Tuesday 27 December 2016

Bollywood Brighton

It is time that I registered the fact that I am still alive,and sound in wind and limb   .I have been very dilatory of late and am uncertain whether to continue with this blog or if I should abandon it altogether though I do find it a good exercise to put down on paper some of what is going on in my life, as I do not keep a diary.

Well, Christmas in now safely over ` with no wrecks and nobody drownded, in fact nowt to laugh at at all`   as Stanley Holloway said in the Lion and Albert.    By that I mean that we had a nice time and no one landed up in A and E and we all stayed fit and well, thank goodness. Highlights were: a pre- Christmas visit to brother P in Hatfield and a meet- up there with sister J down from Newcastle and we three ancient siblings having a get together. P and I exchanged gifts and found that we had bought each other identical poetry books : Being Human, the most recent Bloodaxe collection, and as we had both secretly wished to keep it, we were well pleased. Sister J gave me the latest Margaret Drabble novel The Dark Flood Rises,  and I got into it straight away, brilliant writing and very much on the theme of old age which is just up my street.   

Then Xmas Day started off with the usual Quaker Breakfast in Ditchling Meeting House. Five members of my family came plus their Taiwanese lodger who obviously now thinks that all English people celebrate Christmas with a slap up breakfast at a long table in a bare room, followed by sitting in a silent circle for a while and then shaking hands.  I  spent the rest of the day in Brighton and son in law D and granddaughter M cooked the vegetarian dinner whilst the rest of us sat by the fire playing scrabble and doing jigsaw puzzles  Dear Indian friend W, who is a dance teacher came later with her family, and all twelve of us did a Bollywood Workout and worked off our huge meal. We did more singing and dancing. I could hardly move the next morning but it was worth it.

J and I got up early and drove to Fontwell to pick up brother P. (don`t ask why we were picking him up from a racecourse at 9am, it is too complicated to explain)  and he is now staying with me and we are enjoying breakfast poetry reading and fiercely contested games of scrabble, in between reading our new books and dropping off to sleep on the sofa while watching television  

I liked the Queen`s little homily on Xmas day- just gaining inspiration from all, the surprisingly imaginative, good, kind  and small things that ordinary people get up to . It is no good worrying and dwelling too much on all the rest, as I cannot do much about it apart from being mindful.     I must now write my New Year resolutions, which apart from the usual ones about losing weight, writing just One Good Thing, and more exercise which I put down every year but have not yet achieved, I will take the dear old Queen`s advice and try and do something small but useful.   
  

 


Wednesday 30 November 2016

Kale and farewell.....

Here we are, in the first week in Advent.  Stir up Sunday has come and gone and I haven`t made a Christmas cake or pudding as it seems so self indulgent.  Last year I ate most of the cake myself right up to the end of January and it does no good for my expanding waistline, worse now that I no longer do dog walkies twice a day.

I am still spending much time at the Eye Hospital, sitting waiting glumly in silent rows, all bleary eyed from the drops they put in..I joined the Macular degeneration society so I am now officially a DEGENERATE.  One of the things they recommend is to eat kale. I bought a big bag of it in Waitrose, but it was an effort to get the rubbery stuff down even after it was well cooked.

Son in law  D took me to the Dome Theatre in Brighton last night to a stand up show, a German comic  called Henning Wehn who is often on the radio and television and whom we both like. It is so brilliant, the way one chap can hold a huge audience for a couple of hours with clever satire on
Germany Brexit, British plumbing, Trump and immigrants in such a hilarious yet gentle way.
I realised I was at  least twice the age of everyone audience if not more.

I was very impressed by the fact that the GP phoned and invited me round to check that I was OK  `Do you need help with anything?`she enquired.    It is so different from the tales you hear of people not being able to  get  an appointment with the doctor for weeks, and the NHS going down the drain. I tried hard to think of any ailments I might be worried about,but luckily could not think of anything except a large unsightly wart on my hand which she is going to see to.

I have decided that all present buying, wrapping, card writing, the lot, I am going to leave till the last minute. I just can`t stand the thought of things like Black Friday, and frantic online ordering and buying. I shall just have a mad panic in the week before Christmas. No mince pies, tangerines, or
 chocolate Santas will pass my lips till then.

Thursday 10 November 2016

The LastTrump

What a horrible blow to wake up this morning to the news that the loathsome Trump is to be the new president of USA , its like Brexit all over again. What is going on?      Walking cheerfully and looking for that of God in the likes on D.Trump is hard,  even for a Quaker but we will just have to try.

On a more positive note, I had a lovely half term trip to Rye and Hastings with daughter J as a belated birthday treat.   Tiger came too and really got into the hotel experience with a request for Scrabble to be brought up to our room and cheese and pickle sandwiches from room service, and very nice too. There was also a lovely swimming pool and wonderful buffet breakfast. And I do love hotel breakfasts.  We then went to the Jerwood Gallery in Hastings which is ideal for me as it is quite small, with just enough nice pictures to look at and lovely views of the sea and the fishing boats in the Old Town    I hate places that are huge, which wear me out.      Also plays, films, operas, concerts, that are too long which I find is often the case.
  
I am writing this blog as I sit as a model for the `Grey Ladies` life class which is an art group in Ditchling.    I hasten to say that I am fully clothed   I do not know why the group are so named as they are neither grey haired nor always female.  I have done this many times and I enjoy it as it is peaceful sitting for a couple of hours in the morning though sometimes we chat so it is a good way of hearing the village news.    I never look at their pictures as when I did once I was horrified by the many versions of  a wrinkled old crone, though they are very good artists.

We have two good films this month: last week it was Theeb, a dramatic film set in the desert among Bedouins in 1916 and though I had my eyes tightly shut and fingers in my ears for several frightening bits, it was a brilliant film. Tonight we have The Dressmaker which looks promising. And next week the Am Drams are doing Noel Coward`s Blithe Spirit.   Never a dull moment in Ditchling.   
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Monday 24 October 2016

It is Half Term week and my usual activities are all on hold. No music group today, no Nibbles and Scribbles at Hove museum, no lovely choir,  so I am sitting making a list of Useful Things to Do, like  cleaning the oven, getting the car tyres checked before my outing to Rye with daughter J on Wednesday (a late birthday treat) and I am also making chutney.   I bought a huge pumpkin and scraped it out to make a lantern.    I am using the innards for chutney, so it smells vinegary and spicy indoors, but it looks a bit fibrous and stringy so perhaps those Halloween pumpkins are not meant to be eaten?    I was feeling so pleased with my resourcefulness too, but anyway, grand daughter T will like having a lantern outside next Saturday.

I am very anxious today about the refugees in Calais. I hope it all goes peacefully. It must be the end of their hopes when they get carted off to holding centres in other parts of France. My memories of those places in Hampshire when I was involved with asylum seekers some years ago was of prison-like institutions.    I just hope that the ones that do achieve their dream of coming to the UK will find places to live and work or get an education for a better life.

I went to the  Annual Village Quiz on Friday night and our team came last but we had such a good time: lovely food and wine and nibbles, its the sort of thing that is so splendid in this village.  Since so sadly losing Bradley Wiggins, I don`t get out and about so much in Ditchling.  I miss the dog walking. I wish I could find someone to do a dog share with me,  as it is a problem when you live alone and there are so many places where dogs are not allowed.   I am still trying to make up my mind about a cat, I keep being offered them, mostly feral cats who may not be home loving and cuddly enough for me.

I seem to spend a lot of time at the Brighton Eye Hospital these days.  I am getting wonderful treatment both for the cataracts and wet n dry macular whatsit, but it is a depressing place. There are rows and rows of dejected looking patients and I long to get them all to play a game or sing a song or do a bit of improv.but they are all completely silent and gloomy.   As we all have drops put in our eyes, our vision is blurry and when our names are called we shuffle along, dropping our sticks with a clatter. There are long corridors with nameless doors, I keep thinking of Room 101 in 1984. Until my second cataract is done, I can`t get any new specs, so small print is difficult and my cello playing is very hit and miss.    In the meantime, I go for monthly injections in my eyeball (totally painless)  

I am enjoying Alan Bennett`s diaries being read every morning on Radio 4 . the title too, Keeping On, Keeping On.    A good title for this blog, I wish I had thought of it..  

Tuesday 4 October 2016

Older but no wiser...

Yesterday was my birthday. Eighty six years is a long time to have been on this earth. A ninety five year old friend who phoned me yesterday said `every day is a gift` and I wholeheartedly agree.  I tend to live vicariously through the lives of my children and grandchildren who do interesting and challenging things, like running marathons, and going off to far flung spots: Grandson R has just gone to Indonesia to work for a charity called Smile which helps babies born with cleft palates and harelips (he says it is lovely there but there is a bit of a worry about dog stew) and another granddaughter is spending a year working in France as part of her degree, others have worked in China, Uganda and Ghana.  I never did anything like that.    So I enjoy hearing of their adventures.
Anyway I had a lovely birthday with grandson M and partner L coming for the night and cooking a slap up breakfast of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on toast. What a treat. And there were other splendid family get togethers in Mdhurst and Brighton.

I tried to pay my car tax on the phone and inadvertently pressed the wrong button, and what a palaver!   I signed the car off the road and as I was only dealing with robot voices I couldn`t undo it. So I was terrified I would be arrested for not paying the tax over the weekend.   Eventually the human being in the Post Office managed to sort it out. She said it was always happening, and not just to daft old women like me.

I am trying to organise an Open Day at  Ditchling Meeting House for Quaker Week next Saturday which is also hoping to raise money for unaccompanied  refugee children in Calais  but I am full of gloom as I fear that no one will turn up. I wish now I had advertised it as an Indulgent Breakfast or a Cream Tea like the ones we used to have in Winchester at the Meeting House as that would have lured them in.   I have visions of sitting there with a pile of cakes and scones and no villagers to eat them.  

Tuesday 13 September 2016

Up with the Larks

Holidays are over now. I have done really well this year with two weeks down in the West Country. I stayed in St Mawes with dear old friend J and daughter F in an opulent, luxurious seaside house with deep sofas, huge beds and impressive kitchen equipment.   I had just about got used to the twiddly knobs on the cooker by the week`s end.    There was a beautiful garden with palm trees and steps down to the sea, and we feasted on Cornish pasties, crab sandwiches and cream teas.     I travelled by train this time and was overcome by kindness and  helpfulness: there were several people positively competing to carry my case over the bridge at Truro, I must look even more decrepit than I had realised.
I have been very taken up with The Archers, culminating in the nail biting hour long episode on Sunday evening. What a relief to have a No Guilty verdict.  Helen T has begun to feel like a member of my own family, and I was not the only one to be in this anxious state, surprising numbers of others are the same including, I have discovered, many elderly men.       
I misled my readers in my last blog. Daughter J`s swim in Loch Lomond was not eight miles but one and a half miles.   Even then J said she was very shivery for quite a while afterwards but she and G loved it and also long walks along the West Highland Way 
My lovely choir The Larks started up again this morning, and it was bliss having a good sing at 9.15 in the morning.  All the songs are simple harmonies, easy to learn and make you feel better.     What a treat.

Thursday 25 August 2016

Summertime and the Living Is Easy.....

Last week I went to Devon with dear old friend J and her daughter who writes childrens` books, well, they are actually for young teenagers.  Her name is Fleur Hitchcock and I am putting her name in this blog as I so enjoyed reading her two latest which were very exciting, real page turners and gave me a glimpse into the way fourteen year olds think and behave.   I also read thrillers by Susan Hill and Donna Leon (hers are always set in Venice) and also reread Sue Monk Kidd`s The Secret Life of Bees which I loved

Stoke Gabriel where we stayed in Devon was an ideal place to sit and read as we were in a cottage right by the water`s edge of the River Dart and could just sit outside watching the tides going in and out and. all the birds. It was a beautiful place. We also did what oldies like us do: go round National Trust stately homes and gardens and eat cream teas.  

Now back at home this week, I am looking after a quiet well behaved dog for a friend, and enjoying dog walks again but at a more sedate pace than with the dear late lamented Bradley Wiggins.
Dotty the dog seems perfectly happy, I was afraid she might pine for her owner. Her only fault is that she has to be forcibly ejected from sleeping in my bed at night, not a good idea especially in this heat.


Daughter J and grand daughter G are off this evening on a night sleeper to Scotland  where they are going to swim for eight miles in the icy waters of  Loch Lomond.  I am a bit worried about them but I think there will be lots of other people doing it and rescue boats if needed.

It is a very poor year for blackberries. I managed to pick a few  this evening but they were few and far between.    I wonder why.  



Wednesday 3 August 2016

The Eyes Have It....

I keep thinking of Quaker George Fox on his deathbed,who suddenly sat up and said ` I am clear. I am fully clear` 
After months and months of increasing fuzziness and blurriness, I had a cataract operation yesterday and today everything seems extraordinarily clear to me, and will be even more so, hopefully, when I have the other eye done in a few weeks time.
It was more of an ordeal than I expected, lying with my face covered up, except for an eye hole cut out and listening to the conversation of the surgeon teaching another one how to slice into my eyeball, remove one lens and poke a new one in   There were all sorts of interesting psychedelic shapes and colours. and weird noises from what I think was a laser machine. It took about thirty minutes, but it didn`t hurt at all.  When I took the eye patch off this morning, everything looked clear and bright. It was amazing and I am delighted.     
The trouble is I can now see the fluff on the carpets, spider webs on the ceilings and grimy windows, all of which I was blissfully ignorant before.    I have decided to go online and buy a new vacuum cleaner and give the place a going over. 
It is an ongoing saga, just keeping my ancient body in working order.  It is like owning an old banger of which I have had many in my time. Bits fall off and unexpected rattles occur and you wonder how long you can keep it on the road.     In recent months it has been eyes, joints, hearing, dodgy leg, to name just a few. What next I wonder?   But in the meantime I feel very well, full of pep and looking forward to joining dear old friend, J for a holiday in Cornwall later this month.     

Friday 15 July 2016

may time

I am moderately pleased that our new prime minister is a woman and can only hope that she does not start behaving like Maggie Thatcher.. Mr May seems a very retiring sort of chap, my first glimpse of him was his uncertain wave on the steps of number ten yesterday.  It has been so quick, I haven`t quite taken it all in. And the poor old queen, having to cope with all this kerfuffle in the space of about half an hour and not a horse or dog lover among them.
Now we wait with baited breath to see what the Labour party gets up to.   What a worry it all is. I love old Jeremy with his allotment and his Oxfam suits and will be sorry if he has to go.
Angela Eagle seems very bossy and fierce. And where`s her twin sister in all this?  It`s a bit odd.

I have just finished the poetry project with the Infants and managed to persuade an angelic little girl not to write hers about the Black Death and the Plague of London and some of the boys from writing about football and mysterious computer games.  I did enjoy being back there on Wednesday afternoons, even if it did involve sitting on tiny chairs that are difficult to get up out of.
Ninetieth birthday parties are now one of the social events in 
my life. I went to a cracking one last Saturday in Limpley Stoke,another is coming up in a couple of weeks` time.  En route for Limpley Stoke, I went to Meeting on Sunday in Winchester and it was so good to see the house and garden looking splendid. The trees and roses, some of which were planted in memory of people, had grown so huge, and it all seemed in such good heart.  And it was lovely to see so many old Winchester Ffriends. 

We also had a family get together at son T`s and went through a whole pile of old photos and letters and papers. We threw things away with gay abandon and felt much better for it. There were piles of very old photographs of grim faced bearded gents and uncomfortably dressed women and none of us had any idea who they were. It just shows that someone should always write a name on the back and a date.     

   



Friday 24 June 2016

Not such good news......

Caroline Lucas said on the radio just now that she was brokenhearted by the result this morning  and I must say I feel the same. It is so irrevocable. And then Cameron says he is to resign.   He is not my favourite person, but I think of Hillaire Belloc`s Cautionary Tales: `Always keep a hold on nurse, for fear of finding something worse`   And there are some fearsome characters waiting in the wings.

I have been really poorly for the last couple of weeks with cellulitis, which is why I have not written this blog for some time. I spent many hours in A and E after days of unwellness, (bringing back horrid memories of the needle incident some months ago) and eventually was admitted to an eight bedded ward  with several very confused, demented women, who were not good room mates, poor souls.    I came home after three days, but had to continue going in every day for IV antibiotics. It was not easy getting there on the day of the London to Brighton Bike race, with all the roads packed with hordes of cyclists but we made it in the end.  I am getting better but my leg is still a sorry sight: red, and swollen and so hot, I could be put on the national grid and it is so sore. Everyone has been very kind: family and friends and neighbours. but I am bored with lying on the sofa all day

On the plus side, I have read two good books:Walking Away by the poet Simon Armitage and The Making of Mr Bolsover by Conelius Medvei, and I am about to begin a weighty trilogy by Amitav Ghosh.  I have listened to Radio 4 and 4 extra, day and night and I have a lovely view from my sofa of meadows and trees with the hills in the distance.  I have played Scrabble and had good talks, but even so I am missing all the things I like doing like my Monday music group, the lovely choir, morning swims, the Infants (did I say that I`ve gone back?) the Nibblers and Scribblers writing group and the weekly improv.   All those things are very self indulgent and it is probably good for me to stop rushing around.  And as Winnie the Pooh said to Piglet `I`m all right, really`


In the meantime we have to put up with odious Boris and Farage pontificating smugly on the telly and await further worrying developements.  

Thursday 26 May 2016

getting better..

I am trying to concentrate on activities that I couldn`t take part in when I had dear B.Wiggins.  I always hated leaving him at home on his own as he was such a sociable creature.   
So I have joined a choir in Lewes:  a small unaccompanied group with a brilliant leader.    We sing without words or music written down, she just teaches us as we go along.   There is going to be a whole day at the beginning of July, otherwise we meet every Tuesday morning at 9.30 am which is an unusual time for a choir.    Also with my Nibblers and Scribblers writing group we are now able to meet in dog free zones, like Art Galleries. There are lots of exhibitions on as part of the Brighton Festival and we went to a sort of installation which showed the view from windows all over the world as the occupants woke up in the morning and opened their shutters or curtains.   It was fascinating.   
I went to a Musical called Soul Circus, written, danced and sung by women who were not in the first flush of youth and it was brilliant. It was performed to a packed audience in Hove on a Sunday afternoon, and it made me want to get up and dance with them.
I now go swimming in the mornings which I haven`t done for years, not since I left Winchester really. To my surprise I really enjoy it and I get a bit of exercise which I was sorely missing now that I don`t go for walks twice a day. Ditchling is full of no- go areas because of memories of B.Wiggins, but I am sure I will soon improve.
I am thinking of getting a cat and I am just waiting for one to drop into my lap. I am sure that the right one will arrive soon, but I must get a cat flap fitted first. No walkies of course but at least I will have a furry presence to greet me when I come home.

Tuesday 17 May 2016

sad news

I can hardly bear to write this as I feel so sad and bereft. My beloved Bradley Wiggins is no more. He was out with daughter J in Brighton while I was at a concert on Sunday afternoon,and he ran off,  got disorientated, and was run over.    He was killed instantly so did not suffer, which was a mercy.   . The previous weekend, when I was away up in Cumbria, daughter J walked with B.W. for miles and miles along Hadrian`s Wall and he never left her side, so it was completely out of character for him to dash off. She is terribly upset as you can imagine.  We all loved him, and my home seems so empty without him. 

J. and I don`t know how to get through the days.   Yesterday I went to the pool in Burgess Hill and swam up and down for half an hour. I have hardly swum at all since I got the dog and I wondered if I could still keep afloat but it was a very calming experience and I will go regularly as I used to do in Winchester, in place of the early morning dog walks which B.W. and I enjoyed so much.
In the afternoon, J and I did a huge house clean, hoovering and polishing and mopping which was also very therapeutic. I will have to think of other ways to keep busy and not sit about moping.

Today I am going to plant out the tubs,, and as it is going to pour with rain all day tomorrow (according to the infuriatingly cheerful weather forecaster Carol, on the telly) so this is a good time to do it.   Grand daughter M, safely back from Ghana, thank goodness, is coming to stay with me for a week.   So I am gradually doing what they always say `coming to terms with it`, whatever that may mean.

Someone told me I wrote Crump instead of Trump in my last blog. Thought I should apologise in case anyone else noticed.  

Wednesday 4 May 2016

Sunny Days Are Here Again....

I am about to leave for Cumbria to stay with dear friends M and D, and I am going as before via Winchester so that I can travel  with C and we can face the vagaries of the railway system together, Hopefully,we will have our usual  hot cross- buns- with- cheese and marmalade for out packed lunch, which is another tradition of this annual journey.  It is difficult to work out what to wear and pack as it is positively tropical here today in Ditchling, but it may snow in Kendal.

B.Wiggins is going to stay in Brighton, where he is desperately trying to make friends with the cat who glares at him and occasionally tries to bite him. BW is enjoying the Tour de Yorkshire as he often hears his name mentioned on the radio and cocks up his ears delightedly.

I have just heard on the news that Donald Crump will almost certainly be the Republican candidate. What a ghastly prospect. Suppose he actually becomes the next President. I heard someone say, he is not just comical, he is poisonous. Just think of the `special relationship`  The poor old queen would have to have him to stay.    It doesn`t bear thinking about.   I am just pinning my hope on Hilary.

On my walk this morning,I almost bumped in to a fox who was sauntering along, Then BW had a stare out with a hare who lolloped off, unpursued.   I also saw: horses, rabbits, sheep and lambs, geese, ducks and ducklings, hundreds of free range hens and countless squirrels.   What a brilliant walk and in beautiful spring sunshine too.    

Friday 22 April 2016

Victoria Wood, such sad news.

I am very sad about Victoria Wood`s death. Such brilliant writing and observation, and I loved her songs and ebullient piano playing. She was always down to earth and warm hearted as well as being hilariously funny.  I was interested to read in the Guardian obit that she attended Quaker Meeting, (along with my other heroine, Judy Dench)     There was a wonderful tribute to her on telly last night, which included her speaking movingly about her life and work.

Another long programme followed which was all about the Queen on her ninetieth birthday. I get a bit fed up with all the oft repeated pictures of her waving regally from gilded coaches and walking stiffly about wearing those absurd hats, so it was nice to see new pics of her looking motherly and happy with her children.   I so admire the way she still walks around wearing high heeled shoes, springing nimbly up and down steps without a stick and even walks backwards when laying wreaths,  as well as being interminably on her feet shaking hands. I can`t do any of those things and I am four years younger.    I do wish everyone would stop referring to her as Majesty, even her son for Goodness Sake, it seems such a silly word.

I have been having car problems. It goes along perfectly well and then just stops in inappropriate places like Ditchling High Street in the rush hour or on top of Ditchling Beacon on a bend in the road. It starts up again after about five minutes. The garage obviously think I am a barmy, incompetent driver. It is going in for it`s MOT and service today and I dread them saying that there is nothing wrong and I will get stuck again. Or equally nasty will be if they say it is going to cost squillions of pounds to repair it.     I so rely on having a car here in Ditchling as there are so few buses and none that can get me to Brighton.  
I am one of the judges for a yearly writing award in memory of daughter Julia. I have to make a short list of four from a long list of thirty two. I am so impressed by the high standard of all of them. It is not a piece of writing as such, it is giving the reasons for needing  the money to travel for the purpose of their work.  Reading the applications make you want to give the money to all of them. But there are three other judges, all better qualified than I am to choose, so together we must make a decision.There will be a performance of Julia`s poetry and maybe a play at the prize giving at Live theatre in Newcastle on June 5th.

Thursday 14 April 2016

A Taste of Honey

I have been staying with old friend J in Limpley Stoke while her live -in carer was away. She is soon to move from her large beautiful house and garden into a small retirement flat, so I enjoyed the wonderful views of the Avon Valley for the last time.   B.Wiggins and I had some splendid early morning walks (same old mud, alas, as in Sussex)  On one of the footpaths I came to a particularly steep, slippery muddy bit and was wondering how I was going to manage it, when another dog-walker came up behind me and said `Would you like an arm?` I accepted gratefully.   I reflected on random acts of kindness and how good they are.  Another was when I left to go home, I discovered that J`s helper had secretly put two delicious home made cheese scones in my car for the journey !
While I was there I visited an old Winchester friend V, who now lives in Bradford on Avon, nearby. She is now ninety and very sprightly. She attributes her health and mobility to swallowing cider vinegar with runny honey every day, and urged me to do the same.      I have been doing so for the last week so I expect that soon I will be leaping over stiles and bounding up and down the hills.

Daughter J and family came home for Ghana on Friday and in spite of insect bites, tummy upsets, extreme heat, dodgy toilets, they looked surprisingly fit and well and in good spirits. They loved the friendly people and were glad of the whole experience but realise what comfortable lives we lead here in England. And it was lovely for them to spend time with daughter M  who is there for some months working for a charity in Komasi.     

I saw a tragic film in the Village Hall the other night called Two Lives, about poor little Norwegian babies which were taken away from their mothers and brought up in Germany, and then their struggle to be re united years later.  It was a good film and very exciting but so sad, it has haunted me ever since.  



Thursday 31 March 2016

Travels With My Dog

I am just back from The North, where I saw sixteen members of my family and stayed in three lovely cosy homes, and was fed delicious food and wonderfully looked after.   B.Wiggins enjoyed it all too, with interesting walks in the Derwent Valley, Allendale and Heaton Park in Newcastle. He was photographed on phones countless times on the trains there and back and helped people eat their packed lunches and had a good time, though he was very pleased to get home too.
I loved being with the four great grand boys and the two great grand nieces and they all seem to me to be inordinately clever and advances, but surely this is a great grand mother`s prerogative.
I saw a French film,Marguerite, about a rich tone deaf opera singer, which was excellent, read Rebecca Front`s book `Curious` after hearing it discussed on Radio 4, which is funny and wise, and watched the end of The Night Manager which was satisfyingly gruesome.   Now I am comfortably back in bungalow land which seems very quiet after all my gallivanting about. 
Daughter J e mails from Ghana to say they are hot, itchy from insect bites, and a bit queasy after unfamiliar food but otherwise OK  I am feeling  anxious about them, and will be glad when they are safely home.

Monday 14 March 2016

All better now...

It is quite miraculous how well my bruised and battered face has healed up and even the gap at the end of my nose has almost disappeared.     I wish now that I had taken a photo of it and put it on facebook as an example to everyone not to put their faith in rickety fences.
I am feeling fully quakered up having spent the weekend at Woodbrooke College in Birmingham in the company of more than fifty weighty Quakes.   It is the most lovely place to stay with solid comfort and reassuringly kind good people. And I was driven there and back so did not have to struggle with capricious weekend trains.  My Julia always used to say that the Quakers were like the Mafia, beavering away all over the place and the older I get I find I know more and more of them in remote parts of the country, though the numbers both in UK and world wide are sadly diminishing.
.I have just had a lovely walk up Lodge Hill with B.Wiggins in Spring sunshine and for once we are not plastered in mud.  Just as well as BW went to Plumpton College dog grooming department to have a complete makeover the other day and is looking particularly fine. He was used as a model for an exam so it was free!  Apparently he is extremely well behaved which is a surprise.  
We are shortly going up North for Easter and will stay with sister J and then with granddaughter F and the three little  great- greats.  The youngest, aged about one, said Hiya to me on the phone the other day. He`ll be texting soon I expect.

Monday 29 February 2016

Only One Lovely Black Eye

I have been in the wars again. I have a great bruiser of a black eye and a horribly mangled nose and I do believe it could have happened to anyone, not just to a doddery  old woman like me.
I was happily walking down Lodge Hill at eight oclock in the morning and stopped to put the dog on his lead.     Just for a moment I leaned slightly against a perfectly normal looking wooden fence, which collapsed and I fell flat on my face.   I staggered home and phoned daughter J who was fortunately not at work that day and she came to Ditchling and sorted me out.   I was so lucky not to break any bones. However, now having had a good look at my nose, I realize there is a bit missing.     Perhaps it will grow back. As long as it doesn`t frighten horses and children I don`t care.
The blow on the head does not seem to have impaired my brain (like Old Father William in Alice in Wonderland) as I won at Scrabble yesterday and (almost) completed the Prize cryptic crossword in the Guardian ahead of my sister for a change.
However I still look like a pathetic victim on Crime Watch who has been beaten up.
I find it difficult to decide which way to vote on the EU question with Boris and Dave on opposite sides. What a pair. I did enjoy the play about Churchill last night on TV with the wonderful Michael Gambon playing Winston. In spite of being such a diehard Tory he hated nuclear weapons and did try hard to work for peace initiatives. I had to admire him.
We had a birthday lunch in Midhurst for son T on Saturday at the Spread Eagle Hotel   What a lovely place. Queen Elizabeth is reputed to have slept there. There were roaring log fires, nice food, damask table napkins and tablecloths and they WELCOMED DOGS.   We shall go there again.





















Tuesday 16 February 2016

Persona non grata yet again

Another trip to London to meet two old friends in the crypt at St Martins in the Fields. I`d been there before with B.Wiggins and also Jumble (daughter J`s dog) with no problems,but this time, there was a bossy woman running the gift shop who said NO DOGS.   I was exhausted after jumping on and off  buses and trains, and felt I could not walk another step, so I managed to smuggle him in under my coat,, but felt very uneasy that there would be a heavy hand on my shoulder and I would be turfed out on to the street just as I was tucking in to my lunch. In fact I don`t think I will ever go to London again, well not with a dog anyway. It is no place for old crocks like me.

I saw a sad film at the Village Hall that evening called Still Alice about a woman with early onset Altzheimers, beautifully acted -  you saw the world through the eyes of Alice as the awful disease progressed.   It showed how none of us really know how to cope when friends and family lose their memory and become lost and confused.

Grand daughter M is working in schools in Ghana for six months, doing environmental science, related to global warming and climate change.  She writes a splendid blog, but she is finding it very hard, partly because of the heat and dryness, but also because all her colleagues are men and she craves female company and misses her friends in London and also her family, so she is very homesick. Another thing she finds difficult is that everyone is always late, up to an hour and a half sometimes. The only time she has felt at ease and happy was when she went riding round the lake.. As soon as she gets on a horse she feels at peace with the world.

So lovely today to have a hard frost, so I could go up the hill without sinking into claggy mud. Dog walks have been no pleasure lately. But my dodgy hip and knees don`t help either. I am going to a recommended Physio this afternoon, so perhaps she can sort me out.   Also daughter J`s acupuncture treatment works a treat.      I find that most things get better in time but then I get something else, that`s what happens when you`re eighty five and a half.

Friday 29 January 2016

Liberty for Dogs

Further to the Churchill Square Incident, I went to London on Tuesday with B.Wiggins and took him to Liberty where he was positively welcomed. I wandered all round that beautiful shop with its memories of buying Tana lawn for dressmaking years ago, and even had lunch in the restaurant with grandson M and his partner.  . There were other dogs there too. Amazing.

This afternoon, my Monday music group gave a recital for the local  U3A  Music Appreciation Society.  .We were asked to do it months ago and foolishly agreed  and then we all got into a terrible tizzy.. There were endless worries about the lighting, the choice of programme,, and how to get the cello and other instruments to the remote house which was down a long lane in a village a few miles from Ditchling.     I worried about the dog as I don`t like leaving him at home for more than a couple of hours.     Also with the deafness, I sometimes lose my place in the music.   It did not bode well.    But in the end it all went off smoothly.      .There were several ninety year olds in the audience, who may have quietly nodded off,  but on the whole they were a sprightly bunch and we had a splendid tea with delicious cakes made by our hostess who is also a nonagenarian. B.Wiggins spent the afternoon in the studio next to the music room and was perfectly happy, so I need not have worried. 

I have retired from the Infants.   I was sad to leave as I have been so happy with the Year 2`s on Wednesday afternoons for nearly five years now but I could not  always hear what the children were saying and it was increasingly difficult to remember all the names. I had a lovely send off. What will you do now on Wednesdays? they said. All I could think of was making marmalade, but I will have to think of a replacement activity. 

Friday 15 January 2016

love me, love my dog

I left my phone behind up north and grand daughter  F kindly sent it back to me but when the package arrived, it was empty! The jiffy bag had come unstuck, so I have lost all my phone numbers but I have been able to keep my own number in my new phone, which I went to buy in Brighton the other day in the horrible shopping mall, Churchill Square. I went on the bus in the pouring rain with Bradley Wiggins but as I walked towards the Virgin shop, a security guard roared out NO DOGS ALLOWED IN HERE.  In spite of all my pleadings he would not let me carry the dog the fifty yards to the shop. So I wrapped him up in my scarf  (the dog not the security guard) and scuttled in with him under my coat though well aware that his tail was hanging out.   I managed to pass by unseen and got the phone but it was a near thing.   It is interesting how it varies with dogs in different places. There is not a pub in Hertfordshire which allows them as brother P and I discovered when we just wanted a bite to eat recently.But all the pubs in Sussex welcome BW with open arms and the chemist and paper shop locally keep  special tins of treats for him  I am thinking of getting one of those baby slings and pretending he is a toddler with a hairy face.
I am still deaf as a post in spite of copious ear syringing, but I am getting some improved hearing aids next week so have great hopes.   I am a sort of moving disaster zone with various parts of my body playing up in turn: knees, hips, feet, ears, but I have been reading Alive Alive Oh (one of my Christmas books) by Diana Athill who is ninety seven and simply loves living in a Care Home and has taken up writing rather than her previous work as a publisher in her nineties and she does not complain about her health at all 
I am so thankful that it is getting colder and the ground is frosty and hard instead of muddy, but it is distressing to see the daffodils and primroses out everywhere and the birds singing fit to bust, thinking that it is Spring..  
I am just about to start making marmalade with grand daughter Tiger. I am always so pleased to see the Seville oranges in the shops at this time of the year. I love the smell in the house while it is bubbling away and then the row of golden jars on the kitchen table.