Except for the alcoholics, gamblers, and narcotics who willy nilly go on meeting here, Christmas or not, the house is very quiet. Most of the residents are away, and there are no bed and breakfasts. I realise that I go completely to pot unless I have a lot to do. so perhaps I had better not retire just yet after all. I get up late and mooch about, do the Guardian crossword after breakfast, watch TV or read novels in the afternoons, make cups of coffee and have snacks at all hours, it is shocking. I had meant to embark on a writing project, and also do some tidying up of cupboards. Still it only Tuesday and things will not start getting going until after the weekend, so I hope I will knuckle down.
Still no clues as to the nightly lawn wrecker, most nod their heads wisely and say it is badgers, but I thought they hibernated in the winter. It is a scene of desolation up there on the back lawn.
Two groups of my grandchildren have been skating in the cathedral Close in the last weeks. I was dead against the ice rink in the Close, but I have come round to it as the children came in positively glowing after their skating session, even four year old T was whizzing about in the middle with no fear and it is obviously an exciting thing to do on a winter afternoon just when it is beginning to get dark.

Something mysterious is happening in the garden at night. The lawn is being torn up in large lumps and the turf stripped back. It looks as if a herd of wild animals has been trampling about. Could it be deer, or badgers or a family of foxes? Or perhaps a gang of youths come in after the pub closes and play football. I am puzzled.
Otherwise all is calm, all is bright. I am about to tackle the mammoth task of writing letters or emails to some of the people who sent cards as otherwise they will think I am dead. Next year I will just go with the flow and send cards in the normal way, it is easier in the long run.
At our Christmas dinner this year there were two vegans, six vegetarians and three omnivores. It was a bring and share meal and food provided consisted of: tofu canapes, smoked salmon, nut roast, roast chicken, vegetable curry, sprouts, carrots, roast potatoes, red cabbage, bread sauce, cranberries, xmas pud, trifle, vegan mince tarts, brandy butter. As an omnivore, I had a little of each. It was delicious.
J and G with Jumble the dog, went for a Chrismas swim by the Palace Pier along with about fifty others. I felt a twinge of envy as they plunged in, but it would probably have finished me off.

Well I`ve strung up the Christmas cards at last, for days they have been piled in a basket on my desk looking reproachful. They are goodwill, kindness and love made manifest, all those good wishes to me to be healthy and happy, I am a fortunate woman.
The house has been eerily quiet and tidy all day, most of the housemates have gone away, the phone has hardly rung at all, and I have had only a few droppers in. I had a satisfying trip to the dump with all the bottles and cardboard that has been lurking in the shed for weeks, and purchased for peanuts from the shack at the back, a delectable pile of good stuff, including a nice pine towel rail for the bathroom, a bone china teaset with roses on it, a silver hand mirror, half a dozen decent wine glasses, and two pretty candlesticks.
Then I cleaned the car and packed it for Brighton tomorrow: presents, a table, a chair that I fished out of a skip by the Wessex Hotel that I thought might come in useful (but if it doesn`t I will put it back) prepared brussel sprouts, red cabbage and carrots, home made mince tarts and brandy butter plus a few other things, my contributions to the feast at Brighton tomorrow.
This evening I popped round to see T and we played some Corelli and Telleman piano and violin sonatas which seemed a nice thing to do on Christmas Eve though my piano playing is not up to much these days.
Altogether a very good day.

The house has gone all quiet today after a busy happy weekend with family visiting and then a party for residents and meeting house habitues last night. Though it was not a fancy dress party, one guest turned up in full Father Chritmas outfit and another came dressed as an elf with stripy tights and a pointy hat. Both of them got very hot as we had a roaring log fire, but it made it very jolly and four children came including a beautiful baby.
There seemed to be enormous quantities of food everywhere but I thankfully find it has magically been consumed today, (even the huge trifle made by wonderful J as usual), and the kitchen is peaceful and tidy again.
The frenzy of buying Things and wrapping them up is almost over. I tend to buy lots of what Joyce Grenfell called `Useful and Acceptable Gifts` and then try to match them up to people but it doesn`t always work, some of them have been lurking in a drawer for years. I always think of the John Betjeman poem: "No loving fingers tying strings/around those tissued fripperies/the sweet and silly Christmas things/ bath salts and inexpensive scent/ And hideous tie so kindly meant" I have never relly got the hang of sellotape so my presents always look lumpy.

I have been up north to stay with beautiful grown up grand daughters and lovely B. I have had a restful time with long lie ins in the mornings, so I have come back full of pep and energy. Just as well as it is busy busy here with all the groups having their Christmas parties, there have been four in the last two days! Tonight the Theosophists appear to be having a four course sit down meal, and this morning we had a mothers and childrens party complete with Father Christmas. I also had the forty one school children with their RE teacher and had to talk to them about the Quakers and no they did not make Quaker Oats.
The kichen looks as if there has been an earthquake and I will have to have a serious go at the fridges tomorrow as they all leave mouldering remains of pork pies and dodgy sausage rolls. This will be the time that the Environmental Health officer decides to pay us a visit.
I have still not written a single card. Kind people send them to me. They come thudding daily through the letter box, a constant reproach.

Christmas is hotting up, we put up the Christmas tree today, or rather G and D did. Present residents have amazing abilities:G has a passion for Xmas trees, and he not only carried one bodily all the way from Hilliers, getting scratched raw in the process, he bought a special stand thing. He produced beautiful ornaments that he has collected and keeps carefully in little boxes in his room. It stands perfectly straight and bears no resemblance to the wobbly garish thing we usually have. Also he provided mulled wine and mince pies and we all had a good time this Sunday afternoon.
I have just discovered a terrible bit of my double booking at the Meeting House. There is a Christmas party for the family group on the same day as forty twelve year olds come with their RE teacher from a local school to learn about Quakers. So some of us will be trying to talk about the Inner Light surrounded by jelly and balloons.

Such are the miracles of modern science that I can actually hear the poetry reading that I did last Wednesday on my laptop! It was recorded apparently and put on line. I was shocked by my high pitched posh voice, I sound like the Queen`s Christmas broadcast.
I did a lot of driving over the weekend: Brighton, London and Limpley Stoke near Bath. The good thing about it all, apart from the pleasure of seeing lovely people, is that I get hours of listening to the radio without any interruptions. Desert Island Discs, Poetry Please, Now Show, Any Questions, it was a real treat. I sit in my car in my own little world and no one can get at me.

I have had a dread hanging over me for the last weeks as a long time ago I lightheartedly agreed to do a reading in the UR church with D. The previous speakers in the series had all been proper grown up people who spoke on serious subjects and I did not think I was quite up to it. Also I always have two main worries, firstly that no one will turn up and next that lots of people will come. In fact, it was about the right number and everyone was kind to us about it, but I am glad it is over.
Today I made a pumpkin pie to take to a Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. It made me feel like ma in The Little house on the Prairie as I was rolling out the pastry on the kitchen table.

I went to Brighton as usual on Thursday night and joined with J`s impro group Six of us played acting games for a couple of hours in J`s front room, and laughed ourselves silly.I read in the Guardian on Saturday that playing games with other grown ups is `creative, life affirming and life enhancing, about daring to let go, to be a bit dangerous and a bit real` The others are much better at it than I am but I`m learning.
I went to a reading with music, Michael Morpurgo, this evening, part of Childrens Book Week and he read from his latest book, Private Peaceful. Three brilliant folk singers, all fairly elderly men, sang bits in between. It is a heartrending tale of a chap being shot for cowardice in the 14-18 war. The hall was full of children, all absolutely silent and spell bound.
I was going to go to London for the day to see old friends K and U but I was phoned at 8am to say that snow was falling thick and fast and was settling so it would be unwise to venture forth on the motorway. In fact it turned out to be a lovely sunny afternoon so I could have gone, but instead i had a good day lolling about reading the papers. I also made the Christmas cake, as today is `stir up Sunday` and that is when my mum always made the it.

I have just been to supper at H`s to thank me for having the birthday party at the Meeting House on Sunday. It was a roll your own sushi meal. Seated round the table were: one Italian man,one Russian woman, one half Korean woman,three Japanese women, and there were four children who were a mixture of all nationalities, and me, the solitary Brit. needless to say we all spoke English! The children, spoke : English, Japanese , Italian, and Russian The food was very lovely and I ate far too much. Bang goes my weight loss plan. But I cycled there and back through the wintry night so I suppose that might have used up a few calories.
Several good suggestions for reading matter came from my recent blog complaining of being bookbound, and I am now well into `The White Tiger`Booker prize winner, and others lined up after that.

Yesterday the Meeting House was well used. There were two Quaker meetings as usual, for both the room was comfortably full, and then we had our monthly teenagers group who stayed on to lunch. I made a healthy vegetarian stew plus jacket potatoes, and then they hung around and banged away on the piano making up a song to sing at the Q Christmas party. Before they had even left, G and H arrived with their daughter who was having her 4th birthday party here. G and H, Japanese and Italian respectively, are ex residents, and were married from our house with a wonderful Buddhist ceremony some years ago. 21 children came , plus a few babes in arms, H had asked the entire class from L`s nursery school as she did not want to hurt anyone`s feelings. She had made the most beautiful and healthy food, the sandwiches were a work of art and the cake a masterpeice. The children were given Origami animals which she had painstakingly made and they all did craft work and decorated little books to take home. I loved it all and they left the house immmaculate.
I am waiting for Eddie, the pest control officer from the council (otherwise known as the ratman) as we have all seen a rather long tail disappearing behind the boiler, the dresser, and elsewhere in the house. It is very worrying, as there are no sign of anything being gnawed, and the cat has not shown any interest. G who is a vegetarian and very soft hearted waited up late on Saturday night hoping he could catch it in a trap he had devised from a plastic box and some cake crumbs. then he was going to take it out to the water meadows, but no luck. It will have to be Eddie with his sinister blue powder.

I went to M`s prizegiving at her old school last night. She left last summer and is now at college doing her A levels.. My grandmotherly heart swelled with pride when teachers spoke glowingly of her work. She was awarded a shield for Latin, and a cup for French which was her worst subject, but she had made huge efforts and got a good grade. There was something very touching about the whole event, all those hopes and ambitions, and the feeling that the staff really minded and wanted the best for the children. The girl who got the highest grades (I think it was thirteen subjects!) in the whole area was a Bangladeshi from a humble family who had had a tough time when she first came to the predominently white comprehensive. So that was something to feel cheerful about.
I am going through a bad phase of not having a good novel on the go at present. Our next book for the reading group is Tess of the D`Urbevilles, but I cannot bear to read it again as it is so dreadfully sad. I find that and Jude the Obscure upset me so. Such injustice. I can`t be doing with it.

We had two nice New Zealanders staying for B and B who left this morning to sail home on the QE2 as far as Dubai, on the ship`s last voyage. We intended to go to Southampton to wave her off but I have a sore throat and it is very cold, also thousands of others have the same idea, so we watched it on television. Everyone was weeping with emotion but I decided I don`t really approve of all that luxury and I would not like being cooped up for weeks being given too much to eat, I would want to pop down to the kitchen and give them a hand with the washing up.
I went to my writing group this morning and looked round the room and thought what a lucky woman I am to have this good group of friends who have been meeting in each other`s houses on alternate Tuesday mornings for years and years. We read out our efforts to each other and it is a delight, much better than a cruise.

T aged four can do computers now. She sits at the computer in the kitchen and writes everybody`s names and does drawings too. It amazes me. Also I am very pleased that one of the Quakes, aged eighty four, has finally learned how to email her grandchildren, and another Q has acquired a PC for her from Freecycle. She had always poured scorn on modern technology. I try to teach my contemporaries to text. I find it very useful, communication without too much bother to anybody,. Trouble is, so many older people will never keep their mobiles turned on, they think they leak out dangerous rays into their handbags or something. I am in Brighton today, and as soon as I have taken T to school plus two small boys from along the road ,I am going in to town, on the bus with my free bus pass, and I will start some Christmas shopping. I feel quite excited about it.

I am greatly relieved that Barack Obama is now president of USA, he has a kind face. But I do hope it will not mean that thousands of children will now be called Barack It does not slip easily over the tongue. We are having a celebratory supper tonight. Apparently George Bush was skulking inside the White House last night peeking through the curtains watching everyone dancing in the streets for joy because he was leaving.
I have just realised it is Guy Fawkes night, and we haven`t even got a packet of sparklers here. Someone on the television has just given a warning of the dire danger of sparklers, it is so annoying to be constantly told that everything is dangerous.

Such a hoo ha about Jonathan Ross and Russel Brand! I am irritated by Brand`s hairdo, he needs to give it a good brush and tie it back with a rubber band or something. What a silly pair of sniggering schoolboys. I must confess I often used to listen to their programme in the car and it made me laugh. But no more. I imagine them both waking in the night in a cold sweat thinking, how could we have said those things, and on the radio too? Anyway it takes everyone`s minds off the financial crisis.
I am spending a quiet weekend at home. Too cold to work in the garden. I am sitting at my desk by the aga, doing a bit of writing, this blog is just a delaying tactic.
I am starting an Eat Less programme today until Christmas. My knees are playing up. M next door and I will have a weekly weghing session on her ancient rusty bathroom scales, and she fills it in on a graph on her bedroom wall. This is our third attempt, and the competition is very keen.
I am trying to read Little Dorritt as it is on TV and I find the plot rather confusing. The book does not help, it is not an easy read, and it is very thick, but perhaps it will improve when I get into it.

Having a quiet week in the house as lots of the groups and counsellors are taking a half term break. but T, J,and G plus Jumble the dog came to stay for two nights and that was a treat. I am still disorientated from the clocks changing (and so is T who wakes up even earlier than usual)Also I have been sleeping in different beds. I had booked in a B and B so I had to let him have my room. Every room here has its own strange creaks and rumblings in the night, but we discussed at breakfast today whether anyone feels there are any ghosts, and we all agreed that there are none. It feels very safe and unspooky though the house was built in 1751 and must have had many dramas and excitements over the years.
I have just been to see the Coen brothers` latest film, Burn After Reading. I loved it. It had a complicated plot and it is only afterwards that you realise how cleverly it all ties in.
It is very cold and last night it snowed. In October! When I went swimming early this morning my bicycle saddle had a layer of ice on it which was a very odd sensation. There were only two of us in the water which felt positively hot.

Yesterday we had a memorial meeting here for K who was executed in Texas some months ago. He became a Quaker while he was on Death Row. We planted a silver birch ree in the garden in his memory and we scattered some of his ashes under it. I asked M who had visited him in prison and was there at his execution, about his favourite music and she said English folk songs and the Beatles. So two friends played violin and piano arrangment of folk songs by
Vaughan Williams at the beginning, and I put on `Let it Be` on a CD with John Lennon at the end. It seemed the right thing. There was a good lunch afterwards, people brought things and they all tucked in.
Afterwards K and I worked in the garden and I also had a satisfying shed clear out. This necessitates another trip to the dump, something to look forward to.
I have a busy writing day today: firstly, items for the Courier, our meeting magazine, then my end of the month report which I have to submit to the House Committee tomorrow in which I make it sound as if the Meeting House is a model of efficiency, and lastly my writing group homework which is to be an observation of a couple, imagining their lifestyle. Each a completely different style, so I must try not to overlap.
Also J, T, and G are coming for half term this evening plus Jumble the dog.

In spite of T`s gloomy prognostications, I went to Germany for my holiday, and arrived home last night unscathed. In fact I had a lovely time, having cups of tea brought to me in bed in the mornings, reading novels, watching films, eating tasty meals, and talking, talking to my beloved sister and niece. The Meeting House seemed to survive perfectly well, just a lot of emails, ironing, mysterious messages, and slightly mouldering food items in the fridge, when I got back. The Germans do every thing very very well: plumbing, dentists, apple trees, houses, bicycles, you really notice when you come back to dusty old England. But there is nothing to beat that moment when you get back into your own bed at night with your own cat beside you.
D has just come home from working at the Mill and said `lets go and have a burn up` This means lighting a bonfire down the end of the garden. The wetter it is the more he likes it, he says its a challenge. (He has also just said that he was up till two am making the pumpkin soup that we had for lunch You have to be quite an unnusual person to like being a resident here) It is beginning to get dark so it will be good to be outside poking at the flames.

I was wondering aloud what to write today in this blog and D said `Don`t you ever write about all the hectic goings on in this house? ` I said no because firstly I like to imagine that the house is an oasis of calm, and that I am totally unruffled by it all, and secondly, I am firmly of the opinion that we all create the sort of lives we lead and if I wanted peace and quiet I would not do this job. I have got used to cooking with three or four in the kitchen all trying to get at the stove at once plus a few Buddhists as there are tonight making their herbal teas. I am trying to cook a lunch for twenty Catholics tomorrow. You could not say we are not ecumenical.
My son T takes a very gloomy view of the credit crunch situation. He prophecises that the banks will not have any cash soon so we must store some under the mattress. Also he is horrified that I am flying off to Germany to see my sister. `You will be stranded, the airline will go bust!` he cries. I am an optimist and will set off as planned for Stansted on Friday.

One of the joys of my life is going to the dump on a Sunday afternoon. I had three huge bags of garden debris, the result of a very satisfying Autumn clear up yesterday, so today I staggered out with them to the car and joined all the others heaving stuff into skips. I always fear I will heave myself headlong in as well. There is cameraderie at the dump, we all help each other, and there is enormous satisfaction in getting rid of stuff, though the best part of the whole execcise is going round to the shed at the back to see what treasures you can find. Today I got: a very nice rush seated chair for one of the resident`s bedrooms, four pasta bowls, a big serving bowl, and two mugs. When I got back I lit a bonfire and was about to start mowing when one of the residents took pity on me and took over.
Yesterday afternoon, Y, K and I planted an apple tree for four day old baby Alexander, third child of ex residents. Beloved Russian granny was there and as it was her birthday we celebrated that too. Lots of kisses. Russians always give you three, one on each cheek and a third one for luck.

Last night I went to a party. It was in a house that had belonged to two sisters who were musicians and church organists, and who lived into their nineties. One died a little while ago and the second, E, went in to a nursing home, and good, kind C , a friend, volunteered to clear out the house and raise some money towards the cost of her care, but in fact E died soon after. The house was stuffed with furniture, including two grand pianos and one upright, and two large organs. There was more knitting wool than I have ever seen in one place, huge wardrobes were stuffed with fur coats, innumerable pairs of shoes, extraordinary knitted dresses and mohair scarves by the dozen. The upstairs was like a church hall, and one sister slept on the stage with the curtains drawn across . There were two ancient cars in the sitting room downstairs. It was indescribable and unique. C. organised a dance and thirty of us gathered there, including a set Morris Men (related to one of C`s friends)and a band. It was not a youthful gathering but we all joined in enthusiastically, stripping the willow, circle dancing and morris dancing, with abandon. The house is under offer. I expect a developer will pull it down and replace it with some boring, hygienic modern flats.
I was up early this morning putting up our stalls for Quaker Week. I got cold to the bone, but our cakes and jam all got sold. My daughter Julia always said that the Quakers were like the Mafia, quietly beavering away unseen and unheard, so we were trying today to redress the balance.

A new resident moved in with the biggest sofa I have ever seen. He brought three big blokes from work to try to carry it up the two flights of stairs up to his room and as I had predicted it got stuck halfway. What a carry on! We had to get it down again and manoevre it into the garage and this meant bringing it through the Meeting Room full of startled Theosophists
We`ve had plumbing problems for the past two days I have lived in this Meeting House for fifteen years and I still never know where all the many stopcocks are and the labyrinthine ways of the system. A young lad turned up to replace a tap and and as soon as I clapped eyes on him I knew he wasn`t up to it. It had defeated another plumber the day before, so the tap still drips. What happens next I wonder?
It is Quaker Week, nationwide. The numbers are going down drastically so we are trying to tell people what a good thing it is to be a Quaker. Tomorrow we have a stall in the Covert in the High Street. I have been making wholesome Quakerish cakes and flapjacks to woo the populace and we have balloons and `free party bags` with Q literature in them, so tomorrow I will be there at 7am moving tables and setting it up.

I had a very long birthday tea yesterday afternoon, eight came and no one seemed to want to go home. When they eventually left, someone else came, and when she left, a family of five turned up. It was good to see them, they were all people I love, but I could hardly stagger upstairs with fatigue when I finally went to bed.
Today the Meting House was full of Homeopaths, I keep wanting to say Psychopaths. They drank a lot of herbal tea, but were no trouble. This evening there`s Gamblers Anonymous, the Carers Group and a large number of Asylum Seeker Supporters. They are all milling about the kitchen as I write this, falling over each other, making their coffee and tea.
Today I have been to the chiropodist and also had a shiatsu massage. When you are old you have to spend more time just keeping yourself intact.

Today is my birthday. I am seventy eight, which is neither here nor there. I always feel unworthy of all the cards, presents, kind messages and texts as if I do not deserve them. I feel anxious that any celebration I organise is a bother for everyone. Odd that I should feel this as I simply love doing things for other people`s birthdays. This one is a four day event as I was taken out to lunch yesterday in a tapas bar with two friends. I never knew what a Tapas bar was before but it was interesting tasty food in little dishes. Today I had an early breakfast in bed and presents, and a cake at teatime, tomorrow, a lunch out and walk with family, and then on Sunday a tea party at the Meeting House!
Made quiches with four year old T this afternoon for supper. She was breaking eggs and hurling them into a basin, grating cheese and chopping veg up with such speed and skill. I feel I`m passng on the knowledge. We made terrible mess in the kitchen, but we enjoyed ourselves.

I lay awake in the night feeling terrible. How could I have written so ungratefully about the Harvest festivals! We simply LOVE having them and the mothers from the family group will be delighted with the soup, Marks and Spencers is very tasty and superior. We plan to make banana cakes with the over ripe fruit, and I really enjoyed my cauliflower cheese last night and it had the added bonus of being blessed in church!
My writing group this morning. I am not too happy about my poem about the weather, but I look forward to hearing everyone else`s. And it is my reading group this evening, `House of Orphans` by Helen Dunmore which I love but I haven`t quite finished it.

The Vicar from the Almshouses round the corner turned up with their Harvest Festival this morning. I am never quite sure why they give it to us at the Meeting House, but we get several each year from different churches. They don`t know what to do with them. I said I would distribute it to the mothers who come to the family group tomorrow. I opened the hamper in keen anticipation to find: one mouldy cauliflower ( I ate it later for my supper), three withered parsnips, lots of windfall apples, a dozen or so speckly bananas, plus six tins of Marks and Spencer soup. A bit of a diisappointment.
We had a little leaving do this evening for Y who has been here for three years and is moving tomorrow. We had some bubbly wine and a blackberry crumble. We all felt quite tearful.

Two Quakers for B and B. I laid a tasty breakfast, Home made bread, muesli, boiled organic eggs,home made jam, fruit, hot cross buns and croissants. Oh dear. They are vegans with wheat intolerance. What a disaster, nothing on the table they could eat! They asked for peppermint tea. On my bike, I rode like the wind to Sainsburys and returned with the peppermint teabags, it was like Tigger`s breakfast. There had to be something I could give them. They are lovely people and ate the cereal they had brought with hot water on it and seemed perfectly happy. Two young students just starting at UNI as they all say, are staying here as their rooms are not ready for them. One is in the garden room up a ladder in the loft, the other in the sitting room. they seem absurdly young to have left their mothers. They managed to get themselves shut out in the garden twice last night in their pyjamas, another young resident also came home without her key. Poor Y had to get up three times to answer the door in the middle of the night. I blithely slept through all the banging and ringing. What will I do when she moves out next Wednesday?

My bones are aching as I have had an extremely active day. A slightly dodgy character turned up this morning and offered to do some gardening. I know him of old. He has a tendency to go wild when he has a pair of shears or clippers in his hands and cuts down everything in sight. So I had to work with him, mostly in the rain. The garden is now transformed. He wears very short shorts and big boots and he has strong sturdy legs. He tells me that he often sleeps in the
bus shelter up near the cemetery which he says is very cosy. At eight am the gate is unlocked so he goes into the cemetery gents and has a good wash.
I was collapsed in the kitchen, covered in mud, thinking I might lie on the sofa for a nap when three friends walked in. We had arranged to play some music. I had forgotten and my heart sank, but in fact it refreshed my spirits to play a bit of Handel and Telemann, and it was good to sit down for an hour.
People keep recoiling in horror when they see my black eye. I have invented several terrible stories to account for it.

I went to Clarkie`s funeral today. She was or helper in College Street for years. She celebrated her hundredth birthday in April, so it was not too sad an occasion. She was the worlds worst moaner but she was splendid too. She had high standards, believed in cooking good meat and vegetables, and brought us home made cakes. I sang all the hymns with gusto. And there was a delicious tea supplied by Waitrose. I had an interesting talk with the vicar who knew nothing about Quakers.
A very odd thing about my black eye which is even more lurid today, my sister has one too, and it appeared at the same time. What strange forces are at work?

I woke this morning with a dramatic black eye. I don`t know how it happened,I supposed I must have turned over rather violently in bed. At the pool, a young woman said, Oh dear, have you had a tumble? I immediately felt old and decrepit. Why is it that when you are older, people talk about having a Fall or a Tumble, but the young simply say that they have fallen over?

A misty moisty morning and as I cycled through the cathedral close at 8am for my morning swim in the College pool, I reflected how I will miss this kick start to the day, when I retire and move to Ditchling, as I must do soon. I have been back and forth on this route for the last fifty four years- to the Meeting House and the town when we lived in College Street, I know every tree and cobble stone. But I am making a resolve to think positively about the changes ahead. This will be the last Autumn that I have to rake up mountains of leaves in the garden, and also I will have far more time for reading and writing, and I can start something new.

Two nights away and back to the smell of bread baking, and D vigorously scrubbing down the garden furniture out in the sunshine. He told me that I had forgotten about a couple from Yorkshire who had turned up for B and B on Friday and were sitting disconsolately outside the back door when he came home from work. He said not to worry he had sorted them out and did not let on. I had been expecting a Wayne, but fortunately he didn`t turn up. How lucky.
It was J`s birthday and I had lovely times with everybody, but I got a bit sad though happy at the same time when we watched old holiday videos with Julia in them.
Then I went to Lewes and saw my old friend J. We have totally interesting conversations always. She has just moved yet again and I marvelled at it all. She has such style.

Wednesday 17th September
This morning I went to the grumpy nurse round at the doctors and had my ear syringed.What a blooming miracle. I can hear again, I nearly jumped out of my skin when the phone went. Everything before sounded as if I was far away in an echoey tunnel.
I served lunch today at the Meeting House for twe;ve Quakers: four men in their mid nineties, three women in their late eighties and no one under seventy. I felt young and skittish at seventy eight.

Tuesday 16th September

My sister Jackie asked, why are you doing this blog? I said, it makes me write a bit each day, other than my usual shopping list and `things to do` I read my poem out to the writing group this morning. It is called`Grave Concerns` and I wrote it because my friend Barbara was worried about who in her family was going to inherit her grand piano, and she said `Isn`t it a nuisance that we`ve got to die soon when we have so much to do. The average age of my group is about 75, so it struck home, but in a cheerful sort of way.

September 15th

At last, I`ve cracked it. I have tried for three days to get into this blog to write the second entry and here it is. The only problem is that no one else will be able to find it either, so I am just writing this into the ether. In the midst of a busy weekend, as the Meeting House was open to the public for National Heritage Weekend, I wrote a poem about death and dying for my writing group but it is not sad, just annoyed. I heard on the radio this morning that Andrew Motion , the poet laureate, often finds it difficult to get started on a poem, so he takes a Lemsip which reminds him of feeling ill which is when he writes his best stuff. So I feel quite proud that I was able to write something in between serving cups of earl grey and scones to the punters wandering round the building pursued by eager Quakers. I am sitting in my sunny kitchen with the cat beside me with his face pressed up against the aga, but I am just about to go out in the garden and tidy up m,y vegetable patch as the tomatoes have all withered up in the night. I have never been any good at tomatoes.

Friday 12th September 2008

The start of my blog! Drove to Brighton through the morning mist, had a swim in a pool, not the rough sea and then ate egg and chips on the seafront with T and J Its been a good day, youngest grand -daughter wiped the floor with me at cards, and then fell asleep immediately when I read Eeyore`s Birthday to her at bedtime. I`m struggling now with a very hard Guardian cryptic crossword to exercise my brain before I go to bed. Back home early in the morning.