Category: The Green Diary

Vota laetae Nativitatis Domini de Sanatorio de Viride apud Mistley!

Dear Friends!

2024 draws to a close and it is time to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and, in these quite astonishingly tortured times, a Healthy and Peaceful 2025. Something that may not happen on the World Stage but which we can only hope might : and trust in the care and love of friends and family – after all, the most important thing at this time.

After a wildly hectic year of travels all over the world by every mode, July brought a dramatic and sudden end to our peripatetic adventures when we were both struck with a variety of annoying ailments that have stayed our journeyings and turned Mistley into Domini de Sanatorio!

I’ll not bore you with the details as I sent a series of updated reports during the height of the siege on our health when you were kind enough to ask. Travel to Albania and Venice were abandoned; theatre outings cancelled and strings of medical appointments attach themselves to our calendar like lights on a Christmas tree – threatening plans into next year.

Someone said, “Ageing is not for cissies!” How right they were and so, best not complain since most of it comes with the territory and we are all moving in the same direction besides which, next to the horrors confronting the world and our beautiful planet at this time, our aches and pains shrink in significance!

The family have been spectacular. It’s been a treat. Sarah flew specially from Canada to stay and Zac & Julie were able to join in our crowded cottage for a really lovely and joyous  week. Thank you all so, so, so much – and you, Friends, for your attentions and help too, goes almost without saying.

Many of you may be sighing with relief that these events have meant no long travelogues peppered with badly taken photographs and scarcely believable anecdotes! No written or oral tests for you to sit for a change.

Ha! I jest you lovelies!

Enforced house staying has meant oodles of television streaming, a lot of it pretty drekk but some of it worthwhile. A few movies and theatre outings have been achieved though Tony finds it difficult at present with the continued discomfort of nappies and incontinence, and things have to be timed quite carefully.

I think I may have had the better deal there as Tony & Sarah were rather underwhelmed by their show whereas, seat-of-your-pants, Mark Strong and Lesley Manville wowed with passion and desperation. I am glad to say that it was not “a re-imagining” – which we get a lot of these days and which usually don’t inspire – but an “adaptation”. Modern, yes, but all the original ingredients definitely there.

Fight for a ticket!

Modern ballet/dance isn’t really my “thing”. I can often be mesmerised by shape, form, movement and dazzled by the commitment and talent of the dancers but unless the music speaks to me, the dance has lost me I’m afraid. Maddaddam is one such. A single ticket only and Tony was unable to go so rather than waste it I went along instead. 

Now, Max Richter’s music in Woolf Works which we saw at The Met in July, was lovely. It spoke to me and in Maddaddam it simply didn’t. Also, the complexity of the ideas expressed in Attwood’s trilogy, here 3 Acts called Castaway, Extinctathon and Dawn make dance a completely unsuitable mode for the niceties and complexities of the story – if I can call it that. It all looked gorgeous but sounded awful and, to me, seemed meaningless. Better to read her book!

We’ve had some lovely reunions. Janine MacKeown (aka Mrs. Jonathan Coe) arranged such a one, inviting us to a concert performance of Handel’s Messiah given by one of her (sic) choirs, the West London Chorus – she is a member of many! – and afterwards a really wonderful gathering at the local Côte round the corner from the beautiful Arts & Crafts St Michael & All Angels Church, Chiswick where a lot of warmth was generated by all: Friends Jonathan, Gina, Andreas, et al in glittering form.

Complex and not quite successful it may have been but we enjoyed it very much and there was no doubt about the talent and commitment of the ensemble.

And what about books? I don’t know…..I am just having such a bad time concentrating on them at present; nothing to do with the books; everything to do with attention span and a mind that flips about between cooking pots, ironing boards, supermarkets and other domestic exigencies – not any excuse at all for this lapse in discipline!

But we have had a “South African Year” if you will, though there have been others of course, but at the forefront have been Anthony Akerman’s fascinating and moving memoir, mentioned in an earlier blog, Lucky Bastard.

Tony has been much involved, despite illness, in the reprinting and re-issuing of his Derek Jarman biography, Jarman to be republished and launched in Spring. Allison & Busby have been extremely enthusiastic and supportive as you can see from the trailer that has just gone out (see below).

Derek died over thirty years ago but interest in him has never waned. Little, Brown published first time round over twenty years ago but for some reason allowed the rights to lapse; all this while later Allison & Busby have taken up the cudgels!

Tony’s new book If It’s Tuesday comes out next year too, in the Autumn. He has been at it for several years and now it is heading for the book shops. He is very pleased. So am I of course. He has worked hard.

Time to ice the Christmas cake. For the first time in our nearly forty-year partnership Tony and I are alone this Christmas. And at home. In fact this is the first Autumn/Winter that we have remained completely in England and are finding it a rather enjoyable experience. There have been firsts: Christmas Pudding, made two months ago maturing in brandies and other elixirs; Christmas Cake drowned in rum and other things the Puritans would freak over; Duck! Friends Nigel, Deidre and ‘Barney’ came for dinner just last night. I was a nervous wreck but the duck passed muster, stuffed and sauced in traditional prunes, apples and cranberries, we were pleased.

So – alone at Christmas means stretching the culinary imagination and that is something I willingly do. So do the bathroom scales.

While the family sun themselves in Mauritius! Or freeze in Ottawa.

******************

Just before I let you go – that’s if you’ve not left already – let me list some of the slightly more worthwhile screen experiences, for the record:

Next Heretic, with Hugh Grant in uncharacteristic mode as a serial killer of women, we found flawed but fascinating: like looking into the eyes of a cobra!

“ Heretic is gruesome and bizarre and preposterous, the third aspect made palatable by Grant’s dapper performance of evil.”

Rotten Tomatoes gave it 90%. So for me…….out of 10? Probably 8.

And what of dear old Gladiator 2?

Hmm. I went alone! At two hours twenty-eight minutes and not his scene anyway, no way could Tony have come.

Dazzling CGI; Ridley Scott was being Ridley Scott and it isn’t nearly as good as the 2001 Russell Crowe story which won five Oscars. But I still enjoyed it for what it was, pure escapism – and anyway, Denzel Washington was gloriously evil!

Rotten Tomatoes gave it 72%. For me……? Out of 10? 5.

Conclave led us to a look at the excellent BBC Documentary, still available,  Renaissance – The Blood and The Beauty, the kind of thing the Beeb does beautifully. Epic Drama Documentary it is , with Charles Dance as a plausible, irascible Michaelangelo narrating the harrowing events of his time. In three episodes, it is riveting stuff. 9 out 10 straight away.

shot making the whole story all about finding out why! Far more intriguing. Eddie Redmayne is after a fictitious someone we have never heard of and couldn’t care less about. I think this is the main difference.

7 out of 10.

Have you ever heard of Emilia Estevez? No? It’s a French musical crime comedy film which was showered with awards at the Cannes Film Festival this year. Set in Mexico and all in Spanish, it deals with female empowerment, cartel violence and the epidemic levels of disappearances in the country, as well as gender reassignment surgery and transitioning – all explored with endearingly shoddy song and dance numbers.

Two to go and then to the kitchen I must go. Briefly then:

We have persevered with Disclaimer the Cate Blanchett, Sacha Baron Cohen and Kevin Kline vehicle, and are glad we did. We weren’t sure about it at the beginning and then discouraged by others saying they had abandoned it but we have steadied the raft and are now on course. It is a very intriguing piece of television – another series that could be much improved with the discipline of film. 

“Alfonso Cuarón’s new drama about a wife whose secrets are exposed looks beautiful. Sadly, it’s also slow, turgid and – despite stars like Kevin Kline – so bad it needs to be pureed into mush. Only Cate Blanchett could deal with a script this abominable.”

It has had mixed reviews to say the least. Rotten Tomatoes gives it 76% but out of 10 I give it 7. It’s intriguing and passes the time in front of the fire!

After the Party then.

Wow!

A New Zealand six-part drama TV series co-created byRobyn Malcolm and Dianne Taylor, directed by Peter Salmon, and starring Robyn Malcolm and Peter Mullan.

Rotten Tomatoes gives it 100%.  And so do I……10 out of 10.

A very Happy Christmas to you All

Dear Friends

Pedro

https://jlcards.com/hn9yZ0

Click on the link for a little song!

Roots at The Almeida Theatre is beautiful. I am so glad we overrode earlier misgivings which were mainly dictated by health issues, and went along. Here is ensemble playing at its best and Wesker’s, perhaps a little dated, play is a moving snapshot of a different time though we both found it touches on issues that are no less relevant to today.

None of this matters; they played together beautifully; it was touching; made complete sense; it was not miked (rare these days); it was staged with the least amount of fuss and to great effect and Iraqi-born Diyan Zora whose work I have never seen before has clearly got a magical touch when it comes to directing. A great talent and so young. This is I suppose a stupid thing to say since getting into The Almeida these days is like getting to see the President – but get a ticket if you can.

Baz Lurhman’s renowned cinematic extravagance I have always loved. When Moulin Rouge was released in 2001 I rushed to see it on the biggest screen I could find, bought the CD and played the soundtrack loudly for months afterwards at home – much to Tony’s horror!

We both loved it and have promised each other more musicals extravaganzas soon. Thanks Marianne. It was such a great evening, if a little loud; we were both  breath taken by the music which is one long sound track, really, combining over 70 songs from Adele, Kate Perry, Sia, Rihanna, Beyoncé, and more – even The Hills are alive with The Sound of Music by Rodgers and Hammerstein would you believe?

I won’t dwell on our medical stories except to thank you all for your kindness and concern. There are other issues that we are dealing with which are not life-threatening and bearing in mind the travails of the world at present, small beer really. Our little sanatorium here in Mistley is running smoothly and there have been a few “away-days” for fun & frolics though small amounts only as tiredness sets in quickly. We are adept at sourcing the best nappies, you will all be thrilled to know!

A walk on Hampstead Heath yesterday in glorious, sunny winter weather.

Hitler, Mussolini, Nicolae Ceaušescu and his wife, Putin, Kim Jong Un, Evita Peron among a host of other tyrants spring to mind, not least the newest incumbent of the White House who may well be equally self-deluded!

On the book front I think I mentioned last time I had started in with Kairos with enormous gusto and commitment but have run out of steam on that one and lost patience with the tiresome central character, I am afraid, leaving me with Nexus Yuval Harari’s latest opus as my current challenge. Nothing to say yet on that as I have only just finished the 32 page Prologue which I suspect encapsulates the 494 remaining pages!

Any bets?

Films. Only two. Kate Winslet, again, in Lee – all about the amazing war photographer Lee Miller. A wonderful if sad and moving film about her and her exploits before, during and immediately after World War 2.

And The Apprentice perfectly timed to reassure and cheer us before the American Presidential Election. I am being heavily ironic in the light of that event. But a brilliant film nonetheless. You can’t say we weren’t warned!

And here follows my take on the American Election and the return of Donald Trump, another opinion among millions, if you haven’t already you can turn off now. I promise you wont be tested on this!

Given the enormous majority he has fielded and the total control the Republicans now have over all branches of the American State machinery, it can only be concluded that this is what for better or worse, the majority of Americans in a democratic system, wanted. If we are to accept that system and it is, after all part of the post World War 2 settlement, certainly in The West, we have to accept the result with good grace and hope that Trump does not abuse the enormous power he will now have, too much.

But this result is symptomatic of other parts of the world. All regimes everywhere are moving to the Right; populism and nationalism are the new forces – or at least, old ones the world is now revisiting as if history has not warned us against their consequences. 

In Europe France, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Austria have all moved to the right; in Poland more so while Viktor Orbán in Hungary seems to have torn up the liberal experiment altogether. Even our own Labour Party has virtually abandoned its socialist roots and moved to the right having to shadow the Conservatives in order to win elections.

This for whatever reason, is what “the people” want. It does not matter whether their fears and anxieties have been manipulated by politicians with an eye on the main chance; the fact is that there are fears there that seem real to millions that existed already – threats of wars, mass immigrations, rising costs, inflation, catastrophic weather patterns and, in a conservative world where most people simply want to get on peacefully with their lives, small wonder that ordinary people will turn to whomever will, apparently, address these fears.

H.L Menken’s thoughts spring to mind:

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

Not that I necessarily worship at Menken’s feet! The point here being that imaginary or not, the fears we have are perceived to be real.

My Tongue in my cheek, though I am sure not his, another of his pearls is that Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

I am very much afraid that the Liberal Experiment which we have grown up with, the Post-2nd World War Order (in the West certainly) is dying on its feet. The lights if you like are starting to go out and I very much fear that soon we will all be plunged into a new darkness as the authoritarian regimes gather their collective loins ready to jump.

Bleak, dear Friends, bleak!  Sorry, but it is what I feel. Lets hope I am wrong!

Just keep the faith and hold your loved ones close.

PEDRO

FINAL COMMUNIQUE!

Just a quickie, Friends! To say that I have fetched Tony home from the Westmoreland Hospital loaded with medicaments and other goodies and attended a short course on how to administer injections which have to continue at home for 28 days.
So exciting. Except unlike in the movies or when I once was in the Casualty TV soap, you don’t get to hold it up, inspect for air, flick with your index finger and then PLUNGE into soft, subcutaneous flesh!

Nothing as dramatic as that. Just pinch and push at 45º!
Such dreams of playing nursey-nursey, my deerios.

Most importrantly, Tony is feeling much better. Do feel free to WhatsApp him if you like.

Thanks all for your kind attention and care.

PEDRO

Tony circa 1986, Grafton Crescent, London NW1

Friends

T.M.I or T.L.I !? Thanks for all your kind wishes.

I have been to see Tony this morning in his amazing London Clinic suite (courtesy of the tax payer and overcrowding in the NHS!). He had oats and scrambled eggs for breakfast, no OJ, compote, lin– or chai-seeds today!

As his blood pressure has collapsed they are keeping him in for another day but moving him to the Westmoreland round the corner, part of the UCHL group within the NHS.

He is lightheaded, in some pain, but comfortable.

The surgeon said he’d never seen such a big prostate before (TMI!?) and had to make an extra hole for his robot to get it out. So five holes not four. A very neat job.

I shall probable fetch him tomorrow but only if he can get up the stairs here which with his BP as it is now will not be possible. Apparently this is a fairly normal reaction to anaesthesia.

That’s it in a nutshell. He was ordering steamed salmon, mashed potatoes with ice cream for afters as I left.

Much love to you all, Friends.

Pete.

On an early morning drive in Phinda Game Reserve in March.

Tony in Positano, July 1986

Dear Friends
As so many of you have asked after Tony’s current health situation I have started this round robin bulletin to keep you up-to-date!

Friday morning, 25th October –
Tony went into the London Clinic this morning at the crack of dawn to undergo a Prostatectomy.

By 1.00pm he had heard nothing.

But a moment ago at 8.00pm he managed a phone call, was very sleepy and in some pain but doing fine.

I told him to go back to sleep and I will speak to him tomorrow morning.

That's it.

Thanks dear Friends.

Friends we have travelled in our time.  As you know well! Goodness knows I have blogged enough about it; and thank you for listening, you are so loyal.

Our latest journey has been through the NHS and we have discovered there that there are as many flight delays, inexplicable cancellations, lost luggage, interminable delays at the carousel and other pitfalls in that massive, overladen, overburdened ship, as we have over the years experienced on our travels.

We read in the paper and hear on the radio and media generally about the systemic failure of our NHS but never think that we both might gain first hand knowledge!

I write this as an amusing update of our various health vagaries logged in previous blogs, about which many of you have been kind enough to enquire.

The short of it is that Tony has at last got a date for his prostatectomy after much chasing of mysteriously cancelled appointments, incorrect information, postponed diagnoses, Neurologists that went on walk-about, Surgeons who would do nothing until Neurologists spoke, blood and other pre-op tests scheduled over the phone (wrongly obviously, for though science may have made huge strides, giving blood over the phone is yet to be achieved!) and other anomalies that gave conclusive proof of systemic sclerosis – the one hand does not know what the other is doing and the dots are never joined it would seem.

But hey, on the 25^th October Tony will have his procedure robotically and with AI – in The London Clinic no less, a private hospital of some luxury – seeing as there are not enough beds in any other London NHS hospitals.

And he has finally, after many months of uncertainty and Bunbury-like shilly-shallying, received an absolute diagnosis confirming that he does indeed have Parkinson’s and, amazingly, given the various signs and symptoms, has had it for probably ten years.

And there you have it: so we proceed on our journey.

My own is not finished by a long shot! A follow-up colonoscopy ordered by my colorectal consultant back in July was due to take place last Tuesday. I think I should break into iambic pentameters or at least free verse, at this point!

I prepped for the event:  special low fibre diet;
I starved the day before, downed disgusting Plenvu;
Checking the nearness of toiledau every moment,
With spick & span, nay shiny innards,
Empty, nihil by mouth at dawn's crack,
Arrived clinic-side, wheeled into the chamber
Black octopus at trolley side waiting, 
Arm cannula-ed for heavenly sedation;
Ticky-tocky, ticky-tocky went the monitor, graphs rising and falling; 
In went the elixir when suddenly
Monitor claxon sounded alarums,
Red lights flashed
As heart rate crashed.

(I shall never be a Laureate)

“Abort! Abort!” the clinician cried and the whole procedure ground to a halt, “I’m afraid we can’t proceed and need urgently (his word not mine) to refer you to a Cardiologist. Until we know what this is about, no colonoscopy!”

So here we are back in limbo : “urgent referral”? –

15^th November for Holter fitting…………wait for it…..Urgent referral :

Face to Face? To discuss results of urgent referral? 20^th May 2025.

So that’s where I am – 8 months to go when we may well be in Australia!

********************

We continue to hunker in Mistley, the decorating still proceeding (outside) weather permitting. It’s turned into quite a project, almost six months on and off.

But we are backwards and forwards to London for medical appointments and other entertainments:

“It’s got your names written all over it,” said Friend Helen B. Thanks for the heads-up Helen and how right you were. The Cabinet Minister at The Menier Chocolate Factory was completely delicious. We managed to squash into a Saturday matinee; watched, entranced, as Nancy Carroll’s beautifully adapted Victorian Farce, “springy, silly and stingingly satirical” sparkled before us.

Here is not only farce but comedy of manner in the Restoration mould with the British class system the butt of ridicule.

All the characters were equally brilliantly played and may I ask where on earth you find so many actors so proficient at so many instruments? Dillie Keane at the piano is a given but all the others? Nicholas Rowe with his “whistle”? Rosalind Ford with her mini cello? Matthew Woodyatt and his accordion? A Violin, a clarinet. The insertion of cleverly commenting musical interludes was executed like a professional ensemble.

Fight for a ticket!

The Cabinet Minister at the Menier Chocolate Factory

Performed by The Sixteen, one of the world’s most renowned choral ensembles, I was lucky to get a ticket thanks to our elegant, beautiful neighbour, harpist Joy Smith who gets to perform all over Europe with some of the most wonderful ensembles and in exotic venues.

Thanks Joy. It’s a beautiful piece. I love Baroque music and wished I had been able to get in to hear The Sixteen performing The Monteverdi Vespers but it was sold out.

I am embarrassed by my tardiness in the book department. I get very easily distracted by box sets, TV series and streamed movies. An easy “out” when hunkering!

“Naughty!” I hear many of you say as you reach for your umpteenth book of the month, Easy Reading to your next Club.

Lucky you. I think I have a binge mentality. Actually, I don’t think! I know it!

with so much. Apart from the issues it raises in excellent dramatic form with great dia– and mono-logues, it just makes excellent theatre and I wish he could get it into production. I now want to re-read the first three plays again. It would be great if David could at least get them out more widely. Bon chance, David.

I must also make mention of the enormous, coffee table tome that crashed through the letterbox recently after a four month wait: Gary Ralfe’s Stars of the Morning, a history of my old school, Michaelhouse (1896-2021) costing four times its value to airlift from South Africa but worth every penny. It’s a beautiful book. Not exactly one to take to bed as you’d need a cantilevered platform to stop it crushing your knees but a great reference work and beautifully presented. I may have to buy a new coffee table!

Besides – I am mentioned in it! With pictures! Ha!

The movies?

Only one this time round: The Teacher written and directed by the British-Palestinian filmmaker Farah Nabulsi and set in present-day Palestine, it describes what Nabulsi calls “a human drama set in a political landscape – a story about characters that represent a severely marginalised and underrepresented people….I needed to make this film to cope with the injustice I’ve witnessed.”

A Palestinian schoolteacher, Basem, struggles to reconcile his risky commitment to political resistance with the chance of a new relationship with volunteer-worker Lisa, and his role as a father figure to one of his students, Adam.

A moving story at a tragic time for the Middle East; try and see this somewhere, Friends, its an important film.

And television? Well – where do I start?

And for you all it’s mostly, probably, old hat since we spend a lot of time catching up with things:

Tokyo Vice enthralled. So beautifully put together. An Anglo-Japanese cooperation. Good stuff we thought. Giri/Haji intrigues but it is a little “over the place” and seems unsure of what it is really about. The Yakuza loom large over these two series with London being the main scene in Giri/Haji. Some excellent performances though particularly Ansel Elgort in Tokyo and Will Sharpe (who won a BAFTA) in London.

Ansel Elgort & Will Sharpe

Rupert Everett & Patricia Clarkson

Slow Horses – Just the best. We eke it out weekly with some degree of impatience, it’s so good. Gary Oldman is so sublimely unwashed and disgusting! But so brilliant.

We stayed with Vienna Blood until the bitter end. Enjoyed it especially the locations which were all familiar to us. Unlikely and convoluted stories but with two memorable performances by Jürgen Maurer and Matthew Beard.

The rest have all been documentaries; all of them disturbing in these troubled times. There is no need for comment: they speak for themselves.

Last Sunday a treat – our friend Douglas flew in from Baltimore to Heathrow in transit for twelve hours on his way to South Africa. Miraculously the UK Border Control allowed him out of the airport to meet us firstly at the newly refurbed National Portrait Museum and then for lunch at Zedel’s  in Piccadilly – one of our regular and reliable meet-greet-and-eateries!

Bon Voyage Douglas. Happy trout fishing in Dullstroom.

Thanks friends. Stay Safe. Be Well.

Pedro

Strange times to say the least. As far as health goes Tony is in a sort of waiting room of indecision on the part of everyone concerned with his intended prostate surgery! The surgeon does not want to operate until the Neurologist has been visited and some sort of definitive diagnosis is made – does he have Parkinson’s or does he not? But the Neurologist isn’t available until November despite the urgency of the situation! Its another case of the one hand in the NHS does not know what the other is up to; we go around in circles.

So…a sort of limbo you could say.

My own health is very much improved and apart from residual bowel discomfort and a tiredness that comes over by mid-afternoon, all is well. TMI, Friends!? But spectacular weight loss what with the strict dieting required by this Diverticular syndrome! That is nearly 30lbs in old measurements.

A protoplanetary disk is a rotating circumstellar disc of dense gas and dust surrounding a young newly formed star, a T Tauri star, or Herbig Ae/Be star. 

Make what you will of that! Anyway, he has to do it from our flat because Student accommodation is now so expensive in London as to be mind boggling as well! His grant simply won’t cover it.

of six, apart from Tony and myself, all women.This all succeeded in spoiling the simplicity and melodic narrative and we went away grumbling rather!

Limboland is the best place to catch up with binge-television and this we have been doing in spades! Breaking Bad has been revisited, all 62 of them, and we discovered that neither of us could remember any of them.

Jesse Pinkman is inherited by Saul. Such a dreary end for such a sparky character. Wow.

And in the end dear Jimmy gets put away for 85 years. What an end.

We are also hooked on Vienna Blood not only for the labyrinthine story lines but also for the locations in Vienna. Beautiful production values there even though some of the plots are a little far fetched. Each episode is film length at 90 minutes and it is a race to see whether we can stay awake despite their thrill since round ten-ish we both start nodding.

Otherwise? All quiet on the Essex Front and we follow our Albanian Fellowship through the vagaries of that journey from which we were forced to withdraw. Looks like a beautiful place.

c’est la vie

PEDRO

Tonto & Pedro : an imagining in the style of Piero della Francesca by Kath Lees!

The summer has not panned out how we planned at all. I write this really as an update and to thank so many kind Friends who have been asking about our health.

Covid dogged us on our trip to the US – like dominoes : friend Judith came down on the Queen Mary, Tony came down with it in New York and in Boston it was my turn. Not a pleasant strain; apparently a new one in the States, now running rampant. No-one these days takes it very seriously and no-one asked us to wear masks or isolate or any of those things we all had to do a few years ago. This doesn’t mean it is any less nasty!

More than one of our friends observed that since the Queen Mary crossing was postponed by Covid in 2020, perhaps we were never meant to undertake it in the first place. In the light of what happened after we returned, perhaps they were right. Six of us had a walking tour planned in Albania in 2020 too and that had to be cancelled as well. Vouchers flying everywhere! We rebooked for Albania again this coming September, though this time changed mobility circumstances meant no walking in the heat of the Albanian Alps, rather motoring around old-fogey style!  This too has now had to be cancelled – or at least, Tony and I have had to pull out leaving only four friends to explore the delights of Albania without us. They leave on Saturday the 31^st. Have a wonderful time everyone; we shall miss you.

We had to pull out because suddenly in mid-July I had a perforated bowel – a sigmoid diverticular incident – and was in hospital for a week, narrowly avoiding surgery. UCHL managed to treat the condition conservatively with massive doses of intravenous antibiotics and, 26lbs thinner, a week later, rather shakily, was discharged. The Consultant said there was no question of going to Albania with its dodgy, almost non-existent medical infrastructure, and we had to pull out of the proposed Albanian Fellowship.

It’s taken several weeks to recover from this unpleasant experience and there are to be some follow-up procedures to check that the system is up and running properly again.

In the meantime Tony, who in the same week had a routine biopsy as part of the wait-and-see procedures followed by our NHS, for prostate cancer. It was not pleasant. There were complications but the upshot is that he has to have it out and he is now in a queue waiting for this procedure, complicated by the fact that they are reluctant to operate until they know the outcome of neurological tests to establish whether he has Parkinson’s or not. It is all rather nerve-racking and has been a nasty blow to Tony’s morale. All his tests and appointments are immediately up-coming and this of course truly meant that Albania was kyboshed.

So we wait: in Mistley, where we have been hunkering down while all this dust settles; and we have cleared all our decks until next May 2025!

So very many of you have asked about us both and I write this as a sort of round-robin update and a thank you for your kind concern. Believe me, it is very touching and we are most grateful.

There was a window after the U.S. and before these events when the Summer looked full of promising excitements, better weather and lots of friends.

We visited the Palladium with Friend Laura T. to see Imelda Staunton rocking the West End with her brilliant Dolly Levi in a lavish production of Hello Dolly! that satisfied us on every level. Nothing in this production disappointed us least of all Imelda Staunton who once again surprised us with her gutsy, brave performance. One never thinks of her as a West End musicals star but by god she certainly is!

At the Gainsborough House and brilliant Museum in Sudbury with Friends Lindsay Hoyer-Millar and Jane Rimington-Foster.

It was when we were driving her down to Eastbourne to stay with her brother, Peter, that I was struck down by “the incident” managing to enjoy a wonderful evening with them all, a celebratory re-union, before a nasty and painful night.

“Looking Good Houston!”

Thanks Friends!

PEDRO

STOP PRESS

The 16 year battle with Mr. Parker and his TWLogistics Limited stevedoring company in Mistley continues. 

The Fence has still not come down but citizen action was taken at the weekend to remove the offending fence, to no avail. It was put straight up again. 

The campaign has been re-invigorated.  Maybe before hell freezes over or, with climate change, the ice caps melt drowning Mistley all together, the little man may perhaps win against vested interests!

Does your heart sink when you get those emails?

Mine does.

Step out of any hotel, restroom, petrol station, restaurant, supermarket, ATM, NHS, you name it, and the emails chatter in, ping, ping, ping : rate our service, what did you think, feel, loathe, love, out of 5, 10, 50, 100. Trustpilot one, two, three, four, five?

Maddening. But if you fail to reply they go on and on, don’t they?
But, after all, what are departure lounges for but to pick up the next John Grisham, buy a bottle of gin and catch up with those emails! Are bells ringing?

So in the end I do complete the wretched survey.

I never give 10, though. Never! That is always reserved for the surprise perfection which never is.

Until Queen Mary 2.

Queen Mary 2 berthed in Brooklyn.

Barely down the gangplank before the pinging started and while we were waiting for the 3pm slot to check into the Soho Grand Hotel in NYC, I looked at the survey Cunard asked me to fill.

Friends, for the first time, I gave them 10 in every of the 50 categories except on board entertainment which got an 8.

The fact is our experience of this beautiful ship was simply brilliant. The service was impeccable, the food was of the highest standard, their wine lists enormous, their cocktails supreme. The ambience was stylish, relaxed. There was space. You did not for an instant think that there were 2,343 passengers on board. Our stateroom with its balcony was gigantic – more than a mere nod in the direction of old fashioned cabin trunks with more storage, cupboard, drawers and hanging space than our tiny Easyjet-sized luggage needed.

Everything you could possibly want or imagine was catered for from Wellness centres and gyms to libraries and shops. A veritable floating town.

The “peeps” were nice too; and I can tell you that is unusual. We have been on some terrible cruises and many of you have heard our stories I think, Friends?

Nothing like that here and, to top it all, we got to travel with two of our dearest friends, Judith Krummeck and Husbando Douglas Blackstone.

That we were all prisoners in a gilded cage makes none of this matter and it was very entertaining.

Were there any downsides, Friends. I’m afraid so. The weather was not good. No sunshine and cold temperatures but fairly calm seas. We were late arriving in NYC;  our Captain needed to plot a course much further to the south, off the circle route, to avoid bad weather and this meant adding several hours onto our arrival with the advantage that we were able to pass under Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and glide past the Statue of Liberty with that famous view of Manhattan, to our berth in Brooklyn, at 10 rather than 5pm.

And COVID.

Oh dear, Friends. I mentioned in my last blog that this crossing with Cunard was planned in 2019 only to be ruined by COVID in 2020. We are in effect re-running an old plan.

extended family all in Michigan for a reunion. I mean……..what is it with this nasty little monster?

The combination of the dreaded virus and the heat having seriously compromised her.

Everything had to change. We went to the ballet, which we hugely enjoyed; they were in the hospital until 1am having decided that they would return to Baltimore immediately after breakfast by train and we would end our Cunard Fellowship early.

All a bit of a dampener. But it was lovely that they could be with us most of the way and even more special that on board I was able to read Judith’s latest book, The Deceived Ones published only in May and brought as a signed gift specially for us.

Friends it is a beautiful book. Judith is one of my finest friends; she is gentle and considerate; in everything she does there is a delicacy. Like Ikebana,  every piece is placed with thought and care; minimalism is all. This story, The Deceived Ones, is a comedy in the Shakespearean mould. There are moments when the slightest wrong move could turn the story ugly and tragic. I will not say more, though its leitmotif  will be easily evident to you, it is fascinating how the story resolves. I am of course, partisan but, hey, why not?

So they whisked off to Baltimore and we discovered ourselves in the midst of Gay Pride in NYC on my 72nd birthday. It was hot, humid and overcast. Millions of colourful souls everywhere of every shape and form. Our walk from Soho up and across town to the Whitney and the Hi-Line found us swept up by the parades right through The Village, Christopher Street and to a clogged little triangular square outside Stonewall where it all happened all those years ago.

Made it through the press to the Whitney Museum, where Whitney Biennial 2024 : Even Better Than The Real Thing is on until August. We were not quite sure what to make of it actually. Its theme is the acknowledgement that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is complicating our understanding of what is real, “and rhetoric around gender and authenticity is being used politically and legally to perpetuate transphobia and restrict bodily autonomy.” 

I suppose being swept into the museum on the tide of Gay Pride  might have heightened the effect but I am afraid I was left rather underwhelmed.

The pouring rain stopped a Hi-Line walk in its tracks.

By now Tony is showing signs of wobbling toward COVID exacerbated by a nasty, septic finger nail infection, paronychia, which neither boiling water nor antibiotic cream seems to help.

On our last morning, cooler with clear sunny skies, we visited MOMA, a favourite, especially to see the Isaac Julian Installation which was worth every drop of sweat and to which we had been alerted by an installation of his the day before, at the Whitney.

Eating, drinking and merriment?  Rather thin on the ground with all the illness about; but we met our dear friend Ira Silverberg at The Odeon (oysters and lobster-macaroni-cheese – sounds horrendous but hit the spot) over dinner and he regaled us with stories I could not print here! Naughty man!

For my birthday? Martinis at Shade Bar – albino python present (don’t ask) – and spectacular dinner at Manetta’s Ristorante just off Washington Square.

We managed a stagger across Central Park past Trump Tower to Columbus Circle in the heat. No sign of him though we have heard opinions. I fear he will win if the man in the Uber is correct. (Since writing this of course we have had an assassination attempt and Kamala Harris is now on the stump. So perhaps things are not so clear cut anymore – let’s hope.)

And on the 4th day, to Penn Station, newly vamped, since we were last in it, to Amtrak it to Providence Rhode Island there to meet daughter & son Sarah & Ivan, making the eight hour road trek from Ottawa to arrive when our train exactly drew into the station there.

The AirBnB at Sandwich

Tony’s finger looking bad, our lovely AirBnB hostess, Lyla, pointed us in the direction of an extremely efficient clinic which administered antibiotics quick-sticks to stop what Walter Mitty would call “choreopsis setting in”! Or septicaemia to you and me. 

Then to Sandwich for the beautiful, clapboard AirBnB near the ocean on Cape Cod. 

We didn’t go to Martha’s Vineyard but to Nantucket by ferry from Hyannisport instead. Mainly because it was ‘happy 4^th July’ Independence Day weekend and the traffic was horrendous. It took ages to get anywhere; so no Provincetown; nor Martha’s Vineyard as they would have meant spending hours in the car.

Nantucket was beautiful but again, very crowded. We managed to have lunch there and some walking in the heat and humidity.

Our whole time in New York, Cape Cod and eventually Boston was indescribably hot and humid. With Covid in tow it made it all the more intolerable so that when Ivan and Sarah dropped us at our hotel in Boston it was my turn for the lurgy and I collapsed into bed and didn’t move for a day.

I never got to meet our friend Amit, at Harvard doing cutting edge oncology research, long in the planning. Sorry Amit. But at least Tony got to see you!

The weather, our health and loss of mojo rather short circuited Boston; but we managed to see a few things and had at least one special meal, ubering everywhere rather than our usual MetroTransit habits.

Starting with the Isabella Steward Gardner Museum, an extraordinary, eccentrically eclectic collection of European, Asian and American art set in a purpose built museum of the kind common in America where there is always a desperate hunt for historical connections and cultural relevance. Interesting this one but rather reminiscent of an ordered junk shop surrounded by a few imported European ruins. It reminded me of  San Simeon in California or the infinitely superior The Met Cloisters in Washington Heights. There is not a small whiff of Disney in these venues!

I was languishing in airconditioned splendour when Tony went by himself to the Boston Museum of Fine Art which he enjoyed. It has a substantial collection of “all the usual suspects”!

We managed a well conducted hop-on-hop-off  trolley tour which hit the spot under our circumstances and, in fact, as we get older, we resort to more often. It got us comfortably round the old town with all its historic sites giving an excellent overview despite the oppressive heat and humidity.

And of course no visit to Boston would be complete without a visit to the spectacular – in all senses – John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum.   

Designed by the architect I. M. Pei, the building is the official repository for original papers and correspondence of the Kennedy Administration, as well as special bodies of published and unpublished materials, such as books and papers by and about Ernest Hemingway.

underpin the whole American dream are vaunted, while millions of Trump supporters are moving in the opposite direction towards the very forces that are inimical to the thrust of American history.

Sad.

Back to Blighty then. With some relief I may say as neither of us seemed much in touch with out usual energy.

And at home? All change……but that is another story.

Pedro

R & R after an exhausting two months decorating the house! Friends Ian McD and Marianne Velmans made us six in this enormous, very comfortable villa with a pool of course, a welcome necessity.

Finale was our local town, down the terrifying mountain about twenty minutes away with supermarkets, butchers and other exciting comestibles to aid the considerable talents of all our cooks! Only one lunch away from home the whole week, otherwise a stream of haute cuisine, a tricolour of much wine, not to mention gin, gushed forth as the bottle banks got ever fuller! Perfect.

Cefalú was our nearest bigger venture; we had our away day lunch there. A beautiful if somewhat crowded little town founded by the Greeks in the 4^th Century BC.

Terrifying moments

Everyone was dressed in black – except us. We were both wearing dinky little shorts and colourful shirts, clearly tourists as we swept into the main square in our little red Fiat hire. Straight into an atmosphere you could cut with a knife.

It was creepy, almost sinister. As we entered the café the room fell totally silent and all eyes gazed in our direction. Never have we drunk coffees so fast; we paid and retreated to the car to resume the drive.

The road winds up the escarpment to the plateau along the SS118, very isolated; here are still the remnants of the vast Latifundium, empty spaces where the landed estates run by the Romans with their slaves fed the needs of Empire.

Not a soul in sight. I have changed down into second and am traversing the steep, winding road which passes through the spectacular mountainous landscape; Tony is half asleep with the map on his lap. Suddenly without any warning, a man jumps off the embankment out of the maquis, lands on the bonnet of the car wielding a sawn-off shotgun.

It was terrifying. I do not know what he wanted or what he might do but we both shrieked and I accelerated up the hill, knocking him off the bonnet onto the road – and didn’t stop.

He dwindled in the rear-view mirror; I saw him get up, shouting and gesticulating with his gun. Soon a bend in the steep road hid him from view and we stopped to look at the damage: an enormous dent in the bonnet. We managed to press this out and spent the rest of the holiday looking over our shoulders for bandits and/or carabanieri . We eventually, in great trepidation, handed the car back to Avis at Catania Airport fully expecting to be arrested on hit-and-run charges.

But this is Sicily where testosterone runs all motorcars and I am in the middle lane. The man on my left is absolutely not giving way and I am being dangerously squeezed.

His wife is in the passenger seat. He starts to shout across her at me.

I have nowhere to go.

He leans across his wife, opens the glove compartment and produces an enormous revolver which he waves across his wife, through the window, in my face.

I am electrified.

The wife starts to shout at her husband and pushes his hand up and away. The husband stalls his car and an opening comes up ahead of me which I shoot into, sweating.

There are two other gun stories, one in Libya and the other in a Greek restaurant along the Harrow Road near Westbourne Park. How prosaic is that? But it could have ended in tragedy since ordnance was let off.

Friends Dave Lucas, Sue Samson, Tony and I are eating a great meal at Dave’s local “Greek” the name of which escapes me.

We are sitting towards the back.

At the front, in the window, as part of the décor, is a table set with napery, cutlery and a bottle of Moët in an ice bucket designed to attract passing custom.

All very civilised and calm.

Suddenly a car comes screaming down the road, a man leans out of the window and fires off a pistol, shooting up the restaurant, the Threshers Off Licence next door and another shop down the road.

Two bullets penetrate the “Greek”. Both through the plate glass. The first bullet decapitates the top of the champagne bottle which explodes in a spectacular spray of foam; the second penetrates the floor boards literally inches from Tony’s leg.

Later, after the police arrived and the blue tape closed us in, the bullet sticking out of the floorboard could easily be identified as 9mm Parabellum. So, a Glock? A Luger? Who knows? And what was it all for?

We never found out.

One of the questions the cops asked us was, “Do you know anyone who might want you dead?”!

So, Friends, guns. You never know do you?

One more?

Rather tame this time: In Tripoli during a short window of cooperation between Colonel Gadaffi and the West during the Blair years. I was employed by Martin Randall to play Julius Caesar in a redacted, 90 minute version of the play of that name with a professional ensemble specially staged at Leptis Magna where there is a two thousand seat, ruined theatre by the seaside.

Martin Randall specialises in cultural tours. A truly brilliant tour operator, very high end, on this occasion a cruise visiting Roman remains along the North African Coast from Tunis through to Crete stopping in such places as Sabratha, ancient Carthage among several, and including Leptis Magna.

We joined the cruise after rehearsing for two weeks in London. Tony was able to come too which was nice. We rehearsed during the days leading up to arriving in Tripoli.

Just imagine the arranging? The bribes? The connivances and the intricacies involved in getting all this on the road, once actually in Libya? With different, warring factions within Gadaffi’s government – some didn’t want us, others did. It depended on which son was prevailing. Anyway for a while we were in but we had to have a series of minders from dockside to vomitorium. “Our Man In Tripoli” drove us in a protected minivan. I was sitting in the passenger seat. As we left the dock area he leaned across me to the glove compartment where there was an enormous and I mean enormous wodge of cash, $ollars, €uros and £ounds and an even more enormous Glock which he put between his knees for the journey to the ruins. Payoffs were made all the way down the line but the gun, thank heavens, was never used.

What an experience.

Back to Cefalú – on all of my visits there, guns or no guns, the Cathedral is the most beautiful building, Sicilian Romanesque; it’s presbytarium adorned by Byzantine craftsmen with mosaics quite as brilliant as the ones in Monreale, another Norman marvel in the hills above Palermo.

The exquisite Cathedral at Monreale.

In 2019 Friends Judith (Krummeck), Douglas, Tony and I hatched a plan to meet in Southampton and cross the pond to New York in one or other Cunard liner, it didn’t really matter which. Investigations were made and we were to have embarked the Queen Mary 2 in June 2020.

But along came Covid and that was the end of that – we thought. Cunard were extremely helpful, refunds were made and best wishes for another plan were expressed all round.

It all came together and now we are on our way in some considerable splendour, the four of us, to NYC where we will spend a day or two before they go home to Baltimore and we head north to Cape Cod where we will rendezvous with daughter Sarah and son-in-law Ivan who will be driving down from Ottawa to be with us for a week.

We boarded yesterday, the 23rd June. There was a terrible moment when it looked as though Tony would have to stay behind. Though he had a valid ESTA, he had forgotten that his newly issued passport and the numbers on the documents did not match.

Pandemonium.

Judith, Douglas and I board and Tony said he’d catch us up.
The hours go by and no online approval is forthcoming on an emergency application. Cunard are adamant – no valid ESTA, no boarding!
I am already planning an airfare for him to join us in NYC at the end of the week and having a minor nervous breakdown!

Stress levels are through the roof! But at last the site pinged and permission was granted, so we are all set.

“Phew!” as they say on Wordle.