Saturday 27 December 2014

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.
      

Sunday 14 December 2014

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. 
  


Wednesday 3 December 2014

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.