Abdicating decision-making can be such a good decision

I’ve long since given up – or at any rate delegated to a significantly more competent authority – power of decision over where I live. 

After 35 years of marriage, it’s become clear which matters are much better left to my wife, and choosing addresses is one where her superiority is manifest and entirely recognised by me.

Maybe, in the fullness of time, we'll identify some areas in which I excel in turn.

The latest address selected by Danielle is a small flat in Valencia, in southern Spain. It takes the place of the apartment in Kehl, in the far west of Germany, which we recently vacated. Kehl has many great virtues – the city of Strasbourg just beyond its doorstep, the Vosges mountains in France and the Black Forest in Germany, the river Rhine, the Swiss city of Basel an easy drive away – but Valencia, as well as its charm as a city, also has the sea and a quality particularly dear to me right now (after an apparently interminable winter), of a mild and pleasant climate.

I say particularly dear right now because, before leaving for Valencia, I spent two hours in a sleet storm stuck on the tarmac at Luton aiport waiting for de-icing. That’s in spite of our being just a week away from the reintroduction of summer time. Whatever the calendar may say, England continues grey, cold and wet. The idea of something that actually feels like spring was immensely attractive.

As a general rule, when we’re moving to a new home, we go through a little pantomime where I visit the place before the deal is finalised. I try to gauge Danielle’s feelings on the choice, so that I can prove my unerring judgement by shaking my head and suggesting “not sure whether this is right for us” about ones she doesn’t like, or expressing enthusiasm for the ones she does. This time we dispensed with this admittedly slightly vacuous ritual, and she just went ahead and took the flat before I’d even seen it.

That made the trip out doubly exciting: not just getting away from winter but getting to see the place of which I was now the proud joint-owner without having more than a vague idea of what it looked like.

The event entirely fulfilled my expectations. OK, the city wasn’t that hot – only 14C, which is just nudging the bottom end of what one might call spring-like but, hey, that was fourteen degrees more than in England when I left.

High celings in Valencia
Danielle in the foreground with Sheena
In the background: Ikea man assembling a bed

As for the new flat – well, it has ceilings that feel as high as a small church’s, mini-balconies at both ends, and amusingly tiled floors. What’s more, Danielle, my son Nicky and daughter-out-law (who I hope will soon become a daughter-in-law) Sheena, saw to it before I even got there, that those fine people at Ikea would equip us with beds in time for our first night in the place. That was vital, since some of the furniture we rescued from our old home in Kehl is due to arrive here, but not until May. Those tiled floors may be amusing, but I suspect they’d be no fun to sleep on.

Tiles on our bedroom floor
Fun to look at. Not to sleep on

A great city, a huge improvement in weather, and an attractive flat. Everything combined to confirm the quality of the decision I’d made.

That, of course, is the decision to leave all decisions about the places we live in to Danielle and only turn up once they’ve been made.

Nicky enjoying the mini-balcony at the back

The Season in the US

It’s always a pleasure to spend a little time in the States. It’s a nation of such diversity that more or less by definition it has to be entertaining to visit. But often it’s the details that I find most amusing.

My present trip took me to Boston first, and then to Chicago on an internal flight with American Airlines. At one point, a flight attendant told us, “as a reminder, please fasten your seat belts”. Unfortunately, she never explained what fastening our seat belts was supposed to remind us of.

She also asked us to sign up with the airline, at aa.com. AA?  Isn’t that Alcoholics Anonymous? Devoted to helping people recover from a debilitating and self-destructive addition? In my experience, there’s nothing addictive about American Airlines. On the other hand, they could do a lot worse than launch their own kind of twelve-step programme. As a public service, here are a few modest suggestions for six they could use to get started:

• Admit that they are powerless over their lateness and their schedules have become unmanageable.
• Come to believe that a power greater than themselves, such as proper management, could restore them to sanity.
• Mastern the notion that sub-freezing temperatures are likely to make de-icing necessary and start the process before the passengers have all boarded.
• Humbly ask that their inadequacies be removed so that it takes them less than half an hour to get suitcases delivered to a terminal.
• Admit that it’s completely cheesy to sing ‘happy birthday’ for someone waiting to board a plane and it’s worse still to sing it twice because they’d left someone out the first time.
• Train passengers to stow their hand luggage fast and get out of the aisle so it doesn’t take twenty minutes to get a plane boarded. And start the de-icing.

The internal flight was to Chicago. People had warned me that the weather in Boston was bitter and balmy it certainly wasn't. Barmy, indeed, would have been an appropriate term for anyone inclined to hang around much outside. But it took Chicago to show me what winter really felt like.

Frozen in Chicago. Though  at least the lake was still liquid

The lakeside was glorious. On the other hand, it was frozen, to the point that staying upright was an interesting challenge. I think I invented a new kind of dance, as I twisted and turned to stay upright as I began to fall backwards, and then did some more exciting pivots and twirls to right myself when I found myself tipping forwards instead. The cold, though, was nowhere as bad as in the city itself: tall buildings cut off the sun and without even that weak heat to warm us, conditions became positively polar. Unwelcoming would certainly go some way to describe it.

Nowhere, though, was quite as unwelcoming as the Trump Tower, with its owner’s name in letters two floors high across the front.

Sign of a stable genius

You might almost believe that the present incumbent of the White House was an utter narcissist entirely obsessed with self.

Then it was back onto American Airlines and a flight back to Boston. Where the temperatures were a lot more comfortable. Making the hour-long delay, apparently pretty much par for the course in the winter schedule, a price worth paying for the improved weather conditions. 

For this second week, I'm staying outside Boston in a New England Bed and Breakfast, where I was greeted by a curious sign in the bathroom. It asked me, politely, to use a particular cloth to remove makeup. Such a courteously worded request is one I'd like to comply with but, since I haven’t worn makeup since I last took part in amateur dramatics in the late seventies, I find it hard. A real quandary.

A polite injunction. But difficult to obey

New England has delivered milder conditions than Illinois did but, for this inhabitant of old England, where snow happens occasionally and generally lasts only a day or two, it has provided further reminders of what winter means. That made for spectacular views from the windows of the training room where I spent most of the day.

Ah, yes. As I said. Always fun to cross the Atlantic.

Winter: season of contrasts. Some of them traditional

One of the few advantages of the short days in winter is that it’s not that hard to see both sunrise and sunset.

Sunsets are often breathtaking, even in winter.

Winter sunset in Wardown Park, Luton

But sunrise too can be extraordinary.

The sun rises over winter trees in People's Park, Luton

Indeed, bare trees in low winter sunlight in the middle of the day can be starkly striking.

Low but strong winter sun in People's Park

The contrasts that mark winter aren’t limited, though, to the physical world but affect human society too. Take, for instance, the tale of King Wenceslas, sung so often at this time of year in allegedly Christian nations. It seems he was quite comfortable enough to be able to stand at a window, of his castle one assumes, and look out even though the frost was cruel (or cru-el).

Doing so, he was able to spot someone from altogether the other end of the social spectrum: a poor man struggling through the cold to collect some winter fuel (fu-el).

Wenceslas was well enough off to be able to spare a few of the pleasures of life. So he could require his page to bring him flesh and bring him wine, and even a few pine logs hither, so they could go and see the poor man dine, when they bore them thither (or thi-ith-ther).

Now we like to maintain our traditions. And so we’ve preserved that one, at least in part.

I read today about a charity in the Wirral, in North West England, which makes up packages to give to poor people at this season. It’s common, when making Christmas presents to give out luxuries – electronic games, perhaps, or toys guaranteed to hold the attention of even the most spoiled child for minutes and minutes. But the group in the Wirral makes up hampers that include toilet rolls, toothpaste and sanitary towels, as well as toys.

These are not gifts designed only to enhance pleasure but to relieve want. Four years ago, this organisation handed out 70; this year they are handing out 3000. In the world’s fifth biggest economy in the world.

It seems the poor seeking winter fuel are still with us.

Another story made it clear to me that we still have the successors of King Wenceslas with us. Take the case of Jeff Fairburn. He’s the chief executive of a housing company called Persimmon. He’s done a fantastic job building the company’s profitability of the company, even if admittedly he had help from a government that poured in subsidies to companies like his to encourage the building of houses that the relatively wealthy can rent to the poor.

With that generous gesture by us all – let’s at least admire our Christian charity in helping out of pockets such fine companies as Persimmon – Mr Fairburn has been able to take a bonus worth £110m.

Now that may sound like a lot. But Britain’s biggest hospital, Bart’s in London, has a deficit of nearly £140m. Mr Fairburn’s bonus wouldn’t even cover all of it.

We have the poor. We have the wealthy. All we’d need to complete the tradition is to see the Wenceslas figure set out across the snow to help.

Ah, unfortunately, that’s where things break down. Mr Fairburn won’t be contributing to help Bart’s, for instance. I mean, he needs that money. He has a lifestyle to maintain, and it’s unaffected by the fact that people are lying on hospital trolleys for want of hospital beds or being denied treatment.

King Wenceslas we have still, it seems, but the latter day isn’t all that Good.

Still, at least we can enjoy the wonderful sights winter provides. As long as we’re not too ill to go wandering around our parks and streets. Or too busy trying to find a little food for our family – to say nothing of luxuries such as toilet rolls, toothpaste or sanitary towels.

Central heating: great if you know how to use it

It’s pleasant to be home early, even if it’s only to continue working. Just being in your own space and not in an office is good for the mood. Though that’s not helped by grey weather and light fading at an impossibly early hour – barely after 4:00, for Pete’s sake. Sheesh. Call that a civilised arrangement?

The worst though is the cold. You can take it out of doors, but indoors? No. Indoors should be toast-like.

So when I got in this afternoon, I made straight for the thermostat.

Now, I didn’t turn it right up to 21 degrees (Celsius, that is; nearly 70 in that silly system some of you insist on still using). I did that the other day and was sweltering within minutes. Having to open windows and all that.

Instead, I pushed it to 19. That, I felt, should do the job.

It didn’t, though. Half an hour later, I was still freezing. Well, not really freezing, I know. Not like the homeless or anything. Not like being outside on a Russian street. Not like the inside of a Russian leader, for that matter. But for me, subjectively, still unpleasantly cold.

So up went the thermostat to 21, after all. 

Still no good though. A while later I felt as unnecessarily chilly as ever.

Great when it works. Not so good when you can't work it

By then, it was pretty well dark. 

“Ah,” I thought to myself, “psychology has a big role to play in these things. I know. I’ll turn on some cheery lights and draw the curtains. Make it look cosy and it’ll feel cosy.”

For a while I kidded myself that this was working, but as my toes started issuing frostbite alerts, I decided that I could delude myself no longer. However hard I tried to convince myself that I was now warm, all the evidence was against me. I was just as cold as when I came in.

“Just as cold?” A nasty suspicion began to form in my mind. I stalked over to the central heating boiler and opened the inspection flap.

It was as I feared. The house wasn’t cold because the thermostat had cut out the heating. It was cold because my wife, in a prudent and wise economy measure, had turned the boiler over to hot water only. The heating was off.

What’s that you say? I should have checked a radiator? I’d have known at once?

Easy to be wise after the event, my friend. Why weren’t you there offering me that advice this afternoon when I needed it? And sparing me a couple of hours of perishing cold indoors?

Winter: season of ambiguities

One of the worst libels against the British is that, though snow is far from infrequent in this country, we’re always caught unprepared by it. There’s simply no truth in this vile slander.

I mean, it’s true that however much warning forecasters give, the transport services always fall apart as soon as the first flakes drift down. But that doesn’t mean we’re unprepared. On the contrary, every single year we’re completely ready for things to work out exactly as they always do: the snow starts and immediately things snarl up on roadways, railways and runways.

So what do we do? Well many of us try to avoid using the roads at all. A friend tells me that she and her husband have simply left their car under its blanket of snow. 

As for those who can’t avoid driving, at least they have the satisfaction of being able to engage in that wonderful pastime of moaning about their fate. Another friend told a pitiful story of spending an hour and a half driving to work, an hour and a half at work and two and a half hours drawing back. I wasn’t sure, however, whether he was complaining about the traffic or about the unusual experience of having to devote five and hours to work.

Personally, I’ve been enjoying the snow. I had a meeting with a client yesterday and went by train. It’s great to join in the general atmosphere of shared adversity, as everyone stands around wondering whether a train is going to show up or not. That’s the way I imagine the war years, with the solidarity that comes of facing collective hardship, and it was great to experience it without even facing the danger of a German bomb.

It was a pleasure as well to head to a meeting in snow shoes and casual clothes, and see that my client had done the same. Working without a suit? What a liberation.

Overall, the whole was quite a pleasurable experience. Even the travel was fine. The great linguist Saussure brilliantly illustrated the problem of ambiguity with an example based on trains from his home city of Geneva: the 8:00 a.m. train is unambiguously the 8:00 a.m. even if it leaves at 8:05, even if it leaves at 8:15, even if it leaves at 8:25; but if it leaves after 8:30, the departure time of the following train, we get ambiguity. Which train is it?

Well, yesterday the local railways were wonderfully, gloriously ambiguous. As in the 13:48 arriving at 14:40. So – was it still the 13:48 hopelessly delayed or the 14:12 running pretty late or the 14:32 running barely late at all?

And then I realised. It didn’t matter. I wanted a train and if it showed up not long after I arrived at the station, what on earth did I have to complain about? Why should I care which train it was? The ambiguity was neither here nor there.

Considering how much time I spend most days trying to find the word that says exactly what I mean, it was a glorious liberation to be able to forget all that and just go with the flow of ambiguity. And I still got home at a sensible time.
See? There's fun to be had in winter too. I can assure you I’m completely ready for it. Who said we British were unprepared?

Luton winter fun in People's Park

If you’re in the middle of winter too - have a great one.

Seasonal themes, solstice thoughts

It’s pretty miserable in England at the moment: it’s the time when we have to wrap up warm, grit the footpath and scrape the windscreens. The depths of winter, in fact. But it’s the 21st of December, the solstice. From now on, though it will certainly get colder, it’ll get no darker. We’re still in the tunnel of winter, but at least there’s the beginning of a light at the other end, the first glimmer of Spring.

Of course, that’s only true of the Northern Hemisphere. My commiserations go to friends south of the Equator, of course. But I’m afraid not even thoughts of their discomfort can make me feel any less pleasure at the turn of the season here.

What this this does make me wonder about is the images we hand around at this time of year. Pictures of bleak night skies, for instance, with a few glittering but comfortless stars that somehow make you feel even colder. Or a robin sitting on a bare branch, with a frozen stream in the background winding between snow-covered banks.

Why do we do this? Why do we need to remind ourselves that it’s miserable outside? That the air is frozen, the ground slippery? We can tell the former by looking out of the window, the latter by stepping onto the path outside our front door.

No, I think we need some much more consoling or warming images for this time of year. The kind that reminds us less of the tunnel around us, more of the glimmer ahead.

With that in mind, here’s my image for the season. Naturally from my favourite local place, Cannock Chase.


A much more appropriate image for the time of year, I feel. Enjoy it, bask in the atmosphere – and remember, up here at least, we’re on our way back towards it.