Its day 1 in the big brother house

Actually its day 6, but as I sneaked back to London last week after four days up North, this is really the first full week.

The big challenge with integrating two houses is the amount of double bubble you have....three extra beds, two extra sofas, clothes, pots, pans, cutlery, glasses, pictures, books and other ephemera, my collection of menus from restaurants around the world being one such.....

So we have a bedroom full of stuff, which needs to be carefully sorted into piles. E-bay, tip and office are the three easiest clasifications to decide upon. Storage or usage are the trickiest. SWMBO has had sole storage rights for a number of years so her space needs to be protected as well.

So far the futon has gone to Emma and Lees spare room, the dressing table has replaced the falling apart MFI one, and most of the clothes have found a way into a wardrobe or three. Emma's bedroom has become the library, but there are still masses of books looking for homes, and just how many dictonaries does one need for practical purposes?

E-bay will take a hammering this week, and Chiswick Auction House has already disposed of some of the lesser art work we will fail to put on the wall....storage items are next.

Guess what though, just as we finish the sorting process we will find a flat in London and start the ' why did we throw that out debate' all over again....c'est la vie.

I told you so.....

I have been bleating on about the quality of the product on offer at Twickenham Stadium, as the England rugby team stumble from one shambles to the next. My prediction that the stadium will be half empty before the next World Cup has fallen on deaf ears as far as my chums at the RFU are concerned.

Today, however, in the Observer, Paul Hayward has taken up the theme, and I do wonder if he drinks in the Prince Blucher after the game, and has ear wigged my persistent bemoaning!

Wales and Ireland seem to be able to play exciting rugby even in adversity, England just cannot step up to the plate. I have no idea what the answer is although I do fear the lack of University educated players is on the decline as a result of professional rugby teams and their associated academy's trying to dumb down rugby intellect by brain washing the flair out of players.

The S Club 5 will continue to attend on a casual basis as the day, and indeed, the weekend continues to be a good craic, but the three Autumn Internationals are two too many for us already......I am reminded of the phone call once to Brentford FC....'Hello can you tell me what time kick-off is?......whenever you can get here Sir!'

I do good deal my friend

I have just returned from a few days in Marrakesh with some of the BMW golf group, and I must say this retirement business is beginning to have an appeal. We played three courses while out there and the contrasts were fascinating. I was sixth after day one but faded to end in the pack although a steady par round the back nine at Amalkis sent me hope with a smile.

To help the economy, caddies are compulsory, and I know know what an important tool in the professional armoury such a person can be. I had a nightmare on the second day, and, although I have nightmares when playing without a caddie, on this occasion I was in another place.

He gave me wrong clubs, walked me to tees, via the scenic route and was generally a bad vibe. All round I fought my inner self but sadly it won 3 and 2!!!

The bigger disappointment was that this was the day we played Marrakesh Royal golf club, a course laid out in 1920 by the top man of the time, and it has been graces by King Hussain, Winston Churchill and Dwight D Eisenhower

The characters on the tour were an equally eclectic bunch. There was a retired builder who had got his six numbers up, a publisher who spent a lot of time in the old Eastern Block. One of his big titles is 'Wheres Wally?' and the banter on tour suggested he was the role model for the character! Big Rod is in munitions, fabricating the personnel carriers we are sending our boys in Afghanistan and there were financiers, legal eagles, electricians and teachers. It was all very interesting.

So what of the city itself? well Sex in the City 2 was being filmed on location while we were there which will no doubt give a sight of the place when it is released. We really only saw the grand bizarre.It was big, but once you see one carpet stall you see them all, especially when none of them were the flying variety!

Its size inevitable led to my group getting lost in a 'maze of twisting little passages which all looked the same'.Our efforts to keep turning right did not work so we eventually had to pay a local to escort us back to the main square!

We then got taken by a hawker to an authentic Moroccan restaurant, so authentic in fact that it did not sell alcohol. We made our excuses and left. We found another which did, and threw in a belly dancer for free...

Marrakesh is about a three day resort which I probably would not return to in a hurry. Paraphrasing Tuffers view of India 'done the poverty, done the camels'

Ode to joy

So farewell then soft Limacon
a great theme we stumbled on.......

t'were full of slugs the slimy things
but once rid of them t'were musings

in tasteful remembrance
with a french cuisine semblance

Le Limacon est arrivee - phew!
lets have a buffet and barbecue

and the tradition lasted
while we all got plastered

and toasted the slugs on and on
(actually les limacons in translashion!)

but he's sold the house
and is moving to scouse

but in our mind's eye we'll still see
le limacon .... so r.i.p.

P Figgins aged 8 and a half.....arf.......

Going, going, gone......

I started this blog in May 2007 to chart the path I would follow as i put my house on the market. little did I know it would be two and a half years later that I would be reporting the conclusion of the journey.

Yes, I have finally exchanged on the sale and vacate the property on 6th November. I will be leaving London to live away for the first time in nearly 40 years, and will need to locate the nearest source of London Pride or Youngs Ordinary to avoid my liver going into shutdown.

Thanks goodness for the internet which will allow me to follow the local issues and sporting prowess of the team which i have followed for much of that time.

A lot of things have happened in the time the house has been on the market. Maxine and I have become grandparents, our oldest son, Tim has married, and our oldest daughter is engaged. A few friends have passed away, and we have mourned their loss.

We have travelled a fair bit it has to be said. Peru, Brazil, Egypt, Portugal, Chicago, Edinburgh, Rome. Paris and Cyprus have been on our schedule, as well as a cruise around the islands of the Mediterranean. At that should stand us in good stead now that my Company has cast me adrift by making draconian changes to its final salary pension scheme.

I met the CEO yesterday and asked him outright why I should stay in his Company. His reply was hopeless, and as a colleague of mine once said, 'when the lunatics start running the asylum, its time to leave' . I think they are, and I am. ETD is scheduled for 5th February at the moment which will make the England v Wales game at Twickenham the next day a bit of a blinder.

So the blog has fulfilled one role, and now it takes on a new one as it tracks my progress through early retirement, life in Scouserland and potentially a few entrepreneurial projects. Watch this space one may come to a road near you........

Flying the flag

'The best things in life are free' or so the saying goes. So I was delighted to hear that the London Evening Standard was to be given away from the beginning of this week.

I have always had a soft spot for the only surviving London evening paper. It used to be the source of cheap and comfortable flats when me and my chums were looking for student digs during the mid 70's. Each year we would take it in turns to be in Fleet Street at 9:30am when the first editions hit the street.it was then a mad dash to the nearest phone box to start ringing round and arranging viewings. We did pretty well, getting places in Northcote Road, Clapham, in Tooting not far from the Common and , of course, Devonshire Road in Balham, gateway to the South. Great days.

The London Paper, The Metro and the London Lite have all been given away at tube stations for many years, but they just never had the substance of the Evening Standard, nor its rival, The Evening News. The News perished in 1980 and but for a brief resurrection in 1987, the Standard has been the only local London 'pay to play' paper.

I have to confess I rarely purchased it, but now I am chasing the man at the tube up the street to get my free copy to read on the way home........

The Standard apart, London, and other cities are full of good free stuff, much of it advertised in afore mentioned rag. Most of the best museums are free, the stroll along the Thames thought the West End and the City is a delight, as are the buskers in the Covent Garden Piazza. The Festival Hall has Jazz every Friday night in its expansive foyer, as well as tea dances and other recitals, and the street markets all over London provide a wonderful photographic and cultural experience.

I have lived here 40 years and it will be hard to leave it all behind when I move away in a few weeks, but, hey, its only two hours away on the train, and with plenty of time to kill from next year I suspect the Capital has not seen the last of me, not by a long chalk....now I wonder where that expression came from?

Wilson, Kepple and Betty

Just back from Egypt and certainly notice the temperature difference. It was 35 degrees in the shade over there, so i stayed in the sun....groan. Did a bit of snorkeling which was pretty sub when compared to the fish and colours on display in Eilat just up the coast in Israel, and one of the little buggers bit me quite hard, drawing blood and leaving me with a mini jaws scar. I had fish and chips for dinner last night hoping I might be getting revenge on their Uncle or other close family member!

The place was full of Russians, as was Cyprus when we went last year, and I hear that some of the Greek islands are going the same way. I have a few phrases of Polish I can trot out as necessary, but had i known i would have learnt the Ruski for 'excuse me there is a queue' or ' no please feel free to open the door yourself'. Still the legs were quite impressive although what they see in their ex-U boat captain partners is beyond me.

We got back in time for Idwals funeral and it was a mighty turnout as had been expected. there was much singing and merriment and I am sure he would have looked down satisfied in the way his life was celebrated. During the eulogy it became evident how little people knew of his life outside the rugby club, he was a Labour candidate in the local elections, a strong charity worker and loving grandad to his extended family.....he also campaigned hard in recent years for an independent state for Palestine, so I wonder how he would of reacted to me in the suk's of Sharm al Sheik pointing out that they had left Israel off their maps of the middle East...seems they assume the Palestinians have a state of their own already!