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.
Thursday, 31 March 2016
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.
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.
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.
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