Hello.

Welcome to the web site of Nick & Geraldine Thornton.

We are a married couple living in Nottingham. As you will see, our web site is very much work in progress. We are not entirely sure what to put on it but I am sure that we will improve as we get used to building it.

I play golf, so there will probably be a page about this. We enjoy walking. That could be another page. I am developing my skills with a digital camera. That could be a third. Geraldine enjoys painting so we might photograph these for another. Suddenly, it seems that we have quite a lot that we can post. The next problem is finding time to do all this.

First, though. Why notthorntons? It isn't very subtle and you have probably worked it out already. Nearly all references to Thorntons on the internet are to the firm that manufactures excellent chocolates. We are not (those) Thorntons. We are in fact Thorntons from not(tingham). Well, it seemed clever at the time.

I now have been constructing the site for two years.I have done most of what I set out to do, although nothing yet about painting. I have added a blog, which never entered my mind two years ago. It is probably of no interest to anybody else, but it helps to document my ambition to make good use of every day in my retirement. In addition, it gives an opportunity to for a grumpy old man to rant on issues of the day.

Two years has turned into three. The most regular updates are the blog and the walks, although there is significant activity on golf courses and birds. Both the blog and walks have become a little slow because of the page size. I can do nothing about the blog as I am able to manage only a single blog page. I could delete early entries but am reluctant to do so. However, I am starting a second page of walks with its own index so that access will be quicker without losing other entries. Finally, two years after retirement, do I miss working? Not a bit. I enjoyed my job for 39 years and kept giving my best until the end but moved on at the right time and now live a very different but busy and fulfilling life.

Three years has become five. Alas Geraldine has died. I more or less stopped updating the site when she was diagnosed with cancer, shortly before Christmas. Before that I was using the blog to demonstrate to myself if nobody else how I was fulfilling my promise to myself to use every day well. How glad I am now of those five full and happy years since our retirement. How glad I am that we took early retirement and were able to spend some really good time together. How much more we had planned. Life changed for ever with the diagnosis and has changed for ever again with her death. I have completed the best forty years of my life and I am only 62. 

I know that Geraldine would not have wanted me to stop enjoying things, although nothing will be as much fun as it was without her. I am going to restart the blog. It will detail what I have done and my grumpy old man opinions on national or international affairs. So nothing new there. I am going to add what I feel. It is scary to say that. But I have already noticed that there is nobody here any more to share thoughts and feelings with. So I will share them with cyberspace! I don't care if nobody reads them. I am doing it for me. I'm crying now so I'll stop. Wish me luck!