Christmas Day went well at Brighton,  twelve of us, age range 3 to 84 sat down to dinner, and then we all sang songs accompanied by F on guitar, J on violin and various ukeleles drums and banjos Then we did a bit of daft dancing and. today I can hardly walk, My foot has gone funny probably as the result of my attempting to join in with W`s salsa lesson, but it is gradually improving.
Last week I went Up North and enjoyed being in Allendale where grand daughter F now lives and seeing the two little boy great grands and also I was in Newcastle and saw the rest of the tribe.  .F and I went to meeting last Sunday and there were only four others there, all muffled up to the eyebrows, and understandably so as the  ancient Meeting House was  freezing. I wondered how I would survive an hour but in the end it seemed right to be there. I thought of all the Quakers arriving on foot or on horseback over the moors in the past couple of hundred years.   I also went to a jolly carol party in a warm barn with the Bahai community just outside Allendale that was held on the winter solstice.
Here is my list of good things about my Christmas:
1.Cards. I have just collected them all up from shelves and window sills etc and I am going to re read the lovely messages and think about the senders. Also re read the round robin letters that I positively like.
2.Having a good sing song  as you don`t often get the chance.
3.Seeing the youngest members of the family,in fact all of them.  
4. Going to the Quakers bring and share breakfast on Christmas morning and then Meeting afterwards. Bradley Wiggins came this year and went all the way round the circle as we sat in silence and put a paw up to everyone.No one minded.
5. Reading Carol Ann Duffy`s  poem about Dorothy Wordsworth`s Biirthday (given to me as a present) we all read a verse or two. It s lovely, as her poems always are.
6. Having a supply of books to read and bath bubbles to last me for a few months.
      

The heat`s on......

The heating is working now in a hit and miss sort of way, it seems to come on when it feels like it.   My watch is repaired and one lamp, but still the TV is on the blink, and I can`t manage the light bulb because you need two hands to do it and I have to hold on to the ladder.  I am waiting in vain for the handyman to come.   But things are looking up.

The Christmas cards are thudding in, mostly from people I have not yet sent to and also ones with no stamps from neighbours to whom it hadn`t occurred to me to write a card as I see them every day.  What a strange business it all is. Nevertheless I do love coming home and finding a  pile on the mat and then I sit happily opening them and hopefully reading a nice message or even a round robin. It`s always a disappointment if it is just a name. 

Grand daughter M is off to Ecuador for a month on Wednesday to explore rainforests, go up the Amazon and walk in the Andes. What an adventurous family I have. I enjoy their travels vicariously. I have not the slightest desire to go anywhere out of England (except for little trips to France with brother P)      I am off to Newcastle on Thursday for a few days to visit some of my tribe and that is far enough for me. I do love being at home in the warm with Radio 4 and occasional forays into the frosty woods with B. Wiggins.   There are rumours that friend C is knitting him a proper yellow jersey for Christmas as worn by The Bradley Wiggins.  I had to send measurents.    

I am enjoying the Reith Lectures on Radio 4 though perhaps enjoy is not the right word as they are about death, dying and end of life care, but they are so interesting and really make you think about it all.
Another media highlight from last week was the docudrama about Christopher Jefferies, the retired schoolmaster accused of murder in Bristol two years ago. I can recall many slightly eccentric old gents a bit like him,   He was treated in a horrifying manner by police and the press, just because he was a bit odd, and there was no real evidence at all.   It was sensitively and beautifully produced and acted, a real treat to have a good play on TV  instead of twaddle like Downton Abbey. 
  

On the Blink

Ever since my Old Person`s heating allowance arrived, the central heating has not worked,  my watch (bought from a charity shop it is true) has packed up, the TV ditto, and several light bulbs which are too high for me to teeter up ladders to replace, have conked out .   I am reading my good pile of library books instead of watching TV,  and using shawls and hot water bottles and the odd candle.   I have been waiting for an odd job man to come for weeks, to put up a blind, repair the kitchen curtain track, and other items. He is highly recommended but difficult to pin down, also the plumber for the boiler. 

Otherwise I am extremely contented and delighted that the much dreaded recital for the Old Folks Club is now over.  The worst part was getting my cello and spinet from here to the Unitarian Meeting House in the village which entailed getting two elderly gents from Dumbrells Court to stagger along carrying the coffin shaped object on uneven paths in the dusk.   We got through our programme without actually losing our places or dropping our instruments.   

I have been making Christmas cakes (stir up Sunday) and chutney for small xmas gifts, so the bung smells very vinegary and cakey.    We are putting a bit of an embargo on presents  this year restricting them mainly to the consumable variety.   I am also just about to start on the Christmas cards and they are all recycled too.

It is the Infants this afternoon and they are all practising their songs for the end of term show. Teacher puts on a CD while they are doing craft activities and they all sing away  I love it.   

B.Wiggins went to a local agricultural college to the Small Animals Grooming Department and had some students doing his full haircut plus  teeth, nails, ears and bottom. He was there for four hours!  He looks very smart but has to wear his blue jumper when we go for walks as only his ears and tail are furry. 

moe mud......

Venezuelan daughter in law is here to stay from Washington DC. We have been trawling the local charity shops as they don`t have anything quite like them back in the USA and we have a particularly good crop here. There s one where everything costs a pound or less, that is my favourite.   I am planning to do some of my Christmas shopping there.
Daughter in law is a trained healer and she has been giving me treatments, much in need at the moment as I fell over in a quagmire on an early morning dog walk a couple of days ago.   I did not injure myself but I had great difficulty getting up and just kept becoming more and more plastered all over in mud with B.Wiggins gazing at me in horror. I was so glad I managed to get home without any Ditchlingites seeing me as even my face was muddy and the next day I was all stiff and aching.   But the healing treatment has helped
I have a big gang of Darlings coming for lunch on Sunday so I am about to start cooking the inevitable quiches etc. The meal will have to be on laps as I have not got room to sit everyone round a table.
I am enjoying my four books from the last mobile library visit: the Ian MacEwan one The Children Act is a winner and I am loving The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters. 
Also  I saw a brilliant film at the Ditchling Village Hall: Nebraska, highly recommended.     
Son Toby is soon to come home from India where he has been teaching Tibetan refugees . He will be sad to leave as it has been a very happy time but he says he is looking forward to a some home comforts like central heating (it is very cold at night) and also showers and baths.

Singin in the Rain

Back to the mud, mud, glorious mud for our morning walks which lately have been often in deluging rain.  But enjoyable all the same. I am constantly discovering new footpaths and more stiles for me to clamber over, anxiously watched by B.Wiggins. He waits until I am safely over before trotting on.
I went up to London on Friday. Grand daughter M kindly took me to a concert at the Festival Hall, a belated birthday present.   I went via Clapham Junction and Waterloo, all so sadly changed. No music. I always used to feel like a character in Brief Encounter at Waterloo with its atmospheric orchestral accompaniment.   The South Bank was a heaving mass of people and everything looked different. I stumbled along like a country bumpkin, and me, born and bred a Londoner!   .But London town on a Friday night is no place for an eighty four year old.     However it was OK once I met up with M and we had a lovely time and I enjoyed hearing and seeing the London Philharmonic Orchestra in all its glory and live.
The day before I had gone to see the film, Mr Turner in Brighton. It was brilliant and Timothy Spall gave a wonderful performance. It was a very long film and did not finish until half past eleven, so for two nights I was out and about till after midnight    But on both occasions it was worth it.
Our splendid mobile library has just come and brought me four new books, all Booker prize shortlist ones. I seized upon them like a starving man, as the library van broke down and we had been deprived for a month. I am now well into The Children Act by Ian Mc Ewan.  I have been struggling to read a biog of the present pope which is the choice for the new Book Group I have been asked to join. I hope that the next book chosen will be more my cup of tea.
The reason for the title of this blog is that this is one of the tunes we are singing in the Ditchling Village Choir at the moment and I can`t get it out of my head and I am humming it all day tunelessly under my breath. We ate doing a little concert at Christmas, and also the music group I play the cello in (very badly) is also doing a gig for the Old Folks Club in two weeks time and we are getting into such a stew about it you would think we were going to give a recital at the Wigmore Hall   .I will be glad when it`s over.

Back to the Soft South

Back from the wet and windy North,  to sun and blue skies in Ditchling. I have all the windows open and have had no heating on since I came  back.    The train travel was quite eventful as there was a tree blown on the line on the way there and signalling failure plus one or two other things difficult to decipher in Northern accents, and `work on the track on the way back which meant a double decker bus, hurtling through country lanes for miles in complete darkness for an hour.    We  filled in forms and hope for a rebate on our tickets, which we would then have to use for another hazardous rail trip  However every one is so kind and helpful to old trouts like me, helping me on and off, carrying cases up steps. and a young chap even offered a clue for the Guardian cryptic crossword when I was stuck.
We saw lots of Arts and Crafts in Lakeland including sheep made in every sort of medium.This was in an old Mill which had employed children as` young as three working from 6am till 7pm` I can`t imagine what work they could have done at that age, poor little things. The Mill is now a thriving art gallery and cafe with tasty food. We also went to Morcambe Bay, and the treacherous sands, and also to Leighton Moss an RSPB place and sat silently in a hide watching three mallards and two swans, but we also say Chris Packham (from Autumn Watch on the telly). 
BW is away with daughter J on a walking holiday on the Kent Way,staying at dog friendly B and B`s.  I am collecting him tomorrow.  It is very quiet here without him, but I am enjoying the lie ins for a change.   Friend C who accompanied me to the Lakes is planning to knit him a yellow jersey like his namesake wears. We went in to cluttered woolshops which still exist in Kendal looking for patterns. They sell masses of patterns for dog`s jumpers!
.  

The Last ferry

As I came home from the funeral last Friday, on the ferry to Lymington, I wondered if it would be the last time for me to do that journey. We first started going to the Isle of Wight in 1960 when the twins were babies. My beloved mother in law paid for us all to have a fortnight`s holiday at a hotel in Totland (myself, J, and four children under six).     Not long afterwards we bought a cottage in Yarmouth as we lived in a school house in Winchester. All the children learned to swim, sail, row,fish, and we walked for miles over Tennyson Down, cycled up and down the hills of the West Wight, pottered about up the River Yar, went crabbing by the harbour, and had some wonderful times. 
The place has changed in those fifty four years. There used to be a butcher, a baker a dairy and several grocers including one called Mr Higginbottoms. The shops are now art galleries and boutiques, the restaurants are pricey and houses astronomically expensive to buy or rent.  Daughter J and son C did have a sail up the Yar as a respite from all the funeral arrangements,  but the family ae not really boat-orientated any more. 
One of the grandchildren read Masefield`s poem: Sea Fever at the service. I was surprised that none of them knew it.  It was so familiar in my schooldays. It was very appropriate as J was an enthusiastic and able sailor for much of his life. There were other lovely readings and contributions from the rest of the family too. 
The vicar was most emphatic that dogs were welcome in the church so both Jumble and B.Wiggins came to the funeral and behaved impeccably.
I am off up North next week to stay with dear ex neighbours in Kendal, so I am brushing up on the Lake poets and looking forward to poems at breakfast.

'Hard Times

It  has been a sad and strange time for the Darling family. Ex husband J died after a fall from his wheelchair last Saturday afternoon. Later it was discovered that he had had a heart attack but it all happened in front of daughter J and grand daughter G on the old railway track in Yarmouth, Isle of Wight   It`s the place where we have always walked and loved beside the river Yar, up towards Freshwater..His end was sudden and painless so it was a mercy for him as his health had been poor for a long time and he dreaded the coming winter, But it was  terrible shock. We gathered in his small house in Yarmouth and had a chaotic few days clearing up and sorting out stuff, while J and son C rushed around seeing the bereavement officer at  the hospital then the coroner, the police, the undertaker, the registrar.Son T is away in the foothills of the Himalayas, Son W lives in Washington, so Skype and email have been a help. The neighbouring Isle of Wighters  have been amazing. Sudden emergencies and disasters bring out the best in people.  The funeral is next week so there will be another family gathering then.

In the meantime it was my eighty fourth birthday and there was a wonderful crop of cards and emails, many related to Yorkshire terriers.    Lovely it was, and I had a good day with a walk in the beautiful autumn sunshine.  

I also went with brother P to meet sister J at Stansted and be warned, they have changed all the parking arrangements. You can no longer park anywhere near and have to take the airport bus from a remote spot. They said nothing when I boarded the bus but on the way back the driver pointed to BW and said `You are not taking THAT on here`so I had to walk along a semi motorway with no pavement back to the roundabout.

Ditchling film society has started again. What a relief. I have been starved of films for the last few months. We had an Indian one called the Lunch Box , very poignant, a lovely film. 

Dog days....

B.Wiggins did a really awful thing on Sunday. A very kind person offered to look after him while I was at choir and he chewed a huge hole in a travel rug on her sofa. I was mortified. But we had a subsequent nice outing to a National Trust shop nearby and bought a replacement and I have decided that having a dog is a bit like owning a car. Every now and then you get a parking ticket or have to buy a new clutch. 
I am so enjoying the Indian summer and I am out every afternoon picking blackberries on our walks. B.W. takes a dim view of it as he likes to Get On so he sits looking annoyed watching me pick.   I have also been given lots of windfall apples and people round here put vegetables like runner beans, tomatoes and courgettes outside their gates for free, so walks become foraging expeditions.
I have just had another nasty internet experience. I became convinced that the man on the help line I got on to when I was unable to log into my email, was a heinous crook  I tried to put a stop on my online banking and they said `I think you are overacting Mrs Darling` Daughter J then said`let me have a go, Mum`and she instantly solved the problem. I think old persons like me are sitting ducks. We pretend we understand technology but we don`t really and then we panic.
The improv group is ten years old, (daughter J was a founder member but I have only been in it for five years)   It does us such a power of good as well as being hilarious. It is totally free and just needs someone`s front room or kitchen, and it meets every week. It is good for all ages; we have two ten year olds and there is another old girl about the same age as me.  
My tips for old age: Get a dog, for the exercise (even one that chews things up) and do improv on a regular basis.

Back to School

Good to be back at the Infants yesterday. Teacher gave me the job of taking a photo of each of the children and handed me on of those IPhone things. Oh what a hash I made of it. Several of some children, none of others, weird expressions, arms, heads, missing. I had to do most of them again. The trouble is that so many gadgets with screens are ultra sensitive and I am not good at the gentle touch and tend to give the thing a hearty wallop.  I wonder if I should acquire on of these tablets or IPhones but I don`t really want to do my emails sitting on the bus so perhaps I won`t bother. But on the other hand I feel i must keep up with things...
The new class are a joy, but as ever I struggle with learning the new names which are unfamiliar ones, like Harrison, Hatton, Macy and Delilah.
I have just been to have my hearing aids checked. What beats me is the extraordinarily complicated high technology of these small beetle like appliances, but no one has has yet come up with an efficient way of getting the wax out of your ears. `I shouldn`t wear them if I were you `warned the bloke, `You`ll just push the wax in further`The health and safety conscious nurses round at the Drs don`t like syringing ears and tell you to put oil in which makes me deafer than ever.
The other Bradley Wiggins is cycling through Ditchling and Brighton on Saturday/ BW and I will be there at the roadside waving him on. 

mists and mellow fruitfulness......

Very misty on my early morning walk today and fruitful too as I picked some nice ripe blackberries to eat with my breakfast yogurt.  But the sun is coming out now and I love these autumn days. 
I went to Winchester at the weekend (for yet another Memorial Service) and had a walk with son T and B.Wiggins along the water meadows where Keats wrote the famous Ode.      On the path by the river Itchen, I met someone whom I hadn`t seen for well over forty years and we recognised each other!  He used to come to the Quaker Meeting with me as he did not like going to the Chapel services at Winchester College where he was a pupil, so he got some sort of dispensation. He would push baby daughter J there in her pram.     
Son T has now gone to India for three months to teach English to Tibetan refugees. What with grand daughter G teaching English in a remote village in China, and grandson C doing the same in Thailand  I wonder where the Darlings will go next?   I am full of admiration for them all for being so fearless and adventurous and doing something useful too.         One of the difficulties about being old is not feeling very useful most of the time. 
Anyway I am off to look after ten year old Tiger while her parents are both at work today (she goes back to school tomorrow) so I suppose that is a bit useful. I thought I would check that she knows her twelve times table as that was one of the crackpot notions I heard on the news yesterday. All four year olds should understand fractions and year sixes their twelve times. I shall give her a test and a prize.

 

dog days

I am in Brighton for five days pet sitting, whilst J and D and family are away at Shambala, a festival near Northampton(?) D is organising children`s activities, I am in charge of : a twenty one year old cat Shirley, who is not a fast mover but like many oldies, including me, does enjoy her food and needs snacks at least four times a day, Jumble the dog who is old and creaky (also like me) plus Bradley Wiggins who is in a permanent state of excitement and euphoria. He is 3 next week so should really start behaving in a more sensible manner,and stop barking at men wearing shorts.
It is odd here in the house alone. The house stays unnaturally clean and tidy. I have had trouble getting the TV on to anything but children`s  telly. It took me an hour to tune it to watch my daily fix of Pointless but I managed it in the end.
I had two outings last week: one to deliver a Quaker Exhibition which was in a huge black box (it was about conscientious Objectors in World War 1) to a Meeting House near Leytonstone in East London. so I had to negotiate the M25 and the Blackwall Tunnel and worrying roundabouts. And then I went to the Isle of Wight for one day which meant a train journey of 20 stops and took over 4 hours. However we had a good day and a spot of birdwatching up the creek at Newtown where some of the family were camping.     
Also my brother P came to stay at the beginning of the week and that was a treat. We had the usual ferocious games of Scrabble which he won. 
I have been reading an autobiog called An Enchanted Place by Christopher Milne, the original Christopher Robin. He had a miserable time at boarding school with Hush, Hush Whisper who Dare being played over and over, and he is forever haunted by the whole Winnie the Pooh business. His father made a huge fortune out of those four books, but never wrote anything else that was any good and it is a sad story really. 

I have been gadding about again. This time to Bath University campus with two thousand Quakers.  This was the annual jamboree, but every four years it is a week long event, though I could only manage a few days away,. It was held in a huge tent with great screens and all sorts of technology so I could hear every word.   It is very comforting to be amongst that lot:  serious, kind, earnest and set on Doing Good.   I feel very unworthy but glad to be there.     There were actually three hundred Quaker children there too which was lovely.   I enjoyed meeting lots of my old mates from Winchester and elsewhere and I had a great time. I stayed with J and P at Limpley Stoke which was a treat.   But it was nice, too, to come home to my little bungalow and collect B. Wiggins from Brighton.  
Since I got back, every dog walk is also a blackberrying expedition, there are masses in the hedgerows. It is a very good year. BW took the opportunity while I was busily picking, to roll in something horrid so I have just given him a bath in dog`s Tea Tree shampoo. He now smells like the Health Food shop and looks fluffy.
Daughter J and family are all away camping in the Isle of Wight, and I am going just for the day on Friday.
Here`s a good tip:  I pick some honeysuckle while I am doing the blackberries and during the day, you can`t smell it at all,  but in the evenings it is simply amazing , it scents the whole place.

Tiger time

Ten year old grand daughter Tiger is here today while her mum is at work. I made a list of possible activities and we are working through them.   First was cleaning the windows as I don`t like going up ladders and she does, secondly was doing all surfaces  with squirty polish, then she made a trifle which involves messing about with jelly, and lastly some bread (with a cheating breadmix)   She thoroughly enjoyed all those.   
Next I got her to organise me into doing Twitter on my laptop and now we are planning to go for a swim but I slightly dread the pool in the school holidays with the alarming waves and whirlpools and splashing. But I will try to be brave.
We may go blackberrying later as I noticed that they they are already ripe when I went on my early morning dog walk. Blackberries in July!   
I had a lovely visit last weekend from an ex resident from the Meeting House and her partner.  So many shared memories, we never stopped talking.   
The only other event since my last blog is that B.Wiggins went to what is grandiosely called Brighton Pet Spa to have a complete makeover, wash and blow dry, ears, nails teeth and trim. His legs look much longer now. He is very pleased with himself.   

any old iron,any old iron.........

I forgot to mention in my last that B.Wiggins went round the Whitehawk estate in Brighton recently on a rag and bone cart drawn by friend Mary`s pony (daughter J and dog Jumble were also on board) It is a wonderful scheme: unwanted broken irons and kettles, TV`s, computers furniture, are collected regularly and taken to The Green Centre which mends or recycles them. B.W. sat up bravely as they clip-clopped along.

I sadly said farewell to the Year Two`s on Wednesday, all the Jaydens, Haydens Brendons, Rubies and Rosas. It has been another lovely year , but hopefully I can go back next term and will then have to learn a new lot of names. Teacher helpfully always puts a big chair out for me, as if I sit on an Infant`s one, I cannot get up again.

I went to friend P`s ninetieth birthday party last week. I realised that I have known him for sixty years, longer than almost everybody there.. It was also P`s wife and my dear friend J`s 87th birthday    It was a really good do and I met up with many old friends in various stages of decrepitude and I include myself in this category. P`s grandson, who is a chef cooked delicious food and it was a beautiful.day. What a treat.

I have got some new hearing aids after complaints from my family (and  I also had written a letter of condolence to the wrong person as I misheard a name on the phone)    I now hear BW snoring which I never noticed before and turning on the taps to wash up, sounds like the Niagara Falls.    

In Flanders Fields...

I went to Poperinge near Ypres with seven other Quakers and even though I had read a lot about the 14-18 war and seen TV programmes and pictures and films, it still gives a shock when you go there and experience the sheer scale of the awfulness of it all. So many young men dead in these endless huge cemeteries and also the tens of thousands of names of men who have no known graves.  Just before I left I looked up Uncle Henry,`s death, my father`s brother, on line and saw that he died near Ypres.  We passed his cemetery on the way from Calais. It was difficult to find the grave among the thousands but eventually there it was, poor Henry Vickers, who died in December 1916, I do not think anyone in the family had ever seen it before.
We stayed at Talbot House founded by the Rev Tubby Clayton as a refuge for battle weary soldiers and now a museum as well as a simple B and B. We held our Quaker Meeting on Sunday in the chapel up in the attic. We trudged round the German cemetery, the Island of Ireland, the Pool of Peace and the impressive Flanders Field museum in Ypres, and we heard the Last Post at the Menai gate which is sounded every night at eight oclock. We all felt really glad we had made the expedition together.
Grand daughter G has gone off to China for nine weeks to teach in a remote rural area.  How brave.

As I was going to Ditchling Fair........

Well,I did not dress B.Wiggins up for the dog show after all,  as I read in the programme that it had to be World War One or something arty. I tried to make him into a VAD nurse but he wouldn`t keep the cap on and I also tried covering  him in poppies for a Flanders Field but he looked so miserable and it was very hot, so we gave up. But the Fair was splendid, starting at 9am with stalls up the High Street ( no traffic all day) and we danced a sort of Strip the Willow mid morning.  Then there was the choir performance on the Green and the Fancy Dress parade, it was non stop excitement. Ninety year old A who lives next door told me she went and had a dance on the green in the evening.   To add to the enjoyment, grand daughter F and daughter in law B came from Newcastle plus the two dear little boys, my great grands, so it was a real treat.

I have finished the poetry project with the Infants. Many poems are about Football and My Cat and My Dog but there is one about Henry the Eighth  (`he was a bit mean to his wives`) and another is an interesting conversation with a witch, I now await the publication of a slim volume.

I am off to Belgium on Eurostar early on Saturday for a sort of Quaker pilgrimage. We are going to hold a Quaker Meeting near the Ypres battlefields on Sunday morning and remember all those poor chaps who went through such a terrible time 1914-18, including my Uncle Henry who was just twenty one when he was killed.. Home again in the evening.   

I had a lovely visit from my dear ex neighbours who now live in Kendal, M and D and a wonderful new poetry book from D. who had done a reading at his old church in Winchester, so we had a good catch up with news.   And next week I have a sibling reunion at brother P`s all three of us together for a few days. I have such an eventful life these days.

playing gooseberry

I have just topped and tailed a big bowlful of gooseberries from daughter J`s allotment.  To my mind, there is nothing like a gooseberry pie.  I shall make several, freeze them and then bring them forth victoriously on special occasions.and serve them with lots of cream.
We have the Ditchling Fair coming up soon, a biennial event of great importance in the village . I am trying to think of ways to dress B.Wiggins up for the dog show and am toying with the idea of The Bradley Wiggins which would entail a yellow jersey, a helmet and a little bike to be borrowed from the playgroup.I am, not sure if he will co operate though.  Our village choir will be performing on the Green and we will be belting out hits from The Sound of Music, Grease and Mama Mia., with words not altogether appropriate for our age group.
I had a good afternoon with the Year 2`s yesterday. We are still doing our Poems and Thoughts anthology and topics ranged from My Rabbit (unfortunately long dead) Art. and  My Feelings.    I have to be careful not to let them choose an unsuitable topic as I have visions of these little books going home with the children and being kept in the family archive for generations to come or perhaps not!
I really do not need to watch Springwatch on the telly here as I have so much wildlife visible from my sitting room window: rabbits(lots) squirrels (ditto) ducks, a fox, numerous assorted birds, and there are cuckoos too but only heard not seen. 

Normandy Landing

Well, we made it, my brother P and I, with our combined ages of 171 years. We had a lovely week in Normandy without ending up in A and E, or losing vital objects, or even getting seriously lost, though my navigational skills are not good.  We drove around the quiet countryside with its sleepy creamy coloured cows and no people (where are all the dogwalkers?) and eventually found our way to our gite which was homely and comfortable.   We struggled to make things work like the oven, the heaters the telly and DVD player but P coped manfully.    We enjoyed the good French food in the markets (why does it look and taste so much better than in England?) and just the wonderful Frenchness of it all.   Of course it was a great help that P speaks French like a native.   
We read a poem to each other at breakfast (a habit I picked up from the Scotts in Kendal)  and I read a brilliant book,  The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. and we watched some good films too from the collection in the cottage: Life of Pi, Marigold Hotel, Salmon Fishing on the Yemen.
B Wiggins had a good time with daughter J and family. He went walking with them on the Dorset coast ,12 miles one day.  He seems  pleased to back in Ditchling with all the familiar smalls on every tree and lamp post on our slow walks round the lanes and village. I missed him and I am glad to have his warm shape on the sofa beside me as I write this.
It is good to be home too though I made the mistake of buying several types of cheese which is stinking the bungalow out in spite of its being wrapped up well and kept in the fridge.When will I ever learn?

French without Tears

I am off to France on Saturday with brother P, our first holiday together since childhood. We are staying in a gite in Normandy belonging to some English people so if we both collapse, there will be someone nearby to pick up the pieces.  B Wiggins is going to Brighton to daughter J and they are taking him along with their dog Jumble to Dorset to walk on the coastal path near Weymouth, as it is half term.
This morning on our pre breakfast walk B.W. jumped on an electric fence and cried most pitifully. We will not do that walk again. The countryside is full of hazards: a great gaggle of geese advanced towards him the day before,and he is scared of the the three horses in the field behind here and gives them a wide berth. It is a different kettle of fish when he sees the postman or the paper delivery man.   He becomes  a savage barking inferno.
I said that the film about the pig killing was Swedish but it was German.   It has put me off eating pig in any shape and form and hitherto  I have always fancied a bit of bacon for my breakfast. I notice that grand daughter M who was brought up a vegetarian as many of my family are, now eats hardly any dairy foods either, just soya milk and olive oil rather than butter. Many of her friends are the same.  Trends in food are a- changing. And everyone was shocked to hear on the news that most meat that we buy is halal.
I have got a good stash of books to take to France from our lovely mobile library\ including Donna Tartt`s Goldfinch, a biog of Tennyson by Peter Levi. I have just read This Boy by Alan Johnson and enjoyed it. Such a hard, poverty stricken childhood he had, and he turned out to be  a decent MP and Cabinet Minister, such a rarity.
I am doing the poems again with the Infants. We make a little anthology each year with the Year 2`s. I t is hard work getting them to write about anything other than football, cats or spaghetti. I had one little girl who has recently come to the school from the Ivory Coast. She insists there are tigers there (no, there aren`t) also that she went for a ride on a giraffe. I suppose it is what you call poetic licence..
I have become addicted to a quiz on the telly every afternoon called Pointless.  Grandson R and I have fantasies about appearing on it as you have to go in pairs. the questions are on such things as types of trousers or members of the Royal family, as well as books and films., and you have to find obscure answers. Many of the contestants are woefully ignorant when it comes to literature and classical music, but they are much better than I am on pop music and Formula One racing drivers.

Life Class

I` m off to sit for the Grey Ladies thiis morning. They are an Art Group that meets every week in the Meeting House (I do not know how they got that name as they are not particularly old or grey).   I have sat for them many times before and I really enjoy it as I get all the village news and I am actually paid! Not a princely sum but acceptable all the same. I do not look at their work as when I have done so in the past I am shocked at how old and wrinkled they perceive me to be.
This afternoon, I am off to the Infants and we are doing woodwork. It is only balsa wood but the kids love hammering and sawing and also we smother the little boxes they ar making in glue and as I have said before there is nothing I like better than a spot of glue.
I saw an upsetting Swedish film the other night called Emma`s Bliss., which involved the aforesaid Emma killing several pigs. The method she used was cuddling and kissing them and suddenly plunging in a knife so that they merely looked surprised and did not squeal or feel any pain. Later in the film she did the same for her husband. I do not recommend this film to the ultra sensitive. It was very gory.
I watched the Childrens Parade in Brighton on Mayday. Children from every primary school in the city march through the streets dressed up as film characters, with their teachers bravely marching backwards whilst conducting a band of drummers and tooters. It always brings a lump to my throat. It is so joyful and hopeful.
I heard my first cuckoo this morning when I took B.Wiggins out for his walk over the buttercup meadows.

Spring Has Sprung...

Easter has come and gone. My mother used to make us new frocks. She would also make a Simnel cake with eleven marzipan ball on top (eleven disciples but not one for Judas, though she was not a religious woman) She would make hot cross buns and a special roast lamb Sunday dinner and we had Easter eggs in abundance.  Nowadays, I don`t do any of this. I used to make a cake but lots of people say they don`t like marzipan, the hot cross buns are in Lidls all the year round and my `new` clothes come from charity shops.So it all seems to have faded out. But on Easter Monday, I did take grand daughter Tiger up Lodge Hill in Ditchling for egg rolling. Hordes of children of all ages and sizes hurled their home painted boiled eggs down the hill and ran after them whooping, and it all looked symbolic and joyful.
  
Tigers tenth birthday was the previous week and as usual, daughter J and three friends put on a puppet show for her party  They have done this for the past eight years and previous productions have  included Wizard of Oz, Little Mermaid, Jungle Book. This year it was a musical of Brighton Rock with a happy ending.  It was totally gripping as usual though the puppets are all made of old socks.  It was a sunny afternoon so was an Open Air production. In the evening it was chilly so we had a lovely log fire and sat round with son C and family too and chose music to play for our Julia whose anniversary falls on the same day.We also skyped son R in USA and went on a tour of his house! I don`t do things like skyping as a rule but this was
really interesting.

B. Wiggins had been away the previous week walking all the way round the Isle of Wight, sixty seven miles, a long way for his little legs. Daughter J and friends and two other dogs went with him.  I enjoyed a lazy week but I was glad to see him home again.

The Axeman Cometh....

Disaster struck last weekend. The demon hacker violated my computer and got his evil way.  It is quite shocking to an Elderly Person like me. Well to anyone really. I put a stop on my online banking in case he got his paws on my meagre savings and it has been a nightmare thinking up new passwords and memorable information`which I instantly forget.  I had days of not being able to download the Guardian cryptic crossword, google recipes, let alone do this blog and I suffered severe withdrawal symptoms.   Grand daughter M came to my rescue and also R, a good Quaker friend and all is well now I hope.  
I have just about caught up with my replies to all the kind friends who emailed or texted to tell me of the strange rogue emails that were sent by the hacker. Some were from people I had not heard from in years, so that was a treat.
I saw a film at the Village Hall the other evening, a Ken Loach film called The Angel`s Share. Our film club served whiskey along with the coffee and tea as it was about some skullduggery in a distillery done by a bunch of young unemployed Glasgow lads. The dialogue was totally undecipherable apart from alternate F.words. It really should have had subtitles, but it was a good film.
I have been in Ditchling for exactly four years and it has gone so quickly. I really like it but I do still miss my old friends and people popping in.  No one seems to do it round here. 

It`s a Dog`s Life

B.Wiggins has been full of himself having been the star turn in the Archers last Friday.  Well, that`s my fantasy anyway. He has been with daughter J again last weekend and that included a day in London where he was photographed outside Westminster Abbey, Horseguards Parade, British Library, Trafalgar Square Lions and the Moomin Shop in Covent Garden.   Meanwhile I was up in Newcastle for the placing of a plaque to commemorate our Julia beside the river Tyne.   She died nine years ago but is still  remembered, which is so heartwarming 
There were plaques for nineteen others which included Alan Shearer, Cardinal Basil Hume, Sting, and Professor Higgs of Higgs Bosun particle fame! We had a good little `do` given by the Gateshead and Newcastle Council, and I had three lovely days with my dear family.
My spanking new bathroom is now fully operational. I had a wonderful turn out of the bathroom cabinet and threw away all the remedies and potions, most beyond their  use by date, and now only have paracetamol, a thermometer,and a tin of sticking plasters. All you need really.
I am at Brighton today looking after grand daughter T and her friend. There is no school as there is a teachers strike.  Her dad is on the march in town. The girls are making biscuits and a mess but they have sworn to clear it up.
I will take B.W. home later and he will have to settle down to a more mundane existence after all this gadding about, and so will I 

Two things that have been commented on from recent blogs:   I inadvertently wrote Kevin Spacey instead of Tom Hanks as starring  in the film, Captain Phillips (sorry Tom) and also people said `why are the Infants making puppets of Guy Fawkes in February? Surely they should do them in November? I asked Teacher but she did not seem to have a logical answer to this
B. Wiggins had a complete hair do the other day which included bath and blow dry, nails, teeth, ears, the lot. He emerged looking very surprised and half the size. He obviously is pleased that he can now see properly again.   He went off to the Isle of Wight for the weekend with daughter J and it brought home to me that however much trouble it is to go out for walks three times a day, I really appreciate his company and cheerful presence.
I saw a harrowing film the other evening in the Village Hall: A Royal Affair which was not a soupy tale about Princess Di or our sensible queen as you might expect, but a murky story about the Danish royal family in the eighteenth century,all based on fact. I enjoyed it but I had to shut my eyes and put my fingers in my ears for the execution scenes.
The new  bathroom is being installed as I write this with a lot of banging and disruption. I will be glad when it is done, as I have to go to Burgess Hill to have a swim daily as there is no bath or hot water at present, and I am not so keen on swimming as I used to be, the lengths seem much longer.


 

The flowers that bloom in the spring tra- la.-la.....

Any minute now it will be March and the masses of daffodils and Spring flowers blooming around Dumbrells Court will be legit and not like guests who turn up too early for a party and I can properly enjoy them.
At the Village Choir practice on Sunday we started on hits from The Sound of Music, so we old fogies were belting out `We are fifteen, going on sixteen`and the` Hills are Alive` etc also old Fred Astaire songs from Top Hat.      We are doing another concert soon.  Ditchling is a social whirl as I have said before.
We had a  good French film too in the Village Hall: The Untouchable about a quadriplegic and his very unconventional ex convict carer.It was funny and uplifting. One to watch out for.
At the Infants yesterday, we did puppets: Poor old Guy Fawkes again,  He comes up every year.  They could choose any character from the historical account, but I noticed that the boys did sinister bloodthirsty looking individuals with swords and helmets and horrid expressions, and the girls drew smiley faces and chose lacy collars with jewels and bows   I had a lovely afternoon as I like messing about with glue.
I went to Hertfordshire to visit brother P   I took B.Wiggins and we went on the train, which he very much enjoys as everybody makes a fuss of him. I had a good time too and luxuriated in morning tea in bed and delicious meals cooked by him in spite of his having a dreadful cold which miraculously I have not caught We are making plans for a trip to France in May. I do not think we have had a holiday together since we were children.    

Stormy Weather...

I will try not to write about the rain and the wind and the mud. Just to say that I am sitting indoors watching four wet squirrels outside my window. Their lovely tails are like bits of wet string and they look unhappy.
B.Wiggins is wanting to get me out there but when I take him, he changes his mind as he hates both getting wet and the bath which inevitably follows.  He`s twigged that one now.
At the Infants this week, we did science experiments about sound waves. I learn more and more there. But on the way home the wind was so strong, blowing up from the sea that I could hardly keep upright and had to cling to the railings in a most pathetic way.
I saw a good film in the village called Captain Phillips about Somali pirates with wonderful Kevin Spacey in it.  It was very thought provoking. The pirates had such a tough hard life, you could see why they did it and I felt quite sorry for them.
I am doing the Museum Tales writing course again at the Brighton Museum. We were all in the Egyptian section this week. It made me think of my forward funeral planning, which is going ahead. Those Pharaoes really went to town on elaborate preparations for their funerals and the afterlife what with Shabtis which were little servants and all their Grave Goods.  Our teacher on the course is very good so I spend a lot of time doing my homework each week.
I am finding my new computer a sore trial. It is very jumpy and sensitive and at the slightest touch it goes haywire and writes things in the wrong places.   I spends hours doing simple emails and attachments., and as for the printer, words fail me. I long to find a Dumbrellite who is a computer expert so I had one on tap as I did in Meeting House days. There may be some whizz kids among the bungalows but it is difficult to find out.

Blow Blow thou Winter Wind......

I thought I was going to take off as I walked along to the Infants today, the wind was so blusterous.  The children were all hyped up as they always are when it is windy and also they had been cooped up because of the rain. But we settled down to a bit of glinka work, I remember doing that even when I was at school, sewing in and out round a bit of material with holes in it. which needs frequent rethreading of needles.
There has been a gap in this blog because my laptop got ill and died. What a calamity  It is like losing a limb and having to learn a whole new way of doing things.  And then the printer wouldn`t co operate and make friends so I couldn`t print my Guardian crossword every day let alone the Quaker clerk`s stuff which needed doing. So I have been in a right state.
Last week I went to Winchester and also to London. On Monday, grandson M cut my hair as part of his assessment. He is a classical studies graduate but he is very happy learning to be a hair stylist at a posh salon in Winchester so I had a proper hairdo, a rare occurence and a real treat.    Then I went to London on Friday and stayed with grand daughter M who showed me how to do difficult things on my new computer.I am a lucky woman to have all this help.
Daughter J, gg Tiger, Bradley Wiggins, Jumble and I all drove up on Friday night and stayed at M`s flat in Hackney in one of those tall Victorian houses   I always feel at home in that part of London, I know it well.There is a spooky castle near Finsbury Park that once was a pumping station, but has now been turned into a climbing wall centre.   So M`s boyfriend and Tiger had a good time climbing up the turrets inside while the rest of us sat on sofas reading the Saturday Guardian.   Everyone climbing looked so keen and healthy.  And they even allowed B.Wiggins and Jumble in there.
I am very worried about all the poor people in Somerset who are flooded. Having been in a flood myself with sister J up near Newcastle last year, I know how awful it is to have smelly muddy water swirling around your knees.

Oh No It Wasnt!

Kind Quaker friends took me to the Burgess Hill pantomime on Friday evening. I liked watching the little dancing girls  pointing their toes and twirling round  (there were lots of those) but I seem to have lost my taste for ugly sisters and dames, I found them a bit sad and upsetting.   Still I stayed awake throughout, always an acid test for me.
I needed to have B. Wiggins looked after for the evening so daughter J took him off with Jumble and Tiger and her friend to the IOW to visit her dad.  So I have been dogless the whole weekend      It feels most odd. I caught myself talking to my handbag which I mistook for BW lying on the sofa.
So here I am on a Sunday afternoon lolling about, listening to Open Book and Poetry Please on the radio and reading the Observer without feeling guilty, though the sun is shining and the daffodils are poking up through the wet grass.  I shall be glad to see him back tomorrow, even if it does entail long walks in the relentless mud.      .
We are going to have a village orchard in Ditchling. We had a meeting yesterday.  Someone has given the land and the fruit trees will be planted in a few weeks. I hope I live long enough to pick the fruit and make some pies. That`s what I volunteered for as I don`t feel up to digging and planting. It is a lovely idea. 

Two Lovely Black Eyes.....

I was cheerfully walking home from my friend D`s just up the lane when I tripped, and landed  flat on my face.  I always think there are three things that cause any accident and in this case they were:  firstly, I am OLD. Secondly, I had my hands in my pockets, and lastly, it was dark (no street lamps in country lanes)  My face was a terrible sight to behold for a week but it has miraculously more or less healed itself, or perhaps I have just got used to my battered appearance. I was also bruised all over and groaned at every step but that is getting better too and I am thankful that I broke no bones.
I am very sad about Simon Hoggart`s death. He was only sixty seven. For years I have always turned first to his political comment in the Guardian and also his funny column in the Saturday paper which was often about round robin letters, srtudents` letters home from disastrous gap years and silly labelling on things you buy. He also used to be on the News Quiz and he was part and parcel of my life.   I will miss him.
I am thankful that the Brighton family have returned safely from Goa where they opted out of Christmas,with not a stocking nor a turkey in sight,   They stayed in a sort of beach hut and it was all beautiful and they fell in love with India as people so often do.
I am utterly engrossed in one of my Christmas present books; The Pure Gold Baby by Margaret Drabble. Every word in it is pure gold too, her writing is superb, I just marvel at it as I read. Also it is set in my bit of North London and that always endears one to a book. I really don`t want to finish it as I am loving it so much. Other good new books: Quiet London, full of places to visit and eat and look at libraries and art galleries that no one knows about.   Trouble is they will now,  if they all read the book! Also a good new poetry book: The Crumb Road by Maitrey Abandhu  He`s one to watch.