‘Do you travel much?’ is one of the key questions you get asked when you’ve just retired. My answer is yes; but then we always did, even before we were ‘retired’. So nothing much has changed. The first dark week of January saw us booking some highlights for the year ahead, then we switched to something more local; we travelled on the bus to Ingleton, the next village, so that I could use my newish bus pass. It was, in a miniature way, a Grand Morning Out with a nice coffee shop as the end goal.  A day or half a day can be a holiday if you want it to be.

Sooner or later the opportunity for a day trip with the NHS also comes along. And so I found myself on Monday in the grandly named ‘admissions lounge’ of the Royal Lancaster Infirmary awaiting a very minor procedure under general anaesthetic. The preparations for this trip had been lengthy and had already involved forms and tests at my ‘pre-op’ appointment as well as exciting brochures and leaflets coming through the post. There had been pre-trip nerves, too.

Check in at Lancaster was at 9.30, but I arrived half an hour early as we weren’t sure what the winter roads were going to be like. Even though it was a day trip, I’d been told to pack an overnight bag ‘just in case’. After I’d stuffed my towelling bath robe into the nearest thing I had to a small overnight bag, I realised I had no room for anything else, so I opted for the smallest trolley case we had. There was, after all, no weight limit.

‘Going on your holidays, love?’, they said cheerily at reception, examining my flight tickets and showing me over to a nearby seating area.

There was no speedy boarding. The case proved useful for resting my legs during the long five hour wait for my flight slot. Yes, five hours. ‘Mr X likes to get his patients in early,’ they said. All around me were patient patients waiting for beds or consultants or anaesthetists, feet tapping gently to the sound of Smooth Radio. Most people don’t seem to read. At most it’s a phone fiddle or a chat with your neighbour about the wait and your fear. I took three hours rather than my usual one hour to read 10% of a book (Kindle stats). It was strange to see half the population so inactive while the hospital staff scurried round; you felt like offering to do a bit of filing or seeing if you could help in any way. All these man-hours spent in hospital waiting areas could surely be put to good use.

The gate opened for me eventually at 1.30 with an invitation to get changed into a theatre gown and long white socks. I then proceeded along the populated corridors pulling my trolley case behind me. The bulky dressing gown came into its own. ‘Going on your holidays, love?’ someone shouted.

My passport and credentials were checked at regular intervals. I was asked every step of the way if I had any allergies or if I had hidden metal on my person. This was screening to end all screening; I’m glad they’re thorough, but I now understand what they say about the NHS and paperwork. Finally I made it to the VIP lounge that is the anaesthetics room, where someone took my suitcase off to ‘Recovery’. So that was it. After all that preamble I had a quick take off and a 20 minute flight.

After landing I had a scenic tour through miles of corridor, where the cold draughts of Arctic Lancaster soon woke me up. Determined to depart the day-ward as soon as possible, I made it to the sandwiches and tea in record time and sent for my driver.

There were no formalities at the final passport control. Indeed, I had to push for some information as to how things had gone. The nurses cheerily explained the acronyms on the computer print-out. I was quite worried about having an OPA, but apparently this is just an outpatient appointment.

The tour operator did well, actually. It’s fashionable to batter the NHS with criticism, but everyone was really helpful.  When your turn comes, just think of it as a day trip!

It is peculiarly satisfying that the word ‘remember’ rhymes with November. The clocks go back, we close the curtains earlier, and suddenly a number of opportunities appear which encourage us to draw in on ourselves and reflect.

Our local firework display gets bigger and louder every year, prompting family discussions about the few simple and probably damp squibs carried out to our childhood gardens in a brown paper bag. Fifty years ago we were happy with sparklers and Roman candles.  The token Catherine wheel didn’t usually work. A couple of rockets in milk bottles – now, stand well back! – were reserved for the grand finale. I don’t think they banged and popped at all, but we oohed and aahed at the string of three or four stars in the sky and were very satisfied.

Guy Fawkes was one of the things I used to have to explain to my foreign students.

‘So you celebrated someone blowing up your parliament?’

‘Well, I think we celebrate that he got caught …’

Some of the foreign students I refer to came from former East Germany; they worked with me as foreign language teaching assistants. And as I write this on Remembrance Sunday, I am thinking about another anniversary and another occasion for fireworks; it is 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. When I first stood at the Brandenburg Gate in 1972 and could not cross, I never imagined the Wall would ever come down. But it did, and nine young people came to work for me, expanding their own horizons while giving us so many insights into the Germany that once was and the Germany that was developing. In 2006 I walked through the Brandenburg Gate with a school party, all clamouring for Starbucks. It was hard to explain to them how it was for me in 1972.

This year, remembrance is focused particularly on the World War 1 Centenary, and I look forward to an evening of music and poetry which my choir is staging to commemorate this. But I also reflect on my father’s experiences in World War 2 and his words as described in ‘The First of Foot’, the history of the Royal Scots. He spoke on Armistice Day at Dryburgh Abbey, 1946.

‘Quiet air, brown leaves on an ageing sward, the silver Tweed and red poppies on a great soldier’s grave.’

That is November.

The good thing about setting off on a walk is that sometimes there are surprises in store. When I was a child we did a lot of ‘exploring’, and I see going for walks as the grown up version of that.

Yesterday was a perfect day for getting out, so we headed up The Helm at Oxenholme which, for very little effort, gives views of Lakeland, the Howgills, Morecambe Bay and the hills of Lancashire and Yorkshire. Our walk continued over fields in the direction of the village of Old Hutton and, judging by the nettle-covered stiles, was very little frequented. The nettles took me back again to childhood explorations and frantic searches for dock leaves as the magic antidote to nettle stings.  We did not survive the many stile crossings unscathed.

The surprise came at Old Hutton, when an elderly gentleman working in his garden invited us in for tea and cake. ‘I don’t see many on that path these days,’ he remarked.   We admitted to a tiny bit of hesitation, particularly when he shouted to his wife that he’d ‘found two’, but we made bold to enter. And then, as a reward for our finding of the hidden way, his wife brought out tea and home-made cakes. Over the next half hour we chatted and found many things in common.

Things like this don’t often happen, do they?  We left so enriched by the experience that I didn’t notice my nettle stings on the way back to the car. Thank you to our hosts for their trust.

Have you heard of the Mass Observation Archive? I hadn’t until someone alerted me to the fact that I could record May 12th for posterity.

http://www.massobs.org.uk/12may.html

‘This year the Mass Observation Archive will be repeating its annual call for day diaries, capturing the everyday lives of people across the UK.

May 12th 2014 is likely to be quite an ordinary day, but for those researching, the ‘ordinary’ can often provide extraordinary results. The diaries will be held and used alongside the 1937 documents. We would be very grateful if you could document your May 12th 2014 for the future.’

I decided to take up the challenge! Here is a shortened version of my May 12th.

I get up at 6.30, put the Wifi on and go back to bed. I’m going to finish reading ‘Island’ by Jane Rogers on the Kindle app on my tablet. But first I want to check my emails, the Open University website and my Facebook account. Since I retired four years ago it’s become a morning ritual, and I acknowledge it may replace going out to work with another kind of connection to the world. I get to know who else is a lark and can wish someone a happy birthday with ease. Now there’s even a pink gift-wrapped box with the person’s name that comes up in my ‘notifications’. Touch or click, all done.

My OH sleeps for another 2 hours and I finish ‘Island’ by eight. It’s a book that’s featured in my Open University Course ‘Advanced Creative Writing’ , which explores the links between drama and other forms of writing. Jane Rogers writes scripts for television and radio as well as novels. ‘Island’ is so well written, with unusual characters and a particularly disturbing narrator. It’s set on an island near Skye, and of course I check Google maps to try to identify it. I think it’s Raasay. She calls it Aaysar, so I might be right.

I get up at 8.15, make Lady Grey tea and switch on Breakfast Television with Bill Turnbull and Louise Minchin. The Queen’s Baton for the Commonwealth Games has arrived in Jersey, which like most events these days is described as ‘incredible’, ‘fantastic’ and ‘amazing’. I hope it gets better weather than the Olympic Torch. One of the things I reflect on when I watch television is the way language changes, not just in the vocabulary used, but in the pronunciation. It’s never long before I hear a few dropped ‘t’s, sadly even from BBC news reporters. Oh yes, everyone’s ge’ing be’er a’ i’.

I have breakfast and log on to my Open University website. We’re coming to the end of A363 ‘Advanced Creative Writing’ now, and at this point we’re providing critique on each other’s work for the final project. Some are doing short stories, some are doing scripts (film or radio). My tutor group has about eight people who contribute regularly, and it’s a fascinating process; we are all different ages and from different backgrounds and this comes out in our writing! This workshopping is a normal part of a creative writing course and has the effect of nudging you into changes you might never have considered. I’m nearly at the end of my project. A family diary written in 1905 has inspired a radio play set in Edwardian Glasgow; it has been transformed into 42 pages of script, 3 pages of commentary and 3 pages of references. Distance learning has definitely enhanced my retirement!

I reward myself for nearly finishing my assignment by booking into a historical fiction writing retreat in November. I have the aim of using the radio play as the basis for a novel, so it’s time to start planning!

At 10.30 I meet three friends (former work-colleagues) for coffee at Country Harvest, Ingleton. It’s a large shop and café complex in Yorkshire barn style. It has just one door; you have to walk past a large array of gifts and food products before you finally reach the café. The table cloths are Cath Kidston, the floor is flagged, the tables are pine and the windows look out on to rain-washed green fields dotted with sheep. We talk about holidays, people we know, ailments, our fear of the NHS as we get older and how we switch off those Panorama programmes about the elderly.

We should be in France this week, but our plan changed in the nanosecond on 4th May when my OH damaged knee cartilage in a tennis match. To make up for the loss we head to Ambleside in the afternoon. Someone has recommended the film ‘Tracks’, which is about a woman, a dog and three camels crossing the Australian Outback. There’s a screening at 3.30, and we’ll follow it with an early meal at Zefirelli’s. There are seven people in the cinema, all our age group. My OH has a stick of course, which makes us feel like real pensioners. We never used to go to films in the afternoon, but there comes a time when you realise you’re quite alert then. The film gives us an enjoyable two hours in the Outback and some food for thought. We talk a bit about the construction of a journey film. Inevitably, there are life-enriching flashbacks for the heroine as we travel. Sometimes the camels cross the screen from left to right, sometimes from right to left. Every so often there’s a crisis, and when there isn’t a crisis you wonder when the next crisis will come. The crises in this film are solved rather quickly. One is very sad, though, and will linger with you if you go to see it.

The meal is vegetarian and we share an antipasti platter and a ‘Rainforest’ pizza. This descriptor doesn’t refer to the topping, but to the fact that a certain percentage is donated to saving the rainforests. The serving staff all come from other EU countries. At first we think our waitress is local, but as she chats we discover otherwise. ‘I’ve forgot me Russian,’ she says in a Cumbrian accent. She’s been here since she was 12 and has only been back to Russia once in 6 years.

The countryside on our trip to Ambleside is looking beautiful; the trees have that fresh green foliage, the hue of the copper beeches is still light, and there are flashes of pink, red and orange from azaleas and rhododendrons. I console myself over the loss of the Provence trip. They don’t have bluebell woods there.

We set off two weeks ago to an unknown destination.  We knew where we wanted to go (home), and we knew where we had tickets for (Oxenholme Lake District), but the weather had different ideas.  Yet another storm was rushing in from the Atlantic.  And this one was due to hit the path of our train between 6 and 8, precisely at the time we were to be crossing the moors round Shap.  The Virgin Pendolino remained in Glasgow, but our TransPennine Express decided to boldly go.

‘This train may not reach its destination,’ the driver announced chirpily.  We were already pulling out of Glasgow Central, and there was very little we could do about it.  ‘You travel entirely at your own risk.  We will keep you updated.’

We’d been up in Glasgow at the excellent Riverside Museum, which features transport of every kind from old Glasgow subway trains to a tall ship moored on the Clyde outside.  I’d wanted to do some research, as I’m working on a writing project set in Glasgow in 1905.  What better place to go to see a full reconstruction of an Edwardian street and sit in the old trams?  We loved it

The TransPennine ‘Express’ gave up at Carlisle at 7 pm, where we were advised to ‘make our own arrangements’.   For us this involved giving the rather scruffy looking County Hotel a wide berth, finding the Ibis full and following the Ibis receptionist’s advice of seeking out ‘the bed and breakfasts further down the road’.  This road is Botchergate, and everyone to whom I’ve mentioned this has gone ‘oh, Botchergate!’ with a knowing expression.  The full array of seedy pubs and assorted shops ranging from Bridal Wear to ‘Thongs n Things’ was revealed the following morning. You wouldn’t really choose it for a holiday, and we are unlikely to stay there ever again, but we considered ourselves fortunate to secure the grandly named four-poster room in a very small bed and breakfast in a marginally more salubrious street just off Botchergate.  We headed home the following morning after doing justice to the full English.  The train didn’t stop at Oxenholme, though we did ask if they could make an exception.  We had to go to Lancaster and take another train back north to pick up our car at Oxenholme.

We have run two old cars for quite a number of years.  The exciting news is that life will change on 1^st March, when we go to pick up a new vehicle.  Ladies, it is white with black trim.  Guys, it is a Skoda Octavia 1.4 TSI 140 SE 5dr with dual-zone climate control, rear parking sensors, Bluetooth, DAB radio and a USB input as standard and we have taken further opportunities to ‘spec it up’.  Its arrival will be timely as, on two occasions recently, our small old car’s engine has overheated dramatically, causing expense, worry and a lot of steam.  The big old car, which was rather creaky in the end, now has a new owner.  We were quite sad to see it go, as over the years it has taken us everywhere from Surrey in the south to the remote fringes of the Outer Hebrides in the north west.  My OH has consoled himself by purchasing a complete range of extremely specialist car care products.  I’m reflecting more on where our new transport of delight will take us.

Oh to be in Austria, now that January’s here.  There’s no better way to start the year.  After thirty years of having to ski in school holidays, it’s been a pleasure for us to get on a plane in mid-January, when the only children in sight are under five or have been sneaked out of school to get the cheaper price of a ‘low season’ week.  We embark in Edinburgh with other senior skiers, their ski anoraks taken out for the annual airing on the slopes.  Over the years, the sun has given ours a chequered look of designer fading, but they’re much too good to discard, and British too – remember the company called Phoenix?

Clad in unfaded luminous green, our cheerful band of ski reps meets and greets in Innsbruck.  They look as if they’re straight out of school and are full of superlatives.  ‘Awesome!’ they cry, as someone hands them a pen for their checklist.  Ignoring the high average age bracket of the clients on our coach, our rep insists on highlighting the truly excellent pubs and clubs to be had in our resort of Sölden.  It will all be awesome, brilliant, incredible and more besides.

I’d been to Sölden in 1977, when I lived in Munich.  Some German friends were skiing there, and invited me down for the weekend, so I headed over the Alps in my Mini.  I wasn’t a skier back then, but they did take me up to Hochsölden and put me on skis, which I handled with no skill whatsoever.  We went up in a single chair lift, and I have a memory of a blanket being thrown over my legs to keep me warm.  Sölden now boasts the usual eight-seater gondolas and ‘six-pack’ chairs with heated seats and hoods to protect from bad weather.  It’s a most impressive lift system, taking us right up to the Tiefenbach and Rettenbach glaciers at 3000 feet.

Up and away

The other big change is the clientèle.  Back in 1977, the Germany where I lived was West Germany, and there was never a thought of meeting any Russians, Hungarians, Romanians – or indeed any East Germans.  Now they’re all playing happily on the slopes of Sölden, and you’re as likely to find a menu in Russian as one in English.

Our hotel was a bit of a linguistic mêlée.  Our room maid was from Italy.  ‘Buongiorno!’ we cried, on our way down to breakfast.  ‘Smakelijk!’ said the Dutch waitress in the dining room.  The dining room was like a line-up for the Eurovision Song Contest, with Ukraine to our right and Switzerland to our left.  The Netherlands occupied the far corner, next to Russia, then came Germany and two more British tables. Mid-week we were treated to a special Italian buffet.  German and English were the hotel’s in-print languages.  The English had been fast-pressed by Google translate, which led me to think that a lot of non-native English speakers were learning some very wrong expressions and that this could lead to some interesting distortion of the English language in years to come.  We were, for example, urged to ‘use water with parsimony’ in a crusade to help the environment.  Unfortunately, we hadn’t packed any.  Having said all this, it was one of the best hotels we’ve stayed in – small, friendly and family run, with spacious rooms, designer cuisine, a good wine cellar and a quiet location away from the pubs and clubs. You can’t beat Austria for this kind of establishment.

Since my first visit to Sölden in 1977 I’ve learned to ski properly and get up some speed.  Back then, the only speeding I did was on the way home to Munich, where I remember being fined 80 Schillings for a little too much acceleration through the village of Langenfeld.  I don’t think there’s any better feeling than getting up some speed on a sunny day.  Ski lifts also take you to high places and stunning views.  And then there are the restaurants and mountain huts, the Apfelstrudel and Germknödel, the blaring Tyrolean music and Europop.  Somehow the sense of concentrating on just a few essentials comes to the fore – eat, sleep, play and turn your face to the sun.  I’ll be doing it as long as my limbs hold out.   Awesome indeed.