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.  

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.

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.