Dec-2012

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A couple of people have said they enjoy reading this stuff, so blame them!

 

The weather has been truly awful this summer in UK, judging by the amount of times we were put off sitting outside in the garden, visiting parks, going for an little walk up the road , etc. etc..  And when it is cold and wet, and you have to get all the gear on, it is not conducive to me taking much exercise at all.  It takes all my concentration to walk, so I can’t walk and shiver at the same time, to paraphrase ex-president Gerald Ford. 

 

One way and another this summer we got poor marks for visiting friends, so if we haven’t seen you, we do feel bad about it.

 

Had a bit of excitement at the annual Prescott vintage car hill-climb meeting in August,  On the Saturday I went sideways on a too-steep slope, and tipped over to the right, with of course no avoidance mechanism on that side, and got a severe bang on the side of the head.  My only memory is waking up in Cheltenham hospital hours later.  Apparently I was unconscious, and there was blood everywhere.  Amber could not be found right away, so my friend Iain accompanied me in the ambulance, which of course was in attendance at the meeting.  I was kept in hospital for 2 nights while they did various tests.  Amber was to and fro from Prescott, and actually managed to get her competitive runs up the hill on Sunday - good for her!  There was no permanent damage, but I was unsteady on my feet for months afterwards, as if the balancing part of my ear had been affected.

 

Spent 2 weeks in Spain visiting Amber’s son Oak and his partner Ines.  They have a flat in central Madrid – Oak is a photographer working mainly for art galleries in Beijing, Paris and Milan, and Ines works from home on micro-finance for the Aga Khan Foundation.  Nice work, as they say, if you can get it, and read the news stories about Spain.  We four hired a car and did one of these visit a winery and stay in a hotel deals, where you buy a voucher to give as a present, very nice.  It was near Valencia.   Then we stayed with Ines’s parents Cruz and Juan at their seaside flat near Valencia for 5 days, and then went to stay at a Parador for 2 nights in Cuenca.  A big old convent in the old hilly town, beautifully restored.  Do go and stay in a parador as a treat if you can.

 

Great news!   I got my driving licence back, and there no insurance surcharge for my disability!  I think modern sensibilities have made them s--- scared of discriminating against us.  We have an automatic with power steering, so it can all be done with the left hand, and the left foot can manage both the accelerator and brake (though left foot braking takes a bit of practice – try it!).  So far I have just driven round home for a bit of fun, but Amber can’t wait to look at the passing scenery for a change.  

 

One thing that has been a major preoccupation this past year has been the sale of my old house in Stamford Brook.  It had a 50% mortgage on it, and I got my half of it OK, but after a while the mortgage company said they hadn’t been paid.  Turns out my solicitor had done a runner with it and left me with an unpaid mortgage!  I thought we were covered, surely, by solicitor’s insurance etc..  Not necessarily so, and it took the regulation authority over a year to award us any compensation.  One more pillar of the old world certainties bites the dust.  Be warned!  As you can imagine, worrying about it at 3 o’clock in the morning was not nice.  But in a strange way, I almost miss it!   

 

We have come to Buenos Aires for our habitual 4-month winter break.  Amber is getting much more confident about dealing with the language, and the more confident you are the faster you learn.  She plays tennis 4 times per week, and does yoga 3 times.  The place is very good for our health, and  even though we love the food, we lose weight.  I go out 1, 2 or 3 times a day, with Amber, and getting about on my buggy is good.  Getting back up 3 flights of stairs (54 of them!) is hard work, but essentially boring.  Unless I have had more than one glass of wine – then it can get interesting!

 

We went to Salta in northern Argentina for a week and hired a car.  Salta town is probably very nice, but the pavements are all at least 20cm high with few run-ups, so no good for my buggy.  But then we went north to the little town of Tilcara, and stayed for 5 nights in a beautiful small hotel, the sort that nowadays describes itself as “boutique”, up a dirt road but with a patio outside your room, a swimming pool, jacuzzi, etc..  And the scenery round about is stunning – amazing colours on the mountains and rock formations.  Tilcara was at 2,000m, and we went as high as 3,500m over passes.

 

One bit of excitement was an attempted visit to Iruya, a pretty mountain village up a 65km dirt road.  Half way along we had a puncture.  Oh well, I suppose we had better put on the spare and turn back, as it was lonely there with about one vehicle passing by per hour.  But the spare was an absolute disgrace, having no pressure and worn down to the canvas,  With a bit of luck after about 15 minutes a Toyota pickup with a couple of guys from the Geographic Institute pulled up to help.  We decided the best ­we could do was to leave our car up on their jack, and for them to take our spare and the punctured wheel on to Iruya to try to get a fix while we waited for them.  They came back after 4 hours – the spare was past hope but the punctured tyre, which had a 5cm gash in the side, fitted with an inner tube and heavily patched.  Then they followed us down 30km to the main road, and 100km back to Tilcara, where we managed to buy a second-hand tyre.  But the generous help we got was confirming the positive prejudice we have acquired about the standards of behaviour in Argentina.   Very polite, very friendly, very correct, expecting nothing in return, apart from equal help from a fellow-countryman if they happened to need it.  Well brought up.  We are constantly saying “Wasn’t he/she nice and kind and thoughtful”.

 

But friends here say oh no, people in UK (or anywhere) are very much better behaved generally than in Argentina.  Grass is greener etc., I  suppose.

 

Good to get away from the christmas shopping frenzy (small c) that starts in October (we’ve seen one shop window here with a bit of tinsel), all the paedophilia stuff  (where were they all last year?), pleb histeria, and we’ve practically forgotten who Dick Clegg is.

 

Our presidenta Cristina is getting a bad international press at the moment (well, all the time, actually).  They say she is telling lies about inflation, saying it is only 10% instead of a more realistic 25%.  But it is just a question of degree, she is only telling the same lies as our own politicians and civil servants do habitually.  So our own shopping, petrol, utilities etc. have only gone up by 2%-3% in the past year?  Pull the other one!

 

BBC radio is doing a series by Lynne Truss about news-letters.  For example, she has set up an international detective agency, and is checking up on the news-letters she gets from her friends, and is finding some quite shocking exaggerations and fantasies.  None of it applies to me, of course. 

 

And the cartoon: woman showing her guest bedroom to a friend, with about 6 dogs lying on the bed,  “It felt a bit chilly, so I’ve put an extra dog on for you.”

 

It has been 3 years now since my stroke.  I may be improving slightly, but basically this is it.  It is in some ways a real bummer, but in some ways you don’t mind, you get used to it, you accept it and get on, wishing things were different just does not arise.  And it has to be said that life is giving me a pretty good deal, so mustn’t grumble.

 

Merry Xmas to you all!

 

 

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