RUDE

There’s rude and then there’s f*****g rude. Old lady, you may be a decade older than me but barging past then sticking your suitcase in my face is just NOT OKAY!

Yesterday’s early morning departure to Malaga from Bournemouth was evidence of the rich tapestry of peasant life – the winter fuel allowancers, the would-be benefit claimants and kids seemingly of school age who inexplicably won’t be ticked as present on Monday’s register.

Pensioner poverty my arse! I suppose you’ll be telling me next that all these oldies spent all summer living off beans on toast so they could afford to warm their old bones in the winter sun. Yeah, I can clearly see where all my taxes are going. Still, at least they won’t be clogging up NHS hospitals with all those health issues exacerbated by sub-zero cold or damp.

‘Algo que declarar? (anything to declare?)’ said the officious Spanish copper wielding a lethal looking stamper in the Border Control kiosk, ready to crush any potential narco-terrorists with a resounding click.

‘Let me see’ I squeaked from behind my guinea-pig face mask, a must for all travellers on Covid-air. 

‘Hands up I did let off a few silent trouser trumps at 10,000 miles high, most likely the result of post traumatic stress following a Samsonite facial administered by the Dowager dragon. UK temperatures are cold enough to freeze the tail off a shithouse rat and the economy is going to need more than a defibrillator to jolt it back to life’.

‘You might also want a quiet word with that bald bloke over there in the grubby grey tracky bottoms as I think he took an almighty crap over Cordoba which has probably created an international incident beyond diplomacy that now requires forcible action to resolve. Otherwise, nope. Nothing of note to declare’.

Slowly morphing into my Spanish alter ego – Juana Sheet in Malaga’s midday sun, I board the bus to El Rincon sweating like a pig in polar thermals. The sun is shining, the sea is sparkling, the bus is full of happy chatter which of course, I can auto-tune into using the Spanish half of my brain – there are some advantages to speaking a foreign language you know.

I relax back into the padded seat and breathe a huge sigh of relief. Life is good. Viva Malaga!

NEW YEAR, NEW HORIZONS

Well that's another year rubbed off life’s scratchcard.  

Funny how time seems to drag on in your middle years yet speeds up in your later ones.  Is there a name for this wondrous phenomenon?  Or is this just a sign of old age?  After all, 12 months is still 12 months.  Right? 

There’s nothing pretty special about 2026 except for the fact I’ve arrived at 63.  

If longevity statistics for women are anything to go by then I only have around 20 years left on the planet provided no other unexpected visitors turn up – like Death.  I’m not hoping to see the Grim Reaper for a few years yet but when I do, I hope he’s like the Death featured in Terry Pratchett novels; astride a white horse called Binky and speaking in CAPITALS.  

This time last year, I was throwing together my list of three goals to accomplish.  Naturally, they all revolved around the house – fixing this, replacing that or smashing out the other.  At sixty-three, there’s got to be more to life than DIY so this year’s resolution will be like nothing before.  

After 45 years of spreadsheets, putting up with work numpties and clacking away on office keyboards, I’ve finally decided to hang up my working gloves to venture off into the world of early retirement.  So long suckers and thanks for all the fish, as that’s what decades in finance has given me – one great haddock! 

My mind’s made up.  All that’s needed now is an exit date but that too has already been added to the kitchen calendar.  When the clock’s next change, I’ll be springing forward to begin writing the final chapter of life.  

Not this blog though.  No final cyber chapters yet for you lot – there’s still another 20 years of this nonsense to publish!

PUMP IT UP

My Chinese horoscope is showing that 2026 is set to become the Year of the Heat Pump. The Government is deviously planning to give all gas boiler owners one of those unwanted Christmas gifts by FORCING us to pay towards other people’s heat pumps, something it obviously decided in the net zero January sales.

Muppet Miliband wants to ‘encourage’ folks to install these expensive monstrosities by beating us with his levy stick to the tune of £30 added to gas bills. Eliminating consumer choice is hardly the way to win over the electorate but essentially you and I will be deprived of our democratic right to choose what to buy to heat our homes.

Costlier to buy and fit than solar panels, like electric cars I’m not convinced that pumping up the neighbourhood is the answer to lowering energy bills but what do I know? Muppet Miliband clearly did not do his homework in the school holidays. Instead of snaffling all the chocolates from the advent calendar, he would have been better off taking a close look at demographical statistics to determine:

a) How many properties in the UK actually meet the internal/external space requirements needed to fit heat pumps.

b) How many households fall into the wealth bracket whereby they can actually afford to buy or run heat pumps.

It is all well and good saying you want households to get one of these things but ours and many others are not likely to meet the above criteria which means the people who should be benefitting from cheaper bills won’t be.

And even if you could get round the second point by being eligible for a Government grant to help with costs, you’d still have to find around £7,000 to part fund the project. Like all these things, I expect the qualifying criteria for any help from the Treasury is going to be set so tightly that you’d have more chance of getting a window seat on a rocket to the moon.

Why do you think there haven't been any tabloid reports about the success of the previous Government's Great British Insulation Scheme?  I suspect it's because it was poorly publicised and there was little take up.  How much was spent by the Gov on it and how many better insulated households who participated are now saving on their energy bills?  Yep, no-one's reporting on that one are they?

So, if you want to saddle yourself with an unwanted eco-loan and higher electricity bills then by all means get a heat pump. Oh, did the papers fail to mention that heat pumps being an electrical gadget are expensive to run? I think that was buried in the small print along with the footie results on the back pages.

A spokesperson for the Dept of Energy Security & Net Zero said ‘Our plans to feather our nests and those of our cronies is paramount. We are taking action to increase bills because the chances of Britain being turned into a tropical paradise where heating becomes obsolete is zero and we’ve promised suppliers of renewable energy that we’d pick up the tab’.

My gas boiler is going nowhere. I am more than happy to pay £30 to keep a cheap, efficient power source to heat my home effectively and look forward to reading about how ‘successful’ this heat pump initiative has been in reducing our electricity bills later on in the year.

HAPPY NEW TRACTOR!

Happy new tractor! 

Bet you’d thought I’d forgotten to update the world on the fitting end to our tractor saga but no, here it is in all its farmyard glory:

Finally finished

Ready and waiting for grandson

Imagine waking up on your birthday to find this lovely surprise on your play mat.

Is that for my birthday?

Needless to say there is one very happy little boy pretending to drive to the petrol station or tucking into a slice of birthday cake – tractor shaped, of course.

A yummy edible version