fiction

PC 429 Behind The Glass

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I don’t know about you, but I am often intrigued to know what goes on behind shop fronts that have frosted windows. They are the complete opposite of those using the shop window to entice potential customers, displaying something to make you want to go inside, maybe a poster showing a sale percentage reduction. Sometimes restaurants have an opaque window to give their customers some privacy and it’s the same for The Hove Practice, a private GPs’ surgery, which recently moved onto Church Road. Along the street is a massage clinic, with the obligatory hazy windows! We are lucky enough to have Kay Delphine, a very experienced masseuse, who comes to our apartment, otherwise we might have used one of these places. Some had a seedy reputation, offering more than a simple massage, but I sense those days have long gone.

Opposite etch (note 1), a restaurant on the corner of Church Road and Hove Street run by Steven Edwards, a winner of MasterChef The Professionals, is one such place. A non-descript opaque window with its shop signage, ‘CryoBright’, offering no real clue to what goes on inside.

A voucher at Christmas gave us a couple of ‘experiences’ at CryoBright and in late January we pushed open the door. CryoBright provides ‘convenient, affordable access to the most advanced wellness and recovery techniques.’ These include an infrared sauna, red light therapy, fat freezing, leg compression therapy, physiotherapy, whole body cryotherapy and massage, mainly aimed at those recovering from some form of sports injury, which I am not! I was interested in the leg compression trousers, to improve blood circulation to my feet, and in the cold chamber – out of curiosity!

The ‘Compression’ trousers slide over your legs then go through a 20-second sequence of inflate/deflate, inflate/deflate for 20 minutes. It seems very gentle, too gentle almost and so I decide to concentrate on the cold chamber.

The idea is that extreme cold acts as a stimulus to your nervous system, particularly to the hypothalamus, responsible for reacting to dangerous situations; the ‘fight or flight’ trigger. It initiates several physiological reactions in the body, the main one being to restrict blood flow to the periphery, concentrating it around one’s vital organs.

I said I am curious. Most of my experience of ‘cold’ is from winter weather, either skiing or on military exercises many years ago, when the wind chill can drop temperatures alarmingly. I am a pussy when it comes to swimming in a cold sea, such as in Estoril in Portugal, but the benefits of cold-water immersion are becoming more mainstream. Here in Hove many people swim in the sea all the year around, part of their daily routine, and swear by the invigorating afterglow. (Note 2) I guess we’ve all heard of Dutchman Wim Hof, aka the Iceman. In addition to plunging himself, and other paying customers, into freezing cold water, he markets a particular technique of breathing. Proper breathing is an essential part of practising yoga; in the hot yoga series you only breathe through your nose for the first hour.

My Wim Hof T Shirt

Hof’s technique involves inhaling through your nose or mouth, filling both belly and chest, and exhaling through your mouth. Each breath should be short and powerful; do 30 to 40 then stop. We all take our lungs for granted, never bothering to exercise them – it’s estimated we only use some 60% of our lung capacity. And I certainly hadn’t heard of COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) until those first COVID months. In summary, I breathe well but wouldn’t want to plunge myself into a bath full of ice. (Note 3)

But when we returned from Portugal in September last year, a new cold-water shower, installed in the outer courtyard as part of the yoga studio’s new sauna offering, offered an opportunity to cool down quickly. Now, at the end of my 90 minutes 40°C hot yoga class, I go straight out and have a cold shower. Strangely, I have begun to look forward to it; odd huh! It’s wonderful!

At CryoBright, Rob explains that the cold chamber is designed to give your body a thermal shock so, wearing shorts, a facemask, gloves, socks and slippers and with a set of headphones clamped around my ears, I open the door and enter. Oh! I should have said, it’s minus 85C. I have opted for 4 minutes but after 5 seconds my brain is already saying ‘fly!’. Fortunately, I decide to stay, moving around, glancing at the large clock on an iPad outside that’s counting down the four minutes, listening to music. I wonder how my body is reacting, why my nipples are feeling particularly cold, and resist the temptation to focus on the time. Just enjoy the experience. Outside, I put my clothes back on; my back is tingling in a delicious way and I feel fantastic. We sign up for a package of sessions; this Monday was my eighth and now I look forward to freezing my b******* off!

Our curiosity has encouraged chums to try it. Spread the word!

Richard 7th March 2025

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS Celina also enjoys the cold chamber!

Note 1 Note the small ‘e’. Generally the first word of a sentence uses a capitalised first letter. There’s a distinction between ‘Etch’ and ‘etch’, although it’s personal! As a verb, to etch means to eat away the surface of something; I can only guess this is the tenuous connection for the title of the restaurant.

Note 2 In the summer of 1966, as an Officer Cadet at Sandhurst, I was attached to a Germany-based Artillery Battery for its two weeks Adventure Training near Oberammergau. I went with Staff Sergeant Curtis to recce a lake for some canoeing. The water looked inviting; he suggested I jump in. It was absolutely freezing, almost heart-stopping (!) and I got out as quickly as I had got in! Curtis laughed.

Note 3 The outdoor swimming pool water at Dauntsey’s School was fed directly from a cold spring. Maybe our lap times were quick as we wanted to get out as soon as possible.

PC 54 The Loo

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Some subjects are so dry it’s difficult to get worked up about them, but my PC about loo paper brought back many memories for my readers, some good and some hilarious. So popular was this PC that it’s inspired me to go the next step and scribble about the actual loo.

Some of you will have visited ancient castles or manor houses in England where the ‘loo’ was a little seat in a turreted corner of the bedroom; an improvement from the portable box! From the outside, the turret overhung enough for the ‘drop’ to clear the stone façade. Some years ago there was a TV documentary series in the UK, trying to take a new look at old designs: one was about the loo. The design of the loo doesn’t seem to have changed much in more than 150 years.

There are many words for this receptacle for our daily waste. Whilst this list if not definitive …….loo, toilet, lavatory, ‘long drop’, khazi, WC (short for water closet), the crapper, the Dunny, the ‘restroom’, bog, the ‘ladies’ or ‘gents’ in a public environment, the facilities, the white phone, latrine, the John, little room and privy.

Funny how words become part of our language. Take ‘crap; possibly a verb and certainly a noun! It’s been around since the C17th referring to waste, but not used for bodily waste until 1846. But the word only became well known thanks to a Victorian plumber, Thomas Crapper. He was extremely successful in manufacturing bathroom fixtures and had a Royal Warrant. So ubiquitous were Mr Crapper’s toilet bowls, with his name written on the rim, that American servicemen stationed in Britain during WWII coined the phrase “going to the crapper”!

Thomas Crapper (1837 – 1910)

I do remember potties under the bed, but was shocked by this story, told to me in 1975 by a female newspaper reporter who had covered the kidnap by the IRA of a Dutch industrialist in County Kildare. Traced to a small village called Monasterevin, the siege attracted the world’s press, who had trouble finding somewhere to stay. My chum eventually found a house that offered the share of a bed (!) …… but was horrified to find that under the bed were emptied beer bottles ….. full of urine!

I am indebted to Paul for sending me this photograph, the latest design of ‘pissoire’ used by men at the Spa motor racing circuit in Belgium. He couldn’t find the female equivalent although you can buy a female ‘P EZ’ funnel on Amazon!

I wonder at what point the rocket-nose-shaped ‘pissoires’ take off?

Back in 1968 I chartered a small 19ft yacht for a week’s sailing in The Solent on the south coast of England. On board was fellow Gunner Gerry and two girl friends (note that this is girl …. friends and not girlfriends!) joined for the weekend. Braganza was a very basic sailing boat, with two small bunks and a little gas stove – but no loo! This doesn’t present a problem if you’re a bloke, but for members of the fairer sex a bucket placed below on the cabin sole of a moving/shifting/lurching sailing boat does not encourage the natural flow of things! On the Saturday evening we moored in Wootton Creek on the Isle of Wight …. and I have a very vivid memory of these two girls rowing the little pram dinghy ashore to find a proper loo. The speed at which they were rowing was possibly indicative of the urgency of their quest.

I remember painful experiences at boarding school. If you wanted to go to the loo before breakfast, you had to go before the breakfast bell sounded. After that, you were simply not allowed to go, irrespective of how desperate you might have been. I really to this day do not know what aspect of social behaviour I was meant to learn? If you need to go to the loo, you need to go to the loo – simple!

If you were camping in the 1960s and 1970s you simply took a shovel and walked off to somewhere where no one could see you. Cousin Susan writes: “…. Then there was the loo paper in Egypt and one small town in particular…..a hole in the middle of the floor, no loo paper and no doors so we had to get our friends to stand in the doorway so passers-by could not see us performing our acrobatic ablutions. My thighs were mighty strong in those days!”  Benedicte has similar memories of loos in China today – but would rather forget them! In the Army the camping arrangements were more formal; the Royal Engineers dug bore holes (should that be bored bore holes I wonder?). If it was cold it was OK, in this hessian-encircled latrine; if hot, the flies ensured it was not somewhere you lingered.

My stepfather loved smoking his pipe, particularly when mowing his wonderful lawn … but also, and sadly for the rest of us, when occupying the small downstairs loo. Part of his morning weekend routine, I guess, attempting the daily crossword in the paper, sucking on his tobacco-filled pipe and attending to nature … all at the same time. The little room needed a quarantine notice on the door for at least an hour afterwards.

Mind you, it isn’t necessarily your own loo experiences that are worth writing about. Jeremy Clarkson, a man made famous as much by his Top Gear TV Motoring programme as his ability to call a spade a spade, has a column in the UK Sunday Times. After someone complained of their hotel in Turkey, his weekly column was full of his own experiences, including this: “Certainly I cannot forget the converted old sheep station in the uplands of Bolivia. During my stay, I was woken one morning by a cleaner who entered my room without knocking, shuffled past my bed with a mumbled ‘Buenos dias’, went into my bathroom and took a noisy dump (slang for ‘going to the loo’!!) before shuffling out of the room with a frankly insufficient ‘gracias’”

I have always remembered a story that did the rounds one term at school; written on a grubby piece of paper it told the story of the confusion that arose between the use of WC for either ‘Wesleyan Chapel’ (Named after John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church in the C18th) or ‘Water Closet’. This being the C21st, I ‘googled’ it (That must be a verb by now – ‘to google’?) to get the story correct. It hasn’t lost its amusement after 50 something years and is reproduced in full below.

Celina’s father would sympathise with Paul who, recalling Bronco loo paper, wrote:  “Bronco was absolutely useless of course but then I have always detested loo paper of any sort, as it is just not up to the job (so to speak)! Every house I have ever owned has had a bidet and I would find it uncomfortable now to live without one.” Maybe he should try the combined loo/bidet; choose your music/scent/temperature/softness/air …… and away you go!

This PC seemed to go on and on; sorry! I normally try and constrain myself but seem to have suffered a bout of verbal diarrhoea with this one! Enjoy the scribbles!

Richard 8th November 2015                                               richardyates24@gmail.com

PS. “There was a little old English lady who was looking for a place to live in Switzerland.  She asked the local village schoolmaster to help her and together they found a place that suited her.  She returned to London to get her things, but on the way home she remembered that she had not noticed a bathroom in the new place, or as she called it, a water closet.  So when she arrived in London she wrote to the schoolmaster to inquire about a water closet in her place.  Being somewhat embarrassed to ask about this, she decided to just use the abbreviation W.C. rather than spell out the words.  When the schoolmaster received her letter he was puzzled by the initials W.C., never dreaming that she was referring to a bathroom.  So he went to the local minister to see if he knew what a W.C. was.  Of course, the minister thought it stood for the Wesleyan Church.  So the schoolmaster wrote this reply to the English lady.

Dear Madam,

The W.C. is situated nine miles from the house in the center of a beautiful grove of trees.  It is capable of holding 350 people at a time and is open on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday of each week.  A large number of folks attend during the summer months, so it is suggested you go early, although there is plenty of standing room.  Some folks like to take their lunch and make a day of it, especially on Thursday when there is organ accompaniment.  The acoustics are very good and everyone can hear the slightest sound.

It may be of interest to you to know that my daughter was married in our W.C. and it was there she met her husband.

We hope you will be here in time for our bazaar to be held very soon.  The proceeds will go toward the purchase of plush seats for our W.C., which the folks agree are a long-felt need, as the present seats all have holes in them.

My wife is rather delicate; therefore, she cannot attend regularly.  It has been six months since the last time she went.  Naturally, it pains her very much not to be able to go more often. I shall close now with the desire to accommodate you in every way possible, and I will be happy to save you a seat down front or near the door, whichever you prefer.

Sincerely,

          Alfred Schmidt

Schoolmaster”

PC 509 Communication

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Our friend Sandi, who currently lives near London Bridge, has been frustrated by the sudden closure of the local Hot Yoga studio. Frustrated by its closure over a month ago, but now more and more angry, yes, I know it’s a yoga studio and yoga and anger shouldn’t be on the same page, by the total lack of communication. No one responds to emails, no one suggests monthly membership will be refunded and much more importantly there’s no indication as to when it might reopen. Members drift, find somewhere else that ticks most of the boxes, and by the time it announces it’s reopening, there won’t be any students. Why don’t individuals and companies really understand how important it is to keep people informed?

I have always believed in the power of communication, good and bad; communication is key – even if you know nothing. When I worked for Shorts, the Aerospace manufacturer in Belfast, a huge percentage of the company was owned by the Northern Ireland Development Board. Suddenly HMG announced it was up for sale but as the weeks went by, no one said anything. On one of my frequent visits from our London office, I noticed how depressed people were, worrying whether they would have a job, who was going to buy the company etcetera; there had been no news. Meeting my Divisional Director, I asked him why he couldn’t tell the workforce anything about the proposed sale, who might be in the running to buy it and he said: “I don’t know anything”. I said: “But you’re the MD and your workforce expect you to know, think you do know, so why can’t you simply say you currently don’t know but you’ll keep them up to date?” Why are people so afraid of saying they don’t know? Communication …..

On our TAP flight to Lisbon on 16th August the plane was fully emplaned, the doors closed and we waited and waited and ……there was no announcement saying they expected to take off in five or ten minutes/waiting for our slot …… or similar, and I thought: ‘Why not?’ Twenty minutes before we ‘pushed back’. Good or bad communication helps us understand what’s going on and helps us prepare.

Last week the UK’s National Air Traffic System (NATS) failed; the IT breakdown led to the cancellation of more than 2000 flights and calls for the resignation of Martin Rolfe, its CEO, as this was NATS’s second major failure in three years. What will happen to him and to NATS is one thing, but for Jane & Joe Public it was the lack of communication – for instance no one knew what was/wasn’t happening; the lack of any contingency planning – for instance there was no extra drink delivered to planes sitting on the tarmac full of passengers for 6 hours; obviously no one within the airport’s management asking the real ‘What if …. ?’ questions. Didn’t we learn anything the last time this happened? Don’t Jane & Joe Public deserve better?   

And while I am ranting about communication, I could mention the sad news that a local hardware store on Portland Road, Nuts & Bolts, is closing tomorrow after 45 years. “Ever since the (COVID) lockdown, there’s been a massive shift from high street to online shopping, which is proving to be the death-knoll for many.” Libby Purves, writing in The Times early this week, wrote: ‘Veteran locals see it bit by bit: the big, confident ironmongery and household store shuts, sabotaged by Amazon; the little boutique, deli and shoe shop give up, independents going first; three more charity shops appear with their 80% business rate exemption.’

Sometimes needing to buy something to solve a problem requires looking around at a range of items or talking to someone more knowledgeable than oneself. Nuts & Bolts was an emporium for bolts, nuts, brackets, fixtures, screws, almost anything metal you could imagine. If I couldn’t find what I wanted when I wandered the aisles or was unsure whether ‘A’ was better than ‘B’, I went up to the counter and spoke to a human. Communicating with a chatbot isn’t the same, is it?

Celina’s nephew Tiago is 14 and goes to school in Estoril in Portugal. Every parent knew the school was building an extension to house his year group, due to open in the first week of September. During the Summer holidays there was no indication that there were problems, no warning, no time for considered thought ….. but the school administrators must have known the building wouldn’t be ready for the first day of term nor apparently any time soon. Parents have been scrambling around to find an alternative school for their child. With some warning, some communication, the school’s reputation might have survived; now it’s in tatters.

The subject of the Duke & Duchess of Sussex’s return to the UK had come up in conversation with Sami in the Hope Café last week. Irrespective as to whether one should care or not, as I am writing about communication there was a mixed reaction to the public notice sent out on behalf of King Charles by the Lord Chamberlain to government officials and the media, seeking to clarify their status. Was it really necessary to remind us they are private individuals rather than ‘active representatives of the monarchy’, non-working royals? Was it to spike their guns as they begin to find their feet and determine how to pay for their privileged lives? Whatever the Royal family does there is interest in this couple from certain sections of society …… and they’re just going to have to live with that!  

My brother spotted this cartoon by Matt …… which delightfully sums up the issue!

And, finally, correct spelling of words is essential for good communication. Seen in Dorset:

We have gas, water and electricity meters, and two metres, short or not.

Richard 18th September 2026

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS I accept that American English spells metre meter, but this is Dorset not Delaware.

PC 508 Back in The Hope (Continued from PC 507)

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………

“Didn’t large sections of Middle-Class America dodge the draft, studying at college and university, leaving the poorer section of society’s 18–24-year-olds, who weren’t so fortunate, to fill the ranks? Isn’t it one of the many things the current president is accused of?”

“A bone of contention that still smells rotten today. When I finished Caputo’s book, I looked up the casualty numbers. Just over fifty-eight thousand American servicemen died, 10,000 of these from accidents, illness or wounds. Another 300,000 were wounded. The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong lost over 1.1 million fighters, while the South Vietnamese some 225,000 soldiers died.

Do read it Richard; it’s very good. What was your major Summer read?”

“Apart from some glorious fiction from David McCloskey, Chris Hammer and Michael Connelly, it has to be Rory Carroll’s ‘A Rebel and a Traitor’, the story of Roger Casement, knighted by the Crown for his work as a British consul, but who turned into a spy and traitor for the cause of Irish Unity and, after a summary trial, was hanged in HMP Pentonville in August 1916. Reviews called it ‘a rich, stylish and immersive epic’, ‘deeply researched and fascinating’ and Max Hastings thought it ‘a gripping read’. I loved it!

I can’t remember where I read it, but someone reflected that in general terms the British and the Americans see the world as it is today and determine their politics, especially their foreign policy, on that uncluttered view. Others are continually thinking about their historical journey, in some cases letting this shape, dictate even, their modern politics. Reading the obituary of Ratko Mladic (1943-2026), the Serb who earned the moniker ‘The Butcher of Bosnia’, made my skin crawl. In amongst the horrific details of bloodshed and murder was this: ‘The day after his troops had taken Srebrenica, Mladic declared he was presenting the city to the Serbian nation as a gift, in revenge for the events of 1804 when forces of the Ottoman Sultan retook the town from Serbian rebels.’

Mladic is not alone. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was predicated on his warped view of Russian history. I also consider, as a westerner, the governments of Iran, Israel and Afghanistan beholden to historical influences.”

“Hey! Hang on Richard! Getting a bit heavy! What’s that quote from Buddhism: “You can’t change the past, but you can ruin the present by living in the past and worrying about the future.” You may not have heard but Mo told Lisa the other day that she’s going to spend more time north of London, now her mother’s no longer with us.

Listen ….. you remember the decision you made when buying a video player – VHS or PAL? PAL (Phase Alternating Line – 50Hz) was used primarily in Europe, Africa, Australia and parts of Asia for analogue TVs and VCRs; VHS (NTSC – 60Hz) was the public’s choice in the USA and Japan. Despite being technically inferior, VHS from JVC offered 2 hours video play so the public preferred it. And now you probably have old video tapes gathering dust in the attic, treasured memories and nothing to play them on. Technology has moved on.”

“We’ll miss Mo. Actually, I did convert some Super8 Cine film to video, then the technology moved on ….. so I converted them to CDs …… and now I don’t have a CD player!!”

“What about your mobile phone? Most of us starting using either Apple or Samsung because you knew someone who said theirs was the better option. And we get adept at using the one we chose; Lisa and I use Apple. Lisa’s mother, who has a Samsung, was given a Kindle for her birthday last month; to buy a book she needed an Amazon account. (Note 1) You download the App, and it tells you it will send a code to your email. It does, although by the time you close the app and find the email, the time for the code’s validation is over – 10 seconds? Lisa was trying to help, although unfamiliar with the Samsung!”

“Reminds me of a procedure that older Brazilians have to do every year to guarantee continued receipt of their pension – ‘proof of life’. In essence, you take a ‘selfie’, upload it to the government website, and expect a code sent to your email; hoping that your photograph was acceptable! You have to come out of the website, open your email, find the code, make a note of it, go back to the government website and enter the code ….. all within 20 seconds, or you get timed-out. Whoever designed the system forgot that the only people using it are likely to be slight slower than others, so I don’t understand why that ’20 seconds’ can’t be, say, one minute?”

“From a book I am reading, I learned a new word, Richard: ‘susurrus’ which means a humming, whispering or muttering sound, as in ‘the enthusiastic susurrus of conversation ……’. So, susurrus is an onomatopoeic word, it sounds like its meaning. But I guess you knew that?”

“No! But I do like it. The word just sounds like intermingled conversations; add the occasional clink of glasses and you have a cocktail party! By the way, I was forwarded a faux photograph of Harry and Meghan, in the sort of inflatable rubber dinghy used by people smugglers to get illegal immigrants into the UK; the attached message read: ‘Love it. I am so bored with them. Maybe the media’s fault in part but …’.

I responded: ‘Seriously couldn’t care a monkey. Both play the victim card and this gives me the idea they have NO concept of how others live. Various commentators have gone to print about their vacuous lives.’ The fake photograph showed them with the white cliffs of Dover behind them ….. maybe they were paddling to France? You saw the photo of a double rainbow over Cascais in my last postcard?”

“Think so!”

It was about the same time as the moon’s eclipse on 28th August – and I managed to get a passable photograph with my iPhone at 0521.

Listen, we both need to get going; well, I certainly do. Stay in touch and love to Lisa.”

Richard 11th September 2026

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 There are other ways to buy e-books but this seems the simplest.

PC 504 Houses – Buying and Selling

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Last Wednesday I found myself, mid-afternoon, in The Hope Café, taking time-out to recall and reflect. You may remember that postcard ‘Wait ….’ (PC 465 November 2025), but you’d be wrong to think I was waiting for something ……. just ‘being’.

Towards the end of last year, it must have been November, an ex-Army chum Jim informed me he was moving from his house in Suffolk to somewhere near Cambridge to be closer to grandchildren. He moved in June this year – over six months between agreeing to buy the house and moving in. The wise say that this experience is one of the most stressful transactions we do and in the course of our lifetime we may do it many times. Mention moving house and immediately memories of your own experiences will flood your brain!

Hurst Cottage in Fleet; my first house – much extended!

Just as I was finding out from Google that Stamp Duty, payable to HMG in England when you buy a house, is 5% if its value is between £250k and £925k, I see Sami walk in with Lisa, so I put my thoughts on hold.

“Hey! You two! Haven’t seen you together for weeks. You been away?”

“Had a very lovely week in Salcombe at the end of July. I remember you writing about being there when it was wet and cool; this year it was glorious. So lucky! Enjoyed your postcards about Brighton’s Lanes and North Laines (PC 503 August 2026) – you should get a job working for the tourist section of the council.”

“God forbid! I’m thinking about writing a postcard about buying and selling a house.”

“Well, how long have you got Richard …?”

I interrupt. “Actually, my first experience, buying Hurst Cottage on Victoria Road in Fleet, Hampshire for £29,500 in 1978, was fine.

49a, Cavendish Road, Clapham

My ‘lower ground’ flat on Clapham Common South Side went ahead without memorable angst but the next, a Victorian terraced house on the southern end of Battersea, taught me something.”

“What was that?”

“It’s a personable business and we response accordingly. I had written to the owner, to say how much we were looking forward to completing the purchase, recognised that she had made it a charming property and knowing we would be happy there. About three weeks before we thought we would complete, the estate agent said someone was offering another £10,000 and they had an obligation to forward it to the owner. Eeek! We learned later that she didn’t entertain this new offer as our letter had touched her and she wanted us to have it. So, we were not ‘gazumped’ (note 1)”

A sketch for a Christmas card, prior to a loft conversion! A terraced house is a terraced house; 54 Bramfield Road.

Just as Lisa is about to comment, maybe offer some of her own insights, a stranger comes over:

“Sorry to interrupt” she said, “but couldn’t help but hear you talking about house purchases and thought you might like to know that my husband was a reverse-gazumper. Do you want to hear the story?” and she said it in that way, suggesting we were going to hear it, like it or not!

“I am Sally, by the way. We were getting divorced, thank God, and he was really reluctant to find somewhere for himself to live, so I left and rented to encourage him; not sure it did. But we had a buyer, at our asking price. He explained he hadn’t found somewhere and they should be patient. The weeks rolled into months ….” I could tell this was a painful period for her, recalling how her life was really on hold until he found somewhere. “Then he realised property prices had risen over the period, and asked the prospective buyers, with whom we had already exchanged, ie agree the price, for another 10%!”

“Could he do that?”

“The option for the others was to pull out and after all this time they decided they had no option. I was absolutely disgusted. I complained to the estate agent that I hadn’t agreed this but the estate agent said they didn’t need the agreement of both parties and that they had to forward the instruction.”

“Wow! Sally! That’s really greedy. So sorry for you ….. but thanks for telling us. You a local?”

“No. I live up in Essex …. and must go; love The Hope Café!” and she got up and left.

Sami: “This is England right. This would be very rare in Scotland, where the agreement to buy becomes legally binding much earlier in the process through formal letters between solicitors called ‘concluded missives’. Additionally, sellers must legally provide a single survey and energy report, so that prospective buyers can’t argue that their survey found ‘x’ and ‘y’ and therefore would ask for a reduction in their offer.”

“I had that problem as the executor of my maiden aunt’s estate, selling her house on the north side of Clapham Common. Someone had come along, very quickly offered the asking price, and just when the sale was due to be completed, claimed his survey had highlighted major problems and wanted a huge reduction, some 20% if I remember correctly, imagining he had me by the ‘short and curlies’ and I would agree. I found out this individual had a reputation for doing this …… so didn’t agree and put the house back on the market. But this was a probate sale so I was slightly personally detached!

Statistically, once an offer is accepted it takes an average of four months to complete; Jim’s took six. One in three house sales fall through before exchange. The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government has said: ‘We’re stopping gazundering by introducing legally binding agreements that prevent buyers from walking away at the last minute without a valid reason, with fines for those who do.’ But not until 2029!

Our Hove apartment is in this magnificent 1890s building

I could tell that Lisa wanted to add some of her own experiences, but I had to dash, as I had to fashion a pinhole viewing device for the evening’s solar eclipse!”

Richard 14th August 2026

Hove

www.postcardscribles.co.uk

PS The only other house I owned was in the village of Rowledge, for 15 months.

Note 1 A gazumper is a person who steps in with a higher offer on a property after the seller has already accepted an offer from someone else, but before the contracts are legally signed.

PC 498 Our Hands

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My annual visit to the Hove Skin Clinic to check for skin cancers resulted in Dr Bav Shergill freezing three little spots on the back of my hands. They took just three weeks to heal and during the first two, I was careful in some yoga postures in the floor series, as the backs of my hands should have been in contact with the floor.

It’s not until we sprain a thumb, split a nail, break a finger, or have an open sore that we realise how much we rely on our hands. The ‘prehensile multi-fingered appendage at the end of the forearm in primates such as humans, chimpanzees, monkeys and lemurs’ is crucial for fine motor skills, tactile sensations and the manipulation of the surroundings. The fingers contain some of the densest areas of nerve endings in the body, giving us enormous tactile feedback. Each hand is controlled by opposing brain hemispheres so that our preferred choice for single-handed activities such as writing reflects individual brain functioning.

This is an outline of my left hand.

The whole hand is made up of 27 bones. The top two bones in each finger are the well-known phalanges and the metacarpus bone completes the finger; four fingers (Note 1), the index, middle, ring and little (or pinkie), and one thumb make up the hand. The importance of our hands and their component parts is reflected in our language, in our sayings and phrases. Instantaneously I recall people saying ‘I’m all fingers and thumbs’, meaning they are, particularly when flustered or nervous, extremely clumsy or awkward.

The distance between the tip of the thumb and the tip of the index finger is typically around 6 to 7 inches (15cms); maybe a more useful measurement is the distance between the tip of your thumb and the tip of your little finger, about 9 inches (23cms). The tip of the thumb to its first joint is about an inch (2.54cms), and from the nose to the tip of the outstretched arm is about a yard (92cms). A finger is approximately ¾ inch wide – so if you’re asked how much whisky you want and you answer: ‘two fingers’ – you’ll get about 1 ½ inches. (Note 2)

Sailing in coastal waters and checking for navigational aids, it’s good to know that at arm’s length the little finger covers about one degree, three middle fingers together about 5 degrees, a clenched fist about 10 degrees, the spread of index and pinky about 15 degrees, and there’s 25 degrees between the thumb and pinky. There’s more! If you spread your hand out so the pinky is horizontal, the ring finger is at about 30˚, the middle 45˚, the index about 60˚ and the thumb 90˚.

We talk of using the ‘rule of thumb’, working with a method or procedure based on experience and not on theory.

‘Many hands make light work’ is a saying that’s been around since the 1540s, meaning with teamwork tasks are more easily achieved. In this case the word ‘hand’ refers to a ‘person who does something’, most common as a sailing term for the ship’s crew – ‘all hands on deck!’. Those of you who remember The Goon Show with Harry Seacombe, Spike Milligan, Michael Bentine and Peter Sellers may recall a skit when they gathered around an unlit light bulb; ‘Ah! Many hands make light work’ quips Spike …. and the lightbulb lit up; a wonderful example of the zany, timeless humour of that show.

This is my left hand (Note 3). Pseudo psychology would have me believe that if the ring finger is longer than the middle finger, I am poor, that if the middle finger is longer than the index finger I am rich, and if the ring and index finger are the same length you’re a genius. As I said: ‘pseudo psych’!

I wrote at the start of this postcard that we rely on our hands for so much. Spare a thought for Armi, a yoga friend from Naples, who works for the hairband Schwarzkopf. Over the years he developed repetitive strain injury in his left thumb, which eventually required the insertion of a metal rod.

He had his operation some weeks ago and the normal functionality is returning. There was debate about who owns the copyright to his X-ray …. so I am chancing he does!

You could add ‘hand’ to ‘writing’, ‘shake’, ‘cuff’, ‘ball’, ‘bell’, ‘to mouth’, ‘over fist’; or after ‘in’, ‘off’, ‘to’, ‘take in’. You could keep your hand in, lay your hand on, change hands, or even ‘win hands down’.

One of the greatest hits of the French singer Françoise Hardy’ was ‘Tous Les Garcons et Les Filles’, from 1962. It’s second verse started: ‘Et les yeux, dans les yeux, et la main, dans la main’  (And the eyes, in the eyes, and the hand, in the hand …). Like every song or lyric one adores, it’s on instant recall.

There is no space here to delve into the interesting mysteries and reading of the various lines on the palm of one’s hand. Palmistry has been around for centuries; who knows what a professional reading of mine would reveal, Oh! I don’t know, how any years I have left …… or whether I should just reflect that according to those beliefs about the lengths of my fingers …. I am a poor genius or a rich nincompoop!

…… if I could put my finger on it!

Richard 3rd July 2026

Evora Portugal

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS Back in 1964 I hitched through the Low Countries. Here’s me trying my luck ….. to ‘thumb a ride’.

Note 1 I asked one of our fellow yogis, Daren, whether he remembered the ‘Four Candles’ sketch with Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett and he admitted to never having seen it. I told him a scruffy Barker walks into a hardware store and asks Corbett who, complete with brown coat, is behind the counter, for ‘fork handles’ (ie new wooden handles for large gardening forks.) Corbett hears ‘four c …. andles’, as Barker has dropped the aitch, and puts those on the counter. It continues ……..

Note 2 Imperial units of measurement work better here.

Note 3 Actually it’s my right hand but when you insert a photograph into a word document sometimes the software turns it through 180˚!

PC 495 Hope Café Catch Up

~ postcardscribblesblog ~ 2 Comments

It’s been a while since I was able to get to the Hope Café, to enjoy a relaxing coffee and catch up with whoever’s there. Tuesday was a busy day; after our obligatory 90 minutes of hot yoga, an hour of a new sequence called ‘Shape Shifting’ (Note 1) and lunch, we both went to the Hove Skin Clinic for our annual Mole Mapping. Having had a ‘malignant Melanoma In-situ’ removed in November 2023 and a ‘Basal Cell Carcinoma’ taken off last year, I can’t be too careful, so have an annual check-up. On Wednesday I had lunch with my best friend Stewart in Bill’s in Reigate.

On Thursday I found both Sami and Mo, sitting at different tables but to all intense and purposes alone; we got together at a table near the Brazilian deli counter. You may remember Mo’s mother died earlier in the year and I was pleased she was back to her chatty, urbane self.

“I was thinking of you the other day Richard, as I waited to pay for some fruit from Dean’s. I think you wrote about him in one of your postcards. Hang on ……”

Dean’s fruit and vegetable stall on the north end of George Street

…. and Mo dives into her iPhone and somehow pulls up my postcards from 2017!! (PC 103)

“Here it is. You wrote how …….

“…… having picked up four egg cartons from the side of Dean’s stall, I come around to the front. It’s become such a regular occurrence that it goes something like:

Dean: “Hello! How are you? Just your usual? ….. How many have we got?  …. Remind me, it’s the £1.09s, isn’t it?….. So that’ll be £4.36 ….

(another regular appears)

Good morning, Doris! How are you?……. Sorry! Be with you in a minute.

……. So, is that everything? These strawberries are the first of the season. No! We had the Spanish ones but these are from the Netherlands.”

“Smell good an’ all” says Jim standing beside the stall from where he’s been talking to Dean about the football when there aren’t any customers ….

“I don’t want to smell ‘em, Jim, I want to know how they taste.”

Dean: “Sorry Doris, two secs! ….” turning to me … .“So, two dozen eggs and a punnet of strawberries; £7.35 call it £7. Thanks for that …. three pounds change then ….. See you next week ……

“Now, Doris what did you want? Yes, the beetroot are cooked, real sweet, I can tell, had some for my tea yesterday.”

“Not sure how you managed to find that, Mo, but let me give you another little vignette into life on Dean’s stall.”

“Go on ..”

“On Monday I went there to buy a Fennel, such a versatile vegetable ….. and there was a large cardboard box of cherries on the trestle table. A woman is waiting to be served.

“How much are the cherries, Dean?” she asks.

“£15 a kilo …..

The woman’s face says it all; she can’t get her head around £15 a kilo, all she wants is a handful and now she’s not sure whether they are expensive or not.

“I don’t want a kilo, Dean. How much is a handful?”

“Oh! OK!” and reaching for a paper bag, picks up a handful, tips them into the bag, puts the bag on the scales and says “£3.25”

She pays …. and walks off.

As Dean’s weighing my Fennel, I say: “Why didn’t you say to the woman ‘They’re about £3 a handful’….. and not confuse her with how much you paid?”

“Because they’re £15 a kilo ……”

I was about to say something and thought, you know what, best left alone!! Life huh! Gorgeous!”

Both Mo and Sami are laughing. “That’s funny, isn’t it. Anything else?” asks Mo.

“Well, there was a lovely letter in The Times the other day from a Susie Marwood. She wrote about going to buy a pair of shoe trees in a huge, local, home improvements superstore. “Unable to find any, I asked the young assistant who, momentarily discombobulated, then led me into the garden and patios section and gestured proudly towards a large selection of shrubs and saplings.”

Love the word ‘discombobulated’ – so expressive! Actually, many people simply wear some form of trainers and don’t need shoe trees.” 

“Ah! Not true” exclaims Sami. “I have some very expensive trainers and always put a pair of shoe trees in them.”

“I live and learn! Sami, you and Lisa went to Dubai, no, Sicily last month, didn’t you?”

“Yup! Lisa and I had a wonderful time, not too hot, not too crowded, as it was before the summer holidays. We flew to Palermo, picked up a hire car and drove to Marsala. Three days later we drove to Agrigento for a couple of nights, as we wanted to visit the Valley of the Temples.”

“These are …..?”

“An UNESCO World Heritage site featuring some of the best-preserved Greek ruins outside of Greece. Really enjoyed strolling around these ancient stones and, staying locally, one could see them illuminated at night. Stunning! The local beaches were disgusting, covered in litter and detritus, but we didn’t go there to sit on the beach!!”

“You may remember my postcard about our time in Sicily – “The Largest Mediterranean Island (PC 134 October 2018)”. We were just south of Syracuse.”  

“God, that was ages ago, but I do remember little snippets – something about the difficulties of trying to return your Avis hire car to the depot at Catania airport. Do you realise that was before Covid?”

“There was life before Covid! But listen you two, back in 2020 I recounted a dream I had had about a UK shortage of Smarties (PC 178 April 2020), drawing heavily from my experience of working in the MOD Procurement Executive 1980 – 1982 and its committees! I noted that a tube of 32 Smarties in 2020 cost 60 pence. I rather gave up chocolate, especially my favourite Cadbury’s Whole Nut, last year after my severe food poisoning on a flight with TAP from Rio de Janeiro to Lisbon. Time is always the healer and now I buy the occasional tube of Smarties from Rahmi Gurgur’s convenience store on Hove Street. In six years, the cost has gone up 50% and I only counted 31; 2.9 pence per smartie!  

(To be continued)

Richard 12th June 2026

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS Three foxes enjoyed playing in Amber House’s garden early on Sunday Morning.

Note 1 In theory ‘Shape Shifting’ is ‘the ability to physically transform one’s body usually through magic, inherent power, or divine intervention. In practice Mary Jarvis chose a series of Hatha Yoga postures specifically to move one’s own yoga practice to another level.