I’ve intermittently blogged about garden things on here over the years. We’ve decided to go digital for our seasonal message to family and friends, de-coupling the business of writing and posting cards with the business of writing the seasonal message and selecting some images. The cards are now in the post with a QR code to this page, so I need to get it written and published before the postie delivers the cards. The message, as always, includes lots about gardens and gardening so I’ve put it here rather than setting up a separate site.
TL;DR - 2025 in summary: some things went to plan (retiring,
cooking more, baking more, gardening more, volunteering locally, going to
concerts and the opera, seeing through the final snagging for last year’s
kitchen build, getting the loft insulated and floored) and some things didn’t
(reading, blogging, getting out, getting away, seeing friends and family more
than I’ve managed, decluttering, crafting, discovering that the roof we had
installed not long after we married was at imminent risk of collapse and needed
almost total replacement, and PB’s slowly declining memory and the need to find
coping strategies for us both).
Retirement
After 40 years in the business of librarianship, I “retired”
from Imperial in February. It is in quotes because what I really wanted to do
was to scale back to a couple of days of work a week. As I couldn’t be a “bit
of a director”, I had to make an alternative plan. That plan was to do a bit of
consultancy work using accumulated libraryland expertise and then to use “all
that free time” to do more work on the garden, cook more, see more of friends
and family, perhaps take a couple of mini breaks, and to continue volunteering
locally. On the home front were plans to declutter, sort out my study now that
it housed my stuff, my mum’s stuff, my dad’s stuff, and all the stuff I’d
brought home from the office.
I’d visited a local Trust in the summer of 2024 with an offer to volunteer in their garden and whilst chatting to the manager was told that they were recruiting Trustees. I applied and was successful. Now, less than a year later, I am now blinkin’ Chair! The origin of the trust is Tony Blair's "New Deal for Communities" (NDC) which was a £2-billion UK Labour government initiative (late 90s/early 2000s) targeting 39 of England's most deprived areas, with a focus on resident empowerment and long-term change. After the 10 year programme, our local NDC was spun out into a charity and leased a portfolio of properties (residential and commercial) from which we derive an income that enables us to continue to do good things for the community. Our home is the lush Besson Street Garden where I do a mixture of garden volunteering and all the things that come with chairing a Trust with a property portfolio. Hands up all those who thought I’d be part of a Trust overseeing a Tattoo parlour, amongst other things. Hmmm, I thought not. [PB: ‘thank goodness you didn’t come home with a tattoo….’]
Whilst most definitely not in the retirement “plan”, working with wonderful staff, volunteers and fellow trustees keeps me fit, active, challenged and humbled and occasionally just a little terrified at the responsibility. Having spent so much of my life working for large organisations with whole HR, Finance, IT & Estates departments, it can be daunting sourcing all that expertise amongst a small number of people. If you want to read about the garden volunteering side of things, then head over to here and here.
Gardening
Meanwhile, back on Telegraph Hill, I was invited into the inner sanctum that is the organising committee for our local annual open gardens weekend (more work). Gardening means so much to me, but I’ve only really been doing it in earnest since 2015, so I was touched by the invite. However, that meant committing to opening ours this year which in turn meant that our own garden, which had been both neglected and in part wrecked during our 2024 building works, needed to be put back together so that it was fit to be opened in May. I had all those plants that had spent over a year in pots having been dug up to make way for the works, along with the proceeds of lots of lovely garden vouchers received as part of my leaving gifts to find homes for. Old plants were re-sited, new plants were planted and then followed the most insanely hot and dry summer during which they all needed to be kept alive. So much in our garden holds memories of family, friends and colleagues that seeing them suffer at all was not an option but was a huge responsibility. Happily, we’d gone big on water butts following the kitchen extension last year and most things survived after a lot of hand watering.
The Open Gardens weekend in May was incredibly successful, and we had well over 200 visitors to ours and sold many plants raising funds to support gardening projects for young people.
Over the ensuing summer our new raised kitchen bed near the house proved incredibly productive and what we couldn’t eat as it grew has been processed either for the freezer or in jars. It has been a bumper year for basil, chillies, tomato, sage, dill, rosemary, mint, beetroot, courgettes, cucumber, apples, blueberries, lemons, strawberries, raspberries and figs. The rather large freezer that we installed as part of the kitchen works last year is now full! My robin helper continues to forage close by as I work and additionally, now comes and demands to be fed, feeding now out of my hand which is simply adorable. PB has named him Robin’ Banks and a cute image of him is at the end of this message.
Times to remember
Since 2020, during which he had covid very badly indeed, PB’s memory has become increasingly unreliable. He has now been “in the system” (brain clinic and neurology) since 2021. In addition to what appears to be slow progressing Alzheimer’s disease, one of the experts suspects that he may have had a tiny stroke during that bout of covid. The net result is that he sometimes struggles to form new memories, has forgotten chunks of his past life, and is uncertain about his way around London and other previously familiar places.
Memories of childhood, school and university appear largely intact. Those of much of his working life and much of our time together are patchy. Fortunately, I’ve been an avid taker of pictures since my late teens and so when PB declares he’s never been to [insert the name of one of the many places we have visited], I’m able to show him that he has, mostly apparently enjoying himself. I and my photograph album are now a big part of his memory. We are finding ways of coping, including keeping a daily written diary of things we expect to happen, e.g., my meetings and other activities, and his various medical appointments which I attend if at all possible in order to take copious notes.
If things are going to plan (i.e. roughly what it says in the diary), then he is on an even keel and still able to play the piano more skilfully, answer increased swathes of University Challenge questions than I’ve ever been able to, and be an excellent sous chef and very efficient with the vacuum cleaner and the broom. When he gets anxious, many bets are off. I’ve found that he is naturally anxious and that the balance can tip quickly – when his medications get changed or run out, when we are planning to go out, and especially when the many parts of the not-at-all-joined-up NHS communicate with him by text, letter, one app, another app, email, or sometimes all of the aforementioned but not necessarily in the right order.
In short, we’ve not got out and away that much beyond a few day trips to friends, historic places and gardens, all captured for posterity and some featuring in this note. We’ve been talking about perhaps planning some short trips – i.e., involving an overnight stay – so that we can visit some further flung glories.
Musical interlude
On the performing side, I’m still singing with the London Philharmonic Choir and, to my relief, passed my re-audition, something I won’t have to go through again now for another three years. At my age, that’s a huge relief.
Our programme continues to be varied with highlights including Mahler 8 (Gardner/LPO) and a proms performance Delius’s Mass of Life under Elder, with the BBC SO and Chorus. Fun factoid – 40 years ago this year Elder gave me my first library job in ENO. The mass was particularly challenging for us top sops – I fear my lifetime’s supply of top Cs has been significantly depleted. But Elder made sense of the work for me and it was great to give it an outing. The Mahler was billed as being “semi staged”, a concept that so horrified PB that he refused to book a ticket until it was too late, and then it was sold out. His words “but it’s all already there in the music”. Then there was another stint with Elder, this time VW’s Sea Symphony - my first! PB did come to that one and writes 'was profoundly moved by the chance to hear a live performance of what had been a set work for his A-level examination many decades ago', whilst also getting very irritated at the reviewer who said that the choir wasn’t balanced, asserting that “well, they should have been in the [Royal Festival] Hall rather than on a boat on the Thames”. The challenging concert of the autumn was Harmonium by John Adams. Hands down the most exhilarating and difficult piece I’ve been involved in. As always, it is a privilege to get to perform amazingly varied repertoire with outstanding professional musicians
It all started with a weed
Towards the end of the summer we noticed a weed growing in
our guttering. We engaged a roofing company to both come and extract it and, as
they had to erect a scaffolding tower to get at it, we asked for a roof
inspection at the same time. When we’d started on the house renovation back in
the 80’s, we’d started with the roof so I fondly thought that it would see us
out and that other than a spot of internal decoration, all the big structural
work on the house was complete. Well, that’s not quite how it has panned out.
It turns out that the mortar securing the ridge tiles above the main structural
beam and hips had failed and that over the years, water had been seeping into
the wood framework holding up the roof. We were shown an alarming video whereby
the inspector could poke his finger through the rotting wood, and where mortar
elsewhere (chimney, fire wall) had also failed. As I write, we are cloaked in scaffolding,
and the roof is undergoing full scale replacement with the only sliver lining
being that we’ve added “insulating and flooring the roof space” to the list of
expensive things that we are having done. Ahhhh, it was nice knowing my pension
lump sum for those brief few months!!!
Traditions
For the last few years we’ve ditched the computer generated
labels for cards that we send, thus slowing down the process of card writing so
that we can reflect on what friends and family mean to us. We also continue our tradition of not opening
cards received until Christmas day itself, enjoying them at leisure with a
glass of bubbly and some smoked salmon.
And finally, our game of continuous Rummy, started during
lockdown, continues. At the time of writing, I’m winning but only after a very
long stretch on the losing side – exactly as was the case in 2024!!
We wish you and yours a happy and healthy Christmas and New
Year.
CB, PB and Robin' Banks
December 2025
