ll note by this later communication that I did survive after the stabbing. At the drive-in centre I was asked if I was allergic to eggs? I replied in the negative and was then asked if I had any other allergies? “Only needles”, I honestly replied.

I must be a nice guy or have a Retail Fairy God Mother. I turned up at a cycle shop to try on and collect some cycle shoes. They’d had to order my size in and then forgot to do so, however, they did eventually arrive. (No wonder the internet is viewed as a cost effective place to buy stuff with few stock out issues and easy return procedures). Anyway, they fitted like the proverbial glove and I made my way to the counter to pay. “You’ve got £25 credit on your account”. This was news but in fairness this year I must have spent something toward £5,000 at this establishment. I was happy to forget this credit until another day and pay the required price (higher than the internet!). This couldn’t be done – ’the computer says no’. So instead of paying £74, I paid £25. I came away thinking I must return and pay something extras on another visit. The dentist had made me two mouth guards. This dentist I’ve been frequenting for, probably over 20 years. The guards came to £170. I was staggered and challenged the receptionist, on the phone, in a gentle way. In gentle Yorkshire I said “How much?” They are basically two pieces of moulded plastic I wear when sleeping. (I needed some new ones because I left my last good one in the washroom of a campsite outside Sedan in Northern France. How that discovery must have delighted the cleaners). So I turned up with my debit card to collect and pay. The dentist appeared anxious I was unhappy on the phone. I explained I had been a little shocked but after a long cry and a bottle of Scotch I’d moved on. “We don’t want to leave you unhappy and you’re a long time patient.” No, I was good, here’s the debit card, do your worst. “Well how about £150?” In my mind it costs what it costs but rather than risk an arm lock on needing his services to restore a broken incisor we agreed at £160.

As the lockdown continues then smaller matters are elevated to topics of conversation. The current ‘house rules’ are that we don’t drink everyday or night but alternate nights starting at 6pm earliest. This does mean you wake up with a childish delight realising that the day is ‘alcohol day’. Such are Anna’s cravings she did ponder aloud whether as October 25^th would mean the clocks going forward then was 5pm the same as 6pm? We agreed it was.

Other wifely developments include watching the Giro d’Italia and La Vuelta a España on TV. To the less aware these are the two major three week professional cycle road races. Coverage is daily either live or as ‘highlight’ programmes. In fairness she has seen the Tour de France in the UK and France but to find that we’re not fighting over the remote control goes to show I was right all along and she should have picked up on this great sport three decades ago (no, I haven’t said this to her). Rumours abound about her migration to clipless pedals: I’ll keep you posted.

In my September blog I mentioned my job of transcribing Eric’s journal. This is a work of many pages where he’s written up his life, it started in 1928. When I last wrote he was a schoolboy on the outskirts of Hull. As I’ve typed more he’s now had a stint as a farmhand working 15 hour days that seems literally barbaric for a young teenager. Now he’s working at the local railway station as a porter. This entails many jobs and in wartime it is quite exotic on occasions with the African American GI’s, ‘ladies of the night’ going about their work and assorted drunks on the track. It is a page turner. Here is an excerpt:

“At times the back shift provided more than its fair share of unwelcome frights and alarms. At ease, seated comfortably, one dark and gloomy night, we were startled by a woman running the length of the deserted platform in high heels, before hammering frantically on the office door. The sound of her hard to come by high heels alerting us to this being something out of the ordinary. In a refined and educated voice, she sobbed “there’s a man laid on the line”. The senior porter, having survived the horrors of WW1, appeared unmoved by this tearful announcement. “Whereabouts is he?” He cheerfully enquired. “Near the Station Master’s house” the woman whimpered. Turning to me, he ordered “get your lamp, we’ll go and see”. What for me had, until then been a quiet evening turned quickly into a nightmare. Dropping into the ‘four foot’, visions of a ghastly mangled body struck me with the force of thunderbolt. In the dark, frightened by what I had to face I hung back, as the senior porter, his headlamp flashing around, strode on purposefully, between the tracks. “Here he is” he announced. Petrified and shaking, not wanting be any part of it, I kept my distance as the body was examined and rolled over. “He’s dead alright.” I was solemnly informed “Dead drunk I reckon. Let’s get him up on to the platform before the next train hits him.” Between us we manoeuvred the man onto the platform and into the nearest waiting room, where we left him, in the tender care of the lady in the high heels.”

I have to advise that the household has increased to three. We have had two visits by a badger who has set (geddit?) about ripping chunks out of the lawn in search of larvae and insects. Frankly it would avoid a lot of damage if he or she laid out their demands in a note at our front door and I’d find a fishing tackle shop for maggots or some such delicacy. As the Favourite Youngest Daughter commented on a WhatsApp post about this problem – ”bastard”. Quite.

Lastly I leave you with an observation that you will now be struck by. Why are there a lot of men over 50 years old wandering around in shorts. If you go to a supermarket or busy town area there will be someone, usually, overweight disporting these trousers. I wonder whether the cold has disorientated them when selecting their clothes for the day? Sightings will abound now I’ve told you this. No, please don’t thank me.

I was musing with the Mighty Jessney about how we couldn’t drive anywhere nowadays without relying on Satellite Navigation. He countered about the astonishing emergence of the ‘miracle’ website back in the day where you could type in an address and get a route to it. From here you’d print it off as a map to help you. I think back to some of the car journeys I made shortly after learning to drive in the 70s, how the hell did I find places in Cornwall and London?

Similarly the resolution of small technical matters can now can be resolved easily. I was sat in Halford’s car park wondering about, the mystery liquid, AdBlue. I only took an interest in the stuff when the warning message came up on the dashboard. A quick Google answered all questions of what it is (a mix of urea and deionised water), what it does (reduces diesel engine nitrous oxide emissions), how much to buy, how to pour it in and a video providing advice on when the warning message would switch off. Frankly any hostile nation could bring the world to a grinding halt by switching off the internet: forget bombs, tanks or a virus.

On the subject of bringing the world to a grinding halt earlier this week I was out on an autumnal evening at a Chinese restaurant near Pocklington. I’d often driven past the Plough Inn but never realised it contained a delicious restaurant. The food and service were exceptional. This large establishment had many ‘covers’ but only five customers. I was glad to discover this place but I genuinely wonder whether I’ll go again. It surely cannot survive on such poor patronage? Its fate is simply a function of folk staying at home due to the pandemic.

Whenever I discuss Covid-19 then nobody’s complacent about the virus. They’re befuddled by what you can or cannot do but are all minded to respect the restrictions. However, like me they ruminate whether the tighter restrictions and the fatal damage to so many businesses, the elevation of mental health issues and the lack treatment for those with other chronic conditions is a price worth paying for the not inconsiderable risk of certain groups of people dying from the virus.

Maybe it’s easy for me to say that as I’m not ill with the virus or haven’t lost a loved one. But if I were to have any ‘skin in the game’ then I’d comment that I lost a hugely enjoyable job and impressive pay cheque when the 2008 Financial Crisis came around. Work wise my life never recovered. One might suggest that I was near enough to retirement and had so many other plans for the future that it didn’t work out too badly. That will not be the case with the many ‘casualties’ of closing down our economy again.

As a consolation it does provide moments of levity. BBC’s Charlie Stayt’s incredulity when interviewing Matt Hancock that the latest NHS App wouldn’t be available to people without smart phones! (No shit Charlie…) Also the ‘comedian’ who suggested that students wouldn’t be allowed to go home for Christmas.

With Anna we visited one of her ‘aunts’ in East Yorkshire. The lady and her husband are 87 and 92 years old respectively. Eric is writing up his life story by hand. Before I’d seen the hundreds of pages he’d already written I volunteered to type it all up. Maybe an error! However I’m currently engrossed in the life of a Cottingham schoolboy and his wartime experiences. During the war Hull experienced 1,200 deaths and around 3,000 casualties. On two nights alone in May 1941 around 400 perished. As a consequence 95% of the housing was damaged and 152,000 people made homeless. Obviously not a place for an eleven year old you’d think. In between the air raid terror he collected, during daylight, razor sharp shrapnel from all the bombs and shells that rained down on the city. These were taken to school for swapping purposes. Land mine craters became play areas and the procession of bomb disposal soldiers provided entertainment from the kerbside as they stacked unexploded ordnance near to his home. What’s clear is that today the government would be under immense pressure to pursue unconditional surrender from everyone on social media rather than experience one day of this hell.

I’ve railed elsewhere on the website about the bias and pre-occupations of the media but the following BBC caption truly irritated me. There were quite a few pieces covering Princess Anne’s 70^th birthday and some ‘official photographs’ were published. Why would you notate the size of her land holding? Clearly it’s to cast an aspersion? The Royal Family have a lot of land and money; it’s not news but it does feed into the negative mind set of those who might want reminding in order to meet their daily ‘outraged’ quota.

I’m not much of a Royalist (and don’t get me started on the Honours system) but I do think that the Queen, Duke of Edinburgh and their two elder children work or worked very hard. They bring a lot of pleasure to the people who’s lives they touch. When the Queen passes I think a number of things will change about how we view the monarchy as an important influence in our lives.

I helped a neighbour pull out a quantity of bull rushes out from in front of his property. They are attractive but soon take over the lake and are difficult to remove. Happiness is a morning in a deep boggy lake up to your knees in mud. I thought he’d found a neat solution to keep the wildlife off his jetty: he built a fence around it. Around here the ducks sit on the jetties. Unless they’re controlled they leave a foul (as opposed to fowl) mess.

So I girded my loins and made a trip to B&Q to get timber, screws and a saw. (You may have read about my procurement of fishing line to put along the top of the fence in another blog).

The present Mrs Ives has captured me in the water playing at being a carpenter. I’m now hoping I have accumulated a number of domestic house ‘points’ this summer (around the garden) to sustain her tolerance of idleness during the winter.

This leisure might include completing more box sets. I often look around Netflix wondering what to watch. Currently it’s Narcos. This has been out for a while but it had been recommended and so I had a look. Based on the fictionalised account of a true story it follows Pablo Escobar’s drug and murder career in Colombia. It’s terrific. The body count is such that you wonder who’s left in Colombia and is there enough global lead to make all the bullets. Anyway I’m into Season 2 and still horrified at the worldwide misery that drugs bring the countries that produce them and the users who fund this mayhem.

I popped up to Northallerton in North Yorkshire with my sister, Ann-Marie, on an errand and ended up watching my nephew’s son playing football. Back in the day I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed watching Sophie (Favourite Youngest Daughter) play netball when she played for the mighty Rufforth. I remember my father coming to watch me play rugby at school. (He would have been 100 years old this week had he lived). Being a dad on the touchline is a complete delight.  Ted’s a true star and scored six of the eight goals that won the five-a-side contest. 

He’s got his father’s sporting gift and at seven he’s a wonderful time ahead. Due to the age group the team was mixed. At this age the girls have all the physicality that’s needed to compete. I was staggered by how fearless a couple of them were. Maybe there’s something in this women’s football?

Eventually the virus put paid to our Singapore, Vietnam and Cambodia jaunt in October. We thought it was coming and it has. We book our stuff with Trailfinders and they are very good to deal with. We received all the money back within a couple of days of the cancellation. The holiday couldn’t take place because of lockdowns but they didn’t get tearful when we rejected rescheduling for 2021. They had no other international holiday destinations available either. If there was anything like a silver lining for them then customers who’ve had all the problems with the advent of the virus have had a magnificent partner to help sort out these complications; not least finding me a flight to escape Australia in March. I know this news will crush you, on my behalf. I can console you by telling you that we have a couple of nights in Bakewell, Derbyshire booked as the consolation. It’s always warm and sunny there and it never rains I’m told (cough).

Record Store Day is usually an annual event (this year it’s three) and some special edition records are released in limited quantities. The records can be vinyl LP’s or singles but there’s a scattering of CD’s. The artists are usually legacy acts and many of the releases are of music that resided in a vault somewhere as an outtake or a live concert and this is their first release. Where it’s not the first time the music has been released you may also get coloured vinyl and fancy packaging. Needless to say this drags out the grey market (!) and I joined early last Saturday. Bliss.

Lastly, I was out on my bike yesterday and was struggling up a hill for over a mile leaving the Yorkshire Wolds village of Bishop Wilton. (This 50 mile circuit brought up 4,500 miles for the year). It hits 15% but averages 8%: I wasn’t cycling very fast. I heard some metallic sounds and feared for my gears when I realised it was horses hooves on the tarmac behind me. Slowly but surely they advanced to draw level. Ahead of us both was a lady with a pram and a horse baulked. Riding at 6mph up a hill is not easy at the best of times for balance but having Trigger towering over you is a further challenge. Slowly but surely the recalcitrant nag was persuaded to go past only to start projecting great clumps of dung in my direction on the road. I usually don’t need a reason to weave on a gradient but I had even more incentive at this point. The rider cheerfully commented that the horse obviously didn’t like me. I had worked that out.

It seems like only yesterday that we were at York District Hospital and Katrina was making an appearance. That was 1991. So fast forward 29 years and Katrina was marrying.

Just thinking about the intervening years makes my head spin. The mental montage includes crawling along on my hands and knees with her on my back when she fell off and broke her arm (she loved the Barbie pink plaster cast), the ridiculous happiness of her visit to Legoland in Denmark, a time when no upset couldn’t be solved with ice cream (orange), my discovering late on Christmas Eve that Santa’s Barbie Camper Van was a two hour assembly kit job, her watching ‘Dumbo’ so many times, many birthday parties with all her school friends at our house, always happy with a book and her own company, being a Brownie, cricket in the back garden, taking her to accompany me to Blues or Country concerts, her school concerts, being Deputy Head Girl, her first student vacation job in France as a cleaner on a large campsite where she managed to drop her mobile into a WC and living in an awful tent that would have been rejected by migrants in Calais, the stressful task of finding accommodation in Berlin with her mother for her university year out, graduation from Manchester University on a sweltering hot day, a variety of jobs in London (NHS, NBC and NSL)  culminating in being the HR Officer for a multi ethnic selection of parking wardens in Westminster City Council, who gave her a parking ticket when she resigned! (and lots of money as a gift), arguing a different point of view to her father’s politics, finding Matt, her now husband, and then moving to Manchester as her career developed with a design engineering consultancy still in HR.

And ultimately becoming a very impressive woman who was a fully fledged adult. Where did the time go?

Anna and I are so proud of our daughters and each of their milestones is imprinted in our heads and hearts. I feel the girls are the best of me or, in other words, me at my best. How could anything feel better than that? Not that I claim much credit for their talent, beauty and personalities but I was around for the journey. So onto Manchester during a further localised Covid-19 lockdown for the nuptials.

The party allowed to go to the civil ceremony at the Registry Office and the Wedding Breakfast was limited to 11 people. However the happy couple got their certificate and seemed over the moon and so happy, which is really the important thing. After the ceremony we reconvened to dine outside on the top of Hotel Gotham in Manchester. The weather was very kind as we ate in the sunshine.

Speeches were brief and I welcomed Matt to the family: we’ve known him for several years and I’m sure he has the measure of us all now. From his memory, he recited a poem he’d written for Katrina, which was a very romantic thing to do. They sent their love to all the absent relatives and gratitude for lots of presents. We hope to make good the absence of family in due course, because of the virus, and bring the family together and drink a toast to their health and happiness.

After my dash through France it’s been back to Acaster Malbis hoping to repel that restless feeling for a little while. As I put away my cycle touring kit and noted how the stairs were making my aching muscles complain I mentally noted that it would be a while before the road beckoned. Now after the discomfort has eased I’ll be peering at Google Maps thinking about the next trip in the near future! My addiction.

However, all the focus was on the wedding of Katrina and Matt. Clearly these are difficult times for mixing and movement of people with the pandemic. Despite a few casualties on the guest list we were looking forward to August 8th. And then Boris stepped in and made the wedding breakfast verboten in Manchester. As you can imagine such a decision means numerous communications from the couple to let folk know about the cancellation as well as the venue, flowers etc. The bride seems to be stoic and maybe when we reschedule some of the ‘casualties’ can join us. The marriage will proceed but even that has limits on the numbers who can attend. Poor Katrina and Matt.

I used to be a vision of sartorial elegance about 30 years ago. The work place was a venue to attend in expensive suits and crisply ironed cotton shirts. The thought of having stubble would have affected my health. Today I am forever in Levis and some form of T shirt and Craghopper. In fact I have several colours of the latter but haute couture they ain’t. I have a couple of suits in the wardrobe but I cannot remember when I last wore them: the daughter’s graduations? As the wedding countdown commenced the ‘outfit’ needed pulling together. The good news was that the suit fitted but the trousers were so wide, at the leg, that I contemplated using them as an awning for my tent.

A trip into town to a tailor saw him suggesting taking an inch off. It was agreed. I also bought another suit. There was 25% off at M&S and with another daughter likely to pledge her troth I thought this reckless outlay may get some further wear. Another feature of my current daily uniform are trainers. I don’t wear proper leather shoes. In fact I had two old pairs in my drawer where the soles of rubber perished! I kid you not. Anyway that was another investment!

I’ve been quite successful with the hair clippers and it looked tolerable. As you might pointedly observe then I don’t have a lot to manage. Anyway I thought for the wedding I should have someone who knows what they’re doing tidy my barnet up. Wonderfully it was Jessica behind the clippers. Her cutting is good but her banter is world class – I wrote a blog on one sitting that may engage you. The word ‘blog’ is a link. Anyway her ‘news’ from the lockdown included the story of the unfortunate man who staggered in with half a haircut. His wife had set about the project but abandoned the cut halfway through after being disappointed with her work.

Another was about a close relative who’s a hairdresser. Despite the lockdown he’d set up a hairdressing salon in his garage for the local ladies to surreptitiously attend. One older woman did express some anxiety that her daughter was unhappy she was having her hairdressing appointments in lockdown and would report her. The hairdresser shrugged this off laughing and told her not to worry until she added that she was a police officer! So as I stopped laughing and we moved onto other topics she calmly advised that she now had an allotment and was growing strawberries and carrots. You have never met a young millennial who seems less likely to be living the ‘good life’. How she doesn’t have a Channel 4 slot is beyond me.

I feel that as you get older then little surprises you. You clearly identify all challenges ahead. My car is nearly 6 years old. It’s fine, however, if I don’t replace it then the car will depreciate to be worth pennies and the next car will cost a fortune as we’re starting from scratch. (Yes, there are many way to finance a car but part-ex and cash works for me). So I girded my loins to visit the BMW dealership. I had a gloomy feeling that despite the plush surroundings and supposed professionalism I wouldn’t buy a car: the deal wouldn’t be right. Some backroom operative who operates the salesman like a puppet would scupper things. Also I felt that the market hasn’t got a lot of product floating around to make them anxious to move cars.

Needless to say lots of attentive care by the salesman was evident. We looked at his group’s database and found a couple of cars that worked as the correct spec and price. I was looking at ‘nearly new’ as the difference over the new price was nearly 30%. The next task was to test drive the models. I later returned to do this. All was good and I found a car I liked, a 3 series. So we went back to the database. The car from yesterday mysteriously had another 5,000 miles on it? We found another, all good.

In my research on the part-ex I’d checked a guide and also we’d posted the car into the ‘We Buy Any Car’ website. It said £11,610, which was lower than the guide but fair enough. This is the least best way to dispose of a car in terms of return but I was reconciled. The dealership managed to offer £10,500. There was no review of their offer or particular interest. I walked. Of course I could cash the car at ‘We Buy Any Car’ and return laden with money but I doubt I will. They’ve had their chance. No doubt I’ll regroup and eventually sort something out.

There are events when you receive information where afterwards you can recollect where you heard the news. This came to pass on my bike ride in France. Tragically a family friend and lifelong close friend of my wife’s reported some frightening developments as regards her health. In a short number of weeks she’d died of cancer. When this happens to someone quite young you prospect around for explanations of genes, weight, lifestyle or an unfortunate life changing event. There was no such comforting explanation for such an honest, energetic, hard working, bright and cheerful lady. We’re dealing with quite a shocking hole suddenly appearing in our lives.

Life’s not a rehearsal, dust off that bucket list and start ticking them off.