I am writing this whilst sitting (fully clothed) for the Grey Ladies Life Drawing class in Ditchling. They gather every Wednesday in the Meeting House, but they used to meet in a house in the village called Grey Ladies,hence the name.        I am quite happy to sit still for a couple of hours as it is what I do every Sunday, well for an hour at any rate.    The wind is howling outside and it is deluging with rain so it is nice to sit here in the warm on a bleak January morning.

This afternoon I work as a volunteer at the Hospice charity shop in Burgess Hill which is in a rather chaotic state still after Christmas. I try to tidy one small coner each week but it doesn`t last.  Every five minutes someone comes  with several bulging black bags of mostly unsaleable stuff. Often it is the result of their clearing out a  beloved parent`s home so we have to be sympathetic, but we often feel in despair as to where to put it all.  It goes to an enormous warehouse to be sorted and some of it can be recycled hopefully ..I get more and more anxious about rubbish and all the plastic bags.    How is it going to end I wonder.

I am pleased that the marmalade making season is here. Grand daughter T is coming round after school to make the first batch.   We alternate chopping and stirring with games of Scrabble. Though only thirteen she is a formidable opponent.

I went as a volunteer to do a Memory test the other day. It was for a charity for people who had sustained a head injury and they wanted elderly people who were `normal`  though I am not sure that I fit into that category. It lasted just over an hour and I thoroughly enjoyed it.   I did well at  the word questions (due to all the Scrabble perhaps) but I was not so good at the shapes and pictures. There was no marks or pass or fail at the end as far as I know and I was given ten quid which I happily spent at Waitrose.

On Monday it was my monthly stint at the Eye Hospital. No wonder the NHS is running out of cash with us oldies having these expensive injections and scans. The place was, as always, absolutely packed . What is odd is that nobody else ever takes anything to do, they just sit there for hours staring into space. I always take a good supply of books and crosswords etc. The doctors and nurses all look exhausted.             It must be overwhelming, the sheer numbers of us. The encouraging thing is that my sight is better than it has been for years and I was actually playing the cello in my music group and realized that I was not wearing any specs.   It may have been partly due to the fact that grand daughter G`s boyfriend has just installed a much brighter light in my sitting room and that makes a huge difference.

We had a talk after Meeting last Sunday by Tony Tree about allithe Quaker skeletons found in the Pavilion Gardens in Brighton    The original Meeting House and burial ground were there in the late 17th century but had to be moved eventually to its present location in Ship Street in 1802 because the home of the Prince Regent`s mistress, Mrs Fitzherbertfelt  was overlooked by the Quakers.The skeletons are now going to be reburied up in the cemetery. What a palaver.