18th March 2012

Hello everyone,
This is probably the last Round Robin style of letter you will get from me, certainly from this address. I am not in favour of Round Robins generally as I find them a bit impersonal for exchanges between friends. However, I recognise that they are sometimes necessary and certainly better than no letter at all. Future letters though, will be addressed to you personally, tailored for our friendship and sent from my new address which will be active from April as I plan to move at the last weekend in March. I hope to be in Lincs for a few years but as Life continues to bowl me googlies, who can tell?

There is no phone number for the moment as it is early days and I just haven’t set that up yet. I’ll let you know as soon as a number is arranged. On this subject, to my suppliers of e-mail jokes, photos, amazing facts(?) and PowerPoint presentation gems, once broadband is set up, I’ll be in touch to resume the old service.

On the matter of communications, the Ventarant forum will start in earnest and there will be a lot more additions to my blog site - Letters To My Grandchildren’s Grandchildren, which ruminates on the world that I have seen in the last sixty or so years.

For those of you with Facebook, you won’t find this new address in there - or indeed, any mention of this move. For that forum, I will continue to publish a heady mix of fact and fiction to mess up their sales of data - without our permission - to advertisers. However, I may add bits about my recent Eastern European marriage-of-convenience bride, the murder I am planning and the indecently-huge lottery win of a few months ago. Nonetheless, Facebook is an important outlet for people who want to share the fact that they have beans on toast for dinner and are not looking forward to the ironing. Revelations of this nature are intensely personal so we must thank Facebook for providing the opportunity to publish such intellectual gold.

My new place is a bungalow in a quiet tributary of a cul-de-sac, set on a relatively new estate; something in the style of Steeple View. A walking distance pub and nearby golf courses nearby have been identified but are still to be explored. It has three bedrooms so the second one (rather large) will be adopted as a study/music room, with the smallest one for guests.

There is a garage for Mum’s stuff, the accumulated sentimental detritus of an octogenarian's lifetime plus photos and LPs, Grandma D’Abreo’s wedding present crockery from India and Dad’s tools, again saved for their sentimental value. I wouldn’t know how to use them. They’re a bit technical (and calibrated in Imperial) as he was an engineer. Plus my golf stuff and the gardening/ barbecue equipment. The garden is small and happily, South-facing with a patio, somewhere to enjoy the evening sunshine in the coming months and muse on the capricious hand that Life deals when in playful mood. I thought in retirement, that Life would get simpler. Apparently, I am the only simple element in this equation.

As a gardener, I am looking forward to the Spalding Tulip festival on the first Saturday in May. Looks like I’ve timed it just right, although… the early arrival of spring may confound the tulips. BBC News advises that there are fields of daffs dying in Scotland as the pickers are still in the South where the kinder weather of this winter has brought out the daffs a bit earlier than usual. If the tulips are also seduced into premature conflagration, then they may all be gone by the time of the festival. My camera will be on hand nonetheless.

Sorry to be babbling on about tulips but as I learn about the place where I will be living for a while, I am immersing in the local culture. The district is known as ‘South Holland’ due to historical links. Apparently, the World Tulip Festival was held here in 2008 - followed promptly by a festival named Tulipmania, (suggesting a bit of a bias in the arena of Hobbies). All of this happened at the start of May that year. Sounds like they had a busy time.

Now, in my experience, tulips last for a few weeks, possibly a month. I wonder what goes on in Spalding and Little Holland for the other 11 months of the year? I will investigate.

This is not the last you’ll see of me as I will be only a couple of hours away from Essex, my home for the last 55 years as D’Abreos were introduced to Basildon in 1956. While Basildon is my spiritual home and thus the invaluable repository of countless happy memories from childhood, through teen years and then into married (and then divorced) life, my nature’s desire to travel, meet new people and have new experiences is now being indulged.

Friends have commented on the fact that the great majority of my friends are here and have asked if I will miss you all. The answer is no, simply because, in my experience, friendship never ends. I do not see this as any sort of full stop. A little distance between us is merely an inconvenience. It does not draw a line, not for me at any rate and we will talk as easily tomorrow as we did yesterday. A few more miles and a different gap in time between our encounters, will not dent the quality of our friendship.

I am still in touch with friends made in Portugal 20 years ago. Beyond that, friends from school days 50+ years ago, gather here occasionally to remember the infant Basildon and the days when we respected our parents, never talking back and in fact, respecting all elders calling them Uncle and Auntie even when not related, rather than using their first name. Separately, close and valued cousins live in Perth, Australia, but despite the 12,000 miles that separate us, we chat by phone, text and e-mail. Due to the wonderful facilities at our disposal, that we take for granted so easily, within our lifetimes, the world has become a smaller place. Aren’t we lucky?

In reality, I will be in Essex now and again for visits to family and friends - so this is not the last you have heard from me.