PhloridaPhil

6 weeks since the last blog and what have I been up to? At the end of the last blog I was despairing about the poor contact from the solar power company. In the end, fed up with constantly being put off I asked to speak to a senior manager and things started to happen. He admitted that things had not gone as they should and sought to take over control of my account. He also promised to pay the first two installments on the loan and within 48 hours had things back on track. Unfortunately the past stage is ion the hands of the energy company and this will take 30 days which means I should be operational any day now.

June marks the start of the hurricane season and as well as high temperatures Tampa also got a return to storms. So far only one sizeable storm Elsa has threatened and to be honest although it passed right over Tampa on 6 July we were very lucky and escaped with only severe winds during the night when everyone was asleep. Over the last month there have been the usual thunderstorms and great periods of sunshine. Today there was such a deluge that my yard was significantly under water and local roads were flooded.

On 7 July Tampa Bay Lightning succeeded in winning the Stanley Cup for the second time in consecutive years. This is a rare and great achievement and the city is bragging about being ‘Champa Tampa’! I had been taking an orchestra of percussion along to O’Briens for the televised matches and frankly I am pleased it is over.

The magnificent organ at Sacred Heart has been giving me some grief. On 3 Sundays in July it has given up the ghost. The room in which the blower is situated is sealed by a thick door (to dull the noise) but it also keeps the temperature in its own bubble and it can get very hot in there. Since the occasions of the fault have all been between 12pm and 1pm on Sundays the motor will have been working for at least 5 hours and although there is AC cooling the loft it has no effect on the blower room. My theory is that it is temperature related and that free-standing AC might be required and also a replacement motor which would be quieter and more efficient. The jury is still out and every Sunday I will wonder when the organ will pack up.

We are also experiencing problems with the microphone system. Fortunately some mics still work but the mics located in the music area do not function. This is an even greater pity since I have discovered some good microphones, hidden for a while.

In the middle of July I was visited for 8 days by and old school friend. Aidan Rossiter was 2 years below me at St George’s College, Weybridge and very much part of the music scene there. Now he is a Josephite priest currently posted to California where he serves as Pastor at the Josephite Church and also is Vicar General for the entire global Josephite Order. Aidan was recovering from an operation and needed a rest so although I was working that is all he needed, a rest by the pool. We got out for some good meals and to visit the Dali Museum, the new Pier at St Petersburg and Ybor City in Tampa. I became quite ill during his visit and this contributed to a lack of energy but Aidan was very understanding.

Sometime around 24 July a dear friend from Sheffield, Peter, was found dead in his house. Peter had lived with many challenges not least of which was his mental state which kept him from working. It did not keep him from drinking and whenever we met up as a group of friends he was always the first to produce whiskey. He was so generous with this and his time and, despite the voices that tormented his mind, he was a really compassionate soul. After the death of his mother he inherited the house and was able to live with greater security than he had previously. The only voice he will hear now is that of God and God is love.

I suppose I’m getting to that age when people I know will die. I was sad to hear from Aidan Rossiter only a few days ago that another Josephite, Fr Adrian Cadwallader, has died. I remember him as something of an aloof character who came into his own when he invested funds on the horses … or is that just a myth? Again the peace of life in God will be more than respite from the paranoia which plagued him in recent years.

During the last week of July I attended the Annual Convention of the National Pastoral Musicians. This year it was held at the Marriott Hotel in New Orleans. With Covid being still a threat and with an alarming increase in spike of the Delta variant it was never going to be like usual Conventions. Indeed many of the sessions were virtual or live-streamed. Hilights included a presentation by Simply Liturgical Music, a talk by Sr Helen Prejean and another Plenary with John Baldovin sj. Happily I met up with many friends from the Composers Forum and the social time was good. I enjoyed some spectacular cuisine and if you are visiting NOLA you must try Irene’s and Evangeline’s, two restaurants almost opposite each other on the same street. I was still ill during the Convention but since it was possible to log in to the online presentations I chose to do this rather than pass on the germs.

On my return to Tampa I had my house to myself for the first time in a while. Angie, a travelling respiratory, had left on the Wednesday having found somewhere closer to her place of work.

Over the weekend my coughing became worse and so I was persuaded by friends to get a covid test. I did this at midday on Tuesday and hope to get the results sometime tomorrow or may be Friday. I’m expecting a negative result as my temperature has been normal despite runny nose, coughing etc symptoms. I took Tuesday off work accordingly and am now self-isolating. This is pretty boring so I wrote some string parts for my Psalm 128 this afternoon for the quartet which will share a wedding with me on Saturday.

My twin brother Andy had his gall bladder removed today. I had mine done 30 years ago and although they tried keyhole surgery at first they discovered that the organ had moved and had to cut me open before the anesthetic became ineffective. Andy was more fortunate and was out the same day. He’ll soon be back to swinging that bassoon or saxophone around North East England!

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Since I last posted 2 weeks ago not much has happened. In fact during the last week my lodger has been away at her daughter’s wedding and calm has returned to the Jakob Residence.

Two of my brothers completed their charity walk of the three peaks (Yorkshire) in aid of Alzheimer’s Research. My mum is living with this disease and is on our minds a great deal at this time. They managed this achievement in under 12 hours.

The weather has been strangely cloudy and the summer rains which began on cue at the start of June have been unpredictable. The garden and weeds have responded accordingly prompting me to get weeding today. At one point a storm blew through with a massive wind which came out of nowhere. Now that I have come in to type this blog it is really sunny. Did I mention that the weather was unpredictable?

Work continues to be enriching and my contributions well received. I am particularly pleased that two excellent singers have joined our Cantors. The latest even has a music degree!

I enjoyed being able to join Iona Community friends at the opening of the Abbey’s new guest facilities. Only 2 days ago I had more activity with Community members. I had not spoken with Jenie for a while and out of the blue and just as I was going to bed she messaged me. She had sold her house in Chesterfield and moved to fresh pastures in N Wales with great views towards the bay. Of course the move coincided with the summer solstice which she has always enjoyed. Later the same day I was prompted to call another IC member, Peter. Previous attempts had been unsuccessful so I was delighted to catch him. He was visiting the Orkney Islands and staying with another member, one of the most gentle men I ever met. Unfortunately the connection was not good so I missed the chance to speak at length. He rang later and we had a good, if typically off-beam, conversation.

Last Thursday I had electricians visit to finish the installation of the solar panels. This involved switching off the power so the energy company were also onsite. Unexpectedly they also changed out the electric meter to one which reverses whenever I generate electricity. When they left I expected everything to be working but I am not sure this is the case. The promised call back ‘within 24 hours’ from the solar company has not yet materialized after 48 hours which is annoying.

Last season Tampa took most of the sporting championships and this season also looks as though this might continue. the only American sport I understand is Ice Hockey and the local team Tampa Bay Lightning (Go Bolts!) is doing well again in the Stanley Cup. Two nights ago they beat the Islanders in the fifth game of 7. After tense earlier matches the score of 8-0 was not expected. Tonight I will watch the next game. Whenever the Lightning score the local bartender dances about shaking a rattle. For the last game I added 2 triangles and tonight will add 4 hand drums to the orchestra!

My previous blog was 19 February and you might have thought that I died or decided never to write another blog.

To be honest I can’t recall much as far back as February which will spare you hours of reading. I do recall the events of 3 March. This was the day of The Gathering, fund-raising event for the school. My involvement was with a few singers from the school and Teresa Tompkins, solo singer doing my arrangement of The Gathering. I played salon music for 30 mins as folk gathered and then we did the theme song of the same name. That work done Teresa, the percussionist and I sat down for dinner. The event was part in person and part virtual and in many ways was a first in St Lawrence.

On 4 March I had my dryer repaired with a new thermostat. I would not normally have noted this except for the fact that only yesterday I had to get the same repair done again. I suspect that the vent line has not been cleaned and that the lint in it had built up and shut down the system. Now I learn that the length of my vent was so long that it probably is not up to code.

Around this time I was becoming disheartened at St Lawrence so on 19 March I visited a parish in St Petersburg which was advertising a post. They were very welcoming and even gave me a couple of insights as to why I should leave St Lawrence. They also mentioned that I was a serious contender for the post and would invite me to the second interview. Little did I know what would transpire the following day.

On Saturday 20 March I was in work as usual and looked at the jobs vacancy list. There was a part-time job going at Sacred Heart, one of the oldest churches in Florida with a magnificent pipe organ. I sent my CV with a cover message which basically asked when they might imagine making the post full time which it had been or several decades. 40 minutes later there was a phone call from a Fr Ron who had read my resume and declared it ‘quite impressive’. To a Brit this would have translated as ‘OK’ but to an American it meant ‘very impressive’. They wanted to invite me to interview the following Monday. I was told to prepare 2 organ pieces and to sing one piece at the piano. I booked an hour to rehearse and I suspect that Fr Ron was listening because as I left he invited me to play 4 organ pieces. On Monday I arrived for the interview and after formal questions we moved to the church where I ended up playing 5 organ pieces and singing two of my recently composed psalms. By the afternoon I had a new job!

The previous few months I had been getting stressed and my blood pressure had become worryingly raised. This new job changed all that. But the following week was Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week and I had to keep things quiet until I’d signed the contract at the new place. I had already declared my acceptance of the job to my boss at St Lawrence but would not deliver resignation until the contract was completed. On Easter Sunday I was allowed to speak at all the Masses, the following Sunday would be my last.

My last day at STL was 14 April and as I left I was able to make amends with a member of staff with whom I had developed poor relations. In fact this behavior was more the result of my health, stress etc. The following day I got up super early and drove 2 hours down to Englewood where I would holiday for a week. I had visited this town in January and had enjoyed my time there. Unfortunately the weather turned during the last two days so I returned early to Tampa. I still did not have to start work at Sacred Heart until 1 May. I can’t recall when exactly but on one of these vacation days I returned to St Lawrence for a staff lunch. My boss was so pathetic that all he could say with regards to my departure was ‘thanks for your service’.

The weather in the last week of April was wonderful so I did so much kayaking and pool time that when I arrived at Sacred Heart for the first day I looked very well! The first weekend I started to sort my office and bring some of my resources. I had agreed to shadow the outgoing Sean Fitzsimmons-Brown but got called to cover a wedding at Jesuit so in the end I only shadowed all the Masses on Sunday. I met the Cantors for the regular rehearsal on the following Tuesday. They are a delightful bunch. From the start I had decided to keep to the ordinary Mass settings but change the psalm settings, and alleluia. They really responded well to the choices.

I had decided to have Wednesday and Thursday as my days off. It is so great to have consecutive days off! I continued to bring more stuff into the office and by the second week they gave me another office in what they call the North Campus 6 minutes drive from the church. In fact it is a 9 acre site with several grand buildings representing what was until ten years ago Sacred Heart Academy. There I have a large rehearsal room and another large room with double doors onto a massive balcony. I can imagine that this might have been from where the headteacher (nun) would have addressed the assembled pupils for morning assembly! Over the last month I have moved a few things in and now have this office as my recording studio (so that I can send the cantors any unfamiliar music) but I also have brought in a sofa and an armchair as I intend to hold face-to-face meetings there with to-be-weds. The office in the church is too small to fit all my equipment so this works well. When they set up wifi there it will be even better.

With the re-opening of Florida from Covid restrictions my Airbnb business has also grown. One of my guests was a pole dancer by night so this allowed for a significant filling in of a gap in my education. She stayed for two days at first but has returned several times since by private arrangement.. Between one of her visits I had a group of four persons. They spent a weekend and were no trouble. It was only when I went to change the sheets for the return of the dancer that I discovered they had broken the bed! The dancer was quite happy with the other spare room but I needed to sort the broken bed. I got a good deal on a much better bed and sold the ‘old’ mattress to a friend at the bar. From the beginning of June and hopefully for 3 months my guest has been a mature lady who is a travelling respiratory specialist. She is great fun when we meet but since she works nights at the hospital we might pass like ships in the night.

Feeling that I would be in greater financial security I decided to explore solar panels further. Its a tedious task to have several salesmen come to your house and go through their pitch but in the end I went with Sunpro. whose salesman visited on April 26. I was fortunate that I got the installation brought forward due to a cancellation and installation was on May 19. The electricians came across an issue which meant the=at they would have to apply to TECO the energy company to switch off the power. TECO tend to drag their feet so the continuation of the installation will not be until Thursday June 17. Following that there will be an inspection from the county and then a further request to TECO to visit and install a reversible meter. When I am generating power myself the meter reverses.

One of the things that impressed me about Sunpro was that they took a wider view than others. So in addition to the panels the project has widened to include the removal of the large laurel oak in my front yard ($3600), the installation of a hybrid water heater ($1600 +$600 plumbing) , the refurbishment of my electric panel with new breakers ($500).

The tree removal was a major operation. This particular oak tree has a limited life of about 50 years and branches had already started falling so there was little problem getting a permit. I had to call back the tree company as they had left several roots protruding above the earth. The boss doubted that the roots could have been there as ‘his stump grinder would not have left it like that’. An unbelievable conversation followed in which he accused me of covering these roots somehow so that they were unseen. In the end a further $300 saw to it that the roots would be removed and a good job was done.

The other thing which prompted me to opt for Sunpro was the energy assessment. A professional came to the house and sealed the air conditioning ducts where this was necessary. He also professionally draught -proofed the external doors and replaced all my light bulbs with LEDs.

So what do I pay for this solar project? The cost of the loan is $170 per month which is less than my average electric bill and covers the cost of panel installation and all the other peripheral expenses from water heater to tree removal. The real expectation is that the only amount I will pay to TECO is the admin charge of $15 per month. With all these changes to my energy efficiency I am hoping that I will in effect have no real electric cost at all and that I will achieve a rebate each year. I may yet invest in a variable speed pool pump. These are more energy efficient and besides the Governor in Florida has passed a bill requiring variable speed pumps in the near future. I expect that there will be some financial inducement to do this quickly so i am holding off on this one right now.

TECO electric bills are expected to rise 18% very soon … ironically to pay for their own solar promotions. The cost of electricity will not be a consideration for me going forward and should I need to sell the house at some time in the future the new owner will take up the loan payments and the cheap electricity! It really does look like a win win! Besides it is good for the planet!

I had also experienced problems with my dryer in recent months and discovered that the same unit had burned out as before. The second engineer asked when was the last time I had the vent duct cleaned. Clearly lint can build up and raise the temperature so significantly that the thermostat burns out. So I got my friendly plumber/electrician round to re-site the dryer to an outside wall and provide a new electrical connection for it. You should have seen the circuitous route it was travelling before!

I was delighted to be able to witness via zoom the blessing in Iona Abbey of the newly updated residential buildings. It was great to see the place again and to see so much good work completed.

Weather-wise it is glorious. No sooner had June started than I heard the first rumbles of thunder. Towards the end of the day around 7pm the deluge starts and ensures that whatever the temperature during the day you never have to refill your pool. Later in the season I expect the rains to come at around 4pm but this could be the new normal. Who knows?

It’s over 6 weeks since my last blog and these are my sins!

I can remember when I was about 15 being asked by mum what I wanted for Christmas. Francois Couperin’s Organ Masses was my reply and come Christmas Day they arrived although mum did confess to finding it difficult to meet my request. Now several decades later I have discovered that a Catholic University Library in Canada which closed in 2018 is now selling off its stock on ebay. For the last few months I have been winning auctions for music which arrives beautifully bound as you might expect from a library. Also, as you might expect, much of what I buy has never been out on loan from the library since the 1990s when it opened! Much of the music I already had but these replacements are in pristine condition and, as I have mentioned, are fully bound and cheap!

I now have the complete organ works of Liszt, Walther, Praetorius, Weckmann, Tunder, Durufle, Lubeck, Messiaen, Mozart, Merulo, Nivers, and many others who are even more obscure and I’m still buying even as I type! As I resume the blog I can report that I was successful in bidding for all the items I wanted!

January was notable in that winter here lasted longer than any expected. Normally we might have a few days that approach freezing and then it bounces back up to the tropical high 70sF. This year has been strange in that it has remained pretty cool. There was a period of a week which happily coincided with my holiday in which temps were over 70F and it was sunny but then it went cool again. Yesterday it was sunny and in the mid 80s and this morning it was 80F at 10am but then the rain came and it has been in the low 60s ever since. I decided to go shopping, it was that bad! It certainly was nothing to compare with the weather in Texas or in parts of UK but it was bad enough that I felt compelled to post the following message on Facebook.

“For those of you “up north” or in UK who think we have it easy in Florida. It was only 62 this morning. And it was drizzling. I had to go find a jacket in the closet. I had to choose between my cashmere wool overcoat and several thick woollies which I’d hardly worn since I arrived in Tampa. By the time I decided which to wear, it had warmed up to 72 degrees and I didn’t even need a jacket! It was stressful, so I headed to a beach bar for a beer. Florida problems…”

My holiday was long coming. I didn’t take a holiday last year because I was keen to save it all for when the pandemic lifted so I went into 2021 with a fully vacation allowance (15 days) carried over from 2020. I spent my January 20-28 vacation in Englewood further south in Florida but only 90 minutes drive from Tampa. I’d booked an apartment which had been priced at $220 a night and which I got for $70! To be honest it wasn’t worth the original price! It was a bit shabby but that is what you come to expect in what is called ‘old Florida’. I arrived at the crack of dawn and had brought my kayak with me so within an hour I was out on the water. After almost 3 hours I had discovered that the wide channel into which I launched from my apartment was a thoroughfare for all the rich kids who delighted in speeding past me, leaving me struggling in their wake. I headed back to the apartment and ditched the kayak altogether. Instead I drove to the nearest park which bordered a beach, Stump Pass Beach. I had to wait a while to be let into the car park as there was only limited space but it was worth the wait. The beach was wonderful and pretty soon I had walked beyond the few who were encamped near the car park with all their beach paraphernalia and passed a few who were seeking shells or shark’s teeth to add to their collection. This peculiar bunch of people never spoke and never lifted their gaze from a few steps in front of them lest they missed a potential trophy! I was such a beautiful space that I returned there each day. In the evenings I either cooked for myself or went out in search of fodder. One night I took a recommendation which led me to a bar in the middle of a marina. Snooks Bar was clearly popular and had some fine craft beers as well as excellent ribeye steaks. Another night I went to a bar on the main drag. This was as close as you can get to ‘bar street’ in New Orleans. I was attracted there by the acoustic music that was being played outside. I remained inside and chatted with a local just in case I might get some local info. Unfortunately this local had been there for hours and rather than continue to drink more beer he had taken advantage of the fact that coffee was available with limitless refills. So there he was with a beer in one hand and a coffee in the other. I left the bar as he was mistakedly pouring cream, intended for the coffee, into his beer!

I returned the following night and the local was nowhere to be seen. I went outside and sat down. It was a while before anyone came to serve me and when she did she rudely complained that I had sat down without waiting to be shown to my seat/table. I should say that apart from the musician, and the young bar woman who had served me the previous night (but was now out with friends and not working) there was no one else present. I asked her who was the woman who, she agreed, had been so rude to me, and she said it was the owner! I drank my drink and left a meagre tip.

Back in Tampa for the last weekend in January I did my usual weekend in Church knowing that I had planned it all before I left for vacation. I was in the office on Monday to hear during the afternoon that our 93 year old Fr Keating had died. It was not unexpected and in fact Fr Keating had been hoping for it sooner! Lazaro who looks after the church was there when he died. The following day Lazaro would celebrate with us a Memorial Mass for his mum. I recall him telling me the date for the Mass before I left for vacation and he hadn’t realised that 2 February was such a big feast. So we adapted the entrance rites with a blessing of candles and then while I sang Chris Walker’s Nunc dimittis the assembly lit their candles and placed them around the ashes. It was a lovely moment.

I had decided to give up drinking at the start of February with a break on February 8 for Superbowl. Tampa was the venue for this year’s Superbowl and they ended up winning the Cup. Tampa teams won four tournaments this year and immediately the cry went out ‘Champa Tampa’. I watched the game with friends in the local Irish Bar. There was so much vodka splashing around that I was grateful for the office closure the following day. I managed to walk home and entered via the backyard gate only to trip in the dark and end up fully clothed in the pool with cuts across 3 fingers of my right hand. I called it a sporting injury!

Since then there have been a sequence of funerals in the Church. On Monday 9th we did a sung Evening Prayer from the Office of the Dead for Fr Keating and the next day we did his Funeral Mass with two bishops in choir. It hasn’t stopped much since then but I have been able to secure my two days off each week.

I had airbnb guests for the last two weekends. The first guests left within minutes as they had failed to read that I would be living in the house. They admitted their oversight but still had to pay me a cancellation fee. The following weekend 3 girls and a guy had booked in. I feared the worst but they were wonderful guests. I hardly heard them even though they spent almost all the time in the house. On Sunday next another guest will arrive for a month. She will be the first from a more professional agency so we’ll see how that works out.

I’m starting this blog on an auspicious day. The end of one year should not necessarily be a harbinger of anything. To think that the change of a digit makes any difference is crass stupidity but it is often the occasion to hope that things will get better. For many people there is little hope.

UK readers will have heard that President Trump denounced the paltry financial support offered to all Americans. To be fair $600 is paltry if you are desperate and it is very little if you are not. Earlier in the year the same administration gave $1200 to all its citizens (and resident aliens like myself). That was in the early stage of Covid-19 but now months have passed and such payments are completely inadequate. I feel for those who are directly affected by the financial pressures they never expected a year ago. I remember my mum feeling awkward about accepting winter heating payments when she had money. I feel the same and it such a shame that despite all our technology and algo-rhythms we cannot achieve something more means-tested and fair.

President Trump has had his moment and President-Elect Biden is in the wings. Trump has not been seen much at all! Biden is an old and experienced statesman but at least he is a statesman. With half the country voting for both candidates it is difficult to see that the future will be peaceful particularly since President Trump seems to be in denial of the electoral outcome. Will Biden deliver? I don’t know, but the promise of a return to Paris Climate Accord, to the WHO, to serious concern about Covid-19 and to dialogue in general are, at least, reasons to be hopeful.

UK readers will appreciate the seriousness of the pandemic as they have spent the last few days in lock-down. To be fair an unexpected ‘new variant’ strain of the virus was detected in London and the South East. We have highly developed detection systems in UK to thank for this discovery but already this variant has been detected elsewhere. I do hope that no one in Europe stoops to the blame culture that has been so much the pattern of the last four years here. I recognize that the possible origins of the virus were in China and that there were some unusual local cover-ups for which one young journalist is now serving 4 years in a Chinese prison for publicizing but the blame culture does not make anything better. I have always been of the opinion that when God created, God did not destroy Chaos. Cancer, earthquakes, hurricanes and viruses are all examples of Chaos breaking through what God saw to be very good. I remember someone in Scotland writing that cancer had been found in the bones of dinosaurs!

Two of my friends through the Iona Community have died this year. Both were only 62, the same age as myself. The Community celebrated both lives with joy, honesty and tears. I was able to pray simultaneously with friends gathered in Glasgow for one of these lives, Graham. I had managed to get the texts send to me and with another Iona friend who was visiting Florida with family we gathered at 6am to join with the prayer for Graham Maule, singer, liturgist, wordsmith, architect, social drinker and what they in Glasgow would call ‘ a big man’. Peter was Leader of the Iona Community for much of the period I have been in USA. Before I left I spent a weekend with New Members in which a shopping trip attracted me to a banana protector. I will never forget the astonishment on Peter’s face when I showed him my purchase.

I am glad to have survived 2020. I suspect that increasingly future years will be full of similar griefs.

How has the virus affected you? For me, I have continued going into work. I was offered the chance to work from home but felt that for my employer to unexpectedly open an office in my home was a massive invasion. I can be perfectly safe in my office so that is where I continued. The detail of my job has changed. There is no choir to rehearse or delight in but in its place there are several Cantors whose ministries have become so important. Until Pentecost we had only live-stream Masses but since then we have opened up the church. My usual regime of 6 Masses over a weekend was reduced to four and I welcomed this imposition. Although attendance is rising we are still able to keep people safe. You have to remember that in Florida’s climate we can always open up the sides of the church to let air in and people experience the liturgy from outside. But there are still families and individuals and choir members I miss. There was one young woman who got married two years ago and I hadn’t seen her since the pandemic broke. The mind comes up with all sorts of explanations (and of course, the obligation to celebrate Mass is still lifted) but when I saw here a month ago the reason was clear. She was heavily pregnant and gave birth on 22 December. This is a sign of hope, and I need to encounter this.

I have been ‘lucky’.

I can still visit a local Irish Bar. It is an outside bar which we are told reduces the risk of transmission and I keep to a small cohort of people with whom I relate. We need to do this. It’s not just the alcohol we consume but we need the interested company of our friends.

I can still do the job I enjoy and it pays the mortgage. OK, we didn’t get a pay rise because the church collections dropped but this is far better than the experience of many. Financially I took a hit on Airbnb which was becoming something of a second business. I also lost income from the fact that I could not teach organ to my scholarship students at Jesuit High School but in the big picture I was doing OK. Of course this was probably not the best year to decide to refinance and reduce the term of my mortgage but there you go. Who has a crystal ball?

Where the virus hit me most was in my ability to travel and more particularly to return to UK for what has become an annual visit to see brothers and more importantly my mum. She has not been so well this year and this makes the enforced separation more painful. I am lucky that I have great brothers who ensure that important decisions are well-made. I speak with mum regularly and she is still ‘mum’.

I know we all hate Zoom meetings but this and other platforms have enabled us to connect. I can skype-phone my mum easily. She doesn’t need top go to the computer anymore. WhatsApp has been great with the rest of my family particularly because we know that mum will not use it! we need to remain connected. That is why I fear the worst with the current generation of students. Whether you are are in university or school at whatever level the importance of social interaction cannot be underestimated. Of course children can be awful to each other and this can provoke young minds to feel inadequate and depressed and even to end their lives but the day to day interaction with your peers is really important. We humans spend a long time in a close -knit family and then we gradually introduce others so that they come to realize that these new encounters can be safe. The birth of virtual schooling may prove that there is more to learning in school than we ever realized.

So what of the time since my last blog?

I got pulled over by the Police for running a red light. Moments earlier I had realized that I had left my office keys, diabetic medications and wallet in the office and was anxious to get there before they closed. I agreed with the female officer that I wondered if I had run the light. She asked me for my licence, which I could not produce because it was in my wallet at work. When I told her where I worked she returned to her car and ran my plates against my name. She returned stating that the offence would have cost me $240 and 3 points but that today was my lucky day. She gave me a ticket for non-disclosure of the license and days later I went to the Court and showed my license and was freed on payment of $10. Phew! I think the english accent might have had something to do with it!

I was delighted to be invited to play in the opening recital of the new organ at local Christ the King Church. I played Vierne’s Carillon de Westminster which I thought would be a good tribute to my origins and organ builders in general. there were 9 organists from the Dioceses who played but they did me the especial honour of asking me to close the recital.

For the last few months I have been composing a psalm for each forthcoming Sunday. I’ve been in the business since I was 13 so 49 years later i have a few ideas of my own! It’s been a great project for the creative person in me. I don’t ask that anyone publish them but you never know, someone might like them when I’m gone. I shared one of them with a n English composer-friend and he advised me to leave it in my bottom drawer. I understood the advice but the parish (and more to the point the Pastor) loved it!

I love kayaking but it’s been cold here. By that I mean that there has been reason to wear a sweat-shirt for the last two weeks. This is unusual. But I am pleased to report that warm weather has returned. Kayaking again seems possible. Today we reached 83F but don’t ask me what that is in Centigrade. America uses Fahrenheit and Europe does not but UK used to. I wonder if that will change?

A few hours ago UK left the European Community. I voted to remain because I felt that this was for the Common Good. I suppose I feel that at last it has been done and I admire the negotiators on both side for delivering something when this seemed unlikely. Time will tell what the detail delivers. I am pleasantly surprised by the more conciliatory language from both camps over this and I am certainly not depressed that Nigel Farage (whose name I continue to pronounce in the same way as ‘garage’ ) has not appeared on the Queen’s New Years Honours List. Such is royal wisdom!

I do wonder about Scotland that was told that appeals for independence could not be countenanced until Brexit was completed. That time has arrived so watch this space, friends.

I leave 2020 in good health albeit dented by neck pain. In 2012 in UK a car crashed into me while on a bike. Later in USA I was ‘rear-ended’ twice and this exacerbated my injuries which seem to be severe in terms of herniated disks. Recently this has become a real problem. I went to a friendly chiropractic but it did not relieve things for long. 2021 will be the year I explore solutions to this.

2021 will also bring me a new niece via Richard and Camille. Their wedding was every bit worth the journey home a few years ago and I’m hoping that as soon as I am able (two quarantines providing) I will be able to meet the latest member in what is the great family Jakob!

Happy New Year and peace and love to all!

Winter in Florida is a fleeting thing. For about a week now I have had my cashmere coat out of the wardrobe where it generally hangs neglected until I return to England or join fellow composers for the Liturgical Composers Forum in St Louis in January/February.

This year has been remarkable in that earlier this week I awoke to a temperature of 73F and three days later it was 38F! The cold becomes a talking point and then this topic disappears from the agenda although I do note that a further cold front is due next week. This is unusual.

President Trump is less on my mind at this time. His successor has been acknowledged in a veiled manner but the transition has begun, albeit delayed. It seems clear that Climate Change and the Paris Accord, Health and the WHO are both back on the agenda. Numbers infected by Covid-19 continue to rise to an alarming extent and the President-Elect has today given notice that he will be calling for 100 days of mask wearing from Day 1 of his Presidency and Dr Fauci has been retained. At this stage these signals are positive (though not to so many whose voting did not elect a President).

I spent Thanksgiving with 5 friends. We ate well, drank well and played an assortment of games. Dominoes and Left-right-center were the predictable favourites. Unfortunately the celebrations ended early as drink prompted anger in one player and departure in us.

I awoke the following morning feeling fine and so decided to go kayaking. I entered the garage and to my horror the side door was open. Worse than that the gates were wide open and the kayak and trailer were gone! I discovered that the buggers had even removed all the kayak accessories from the shelves. I returned inside the house and was about to call the police when, looking outside I saw my car on the road with the kayak and trailer already attached! Clearly the Thanksgiving drinks affected my memory as well as the mood of one of my friends!

My lodger, Maurice, confirmed a few days ago that the apartment he was holding out for had become available early. Therefore he is set to leave my place on Monday. He has been so quiet that I will barely miss him! I am hoping to begin hosting with a new agency in the near future.

After 3 years being contracted to ADT security services I have decided to change my alarm system. At $65 per month it is just too expensive. Another provider will give a similar service for only $24. It’s a no-brainer, I hope.

Due to Covid this year’s Christmas Children’s Play before the 4pm Christmas Vigil Mass has been abandoned. I have seized the opportunity to put something different in its place and have chosen MICHAEL MOUSE published by the Iona Community. This should be an amusing and thought-provoking alternative to the script we have used for the last many years. There will be 6 more mature children playing the parts of animals, a narrator and two adults providing the voices of the animals. I’m hoping to download animal noises from the internet as holding auditions for adults who can perform animals sounds might be too challenging!

The inaugural organ recital at the neighboring Catholic Church went well and was attended by many despite the safe-distancing required. I played Louis Vierne’s Carillon de Westminster as the finale of the Recital.

I continue to compose a psalm setting each week and next week will put to paper a less ‘meek and mild’ version of the Magnificat psalm.

Some of you will remember that I’ve suffered a few whiplash incidents in my time. The worst was when I was still in Sheffield and free-wheeling downhill on my new cycle when a driver cut across me blinded by the sun. This induced considerable trauma to my neck and much physiotherapy followed. in my early days in USA I was twice stationary at lights when a car hit me in the rear. This must have aggravated what was already diagnosed a severe pinching of the nerves. I have not had any treatment for four years and now am suffering considerable pain. The good news is that I can visit a doctor (from the parish) who will give treatments over three visits and this will either ease things or force me to look for alternatives.

Getting old is not for softies!

I remember, when I used to holiday in Goa, India, being amused by the locals who in the morning would seen dressed in coats, scarfs and woolen hats. Clearly they were feeling the cold when we tourists were in beach attire! Now I understand what they felt. The temperatures during the day now are in the 80sF but in the morning the temps are closer to 60F and in the evening 70F. I have clearly become accustomed to the Florida weather and now feel the cold at 70F! So today for the first time I went to my local bar, O’Briens Irish Bar, wrapped in my cashmere coat. The only other time I have worn it in USA has been when I have joined composer colleagues in St Louis, Missouri in what is a very cold January/February. Of course I also have worn it when I travel to UK! Friends who found my attire amusing at first became a little jealous when the sun set.

The political temperature has mellowed somewhat. POTUS Donald Trump will offer no indication that he is beaten. He even sacked someone who dared to speak the truth that the election was not rigged. On the other side the Hoe Biden is seemingly impeded by potus Donald Trump’s refusal to begin the transition process despite the failure of his legal cases and clear indications that recounts will not introduce significant change to the election result. On the good side the acrimony between friends who happen to be on different sides of the political spectrum is waning and the streets are no longer populated with Republican protesters in denial.

Every day we awake to better news about the vaccine but this is accompanied by the news that potus Donald Trump has still not acceded and opened the dialogue which will enable his successor to be briefed on national security and covid-19 plans.

I see that UK is in total lock-down. I wish they would contemplate something like that here. Cases are rising exponentially across USA and in Florida today several mayors requested that the Governor De Santis take stronger action across the State which remains the 3rd in the awful league of coronavirus cases. I doubt he will break ranks while potus Donald Trump is around!

People are steadily returning to church at St Lawrence and weekly collections are somewhat depressed at 25k. In California I hear that the churches are enduring much more severe restrictions and many are asking their Pastors to resist the restrictions.

At St Lawrence we continue with cantors and me providing the music and this is being well-received. I am continuing to compose a fresh lyric setting of the psalm for each week and this creative surge is good for me. This weekend I will be one of nine diocesan musicians who will together play the inaugural recital of a newly extended and rebuilt organ in the neighboring parish of Christ the King. The local Spirit FM radio station will record it for later transmission. The organ building work is not complete yet but there is so much that is and it is a wonderful amalgam of pipes and digital sounds. It is a rare occasion when organists get to hear each other play so this recital will be that rare occasion. I will be playing Louis Vierne’s Carillon de Westminster and they have done me the honour of placing me last in the programme! I can remember playing this piece at St George’s College, Weybridge when I was a late teenager. I then also played it in Paris in my 20s but only revisited again last year for a recital on the new organ at Jesuit High School Tampa. I thank God for muscle memory! The rigorous teaching of Stephen Hicks demanded that I used the same fingering all the time and I am so grateful for that.

For the last 2 weeks I have hosted a fellow drinking friend until his new rental property becomes available at the start of January. He is so quiet that it has been an easy task.

Not so quiet have been recent evenings. Last Saturday a young guy appeared in the park just over my backyard fence. The area with all the children’s play equipment is well lit so this guy must have felt it was a bit like Broadway. So from 10pm until after midnight he was singing at the top of his voice and dancing songs from the shows. Eventually I managed to get to sleep. When he started up again at 6am I had had enough and called the Police. He was moved on but not arrested for the disturbance. Police are understandably reluctant to put folk in cells in this time of Covid. he wa back the following evening but was more subdued in volume!

The leaves are still falling on my pool but each day to a lesser extent, thankfully. I will deal with that tomorrow or Friday which have become my weekend. I will then work Saturday and Sunday and then be off for 5 days with Thanksgiving on the Thursday. I’m going to spend that day with friends from the bar whose company I enjoyed so much at the same event last year. I have been advised not to bring my posh plates or my margarita machine. It seems that Thanksgiving dinners are not as formal as some of our celebrations in UK.

I will enjoy the rest!

It’s the afternoon of the night before. Last night saw the declarations from the US Elections begin to trickle in. There has been a long history of uncertainty even the following morning as to what the final result might be and this election was no different. What has been different is the standing President has been posturing about election fraud and even declared himself the winner. For both statements he had no evidence. The truth is that all elections are not over until every vote is counted and even then in the case of a dispute or legal challenge the decision may change. It does seem that the successful candidate will not win by a ‘landslide’ (as many Trump supporters have said) but by a narrow margin. Biden manages to maintain at least a certain decorum, the opposite of the sitting President who trashing about with threats of going directly to the Supreme Court shows that he does not even understand legal process.

I’ll be happy when the whole thing is over. It has cost millions of dollars and so much time which surely might have been better spent on alleviating the pressure on ordinary folk and businesses caused by Covid-19 and this administration’s woeful mismanagement of it. How is it that in the UK we manage elections so much more speedily?

Last Wednesday I paid my 3-monthly visit to the doctor and informed him that, as I had only just learned, President Trump would be holding a rally in Tampa the following day. I suggested to him that he would doubtless be busy in the near future! He advised me that with this type of infection there are usually four spikes and we are on only on the second!

Covid cases are on the rise again throughout USA (as in Europe) and Florida is no exception. One of my colleagues asked me what had happened in Tampa that the numbers had risen so drastically yesterday. I replied that Trump held a rally here only last Thursday! Yet these political rallies, and there have been about five with Trump in the each of the last few days, have all the characteristics of ‘super-spreader’ events according to Dr Fauci. From the very top there seems to be acceptance that masks are unnecessary. Folk with this opinion would not even be allowed entry to a supermarket without one so how do the same people feel it is OK to act irresponsibly at a rally?

Later in the evening after Trump’s visit to Tampa I visited my local, O’Briens Irish Pub. The car lot was unusually packed with large trucks each sporting large flags and placards displaying the owner’s Republican affiliation. Inside the bar (which is really an outside tiki bar) red shirts and MAGA hats and loud conversation were the order of the day. It was just a little intimidating as visitors set the tone for the habitual drinkers. It appeared that the rally organizers were among this gathering. Indeed when I saw the newsreel of Trump at the rally I recognized 3 of his local ‘henchmen’ among those gathered in O’Brien’s. People who would have shared time together most days were almost in rival camps. It was awful. At least I was grateful that one of the organizers asked me first if I wished to be in a group photo opportunity he was creating.

Walmart have cleared all their guns from the shelves. They clearly are expecting unrest and indeed this may follow. If the President has already started trumping about electoral fraud before the counting is over and without any evidence then confidence in the system (which saw him elected last time) will have been threatened.

MAGA (make America great again) might be a laudible aim, except that it may already have been ‘great’. Rifkin was never may favourite politician but even he this morning said that the world needs America to be great again and that their willful absence from Climate talks, World Health Organisation and many other fora upsets the balance of power in the world. Standing apart from dialogue with China does nothing but increase the power of China.

Let’s change the subject if not the location! I was in O’Briens a couple of days ago whenit became clear that one of the customers considered that when the English and Spanish arrived on the shores of America they found no one there. Pushed on this she really thought that the invaders were the only folk around. Another advised that the American indians were there long before. And I added that the Irish American indians were also there seeking to defend the shores by throwing potatoes at the ‘immigrants’ and layering cabbage leaves on the beach to impede their progress (because there was a lack of banana skins). She lapped this up too!

Bert is 77 years of age, rides a Harley and, dressed in leathers with long grey hair and a ‘cowboy hat’, looks every bit the Hell’s Angel. He was a fighter pilot in Vietnam and later flew passenger jets all over the world. He’s a great guy and while he was away up north over the summer he let another friend live for free in his house. Now he’s back that friend is staying with me. I was happy to help him out. I was not happy when I discovered last night that he had been helping himself to half of a cooked pork loin I was saving for a decent meal after a long day at work! Grrrr!

I’m really pleased to be keeping up with my decision to compose a psalm setting a week. It’s beginning to form a substantial corpus of music set to the new psalm texts. I’m also pleased to be invited to play for the inaugural recital of a newly extended hybrid (digital and pipes) organ in the neighboring parish. Already the largest pipe organ in the diocese it now has a new console to accommodate 4 manuals and an additional forty stops. I went to try it out yesterday and it certainly packs a punch! I’ll play Vierne’s Carillon de Westminster. Thank God for muscle memory! The resident musician has invited nine diocesan organists to take part and they’ve put me last on the programme!

The liturgical composer David Haas still commands much negative attention. A 28-page document details his modus operandi and statements from victims which make his description as a serial sexual abuse perpetrator very credible. The local bishop must have thought so too as on Friday he released a statement which effectively banned him and his music from the diocese.

I’m loving the changes to my working week. I now work Saturday through Wednesday which gives me 2 consecutive days of effective weekend. So here I am on Wednesday afternoon back home typing up this blog. Tomorrow I will probably go kayaking and Friday will potter around the house until the early evening when I have a wedding to play for .

The weather has suddenly changed. At night the temps drop to around 60F but during the day they climb to mid 80s. The clocks have just gone back so our mornings are brighter earlier and evenings darker sooner. My AC stopped last week and so I called out the installer, a parishioner. He sent out a technician within the hour who fixed the issue. We Brits really need additional tuition in the use of AC systems. We don’t need them back home so filters and leaks are just another challenge.

Stay safe and, if you are an American reading this, stay peaceful until the dust settles on the Election and truth emerges anew.

It has rained much of today or at least when I wasn’t in church! I was awoken by the rain at 2am, drove through it at 7am and left work in it at 1.30pm and has rained several times since then. So now it’s past 6pm and I thought I’d update my blog.

The big news was the announcement by brother Richard and wife Camille that they have a baby due in April. I’m hoping that Coronavirus may have reduced its grip on the world and that I might be able to visit near the birth. It might be a forlorn hope as UK looks certain to announce increased restrictions tomorrow and there are spikes all over the world. In Florida, or at least in Hillsborough County, it is still a very present threat. Two weeks ago I was showing symptoms and went to get tested. I must applaud the fact that this was most efficient. The test was administered exactly at the time I had booked and the result arrived 26 hours later! It was negative. Phew. The previous week I had had a ‘flu shot and may have had an adverse reaction to this. I worked from home much of the following week.

I continue to get used to my new Nissan Rogue. It has an intelligence greater than mine and the downloadable manual runs to 600 pages or is available at a cost of over $200! I have now got to grips with the cruise control which I find very useful … it even slows the car down if i get too close to the car in front! However I need to learn how to diasble its ‘intelligence’. On Friday I decided to go kayaking which meant towing a trailer. All was fine until it came to moment when I attempted to reverse the trailer into a slot close to the water. The system applied the brakes … the reverse gear camera saw a kayak behind the car and presumable did not want me to hit it! I manged to manhandle the trailer to the required position and refix the trailer to my car much to the amusement of the locals!

I’ve managed to keep up with the composing of a psalm setting each week. Publishers are not interested in psalms, it would appear, but this has not dampened my zeal. Today’s psalm was Psalm 23, one of the most popular psalms (The Lord is my shepherd) and my Cantors at St Lawrence really worked hard to deliver it.

There is a closed group of composers I belong to. In fact they have been my greatest inspiration since arriving in USA. One of our number is the liturgical composer David Haas on whose activities a report has been produced by IntoAccount which in its 22 pages absolutely cites him as a sexual predator active for over 41 years with at least 44 victims coming forward to date. This has been devastating news for us but the group as acted most appropriately and in fact has explored this whole situation with survivor-centered sensitivity. One of the staggering statements from a statistical point of view was that it was likely that in our number there would be the perpetrator, the aware and the survivor. The use of his music in our churches today constitutes a continued assault on the survivor whether we know their presence in our communities or not. In future months the truth of David Haas will spread more widely and rather than ask for the legal system to deal with it (unlikely) we will have to center our actions on the survivor’s perspective and the great many survivors who do not even know who David Haas is , but who will feel more pain if we do nothing. In y own church I have decided not to use his music at all, and thereby not to grant him further income from royalties.

On September 24 I was invited to speak to the Tampa City Council in defense (from a biblical stance) of the expansion of Goodwill Industries hidden service as a provider of accommodation for ex-prisoners who having served their time need somewhere to settle so that they don’t return to earlier ways. An added delight was that the Council Chairperson recognized me from church and wanted to publicly acclaim what I do. Another also praised the Christian witness in my address. I am more delighted that the council approved the expansion!

After months of campaigning we are finally approaching the final run-up to the election. Of course in Uk we’d get this all done in 6 weeks or so but here in USA there is enough money floating around (and corporations wanting more power) that they can make it last a year. The Presidential debate was a lamentable farse, and then the nation paused while POTUS endured his personal coronavirus (with doctors in both the White House and the local Hospital on hand to provide the full gamut of care and obfuscation). The debate between the Vice-Presidents showed the power of Harris in asserting order when she wished to speak in the debate. In my own friendship group people whisper their criticisms of the present incumbent behind hands hiding lips. So much for the freedom of speech, eh? Division is the new normal, soon to be replaced, I pray.

How long will it be before the mask is lifted to reveal the irresponsibility of the maskless? And what about care of our poor, jobless, elderly and those waiting longer for life-changing operations?

We endured a cool snap in Tampa at the end of September but after a few days of temperatures which dropped to 78F in the late evening I am pleased to say it was short-lived.

Leaves continue to fall into my pool which provides me (and my pool cleaning machine) something close to exercise. I may not overdo this!

Today marks 6 years since I left UK for a new life in Tampa, Florida USA. A few days ago was the third anniversary of me ‘buying’ a house here (8 September) and of hurricane Irma sending a tree limb into my roof (10 September).

A wise woman told me many years ago that we should ‘grow where we are planted’. I remain wholly British but now capable of misspelling words much to the approval of the local tribe. I heard a few days ago that Americans hold their freedom very dear. I’m sure we all do, and some in the world don’t even have a sense of it! Whatever our freedoms are they must be tempered by common sense. However, as one of my Airbnb guests said, having destroyed a sunlounger by placing her voluminous, body directly onto the bands without adding the cushions, “common sense? …. It ain’t that common”.

So my neighbor in conversation with me recently was quite happy to spend time in close conversation, even occasionally fisting my arm in that strangely masculine way of showing bonhommie, before informing me that his family had been tested positive for Covid! I didn’t subsequently become infected so I’m presuming it must have been more than 14 days ago.

A drinking friend was with me at a party one Saturday night and left to join more of my friends at another party. She had to sleep over because she was drunk but the following afternoon was back getting very drunk in the Irish bar I frequent, swearing rather too loudly at a TV screen on which occasionally appeared Tom Brady, the latest, outrageously expensive purchase of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Friends, seeing her leaving, stopped her from heading to her car for quite a long drive home. She needed to visit the toilet but instead diverted to her car. With much relief I learned the next day that she had arrived home safely realizing how dumb she had been. Common sense ain’t that common.

A few days ago, I had a Frontier internet/cable engineer visit the house to get me back online. In the 5 hours of his work here he changed every unit that had not been changed for a while but was still scratching his head. In the last 10 minutes he discovered a cable was twisted and having replaced this minor item finally got the job done. Common sense ain’t that common.

Amid all this lack of common sense we have an election for one of the most powerful positions in the world. People here are so entrenched in their voting habits that it would seem that nothing will shift their allegiance to varying degrees of incompetence. Yesterday I spoke with a man who shared with me that this was not his habit, that his vote would be cast on how one party or the other might affect his own socioeconomic condition. There was nothing about the common good in his thinking … just ‘what’s in it for me’.

You can imagine my delight when a catholic media group, Faith in Public Life, offered a rallying call that expressed that the Church is not into single issue politics, that pro-life concerns, however valid, are not the sole concern of the Catholic Church. It bluntly described Trump as ‘a threat to Catholic values’ a contrary position to that Trump was seeking by aligning himself with pro-life.

https://drive.google.com/file//1gJKsColm70tLGhGAQQ35_1292sPCTbLx/view

www.faithinpubliclife.org/

Readers outside USA will want to know about the weather. This is the hurricane season here which lasts until November but we’re now in the middle of it. There are a few storms brewing but so far we have been lucky in Tampa. Earlier this week a hurricane changed course in the Bay and hit the northern parts of Florida bringing torrential rain bands to Tampa. At this time of year you expect regular daily downpours at 4pm then the temperatures are at their highest but these have been more erratic of late.

Musically, I have tried to discipline myself to composing a psalm setting each week. Without thinking this had led me to write in different styles to my norm. I still doubt that anything will ever get published as publishing psalms can be an expensive business. Today’s psalm had a smoky blues bar feel which went down well with my smoky blues congregation! We also did Michael Joncas’ ‘Shelter me’ for the first time. There were several people struggling to hold back the tears. It’s a wonderful setting of a text that is just the perfect prayer for these times of Covid19.

In 2016 I bought a brand new 2015 Nissan Rogue. Months later they updated the model in everyway imaginable and I regretted not waiting a little longer ever since. Two weeks ago I visited a dealer and managed to achieve a trade in price that was twice the value first offered me and went ahead with the purchase of an almost new 2019 Nissan Rogue SV. It was first registered in June 2020 and returned to the dealer 2 months later with 5k on the clock. Among the many gadgets is an intelligent driving assistant which I have now switched off. Quite unexpectedly it will take over the steering or the brakes whenever it feels under threat. There is so much I have yet to learn about this car which might be delivered by reading the 580-page manual! That is not going to happen easily!

 I had two great conversations this week with good friends. One was with Helen as a result of her posting on facebook. You would have to know that after over 50 years on this planet this was her first post. You would also have enjoyed the expression of surprise on her face when I FaceTimed her. When she had recovered her composure,  I took her on a brief tour of my place here and she kindly commented on the state of the kitchen. I had earlier begun tidying up the ground floor but had not got beyond the guest lounge. So later that evening I bombarded her facebook site with a sequence of photos of those areas I’d managed to clean. It was days before photos of the kitchen followed!

The second conversation was with Peter, a friend from the Iona Community. He had recently received a cancer diagnosis and when the consultant rang somewhat sooner than expected to relay the bad news he commented on how well Peter was taking it and wished all his patients had a similarly relaxed attitude. What Peter did not tell the consultant was that he had been enjoying several pieces of flapjack laced with narcotic substances!

Today is the last day of summer and the leaves have already started falling into my pool. The next few months will be spent getting the leaves out again! What a joy!