Home Again

Back from Up North after a long drive with many slow downs, hold ups, and speed restrictions, it took nearly nine hours. Tiger and I whiled away the time with quizzes word games and listening to Beatles CDs,  joining in with the well known bits. Luckily we did not encounter any floods. There was some snow on Christmas day in Allendale, but otherwise it was wet, wet, wet.
Most of us stayed in the Bunkhouse and sister J and I slept in bottom bunks, but fortunately there was no one on top.   Twenty of us sat down to Christmas lunch which was delicious, all wonderfully cooked by granddaughter F and husband R. The baby does not like being put down, so his parents stirred and chopped whilst holding him under one arm (he did not like being held by willing aunts and uncles and grannies to take over baby pacifying).   The other three little Darlings aged nearly six, four and three behaved beautifully.   So we had a good range of ages from nine months to eighty five (me) and also Bradley Wiggins and grand daughter M`s cat.    It was a really good get together and I enjoyed it all.
I have become suddenly totally deaf in my left ear and not too good in the right either, so I have been hard put to it with lip reading and guessing what was said, often getting it completely wrong much to everyone`s hilarity.  I have made appointments at Drs and hearing aid place. Now I am home I can have the telly and radio on full blast which helps, but perhaps I am going to be like Beethoven and just have to get on with it. My cello playing has been dodgy for some time so maybe I will have to hang up my bow for good. 
Bradley Wiggins had a nice time being taken for rigorous walks over the moors with daughter J and others but he was glad to be home to his familiar walks and his cosy basket.   His namesake was on the radio being the guest editor on the Today programme and he pricked up his ears every time his name was mentioned..
I have been given a good pile of new reading matter and also a supply of bubble bath stuff to keep me going in the New Year. That is all I need really.

All Cut and Dried

The time of the Round Robin is at hand.  I have only received two so far: one from Australia,and also a very long one from Winchester, both extremely interesting.   I love them, especislly the non boasty sort. I feel I do not have to write one myself because of this blog which is a sort of ongoing round robin.

I feel sorry for the people in Cumbria, enduring more floods.   I keep remembering the night of the terrible flood when I was staying with sister J up in Wynlaton Mill near Newcastle a couple of years ago.There was the moment when the cats were both marooned in the corner of the sitting room as the muddy water rose higher and higher and then later when we both went upstairs with a candle and the gin and tonics and wondered what to do next. It was amazing then, as it is now, how everybody rallies round to help. I have just heard on the radio of a farmer who has retrieved all his cattle, one of which swam 20 miles and was found on a golf course

I  enjoyed the play, Capital, on BBC1 which was on over three Tuesdays. It was a treat to see a well acted, well written drama instead of cliched rubbish like Downton Abbey and grisly crime series. I read the book by John Lanchester which was also excellent. 

We are planning a trip up North on 23rd December to Allendale,where grand daughter F lives.  Some of us are staying in a Bunkhouse very near her house. I keep totting up the totals expected  and get a different number each time, but I remind myself that I don`t have to worry,the catering is not my responsibility,one of the advantages of old age. . As long as I do`not have to sleep in a top bunk it should all be lovely

Grandson M has just been for a visit and cut my hair,and Bradley Wiggins is going to College to the dog department to have a cut and blow dry tomorrow so we should both look well groomed for Christmas.

Deaf sentence...

I wish someone would invent a hearing aid that did not give me itchy ears, or make whistling noises. I had given up on them, but yesterday I went to a memorial service at which I hardly heard a single word. I complained to the ninety year old woman sitting next to me that everyone mumbled and didn`t speak up properly and she said she heard it all perfectly, so now I know it must be ME.  I am determined to get to grips with the ghastly things, start wearing them and be grateful.
On the plus side of the general deterioration front, I am walking in a sprightly manner again and hardly need a stick except for very muddy dog walks. The toe incident is just a far off memory.

Everyone  is saying Oh no, we are not sending cards this year, Oh no we are not  having turkey, we are all vegetarians now. Oh no, we dont`like Christmas pudding.   I wonder how it will all end.     We are having Secret Santa presents in our family,which will be a great relief to me, as I am such a hopeless wrapper upper and will only have to do a few, it doesn`t apply to the toddlers and babies of course,   It is all being organised in a complicated system on line, which may go wrong so I could receive a football kit or false eyelashes, or something.

Two things I like about this time of year are those great blowsy red poinsettias (from Lidls and very cheap) which simply light up the room and also Stollen  (Lidls again ) which is so delicious, and much nicer than Christmas cake though I will make one of those on Stir Up Sunday which is looming up.   I love the cakey cooking smell for all the hours it takes to cook.    

Spicing It Up

I am making plum and apple chutney today and the whole place is full of that spicy vinegary smell. I really enjoy doing it as you don`t have to worry about whether it will set like marmalade and you can put anything in it like ginger, cloves, cinnamon, just a bit of this, a bit of that. I find it is very useful to give as at  Christmas if you are suddenly handed a beautifully wrapped present you were not expecting..     I am lucky as kind villagers constantly give me bags of apples, or there are boxes of windfalls left outside houses.with a note saying` help yourself`.

I have seen two good films in the last week: Selma which was about Martin Luther King, and Suffragette, Both were about injustice and inequality and both showed such courageous people. There was  actual news film which made them even more poignant.

Going to the doctor`s in Ditchling is a really sociable experience I find. The waiting room is packed with familiar faces, the dog walking fraternity, and other oldies from the village.  We have such interesting conversations about our various aches and pains and treatments, and we almost reluctant to go in to the Dr when our names are called. Also they have installed a Do-It-Yourself blood pressure machine. You poke your arm into a dark hole and a ticket comes out the other end. We all enjoy doing that very much.     

Grand daughter G ran a Marathon last Saturday.  Twenty six miles around Eastbourne, Beachy Head, the Seven Sisters,, up and down the hills along the coast. I asked her if she felt like giving up half way and she said `Oh no, I loved it. Anyone can do it,  it`s all in the head, not the legs`. I`m not sure I agree with her, especially after the needle incident in my case, but it makes you think.

I was soaking my poorly foot in a bowl of hot salty water and jumped up to answer the phone, and managed to drop my handbag into the water, which resulted in a ruined mobile phone, address book, bus pass, and purse. I bought a new phone but I still can`t work out how to text on it so will have to wait to collar a grandchild to help me.

I am off to the museum in Brighton later today to do another performance of readings following the creative writing course a few months ago. There is never much of an audience, just a few mystified mums and toddlers and people wanting a bit of a sit down, so its not a big deal, but I love being in that museum. `.

I am still limping pathetically but I now have a proper grown up walking stick (green) given to me by brother P and also a warm coat from dear departed sister in law Phil, so I think affectionately of her as I go dog walking in the mornings with her coat and stick. I am enjoying the lighter mornings now especially with the wonderful autumn colours this year.

Keeping Me on My Toes

The big toe drama continues.  On Wednesday, I went to the Day Unit at \Brighton Hospital to have the half needle removed with a sort of local whole leg anaesthetic, But after about half an hour of sticking huge needles into various parts of my leg with no effect, I had a general anaesthetic. I saw from the post op instructions that I must not use heavy machinery, drive a car, or sign a legal document for 48 hours. Anyway I was able to rest up at daughter J`s and have delicious meals on trays and watch the Great British Bake Off Finals, (what a tear jerker, but such a kind programme where everyone is nice to each other) .  I must have cost our beloved NHS a fortune and mine must be one of the most looked toes in the history of toes, but hopefully I will soon be back now with my early morning and afternoon dog walks as usual.

National Poetry Day was celebrated by daughter J and I reading a poem to each other at breakfast, 
(by wonderful Mary Oliver) and then listening to Radio 4 during the day, It  was all lovely stuff,and the BBC did us proud.

B.Wiggins has been dolefully sitting on the sofa looking reproachfully at me but he has had frequent walkies from my kind family. Today he has gone to have the full works at the Plumpton College Dog Grooming Department: coat, ears teeth and bottom, so he will come home later transformed. 

I am reading Grayson Perry`s autobiography called Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl  which is imaginative, witty and interesting, just like him and his work/ . I do admire him.

feeling needled..

The last couple of weeks have been dominated by my left big toe. The saga began when i got out of bed one morning and felt a sharp pain  and thought i had trodden on a wasp. Later I discovered a needle embedded which I pulled out. but the toe swelled up alarmingly.   During the next five days I was seen by three GP``s  two orthopaedic registrars, and spent four uncomfortable hours in A and E Finally I am having the broken off half of the needle removed on Wednesday.   The lesson to be learned is: never do sewing in the bedroom and if you do tread on a needle get it X rayed immediately.  One good thing was that I was able to see the moon eclipse last Sunday in all its scarlet glory. This was when daughter J and I stumbled out of A and E in the early hours of the morning.

I saw a wonderful Polish film in Ditchling Village Hall last week: Ida, a Polish film,which was tragic and yet so subtle and understated, also visually stunning. It is such a treat to see these outstanding World films instead of the usual blockbusters.

I have started going to Nurturing Creative Workshops run by an Art Therapist also in a village hall and that is another treat as we do activities where there is no right or wrong way!    There`s no end of opportunities and activities round here. I am so lucky.

My  birthday has come and gone. I had a good celebration with my beloved family and beautiful cards,many saying that the sender read this blog so I was pleased about that as I am always on the point of giving it up.  Also there are those lovely facebook messages which are heart warming.   Somehow, eighty five sounds much older than eighty four, but I will not let this thought depress me.   I cannot complain if my only real medical problem is a swollen toe.

Farewell to Jean

I`ve been `on the road` again,  to Cirencester for the funeral of my dear old friend Jean.Dickinson, a friendship that has lasted for over fifty years.   It was a right good do. One becomes a connosisseur of the funeral at my age.  It was in the huge and beautiful Parish Church with some wonderful music and poetry   The Wake was in the church too, which is a good idea for all the oldies like me who were there.      There were friends from all through her life, many I had heard of but never met, which was very poignant.      I have been having vivid dreams about Jean for the last couple of weeks and she is just as she used to be before the wretched Alzheimers took hold which is so comforting.

On the way back, I called in at my dear Russian/Cornish friends in Winchester with their five children, two of whom were born at the Quaker Meeting House where I lived before i came to Ditchling.  The children speak perfect Russian as well as English.  I find this amazing.

i`m off to the Infants this afternoon. Another whole lot of new names to learn. I had two Rubies, one Hope and an Otis in my reading group last week. All the children and staff use first names only at the school, so I am called Vick.

poems on a plate.

Brother P is staying and brought me a new book by Billy Collins called The Trouble with Poetry and Other Poems. So we are continuing our practice of poetry at breakfast. Such tender, moving and yet humorous poems, we both love them. I would like to meet Billy Collins as I feel I would have instant rapport with him. Also he sometimes writes about dogs and that gladdens my heart. In one, he works out that he is 420 in dog years which is an interesting thought, I suppose I would be 615.
P and I are just about to go on the Bloomsbury trail to Charleston, Rodmell and Berwick church all of which featured in the Life in Squares on the TV.   I have been round the houses before and they have excellent guides, but brother P hasn`t, so I will walk in the lovely gardens with B Wiggins, who I am glad to report has been a Good Dog lately so I have not had any further skirmishes with the Headmaster of Dumbrells Court.
I was a bit appalled by the TV version of Lady Chatterly`s Lover as the plot bore little resemblance to the book I remember furtively reading years ago, and what ridiculous hats Connie wore for walking in the woods!  
Brother P read somewhere that it would be am amazing experience to see the sunrise from the top of Ditchling Beacon so we both crawled out of bed at 5.30am and together with B.W, we drove up there,  but sadly it was a dire disappointment.    It was shrouded in mist and there was just a weak glow in the east.  Still we both felt invigorated by such an early start and were ready for a hearty breakfast, plus poems if course.  

Gloomy Life in Squares

I had always imagined that the Bloomsbury set had a high old time at Charleston (not far from here) painting every surface in sight and being liberated and creative, but not so, according to the recent plays on TV. They all seemed to be so miserable and tortured and had no fun at all.  But it was atmospheric and well acted and a welcome change from cookery programmes with everyone smacking their lips over slices of cake.
A midsummer inertia has overtaken me which is why I have not written this blog for so long, though do not imagine that I have been slumped on the sofa for the past three weeks doing nothing. I have been to a hundredth birthday party in Winchester which was a great occasion, Vernon is still walking to Meeting, playing his recorder and he has only recently given up circle dancing. There has been the usual Nibbles and Scribbles weekly sessions, the Impro Group and my out -of- tune cello playing in our regular quintet.  Also I went to a family gathering in Kew Gardens last Sunday and Oh the trains!  They kept being cancelled because drivers hadn`t turned up. That never used to happen did it?  We were packed in like sardines.  But we had a lovely day out and I really enjoyed it.
B.Wiggins is completely resigned to being muzzled in the hallowed precincts of Dumbrells Court and if he sees a gardener or a postman, he gives a muffled snort rather than a bark. I have had no more tellings -off from the Headmaster.   
I am enjoying blackberry time again. I am just about to go and pick some and make a blackberry and apple pie for when grand daughter Florrie and family (three little boys) come on Thursday.  What a treat it will be to see them all.

Rosemary for remembrance..

The long warm days of summer stretch out . I love the walks in the woods with B.Wiggins at this time of the year, There are several places near here where you can walk for miles and even get a bit lost.  Though I still miss my bike, dog walking twice a day is a good substitute.
BW has been barking and acting in a hostile manner to the gardeners at Dumbrells Court so I have been in trouble with the Headmaster again. He now has to wear a muzzle while in the grounds   it is made of mesh and looks like a little pig`s snout. BW doesn`t mind.   He just looks puzzled in a muzzle.
He is perfectly docile and well behaved, until he meets men in shorts carrying post bags or gardening implements when he goes ballistic.

I went to see Twelfth Night at Tiger`s primary school.  Apart from the songs and Malvolio`s cross gartering, it bore little relation to the Shakespeare version, but it was joyful and exuberant and I loved it. It made me cry of course, always a sign of a good production. Grand daughter Tiger was Feste and to my prejudiced grandmotherly eyes, the star of the show.

My home is redolent with rosemary. I saw a TV programme about old age and dementia  that suggested that burning rosemary oil in one of those candle things improved the memory. It has been proved apparently.    It smells lovely.

Just about to do my daily drawing now, another aid against decrepitude.   I learned that from the TV programme too as well as from Chris Redell, the children`s laureate.

Summertime, and the livin is easy.....

Back from La Belle France after a lovely week away with brother P.      In spite of dire warnings on radio and TV, there were no problems on Euro tunnel, except a slight delay on the way home. 
It was very quiet in Normandy, hardly any traffic on the motorway or other roads, and the countryside looked stunning.   I love the French roundabouts, bamboo mazes, mountains of pink roses, sculptures, grasses, all different.   It was very hot, but of course it was the same in England. 

We went out and about trying to keep cool, and we sat reading in the beautiful gardens of our gite: poetry and novels.     I enjoyed `The Invention of Wings` by Sue Monk Kidd which is about two sisters battling against slavery in the early 19th century in South Carolina. It is a novel, but based on real people and events.    
P and I love being in France and just wallow in the Frenchiness of the French.  As usual we had fierce games of Scrabble, watched films and enjoyed delicious food and wine, everything always tastes nicer in France. 

B. Wiggins went to daughter J in Brighton.who was also looking after her daughter M`s kitten while she a is away on the Camino de Santiago.There was Tiger`s hamster plus a seagull known as nosy Norah who comes in to eat the dog and cat food. All four were chasing each other round the kitchen and the kitten was definitely top `dog`  B.W. is terrified of her, but he had a happy week there going down to the beach and guarding the clothes while the family went swimming.  He is also pleased to be home for his early morning walks on the downs, and afternoon stumps through the shady woods interspersed with chasing the squirrels here in the garden.

Boiled Eggs and Foxgloves.

I am very pleased that the new Children`s Laureate is Chris Redell as he is an artist as well as a good writer. He recommends that everyone should do a drawing every day, keep a sketchbook handy and some well sharpened pencils.   I have been doing this. It makes you look at things more carefully and it is the process and not the result that is important. So far I have drawn:  some foxgloves, grasses and elderflowers picked on my morning walk with BW and also attempted to draw the squirrels outside my window, difficult as they are never still, and crows, which are easier. Also my breakfast egg and a jar of Marmite. I already do Morning Pages which is a sort of writing exercise when you just write for a couple of pages without taking your pen off the paper or correcting it in any way, a sort of stream of consciousness,and what with the early dog walk, it is quite a busy routine.

I have just finished Patrick Gale`s latest novel A Town called Winter which I got from the wonderful mobile library.  They get me all the new books.  It is loosely based on events in his own family: a great grandfather who mysteriously went off to Canada leaving his family behind.  Like all his books, it is thought provoking, sensitive and moving.  He is such a great story teller. 

I am doing my annual `poetry `project with the Year 2`s . Subjects range from the usual dogs, cats and gerbils to a snall boy saying he wanted to write about `demolition and blowing things up`  Many of them want to write about their tablets and other electronic devices. I am not sure whether they are good or bad, but they are inextricably part of their lives now.

I am getting ready for my trip to France with brother P. We are going on the channel tunnel this year but to the same place in Normandy as last time. I hope we both survive without having to experience a French A and E department but it is always a risk at our advanced ages. At least we will have the advantage of P`s excellent French to see us through.   The thing is, we do not have great expectations, we just love being in France with the good wine, bread and chesse and other delights and we enjoy each other`s company. 

Proper poorly

I came back from the Julia Darling fest up north with a nasty virus which has made feel feel very poorly ever since, though with B. Wiggins` reproachful looks there is little chance of having a proper illness and being able to lie on the sofa all day as we have to go for walks at regular intervals. Daughter J came and made me curative drinks with ginger and Manuka honey, but I have just remembered the Russian granny cures from the Meeting House days which involve garlic on toast, a sock tied round the neck, and hot hard boiled eggs (with shells on) massaged over the face, so I think I will try those.

Julia`s ten year memorial events in Newcastle were quite overwhelming.   There was a lovely evening of poetry at the University where she was a fellow, both hers and new ones dedicated to her, and there were workshops, plays and music at Live Theatre on the Quayside where she had been writer in residence. And I was able to see  the grand daughters and great grand little boys and great nieces too plus sister J and brother P. and many other family and old friends.  It was a good get together and I am so thankful for it.

B. Wiggins had to be left with a friend in Brighton and he did a runner to daughter J`s house, though fortunately not to Ditchling, but he was quickly rescued and he settled down     He has just had a complete makeover at Plumpton College Dog Grooming Department and now looks half the size.   Sadly his friend Jumble, daughter J`s dog, died on Friday aged twelve. He was a lovely quiet polite dog and his great accomplishment was singing tunefully whenever anyone played the mouth organ. We will all miss him .

I went to a film in the village hall called The Rocket, made in Laos. I spent much of the time with my eyes shut and my fingers in my ears as it involved two sweet children doing very dangerous things, and it was obvious that they have not yet heard of Health and Safety in Laos. It did end happily,  but it make me thankful for the comfort of life in Ditchling

There`s been a lot going on in Ditchling the last few days:  There was a play in the village hall:The Lady Killers based on the Ealing comedy which has always been one of my favourite films, about the dotty old lady and her elderly crook lodgers pretending to play string quartets while planning a bank robbery.   It was a coincidence that there was a real robbery in the news, also done by a group of aged criminals who were eventually caught. Apparently they had trouble hearing the charges read out to them in court. It must have been upsetting for the people who lost all their jewels but there is something comic about those elderly blokes getting it all slightly wrong.
On Thursday we had our monthly film show also in the village hall and this was a brilliant film:Blue Jasmine directed by Woody Allen  and that was a tale of a woman (Kate Blanchet) who also got it wrong all the time.
Then the next night we had a concert with our Ditchling resident old jazz musician Herbie Flowers plus some other great jazz players also  past their first youth (plus a wonderful singer) performed to a  hugely appreciative audience of villagers.   As I`ve said before, there is never a dull moment in Ditchling.

Last weekend it was grand daughter M`s birthday so with daughter J and grand daughter T, we went to Hampstead Heath where J and I went the day before M was born twenty three years ago. They had an icy swim in the Ladies Pond as we did then, though I felt it might finish me off if I did it too, but we all walked and walked and it was simply beautiful, completely unspoiled, just as it used to be.

I`m getting ready for the trip up north for Julia Darling`s Anniversary Event with poetry and  plays at Live Theatre on Quayside and a general get together for family and friends. I am a bit worried that we will all spend our time racing round Newcastle losing each other.   

Greens are good for you.

I quite miss all the excitement of the election and though it seemed totally disastrous, I was pleased that the Greens did so well all over the country and our candidate, Alf Stirling, in Lewes did not lose his deposit.    And I was glad too that lovely Caroline Lucas kept her seat in Brighton. 

My brother, sister and I who were aged eighteen, nine and fourteen respectively in May 1945 on VE Day, have no recollection of it whatsoever.   Brother P said he thought there could have been a street party but surely I would have remembered it too. Did we have the day off school?  Who knows. It is very strange, as we were living in North London and it was only a short bus and tube ride up to join the crowds outside Buckingham Palace.   P and I can remember the Jubilee in 1936 when we were given a pencil, a book and a mug.

I went to an exhibition in a darkened church in Brighton for the Festival called Dawn Chorus.   Apparently if you slow down bird song it sounds just like human speech.   There were recordings of singers who imitated birds and then it was speeded up and this was accompanied by huge images of these people lying in the bath or reading or lying in bed. It was all very peculiar but it made you wonder what  ordinary garden birds are really saying when they are twittering away.
I think I heard a nightingale yesterday as I walked up Lodge Hill with BW.  It is just heavenly up there at the moment with all the birds and spring flowers.
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The Boy who Bit Picasso....

Only a week to go till the election and I am deeply interested in it all. How I wish one could organise for all the party leaders to go to a Quaker Meeting . It would do them a power of good to sit for an hour`s silence together instead of hurling insults, threats and insinuations at each other.     I carefully read the leaflets that rain through my letterbox and the only one that I have found to be plausible and sensible is the the one from the Green Party, so I am glad that I joined the Greens a few months ago. 

I went to a lovely play at the Infants yesterday. It was a touring drama group doing a play called The Boy who Bit Picasso, and it was based on a true incident when Picasso visited a family in Sussex many years ago. The Year 2`s were able to participate by painting and drawing in a Pcasso-ish way and they simply loved it. Incidentally, the director and writer of the play, Jake Oldershaw is the son of my one time dentist in the Isle of Wight and I remember lying in the dentist chair having my tooth drilled when his dad told me he had just had a baby boy, and this was about forty years ago!    It just shows how we are all connected up in various ways.

Daughter J is holding a Breakfast Party (with impro games and entertainment) at home on Sunday week in aid of the Nepal Earthquake Fund. It reminds me of the Indulgent Breakfasts at the Meeting House in Winchester, many years ago with dear C and G frying over a hundred eggs   J says she is serving porridge with fruit and nuts,  No eggs or kippers. 

Appointments and Waiting Rooms

Our Julia died ten years ago and her anniversary was last Monday. The BBC did her proud. They put on a dramatisation of her blog called the Waiting Room and five fifteen minute plays called Appointments during the week. It was wonderful to hear it all.  And there will be more plays,poetry and readings at Live Theatre and other places in Newcastle at the end of May, so we are are all planning our trips up there.  The only problem is finding someone to look after B.Wiggins and Jumble. I am hoping they can go somewhere together as they are very fond of each other in a doggy sort of way.
I went to Waterstones on Wednesday to a book launch: Patrick Gale`s latest novel  A Town called Winter. I have loved all his books. He grew up in Winchester and he was a contemporary of my children including Julia and he would meet up with her at literary festivals. One of his novels: Pictures from an Exhibition was set among the Quakers and it encouraged lots of people to go to Meeting though he is not a Quaker himself at all Anyway it was a great evening and I was so pleased to see him again,  I look forward to reading the new book.
We have revived our extempore writing group :Nibbles and Scribbles and five of us met at the cafe below the bandstand on the sea front last Thursday, We laughed so much at our own efforts that the Hungarian waitress asked me in halting English what we were doing. When I told her she said` Oh we do just the same in Hungary. I was very surprised..

Son in law D and I went to a new restaurant in Brighton on Easter Sunday called The Silo.  I had read a good review of it in the Guardian.  All the waste goes into a huge composter and then they grow their own mushrooms in it. .  The chairs are made of chipboard,, the water glasses are jam jars and some of the plates are made of melted down plastic bags. The food was delicious but unnusual!  Mostly local and organic, the menu  includes wild boar and venison but we had a tasty mushroom risotto and local Sussex wine.    

Daughter J and ggT are still away in New York and Washington. I will be glad to see them safely home at the weekend.   Here in Ditchling, everyone is revelling in the Spring sunshine and B Wiggins and I have been sitting out the back, me reading a weighty tome lent by a Dumbrellite neighbour called Lamentations by CJ Sansom,about dastardly Tudor goings on which is an absolute page turner. Wiggins is on constant alert on squirrel patrol. He would be horrified if he caught one.

I decided I would get a more grown up mobile instead of the £5 Nokia I have had since they were first invented, but what a palaver!    It turned out that somehow I had given the wrong date of birth on the original deal and D and I have been on the phone for hours and hours trying to sort it out. At one point they asked for my birth certificate. I have heard that those cheap phones are used by drug dealers so perhaps they think I am an eighty five year old arch criminal. I may give up the whole thing and continue with my battered old one with big cracks across the screen.  

Mothering Day Outing

I have never been a great fan of Mothering Sunday. I have a mental picture of every other mother in the land  being taken out for slap up lunches by adoring children and this has never happened to me. This is in no way a criticism of my lovely family as I don`t suppose I would enjoy if it did.  However this year daughter J, son in law D, and I, plus their three daughters went to London for the day. Also  two dogs, Jumble and B. Wiggins .  Surprisingly we found three eateries that tolerated dogs (one unwittingly, they just hid under the table)   We walked for miles along by the Thames, saw Ghandi`s new statue in Parliament Square, also the Grayson Perry stuff in the National Portrait Gallery and all in all we had a lovely day out. 

We did our show at the Brighton Museum on Thursday. Brother P pointed out that in my last blog I said I expected some toodlers to come and hear us (instead of toddlers) Well maybe they did as there was quite a good audience  even if they were just seizing the chance of a nice sit down for an hour. One of the participants on the course did a belly dance in  full eastern costume instead of reading a poem, so that was an added interest.     

I saw the film, Boyhood the other day. It lasted nearly three hours, but I did not fall asleep which is the acid test for me.  It was a good film and fascinating to watch the life unfolding for that boy all through his childhood, and the others in the cast too.    Tonight I am going to a Mozart Opera in a barn just up the lane. There is never a dull moment in Ditchling.

a voice from the past...

I had a strange experience the night before last. I woke up sometime in the small hours and couldn`t get back to sleep so I turned on the radio on 4ex which often broadcasts programmes from the past.. To my surprise I heard my dear daughter Julia`s voice on a discussion show with Matthew Parish and Giles Coren and others. It was called The Great British Public and it was funny and interesting. Julia died nearly ten years ago so I suppose it was recorded in about 2004 and I had never heard it before.

I have just been to stay with old friend J and I went by train.   It stopped at seventeen stations between Brighton and Bradford on Avon and took nearly three hours,but Bradley Wiggins slept soundly the whole way and I read my book (Nora Webster, by on of my favourite authors Colm Tobin)  We had a lovely time there with wonderful dog walks in the Avon Valley . I went with J to her pottery class in the Village Hall and made some very wobbly pots and went to Meeting at Bradford and met A plus new baby, who had been at my Nursery School at the Meeting House in Winchester over thirty years ago!      

I have been having dire computer and printer problems but I have noticed a glazed look coming over family`s faces at the mention of them so I have found a bloke to sort it out but have been waiting all morning for him to turn up. I want to print up my work from the Museum Tales Course I have been doing at the Brighton Museum. We are doing our performance next week but there will not be a large audience I suspect,. just a few puzzled mums with toodlers in buggies and some of our friends and relations.  I have loved the course and I am sad that it is nearly over. That museum feels like home. 

I have a new great grand called Rowan,  (the beautiful tree and also the ex archbishop if Canterbury) and his second name is Kit which is lovely too. Can`t wait to see him. 
B.Wiggins has been behaving in an exemplary fashion, now that I keep him on a short lead and march him smartly past any tall men in fluorescent jackets, carrying sacks or wearing shorts.
I saw two brilliant films last week: a German film called Barbara set in East Germany in the eighties, which reminded me of how awful the cold war years were., Also  Philomena with the wonderful Judy Dench. That was at Films for Friends which is such a great way of seeing films with comfy sofas, nibbles and drinks,yet another wonderful thing in Ditchling of which there are many.
Grandson R was eighteen last Saturday and there was a sort of brunch at his home in Brighton which was an ideal way to celebrate a birthday.  It went on for a few hours with delicious cooked breakfasts, Bucks Fizz, birthday cake and people dropping in.  .Daughter J had made a birthday card with Eighteen Rules for Life, which included things like: : Look after your teeth, Fill in forms straight away and send them off, Eat five a day, Change your sheets,, Don`t ever start smoking, Be kind,, Mean what you say and say what you mean, If in doubt have a bath.    I have been trying to think of a list for eighty five year olds, such as , Walk every day even if you don`t feel like it, Listen with soft eyes,   Do not put it off,,do it Now!   I am going to think of some more but I am just going off to meet son T at Petworth for his 55th birthday.

In the Doghouse

B.Wiggins and I are in disgrace again after being told off by the Headmaster (the warden of my Old Folks place)   He has been intimidating the postmen,window cleaners, repair men by barking ferociously and jumping, and this may frighten the O.F`s . The problem is that I had one of those stretchy leads but I must now always have him on a short lead and Never Let Him Off.   Many of the O F`s seem to like him and bring him round bones and remains of their Sunday roasts. But I feel mortified.  I have slipped back into the Naughtiest Girl in the School mode which I find  all too easyto do.

On a happier note, I had a lovely weekend in Winchester (leaving BW behind with daughter J for some behaviour therapy) and went to a christening of the youngest baby of my dear Russian/Cornish friends .  The Russian Orthodox priest from Oxford officiated and it was a beautiful ceremony though the sturdy toddler being baptised did not take too kindly to being totally mmersed three times in a large copper pot. She quickly cheered up afterwards and promptly went to sleep in her Korean grandfathers arms while the rest of us enjoyed a splendid christening feast. There were other Meeting House ex residents there and we all had a great reminisce about our happy past times together.

I came home yesterday in time to look after grand daughter T and we did some cooking.   We made strawberry tartlets as on Great British Bake Off on TV. We decided we had made a better job of it than Joanna Lumley,Dame Edna Everage, Jennifer Saunders and Lulu. They looked and tasted really nice. 

Today the sun is shining after days of grey gloom. and there were baby lambs in the field leading up to the Downs on my walk this morning and drifts of snowdrops along the roadside. Such a cheery sight.

Having a grumble..

I am an optimistic and cheerful person on the whole but there are several things that are annoying me at present and I want to get them off my chest:
1,Scottish Power who have almost doubled my direct debit monthly payments without warning and I am totally unable to get through to them on the phone. Disembodied voices tell me to press buttons and then I am left with appalling music for hours. I wouldn`t mind so much if it was Mozart.
2.TV  Every time I settle down to a cosy evenings viewing,  I either see women enduring excruciating labour pains before giving birth,  GPs discussing embarrassing ailments, or people haggling with shady looking antique dealers. There are rarely any plays and few good films, just sleazy sitcoms and soaps.
3.Weather forecasters on TV who are irritatingly cheerful and only tell us about the weather in the north of Scotland and Ireland and not a word about Brighton (or Ditchling).  
4.Shoe shops. I need some comfortable boots for my dodgy ankles and they say   `Oh no we are stocking up for summer now, we have none left in your size`.
5. Mud, on my shoes,carpets, sofa and dog. 

But there are some things that are good, such as snowdrops, a few primroses and even an odd daffodil springing up. Also I have just joined the Green Party so i have an instant answer when I am canvassed or phoned by local Tories.      Also we were doing sewing at the Infants yesterday. This is for the Guy Fawkes puppets.   It was very enjoyable. Next week we will be doing the glueing.which is even better.  And today I am starting another writing course at the Brighton museum where a small group of us are turned loose to find objects to spark us off to do a bit of writing.
I shouldn`t moan at all as the only important things for me are that my family keep well  and that we are all looking out for each other which we do.
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On the road.......

A long gap.  Dear old friend P. at Limpley Stoke died a couple of weeks ago, and just lately I have been driving up and down the A272, and A303 , the last being for the funeral on Monday.   I first met him in 1955 when we both moved into College Street in Winchester, a few doors from each other, so our friendship had lasted a long time.
It was a heartwarming funeral and as usual at such occasions you learn things about the person you never knew before. There were many familiar faces, and hosts of memories,  poems, and music from family and friends at the service in the village church.  I am sad that he has gone, but he was ninety, and he died in his own bedroom with his beloved J holding his hand and family around him, after a good life in which he was much loved and what more could one ask?

On the drive back in the dark, I stopped to answer my phone and managed to drop my wallet in a car park near Petersfield, fifty miles away.  All those cards: bank, library Waitrose, driving licence and my precious bus pass, gone!   But a kind person handed it in at the nearby pub, and another kind friend went and collected it and is posting  it back. I am overwhelmed.    
I had a lovely afternoon at the Infants today. We are doing puppets again, good old Guy Fawkes and co comes up year after year in January which is a bit strange.  So we are messing about with glue, glitter, and swords made of lolly sticks.  

BW had a parcel last week. It was addressed to Master Bradley Wiggins and it contained his special Yellow Jersey, knitted for him by dear friend C in Winchester.. I wonder what the postman thought.    BW looks very fine in it.

And the rain ir raineth every day.......

Marmalade time again .The Seville oranges are in Waitrose but all done up in little boxes with instructions, which rather spoils it somehow as there was always the pleasure of finding the small knobby looking oranges amongst the others in January..   Grand daughter T and I spent a pleasant afternoon slicing, squeezing and stirring and it set very well     It is worth doing just for the heavenly marmaladey smell all through the house.

I am still hobbling about on my dodgy ankle and looking like the road sign which says Warning, Elderly People. What with all the horrific tales of A and E Departments and doctors surgeries unable to cope, I have decided not to seek medical advice, but just hope it gets better on its own, and refrain from doing any dancing or other dangerous activities.    The rain and mud don`t help either on the twice daily dog walks,Snow and frost would be an easier option.  But it is cosy indoors with my nice new pile of books to read..

I decided not to make any New Year Resolutions this year but to slide downhill without any efforts at self improvement     Just try be as kind as possible to myself and other people.