Greenwich time where the sun crosses the Greenwich meridian at 12oc in London is back and will stay with us til after next year's Equinox, the nadir being marked by Newgrange a couple of days before Xmas. I am confined temporarily to barracks by a doctor who wants to believe I have a heart condition and is making me take by blood pressure morning and evening and log it online.  I have to bare my left arm which is almost the same as undressing and wrestle with the arm-fitting thingy with acres of Velcro to get it into the correct position for taking reliable readings and then sit for five minutes thinking of nothing while my body relaxes so I can then take [supposedly] reducing numbers every two minutes until I get a reading which does not indicate I should be calling 999 for a heart ambulance.   Actually I don't mind being confined for a while while the clocks go back as it gives me pause for reflection, time to continue organizing the land base, filing and foldering recordings and photos and stuff hoovered up by three state of the art Samsungs I introduced recently into my life in an attempt to develop a relationship with the 21st century which is already almost quarter way to completion. 

The week has been interesting.  I got a horrible attack of mouth ulcers where it was extremely painful to eat and I brought it to the locum doctor at Willow Tree to observe diagnose and report.  Sat 1st Nov is not fully cleared up although I can eat. Yesterday also I went from here to the boat with a dolly bag of stuff for the boat and returned all within ten hours of leaving and it meant I could cope with my stinging mouth. 

Interlagos Sprint 2oc Saturday so maybe I can watch it on the web? Well you have to pay to watch but not to listen so I listened and very interesting it was.  Norris is flying it and is wished well for the race tomorrow night (8pm on steam radio) and the Conservatives have got a new leader, a computer scientist and a lawyer who did not go to Oxford.  She is on record as having hacked computers in college and has an impeccable CV. The first properly educated leader the conservatives have had since Thatcher.  She was born in London in 1980 but moved to live in Nigeria as a child and America as a teenager. Speaks English as a second language she says

This is one of those special blogs I warned you about.  A special subject or moan or a view of life on the slow lane but from my off-grid perspective. 

according to arcouk.org:-  "Around 74,750 older people in the UK live in approximately 57,500 Retirement Community units, with 51,500 units in England, 3,500 units in Scotland and 2,500 units in Wales1. There is an uneven distribution across market segments, with 66% of UK Retirement Community properties available for affordable or social rent."  Doing the sums on the statement then 57.5k units house 75k people with occupancy at about 1.3.  

According to audley villages 26Jun2024 "Sheltered housing refers to purpose-built property developments with extra support for older people. Properties could be one, two or three bedrooms in the form of a flat, apartment, retirement bungalow or something similar. which translates as Home Nene is not sheltered housing by their definition. But when you see their prices it is obvious they in in a very different ballgame

best advice here

Be very careful with terminology.  In this blog a "living unit" means a single property in which lives a single person or a 'married' couple. In accordance with this site similarities to a canal boat are expected. However, a canal boat at law is not a property. It is a chattel in the same way as a car a tent a camper or a suitcase is a chattel.  However, in this site a "living unit" serves the same purpose of giving the occupant a place to sleep to cook to rest and to entertain on land and of secure tenure.

as many as a million 'living units' in England, usually flats, usually small, which are 'reserved' for older people to live in a 'protected' environment. These are people  but who by and large cope in their own way without interference or help.  However, the 'sector' is a spectrum where age is an issue and the minimum is 60 and the oldest may be centenarians. 

The Home Nene building was completed in the 80s and intended originally to be offices and workshops but was quickly seen to be non-viable and was converted into 48 flats.  A superficial Land Registry search shows that a number of flats were 'sold' with price tags of £200,000 all in the same day in 1986.  This coincidentally is the same date as today's leases were drawn up although more carefully scrutiny will show that dates were played with.  It is not feasible  to examine leases in bulk but it is fair to assume they are mostly  identical.  It is known that some flats have always been owned in toto by the beneficial owner and that some leases fell back to the beneficial owner over the years.

As living space and accommodation, the complex gives no impression from the outside that it runs on a similar template as a prison albeit without locked doors.  However, the management company is seen as oppressive and inflexible with a cavalier attitude to the interpretation of the prison rules aka lease. Socially it has its trusties and it's narks.  It has inmates who never emanate from their cells and others who choose to live in alternative establishments either temporarily of permanently  and this is the case for those who 'own' their lease as much as those who rent

Home Nene then has 48 cells not all occupied and with a floating population.  There are regular mortalities, the 2023 figure being 4, as may be expected where by definition inmates are old, and there are cases where residents have been moved to care when it is found or decided they are not able to care for themselves. There are cells rented out  having been purchased speculatively because there is no age barrier to buying the leases only to living in them.

Of the 48 units in Home Nene it is believed that no more than 15 are lived in by the 'owner' of the lease.  Is is believed,  as of 1st Nov 2024, that there may be 15 flats unoccupied or 'in transit' and as many as 15 which are lived in by individuals or couples who are renting.  And there are a few whose status is not possible to establish

Elsewhere in this website is a section dedicated to this land based off-grid living.  It is WIP and has a page entitled "Haven For Bewildered" quod vide 

I am pushing it in this blog because it is a hidden present and future social problem involving the older and oldest members of our community.  I have been one of these now for about two years when I bought a lease as insurance and came to experience a strange form of existence I am now learning much about.  My living unit was bargain basement as far as outlay was concerned and the 70year lease was  secured for about the same money I would get if I sold my boat. 

However, there are other flats on offer here and elsewhere with similar facilities as mine for rather more money. 

This blog is not my complaint nor my moan.

I am satisfied with my bargain but I sense that an enormous amount of money is being made off the backs of old and frail people across the country and vast amounts of profits are being siphoned out  of the country to offshore accounts without any reckoning ...

WIP to be developed over time.

I'm starting this on Saturday evening above Braunston Top Lock where, to my great surprise, I arrived this morning.  I got a lift up with a [holiday] family who knew what they were doing and I had nothing to do drive my boat from lock to lock.  I left the boat at 1040 and walked the Dark Lane to catch a [thankfully late] D1 from the Sheering Lane stop.  Daventry consisted of two Big Issues and a bacon bap with a cup of hot chocolate.  I returned to the boat with a litre of Gold Top which later helped cook mushrooms I had seen on my way to the bus and collected along the Dark Lane on my return. 

In the evening I was delighted to help Nick Wolfe slot Aldgate behind mine til morning when we would rearrange things.  During Saturday I cleaned up the water trough comprehensively and helped a few boats though the lock including "Image" the beautiful 60's icebreaker whose owners have sailed on the Nelson and for which the first mate has a yardarm ticket.  Before dark all was set for overnight rain and wind and I got an hour in on computer.  I also managed to off load maybe a dozen cards to various victims including "Image". 

There was rain overnight but rather less than a deluge. After bailing WavyRider I took off to pass out a card or two and have chats with Nick and V and M and Flix.  On the list for onboard entertainment was maceration of trotters in very warm water and exfoliation of same along with a clipping of nails ... before settling in to enjoy Ashley ripping the treetops above.  Apart from a short sharp downpour midday and the odd gust over the boat the day passed quietly and the sun came out in the later afternoon.

Monday morning I was up at six checking the tunnel lights worked as I had decided to go for the tunnel at 7oc which I did (waved away by Nick using night semaphore)  emerging at 7.40 and taking til 8.30 to get to Norton Junction and an hour tidying up for a longish stay.  I have to say the new tunnel light system was brilliant and I saw stuff in there I never seen before including the 100metre boards that count you down to the water cascade next to the kink at 450m.  Alan Buckle will be doing my pre BSS and I am not leaving here til Pentargon is certified. 

Also Simon Pollard will be looking at the umbilical cord.

10oc I decided to go for the D4 from Long Buckby Wharf and walked there by road catching bus at 1035 and D1 at 11.15 to transfer to a No.1 about 12.15 to drop me outside the Rugby printer at 12.30.  I then walked up the hill for a Clifton Cafe full english before the 13.15 D1 landed me at Daventry to wait for the D4 back to LB Wharf. I was back on board at 3.30

Second blog of October opened on Sunday 13th at Butcher's Bridge Braunston in a place where the solars can get the solar if the sun shines which it is not due to.  Today I ran the engine for over an hour to try to raise the batteries which had been left intentionally under load with the cooler on since last Monday. The boats had not been flooded while away but were covered with fallen hawthorn leaves which I swept up and stuffed into the airhead. The fire had been primed before going away so was lit at 4oc has been running now for over 24hrs without going out and without being relit.

Today I met Dave Buckle who is able to do a pre BSS (1.5hrs at his mooring in Long Buckby) whenever I get up there.  I also met Nick briefly but otherwise stayed on board. It suited me to drive down turn the boat and come back up to the water point to try to get some solar and later bring the boat around the corner to the first ring where it can get solar if the sun shines. It is now also clear of leaves.

My Rugby printer company is being tardy and in danger of being dropped.  One of two proofs supplied is good enough to go with. My first call to them to get calling cards done was in July and we are not even near a contract

Much of today was spent gauging how to charge computers and phones under duress. I serviced the red mooring rope which was badly frayed from constant chafing on the ring.

Tempus fugit celeriter and Monday dawned damp and murky with no prospect of getting any better.  I resolved to find a place to print my cards, ending up in Northampton's Hazelwood Road at Merland's Print Shop only a short walk from Spoons where the job can be done in less than a week at a price I can handle.  The mobile shop in Abington Street provide a new copper A04e for £99.99 and I got directly onto a D2 for Daventry where EE assured me the number change was still WIP so I got the D1 at 1510 on the button and Boat House at 15.35.  I called by Swindler's for a bubbler at a discounted £66 all in which effectively killed off the 20% vat. At the bus stop I picked up my loppers left there this morning having increased the hole in the hedge somewhat. Evening was spent reorganising phones and sims ...

The blog has been updated every week as per a New Year resolution and this is the first blog of Autumn. Tá failte romhaibh go Deire Fomhair 'the end of the harvest' in our language and the symbolic winding down of agriculture and nature til we are summoned by Newgrange on the morning of the Winter Solstice. 

On the good ship Pentargon the heater has been tested, fuel bags checked, porridge oats counted, batteries and solar panels tested.  Comms are upgraded and bulletproof.  The four-year Safety Check is to be done and the boat is being readied for it.  An umbilical cord linking Wavy to Pentargon is being checked.  Winter bedclothes have been taken out, washed, aired, dried and fitted on the bunk.  Boots and heavy socks have been checked or bought. Summer is gone and so to Autumn and no let up in the rain ...

  In spite of massive rain over the past month it can be reported today Sunday, 5th October that the bilges are totally dry and cleaned of debris and old rotten leaves and the day that is in it is a drying day so by nightfall I should see DRY steel in the floor of the engine room. Every time I got near this situation all year it just rained again ...

Monday morning I baled out of the boat which was well baled before I left and came back to the flat to get ready for a visit to London on Tuesday.  Wednesday I was at the flat for a budget meeting and on Thursday I went to Meldreth and stayed overnight to see Ruben and Diane and we enjoyed a spectacular aurora display. Friday Diane organised return tickets Stanstead Dulin for 8Dec10 before I caught a train at 1040 to Cambridge missed the connection to P.Boro and travelled by Ely but still got to the flat about 1.30 to rest and relax and even enjoy a siesta.