less frequent posts

New posts will now appear intermittently and irregularly. My original plan, to post weekly, has already been amended, and I shall now blog occasionally instead of trying to keep to a certain frequency.

the art of slow travel

'Only poor people travel by bus.' Even if those words aren't actually spoken, that is the subtext of so many conversations about transport in Britain. Buses are for people who can't afford cars, for old people, who at least don't have to pay to travel on them, and for those who live out in the sticks. Conveniently, many bus travellers are in all three categories. Buses are infrequent, unreliable and squalid. A neighbour recently surprised me by implying that taking a bus journey would be equivalent to walking around in a black plastic bin bag.

Well, I often travel by bus, not because I'm poor, because I'm no poorer than most, or because I live out in the sticks, as I live on the edge of a small town within thirty miles of London, or because I'm old and don't have to pay, although I am and I don't. My poor sight made me give up driving forty-odd years ago, and I don't want to rely entirely on lifts, so I find short-distance bus travel convenient. The bus service in my area isn't marvellous but it isn't bad either, if I plan my journeys. Most of the buses turn up at more or less the expected times, the drivers are generally efficient and courteous, and the buses themselves, although they vary in standards of cleanliness and comfort according to the company and the season, are generally tolerable over short distances.

Sometimes people talk to each other at bus stops and on buses. The conversations may be predominantly phatic, but at least there is occasionally a sense of community. There is always the risk of encountering someone boorish, aggressive, over-familiar or loudly garrulous, or who takes up more than half the seat, but I enjoy the brief, polite conversations, whether on matters of parish pump, national or global importance, with people I half-know. It certainly beats standing in a tube while avoiding eye contact with utter strangers, but that is hardly a fair comparison.

Any road up, as a friend from the north used to say when leaving the B-road of chat to get back on to the A-road of relevance, this week I had one of my more extensive, intensive and interesting bus travel experiences. Partly as a joke and partly as an encouraging challenge, over a year ago I suggested to a friend who had had major surgery that, when he felt strong enough, we and our wives should see how far we could get by public service bus in a day, spend the next day sightseeing and return by bus the following day. This later crystallised into a plan, researched in detail on t'internet, to travel from the Chilterns to the Cotswolds. So it was that on Monday, taking only essential luggage, we travelled from Chesham to High Wycombe, changed for Aylesbury, where we had coffee, changed for Oxford, where we had lunch, changed for Swindon, where we spent only a few minutes, and changed for Cirencester, our destination (the locals just call it 'Ciren'). We stayed in a small hotel on the edge of town and spent Tuesday looking around, visiting the huge, ancient parish church, the outstanding Corinium Museum, recently placed in the top thirty out of thirty-four thousand entrants in Europe, and in the afternoon taking yet another bus to Bibury, a small village of great beauty. On Wednesday we came back via Cheltenham, Oxford and Wycombe. As the crow flies, Chesham and Cirencester are not very far apart; by car the journey would have taken only two or three hours, far less than the time we spent in transit. But that was and is not the point. We enjoyed the slow pace, the varied scenery, the changing accents. All the buses, from several different companies, including big ones such as Arriva and small ones such as Red Rose, departed and arrived within a few minutes of the scheduled times. Some were more comfortable, less noisy and less crowded than others, but every driver was unfailingly courteous. In short, the system worked, and we are already thinking about our next trip.

ripeness isn't all

King Lear may be a play about literal, metaphorical and symbolic loss of vision, yet Edgar wasn't talking about cataracts but about life and death (it's just as well he didn't get on to football). I have often heard that cataracts have to 'ripen' before they can be removed, but that no longer seems to be the case. The leaflet I was given on my last visit to my optometrist made that clear, but whether either of my cataracts, for I have one on each eye, is 'ripe' is unimportant now. What matters is that at a recent hospital visit the consultant ophthalmologist, aware that my sight had rapidly deteriorated recently, to the extent that it caused problems daily, offered me day surgery. I could have had both eyes 'done', but because of the poor vision in my left eye, a result of the 'lazy eye' I was born with, and despite two operations when I was nine and thirteen, I decided to leave the left eye cataract alone, although it is more extensive than the one on the right eye, and have my 'good' eye 'done'. This will happen in August.

Whenever the topic of cataracts comes up - and the frequency increases with age - the standard response is for somebody to trot out an example of successful surgery, either their own or a friend's or relative's, and say how safe, painless and easy it all was, and how everything has been so much better since. And of course it usually is, but not always. My mother was registered partially sighted after (I do not say because of) unsuccessful operations on both eyes. It was hardly reassuring, but at least honest, when a ninety-four-year-old patient at the clinic I attended announced to everybody, without being asked, that 'they' had made a complete mess of her cataract removal years ago.

Before deciding to go ahead with the operation I had been offered, I asked about the success rate and the risks. The consultant told me that there is a 1 in 100 risk that I shall need a further operation and a 1 in 1000 risk that I shall lose all vision in that eye. The latter would affect my life drastically, to the extend that I could no longer read. I would be able to get about, with difficulty, recognising people but severely limited in my daily life. (I had been practising by covering my right eye for short periods when watching television or walking about the house.) Whatever happens will affect both of us, and it was a joint decision, but I thought the risk small enough to take, especially as I shall almost certainly need to have the cataract removed sooner or later, and when I am older and perhaps in poorer health there could be additional problems. There is every chance that before the new football season is a month old I shall be able to read the names and numbers on players' shirts and on the screens at the Emirates, to read without having to shield my right eye from glare, and to manage without having to ask Sue to read scores and captions on television. The tiny but unignorable risk is that I may stumble closer to unlikely empathy with Samson and Milton, despite my lack of resemblance on either count.

coming back

It's been three weeks since the last post,because I've been in Italy, where many of the impressions I'd received over the last few years were confirmed and a few were removed or modified. Some things were as expected: the food and wine, the beauty of the language, the general friendliness of the people, and the high design quality of many everyday objects. But we were in Puglia, the heel of Italy's foot, which is a far cry in many ways from the affluent areas of the north. The blocks of flats were as depressing as many I've seen in eastern Europe, and although the beaches were clean and beautiful, the interior was unprepossessing, with light industry punctuating the olive trees. I could see many parallels with Cornwall, but their decision to name their equivalent to the Lizard Point 'Land's End' confused me.

All the same, there was a definite air of 'this isn't your standard Italy' which I found rather refreshing. But it was a book by an Italian journalist, Beppe Severghini, that did most to change my perception, not just of Puglia but of the country as a whole. In La Bella Figura he convinced me that he really did offer 'an insider's guide to the Italian mind', and what I'd picked up at Waterstone's as a light, perhaps frothy take on my hosts before I got to grips with Karen Armstrong's A History of God proved to be a witty, informative study of the national psyche. Clive James is the nearest equivalent I can think of.

I'd hoped to speak as much Italian as possible. Well, I suppose I did, but it wasn't very much, beyond the usual basic transactions, because I was with English friends as part of a larger group. My passive understanding had improved, and I sometimes made sense of the World Cup commentaries, but I still found the irregular verbs difficult, especially the past participles. On the credit side, I found new words easy to remember, so in the unlikely event of my meeting someone who wants to high-five me or discuss vacuum-packed olives I shall be ready. My best linguistic experience was on the plane home. A party of nineteen 9-to-13-year-olds en route to Edinburgh via Gatwick was accompanied by a teacher who sat beside me. We talked for the whole flight, more in Italian than in English, but still, while Sue read in peace. I was impressed by the children's readiness and ability to converse with other passengers, but when we landed and heard that Italy had been eliminated I was interested to hear Anita, who admittedly was not a fan, say that she thought it was just as well, because instead of 'bread and circuses' Italy would have to confront its serious political and economic problems.

And now we await England v Germany, not that I shall be able to watch it live, as I shall be watching my three grandsons perform in an outdoor theatrical production. Despite the 'Hard Times' the BBC World Service keeps on mentioning, I still hope we stuff them.

world cup

As I may have said before, the World Cup (so sure of itself that it doesn't, unlike other sports, need to specify which) knocks spots off the Olympic Games, for me, in terms of enjoyment. A month of almost daily footy easily eclipses a month of most of the sports I have heard of, some I haven't and a few events I'm really interested in. The white van men and plenty of private motorists and householders have done their quadrennial patriotic thing, we are being told how many pints of beer, pizzas and packets of crisps are likely to be consumed in the next few weeks, and my newspaper's World Cup booklet arrived this morning, with the promise of a chart in tomorrow's sister paper. I haven't bought a sticker booklet, hoping in vain that one of my grandsons might do so and save me the teasing, but on the whole I think I've displayed my little-boy-who-never-grew-up side quite successfully. 'Saddo,' comments my wife, but she smiles approvingly and adds, 'Actually I think it's quite fun.' Since she will watch at least as much as I shall, and is sufficiently devoted to football to scan websites far more often than I do, there will be no rows over the use of the remote, except possibly when Switzerland v Honduras has to fight for attention against Wimbledon, so we shall be a football couple, as we are throughout the domestic season.

Neither of us is particularly sanguine about the possibility of forty-four 'years of hurt' being ended by Stevie G, or whoever is captain that day, lifting the non-cup, but that doesn't matter. The pleasure of watching two good footballing nations such as Portugal and Brazil vying for supremacy must not be underestimated. The fact that Theo Walcott wasn't chosen for the final squad of twenty-three doesn't bother me, as I don't feel that he justified selection. Besides, now he and Arshavin can take a rest and be fresh for next season. I think Capello is a good manager, but just how good remains to be seen as England's already less than frightening squad is affected by injuries, doubts over fitness and inexperience in key positions. There are the usual fears and concerns: security, fans' behaviour, unsold or exorbitantly priced tickets, and the rumoured sanitizing of the routes to the stadiums/stadia by the removal of all that might present the wrong image, but despite these reservations I'm looking forward to enjoying myself, especially as South Africa is in a very favourable time zone for British viewers to see at least the evening matches. I wouldn't be surprised to see Spain or Brazil win, but just hope we don't go out on a missed penalty.

bank holiday weather

I should have known that, with the first test match of the season being played, a Bank Holiday looming and schools on half term, the glorious weather of a week ago would give place to cold, damp days. Perhaps appropriately, the week's signs of political and financial insecurity have added to the gloom. Autumn ranges of clothes are already appearing in the shops, although more than three weeks remain before the longest day, and what the television companies call 'a great summer of sport', accurately enough this time, is there to be enjoyed.

I am no ornithologist, but it has been a pleasure this year to hear the cuckoo again, after a cuckooless 2009 and a late appearance this spring. Since the death of Solomon, our much-loved ginger tom, several years ago, we have seen increasing numbers of birds in our small back garden, and have welcomed them with a bird bath and various types of food container. Our fiercely territorial but friendly robin (RVP, obviously) is there all the year round, but woodpeckers, pigeons, tits and many other birds, some of which I can't identify, especially as my cataract ripens, fill the garden with sound. The neighbours' cats regard our garden as an extension of their own, and are made welcome despite what they often leave behind, but they are only a minor threat to the birds, who thumb their noses from their high vantage-points.

The grass will never be better than average (slightly above Wembley's pitch, in other words, which has been laid, I think, eleven times, 'more often than Lady Chatterley', as a Grauniad journo put it the other day), and I am not a keen gardener, but it is a brief annual delight to see the clematis (accent on the first syllable rather than the second, for preference) burst out in purple and mauve between the garage and the fence. There, the Japanese would be proud of me.

turned out nice again

One night less than three weeks ago, Chesham and somewhere in Surrey shared the dubious distinction of having had the lowest overnight temperature in England. We woke to frost-covered roofs and were glad we had brought our hanging baskets into the porch for protection. We had had little rain but skies had usually been grey, interspersed with very few of those warm, sunny days that make people think that the longer hours of daylight really are having a beneficial effect. There were the usual second-wave conversations with friends, after the initial comment on the weather, about how it was hard to know what to wear.

Now everything is different. For the past few days there have been sunny, often cloudless skies and temperatures in the low eighties (or high twenties) over large parts of the country. Last year we were promised a 'barbecue summer' - and any q found trying to pinch the c's place should should be returned to the discotheque where it became confused - but the abuse that rained down on the weather forecasters when we endured another wet summer was largely misplaced, I gather, because apparently it was not the meteorologists who had used the phrase in the first place but a journalist who told us what we were hoping to hear. Not that barbecue summers have any particular appeal, as I am not particularly fond of barbecues, even when my son is skilfully supervising the whole thing. This time we are said to be in for an 'ice cream summer'. That is a far less risky prediction as far as I am concerned, because I am perfectly prepared to enjoy ice cream all the year round, regardless of the temperature. Indeed, when we eat out I am as likely as not to choose ice cream for pudding/dessert/sweet/afters - fight among yourselves - in preference to muctions such as tiramisu, sticky toffee pudding, chocolate mousse or, as we belong to say over to Newlyn, what you mind to.

Already the moaners are complaining about the heat, longing for an end to what will probably be described as Sizzling Britain in tomorrow's papers. I suspect that many of them were complaining after the second fall of snow in the winter, as if any departure from the meanest of average seasonal temperatures indicated that we had somehow become displaced from the Northern Temperate Zone and had no right to be subjected to any departure from the norm. I appreciate that sustained high temperatures can cause severe problems, as can sustained low temperatures and any number of climatic conditions and events over which we can have little or no control, but, perhaps selfishly, I intend to enjoy the long days, the better light - despite the difficulty it causes my cataract-clouded right eye - , and all that goes with them, including, this year, World Cup football, test matches, and meals in the garden. Whatever the meaning, often disputed, of the saying about not casting a clout 'till may be out', I have put away my winter clothes, taken out what I like to regard as my summer wardrobe, including shorts and sandals, and hope the present fine spell lasts until October.