Our Phili-Pam

umm...?

Ummmm!

For most of my life, I've enjoyed being outdoors & travelling. Yet somehow, even with the ties of Pam's requirements no longer required, I have found a new value of being home. On the receiving end now of folk taking pictures of elsewhere. Thank you all for your contributions on that score. My Morrison's order arrived all correct this morning. Pork chops on the learning stove tomorrow. I'm so enjoying this. The only down side is not having anyone to talk to. Even puss is asleep on the bench outside. So you get the jottings. I did a people management course at Warwick thirty years ago, a company sponsored affair, they put me up at the Warwick Hilton. La-di-da! The result is that I keep analysing my own actions & so on. The white van men must be on their way. I was invited out to lunch last Sunday, where afterwards I walked several miles. I need exercise. I've just remembered what I was going to tell you an hour ago! I'm mixing issues of retirement in this topic, but it's ok I think. One of the skills of accounting, or management accounting, is getting as much as possible things set automatically. My Barclaycard is cleared automatically every calender month kind of thing. As I age, I know I'm going to get more forgetful so the more auto response the better. During Pam time, she tended to work on a weekly budget, whereas I was monthly. Merging that has actually worked quite well. My monthly pension pays for all of my monthly expenditure, whilst the DUP state pension which is paid every fourth week pays for weekly stuff, like Morrison's, Ringtons & my ten bob a week pocket money. I'm able to exploit having historically had two banks, which makes that auto payment work very sensibly. Dosh isn't the easiest thing to talk about in public, but it has to be faced by someone. I do honestly hope that some of my jottings are of help, particularly to folks like me, where huge changes in circumstances add difficulties.

It's important to understand yourself but sometimes it's good to think 'what the heck' and do some of the things psychologists think you shouldn't. I'm afraid that this isn't really the summer for travelling, though getting outdoors is very doable when you feel like it. I was seriously considering a tour of somewhere like Norway when this bug hit. I was even tempted by a near year long world cruise but it went to too many places I didn't want to see and too few I did. Given Covid, thank heavens I didn't book either! Last time I flew or went abroad was 2007. It's hard contemplating going alone although I will next year or the one after. Even my local excursions are curbed until the kids (everyone else's) are back at school and/or it's cooler. However it's good to have a hobby... or several dozen.

Well Helen, I might have a walk to my local snug, for a ginger wine. A couple of egg & mayo with tomato sarnies are on the menu, too. What a treat. It's good here in Coventry. Managed to get a seat there before the rush!

And a very pleasant evening to enjoy it.

Hi all, The last formal act, where we brought Pam's casket home from Hackett, funeral directors this morning. Delighted with their directorship on all of the proceedings that they performed & were part of. Good old Coventry, or for Helen, good old Longford.

Hi all, My first ever non-supervised pork chop, fresh veg & stock gravy. Honestly it was mgckhtfkhyvb!edx,l!pihgjvdly delicious. I even sucked & chewed into the little bit of bone. Old Mr. Draper told me the importance of both fat & bone during cooking. I now have to repeat that on Sunday, but cooking two chops. The next chops that I order (next week), I will have a much thicker fat band, so as to cut it off, & fry it to make crackling. I think that I'm starting to like this. Thank you everyone for putting up with my jottings. At least they're Coventry jottings, hey!

Double yum.

What a blaze of electricity, The night time snug.

Mornieeeeeeeeeeeeeng awl,. Safta whole glass yand a yalf uv ros

It's a Saturday, No school today, but my friend Sarah is on nursing duty at Walsgrave, caring for those there. Some folks have to work, Saturday, Sunday or Bank Holiday. I've enjoyed mackerel on toast for breaky with my friend John. You know, "The Brute" from another story. He calls my Grogley Malting jottings, Grogley Bottom nothings. I hope the white van does not come for me yet! I've got strawberries & ice cream this afternoon.

Hi all, Gosh, Grogley Malting chat here as well. Hopefully, the only item going into anyone's ovens is food & the container that it's in. Posting the weather scenario this morning I'm sat at my laptop, in my bunker bedroom. The same position as when I recorded this picture. A bench is now near to the spot where Pam was then, where she was so thrilled to bits with what our gardeners had done. They had converted our garden from an adventure & veg garden into a care home garden. Our culdesac & our home being surrounded on all sides by homes & gardens insulates us from harsh traffic noise. A noise that I am hearing, through our open windows is aircraft from Elmdon. Holbrooks being on the north west of our city makes that a very clear sound. A decade ago when Thompson were using Baginton airport, our skies were full of aircraft, Electra planes with mail too. The pandemic had shut that sound off, but I'm hearing a few aeroplanes now. Lockdown on, off, on, off, does anyone know! I'm heartened that our forum founder Rob, reminded us all of the need to be mindful of what we post, how we post, knowing that we are a public forum, that anyone googling a search for Coventry on anything are likely to drop onto us. Goody! I'm bathed you will be pleased to know, well my neighbour Kathy will be delighted, as she is down wind of me. I might have a spot of organ duty too at eleven. Have a good day all, it's another scorcher, so easy does it for now.

Hi all, A bit of humour, some serious discussions, sad news being shared, it's what keeps our forum humming. Sad news being shared just now, the loss of a Coventry football star. If his family feel just a fraction of warmth that I have felt from our forum community during my loss, they will do ok. That makes it all so worth it. I love the histories being discussed. When Helen, Anne or Neal get their teeth into a topic, I'm waiting for the next post. Years ago, Anne & I went searching on a steam roller once. That's when I learnt the value of her metal. Please keep posting, it's Coventry, it's good here. The hottest day at Silverstone for at least ten years.

A good day for me so far. I enjoyed preparing dinner for Pam's sister, that so far she has driven home & not needed an ambulance. I enjoyed the fellowship of my local chapel, as well as the worship time. I'm now on my own, contemplating my contemplations, mostly for the coming week. It's so strange. The things that I may have wanted to do which I couldn't whilst Pam needed my care & attention for three years nearly, somehow I have little or no interest for. It's not a "want my ball back, I'm going home", being a spoil sport kind of thing, it's like being in the wings of a panto stage, where I'm waiting for my part, but I don't know what part that I'm supposed to be playing. How odd! Arr, it's ok, the white van has arrived. I shouldn't jest about that either.