Tuesday 18th March 2025

I make no excuses for saying I am a fan of Danny Baker. I have loved his radio shows since his Upright shows with Danny Kelly on Radio Five the best part of three decades ago.

He will throw out random subjects and see what responses he gets.

I was on his show on Radio 5 before he was kicked off explaining how my third form German class invaded East Germany. And more recently how when surveying Indonesia we discovered a new volcano to science.

Last weekend, he asked the questions: who held you as a baby?

My thoughts were of Ada Rowe.

Ada Rowe was for some years at the end of the 1960s, the oldest person in the UK, and for the first 11 days of 1970, the oldest person in the world.

Ada lived in one of the grand Victorian terrace houses on Milton Road in Lowestoft, and somehow was a friend of my family.

By the time of my birth, and our meeting, Ada was 107 years old, and would live to be nearly 112 years old.

This in itself is amazing, but it is thought that she was the last living person born in the 1850s, and so pre-dated both the American Civil War and the Crimean War.

And so I have a connect who had lived some 166 years ago!

This last fact I only found out two nights ago when I sent off my mail, and on the latest edition of the TreeHouse Podcast, these facts blew Danny and Louise's minds.

As well as mine.

Anyway, other than that, and the fact this is my last working week, it was a normal Tuesday.

I have the task of finishing my audit report. Sounds simple, but dozens of pages of notes, hundreds of screenshots and 24 hours of transcriptions to go through means this is not an easy task.

But one that will fill my last week at work.

I slept through my alarm, woke to find the sun risen, and the smell of freshly brewing coffee filled the house.

Time to get up.

I do, and after drinking said coffee, I tidy up, do the bird seed and am ready for the day's labours.

I have meetings. As there has to be meetings. Meetings that should have been e mails. E mails that should have been texts. Just let us work.

My manager claimed my work as his own in a Global Quality meeting, which has not helped my mood, but I decided not to challenge that.

I really wanted to go for a walk, as it was so sunny and still outside, but was still cold in the breeze or in the shadows, and anyway, I had work to do.

I did go out at the end of the afternoon, the end of the street and down a bit of Station Road to snap the dwarf daffodils on a bank, which looked a picture in the afternoon sun.

Then back via our neighbours who seduced me with a can of Stella and presented me with a bottle of Brandy Barrel aged Chimay Blue as a retirement present.

I am truly humbled.

Back home to feed the cats and to make chicken tacos for dinner, having made the salsa and marinated the chicken earlier.

It was glorious, if messy.

And with a League 2 game to "enjoy" in the evening, that was your Tuesday.