Farewell Lola Towers

The wonderful and perfect Lola Towers, August 2026

Before I left there were a succession of 'last times' - with the local Buddhist group, the Birmingham Buddhists and many other friends. My last U3A walk opportunity was cancelled due to the heat, and my last U3A board games opportunity was also cancelled due to the two leaders being busy elsewhere. I did manage to have lunch with UJ, who has just returned from Ukraine where she has spent most of her time since moving out about 9 months ago. She has persuaded her parents to apply for visas at last now that conditions at home are so much worse, and they may look for a place in Leamington.

Removal was delayed by a day, and while I thought this would give me some time to have a break I really did need that day for organising. I labelled everything with its destination room, sorted out all the keys (and only found two that I don't think belong to anything), separated out and labelled the things I didn't want them to take (like cleaning gear), and the things I agreed to leave for the new occupants. 

Then the team arrived bright and early, with boxes and tape and paper and bubble wrap, saw how organised everything was and asked me if I had a military background. Four of them took three and a half hours to pack and load everything I own into their truck, which also included disassembling a wardrobe and my desk right down to component parts. They went off and I took a break to have lunch then started cleaning, which took me four hours. When I was ready to go it turned out to be surprisingly easy to leave the house behind, and I arrived at Maternal Manor too tired to unload the car. I went to bed early, but couldn't sleep until the early hours, even though I was physically exhausted.

Next morning the truck arrived at Maternal Manor with just two of the removal men, one of whom was tasked with the unenviable job of reassembling the wardrobe and the desk that he'd reduced to matchsticks the previous day. He didn't do too badly; only a few unimportant pieces left over although one of the shelves in the wardrobe is the wrong way round which will bug me forever.

Now mum and I are completely surrounded by boxes, and it will take quite a while to get everything out and in its proper place. We spent an entire morning sorting through the towels and bedding to decide what to keep from our joint collections. The item that always causes the most grief - my wireless printer - proved impossible to connect until I noticed that mum's printer cable could be used to set it up wirelessly via a USB cable, which sounds counterintuitive but I followed the instructions and it worked beautifully. It can't have been too bad a move if the worst thing so far is the stupid printer.

So that's that, the end of an era - more than 25 years in Leamington and I'm now a Londoner again, back living in the road where I lived throughout my school days.

Nearly there

Another from the Escher exhibition, London, August 2026

I had to sign some stuff in person with a witness and so did Lola II, but at last I was notified that the Compliance Department had given me the all clear and it was safe to exchange contracts with an agreed completion date. When exchange actually happened I was temporarily overcome with grief. This is actually going ahead, and after nearly 25 years I'm going to have to hand over to someone else my beautiful and perfect house, in its wonderful location, and move away. I can't take it back now.

Notifying institutions and changing addresses takes a surprisingly long time, and some accounts are very much easier to change than others. My broadband supplier was the least reasonable; car insurance costs more where I'm going; TV licensing have already worked out my refund. I've done about half the work on this. I've also been in touch with a few people that I'd like to meet before I go.

Maternal Manor is prepared for removals day as best it can be; all excess furniture has now left the premises and we've done quite a lot to clear cupboards and drawers. We haven't touched the kitchen yet - that will be a job for the first month after I move in and is likely to be challenging due to the amount of stuff I have and the kitchen already being full of mum's stuff. Then I went off to play badminton with the Oldsters, only to find that I got the day wrong and the hall was full of girls in leotards doing gymnastics. I have continued my search for a 'normal' badminton club and have one lined up for September that looks good.

In the middle of this there was an interlude at a party thrown by Lola II and Mr M, called Desert Island Desserts, where desserts were served that had been identified by guests as the one they would choose for their desert island (if they could only keep one). The desserts were delicious but my state of mind wasn't robust enough for the number of people and the amount of social chitchat required, so I had to take frequent breaks away from the throng.

Back home then, and back to the task in hand, trying to rid the house of even more unnecessary household items. A breakthrough came when someone agreed to take all the ring binders, lever arch files and plastic pockets that I have liberated from all my university and dietetic notes in the loft, and there are A LOT of them. I must remember to keep just a couple because I never want to have to buy any ever again. 

The annual national bowling competition began and I realised that I hadn't received my resident's pass to get me through security at the end of the road. They are saving money by employing volunteers instead of a security company, and the volunteers are so much stricter than the professionals were. They gave me a hard time about not having a pass but eventually agreed to arrange one for me, then challenged the man from the removal company who came to give me a quote, and wouldn't let my friend through at all when he came with his dog to go for a walk with me. The pass hadn't arrived by late afternoon so I wandered over to ask again, only to find that one of the security volunteers was my ex-boss from the Dietetics department at the hospital.

I have been surprised by my excitement at the partial solar eclipse. I think I have missed all previous opportunities to witness a solar eclipse, either because it was cloudy, I was otherwise engaged, in the wrong part of the world or who knows what. But I made a makeshift viewer out of a shoe box and had a good time projecting the image through a pinhole onto my wall.

The end of the week brought the British Heart Foundation van to collect some of the larger items of furniture that aren't going with me. They rejected a few things that I then took to the recycling shop at the tip. In the evening someone who described himself as a 'forager and chef' came to take away my fridge/freezer. When I retrieved all the documentation for it I discovered that it was bought in July 2000 - 26 years ago, and apart from cracks in a couple of the shelves it was still working perfectly. Then a local couple came to take the television and sound bar, which was quite a challenge. I had kept the box and the instructions but it was much heavier and more unwieldy than it looked and took three of us more than an hour to package it all up - they needed to make two trips. 

Just one more week now.

Birthday trip... and house move

Oxford, July 2026

It was my birthday at the end of July, and although I intended to spend it free of house-related activity, it wasn't quite possible in the end because of having to respond to enquiries about my listings of things for sale. But apart from this, I had a lovely day in Oxford, starting at the Weston Library for their exhibitions, then meeting Lola II and Mr M before we went to the Ashmolean Museum for a posh lunch on their rooftop restaurant. Well, it was mostly posh, but Lola II had secretly arranged with the waiter to provide a plate of special sandwiches. It was very confusing, but the waiter was impressed when I expressed my delight at Lola II's icing sandwiches - a taste of the distant past. There wasn't time for looking round the museum after lunch but it looked interesting and we're not sure why we haven't been there before, so perhaps on our next visit Lola II and I will spend more time there. It was interesting to reflect that on that next visit we'll both be coming from London.

Back to the matter in hand - someone came from a removals company to look round and quote, then that same evening I sold the huge TV and sound bar and also the chest of drawers. This was a relief because I'm happy to give everything else away, or have it taken away by the Council or the British Heart Foundation. Then I had the idea of offering the remaining furniture to the local LETS trading group, and some of them are interested, so I've been busy sending photos and making arrangements for viewings.

I headed off down to Maternal Manor with another car load of stuff. The original plan was to stay for another fortnight, but there's too much to do back home. I want another removals company to quote, but I still don't have an exchange date, and my solicitor keeps asking for more and more evidence that I'm not a money launderer - proof of this, statements of that. My buyers have completed on their sale so are now homeless with their goods in storage, so I started to feel confident enough to tackle the remaining large items of furniture. Unfortunately, the first date that Warwickshire District Council can come and take the huge sofa is after we hope to have completed, and Warks County Council suddenly suspended fridge and freezer collections at recycling centres. Luckily my buyers have agreed to help with this - obviously they don't want this to delay their move.

Somerset House, London, August 2026

I've been writing 'The Book of the House', a long document with all the details that someone might find useful when first encountering Lola Towers. Where the water stopcock is, the knack needed for locking the front door, why the catch on the hall door is upside down, where the light switch for the third bedroom is, that sort of thing. And at Maternal Manor we've made progress too - a local charity came and took away a surplus bed and chest of drawers, and we have put a chair outside in the hope that someone will want it and come and take it away. And we continue to investigate cupboards and drawers that haven't been looked in for many years.

I can't describe how glad I was when Sister D sat down to help me to plot out the history of Maternal Manor - when it was bought, how much was paid, how rent was set, what improvements were made and when and how much they cost. It has a very complicated timeline which makes my current process of compliance with anti-money laundering regulations look like a walk in the park. I shall need an accountant, but Sister D's work will make a huge difference. "I used to do this all the time," she announced breezily when I complained about how enormously difficult it all was, "and this isn't the worst by any means."

And I had a day out in London when I went with Lola II to see the M. C. Escher exhibition in Somerset House. When we were growing up there was a book on the shelf containing many of his drawings, including the famous ones with the tessellated creatures, the reflecting balls, the impossible waterfall and the everlasting staircase. We still have a print on the wall that dad made by photographing one of the pictures, projecting it onto a piece of paper then tracing and colouring it. Breach of copyright, probably. They had a few other examples of optical illusions in real life - well, we couldn't help ourselves, we have to try this sort of thing.

Escher exhibition, Somerset House, London, August 2026

Travels with sisters

Hill Close Gardens, July 2026

Lola II arrived at Maternal Manor at the end of my stay so that we could travel north together, and she marvelled at the empty shelves in the garage, delighted in not having to step over a trench in the kitchen, and was also very complimentary about my cooking. Mum has been enjoying a slightly more varied diet - she loved the macaroni cheese I rustled up on a whim, and I love making food that people like.

On the way back north we visited a friend of Lola II's who has steadily been engulfed in dementia and has now had to relocate to a residential home near Milton Keynes. She was having a good day and gave us a really warm welcome when we arrived. Like Lola II she is a flute player, so Lola II brought her flute and I volunteered to play the piano, so we had a go at a couple of tunes, then they went for a walk and I sat in the garden. It seems like a lovely place, although very isolated.

Lola II and I continued on to lunch in the nearby town of Olney, and wandered around to see what there was to see. A small rug shop with more rugs that I thought possible - it could conceivably have held more than a thousand rugs - and then the Cowper and Newton Museum, which is a house where the co-author of the song Amazing Grace used to live. 

The exhibition included both Mr Cowper (pronounced 'Cooper') and Mr Newton, who wrote the song together. One was a poet and the other a curate, and the rooms held the usual mix of ephemera from the olden days - furniture and pictures and clothes and personal belongings, but also a room with information about the slave trade, another about lacemaking, and in the attic there was a dressing-up room. Well, you can't expect Lola II and me to pass up this sort of opportunity. We struggled a little because the clothes were clearly for children, but we don't give up easily.

Sister D joined us the next day for a trip to The Garden of Heroes and Villains, which I had discovered thanks to my U3A walking group. It's only open on four days a year, so we'd been planning this for a while. It's an odd place that used to belong to publisher and poet Felix Dennis, who enjoyed planting trees, and who set up the Heart of England Forest which took over the garden when he died. He bought the land that became this garden in 1989, and started filling it with bronze statues of heroes and villains (mainly heroes, hardly any villains). There are animals as well as people, both real and from literature and myth. There's also a yew maze, and woods, and an Arboretum.

Sister D enjoyed the guided walk around one of the woods, and I enjoyed sitting with Mark Twain and particularly liked the Minotaur who indicates the way into the maze. At the centre of the maze there is a statue of Felix Dennis, Richard Neville and Jim Anderson, who were the defendants in the famous 'Oz trial' in 1971 (look it up if you're interested). When we got to the middle, a young girl (about 11 years old?) offered to lead us out again. She told us she's done this about 30 times, and when she left us at the exit she headed back to the centre, presumably to do it again. Odd, but helpful.

When we reached the end of a long avenue containing about 25 statues, there was a table set up with volunteers from the Heart of England Forest, which we approached with some questions about the garden. The chap we met there looked familiar, and turned out to be someone who I played badminton with in Leamington, probably 20 years ago.

Lola II went home that evening, but Sister D stayed and next day we visited Hill Close Gardens together. I'd been there for the first time in February as the snowdrops ended, and this time the display was very different, containing a lot of fruit as well as flowers. Later, Sister D also helped me enormously by preparing listings for eBay. There's not a huge number of things I want to sell, but having two people working on it makes a big difference.

Second week at Maternal Manor

Valentine's Park, July 2026

This is starting to feel like when I was at uni and I was blogging multiple times a week because there was so much going on. This account starts more than a week ago...

The heatwave continues albeit slightly less intensely with the occasional breeze, and I haven't yet needed to wear socks while I've been at Maternal Manor. I've been working quite hard at tidying, rearranging and organising while trying hard not to leave mum behind. So far I think she still knows where everything is. (Wait until I get started on the kitchen...)

I took myself off to Valentine's Park, which is a 30-minute bus ride away, to do a bit of sightseeing. The Park itself has been tidied up a lot since my day (which was the early 1980's), and they have also renovated the Mansion that the park was named after - a house on an ancient map was named Valentine, presumably after its owner. The current house was built in around 1696 probably on the site of that house, for Elizabeth Tillotson and her family after the death of her husband, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The house and its garden and the park have changed hands and been redeveloped many times since then, being enlarged and then having bits knocked down as it fell into disrepair, but was finally restored by the Friends of Valentine Mansion who offer guided tours. So I joined one, and found out lots of interesting stuff, and in an ideal world I would have gone round again after the tour to read some of the labels and look more closely at some of the contents. But it was really hot and I was tired by then, so I'll save a second trip for another time.

Then the day finally arrived for filling the trench in the kitchen now that it has dried out after the leaks in the pipes were fixed. Two men arrived (neither of them JC or his previous sidekick), and one proceeded to do all the work while the other just passed things to him. At one point the worker was chiselling adhesive off the floor while the other watched, and when I asked about this they said that they only had one chisel. So I loaned them another.

They managed to save four whole tiles of the original colour, and we had three that mum had bought some time ago that were only slightly different, and I had bought twenty-two contrasting tiles - nine loose and thirteen in a box - on the understanding that we could return the box but not the loose ones. I spent some time trying to work out the best pattern for using them and in the end we only needed to use nine of the the contrasting tiles, but when I tried to return the box I found that the wretched workers had cracked one, probably by sitting on the box. So now we've got thirteen spare tiles including a broken one. 

When they tried to put the sink back, we discovered that the plumbing had been constructed while the sink unit had been pulled away from the wall (to allow the wall to dry). Moving it back into place meant the sink drain wouldn't line up with the outlet pipe, and the pipes prevented the whole unit from reaching the wall anyway. This means we'll have to go back to the original plumber and try and get him to come and do the job properly. Apart from that, the floor looks all right. Next step - fixing the rest of the water damage to the skirting and walls. And another job for JC, replacing the decaying garden fence.

One of my own jobs I'd been waiting to get to was to go through all the old letters I'd kept, and when the workers were filling the trench and tiling I sat and read all of 1990. This was the year that I was in Australia and corresponding with family and friends in Denmark, Manchester, Israel, London, Spain, China and France. I learned quite a lot about the younger me through these letters, and not all of it very comfortable - there was one whole batch that I left unread.

The letters contained some great passages though, which when read entirely without context suggest a whole untold back story. I present a few extracts here for your entertainment.

Letter to family: "Mario [a fellow kibbutz volunteer] shared a room with the psychopathic triple murderer and was suitably shaken by the newspaper clipping ... Rica [the kibbutz volunteer manager] wrote among other things that the mass murderer isn't the one who was at Ein Gev so I don't know a psychopath after all."

In digs in Sydney: "I love living here ... Even the cockroaches have lessened and now the place has dried out the mouldy smell has gone too."

In Australia's Northern Territory: "It's not like home where if you sit absolutely still for 36 hours with an infra red camera you stand a 1 in 50 chance of seeing a badger - here if you stand still for 30 minutes with a dog you stand a 9 in 10 chance of being attacked by a crocodile."

On a motorbike touring down the west coast of Australia: "Lots of birds of prey everywhere, and I get to watch them for ages when the bike breaks down."

Other things I've been doing while I'm here - obviously there's badminton. I joined the Oldsters for one evening, and they were very nice but the standard was not quite as high as I would like although that did mean I did a lot of winning (which I like). Still more research to be done on the badminton front.

Before I end of course I must provide an update on the house: my solicitor has written to say they have sent the draft contract and all the information in the forms I filled in to the buyers' solicitor. I sent Mr Celery a list of things I'd leave in the house if the buyers want them, and he passed it on to the buyers who have now contacted me directly and we've arranged to meet later in the month. 

Their solicitor cheekily told my solicitor that I'd agreed to complete by the date they were completing on their house; I'd done no such thing so I put them right about that. So it continues, and worries about 'what if' arise in my dreams and wake me early in the morning. But I reassure myself that all will be well, and if it isn't, it soon will be.

GRUHI in a heatwave

Adhisthana, May 2026

After the retreat I spent 10 days at Lola Towers, walking with and meeting and phoning friends and generally getting my head together over the situation with the house sale. Nothing else to report on that score until either the estate agent or the solicitor tells me I'm supposed to do something. 

Of course I continued with the GRUHI project at Lola Towers, paying particular attention to the loft and the garage this time, which resulted in another fruitful trip to the tip and a couple of donations to the Library of Things (a garden spade and a rake). I took a full car of Stuff to Maternal Manor, including bedding, winter clothes and a bedside cabinet that will stay there. 

We had booked a council Bulky Waste collection for Wednesday, and the large sofa, sofabed and dismantled wardrobe had to be out on the drive by Tuesday evening. Mum had made arrangements with a neighbour to help, but we were scratching our heads about how to manoeuvre the large sofa through the hall and out of the front door when our handyman JC arrived with his sidekick to look at the trench in the kitchen floor. The two of them easily managed what the neighbour and I had failed to achieve.

JC the handyman had come to finalise the plan for filling in the trench in the kitchen floor, but we took advantage of the fact that the neighbour was also there to discuss arrangement for fixing the broken garden fence. Then JC and I talked about how to complete the refurbishment of the kitchen floor once the trench was filled, and this required me to visit various tiling establishments where I discovered that 330mm square tiles are not actually very common. It won't be possible to match the colour so we went for contrast instead. 

Lola II came and joined in the work for an evening, and helpfully took away some more Stuff. I ferried mum out on trips for shopping and to the optician. We marked two years since dad's death by getting stuck into the many accumulated storage containers that remained on the garage shelves, separating the contents into metal and non-metal ahead of a trip to the tip. Mum was particularly taken aback by the amount there was; I am no longer surprised by what dad 'collected'. This clearing of the garage shelves continued over several days and we got rid of quite a lot.

My efforts to find a suitable badminton club continue. I don't intend to return to the one I went to last time, but found another club on a Monday. The organisation is again complicated, made worse by the poor directions which meant I couldn't find them within the Sports Centre. Once I finally arrived they were quite friendly and the standard nearer mine, but while asking directions I had come across a set of oldsters who have been playing together for ages and are now suffering from depleted numbers due to age. Next week I'll have a go with them.

I went to one of the Buddhist centres I'm trying out while I'm at Maternal Manor, and they had air conditioning and were lovely (this is the centre that I'm favouring at the moment). In contrast, I went to Lola II's concert, or at least I tried, and in the time it took me to get to Paddington by tube and train I could have driven to Leamington. At that point no more trains were travelling west, so I gave up and came back. I claimed points for trying, though, which were awarded with good grace, and we all know what points mean.*

In between all of this, during the third heatwave of the year, I was liaising with J+J over our 2027 ski trip. Having been to the same place in France for many years we were attempting to find somewhere else to go that we might conceivably reach by train, that has a high probability of having snow cover and plenty of intermediate slopes, and the right sort of accommodation. It looks as though a couple of resorts in Austria might fit the bill.

* Prizes.

It starts to become real

Maybe rhubarb? Or chard? February 2026

It's been a busy few days on the house front. 'Best and final' offers came in, and Mr Celery sent me the emails that each buyer sent with their final offer. One bidder stated their financial position and ended with "Our offer is unchanged" but the other bidder's message was just what was needed: "[the] house and garden are lovely. It’s in a great position, near to the park, river, and town facilities as well as being very private. For central Leamington it is pretty unique and we felt as soon as we saw it that it’s a house we could be happy in." As well as that message they actually increased their offer to the asking price so I've happily accepted it.

I spent a day with mum, and we did some more purging of possessions along with planning which furniture to keep and what to let go, and what colour I might choose for painting 'my' rooms. I took a couple of things up into the loft, and was reminded how much more difficult it is to get things up there compared with my roomy loft and comfortable ladder in Leamington.

The house move is now permeating every thought and action. I had a routine dental appointment, and the dentist happens to be friends with the people who sold me the house 25 years ago, so he was interested in the whole business. The hygienist used to live down the road from Maternal Manor and still has a rental flat there, and the dental assistant is looking for a house in Leamington and brought my listing up on RightMove while I was lying there with my mouth open.

At short notice I booked to go to Birmingham Symphony Hall to see David Sedaris, an American diarist, writer and raconteur who, as well as writing books, reads out his work to an audience (he's been on podcasts and even Radio 4 now). While I was on my way there I tried to instruct the conveyancing solicitor, because I'd managed to complete and send them the stupid form about where I got the money to buy Lola Towers 25 years ago. This didn't work because the two initial forms were just a taster of the horror to come.

There is an app. It requires photos of my passport and utility bills and bank statements to verify my credibility and identity (some of which I've already provided in person at their office). The app also demands every detail of my personal finances over the last 12 months, and I have no choice and it feels horribly intrusive without being softened by a hint of human interaction. 

Then it wants everything else that has been done within the house in the last 25 years, with evidence of planning permission, compliance with building regulation, guarantees, safety certificates, and specification of which carpets, curtain poles, garden furniture, fitted units, kitchen equipment and light fittings I'm taking or leaving in situ. Am I leaving the roof insulation, the boiler, the radiators, the electric sockets? Will I be taking with me the doorbell, door handles, the taps, the bath? Inputting and scanning and uploading all the information required took four solid hours.

The buyer couple is very keen to get a move on because their house sale is further advanced than mine. So they are a) not getting a survey done, b) asking if they can store stuff in the garage in advance of completion (the answer is no) and c) asking if they might move in on a rental basis ahead of completion. I've said I'll think about this last request - if I allow it, it will almost guarantee that the sale will go ahead, but if anything goes wrong then I'm left with sitting tenants. Just writing that down makes me very nervous so I think the answer is no.

So now I need to get a move on in a more focused way - first with mum, carrying on making space for everything, hopefully decorating Maternal Manor sooner rather than after everything is moved in, and here in Leamington shifting all my unnecessary belongings a bit quicker than I have been. No more "I'll have a think about that and deal with it later", now it's "Do I absolutely need it, and if not, out it goes straight away". The loft is already nearly empty except for all my camping gear, old university files (still!) and one or two boxes of stuff I'm not sure what to do with. I need to deal with the contents of the rest of the house much more ruthlessly.

An offer

Wales, September 2025

Nameless Man fixed the plug socket; I managed to clean all the downstairs windows (which I thought would be the best thing to do to improve the look of the place) and there have been five house viewings. Mr Celery, as I suspected, is very prone to error but so far I have corrected the mistakes that I have noticed, none of which have been particularly egregious, but he managed to sneak one into the printed brochure by adding the excited statement "NO ONWWARD CHAIN." 

One offer came in at £75k below the guide price, and now a much more realistic offer has materialised along with one further request for a viewing. I filled in a form and went to the office of a solicitor just in case I needed conveyancing sooner rather than later. They say I must complete a second form stating the source of the funds I used to purchase my house 25 years ago - it's the Law. I continue to range around the house picking out things to get rid of that escaped previous purges.

One such find is a trove of letters hiding under past family calendars that I'd kept, and some more letters in a box in the loft that had travelled with me, unopened, through all house moves since, it turns out, 1975. That was when I seemingly started keeping every single letter I received, initially birthday greetings from faraway relatives and letters from family when I was on school trips and holidays abroad. In later years it included letters from school friends and then university friends when we all dispersed to our various jobs and travel. I'm scanning or reading most of them before putting them into recycling - it's difficult to prioritise this job over more pressing matters but it's intriguing.

In other news - there isn't anything interesting. I went to the funeral of the mother of my longest-standing friend from junior school - two years ago I was there for his father's funeral, and one year ago it was dad's. I went to Maternal Manor where we applied for mum's Blue Badge to be renewed, booked a Bulky Waste Collection with the Council for the sofabed and dismantled wardrobe, and I took lots of measurements of rooms and furniture. I took my new collaborative games to the U3A board games group, and as expected they didn't take to them especially well. I have officially handed over the finances of my Buddhist group, so now I think I'm free of any official responsibility there.

And there has been badminton and Buddhism and cinema and Muscles the Personal Trainer, who is aware of my plans to move away and says that before I leave he is aiming for me to be able to dead-lift my own weight. I started eighteen months ago at 20kg (just the bar without any weights on it) and I'm up to 50kg, so nearly there. And my core strength and balance are great. It's astonishing.

Going live

Maternal Manor, May 2026

My estate agent's representative, whom I'm going to call Mr Celery (because he's tall, thin, and very Seller-y) told me that he appreciates that I am not in a tearing hurry, that I now need a solicitor, and that I won't regret placing the sale with his company. The sales board is up outside the house and we went through the brochure together to eliminate the spelling mistakes, so we were ready for going live on Friday. People keep asking how I feel. At the moment it's still just a project I'm working on, and I'm not looking forward to the time when it sinks in and I become very sad indeed to be leaving.

One issue that still needs addressing is a broken electrical socket in the bedroom. "I can deal with this," I thought, as I identified the fuse in the fuse box, turned off the power to the sockets, unscrewed the wires from the front plate and took the broken back box off the wall. After trips to B&Q, Wickes and the wonderful Action 21 I could only find replacement boxes that had screws in a different place, and I hate it when I experience this sort of helpless incompetence. Luckily, Nameless Man is happy to help out, although our combined busy timetables mean he can't get started until later this week.

My last session with the Diabetes Prevention Programme coach has taken place, although she says I can ask my GP to be re-referred if I think it will help. I may just do that. Due to some relaxation of my willpower during the volunteering in the retreat kitchen I now have to take my eating habits a bit more seriously, and have laid down a couple of new intentions for the next few weeks. I can safely say that this will be No Fun At All.

Mr Celery has already found me two people who want an early viewing before the date that we had set for the main house viewing event. I finished all the weeding, mowed the lawn again, and the main thing remaining is to clean a few windows to make it look that bit more attractive. That was the last day before the massive heatwave that we're experiencing arrived, so I'm glad I managed to get nearly everything done before we all melted.

Then I headed south to see mum and to supervise the transition from copper wire internet and POTS (plain old telephone system) to fibre broadband. There was an engineer who came into the house and another who climbed the telephone pole and strung the new wire to the house. But my suspicions were raised when the engineer said he couldn't set up two wired phones on the new router. He left an extra telephone box and advised me to contact the company to activate the second phone, and told me many things that turned out not to be true. So I had a very difficult conversation with the company which has left me regretting my choice of supplier despite the very competitive price, because we can't have two wired phones on the new system after all, despite having been assured that we could.

Mum has been very flexible and adaptable, and has accepted stoically the loss of her usual phone number for about two weeks (I really hope that the company hasn't misled me about this too). She has one landline phone with a new (hopefully temporary) number and is carrying her mobile phone around with her. Lola II and I are working on getting her a couple of digital cordless phones that are relatively easy to use, and we'll see how things go.

Consideration of furniture

Scarborough, April 2026

I've been at Maternal Manor for a few days either side of a weekend break in York. Mum and I have continued to weed out all sorts of items - clothes, furniture and much else - and have been celebrating that there seem to be no more stamps or envelopes stashed away anywhere. We're doing a little bit of forward planning, imagining where my stuff might fit in the house, what I will put into storage and what I will get rid of. There are three large items of furniture that we agreed can be removed. One is the oval kitchen table that dad made about 45 years ago, the second is a large wardrobe in the second bedroom upstairs (soon to be my bedroom), and the third is a sofabed whose foam mattress disintegrates more every time it is moved. 

We asked the British Heart Foundation to take the wardrobe and the table; they asked if the table came with any chairs so mum considered the chair situation and decided that she could give them the six kitchen chairs and keep the six dining chairs. When they came they rejected the wardrobe saying it couldn't be safely extracted with the stair lift in the way, so I spent a couple of hours taking it apart. I took the bits that would fit in my car to the tip, and the rest is awaiting further consideration in the garage. We put a small set of wooden drawers on the driveway next to the pavement, because in the past people have helpfully taken such things. I had my doubts, as they weren't particularly attractive or sound, but they disappeared almost immediately.

Mum had a few jolly and no-so-jolly trips out. After her Covid vaccination we went to Lidl and to the tip (with the wardrobe bits), and on another day I took her to the dentist. All the people she meets at these places are, without exception, incredibly kind - the receptionist at the dentist offered to remove their barriers to parking on the forecourt next time we visit. She has new gardeners who are also very pleasant and helpful, although she is somewhat doubtful of their skills at distinguishing plants from weeds.

My jolly trip was to York where I spent a couple of days with my friend T, and we went to Scarborough together. The weekend weather was glorious, but being on the coast Scarborough with a fresh breeze was a few degrees colder than York, so I got somewhat chilled. We ate chips and ice cream on the sea front and T paddled in the sea - that's her in the photo. I declined the opportunity to paddle, being cold enough already.

Back at Maternal Manor the kitchen trench is drying out nicely with the dehumidifier in action, but I've done a couple more tests on the water supply. Unfortunately there still seems to be water being lost somewhere in the system - with my newly acquired expertise gained from Severn Trent I'm aware that it's possible that it's being lost via the drains rather than into the floor, walls or foundations.

His Majesty's Revenue and Customs featured significantly during my visit. I called the technical helpline about online access to my tax accounts, the call was answered almost immediately and my problem completely solved. Mum's tax issue on a separate call to the tax helpline took a little longer, and was probably resolved - we'll know in a couple of weeks. I hope never to have to call them again, but that hope is probably unrealistic.

Water, water, every where

Lola Towers, March 2026

It's been a very water-focused winter. So much rain, mum's leaking pipes, evidence of water rising in my Auditorium, and then my boiler also started to make an intermittent noise. I've received a lot of attention from plumbers.

The boiler guy came in the morning of the day that Severn Trent were booked to dig up the pavement in the afternoon, which was quite convenient. In between phases of investigating the boiler noise he was kind enough to take a look in the cellar beneath the water stain. The heating pipes all looked sound and dry but he did comment that the cellar walls are saturated, and the house being the age that it is, there is no effective damp proof course. He tweaked something in the boiler and the noise hasn't recurred yet, but he's going to give me a quote for a replacement fan which will help not only if it fails but also should guide potential house purchasers, should guidance be needed.

In the afternoon the two Severn Trent workers came. I offered them tea or coffee and then discovered that I have no coffee, so that wasn't a good start. They put up signs and barriers and closed the footpath before getting stuck in to the job of digging around the water meter, and were very clear that I was not allowed onto 'the site' to look any closer. Their verdict was that the joint under investigation was not leaking but wouldn't let me through to look in the hole, so I gave them my camera to take a photo, which just showed a puddle in wet gravel. I've now followed up with a text conversation with another plumber, and then went back to Severn Trent to challenge their verdict. The saga continues.

In the meantime I've got a heater set up in the Auditorium which is drying the wall nicely. It keeps raining though. I've also done a test with photographing the water meter at 10pm and 8am and it shows some movement of the dial, but I don't know how significant it is. I did the same at mum's with the same result, so there's Thames Water to contact about that too.

At mum's I also had the job of replacing the knobs on her 40-year-old cooker. I found a company which supplied 'universal' knobs but the kit supplied didn't entirely work without adjustment, which we did using some tubing left over from when dad needed a catheter. I've left mum with one new replacement knob to try out, and if she's happy then we'll replace the rest. [Update - we've put the old ones back.]

Then there's the painting needed of the front of the house. I finally managed to get three acceptable quotes from firms. One was a man on a ladder, which I specifically don't want because of the chimney pointing experience, but when I turned him down he started to argue that he's very experienced with ladders... The second one started talking about payment in cash (the amount is more than £2000). So I picked the third one who advised that the start date will be based on the availability of the scaffolding. 

Then the scaffolding company called to explain the convoluted process of applying for a licence to put up scaffolding on the public highway (the pavement outside my house) and the steps that would need to be taken involving suspending parking, cones and redirecting pedestrians. Let's just say, it's complicated. But after just a day or two he phoned back to say the permit had already been granted and the scaffolding can go up at the end of March.

GRUHI continues

Worcester, January 2026

My sojourn at Maternal Manor continues, where I try to make myself useful as well as exploring the locality. I am becoming familiar with a couple of key bus routes - I didn't use the bus much when I lived here as a youth because I'd always be going into London by Tube, and school was close enough to walk (or cycle), and I'd get lifts to most other places. When I did use the bus as a child, I would generally make some mistake and be too shy to ask anyone (often ending up in some bus terminal far from home) or leave something on the bus (most notable was my clarinet). Navigating the buses is now transformed - another thing to thank the Internet for.

My car enjoyed an outing to deliver some stamps and envelopes to one of mum's friends who has connections with Diabetes UK. Would it be a surprise to know that there are still stamps and envelopes lurking in the building? I found some more this week, in an old briefcase in the garage. I do believe these are the last, but wouldn't bet on it. Mum and I unearthed another box from a wardrobe and opened it with trepidation, but it contained old rheumatology journals - I never thought I'd be pleased to see those. This week I also found a large lever arch binder that contained about a hundred photocopied sheets of the engravings on Trajan's columns, each within a plastic wallet. Mum separated the paper from the plastic and now has even more scrap paper and a pile of plastic wallets that her carer took away for her son.

I also took mum to Lidl, which she enjoys, and then on to the municipal recycling centre where we dumped one of the four sacks of rubble that was excavated from the kitchen floor. The dehumidifier continues to extract moisture from below the floor but the low temperatures and the fact that the kitchen isn't actually heated means that it will probably take a long time to dry out. I uncovered the trench so there is more opportunity for evaporation, moved the microwave, and reorganised the kitchen cupboards to minimise the need to go from one end to the other across the trench all of the time. This made me very happy because now the pots and pans are next to the cooker and the plates and bowls are next to the microwave and fridge instead of the other way round.

Along with watching films (on DVD, streaming, at a local cinema and at a cinema a bus ride away), and going to two different Buddhist Centres, one in Highbury and one in Chelmsford, I played badminton with a local club. It has been surprisingly difficult to find a local club. Whenever I have ventured to other parts of the world there are usually two or three that I could try out, but all I could find here were Academies for training young people up to National standard, or courts that you can book in a sports centre, neither of which is suitable for me. Eventually I discovered a club that has a really complicated arrangement for booking a spot on one of four club nights during the week. I went to one of the sessions last Friday and will go again this Friday, but in fact the Saturday and Sunday evenings would be a higher standard that is nearer to mine. I'll have to put off that experiment until next time I stay.

Another social event was a whisky tasting with Lola II and Mr M, where the other guest was a friend of Lola II's who I hadn't seen for 25 years but was still utterly delightful. Due to the nature of the evening I became more drunk than I have been for many years, and I was still feeling not quite sober next morning when I had two Buddhist Zoom calls lined up. Totally worth it, but maybe not to be repeated.

I paid another visit to Lola II and Mr M in order to support Lola II's efforts at tidying and decluttering, where my role is split between police officer (stopping her from getting distracted or running off to do something less unpleasant) and Paper Shredder Operator. [This activity used to rank as second most satisfying after my own GRUHI project, but has been relegated to third behind the behemoth that is Maternal Manor.] During the visit we also started the eBay listing for the disposal of dad's fifteen (count 'em, FIFTEEN) 35mm slide projector carousels, and initiated the insurance claim for the water leak in the kitchen. I anticipate that the latter will be a recurring item in these reports for some time.

The highlight of my stay was a trip to Morrisons. This isn't one of mum's usual shopping spots because her neighbours and friends don't shop there, but I prefer their fruit and veg. So mum came with me, and they offer people the loan of a mobility scooter with a big basket on the front, and mum had a great time going wherever she wanted and taking her time because she wasn't having to stand and walk. And I enjoyed it even more because she was having so much fun.

On my travels I encounter an heirloom

Tomb of King John, Worcester Cathedral, January 2026

I've been trying for a while to post a blog entry every six days. A few things get in the way - making preparations for two trips at once was definitely one of those things. I am currently at Maternal Manor for a two week stay - we both survived one week last time I stayed, so I'm taking that as a win and going for the 'double or quits' option. I exaggerate, there really has been minimal friction so far. After just under two weeks I'll be going skiing without returning home in between, which is why packing was so complicated. At the moment I believe I've only left behind my 'ordinary' gloves (I did remember to bring ski gloves and fingerless mittens), and the power supply to my laptop. This was the more concerning item but I think I'll be able to do everything on mum's PC, which is actually a higher spec machine than mine. Both my laptop and my phone really need to be updated, but the thought of it may put me off for some time yet.

Anyway. I met the second Estate Agent representative, and the cat is very much among the pigeons because he had a very different opinion on both the marketing approach and the price. The difference is so significant that I now need to do my own research - isn't that what Estate Agents are supposed to do for you? - and potentially contact a third company. There are many to choose from in Leamington so it's not a problem, and luckily there's no hurry or deadline.

My tour guide in front of Worcester Guildhall

A very long time ago I attended an auction of delights in aid of the Birmingham Buddhist Centre's fundraising appeal, and I won a guided tour of Worcester. I was hoping to bring a particular friend along, but her health deteriorated significantly so we had to cancel. Then Lola II was going to come with me, but finding a suitable day was quite difficult, and then on the actual date agreed we were on our way when my car broke down. The tour finally took place at the weekend, with just me and my guide. It was cold but didn't rain until the very end, and I enjoyed it a great deal. After my guide left me I went back to the cathedral for a proper look around, but I wouldn't mind going back to Worcester for a proper weekend break.

So down at Maternal Manor for two weeks means a few things. Odd jobs around the house, but also doing more clearing out - it is quite astonishing how much dad managed to accumulate, and mum and I have had a few sessions on the easier stuff (photocopied books, notes for lectures - not difficult to consign to the recycling box). The difficult stuff is dad's personal effects - identity cards, passports, school books, diplomas, drawings. I asked Sister D and Lola II to come round so we could go through it together, and it nearly worked, except Lola II was ill and couldn't be there in person so we stuck her on Zoom while the three of us sifted through everything. It has made a difference, but there is still quite a lot more to do, but luckily no particular urgency at the moment.

Mum and I have been plotting how to get rid of some of the bigger items, some of which may be worth something but mostly not, we thought. Charities will collect saleable furniture for free, and the Council will come and collect three items in any condition, but we've got to get them outside and protected from rain. I think it would probably be worth waiting for better weather, but the first targets are the sofabed with the disintegrated foam mattress, the huge wooden wardrobe that still needs emptying and will have to be dismantled to get it down the stairs, and the oval kitchen table that dad made but forty years on is now not all that stable and surplus to requirements.

There is also a big bookcase that mum thought might be worth 50 or 60 quid - I was sceptical, having had such trouble giving away my bookcase for nothing, but that one was Ikea and this one definitely wasn't. I took a couple of photos and some measurements, and ran it past Lola II and Sister D to see what they thought, and Lola II ran it past ChatGPT. Oh me, oh my, after quite a bit of this and that, it turns out to be a genuine Swedish design classic worth several THOUSAND pounds. Which was, to say the least, a surprise. Mum then mentioned that yes, she had inherited it from someone who had definitely furnished her house in style. So now we have the very welcome task of having to actually sell it, which is quite a lot harder than asking the Council or the British Heart Foundation to come and take it away for nothing.

Visiting and being visited

Lola Towers, January 2026

It's been very cold indeed. Lola II and I forgot that she really shouldn't visit Lola Towers during the winter, so she enjoyed my new heated blanket while also serving as encouragement to my ongoing efforts at shedding surplus stuff. With her help I took down quite a few items from the loft, but the most excellent service she provided was to thread the lace back into the cuff of my Wellington boot, which took a very long time. She also modelled various items that I was offering to particular people, sang songs in the car with me when we were held up on the motorway for an hour, made tea, and was generally in charge of Morale.

I continued to attempt to give away my huge bookcase, with several enquiries leading to nothing, but finally someone who was serious took it away. I was expecting its removal to reveal horrors in the wall behind it but nothing horrific emerged, so that's one bullet dodged. I imagine that many people are not looking to spend much money in January, so I'll be trying to sell the few items of value that I have in February or March.

Trips I have made - one to the north where we ate pizza and congratulated one another on progress made in various aspects of life; one to mum where I feel I was helpful by way of Organising; one to Oxford with Sister D which was quite cold, drizzly, then rainy but the Weston Library was as good as ever and we had lots of time to talk. A more local trip took me to badminton at the height of the snowfall. "This is crazy," I was thinking as I drove at 15mph, slowing down for junctions, trying not to use the brakes and turning corners very carefully. But I needed to play badminton after more than two weeks off, and there wasn't anything like the amount of snow that was forecast, and by the end of the evening it was already sleet and slush.

Cousin M and her son visited from Seattle en route to Spain, and we all met at Maternal Manor and caught up with family history and current goings on, followed by an excellent trip to the Royal Academy of Music in London for a student performance of Trial by Jury. My enlightened music teacher at junior school was quite a character, completely indifferent to the musical limitations of under-11's. He encouraged composition, percussion and harp players (as well as your traditional instruments) and we even had a school orchestra. Together with one of the other teachers he also staged productions of Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. I still remember them - Pirates of Penzance was one, and Trial by Jury was another, where I was chosen as understudy for the part of the Usher. It's now FIFTY years later but some of it was spookily familiar. Anyway, I enjoyed it a great deal.

The official process of moving on from Lola Towers has started with a visit from a representative of an Estate Agent. She found the property bigger than she expected, called the garden 'generous' (which it has never been to me), and showed me comparisons with other local properties that she could find. We agreed on the ballpark figure that might be asked, and the next stage will be a similar visit from a second Estate Agent representative.

Progress

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, December 2025

The third visit from Lee the plumber at Maternal Manor was supervised by Lola II. He continued to track the pipes under the kitchen floor and extended the trench towards the sink, and at last found a leak. Both Lola II and I greeted this news with great joy and the observation that we've never been so glad to discover a broken pipe. After a brief discussion of what to do next, we all agreed that the full length of the pipes should be uncovered, and thank goodness it was because a second leak was found further along. Lee replaced the whole section of pipe and lagged and protected it properly; now we're waiting for his report for insurance claim purposes. Meanwhile I took possession of the promised dehumidifier (which I'll take there next time I visit) which will remove as much of the water as possible before the trench is filled in, and then redecorating can start.

GRUHI has been going slowly but steadily. I managed to give away the tennis racquet via the Olio online platform, but nearly didn't. Olio seems to be used by young people, and the prospective recipient relied very heavily on WhatsApp to the extent that when he messaged me that he was outside the door and I didn't answer immediately, he considered going away again. I did see the message after a few minutes and went down to open the door, asking why he hadn't rung the doorbell. He seemed somewhat surprised at this suggestion. Make of that what you will.

Having lost so much weight (6kg now) I thought I'd revisit a bag of trousers that I grew out of but kept because I was particularly fond of them 40 years ago. They are all a similar size which is still considerably smaller than I am now, and I painfully resolved to part with them, with support from Lola II (who has been reading a book about decluttering). They and more surplus clothes have now gone to the clothes bin at the supermarket, to Action 21 along with a box of books and some random household ephemera, and a blanket and old duvet have gone to the The Dog's Trust after Guide Dogs said they didn't want them. I haven't yet advertised the big bookcase, the electronic piano and the tenor saxophone.

My Diabetes Prevention Programme coach is very encouraging, but still highly unsatisfactory in terms of providing anything other than someone to be accountable to. I ignore her advice which mostly consists of suggesting that I eat more. This advice is clearly intended to help moderate blood sugar spikes, but I am focussing more on calories and portion sizes which seems to be working so far in terms of weight. I have asked for a repeat blood test but the doctor has told me to wait until the end of February, so I'll have to wait some more to find out if all my efforts have made any difference in that respect.

There's been plenty of exercise, particularly over one 24-hour period when I did an hour with my personal trainer, went to Coventry for a gig where I stood for 1½ hours then danced my socks off for 1½ hours then had to run for the train, and next morning joined my U3A ramblers for 2½ hours. That was all quite tiring, but the gig was fantastic and I picked up the dehumidifier at the end of the walk, so worth it. My Monday badminton was slightly difficult, however, when they put on the regular end-of-year competition and I came very definitely in last place. Not so long ago (or so it seems) I was in contention for the winning position. My self-esteem was somewhat restored when I played in a match with my Thursday badminton ladies which we won.

The kitchen roof at Lola Towers started to leak during one of the recent storms, and quite a lot of water came through. It hasn't repeated this performance, but I invited the roofer recommended by Glf to have a look at it, and he came back the very next day to fix it. Standing on the roof with a cup of tea we had a very interesting conversation about the lack of young people interested in following the sort of trades that are needed, and then we talked about the painting I need at the front of the house. It gave me a good deal of food for thought around whether I want a cash trader working from a ladder or someone in a business working from a scaffold tower. The answer is now much clearer, especially after my experience of the dangerous pointing work.

Water trouble again

Maternal Manor, December 2025

The situation in mum's kitchen at the Maternal Manor is not good. There has been evidence of damp rising in the walls for years, which we started by covering up, then more recently we invited a reliable plumber to have a look. It wasn't serious, he said, and he recommended continuing to cover it up, despite the skirting coming away from the wall and tiles lifting. But the meter showed water consumption was increasing, and it was time to act.

Lola II made enquiries with the insurer and Thames Water and identified a WaterSafe approved firm, which turned out to be Lee. After fixing an unrelated issue with the upstairs toilet cistern he poked about under floorboards and in cupboards trying to guess where the water was coming from. On the second visit he pointed out that the unplastered wall under the sink was also showing evidence of damp, and measured the loss of pressure in various parts of the pipework to try and narrow down the possibilities of where a leak might be. Results were sadly inconclusive, so in the end we had to agree that he would dig up the kitchen floor following the pipework from the stopcock to the sink, as this seems the most likely source. The layer beneath the floor is clearly saturated, but so far no actual break in the pipes has been found.

The plumber mentioned that once the leak is fixed it will be necessary to remedy the damp using a dehumidifier. I started casting around via some of the different trading arenas I'm part of, but the one that seems to be the most reliable is my U3A walking group. I was relating the story of the kitchen leak to the person I was walking, who then revealed that she had an unwanted dehumidifier and would be happy to pass it on. [Update also from the walking group: sadly the surgeon who had volunteered to go to the West Bank had a very unpleasant interrogation at the border and was refused entry by the Israeli authorities.]

Meanwhile at Lola Towers I have finished cleaning and arranging UJ's room and have moved back in, trying to take only what I need in an attempt to lose a bit more stuff.  It is taking longer than I anticipated. I advertised a glass-topped coffee table on Freegle, Nextdoor, Olio and eBay (in that order). Olio was the successful channel, and the lucky recipient also took away my corner table (but didn't want the tennis racquet or the large bookcase). I have reconfigured the bedroom I've been using for three years and it's now ready to accept single guests, which is more convenient (and warmer) than making up the sofabed in the Auditorium. That will continue to be used for double guests, however.

Conveniently I did have a single guest staying on Saturday night - Mr M was passing through, and he was able to provide a very valuable service: that of photographer. For I discovered that my passport, although not expiring until April 2026, will not permit me to travel to Europe for skiing at the end of January. It is quite straightforward to apply for a new one online, except that a passport photograph conforming to strict standards is needed, which I am unable to provide without assistance.

Mr M provided a second valuable service in that he told me how to find out what my PIN is on a new credit card that I've received. For these services and because it is only humane I turned the central heating on for the duration of his visit (and a little bit longer). For my experiment in heating myself instead of the house is fine in the Office (fan heater), Auditorium (heated blanket) and bedroom (hot water bottle) but the kitchen floor is icy. My latest idea is to buy slippers with a more insulating sole.