Arty outing

Miggy came yesterday and after lunch we went to Firle near Charleston Farmhouse where the Bloomsbury set hung out. It is a beautiful village with a perfect shop and post office and many cottages had vegetables, home made bread, jam,, flowers, outside and a pot to put your money in. We went to the church as we thought it was the one that Duncan and Vanessa Bell and co had decorated with their paintings but it was the wrong one. But there was a lovely John Piper window with some happy sleeping sheep and also the vicar there is the one that is always on the telly  Peter Owen Jones of `Around the World in 8o Faiths etc and you could feel his energy.       So we went on to Berwick Church a few miles away and there were the paintings in all their glory, and a path full of the best hollyhocks I have ever seen. Also sculpture by Sarah Walton, so we went on to her studio up Bo Peep Lane, and had good chats with her and looked at her work.  Amongst other things she makes salt- glazed pottery ash containers for people, dogs and cats. You would have to be either very rich or inordinately fond of your cat to buy one of those.    

Gordon is making a terrible mess in my backyard but promises to clear it all up tomorrow.I notice that he has started painting the inside of the kitchen wiindows and doors as well as the outside. Yesterday a gust of wind blew a large pot of paint off an upstairs window sill, so there was great pallaver clearing that up.   The traffic is very noisy up and down the road outside.  Gordon says it will cost two thousand pounds to do double glazing and think of the mess he would make in my front room!  I think I will put up with the noise.
I sat for the Art Group again yesterday.  I was a bit shocked when I peeped at the results. I looked a real old crone but never mind.   They like me as a model as I am used to sitting still in Quaker meetings.  I pick up all sorts of useful tips about bus times, swimming pools, and local gossip.  It is very interesting.

Away for the whole weekend with the Quakes at Park Place at Wickham, at a convent run by a small group of  elderly Carmelite nuns. I feel so safe with a large group of Q`s: they are my tribe. We  did slightly dotty things: North American Salute to the Sun on the lawn before breakfast (I fully intend to do this every morning as it is so invigorating, but forgot today, not a good start)  African Drumming, Contemplative Walking, Singing from the Spirit (absolutely lovely that was) Circle Dancing, as well as earnest talks and discussions.  Everybody asked how I was enjoying retirement. Their faces fell when I said that I like it here. `Don`t you miss us?` they cried, `Don`t you miss the Meeting House?  Of course I do and it was so good to be with them all again, but I have to say that Ditchling is a friendly place to live and I feel quite settled in my new home.
The cat was pleased to see me back as the nice teenager who is my cat feeder locked his keys inside the house. She did not seem hungry so perhaps she has found another cat flap to got through for food.
I am off to the Unitarian Meeting House this afternoon for the Monday Club end ot season party. Life is one whirl of gaiety and pleasure here in Ditchling. 

I spend a lot of time driving around getting lost, I do it daily at present.  Kind people invite me to their homes and I do not listen properly when they give me directions. Yesterday I went to West Hoathley instead of East Hoathley (and they are oddly about twenty miles apart) I had the whole village on the case trying to find  `number four near the village shop` as there had not been a shop there for years.   The night before it had been an obscure street in Hove, the previous day, the bicycle shop in Burgess Hill.  I have irate drivers hooting at me as I dither at roundabouts, I am a Driving Hazard.
On Wednesday, I sat for the Art Class.  I had imagined that I could read my book or do the Guardian Crossword, but no, they wanted to grill me about the Quakers for two hours.  I do not think I made any converts. 

More long drives last weekend, every time I go anywhere it is an extra 70 miles....    I went to Limpley Stoke which is such a beautiful name for a village, to a  birthday party for old friends P and J. On the way back on Sunday I broke the journey for a Goodbye Tea at the Meeting House in Winchester for D aged 92 who is going into a Home.  There they all were under the magnolia tree, with the scones and tasty cakes, the Quakes can always be relied on for a cracking good tea.    The Meeting House and garden looked exactly the same, no changes since I left.
I am having a very packed week. Visitors each day, chiropodist on Thursday, Brighton MH on Friday, and I am sitting for the Art Group tomorrow (fully clothed, I hasten to add) There is another birthday party tomorrow evening in Brighton where we are all expected to do a `turn` Then away for the weekend with the Quakes at a Convent.

Life is never dull in Ditchling

Just back from the Monday Club annual outing. We went on the Bluebell Line, but do not ask me where, as I have no idea. Sussex villages with unfamiliar names flashed by amidst a cloud of steam and smoke as we ate our delicious cream tea aboard the train. I felt young and skittish leaping nimbly on and off, as most had zimmers and sticks (the shape of things to come I fear)    The next event in two weeks time is the annual summer party, with music, in the Unitarian Meeting House garden.  There were earnest discussions as to who will be making the salmon sandwiches and who is doing the coffee walnut sponge and also the cheese scones and strawberries. I can hardly wait. It is good to be old in Ditchling.
I joined the Public Library in Hassocks this morning.  What a cheery place.  I do not need any books, this house is full of books I have not yet read, but I do love the ambience of public libraries and the board with all the notices about exciting village events.
An odd thing. I came back to find a lovely box of fruit and vegetables on the table. Cherries, strawberries, bananas, beetroot, lettuce, masses of stuff.  The only person with a key is Gordon the builder who did not turn up with the frail youth this morning after all. How strange. 

Oh me, of little faith.......

It is Saturday evening and in spite of  my dire forbodings, Gordon, the garden wrecker has finished the roof, removed the scaffolding, steam cleaned the paving and flower pots, (also inadvertently the kitchen walls and surfaces with a leaky attachment) and gone home clutching his cash in hand. Alas he has taken it into his head to paint the back door and windows, so he cheerily said `see you Monday Vick` as he left.  I have no memory of agreeing to this.  Still he does now bring his own milk and make his own tea, and also he had a frail youth with him today who is also coming next week.  I asked the lad what he usually does on a Monday morning and he said he stayed up in his bedroom with his playstation, so perhaps I am doing my bit to help the young unemployed   I cheered myself up writing a poem about builders as a therapy.
I spent a few hours yesterday at the Quaker Meeting House in Brighton which is simply buzzing with life.  I hope to be a voluntary helper there on a regular basis, but I felt I have so much to learn.  I know now how hepless the volunteers felt when they came to stand in for me at Winchester.   Brighton MH is a much more efficiently run outfit than mine was, and there is so much going on.   I did enjoy it all.
I have been writing all day and at the same time, watching Gordon`s progress anxiously outside.  I am trying to write about all the houses i have lived in, but there have not been many.  I have led a very unexciting life.   Nice though.