no sun, no shine, November.

November here with deluging rain, and gales, but there was a good turn out of Quakers this morning, and a lively Meeting with Friends bobbing up right left and centre with ministry. There is the business Meeting after Meeting on the first Sunday of the month followed by lunch for anyone who wants to stay, so it is a busy day for me, but I have had a good read of the Observer this afternoon, before tackling the daily monumental task of raking up leaves. I look at the thousands of leaves still up there on the magnolia tree and the huge beech and my heart sinks.
Then I booked up a pre Christmas flight on Ryanair to stay with sister J, which I always find a very stressful process (have I booked the right day, time, month, is the plane going to crash, should I have booked another day ?)
Friday in Brighton was an anxious day as grand daughter G was thrown from a horse on a country path and broke her arm quite badly. J and D were at work so I went in the ambulance with her and our experience at A and E was not good to say the least. J said it was like something out of Dickens. One harassed nurse seemed to be the only one there and she said she had sixty patients to look after, so we came pretty far down the list. In the evening when we were all finally at home, J said she just felt thankfulness, it could have been so much worse.We don`t feel so keen on hose riding any more, think they will give it a miss for a while.

babies and bicycles

I looked after a five week old baby last night. His mother was helping to run a group here. He started to cry and got himself into a state, but I was glad to find that I hadn`t lost the knack of quietening babies with a sort of continuous vigorous up and down motion. He slept like a lamb on my lap for an hour or so, but I was unable to move. He was adorable and gave one or two fleeting smiles.
I had a spectacular fall from my bike this morning on my way back from a swim. I skidded on the wet, and flew across the road and landed in a heap with the bike on top. I lay there thinking this is it: broken hip, A and E, operations, zimmer frame, walking sticks, the lot. To my surprise, I jumped up unscathed and cycled home.
We played some music this afternoon, bit of Telemann, with son T, 94 year old V, two other good friends, and it probably sounded dire but we enjoyed it. Perhaps I will start practising my cello again.

My life here is a series of interruptions. I had just settled down to doing a spot of gardening when an old man wanders in at the gate (he tells me he is 90 tomorrow) and says he cannot remember where he has parked his car. After a glass of water and a sit down, he still has no idea, so I get on my bike and cycle round Winchester for half an hour and eventually find it in a remote street. Then I get him into my car, with difficulty, and take him there, and watch him drive off uncertainly. At the same time I load up wih all the garden rubbish for the dump. But I pick up a few choice items of china from the shed round the back for a trifling sum so it wasn`t a wasted journey. I will so miss our dump when I leave Winchester!
Today we have the embroiderers here for a workshop. I love to see them all sitting the big room, stitching away quietly, so intent. I had meant to spend the day in London, but the trains are all up the creek, so it will be gardening again, and perhaps a bonfire. Tonight I am going to an art event in the Old Laundry. I am interested to see how it has been transformed. Both daughters did gruelling stints working there when they were teenagers, coming home all steamy and limp.
(The old man got home safely, his equally old wife rang up to thank us)

quaker voices

A few of us did some readings last night for Quaker Week (we called it Quaker Voices) It was in an ancient room in the Cathedral Close, and we read about the sufferings of Q`s in the 17th century when they were dragged through the streets by their hair, thrown into `stinking jails` for months on end, all because they wouldn`t doff their hats or swear on oath or pay their tithes, and some of them were tried and sentenced in Cheney Court just a stones throw from where we held the event. We read some poems, some by ourselves and some by proper poets too, and we enjoyed doing it but we did not get many punters. It was supposed to encourage some new recruits for Quakerism, but the audience was mainly our own Meeting.
My daughter J has stopped doing her blog because she got an upsetting respose which later turned out to be a joke, but it has put her off. I miss it, as it gave me a bit of an insight into her world. I hope she has second thoughts. I wish more of my friends and family would do blogs.

season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

I cycled back through the watermeadows after taking some Quaker marmalade to Laurie and thought about Keats writing his ode along that self same path nearly two hundred years ago. It was one of those golden evenings lit up like a stage set, and the river smelled so good. I love this time of year.
We picked all the Bramley apples which are huge. I am giving them away as they are so much nicer now than when you put them away and they go all wrinkled and mouldy. We are making crumbles and pies like mad. D is harvesting his pumpkin collection and is extremely proud of them.
I did a lunch for the Catholic adoption society today, (the usual- quiche and appley puds) so we have had the Jewish crowd Monday, Buddhists Wednesday and Catholics on Thursday.
It is my birthday coming up and I have had one card wishing me a happy eightieth, and I am only seventy nine! That`s a bit worrying.

Yom Kippur and Harvest Festival

The reformed Jewish group who do not have a synagogue in Winchester, have been here for a Jewish festival:Kol Nidrei and Yom Kippur. It started last night at sunset with prayers and chanting and then began again this morning at eleven and lasted all day till sunset It was a total fast for twenty five hours, so it ended with a slap up meal, and then more singing. It was chaos in the kitchen here this evening with us all cooking and all the hungry fasters wanting their special soup and chola bread warmed up.
I also haave two perfect B and B guests who arrived on Friday, and leave tomorrow, Tuesday who have done non stop high quality gardening. They have pruned things within an inch of their lives, climbed trees and sawed off branches, mowed the lawns, the garden is transformed. All this and paid to stay here!
Also it is Harvest Festival time again and the lovely people at the alms houses along the road arrived with theirs: basketsful of apples, potatoes, carrots, Marks and Spencer tins of soup and baked beans, and nothing past its sell by date at all. I shall distribute it to the Family group tomorrow, but couldn`t resist a few well blessed baby carrots for our supper.

I have been writing, writing, writing the last few days. It is far more tiring than digging the garden or hoovering. I was asked to write an article for The Friend about my job to encourage someone to apply for it when I leave next Spring. It was hard as I could not write in my usual slightly jokey style yet I did not want it to sound too serious or noble. I also have been doing stuff for the Colebrook Courier, our local Quaker mag and I have several poems in the gestation stage, though that sounds rather too grand for what they are.
It is a good thing to have a sedentary activity as I have stabbed my leg with a sharp thistle stalk whilst cutting back in the garden, and it has gone nasty, so I am on the penicillin. I am limping about in a decrepit manner.