The Pigeon, The President & The Chipboard

I hope everyone has had a fabulous Chtistmas, as always it flies by, but for me it's been nice to spend time with family and friends. I've had so many lovely presents over the years, but one that always sticks in my mind was a 6ft by 4ft sheet of varnished chipboard. You are probably thinking poor lad, but I didn't have a hard childhood, it's just that sometimes the simplest presents are the best. As a child I was a massive fan of Subbuteo and the chipboard enabled me to keep my green cloth pitch flat and smooth and it meant I could play at table level rather than scrabbling about on the floor with an uneven pitch. 

For the uneducated Subbuteo is a football game where you flick plastic players around on a green cloth pitch attempting to score goals with an oversize plastic football. I loved it. I played with friends, we had leagues and cup competitions, I had every accessory going, stands floodlights scoreboards cups and so on. There was always a raw passion and competitiveness which came from having your opponent there face to face, there has been many an argument about what constitutes a flick as opposed to a shove, (usually after I'd lost). You don't get that playing FIFA'22 on your Playbox. Anyway why am I rambling on about this, well in one of my many "when I was a lad" reminiscing sessions with my daughters, which I always assume no one ever listens to, I've mentioned the chipboard story many times, then this year for Christmas, yes you've guessed it, my youngest daughter, Meg surprised me with, no, not a piece of chipboard, but Subbuteo. So I'm looking forward to re living my childhood and if there is anyone out there fancies popping round for a game let me know.

Retirement in 2022

2022 is going to be a significant year in the Riley household as both Mrs Riley and myself are  retiring. For those that know me I'm sure you'll be sat there thinking, with my boyish good looks, he just doesn't look old enough to retire, well just to be clear it is early retirement and of course in my head I'm still a very mature 18 year old. If covid has taught me anything it is that life is just too short. I'm really excited about it although I suspect that Mrs Riley is a bit worried about spending 24/7 with me. At least while we are working from home she can escape to the office and pretend she is on a work call. She needent worry though, I have lots of projects planned; walking, gardening, reviving my stalled blogging career and travel, plus I have my chickens, dog and of course Subbuteo, in fact I'm sure I've still got my old Scalextric in the loft, I must dig it out. 

Well before all that excitement kicks in we have had my wife's 60th birthday to celebrate, I had lots of surprise plans, none of which included Omicron. Following the ridicoulous and outrageous Britain bashing by President Macron, I've been conducting a one man boycott of French products, however I thought that a temporary suspension of hostilities on my part would be a magnanimous gesture and it also meant I could take Mrs Riley to Paris for a few days. All was good until Boris announced that we had to take an antigen test in Paris before returning to the UK, I just thought the risk of extending my Gallic  capitulation for more than 3 days if we were to test positive was too great so we decided to delay our Paris trip until our retirement weekend in April.

The Throne Room

Instead of Paris we had a lovely couple of days at a sumptious and quirky boutique hotel in London, our bathroom brought a whole new meaning to the expression sitting on the throne. Just around the corner from the hotel was the Michelin starred Galvin La Chapelle, where we had a delightful meal, but who knew they could charge so much for a Bresse Pigeon breast! This did though bring to mind a post retirement opportunity, which included an air rifle and Oscar the dog, solving both our village pigeon problem and generating a nice pension top up! Wild Lincolnshire Fenland Pigeon WiLF (beware dog teeth marks) It has a nice ring to it, watch this space! The celebrations finished with a surprise appearance by the girls to join us at the Savoy Theatre to watch Pretty Woman. 

Barbados 

Phase 2 of the celebrations is a family trip to Barbados for hopefully some winter sunshine on tropical beaches and plenty of rum. I've been giving the rum a bash through Christmas, getting in training for the main event and I have to say that I quite like it, I'm not expecting that bars will be inundated with real ale out there. There has though been an air of tension in the house as we approach PCR test time, how ridiculous is it that, the whole holiday rests on someone sticking a cotton bud down your throat far enough to make you gag and then shoving it up your nostrils. To be honest I've felt a bit rough for a few days (not related to the rum), so I had been worrying about the results, I had started to visualise myself sitting at home in the cold and wet with the chickens and dog, all that rum education wasted, while everyone else was enjoying the glorious sunshine. When the results came back and they were negative it was almost more exciting than the holiday itself. 

So in the spirit of that classic song by Typically Tropical we are set for Coconut Airways Flight 372. I'll let you know if the rum training has had its desired effect. In the meantime I hope everyone has a happy and safe 2022.

Links

Batty Langleys 

Galvin La Chappelle 

There are more blogs to come in this series as we head towards our April retirement. If you have enjoyed reading this blog and you'd like to receive notification of future blogs please just add your email to the follow.it box at the top right of this page. You can read the Retirement Series of blogs here