Friday March 14th 2025 "How often do YOU move house - in a typical month, say - less than 5 times maybe?!"

Yes, here's another rather personal question for you, friends - how many times do you move house in a typical month? Or, if that's too much of a "head-scratcher" (!), let me put it another way, how many times have you moved house so far this year?

I'm guessing it's probably less than 5 times since New Year - after all, it's only March: be fair !!!

For me and my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois, we haven't moved house since January 3rd! Call us old "stick-in-the-muds", if you like. We're used to that particular "epithet" and we just laugh at it now!!! 

Lois and me - people call us old "stick-in-the-muds"

for not moving house often enough, but we just laugh at that now!

Yes, we've been living in Liphook, Hampshire now, for over 2 months, having lived in our previous house in Malvern, Worcestershire for two whole YEARS, would you believe: so we were well overdue for a change of scene.

We'd just become a bit "stale" and we knew it. 

flashback to January 2nd - we pack up and move all our stuff

from our old house in Malvern, Worcestershire: after two

whole years there, we'd  just become "stale", and we knew it!

Lois and I are both 78 now and definitely showing signs of "slowing down"! [Is that even possible (!) ? - Ed]

We came to Liphook specifically to be near our elder daughter Alison (49), husband Ed and their 3 teenage kids. At the moment, however, even they are kind-of moving house, although only about 3 miles away, so we'll still be able to call on them if we want them to push, say, a heavy magazine rack 5 inches nearer to our sofa, to save us precious seconds when we want to browse Radio Times in the evenings (!).

Only joking there obviously!  [That's not what Ali and Ed told me! - Ed]

Yes, Ali and Ed are currently "moving", to a rental home in Churt, Surrey, about 3 miles further away from us [Makes sense (!) - Ed], but just temporarily. For several months, they'll be "skulking" over there in Churt, while builders are extensively renovating Ali and Ed's current crumbling Victorian mansion in Headley, Hampshire. 

Lois (left) here showcasing our daughter Alison and family's crumbling 

Victorian mansion in Headley, Hampshire, which builders are going 

to be extensively renovating over the next several few months

Ali and Ed have already got the keys to their new temporary rental home and every day Ali is "ferrying" bits and pieces, precious heirlooms and the like, over to Churt ahead of the big move with removal vans etc next week. 

And this morning Ali invites Lois and me to join her on one of her regular trips to Churt, and get our first sight of the family's new temporary home, which is "part-furnished". 

Lovely photos, aren't they! But did you spot the slightly odd-looking clock in the living-room?

If you did, you'll know what I'm going to say next, won't you (!). Yes, the house's owners are Swedes - and only Swedish owners, I suspect, would have left behind a so-called "Mora clock" in their living-room, which is, like, a Scandinavian version of what we might call a "grandfather clock" in the UK. 

the traditional Swedish "Mora clock" in Ali and Ed's

temporary new rental home

The clocks used to be made by hand in the Swedish countryside over the last 2 to 3 centuries, mostly by farmers looking to boost their income when, for example, bad weather was ruining harvests, and the like. 

Who knew?! [I expect a lot of people knew that! - Ed]

The Mora clock in Ali and Ed's new temporary living-room is "stuck" on 5 o'clock, which is a pity, but it could be worse: five o'clock always used to be traditionally "gin and tonic time" for me, so it has a good "vibe", which is nice! 

That's so different from the famous Grantchester country church clock in First World War poet Rupert Brooke's "The Old Vicarage". In the poem, Brooke suffering in the trenches in France, reminisces nostalgically about the clock, which for a long time had been stuck on "ten to three". 

At 2:50pm, according to Brooke, there's only "honey still for tea", so a bit less exciting than "G&T time" (!).

I think the church clock at Grantchester eventually got fixed - it seems to be all right now in the current "Grantchester" TV whodunnit series. 

I don't know how much it costs to get a standard British church clock mended, but mending a "Mora clock" is in another price bracket, I suspect. A bit of googling tells me that it could cost £350 to £500 to get a skilled craftsman to sort it out - maybe they have to get somebody from Sweden to do the job, which would certainly add to the expense.

I wonder.....!

The Swedes, traditionally a neutral nation in recent world conflicts, have done a wonderful job over the last few decades as UN peace-keepers, particularly during the Yugoslav Civil War in the 1990's.

And Lois and I are reminded of this tonight, as we watch another episode of ex-Cabinet Minister Michael Portillo's "Great Continental Railway Journeys", where we see him once more travelling around the Balkans. Michael was UK Defence Secretary during much of the  1990's and visited the then war-torn region several times during the conflict, and this adds a touching poignancy to his recent travels there.

Tonight we see Michael in a Sarajevo apartment with a diverse group of women, all friends, enjoying a Bosnian stew, made up of ingredients from all the local traditions.

After a couple of hours in preparation, the women-friends all  sit down together to enjoy the stew, which they call "our metaphor for integration". As they eat, Michael presses the women more on the extent of the healing process in today's Sarajevo.

The women's response is unequivocally positive, which is nice to hear.

Yes, so many people seem to go into politics because there's something wrong with them - have you noticed?! No names, no pack-drill (!). Not all of them, of course, but the bad ones tend to often rise to the top through their kind of sheer demonic determination. 

What a crazy world we live in !!!!

And Michael, in his summing-up at the end of this episode says, "It is heart-warming, in a place of such division, to see that pockets of hope and optimism flourish!".

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!!!