Is there a link between the flue jab and cold?
I am beginning to think so.
I am the living example☹️
Flue jab three weeks ago
And BINGO,
Cold starts a week later☹️
Not just any old cold
A real MAN COLD.
Complete with headaches, a
And sneezing,
And back aches,
And exhaustion,
And brain fog,
And endless coughing,
And even more coughing.
HENCE NO BLOG!
This post follows on from my last, on my favourite subject 🤡 BUNGALOWS. It’s obviously popular with journalists because they keep writing about it and with politicians, who keep talking about it. Older people too, keep dreaming about it. Sadly as I explained previously, they are all going to be disappointed. There is not going to be an explosion of new bungalows all over the countryside.
However, in those dreams and aspirations there is a golden key. DOWNSIZING and EQUITY RELEASE.
These two issues have the solution to some older peoples better later lives, if they have the courage and opportunity to use them. Downsizing gives them a smaller property to manage and the release of equity provides money for care should they require it in the future.
But the answer lies in the sky not on the ground. You have to build upwards not outwards. In other words you need to build much higher density housing to offset high land acquisition costs.
Large scale Retirement Villages have long been a feature of housing in America and Australia, but their adoption in the UK has been slow. Partly because of “the bungalow illusion” and also because in the UK private housing sector it has become an expensive option, only available to the wealthiest pensioners.
Government intervention in this market has been very cautious, for fear of upsetting voters. A bolder policy would be to promote retirement housing as a way of freeing up under occupied family housing.
However, either capital subsidy would be necessary if the accommodation is to be affordable to all, or guaranteed social insurance for care costs. Successive Governments have been reluctant to provide either option. Until they do we will continue to have beds blocked in the NHS and poor quality social and domiciliary care.
It’s that time of the year again. The Party Conference season. The time when all Government Housing Ministers and shadow housing ministers try to explain why they haven’t built much housing lately and how they now have the answer to their prayers and the prayers of their many older voters. BUNGALOWS!
It’s an old chestnut that I have written about many times.
(You can find my earlier posts by clicking on Retirement Housing in the Topics List and scrolling down to 2017 and 2016 and 2013)
It’s a dream, a mirage in the housing desert. Politicians perpetuate the illusion because it seems to solve so many of their other problems. Older people who move out of under occupied houses release equity to pay for their future care. Large family houses are freed up for growing families. The whole housing market starts to move forward.
Estate agents couldn’t be more delighted, which is why they keep writing reports on the virtues of bungalows. The latest report is from the Home Owners Alliance, who commissioned a survey of 2,000 people across the UK in April. They found that “one in seven home owners aged over 55 said they wanted to move….and 38% would prefer a bungalow” A spokesman for McCarthy and Stone said there was a “Critical shortage of bungalows”, which is rather surprising because I don’t think they are rushing to build many.
This is all just amateur analysis of the issue, repeated by lazy housing journalists who should know better. The harsh reality is that the high cost of purchasing land and the strong opposition to building on green belt makes it impossible to build bungalows at affordable prices. Only 1% of new homes built last year were bungalows.
The other question that needs asking is are bungalows the best option in later life ? When you step outside your bungalows front door it can be cold and wet in the winter and they are not always located close to amenities.
I am all in favour of downsizing to release the equity accumulated in your family home, but only if it offers a better lifestyle and a range of support, if or when you need it in future.
There was at least one good article in The Times by David Byers, which reviewed the issue, but sadly came to the wrong conclusion. He points to a key to solving the problem, which is that “ the over 60’s own £2.95 trillion of property”. The blockages to unlocking that money are an over-priced equity release market and the scarcity of good quality inexpensive retirement housing.
In all these reports and articles they have the right keys, but, they are unlocking the wrong doors!
More in my next post.
I haven’t just been involved with large charitable organisations, I have also helped set up several smaller groups who are no less important to the people they help.
Cluster headache is a rare a little understood neurological condition. GP’s and even most neurologists had little experience of it and there was no effective treatment. My wife is a sufferer. In 2001 along with a few other sufferers we set up and funded a charity -OUCH- the organisation for understanding cluster headaches. We started a newsletter; set up a help line; mailed information to 30,000 UK GP’s and organised a national conference. Since then treatment has improved and cluster headache is far better understood. OUCH played a key part in that and continues to be run today by volunteers 🌻
Another voluntary group I helped get started was Cheylesmore Good Neighbours in Coventry. I only offered encouragement and a small amount of support, a group of volunteers in the local community did and continue to do all their great work. 🌻 There are several posts on the things they do, which you can read about by clicking in the Tag Cloud.
The Good Neighbours theme was taken up by the “Hope” project in Coventry. A small grant I gave to them to employ a fundraiser has significantly improved their core funding to continue their work in the community. 🌻
Small groups like the ones above are often hard to get started and even harder to keep going. They often compete for funding and attention with much larger and better resourced charities.
Perhaps this business card can help?
My last post was about a brief encounter with a small charity in Liverpool. So if you follow it, who knows where will this thread will lead?
My first experience of working for a charity was when I joined Coventry Churches Housing Association in January 1979. It was started by a small group of volunteers linked by their Christian faith and a desire to help the homeless in Coventry. Their Chairman was a Jesuit priest who had worked with communities in Liverpool. I spent 10 years at CCHA as part of an inspirational team of people lead by Bill Martin; a man who knew no boundaries and strove relentlessly for improvement and innovation.
In 1987 with Bill’s encouragement and a seed funding loan I set up the ExtraCare charity to develop and manage nursing homes for the elderly as well as managing CCHA’s rented retirement housing. I was able to take several key people from CCHA with me and we remained a team for the next 20 years.
How does this relate to growing 🌻?
Well we started with no public funds most of our capital for new nursing home projects had to be raised from bank loans, but a small proportion came from charitable fundraising. Over the years at ExtraCare we raised over £20 million from a standing start.
ExtraCare’s story is covered earlier in this blog and you can find more posts in the Tag Cloud, “ExtraCare Traditions”. What started as a seed of an idea about “Better lives for older people”, turned into a 🌻 that improved the lives of a great many elderly residents of ExtraCare and several thousand staff.
This is a long way from a small charity in Liverpool, but a 🌻 has many seeds and there are some parallels which I will cover in my next post.
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bungalows
I met someone really interesting last week. Someone I had never met before, but who answered my enquiring questions directly and without hesitation. No guarded or ambiguous answers, just open straightforward replies.
A far cry from our politicians who these days can rarely think for themselves and are briefed to resort to stock phrases like “ let me be clear”, which is anything but clear.
He was a fundraiser for a cancer charity in Liverpool, who desperately need money to continue their excellent work in providing advice and support to people with serious health conditions. But he didn’t ask for a donation, nor did he ask why I was asking probing questions.
It was only a brief meeting and I would like to have found out more, but time didn’t allow. So as he left I asked for his business card. Rather surprising to me he didn’t have one.
I suppose it is a sign of our new tech age, where everything is communicated by the internet. Through websites; emails; Facebook; instagram; Reddit; LinkedIn; WhatsApp and even more social media that so many of the Granddad generation don’t participate in or understand.
Business cards are the handshake introduction to any longer term relationship. The biggest donors to charity are older people, so maybe there is a missed opportunity there?
🌻 For want of a business card ! 🌻
A recently published report by the OECD – Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has shown that UK students are falling behind other European countries in terms of standards of literacy. This follows on from an earlier study that pointed to our dropping well behind in the world tables in mathematics.
So what is to be done?
Our decisive leader Sir Keyer Stammer has demanded “ACTION NOW!” The Education Secretary- Bridget Phillipson has announced a new challenging curriculum for both issues.
In primary schools all children will be required to recite the whole alphabet from A to Z before they can go to secondary school. Then at secondary school they must be able to rite a hole sendtnse before going to Universitty. Spelling mistakes don’t matter cause u can allways use spelcheque.
The new standard for maths is even higher. Before leaving primary school all students must be able to do the 1 x table at least up to 20. In secondary school you can just ask Siri, because nobody does numbers in the heads anymore.
These new demanding standards will once again elevate Britain’s students to their rightful position in the world rankings.
NOWHERE
Researchers at Liverpool John Moores University have come up with some very inconvenient advice. They have been studying how much water people drink compared to the NHS advice of one and a half litres a day.
Firstly they found most people are not even drinking that much☹️ Even more concerning was their recommendation that we would all be much more alert and healthier if we drank TWO & a HALF LITRES A DAY!
At a time when we are in the hottest summer on record this is difficult advice to swallow. Our reservoirs are drying up; hose pipe bans have been issued; water companies are nearly bankrupt and their charges are rising faster than the water levels.
What’s more, have you ever tried drinking that much water in a day. They must be having a laugh🤡
With the help of ChatGPT and AI, the Last Laugh Looney Party of Robo MP’s have solved all of the biggest domestic issues that were concerning the electorate.
Now it is time to turn their attention to major international events, namely Ukraine and Israel &Gaza.
President Tramp has done all the initial undiplomatic work of sowing confusion everywhere. Sir Keyer Stammer has b-b-b-backed him all the way and promised to put boots on the ground. Although he’s not quite sure if that is in Ukraine or Israel or Gaza.
Ever willing to spend more taxpayers hard earned cash, the Ministry of Defence ensured that 500,000 pairs of boots have already been ordered from Doc Martens and we just happen to have 500,000 immigrants twiddling their thumbs and waiting around in hotels ready to fill them🤡
Sir Stammer has called them “the Army of the Unwilling”
Once they are deployed/ deported he fully expects to share the Nobel Peace Prize with President Tramp.
“How lucky we are to have such great politicians who can establish peace in our time”
GrumbleSmiles 
