Sunday 22 September 2013

Home Sweet Home.

Well here I am at last in my newly painted sitting room looking out on to a green field and a clump of oak trees. There are several plump rabbits lolloping about in the field and three squirrels on the bird table plus birds of various shapes and sizes fluttering around. This is a nice change from the juggernauts roaring past St Dominic`s Cottage. Also I can go from room to room, (all four of them) without negotiating precipitous stairs, so I am glad I moved. Moving house is like childbirth. You forget how excruciating it was once it is over. Daughter J did amazingly sterling work unpacking boxes and helping on the actual day and son T has just been to stay for a couple of days and he did the computer, tuned the TV and re assembled the grandfather clock. I had been muttering threats to get rid of the clock as I thought it looked a bit silly in this little bungalow but now it is installed, I find its familiar ticking comforting. I am so glad to have my laptop working again. I feel quite at home here already. B.Wiggins is happy. There are good dog walks round here, and I do not have to walk along the roads. We come home from our early morning walkies soaked from the foggy foggy dew.

Tuesday 10 September 2013

On the move at last!

Just when I had almost given up hope, the solicitor (holiday stand in) took pity on my plight and said I can have the key of the blessed bungalow on Friday. I have got sort of used to sleeping on daughter J`s sofa in the front room with the two dogs and trying to dash into the bathroom of a morning before the Japanese lodger. You have to have your wits about you in this game i can tell you. I must juggle now with the carpet man, the painters and the moving and storage chaps, It is daunting. I will also have to spend hours on the phone to Calcutta for BT and the gas and the electric. Daughter J thought I needed a boost so booked up for me to have my eyebrows `shaped` and a facial massage this morning. It was lovely. I lay on a couch in a dimly lit beauty parlour with plinky plonk music playing whilst luscious creams were patted and rubbed into my wrinkled old face. I felt thoroughly rejuvenated. I asked Michelle, the massage person if she had other old people and she said`Oh lots, one old gent comes regularly to have his eyelashes tinted. Last Saturday. some of us Ditchling Quakers went to Balcombe with anti fracking banners and held a Meeting for Worship by the gate where the lorries to the fracking site go in and out. We were joined by about a dozen from the site. There was a formidable police presence nearby. The protest camp is spread out along both sides of a busy road so it is not pleasant for the campers. I am glad that I went.

Sunday 1 September 2013

Back to the Old Familiar Places....

I stayed last week in clean, tidy, respectable Winchester. It is such a contrast to sleazy old Brighton, though I love both cities. Kind friends and family welcomed me and fed me and it was good to see all the old familiar places and faces. Progress seems to be being made with the move. I signed an official looking document from the solicitor,but I still have nor got the ever elusive date for completion. I am awaiting a reply from an eloquent and strongly worded letter to the chief boss of Peverel, the firm that administers Dumbrells Court which is the old folks complex where I hope to live. Before I printed and sent it off, I passed it round the family who added even more heart-rending details of my predicament. The letter will probably go into the waste paper basket but it made us all feel better. After the weekend back in Brighton,where its lovely to be with daughter J who has been such a help and tower of strength through all my troubles, I am going back to Winchester today with B. Wiggins who will enjoy being with Charlie, a West Highland terrier and his owner B where we will say for a few days. Next Saturday, I hope to be at the at anti fracking protest at Balcombe and we also hope to hold a Quaker Meeting for Worship there. I have finished Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan. I loved it. It is set in Cambridge, London and Brighton and is all about MI5 It made me wonder if they`ve got a file on me after many years of demos, protests and letters. I am feeling bereaved as I have not got a good book to go on to, so I will have to trawl the charity shops tomorrow, I am out of touch with the Library now that I am homeless.