Category: lifestyle

What should I do at the airport first thing in the morning?

I appreciate that followers of this blog probably think that all my life is a holiday. Since I retired I have been able to fulfil many of my bucket list wishes. We spend our summers on a narrowboat and have travelled most of the canals of England. We have spent a month in Orkney and a month in the Outer Hebrides. I interrailed all over Europe for a month. We have skied. We have stayed in castles. I am a very lucky chap.

This week we are having a proper holiday in Lanzarote. Mandy’s brother and his wife invited us to join them for a week. A free holiday in the sun, after weeks of cold, wet, dark, was too much to miss.

We are flying from Manchester and have arrived hours early. I always arrive early when I fly. I panic (unnecessarily) about hold ups in security and missing boarding. In my 60 years of life I have never missed a flight so perhaps I need to relax more. Or maybe the reason I have never missed a flight is because I am obsessive about it.

Either way, it means I always have hours to kill at the airport. What should I do?

The traditional way to use up airport time in the UK is to drink lager. There are only two times it is socially acceptable to get drunk first thing in the morning – Christmas Day and at the airport. There are an awful lot of people here with pints in front of them. But I can’t face that.

We could book an airport lounge. We always used to do that. We could sit on sofas with plenty of space, drinking “free” coffee and reading the newspapers. It is a comfortable way to fly. But prices have recently got ridiculous. It used to cost about £15 a person, but the price here for two of us would have been nearly £100. That is not good value for money.

We could go to the gate early. That would certainly mitigate my lateness paranoia. But the seats are always uncomfortable. They often change the gate. And it is boring.

We could have breakfast. T2 at Manchester has been recently refurbished and there are a wealth of restaurant options. They are pricey at around £17 for a full English, but it’s a lot cheaper than a lounge. I think that is a good choice.

And I still have time to add another option. What better choice for using time at the airport than writing a blog. You should try it.

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Remembering phone cards

As we continue to go through all out chattels, having recently moved house, we come across all sorts of things. This week I found an air pistol, all my old work ID cards, about 400 pens (mostly dry), a picture of an ancient relative. And phone cards.

Anyone under 30 will not recognise these, but in the 1980s and 90s they were the thing to have – almost a status symbol. Coin operated phone boxes seemed so old fashioned, and if you were one of the many whose house did not have a landline, they were the best way to stay in touch.

The original cards (the bright green ones), used 1980s state of the art optical technology. Sounds great but in reality that meant they had a strip on one side that got steadily burnt away as you made a call. In 1996 they were replaced by the other ones with chips, and we thought they would go on forever. After all, mobile phones were huge bricks, only used by market traders and rich people.

Now I keep my life on my phone. The world seems very distant when we had phone cards, cheque books, filofaxes, cameras with films, portable TVs, paper memos at work, encyclopaedias. Technology evolves so quickly that even my iPhone is beginning to feel old hat. I wonder what the next breakthrough will be. Gartner suggests “Agentic AI” as the big thing for 2025, where AIs think for themselves. I wonder if the robots will know how to use a phone card.

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Am I just keeping that for sentimental reasons?

By the end of last week our new house was well organised and tidy. Everything had been deboxed and put away. Pictures were up on walls. The fridge and cupboards had been stocked. We had even put up a few blinds ad curtain rails. We had a dinner party on Sunday and I was proud of the house.

So why this morning was everything in a mess again?

The answer is the elephant in the garage. Readers of this blog may remember the photo I posted when we moved in, with the garage stacked floor to ceiling, front to back with boxes and furniture. This week I opened every box and moved the contents into piles for charity, for the tip, to keep in the garage and for the house.

What I discovered was that we have literally hundreds of things we do not use but which we carry round from house to house, loft to loft, shed to shed. It all takes up space. It all needs looking after. We just keep it for sentimental reasons. Pictures that the boys painted when they were toddlers. A table and chairs that Mandy’s Dad made. My own Dad’s collection of antique newspapers. Robert’s expensive coffee machine that is never used. Martin’s weights set that gathers dust under a bed. Mandy’s exercise bike from when she had her knees replaced during Covid. My golf clubs that I kid myself I will get back to one day.

I give myself the excuse that one day these things will come in useful. And hey, maybe I am right. But this week I have certainly got more pleasure from giving things away. Our oak bench seats have gone to my brother in law to be made into a seat and shoe rack for his hall. The golf clubs to my sporty great nephew. The old cutlery drawers have gone to “Save the children” to go in their window. A fridge, freezer, table and packing boxes are going to a friend’s daughter who is about to move house. Hundreds of puzzles, games and CDs are going to charity. An old leather chesterfield sofa and chair will hopefully be fetched by the British Heart Foundation.

I have felt ruthless and proud of what we have done. And still, the garage still hosts those old newspapers. And my old model railway in boxes. And Martin’s old snooker cue. And a table tennis table that went in the charity pile and somehow returned to the garage.

Maybe they will come in useful.

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The best of weather, the worst of weather

What a week for weather. In Lancashire we have missed the heavy snows of Scotland, but we have had torrential rain, floods, hail, hard ice and frost. Some of the worst weather all year. And yet, as the old year has become a new one, the weather changed and this morning we woke to the kind of cold crisp day that is my favourite.

It reminded me of the best ski days, the ones they call bluebird days, when the snow is fresh, the pistes are groomed, there is no wind, the temperature is cold, and the sun is shining. I am missing skiing this year. We have a week planned in Lanzarote later in January when I know we will have a lovely time in the warmth. But for me, nothing beats coming down the first piste of the day, when the skis through the corrugated snow making a sound like a sharp knife cutting through paper.

And that first stop of the day, at a mountain cafe, for a mulled wine, a beer or a cold coke. Your thighs tingling from exercise they are not used to. Your nose tingling from the cold. Your fingers tingling after removing the gloves.

But it is such a risk booking a ski holiday since climate change has altered the weather. A week looking out at green mountains is a waste. Worse, a week looking out at a blizzard that is unskiable.

So I will enjoy my week in the sun. And get on with unpacking more boxes for our new house. And remember happy times on the slopes

Maybe next year. If the weather is good enough.

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What wine goes with turkey?

Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas Day and are enjoying the 12 day feast. We had a quiet one in our new house, with Carol and Terry. Mandy went to school with Carol some fifty years ago, and I met them forty years ago. I have happy memories of Carol visiting us in Holland in the early nineties, and our toddler Robert following her around the flat going “Darrel, Darrel” which was as close to her name as he could get.

I cooked a very traditional Christmas lunch – turkey, vast numbers of pigs in blankets, stuffing balls, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, sprouts with chestnuts and bacon, cauliflower and broccoli in cheese sauce, mashed swede and carrot, gravy, cranberry sauce and the contentious bread sauce, I say contentious because for many it is a pointless, flavourless sauce. But for me it makes Christmas. We once stayed over Christmas in a very fancy hotel, and I rang them in advance to make sure we could get bread sauce. Yummy.

Everyone drank what they wanted. Terry and Mandy had champagne. Carol was driving and had a heavy cold so drank water. And I wanted wine. The question was which wine. Over the years I have read many opinions on the best wine to drink with turkey. Some say a crisp Chardonnay – maybe a Chablis. Others opt for a light red such as a Pinot Noir. Others agree with Mandy that Champagne cannot be beaten. But I really wanted a Chateau Musar.

Musar is my favourite wine. It comes from Lebanon, fairly near the holy land, so I suppose has a geographical connection with Christmas. But I just love the taste – deep, rich and powerful. It is everything that experts would say does not go with turkey – likely to take over the mouth taste instead of allowing you to enjoy the meat.

I called my younger son, Martin, to ask his advice, He used to be a sommelier and really knows his stuff. I think he was spot on when he said “It really does not go with turkey, but you should always remember that wine is meant to be enjoyed, and you should have whatever you enjoy.”

So I did. A 2005 vintage bottle that I had been saving. The cork was soft and broke up with the corkscrew, but the wine itself was not corked. I sieved it twice to remove the sediment and bits of floating cork, and then poured it fast into a decanter to introduce more air. To me it tasted wonderful. Maybe it did not go with turkey but I loved my Christmas dinner and I loved my wine.

What did you do for Christmas? I hope that as for me, happy memories were made. Join me next week for a brand new year.

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Why do we have so much stuff?

Living on a narrowboat for most of the year, we have become very good at minimising the things we need to live. We have a rule that if we buy something new for the boat, something else has to go. The result is that although it is a small space, we have everything we need to live, and is does not look cluttered.

So why is it that moving house this week, we have so so so much stuff? I cannot believe how many boxes I have unpacked. And I still have rooms full of more boxes, and a garage packed to the roof.

The trouble is that we have lived in large houses for years and years. I believe that people fill the space they live in. Whether it is a small narrowboat, or a mansion. Over time cupboards get filled and spaces get occupied. Our new house is still big but not as big as the one we had in Scotland. We probably should have got rid of half the stuff when we moved out, but we didn’t. So now we have boxes and boxes of things we do not need. I estimate four or five times too many glasses, four times too many mugs, five times too much linen. And don’t even mention the shoes! We have hundreds of DVDs that we never watch, four sets of crockery, a chesterfield sofa and chair we don’t need, boxes of stationery from the loft. The list goes on.

So the next couple of days are about getting lounge, kitchen and two bedrooms ready for use at Christmas. Then I will methodically do the rest of the house, room by room, box by box. That will leave me January to work my way through the garage. Charity shops will be deluged by me, as will the local tip.

The real question is whether Mandy and I can be more disciplined in the future. I’d like to use that narrowboat rule on the house. One thing in and one thing out. I certainly don’t ever want to see this many boxes again!

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Homeless but not houseless

In July I wrote a blog entitled “Houseless not homeless”. We had just sold our house in Scotland and were going to be living on our narrowboat full time. We had no house but we had a home on the boat. Last Friday we completed the purchase of a new house in Lancashire. It is lovely but we couldn’t schedule the removal company to bring our stuff out of storage till next week, and so this week we have had a house but not a home.

My brother in law installing my new wardrobes – thanks Steve

It has been a strange week. There has been plenty to do, from building wardrobes, to connecting the internet, to sorting out address changes. It has been fun. But I have been to and fro between the house, the boat and my in laws, who live close by. So I have felt unsettled. For ten days I do not know where my home is.

Since I retired we have had a routine of spending the summer in the boat and the winter in a house. In my unconscious mind I have seamlessly switched “home” from one to the other. We have also travelled quite a lot but that was never a problem because I knew where home was. The cliché is that “home is where the heart is”. I think home provides the foundations that allow me to be carefree and adventurous. It is family, it is relationships, and it is also a location.

So this week has felt really quite odd. But next week should be amazing. The removal people will arrive on Tuesday morning and Mandy has kindly offered to stay at the boat with the dogs for a couple of days more while I break the back of the unpacking. I am looking forward to working out where things go. I am looking forward to setting things up. And most of all I am looking forward to building a home.

What do you think about “home”? Is it just where you happen to live or is it so much more?

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Should I embrace or dread AI?

Everywhere I look in the last year I seem to see references to AI. Whether it is articles about how AI will take over the world, or adverts saying that products from cars to insurance are “powered” by AI. How am I supposed to feel – scared or excited?

The first thing to say is that automation is not AI. We have had automation since the industrial revolution, and computer automation since the 1950s. It has certainly taken jobs away. We don’t need thousands of hand weavers anymore and we don’t need clerks in companies adding up accounts. But it has also created new jobs, and has grown our economies, creating wealth. I have to confess a self interest here because my career was based on installing automation in companies, from writing software to control water and gas networks, to managing projects to sell more products to customers, and ending with making it faster and more reliable to make payments.

Real AI does much more than this. Instead of following instructions created by people, it analyses vast amounts of data to create new ideas. For instance we have all heard of AI identifying new indicators of cancers, allowing them to be treated much sooner. This is what makes it a threat to jobs that previously seemed immune to automation. My dentist said to me a few months ago that his role would never be taken over by AI because he had thirty years experience and had treated thousands of patients. He is wrong. Probably in the next ten years we will see AI dentist robots using consolidated thousands of years of knowledge and the data from millions of patients. This will allow them to be more accurate and to give less invasive treatments.

Even creative roles are likely to be automated with new AI. We are already beginning to see early versions of books and films written by AI. So far they are not great but they will get there. And the roles around the creatives will certainly disappear. Why do you need film executives to use their “guts” to identify which projects to green light, when an AI can use the experience of the whole industry to say what will work and what will not. This does not mean AI will just repeat the past. It can spot new trends much faster than any person.

That all sounds pretty terrifying, but so far, AI seems to be adding rather than taking away. The new AI summaries at the top of Google do not replace the search, but add to them. AI assistants are helping journalists write better articles. Children are able to write better homework. Is that cheating? That reminds me of when I was a child and using a calculator was considered cheating. We were supposed to use log books. Why?

Unfortunately I am still not sure whether I should dread or embrace AI. I asked Chat GPT which told me “AI, like any powerful technology, is a double edged sword. Embracing it thoughtfully while addressing its risks is the wisest path.” Hmmm.

Oh by the way, why have I included a photo of a spitfire in Lytham St Annes at sunrise? I took it last week, and then used AI on my phone in five seconds to remove the pole that holds up the aeroplane in Lytham Park. That was pretty cool. I also generated a whole image below using Gencraft AI, but that seems to be missing a tailplane. Maybe AI is not perfect yet.

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Are you allowed to drive a narrowboat at night?

There are a number of questions we get asked all the time by non-boaters. How often do you fill up with water? Where do you get your electricity? How does the Internet work on a boat? Is it very cold in he winter? Where does washing up water go? Do you need a licence to drive a narrowboat?

Another common question is whether you are allowed to cruise at night.

The answer is “no” if you are a hire boater because your insurance won’t cover it. But for liveaboards like ourselves the answer is “yes” because it has always been allowed. At the peak of canal traffic, in the 19th century, bargees were paid on taking a load from a to b, however long that took, and so often they would travel all day and all night.

Although it is allowed, these days we see almost no boats travelling at night – maybe two or three in a season. Certainly we have never travelled at night. Even with the headlight, you can’t see very well, and it is annoying to fellow boaters who may be sleeping.

But this time of year the sun sets so early that this week we found ourselves travelling in the dark at just after 4pm. Perhaps we should have moored up as soon as it got dusky, but there was a particular mooring we were heading to, and besides it was an adventure.

The water looked very beautiful as the sun went down and my eyes acclimatised quite well. Still, I decided to move even slower than usual because seeing obstructions in the canal was very difficult. Surprisingly, locks were less of a problem. The headlight is designed to illuminate tunnels, and a lock is like a tunnel without a roof, so they lit up quite well.

I don’t think we will choose to travel at night again in a hurry, but as Thomas Beecham once said, you should try everything in life once, except incest and Morris dancing. And I love an adventure.

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It’s Cold!

After a month travelling through Europe in largely sunny warm weather, it has been a shock to return to the cold of Britain. This morning it was -6°C when I took the dogs for their walk. Winter has certainly arrived.

We have a bit more of a challenge on the narrowboat because our “bubble” diesel stove is not working properly, It is not getting to temperature and so sooting up. I need to find an engineer in Staffordshire who can fix it. We still have the “Webasto” diesel boiler so all is not lost and we can get a pretty cozy boat during the day. Overnight we turn the heating off so it does get pretty chilly but underneath the duvet and blanket it still feels safe and warm.

People often ask me how we live on a narrowboat in cold weather. It is after all a single skinned steel tube. But the reality is that the airspace is so small that it warms up pretty quickly. Hot weather in the summer is much more of a problem, when it can get like an oven. Not something we need to worry about this week!

It is a simple life on a boat. You soon realise what really matters. Staying warm in the cold. Staying cool in the heat. Making sure there is water. Making sure you can use a toilet. Getting food in the cupboard. In return we get a lot for free. Beautiful mornings and evenings. A kingfisher sitting on the back of our neighbour’s boat yesterday. A peaceful life.

We are in the process of buying a house. New complexities will arrive such as council tax, sorting out utilities, broadband. We even have to pay the council for a set of wheely bins. When we move in, we will get the benefits of not having to worry about filling up water, pumping out the toilet or replacing bottles of gas. But I know I will very soon want to be back on the boat. Even when it is cold.

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