Today is Julia`s anniversary and also grand daughter T`s thirteenth birthday. Daughter J and family plus friends are walking over the Downs from Brighton to Ditchling (seven miles) for lunch and birthday cake and then we will read aloud some of Julia`s poetry and share memories. J and I always feel a bit tearful and odd at this time of year so it is good to get together
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Tomorrow I am having a Hot Cross Bun party to which I have invited all the Dumbrellites. As my sitting room is small I am holding it at the Meeting House,which is five minute walk down the lane. This has caused great consternation amongst some who on reading the words Quaker and Good Friday on the invitations seemed to think that it was a Quaker indoctrination ceremony and they felt unable to come, so I fear I may be left with forty hot cross buns and a large uneaten Simnel cake, but never mind, they can go in the freezer,
On Easter Sunday I am planning a picnic and egg rolling down Lodge Hill in Ditchling after \Meeting though the weather forecast is not good. I remember doing this on St Giles Hill in Winchester many times over the years. There is something about chucking painted eggs down a grassy slope and running whooping along behind them that I find very exhilarating in a ritualistic, heathenish sort of way.
Then at the end of next week, we are celebrating brother P`s ninetieth birthday with a sibling get together and also a family do. .Sister J and I are struggling to write an Ode but we have used up all the best lines on his seventieth and eightieth, plus a few in between.
I have just read the latest Sebastian Faulks novel: Where my Heart Used to Beat. It is a bit reminiscent of Birdsong and is really excellent and very thought provoking.