16 December 2010

Apologies yet again to my non-cricket loving readers but in the early hours of this morning the third of the five Test Matches between England and Australia, commenced in Perth and, of course, I listened, on and off, all night.. England started off staggeringly well, dismissing the first five Australian wickets for 69 runs. Then the Australians mounted a counter attack and managed to drag the score to 268, all out. There were 12 overs left before close of play and captain Strauss and his fellow opener Cook, survived scoring 29 runs on the way. Certainly England’s day and if they win this test then  the last two are merely academic.

Yesterday, I spent most of the morning with Doreen, my secretary, literally catching up with paperwork. How complicated life is even when you are ostensibly retired, the paperwork keeps on rolling in and this is what is, laughingly called, the era of  the ‘paperless society’

Talking of the paperless society we are now in the Christmas card phase. A great number of my business colleagues, or friends  made through business, have opted to send e-cards this year (I did like the comment of one of these friends/colleagues who wrote ’I am not prepared to send an e-card which sings “Yule be Happy” while Santa flashes his baubles, although it would not entirely surprise me to find that the official (his firm’s) version did precisely that’.. Indeed, I sent a couple hundred or so myself last year. It took me less than an hour and they went all over the world at virtually no expense. Compare that with not only buying the cards but also the cost of postage, which itself can be prohibitive. I assuaged my conscience on this score by making a donation to my favourite charity The Salvation Army. On the home front, Alice, has always dealt with the Christmas card list, sending cards to approximately  150 family and friends. However, this year the number will be substantially reduced as the poor old thing is under great pressure in so many directions. I am sure most people will understand if, even after so many years, this year they do not receive a card from us.

Great dramas at the end of the day. When I came to go to bed we couldn’t get the respirator to work. Fortunately we had an emergency number but even after several telephone discussions with the staff nurse at the other end Alice was unable to resolve the problem. Papworth then volunteered to send another machine which arrived around an hour later. The courier confirmed that our machine wasn’t functioning properly, in fact, it seems to have got water into it from the humidifier which we hitched up a few days ago. In the event, all was well in the end and we got to bed,  albeit an hour to later than usual.