Moving House & Making Decisions

Moving House is the 3rd most stressful thing in life after Death & Divorce. I've experienced 1 & 3 several times. It's stressful because it involves having to cope with a transition in life. It's about change & unfamiliarity & for many people that causes stress & anxiety. You have no control over anything.

I put my house on the market at the beginning of September in 2019. It's been a long, difficult road. Trying to move when Brexit had devastated the house market & then Covid changed life for us all has not been an easy experience. My house did sell, but one buyer withdrew at the beginning of Covid because he had a house in Italy. Several supposedly keen buyers weren't proceedable & couldn't sell their houses. My current buyer has been extraordinarily patient & has stuck with me, for which I am very grateful.

Finding an appropriate house to buy has also been difficult. I want to downsize in a particular location where most houses have 4-5 bedrooms on 3 floors. Because of the shortage of this type of house I've always been in competition with someone else. So the houses have gone to "best & final" offers. My current prospective house is the only one I have won. Every suitable house I have considered has been in need of a lot of work, which would be expensive & time consuming. Most would not be livable in while the work was going on. So I have to be prepared to rent. Renting for a couple of months is also difficult.

I went through months thinking that I was buying a perfect house in a retirement property, but had to withdraw because of problems with the Management & the Lease. I had to start all over again after making the hard decision to withdraw.

All through this process I have tried to remain calm & positive. I'm hardly living in bad conditions. I have a lovely house in a very good location. So my fall back position has been I can stay here & hope that my physical condition doesn't deteriorate.

Making decisions when you are single isn't as easy as doing it when you have a partner. I've always found that the old adage " two heads are better than one" works. Someone else's perspective & experience is always good, however hard you try to research & be informed. But at the end of the day you are the one who has to decide.

 

So much rides on these decisions. It is literally your life, your home, your happiness & comfort. 

I have no idea whether the decisions I have made will be the right ones. What I do know is that:- 

• I do want to downsize
• My new house has great potential
• Re furbishing will be expensive & time consuming
• The interim period will be difficult - I may be a 76 year old sofa surfer! 

It is a challenge & a project. Maybe my last one. I really hope that it works.

 

Dreams & Reality

My dreams, when I was young, were quite different to my dreams today. When I was young the world was very different. Much simpler. I just wanted to be happy & free. As a child, I wanted to be secure & loved. I wanted friends to play with & freedom to do that. I didn't understand a lot that was going on around me in the 10 year aftermath of a world war.

As a teenager I wanted to succeed at school, both academically & in sports. I wanted freedom from restriction even more. I was rebellious, but I still wanted approbation. I wanted to be House Captain & a Senior Prefect - I achieved both. I wanted to go to college to get away from a retrictive & controlling mother - Thank goodness I achieved that too, because Grammar school & College shaped me.

As an young adult I always wanted to reform situations I was in & right wrongs. I was headstrong & let my emotions rule my logic sometimes. I wanted the world to be a better, fairer, place. I could see injustice & inequality & wanted to change that for the better. I felt education was the way to achieve that. Then I wanted to be in charge - hence I became a headteacher.

The thing about life is, that if you let it, it will teach you valuable lessons. That is what life is for, a pathway to a better you. By the time you are a better person it's probably too late because people tend not to listen to you when you are old. They think that you are locked in the past.

Now I know more & I can clearly see the path humanity is on. My dreams of a fairer world are frankly shattered. We have made a complete mess of our relationships with eachother & our relationship with the superb ecosystem we live in. We are a destructive species, driven by tribalism, money, power & posessions. That is the reality I see. It isn't pretty & if we don't change our behaviour it will destroy us.

But, we are also a uniquely inventive & intelligent species. We can turn this around. My dream is that we will step back from the edge of the precipice, understand the reality of what we have created & do something about it.

There is the reality, possibly of Armageddon. There is also the dream,  not quite Utopia, but certainly sustainable & equitable.

Which do you choose?

 

Regenerative Agriculture - No Till Farming

I have been listening to the reading of the Sunday Times bestseller "English Pastoral - An Inheritance" by James Rebanks who also wrote " A Shepherds Life". It makes me want to weep at what we have lost, which I am lucky enough to be able to remember. I can also remember the coming of the agribusiness farmer & the complete change they wrought on the landscape & wildlife. All in the name of higher production & more profit.

Many years ago I remember coming home from a springtime walking holiday in the wilds of Greece, surrounded by an idyllic landscape filled with wild flowers & butterflies. The farmer, whose fields surrounded my house, had not only created huge fields, constantly spraying & planting right up to the hedge margins, but he had killed every blade of grass in the field adjoining my house. The whole field was a wasteland. He was very annoyed when I wrote to the local paper about my environmental concerns.

Man has managed to ruin one of the most basic & important elements of the world we live in. We have created soil depletion & erosion. There is less & less natural organic matter, which makes soil naturally fertile. We have disturbed the natural water cycle & contaminated that most precious & basic necessity to life. We have also contaminated our own enviromnemt, resulting in unhealthy effects on ourselves.

 

Monitoring water and the impact on the environment

We have saturated the land with herbicides & pesticides & been forced to use more & more artificial fertilizers containing methane, carbon dioxide, ammonia, and nitrogen. Pesticides contain organophosphates which have a deadly effect on the nervous stystem. Fertilizers pollute waterways, can cause chemical leaf burn, increase air pollution, cause soil acidificatioon & mineral depletion.

In turn emissions from these have contributed to a great extent to the quantity of greenhouse gases present in the environment. This in turn is leads to global warming and weather changes. 

Generations of farmers have turned their back on traditional methods of farming, which husbanded the land & valued soil quality. That has had a devastating effect on earthworm & insect populations. Because of the interconnectedness of nature, these depleted food sources have caused the decimation of birds.... And so it goes on right through the food chain. 

A perfect storm of destruction. We are literally biting the hand that feeds us.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenerative_agriculture

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-till_farming

https://www.healthline.com/health/organophosphate-poisoning#symptoms

http://www.sallefarms.co.uk/crop-rotation/

There is another way. We do know how to do it better. We need to change all food production radically, before it's too late.

Not Moving

Yesterday was my birthday - 76 young👵

It wasn't what I expected. I withdrew from the purchase of a house in a retirement community after 4 months & spent all day dealing with the aftermath. After the morning chat with my lovely solicitor, which helped make the decision, phone calls, texts & emails all day long. Very sorry for my buyer, but I will proceed when I find somewhere to live & for the moment he is prepared to wait. I am very lucky. 

Because of the type of property it is, (leasehold), I didn't realise quite what a different ball game it is. I've always bought freehold. The set up of the retirement development was complex - 3 separate companies - C / Y T & C P. Communication was an issue, as was residents ability to have any say or control. The lease document was huge & written in a different language! There were also issues about negotiated changes to the lease itself, which only related to me personally & could well lead to sale problems down the line. The Plain English Campaign could have a field day on legal documents, including my Lease document. They certainly wouldn't give it a Crystal Mark!

http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/campaigning.html 

The whole set up was messy.

Moving house is a big deal. There is a lot of money involved, but more importantly you have to be happy & feel the property is right for you. It's a home, not an investment. You will never get a property that is perfect. You do always have to compromise on something. Generally you have to be prepared to do things to it after moving to make it really yours. I can cope with all of that.

What I can't cope with is the current way leasehold property works in the UK. It simply isn't fair to leaseholders. There has been a strong movement for years to change the law & the Government seem to have finally decided to do something about it.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-reforms-make-it-easier-and-cheaper-for-leaseholders-to-buy-their-homes

Add to that the whole situation around retirement developments & you have to have a certain type of personality to be happy with it. Generally speaking I imagine that many elderly people are relieved to hand over control to someone else & pay for the privilege. So I accept that I might be in the minority wanting to have a say & a measure of control.

I wish I'd realised all that 4 months ago!

So now I have to find somewhere to live - Quickly.

Populism - Is it really Popular?

I lead a fairly sheltered life even when I'm not shielding. I had never heard of QAnon until this year. Conspiracy theorists, Fake Newsers, the Loony Right & Left, fanatical Religious Extremists.... have always been in the dark underbelly of humanity. But now they are coming out of the woodwork & are driving an agenda of civil unrest. 

Why are we surprised, when our world is so divided between the have's & the have nots? If we marginalise people enough, if their lives are so poor, what do we expect them to do? We reap what we sow & we have sowed some pretty divisive policies. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/53498434

Populism - National Populism, Right Wing Nationalism, the Radical Right, call it what you will, is becoming more widespread. As well as the USA - France, Italy, The Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, the UK, have all gone the Populist route. Also Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. It's largely driven by immigration, economic policies & Global consumerism. Nationalism is at the centre of Populist beliefs. Trump is simply the most powerful, amoral, figurehead in the "democratic" world.

Populism believes strongly in the "corrupt elite". In the USA in particular there is a very strong ideology based on the "will of the people". Those two have come together in the belief that the "people" can use any method to overthrow the "elite". That's what we saw in Washington last weekend - a mob of  nationalist conspiracy theorists. I'm not surprised that the similarities between now & Germany between the wars have been identified. 

I remember unions fighting for jobs. I remember race riots in London & elsewhere. I remember the lights going out & the 3 day week. But things have changed since my 20's & 30's. Instant communication, mass media & social media didn't exist. They have stoked the fire & now it's burning. 

Populism is destructive. Unless we face up to what we have created & do something about it Populism will win & it will be bloody - not popular.

 

The Market - The Power of Money.

It has only been in later adulthood that I have thought of "the market" as anything other than the "streetmarket" - Places that I have always loved. After retirement, when my husband started playing with stocks & shares, I realised that there was a different sort of "Market". A Market that has become the major driver for our world & most beneficial & harmful things in our lives today. The Market has become all pervasive, creative & destructive simultaneously.

There are 2 definitions of the market - "a regular gathering of people for the purchase and sale of provisions, livestock, and other commodities" and "an area or arena in which commercial dealings are conducted". The two are completely different. The first is fairly benign. The second isn't.

Capitalism is defined as "production for a competitive market for profit - an economic system in which the private profit maximalisation motive lies at the core of its virtues and maladies". This has led to over exploitation of the world's natural resources. It depends on ever increasing, impressive, productivity and growth rates. It is totally unsustainable & destructive. It leads to wealth & power being concentrated in the hands of a few & the vast majority being marginalised.

This is the 2020 wealth list list. In fact Jeff Bezos has now been overtaken by Elon Musk who is worth $188.5 billion.

No.	Name	Net worth (USD)	Age	Nationality	Source(s) of wealth
1	Jeff Bezos	$113 billion	56	United States	Amazon
2	Bill Gates	$98 billion	64	United States	Microsoft
3	Bernard Arnault & family	$76 billion	71	France	LVMH
4	Warren Buffett	$67.5 billion	89	United States	Berkshire Hathaway
5	Larry Ellison	$59 billion	75	United States	Oracle Corporation
6	Amancio Ortega	$55.1 billion	84	Spain	Inditex, Zara
7	Mark Zuckerberg	$54.7 billion	35	United States	Facebook
8	Jim Walton	$54.6 billion	71	United States	Walmart
9	Alice Walton	$54.4 billion	70	United States	Walmart
10	S. Robson Walton	$54.1 billion	77	United States	Walmart

Personally I think this list is shocking. No one person should be able to have an income higher than some countries.

https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-by-country/

But, as well as wealth, these people & many others, have huge power to lobby governments & so affect democracy. Our very democracy has become corrupted by the Market. The recent events in America with Trump inciting a mob to overrun the Capitol shows how far this has gone. Worryingly eight out of the eleven on the wealth list are American.

If we want democracy to survive we have to do it in a different way. We have to stop the influence exerted by unelected lobbyists with huge financial resources behind them. Not to mention unelected "special advisors". We need conviction politicians who are prepared to do what is best for the people they serve & not fall into the trap set by bribery, flattery & power. 

Politics has become an arcane game. But the stakes are too high now & the price of inaction will be even higher.

 I think the World has forgotten this.

Giving a Gift

It's my birthday next Friday. I hope my 76th year will be better than my 75th.

Today I had a special Christmas gift which made me think about our whole attitude to presents. The gift was in the lovely advent calendar my daughter made for me - A promise of a pedicure. Younger readers won't understand how distanced ones hands get from ones feet as one ages. I can barely get socks & shoes on & off now. Washing my feet involves the real danger of falling over in the shower. (I can't get in & out of the bath). So a pedicure is an absolute pleasure & the fact that my daughter is prepared to do it shows a huge amount of love. My feet are really clean, my hard skin has gone, my feet have been massaged with cream & my toenails are varnished. Bliss!

I can't tell you what that all means to me. I wouldn't want to compare the situation with Mary washing Jesus's feet - but it is close! 

I really don't need anything much at all. What I need I buy when the need arises. Things don't mean much to me. What does matter is the thought that goes into a gift however expensive or cheap it is in financial terms. Often an experience is far better than a "thing". Things don't last - experiences live long in memory.

My birthday will be a joy if I can spend it with my daughter & family. We have all learned how important that human contact is during Covid 19. Sadly so many people have lost close friends & family in this last year. Truly there is little else that matters other than a home, food, financial security & health. 

I think what I am saying is that money, posessions, the lastest fashion in anything, are all transitory & mean very little. So many gifts we receive are things we don't want & end up being re-gifted or going to charity shops. What on earth is exciting about socks or jumpers? Today we do need to think hard about sustainability, recycling & waste.

A gift should be something special. Time is a gift. Being together is a gift. A hug is a gift. A conversation, listening to someone else, is a gift. Putting someone else's needs first is a gift. 

We need to give these gifts to eachother. Now more than ever.