What Howard did - 2005 and 2006

As I failed to produce any review of 2005, I'll start with a brief resume.

The year started moored in Jost Van Dyke Little Harbour on the last day of our charter of a sailing boat in the British Virgin Islands - a day of winds and rain (at least warm rain). Overnight our sun canopy had ripped along its seam and, had we been sailing at the time, its metal support would have brained whoever was at the helm. We tied it back together as best we could and then set off back to port in Tortola. It had been a distinctly pleasant way to spend the last two weeks of 2004, in a very comfortable boat chartered by Mej and Glenda as part of a loose flotilla from the Half Moon Bay Yacht Club. Though being the only 4 Brits in a group with over 20 Americans was at times wearing.

Jean and I then moved ashore for a few nights being bitten by the local insects before returning to the UK - a journey marked first by the Caribbean disregard for timetables and then by an exciting overnight wait from 2am to 8am in JFK airport, New York. Plenty of time to investigate the wide range of soothing creams for insect bites. At least the airline got all our luggage home on the same plane as us, unlike on the way out when one of my cases chose not to arrive until the next day.

Back in the UK, I discovered that Tim Radford had been a keen diver when he was at Edinburgh and the two of us booked a week's diving in Tenerife - Tim to requalify as PADI Open Water and me to move on to PADI Advanced Open Water (ironic since Tim was a far more capable diver than me). We went with Island Divers an ex-pat British husband and wife company who gave excellent tuition - mostly on one to one or one to two basis. The highlight was on pretty much the last dive when a number of rays from one to three foot across played around our feet. Regrettably, I've not arranged any diving since then, so am now distinctly out of practice.

At work, I'd signed up to the extra curricular activity of being an Excellence Assessor, and this involved assessing the performance of a company in the South West. So I got to spend first a week in a conference centre in Witney with the other assessors of the same company, only to have the organisation withdraw from the Excellence Awards. We finished up as best we could, but then were parachuted into other assessment teams for the second stage, the site visit to verify the claims and strengths of another organisation. This took me to Belfast for a week. The organisation was in itself fascinating, but so was Belfast, particular as one of our group was originally from Northern Ireland. We finished the week a day early and took the time to play tourist on the North Coast, visiting the Giant's Causeway and Bushmills Distillery. Strangely enough we spent slightly more time in the distillery, impressive though the Giant's Causeway is.

Jean and I fitted in a trip to Lancaster where we stayed in the Music Room, a fascinating Landmark Trust property right in the middle of Lancaster. The flat was high in the eaves and overlooked a square where the local youth appeared to congregate to drink and relieve themselves. Slightly disconcerting as my car was parked in a dark corner of the same square. Work commitments meant that the holiday was cut slightly short with an unplanned train journey to Fleet. This opened a can of worms when I used the return portion of the ticket to travel (entirely within the extremely complicated rules) from London to Peterborough. To cut a long story short, I was accused of travelling on an invalid ticket by an officious GNER ticket inspector and then a British Transport Policeman of limited intellect got involved. The result was a formal apology from BTP, a free return ticket anywhere on the GNER network, a small amount of financial compensation and the most begrudging admission of being wrong from GNER that it is possible to imagine. I used the freebie to travel to Inverness because it was the longest possible GNER journey. After a day in Inverness I returned to Peterborouigh, calling at Edinburgh and York on the return. Edinburgh to meet up with an old schoolfriend, David Mann, after a large number of years and York to visit the National Rail Museum - which was not as interesting as I'd hoped.

I failed to organise a canal trip in 2005, but Jean and I did go on a cruise around Sicily in late summer, whilst it was still very pleasantly warm. I think I might leave it a few years before going on a similar cruise as I felt very much at the younger end of the age range, though Jean says I'm being oversensitive about this. We also managed to visit Mej and Glenda in their petit chateau in the Rhone Alps region of France. A super house, even before they've modernised it, with wiring, plumbing and heating as only the French can do. The region is very picturesque and free of tourists with excellent inexpensive restaurants and vineyards. We discovered the Mondeuse and Marristel grape varieties which seem the standard plonk du region and, at around €3.5 per bottle, are very drinkable. The trip home was along the wine list, pausing to buy a few bottles we are keen to get old enough to drink, followed by filling all available space in the car at Tesco, Calais.

In October I went to the Cambridge OB's Dinner, something last done 30+ years ago. Unfortunately, there were only 5 of us from about the same year It was a mildly entertaining evening and as I was seated next to the current Headmaster I was able to catch up what was really happening at Brentwood. Unfortunately, the focus is more on financial than academic achievement, and it clearly isn't the place it was. The Cambridge entry for 2005 was just a few students, compared with over a dozen in our day. And thanks to Martin Whittaker (now living in Germany) there are even some photos of the evening.

On the down side our good friend Sally died late in the year, days after her 50th birthday - and a party in her ward in Cranleigh Hospital. She is deeply missed, and so will be Cranleigh Hospital if the closures go ahead. Its care was vastly superior to any or the big hospitals.

I'd finally reached the point of feeling that Peterborough was no longer the city I wanted to live in. By late 2004 the car had been vandalised three times and the house had a brick through the living room window. So early in 2005 I got round to putting the house on the market, planning to move to Cambridge, both a nicer place and nearer to Surrey so that it would be a more pleasant trip for Jean at weekends. Serious househunting followed, convincing me in the process that Cambridge Estate Agents were a complete waste of space - they didn't send details, not even emails, without constant reminders. It soon became obvious that maybe I wouldn't get what I wanted in Cambridge - near the station with a garden and off street parking was in very short supply and ludicrously overpriced. Cambridge City Council's anti-car policy made cars difficult anyway in the "historic centre" and so the only option was the suburbs, so losing most of the point of moving to Cambridge. The house in Peterborough was slow to confirm the sale (it ended up under offer for many months to a very nice purchaser who appeared to find a series of low life lying property developers who failed to carry out their promise to buy hers). In the end it sold, exchanging and completing in December/January 2006.

By late 2005 I'd decided to move back to Surrey. I'd been down in Shalford a lot and wasn't missing the travelling at wekends and at just 5 minutes walk to the station, wasn't finding the work travel a problem. Jean and I had been going on lots of walks in and around Shalford and I felt it would be a shame to give these up. So I rented a house in Tillingbourne Rd, Shalford from 30th December 05 whilst I looked for somewhere local to buy. Moving was fun as it was snowing in Peterborough and icy underfoot.

2006.

It was immediately obvious that the move back to Surrey was the right one. Jean and I weren't wasting time travelling at the weekends, and my pattern of work proved enjoyable - my 4 day week consisting of 2 days in London, 1 in Peterborough and 1 at home. Travelling by train makes the Peterborough journey useful and is fairly comfirtable. And we were finding new walks around the hills and villages near Shalford that made the days off there very relaxing to.

I was looking for a house to buy on and off for six months, with Guildford estate agents being only fractionally better than the Cambridge ones. I was also hoping that my landlords would decide to stay in Australia and sell the house I was renting - as I rather liked it, it was very convenient for the station and was just across the railway from Jean's. Although their return from Perth was delayed, there was no sign of the house going on the market. Eventually I had got sufficiently used to Surrey house prices to feel that I could make an offer on a house I liked, and after the usual toing and froing (and the not so usual vanishing washing machine and fridge) bought Heathside.

Just after I'd agreed to buy Heathside, a house just down the road from where I was renting came up for sale and at the asking price seemed a better bet. I made an offer of the asking price and so did 5 other people - resulting in it going to sealed bids. It went for what I can only guess to be a silly amount of money (ie more than I wanted to pay), so I continued with Heathside and moved in in August. Apart from the problem of fitting my stuff in a smaller house I am now settled. I'm going to resolve the problem of the stuff by building more rooms to put it in.

The brief experience of being on the tenant side of the tenant-landlord relationship further convinced me that letting agents are useless and incompetent - or at least Howard Morley & Co were. When viewing, they failed to turn up to show me the house, the inventory was inaccurate and their approach to returning my deposit was somewhat slothful (100% did get returned - eventually).

In between moving house twice in a year other things have happened. As you see right, my job took me to some exciting places. I was an Excellence Assessor a second time - this year in Middlesborough for the site visit. Not an area I'd choose to live - we were welcomed by the recommendation that if we wanted to stay late in the visited companies offices not to venture East on foot. Even the train there was like something time forgot.

Not a good year for holidays, though. Jean and I rented Alton Station - another Landmark Trust property - which used to be the station for Alton Towers. Now, every day it is passed by hundreds of coaches going there. We chose a quiet and sunny day to visit Alton Towers and definitely don't like the way rides are developing - spinning you in several axes simultaneously whilst zooming in different orientations, none pleasant. None the less some old favourites are still there and it was an enjoyable day ignoring the new stuff.

In late summer I did get round to arranging a canal trip this year with two canine passengers as well as the six of us humans (humans left, dogs right). The dogs did quite well on the accommodation, getting the whole of the saloon and the kitchen to sleep in - about twice as much space per dog as per person. It was good fun having the dogs as they made other boats and passers by much friendlier (helped by Bella, a large Bernese Mountain Dog's 150% score on the cuteness scale). They'll definitely be welcome again (along with their owners Mary and Laurie and the other crew Richard and Alan.) Though after her unintentional swim, I'm not sure if Bella will want to.

And that's about it for 2006. 

Howard Fisher, Dec 2006.