Another Lifetime to go

18th October 2024

I dragged my carcass into the garage to do one thing. We had a dresser that needed a bit of work doing on the drawer sides.

Some people like to paint the sides, this one had thick black paint on it,  and I planned to remove it.

Searching out my trusty hand held belt sander, I fitted the coarsest belt I had, and set about the dirty job.

It took about an hour,  all the black muck was gone, and the drawers were looking decent.

I think I had reached my limit, I went inside for some lunch, and once I had sat down it was hard to get up again.

17th October 2024 

I was determined to do things, and not use the excuse of feeling sick.

There were a few things that Kelli had forgotten on the weekly shop that we needed. 

That was what I needed, so dressing for warmth, as the autumnal season was upon us, we set off.

After completing those tasks, we came back and I had more of the chicken soup, boy, that was good stuff.

I still wasn’t feeling one hundred percent the cough was still with me, but now we had a collection or cold remedies that I could take.

I guess my immune system didn’t help much, even though we regularly took various supplements to strengthen it, maybe all that is bullshit, it certainly hasn’t helped me much.

Then the worst happened, Kelli announced that she was feeling sick, that was the last thing I wanted to hear, now we face the next few days in shared sickness.

16th October 2024 

I felt like crap, my throat was sore and I had a chesty cough, “ ooh, welcome to the USA” I thought. I felt a little weak and was running a slight temperature, so I stayed in bed. 

Kelli ran round getting me things to take, and she made a chicken soup that made me feel better with every mouthful. This was not the return I was planning.

By mid afternoon my temperature had dropped to nearly normal, I still had a hacking cough that lasted into the night.

I lay on the sofa drifting in and out of sleep, the compilation of all the lack of sleep finally caught up with me.

15th October 2024

My decision to return via Charlotte instead of Chicago was based on the belief that no one ever flew into Charlotte, and thus the plane would be empty.

The first leg was from Heathrow was marred by a horrendous queue around the passport control area. This was due to extensive work refitting the new facial scanning equipment. There was nearly an hours wait to get to the scanners, great, when all I wanted was to get breakfast. There is still the rule for removing the belt and shoes, if these body scanners are any good they would detect anything dodgy.

Thank goodness for the claim of breakfast would be served within seven minutes of ordering, I certainly needed that.

The gate for my departure was number twenty two, “that shouldn’t take long to walk” I thought, forgetting that it’s a long walk to anywhere at Heathrow.

The lounge was packed, hardly any breathing space at all. My thought that the plane would be empty, evaporated.

The crowd moved as one, like a blob of jelly, first group 1, the posh ones, then group 2 the company paid for the lot. Group 3 &4  are those people that like to boast of their wealth and value the better quality seats and food.

Group 5 are the slightly mean ones who should have paid the up charge, and immediately regret it. The rest from 6 to 9 get to sit of fresh straw.

The plane was packed, the film selection was crap; Hollywood is in dire trouble with productions this bad.

Once we got airborne there was the lunch to look forward to. My choice was chicken in a creamy sauce. It all looked nice, but the bamboo knives and forks were not effective. I was trying to saw through the meat, but I generated so much heat that I expected the fire alarm to go off.

In trying to accomplish this, I spilt my small bottle of water into the shoes of the young girl sitting next to me, she wasn’t wearing them at the time. For most of the journey she had a blanket over her head. So as not to disturb her, I said nothing, and rescued what was left of my water.

I made sure that I got out of the plane before the girl put her shoes on. I think I heard  “ewe!” as I quickly exited the aircraft.

The arrival at Charlotte was almost on the nail, it was a light modern terminal, the walk to the passport control was not long, although there is the wait to get processed. 

In my head I was imagining what problem could occur with my paperwork, as it’s happened a couple of times in Chicago, I was shocked when is said “Welcome home Peter” and let me pass.

Amazing what facial recognition can do.

To catch my plane to Grand Rapids meant walking to another part of the terminal. Through the first checkpoint, the queue was massive.

I was aware that I had to board the next flight in twenty minutes, progress was slow, the clock was ticking down, I was growing anxious, and I still had the scanning section to do.

I placed my leather hold-all in the plastic tray along with my small bag, coat, belt and shoes.

I waited for my hand luggage to roll down the conveyor. Suddenly, it was diverted, there was a question about something. Typical, more delay.

I was bringing back a hard drive, and that was the culprit, or so I thought. Now the hard drive was placed in a separate tray and sent back through.

It was diverted again, this time it was a box of mini discs. Finally I could make the long trek to the departure gate.

By now I was feeling a little sick, my throat was a bit dry and scratchy. I guess all this hassle was making it worse. 

I remembered my Grandson has a bit of a stuffy nose, and he must have infected me.

I didn’t get much sleep at the cottage, or the coach, of the flight, which contributed to my symptoms.

There was an announcement from the captain that he had contracted the maintenance team with a small technical hitch. 

Now, as this aircraft was a Boeing 737 ( not the max)  I had concerns of my own.

However this problem was solved with a strip of black tape, (sick joke) we headed off the Grand Rapids.

As with my first flight and this one, I noticed how uncomfortable they were. I was constantly shifting from one buttock to another, please let this trip be over soon?

At least there was a light at the end of this long tunnel, Kelli was waiting for me, her smile made all of the discomfort barely. Well it made up for a lot of it, my arse was still numb though.

14th October 2024

What can I say about today? I was due to be my cleaning day, but due to some family issues I headed down to Hampshire to see what was going on. I won’t elaborate any more, if you’re interested, you will have to buy my memoir when it comes out priced at a reasonable £5000.

It was going to be a full day, one and a half hours drive down, and I needed to be back by 9.00pm to drop the truck at Ryan and Louise’s.

Although my grand children were at school, I joined the school run to collect them.

Ethan is football crazy, so I knew any spare moment he would want me to kick a ball about. 

And sure enough that is what happened.

He also had football training that evening for an hour, so I went along to see him do that.

Watching young boys and girls kicking a football about was fascinating, the enjoyment and intensity they had made me smile.

Saying goodbye was hard, I am missing that stage of watching them grow up, I have to give them more time on longer trips.

The trip back was uneventful, I dropped the truck back for probably the last time. I expect that they will sell it, as it is an expensive vehicle to run. It served its purpose during the cottage renovation and it turned over to one hundred thousand miles on the way down.

I walked back through the town and climbed the hills, gasping as I got to the top, the last ascent to the trip.

I finished packing my case, and a bit of a clean up before resting and waiting for Nicola and Colin who once again came to take me to the bus station.

13th October 2024

There was not much for breakfast this morning.

I’ve run the fridge down to virtually nothing, bar a few eggs and some bread crusts. There was no milk left for my coffee, so things were dire.

I drove down to Warminster to meet up with Damian and the boys who had spent the previous day at Longleat.

The hotel he had stayed looked great, an old country house tastefully converted with glass domed pods set out for intimate dining.

We spent a bit of time catching up, but it was not ideal, I rarely seem to get much quality time with him.

By now the boys had enough and were bored, that was the signal to go our separate ways.

I ended the day at Ryan and Louise’s for a fabulous Sunday roast. It also included red cabbage, one of my favourites, a sharp reminder of my Mum. I’m glad that the recipe continues, and as Louise calls it “Butt cabbage” we all know what that means.

12th October 2024

I took the park and ride into Bath from OddDown, the service is regular and made a change. The town was heaving, it was running an Autumn Fair, with tents and stalls lining Milsom Street, so it was manic.

I was meeting my friend Rob for lunch at Temptation Indian restaurant. I was early, I wanted to search for things to take back. 

However all the walking about made me a bit peckish. I decided on a breakfast at Cote restaurant just off of Broad Street. I can’t remember going there before, so another first.

I decided on eggs Benedict and coffee. The staff were pleasant and attentive, the boss lady has an impressive collection of tattoos on her arms, one climbing up her neck, made her look a bit sinister. I was glad she didn’t serve me, neck tattoos give me the creeps.

I continued my quest for a custard slice. After checking out Waitrose and Marks and Spencer, I still had no joy, I must have tried all the bakers in the town to no avail. The conclusion, Custard Slices are extinct. 

After lunch Rob always likes a coffee at his favourite place Colonna and Smalls speciality coffee, near Queen’s square. A quaint little place  with a varied coffee range.  Rob, as always strikes up a conversation with a chap on the table we joined. Within a short time they were sharing pictures on their phones. He was a fine looking gentleman with a fabulously shaped and trimmed beard unlike Robs who’s a bit bushy and wild.

After all that excitement, it was back on the bus, then get the car then drive to the dogs for feeding time.

11th October 2024

I had spent my first night looking after Ryan and Louise’s two dogs. They are both lovable but loud, especially at food time.  Their eager barking could easily affect my hearing.  

I tried the system I use back in the US with Phoebe and Dharma where I let them out in the back garden, then prepare their food, then let them back in.

Well no, it doesn’t work for Dexter and Bobby, they won’t go out. Bobby bounces up and down barking all the time, it’s like he’s on a pogo stick.

Dexter just stand there and barks. They know it’s food time, and want to watch every movement I make.

I had to be a bit of work in the cottage, mainly putting things away, a general tidy up then it was back to the dawgs.

I thought I would take a chance and take them for a walk, this entailed getting them in to their collars. This was no easy task with both of them jumping and barking. I did manage to get the collars on, not necessarily correct, but it’ll do.

The we set off for the playing field with Bobby pulling every step of the way, he has a lot of strength for a little un’.

10th October 2024

It was returns day, first an Amazon one , and then returning a tube of sealant where the contents were so thick it would move down the tube.

I stopped off at the Trowbridge Tesco to search of a custard slice. Since I’ve been back I have tried to buy some, but all the supermarkets that used to sell them, do no longer.

That made me issue a challenge to myself to track one, possibly two, before I go back to the US.

I’m not fanatical about it, but it would satisfy a craving.

I did a bit of touching up of the paint on the walls caused, I expect, by the chairs touching.  You would think people would notice, and move the bloody thing.

The evening was treat, visiting Jeanine and Mark.

They made sure I knew I was back in England, and even found a bottle of Old Speckled Hen as a perfect accompaniment to the toad in the hole. The conversation spun various orbits, which I enjoy, and we didn’t even touch on the history of Georgian glass, Mark’s pet subject.

Well maybe next time.

There is a terrific warmth in their home that I absorb, and take with me, and it wasn’t the gin and tonic they gave me when I arrived, my first ever as it happens.

As I left, and walked up the path I noticed that I had left the headlights all the time I was inside, a total of nearly three hours.

I was scared that there wouldn’t be enough “juice” left in the battery to start it, and you can’t jump start an automatic. I unlocked the door, and reached in to turn the lights in a feeble attempt to save a bit.

I felt sick as I turned the key, the starter gave a groan and reluctantly started. I gave the dashboard a pat, as I moved off, the sense of relief almost hurt.

9th October 2024

My friend from the studio days was coming over to help me discover why the right hand speaker of the stereo wasn’t working. On the face of it, it should have been a simple job, but nothing is that simple.

When the cottage was renovated, I had my electrician add audio cables from the upstairs small bedroom down to the lounge. My thoughts were my large power mac would reside there, but I wanted the audio output to feed to the amplifier downstairs. Also I wanted to hide the wire to the right hand speaker. That signal would travel upstairs in two cables,and connect with another two cables that came out on the right hand side. It may sound complicated, but in principle pretty simple.

However the electrician should have installed eight cables, because the audio from the required had to be screened. This was because he uses ordinary cables, and should used screened ones.

Anyway, Dave, came over to help me make all the connections, but the audio from upstairs didn’t work.

This is when we discovered that we were two cables short.

The basic problem was we needed to screen the audio.

This is where my brain turned to mush, and I left it to Dave to do his magic.

Anyway, he got things to work with a series of extra wires that picked up on the “earths” on the ring main. Don’t asked me to explain it anymore.

So, moving forward six years, when I arrived back, I put on a CD and that’s when I discovered the issue with the right hand speaker.

So Dave arrived with his tool bag, and we went upstairs to see what was happening to the connections.

At the time of installation there was a row of phono plug modules nice and neat on the wall, like a mini patch board, hidden by a single bed.

But over time the plastic got brittle and maybe the bed got pushed into the patch board, causing the damage.

It looked in a sorry state.

Dave sat there scratching his beard, trying to remember what he had done all those years ago.

He had marked the cables so they could be identified, so we knew where they were downstairs.

Several hours later we were no further forward.

I then made the decision to scrap the audio side and just concentrate on the speaker side, this I thought would make the situation easier.

Several more hours later we were still flummoxed.

It was time for a coffee and several sheets of paper.

Dave kept saying “it should never had worked” there was so much beard scratching I was surprised there was any stubble left.

We did a number of checks to ensure there was no fault with the amplifier and the speakers and they all worked perfectly.

I sketched out, with my simple brain, how it should be wired. We agreed to remove all the earthing wires, because just being speakers we didn’t need them.

Now we were cooking on gas, all the wiring was redone, and now came the moment of truth, would it now work?

Everything was double checked, continuity established, we were ready to go.

Music was playing, the balance swung to the right, and, nothing, still nothing.

More beard scratching.

The only thing left was the cable from the wall to the speaker.

We checked the continuity, and this it where it got really weird.

I had remembered that I had bought a long cable with phono plugs on both ends which I cut in half, and used them as the speaker cables.

The soldering of these plugs were never checked, and in the end this was the problem. 

Not to go into anymore details, the way these plugs were attached, in principle nothing should have worked at all, it only did because of the “earthing” that Dave did all those years ago that anything did.

Once this was re soldered everything worked.

This was hours of intensive brain work, and we missed our lunch, and by the time we got into the town, all the cafe’s and restaurants were closed, all that was left were the famous tea rooms. However, the scones were tasty.