There's a change coming

So, months have passed since my last blog entry. It's not like there's been nothing worth writing about - the current diplomatic crises, particularly with Russia and North Korea, our own political shambles and forthcoming election, the ongoing crisis in the NHS - I could go on. But when the will's simply not there, it just ain't there. That sense of despair I wrote about after Tump's election has manifested itself in my turning away from the news - for the first time in my life - and largely ignoring it.

I've still known what's been going on, of course; in the West the news media is all but ubiquitous. But that knowledge has only been broad strokes. I haven't really paid attention. Instead, I suspect like a lot of people, I've focused on personal stuff, and taking great pleasure in things that have gone well in my own life and those of the people I care about.

One of those things has been a long time coming, but is now in the process of happening. For about two years my partner and I have been seriously contemplating selling up in London and going to Spain permanently. We could see all too clearly what some of our family members are experiencing having worked hard all their lives, and hoped to avoid the same if possible and buy ourselves a little more time off work, as it were, than they've been granted. My own father died less than two years after retirement, and for around 18 months of that he was ill. My mum's stroke, which has left her partially disabled. My partner's mum is not in the best of health either, having worked bloody hard herself just as most people our parents' generation did.

Add those personal reasons to the broader stuff above, and you'd probably think we've got a pretty compelling desire to get 'out'. Well, it's a bit more nuanced than that, of course, as I'll explain below. It's taken a year to sell the house - thanks a lot, Brexit - but it's done. We're currently in Sussex, working our notice periods and getting ready to take car and cats out there. The contents of the house are already out there - more on that particular adventure in another entry. It's nearly done. I have two days' work left as I write this.

I've written in these pages before about the village where we're going to live. The work/life balance, the pace of life generally, the character of the people, the tranquility - all are considerably different to London. This is one of those chances that you have to take, I think, if the opportunity presents itself. We know what we're moving to - Viana doesn't change. It's probably not going to for the rest of our lives. Not much, at any rate. Therein lies the appeal, of course. But therein also lies the apprehension.

I said to my workmates, before my leaving drinks last Friday, that I'm extraordinarily fortunate by any measure. I've been blessed with a happy childhood, loving parents, friends that I'm proud to so name, jobs I've enjoyed. Sometimes. A partner I can never adequately live up to or properly explain her meaning to me. I've not suffered poverty or serious ill health. And anybody who knows me will know that I'm baling out on Sussex just as my football team has finally reached the top flight again after a 34-year wait. Complaining about pretty much anything at the moment would be self-absorbed to the point of solipsism and churlish in the extreme. So to be in a position to choose to make such a monumental change, to give up something that's so good anyway. maybe I'm pushing that luck?

What's swayed us, if I can speak for both of us, is the micro and the macro. That personal stuff gave us the initial trigger, and then what's going on at home and abroad seemed merely to serve up daily reminders that it was time to go. The country moving farther to the right, with a convincing Tory victory seeming likely (assuming they don't trip over their own feet as they seem to be doing their utmost to do). The appalling response of some Brits, both triumphalist and xenophobic in equal measure, to the referendum result. The erosion of the sense of tolerance and modern thinking that has always formed part of my pride in being British.

But, in London, and both working, we've been largely insulated from feeling those things personally. It's been more of a prickling sense that things aren't right out there than a jabbing pain of specificity. We've had it pretty good here compared to most. Even my partner, who's returning to her own home town in this move, has admitted to a sense of loss. Leaving a teeming London, where your door is locked overnight but anonymity is blissful and opportunity everywhere, for sleepy Viana, where your door never needs locking but everybody knows everyone else's business, will be a seismic change.

Locals have warned me about how hard it is over winter. Long, dark nights. Cold. Not seeing the sun. (I have to misquote Billy Connolly here - where do they think I'm from? Benidorm? Brits go whole summers without seeing the sun...) But the summers there are long, warm and reliable. We'll be able to travel. Getting back to Britain to see family and friends is cheap and relatively easy. If you're a child, or of a certain age where yoof stuff is no longer important, there can't be too many better places to be than Viana. We hope our friends will come and visit us, so we can share out just a little of that good fortune in our own hospitality.

So there may not be too much happening to us specifically which prompts me to write here, but who knows? I have so much to learn about leaving the London mindset behind permanently and settling in to another culture, that it may prove a rich seam. I'll keep you posted.




Edit: having just posted this, I've just seen the appalling news coming out of Manchester. Exactly the sort of horror that only happens in places where the shock value of it can be maximised. The likely ages of the victims of this atrocity, when they come out, are going to make unbearable reading. My thoughts with families and friends of everybody affected up there.

Fred deserves a place in the pantheon of sporting greats

One of the greatest spectating moments in my life occurred at the Oval in the decisive Test of the last home Ashes series. A full house that was as pumped as a football crowd when the teams came out, knowing that they could be there to witness the Ashes regained, had been quietened by a long partnership between Australia's admirable skipper Ricky Ponting and Hussey, who between them had added 127 for the third wicket. They looked set fair to bat deep into the day, frustrate England and deny a full house the chance to see the urn lifted.

Step forward Freddie Flintoff. A direct hit from mid-off as the Aussies run for what looks like a straightforward single sends the off-stump cartwheeling and Ponting back to the pavilion. The run-out had to be checked by the fourth umpire but Flintoff knew, already knew, that he had his man. Standing with both arms in the air on the last day of his Test career, the stage was his and he'd turned the Test back towards England in an instant. It was a fantastic moment, a colossus of world cricket standing like a victorious invading king, dominating a stage suitably grand to host his talent and his impact on the game.

So I got to see England lift the urn on the fourth day of the fifth Test of the 2009 series, comfortably the best moment of a long few months which saw me out of work, in debt to friends and family and generally feeling at a low ebb. All that, everything, just for a few glorious hours, was forgotten, and with the exception of those clad in green and gold in that stadium, spirits were lifted into the stratosphere by a team galvanised by another moment of genius from a man who'd provided so many of them.

Flintoff was hugely popular not just because of his ability but because of the man he was, and is. A modern-day Botham, unpredictable, unconventional, aggressive, intimidating to play against, and with, I wouldn't be surprised to hear. He battled jibes about his weight early in his career, the disapproval of the men in suits (and his own coach) with his off the field antics and the expectation of the most boisterous and numerous supporters in Test cricket. Cricket fans loved him because he came across as one of us, but with all the talent we weren't born with, collectively, distilled into him. He was seen basically shit-faced on the celebratory open-topped bus after the 2005 Ashes series victory. What a disgrace, the stuffed shirts said. What a hero, the equally inebriated fans thought - he's celebrating as hard as we are, there's a man who knows how much it means to people because it means as much to him.

For me the moment which defines him as a great is the iconic shot of him consoling Brett Lee in the immediate aftermath of England's victory in the Edgbaston Test of that never-to-be-forgotten 2005 series. Australia so nearly hung on to dash England's hopes of victory, only to be denied, desperately, at the last. Amid wild celebration, Flintoff took a moment to console the Aussie paceman and congratulate him on what he'd come so close to achieving with the bat. It showed, in one moment, that Freddie Flintoff understands cricket better than anybody who'd criticised him for any of what they thought of as his misdemeanours, and fully deserves the plaudits that will doubtless rain down on him now. Enjoy your retirement, Fred.