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.