In the bleak mid winter.

It is so long since I last wrote my blog. I tried and tried when I was away in Germany last week, but sister J`s Apple Mac just would not let me in. I have been flying about and driving long distances up and down mororways in the most appalling weather for the past two weeks and I am very surprised that I am still alive. The plane from Stansted went at 7am so I had to leave in the middle of the night, and at 4am the place was packed, I had to sit on the stone cold floor and had great difficulty standing up again. Anyway I had a wonderful time, sister J and I never run out of things to talk about and when we were not talking I was reading, watching films, or eating delicious meals cooked by her. Then I went to Newcastle, through a blizzard and waited for my great grandchild to be born, but he has still not appeared and I have now driven home through another blizzard. Since then it has been a sea of wrapping paper (though this has now become newspaper which I have discovered looks quite nice) making mince pies, and writing lists.
I went to an amazing concert at The Sage in N`castle with Evelyn Glennie, the stone deaf percussionist playing some totally incomprehensible music by James Mcmillan, but her energy and personality just moved me to tears.
I am off to Brighton tomorrow for Christmas, another risky journey I expect, but I can`t wait.

marching along

I have just done a new small book of poems to give to friends and family for Christmas, and now I am worried that people may think it is a slightly mad thing to do. it is just that I have all these bits of paper in folders and on my computer and I feel I want to communicate something. The poems are mostly about old age and life in the Meeting House.
I continually make lists of all the things I must do before Christmas and the cards I must send, but do not actually do any of these things. I meant to do a lot last night, but there was a whole evening of Alan Bennett plays and monologues on TV which were so good. How I love that man, he is so honest and funny.
Yesterday it was The Wave, a demo in London about the Climate Change conference in Copenhagen next week. We had a rally here at the Meeting House, about 130 people, and we marched through the streets of Winchester with blue balloons and scarves, banners,and there was a splendid band. Most went on to London, but my demo days are sadly over with my arthritic feet to contend with, but it was a heartening occasion.

I am becoming a connoisseur of the eightieth birthday(or Golden Wedding) lunch. It is a wonderful stage of life, this, I go to beautiful parties and gaze round the room at old friends with their children, and grandchildren and at the same time I am fed with delicious food. A lovely one last Saturday in the Cotswolds, but the journeys there and back were hazardous on the M4 in the wind and rain, though I did see a perfect rainbow on the way there.
In the evening I went to a Quiz in the Parish Room next door. Why, I wonder, is it so satisfying to know the answer to a totally useless question when others do not? The supper there was good too.
Last week I went to see Bright Star, a film on the life of John Keats. I felt that it did not make JK quite lovable enough, he looked a bit grubby and seedy, but I loved it, and am still processing it in my mind.
Poor grand daughter Grace`s broken arm is an ongoing saga. She is on her fourth plaster (white red, purple etc She has taken at least one GSCE mock having been starved as her pinning operation has been planned for the afternoon. The docs keep changing their minds. What a palaver. She does not want to do any more horse riding. I am thankful.
I am off to Godfrey Heaven`s humanist funeral in a minute driving some elderly Quakes. He was a splendid ninety five year old with a great zest for life and won a poetry prize last year.

wild west winds

I have done a lot of driving lately through gales and torrential rain, firstly down to Cornwall with (almost ) blind friend B, where I spent a few blissful days of R and R mostly sitting by the fire reading or just gazing out at the lovely Fal estuary as it was too wet and muddy for much walking with the dog. Then I whizzed off to Brighton for a night, and the next day to yet another eightieth birthday party in the New Forest. I took three nonagenarians, so I felt quite young and skittish.
I had a gloomy Saturday morning doing the Fire Risk Assessment, and felt that the house was going to burst into flames at any moment, what with the bedding under the stairs, the music cupboard on the landing and the cloth around the door handle to prevent it banging. So I have spent most of the day dealing with these fearful hazards.. Also we are going to terrify all the Quakers and residents by having a few fire drills on Sunday mornings.
I am planning some Christmas parties, and family get togethers, I love making lists and plans.

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.

scones and raspberry jam again

I had a busy time as it was the Heritage weekend so the Meeting House was Open to the Public along with Winchester Cathedral, St Cross Hospital, all the local sights. We are included because this is an eighteenth century house in the middle of the city We did teas which I think was one of our main attractions so there was a sort of Mad Hatters Tea Party all afternoon by the Aga and once they got stuck in there with the scones and rasberry jam they didn`t want to leave. But the Quakers were there is force and plied our visitors with Quaker literature so it was a good chance for people to know that we are not all dressed like the bloke on the Quaker Oats packet and are quite normal really.
I over booked with the B and B`s so gave up my room to a lovely artist lady and I slept downstairs on the sofa bed. I must buy a new one! So lumpy and uncomfortable. So it will be a treat to get back into my flat tonight. There is also a chap sleeping out in the garden room, so three cooked breakfast each morning, which I find very satisfying to cook, bustling about in my white apron, trying to look like a proper catering person.

Feeling sleepy all day as I went to the Oxfam shop yesterday and bought a novel by David Lodge, Paradise Lodge (I love his books) I started reading it after supper and went on till 2am, or later. So good. I am like an alcoholic with a good book, just can`t stop.
Eeerily quiet here this evening no one about. But I have beds made up in the sitting room and the garden room and the proper guest room upstairs, all three arriving late, so I can sit up and start reading again.
There`s been terrible news of the sudden death of one of J`s contemporaries, only forty one years old. I keep remembering her as beautiful seven year old with shining eyes and pink cheeks, in and out of our old house in College Street. Such sadness.

Just back from day off in Brighton. Before I left I went for a walk in Stanmer Park with my lovely friend J and her two dogs, Madge and Dotty. They had just had a perilous escape from death as they got on the railway line and disrupted all the trains. They eventually had to be tunnelled out. J and I always talk and talk when we meet and never seem to have enough time, but she will be my nearest friend when I move to Ditchling so that is a plus point about going there. I have been feeling anxious about the whole businness of uprooting myself and leaving everything and everyone here.
Ever since I got back home at it has been one thing after another: moving sixty chairs for meetings, cooking red cabbage and crumble for Quaker lunch tomorrow , welcoming an extremely talkative B and B .He showed great interest in Quakerism, so I have done my best to make a convert. All in the space of a couple of hours. Roll on retirement I say to myself,

bank holiday blues

Bank Holiday weekend and I have nothing planned, but I suppose I will do a bit of writing, a bit of gardening and a bit of gazing into space, as well as all the usual: dealing with droppers in, and` gentlemen of the road` who fancy a cheese and pickle sandwich just as I`m thinking of going to bed, (always more of them about at weekends). This evening I went next door to feed the Rectory cats and saw two people getting out of their car who had come for B and B, from Southern Ireland. I had completely forgotten about them, luckily I had an empty bed! I could not remember their names though they had been before, so I had to spend an hour going through old emails trying to track them down.
I had just been to Ikea and had wandered about there in a haze of consumerism lust, seduced by fluffy white bath towels, shiny big frying pans and plump pillows. So cheap, I say to myself but end up spending huge sums.

Back from another tribal gathering in the Isle of Wight, but they have all drifted back home now. We get together every year for Julia`s birthday, this is the fifth since she died in 2004.
I had to get back earlier on Saturday, as I cooked supper for our dear Russian ex residents and their Auntie Maya from Moscow, plus her Russian professor friend Alexi, also Latvian Y who used to live here, and M, her chap, so we were eleven including the children. Baby Alexander who was christened here a few months ago by the Orthodox priest, is now crawling round the table legs. We had a bit of a sing song after supper.
Now I have an Australian woman staying who is a devotee of Krishnamurti so she has been out to Brockwood Park nearby to the Krishnamurti School. Otherwise everything is very quiet here. I shall be glad when it all gets buzzing again.

August is a funny month, everything seems suspended, and the house is dead quiet today, even the cats have hardly bothered to wake up for their tea. (It is plural at the moment as Shirley has come to stay from Brighton)
I have just been away in the Isle of Wight to join the annual migration of Darlings etc and a dozen or so of us have been sitting in rows on beaches, occasionally plunging into the sea. There is a sort of mud pool and the others (not me) like rolling around in it and emerge looking grotesque. I find it quite distressing, but I suppose it is what posh people do in spas and health farms. Anyway, I certainly feel the benefit of the sea air and my hacking cough has disappeared, though I have a red peeling nose.
I have been making some damson jam which has set well, but everything is very sticky, taps, doorhandles, it seems to have got everywhere. I am looking forward to blackberry picking, not long now.

my family and other animals

Busy here this morning, the plumber repairing two leaking taps, the grandly named Pest Control Officer dealing with a wasp nest under the roof, handyman J doing a bit of grouting by the sink. splendid T the cleaner wielding the Hoover, and cups of tea all round with three sugars.
The garden is full of mums and toddlers, It is Friends of the Family today, and there are also two B and B`s with a fout month old baby who is adorable but fairly voluble How strange it will be when I retire next year and I will not have all this activity all round me every day.
Last weekend I was away for sister in laws 80th Birthday party. I find that my social life these days consists mainly of 80th, 90th even 100th birthday celebrations, also golden weddings, interspersed with funerals. I stayed with brother P having picked up sister J in Islington (bravely driving right across central London) and it was nice sleeping in the same room as my sister as we did all through our childhoods I enjoyed seeing all my brothers children and grandchildren and spotting the family likenesses. My sister and I realise that we are the two old aunties that you always get in families.

no crumbs on the aga

I am just back from holiday and the Meeting House was pristine, there had been no floods or disasters, in fact `nowt to laugh at at all` Apparently it rained all the time I was away when I was basking in sunshine and swimming in the Lake Constance so the garden is looking green, and the vegetables are growing madly.
I read two novels and half of Julian Barnes book about death, called `Nothing to be Afraid Of`also I had just finished a book by David Lodge called Deaf Sentence (which wasn`t abouut death but about a deaf professor) the night before I left, so my head is still filled with the happenings and characters in those four books. So I feel as if I had an eventful holiday whereas in fact I lolled about, having delicious meals cooked for me by my beloved sister ( who does everything beautifully, even grinding up the coffee beans each morning for breakfast) and swimming in the lake with my lovely niece K, and living a very decadent hedonistic life.
Anyway its all go here today. It is the Garden Party for the Sight Impaired this afternoon and it looks like rain. This morning, T my brilliant cleaner helper has brought a carpet shampooer and we are doing all the carpets. It is so satisfying tipping out the filthy gungy water. That is the sort of thing I enjoy.

I won`t write in detail about the Cream Tea last Sunday as it is a bit repetitive. As usual my fears were groundless, hordes turned up, we ran out of scones, large quantities of strawberries and cream were trodden into the carpets, there was the usual chaos in the kitchen as we grabbed teapots and milk jugs from each other, but there was a lot of good will around, and we all enjoyed ourselves in spite of gales and rain, and a surprising amount of money was raised for the Asylum Seekers in Southampton.
I have just been checking in on line for my flight to Lindau next Sunday. I always
worry that I am doing something illegal or criminal, so when I turn up at the airport, there will be two armed uniformed men waiting to arrest me. I am only going away for a week but there is a lot to do before I go: lists for dear H and N who are nobly standing in for me, the inevitable quiches to make and freeze for the Quaker lunch the day after I get back, the usual huge supplies of loo rolls to stash away, but even so I will probably get at least one call on my mobile asking for the phone number of the plumber.

I went to Bristol last weekend to spend a night with eldest son, over from USA to do some research at the university. There is a strange Karma in Bristol which I think goes back to the fact that all its prosperity and fine buildings were funded by the slave trade. It rained relentlessly, but it was nice to sit around in a comfortable flat and read the Sunday papers and chat. Also to watch my 55 yearold mathematician son do his dancing practice. He becomes more and more addicted to dancing and he was trying to copy Michael Jackson steps. We went to see West Side Story at the Hippodrome which had some nifty dancing too.
I have been cooking and gardening like mad as we have yet another Cream Tea this Sunday, this time in aid of destitute Asylum Seekers in Southampton. I pray it won`t rain as there are all these mountains of scones in the freezer again, and the kitchen table loaded with calorie loaded cakes. As usual I am tormented by the thought that no one will turn up.
I suspect that I had swine flu last week. It was quite mild. Now my friend J has got it, a week later. Neither of us told any doctors so it just shows that the statistics are all wrong.
Have just seen two fat rats run across the garden, so I am waiting for Eddie the rat man with his lethal blue crystals. I always feel awful about the thought that the poor baby rats will be orphaned and starve.

the generous gardener

I went to the garden centre today and bought two roses called`Generous Gardener,` pink ones, in memory of two dear gay men who used to come to our Meeting. Someone sent some money and I chose them because they are long flowering and reliable, but anyway I like the name as there is something generous about creating a garden. Now I am faced with having to dig two deep holes in a stony corner which is daunting. I think I will leave it till the morning.
It has been a relentlessly busy day:fighting with double duvet covers, washing, folding, ironing, clearing decaying food from fridges and larders, heaving piles of garden debris to the dump, all the usual. Now two B and B`s have just arrived, and say they would like breakfast at six oclock. Oh that`s fine I say cheerfully but I have just thought, that means getting up at 5.30am. I must be mad.

hot, hot, hot

I have just realised that it is Tuesday and I have not written about the Cream Tea on Sunday. My fears were not realised. The garden was absolutely thronged with happy tea eaters and the sun shone beautifully. It was hectic in the kitchen with all us helpers grabbing teapots from each other and frantically whipping up yet another pint of cream. We had the most delectable cake selections, made by the wondrous Joan, the equally amazing moustachioed Gavin(n a resident) and dare I say it? me. It raised about £600 and everybody seemed to enjoy themselves.
I think it is my happiest occupation: setting up things and giving large numbers of people nice food, not very intellectual or creative, and not such hard work as writing a poem.
I drove to Reading this morning and picked up my lovely grandson M who had just come back from Mexico, and needing to move all his stuff from his student lodgings. We talked non stop about all the amazing sights of Mexico, our families, and everything and I kept missing the turn offs at all the roundabouts, but it was a joy to see him back safe and sound
I wish it would bucket down with rain, I am fed up with watering the garden and the grass is going yellow.

The kitchen has been a scone factory for the past days ready for the Cream Tea in aid of Emmaus on Sunday. ( I have discovered that scones are improved by being frozen for a bit before being warmed up on the day) As usual I am tormented by the thought that no one will turn up or it will pour with rain, but there is also a picture in my mind of a glorious sunny afternoon, mounds of strawberries, with great bowls of cream and delicious scones, and every body having a lovely time.
Everbody keeps on about Wimbledon and assume that I know what they are talking about. I have never understood the rules of tennis, and have always been incapable of playing ball games, so I find it difficult to make an intelligent comment. I will be glad when its all over.

Brighton last Thursday and Friday as usual but it was good, as I had J and T and Jumble the dog with me on the A272 on the way there as J had come to Winchester to see her old school chums. We bought chips in Pulborough and munched them, such a treat. Then I went to see the film, `Looking for Eric `which I loved. It is all about how if you need help, you just ask your friends and they give it willingly. It was also about football which I am not really into but I do see how it gets you.
On Saturday, I went to London with my bike in the car and met up with son C and family. We all cycled by the Thames and watched a river pageant with people dressed up as Henry the eighth and others being rowed along to Hampton Court. While we were having our picnic on the river bank, I did a sort of quiz from the Guardian and asked my family what their earliest memory was. All, including me, remember being told off for doing something which we did not even realise was wrong. Isn`t it sad that we can`t remember the happy things first?

I went to the Parish garden party next door yesterday afternoon, so I had a nice ecumenical weekend, having been well Quakered the day before and on Sunday morning. We had a cracking tea and then Evensong in the garden with an electronic organ and three splendid hymns. There were two Bible stories, each about eating in the open air:the loaves and fishes one by the Sea of Gallilee and the one about manna from heaven. I thoroughly enjoyed it all, and also the conversations with lovely elderly women in their summer frocks and straw hats.
This morning I discovered a cupboard in the back kitchen full of food that was three years out of date, Jaffa cakes, pasta, cous cous, raisins, soup,lemonade, Oh masses of stuff and it was terrible having to throw it all away. It must have belonged to a long departed resident. The worst of it is that it may have been OK to eat some of it but I do not want to be the Warden of the meeting house responsible for an outbreak of food poisoning.

A very funny thing happened with this blog the other day. J borrowed my computer as his wasn`t working and he forgot to sign out. I wrote the last entry about Altzeimers etc and when I posted it, it came out as if from him on his choir blog so all members of his prestigious choir will be surprised to read my daft words about memory loss with his name under it!
We had a great gathering of Quakers from far and wide today. I started off bright and early moving chairs about in the parish Hall next door and switched on the tea urn, which boiled rather quickly and then set off the most earsplitting fire alarm at 8am. I phoned churchwardens and various members of the parish all to no avail,and pressed every nob on the control panel. Eventually I woke up one of the neighbours who came in his pyjamas and stopped it. Just as well it was not a real fire as no one took any action.
I always feel very safe and encouraged when I am with groups of serious Quakers, they have minds like razors, get straight to the point and they are warm hearted too.

Brain Fever

On the Today programme this morning they said there was a new test for Altzeimers which could detect it in the early stages. Just some simple questions they said. Give me an example? John Humphreys asked. `well name four creatures beginning with an S.` JH could only think of a sloth, so when I was swimming up and down the pool today, I went all through the alphabet to be on the safe side so I would have them ready if asked. It is a worry as several of my close friends have very wobbly memories and I suppose you don`t know if you are like it yourself.Just had my eyes tested. At my age, I seem to spend a lot of time keeping myself intact: hearing aids, chiropodist, swallowing pills as well as dentists etc. No wonder the country is going bankrupt.

I wish someone would tell me what poor Gordon Brown has actually done. As far as I know he has not claimed for any moats or pornographic videos, and he seems to be trying his best. He looks so miserable, my heart goes out to him.. I think I will write him a cheery letter. Or perhaps I won`t.
The weekend was dominated by cooking for a lot of people. I never know how many are going to stay for lunch after Meeting on the first Sunday of the month and this time we had two large tables and we ran out of jacket potatoes. Also there was a family lunch on Saturday, and more cooking today for tomorrow. Fortunately I like doing it. Next weekend we have a big gathering of Quakers so I will be stockpiling for a hearty tea, the Quakers do so love their teas.
I left the book that I am in the middle of, in Brighton and oh I feel so bereft.

I was a bit shocked that Gordon Brown was concerned about Susan Boyle after she got upset in Britains Got Talent. I think he should have more serious topics on his mind. Of course I watched it avidly myself. I was glad that Diversity won as they are such an enthusiastic group of chaps.
Te summer seems to be slipping away too fast, I can`t believe it is June already, and I keep reminding myself that it is my last June in Winchester, after fifty four years. On the other hand, I`m getting fed up with trudging up and down all the stairs in this house, and perhaps when I move I can start something entirely new, like birdwatching, except I`ve just remembered, my eyesight is poor.
I`ve taken to wearing my hearing aids again and conversation now sounds terrifyingly loud. I`ve also started swallowing six rosehip pills a day for my arthritis, (it is what they give to race horses)and I think there is some improvement.

mixed blessings

I had one of my double booking disasters today only it turned out not to be a disaster at all. The local Art Group who are proper serious artists turned up for a Painting Day in the garden, aapparently it had been on their programme since January, but no one told me. We also had a children`s activity day for half term, the older siblings of the Friends of the Family group, as well as the usual Thursday Spiritual Healing and Chinese Herbalist, in various rooms, but in fact everyone seemed to get on, and the children and helpers all went up St Catherine`s Hill and had a great time, then back here for lunch, fourteen round the table: sausages , baked beans and jacket potatoes, we`ve got it all down to a fine art these days.
My two Bed and Breakfast Quaker couples had a convivial breakfast which always pleases me, and for once I have no one booked in for the weekend except one quiet lad.
My brother P phoned this morning to say that he is going to be great grandparent at more or less the same time as I am. What a coincidence.

I had three chaps on bikes for bed and breakfast who came last night just after I got back from Brighton. They were up at 7am, so by 8.30am, I had done three cooked breakfasts including porridge and all the rest of it, changed all the beds and put the washing in the machine. They are the sort of guests I like,. Also the two other nice ones here who did their own breakfasts.
I now have a good free Saturday to Get On. I have to mess about on my computer doing the flyers for two cream teas in June and July firstly for Emmaus and secondly for Asylum Seekers help group. I am not good at this and it takes me a long time mostly with the help of my lovely neighbour M who is very gifted in this direction.
Yesterday, I took R, my 12 year old grandson, who was not at school as he was ill all week, to have his hair cut. It was very long, right down to his shoulders, and the barber obviously thought that I was being a bossy granny and making him have it cut. Which was not the case at all, as I long ago gave up worrying about things like long hair. The barber and R had a blokey conversation throughout about football. R looked very handsome afterwards with it all spiky with wax.
The best news last wek is that I am going to become a great grandmother!

windmills on my mind

Just back from flat watery Holland. Every one kept saying how sad, the tulips are over, but in fact there were lots of other flowers, cow parsley, buttercups, irises and water lilies in and by the canals. There were lots of nice birds too, and I loved seeing all the storks on big untidy nests.
We cycled for miles and miles with splendid Henk urging us onward, past windmills by the dozen. I had near death experiences with trams and juggernauts in Amsterdam, Haarlem and Leiden, and other unpronounceable towns. At night I collapsed exhausted in my little bunk on the good ship Zealand presided over by the skipper and his plump wife Linda who cooked tasty meals for us. Holland is the Land of the Bicycle. They have really got the hang of it, I had the best bike I have ever ridden and everywhere you see mothers with one two or even three children all on the one bike happily bowling along. It was a good holiday and I have come back fortified for a busy week ahead at the Meeting House.
There seems to have been a succession of plumbing disasters while I was away, every loo has needed attention and where is the other stopcock and there is shocking damp behind the shower and so on. The garden is looking nice and green though, and I will enjoy getting back to my bluebell grubbing and grass cutting tomorrow after Meeting.

bluebell blues

Back from my writing retreat at beautiful Charney Manor, and feeling charged up. I go away again on Tuesday on a cycling trip to Holland with three splendid women friends. We will be sleeping in bunks on a barge.
I always like to `put the house to rest` before I go on holiday: tidy my desk, clean out the kitchen cupboards, and all the dodgy fridge contents, and tidy my flat, so I have a busy day ahead tomorrow. I gardened all day yesterday, mostly grubbing out bluebells. I have to confess an aversion to them. Bluebell woods make my daughter J cry for some reason and it has rubbed off on me. I reflected that this is the last year I will ever have to do it, as I retire on May 1st next year. As I mowed the lawns last night until it was almost dark, I realised that I won`t have to do that much longer either, though I do love the satisfaction of seeing the straight lines, and also the wonderful smell of the cut grass. I am determined to be positive about all these imminent changes in my life.

musical bumps

It has been a complicated week, too difficult to describe except in bits. On Wednesday, I had just returned from D`s funeral at the crem, when S fell over just outside, and lay immobile, unable to speak. An ambulance came quickly, and four paramedics. I went with her to A and E leaving a bewildered group of Romanians, with limited English, who had just arrived. They were an orchestra from Bucharest and unconcious S had organised a concert tour for them in Winchester, Wales, Southampton and Lewes. She was the only one who knew who their host families were and all the arrangements. I spent a few hours with her in A and E where she slowly recovered, and thankfully xrays revealed she had broken no bones, she was just terribly bruised and concussed. I had two musicians staying in the Meeting House plus several other B and B`s and also the coach driver. There was an awful moment when I was convinced that the Romanian flautist who followed me in at the front door on Saturday was wanting to go to a meeting of Narcotics Anonymous and I firmly took him into the library and told him to sit there.
The concert was lovely, they were wonderful musicians and warm friendly people, but it was a huge logistic enterprise. Fortunately S made a rapid recovery, and they have left Winchester for the next bit of their tour.
I spent yesterday afternoon washing piles of bedlinen and now feel comforted by the sight of ironed sheets and pillowcases on top of the aga and all the beds made up and mercifully empty for a day or two.
Another event at the weekend was that the Jewish community in Winchester asked to have their Sabbath service at the Meeting House on Saturday, followed by lunch here. Our Meeting room looked very different with all their scrolls and suchlike. So we had Russian Orthodox in April, Jewish faith in May.
Time for me to do some writing for my group tomorrow. I haven`t an idea in my head, so pray for some inspiration. I am going to a writing retreat at Charney Manor on Wednesday, so hope that helps.
I am very pleased that the new Poet Laureate is a woman and I love Carol Ann Duffy`s poetry. I am sad though that the Quaker poet, U A Fanthorpe died on Friday. I met her several times and went to readings by her and she knew Julia too.

Held a tea party for J who is ninety today. Fourteen people came an everyone tucked in to scones with jam and cream, cakes, strawberries. I love to see people enjoying their food. J and her husband V who is ninety three or thereabouts walked here in the pouring rain which does not bother them. They have had a long and happy marriage, and seem to really like each other which is a wonderful thing.
I have seen several old friends in the last few days that I have not bumped into for some time, and it is very noticeable how all going a bit downhill: falling over in the kitchen, bad knees, hips, eyes, ears, and all getting much smaller, it is quite weird. They can`t work computers so they will not be upset by reading this. They must think the same about me anyway.

Had a beauitiful day yesterday in the garden: grubbing about in the earth, tidying up sheds,taking monumental piles of junk from said sheds to the dump, and I had expert help with the real gardening jobs from S and K, who did wonders in the front garden. Altogether perfect it was.
Indoors, there was an Embroidery Workshop doing Gold Thread work (so we had to be especially careful with the hoovering up afterwards) I love it when there is something creative going on here. It seems to generate more energy into the Meeting House.
In the evening, M, J, and I watched Britain`s Got Talent, my favourite TV show at present. I know it is all rigged and the judges are terrible, but there is something so appealing about the hopefulness of the performers, it often makes me cry.

I felt too rushed yesterday to write a proper blog about my holiday which was full of precious moments. The purpose of it in a way was to be together for Julia`s anniversary which was on 13th April, Easter Monday. It is four years now but she still seems so close, and when a group of us sat round the kitchen table reading favourite poems written by her, it was as if she was still speaking to us, as she had such a gift with words. There was a group of remarkable women who came to that Northumberland cottage over Easter and it was good to share our memories together.
I have to write a poem this afternoon, this blog is a bit of a delaying tactic. I have my writing group tomorrow. I am hoping that some inspiration will come. Possible topics: crossword puzzles which have been occupying my energies lately in a rather obsessive way, celebrity culture, which I find very interesting, or , on a more serious note, sorrow,which is not the same as grief or sadness, but is a more permanent state of mind when you lose someone close to you.

I got back from holiday on Friday afternoon and it has been one mad rush ever since I walked in the door of the Meeting House. I have lost count of the number of people who have eaten a meal at our table in the last two days, interspersed with me dashing into town on my bike for more milk, bread, bananas which all disappear as soon as I get them home. There were three B and B`s who all said they wanted the full monty for breakfast this morning, and at one time everyone always used to say primly` Oh cereal and toast is fine for me`
I have just dealt with about fifty emails, and every now and then I have to go in the garden and rake up another barrowful of magnolia petals. But the garden looks lovely with all the tulips coming out and bluebells, forgetme nots and cowslips coming up everywhere which I haven`t even planted.
Still, I had a good holiday, read two and a half novels, played innumerable games of scrabble, did crosswords, cycled in the most breathtaking countryside in Northumberland with beloved family and friends, ate too many Easter eggs (back on the diet tomorrow, or the next day) And also had the treat of a night with my brother and sister in law en route.
More of this blog later when I have raked up some more petals, they are thick on the lawn again.

Everyone comes into the house or garden and says Oh how beautiful the magnolia tree is. I take a rather jaundiced view as the petals fall thick and fast and have to be raked up twice a day, a couple of wheelbarrows full. If they are left on the grass they become slimy and the grass goes yellow.This morning I lost my spectacles as I was scooping up the petals and hunted high and low getting more and more desperate. S in the office came out to help. She stood by the compost heap and intoned three times "Saint Anne where are Vicky`s spectacles?" Immediately she spotted them amongst the cabbage stalks and mashed up magnolia. She said she learned this trick at her convent school.
I am going on holiday tomorrow and I feel I need a break. We have been innundated with bed and breakfasts and the resultant huge piles of laundry. Also my struggles with double duvet covers. But the people who come to stay are always so friendly and pleasant, so it feels worth the effort.

I spent yesterday in Brighton with a terrible streaming cold, trying hard not to spread it to everyone else as they are all off to Greece for D`s brothers wedding on Sunday. I was very torn as I wanted to stay for Tiger`s 5th birthday party with a puppet show by J and her impro group and parachute games with D. They always have such amazing birthday parties. But I really needed to be at the Meeting House as there were lots of things on here as well, including a meeting on Climate Change in the morning, and baby A`s christening in the afternoon. So I got up early and came home.
A big Russian contingent arrived (lots of kisses on three cheeks) and there were Japanese, Latvian, and Estonian ex residents ,as well as many English relatives and friends, and lots of children. We were all ready and waiting at 2.30pm, but the Russian Orthodox priest did not arrive! No response from a phone call, so after we waited for an hour and a half, we started on the tea which included Japanese sushi, caviare, Russian salad, salami sausage and an amazing assortment of home made cakes.
Eventually a very apologetic robed priest arrived (a lost diary, five children at home, thought it was next week etc) The ceremony was lovely, some of it in Russian, the baby was immersed in a big black bowl, annointed with myrrh, and his head was tonsured. There was incense wafting around which you don`t often find in a Quaker Meeting House. I found all the symbolism very moving. The baby looked angelic throughout, and very contented sitting on either his Latvian godmother`s or his Korean grandfather`s lap.
In the middle of it all. a Czech woman arrived wanting B and B for the night. I think she got a totally erroneous view of Quakerism. Anyway she is quite at home here now and is happily eating a supper of fish and chips with two of our other residents.

Night Prowler

I have been re reading Barack Obama`s book, Dreams from My Father as I have to introduce it to my book group on Tuesday. It really is most remarkable, I keep wanting to read bits out loud to whoever is in the room, as he has such a power with words, and a warm heart. He wrote it over ten years ago when he had no idea that he was to become president. I hope the rest of the book group like it, I am always very downhearted if they don`t enjoy a book as much as I do.

I drank a cup of strong coffee last night before driving back from Brighton as I sometimes get sleepy on the motorway late at night. As a result I could not get to sleep when I went to bed, though it was about midnight. The films on every channel on TV were unbearably violent, the radio had ghostly frightening stories. I had a bath at 3 am, I filled hot water bottles, I took paracetamol, I had a snack, I read Obama`s book,I prowled around the silent house. Oddly enough I have felt fine all day and enjoyed a visit from 2 sons, 2 grand daughters, 2 grand sons, and one daughter in law. Its been a lovely Saturday.

Its been a long day and I have just finished a monumental washing up with the help of D after cooking and serving supper for twelve Catholic prospective adopters. I wore my new pristine white apron and tried to look efficient and like a proper catering person. They seemed to enjoy their meal but really they are so involved in all the excitement of getting their adoptive children that I could probably give them a bit of bread and cheese, and they would be happy. So many people have popped in today, and come to various meetings and groups. This house really buzzes witrh activity from dawn to dusk and beyond. It is never boring here as D has just remarked. He is cutting up vegetables as I write this for the Quaker soup tomorrow and it is now half past eleven.

Fired with enthusiasm

D lit a lovely bonfire down the garden this evening, and we at last burned the Christmas tree which had been lurking round the back of the shed, plus all the debris from the gardening day on Saturday. I love bonfires but mine tend to get a bit out of hand, and the last one nearly caught the fence and the compost heap, I had people dashing about with buckets of water.
It was magical outside this evening with the magnolia just coming into flower and the cathedral all lit up. The crows are keeping their distance thank goodness. I am not sure if it is the CDs strung on humming wire, the large flapping white wooden owl or the occasional appearances of the drunken falling over Vicky Darling lookalike scarecrow. Tomorrow I am having a new lawn mower delivered. I can`t wait. I want to use it as a Hoover to clear all the mess from the crows and the bits that fall off the magnolia tree. Such things give me enormous pleasure.

scarecrow saturday

The terrible crows have completely wrecked the lawn, but the chafer grubs have been treated with a sort of contraceptive which will do no harm to wild life, not that I would want to actually kill any crows of course. So we have rolled and reseeded the whole area and I have put a white wooden owl which flaps his wings in the mulberry tree. D has made a splendid scarecrow and dressed it in my old clothes but it keeps lurching drunkenly and occasionally falls over. We had a gardening day today, M cut her leg on a stick and had to go to A and E, I was out there until it was almost dark and now I can hardly stagger up the stairs, but on the whole it was very enjoyable.
I am going to bed early with the Saturday Guardian as I was up at the crack to drive back from Brighton. J and Tiger were up early too as they were going up to the allotments to do a worm count for a survey, with a picnic breakfast.

swanning around

This morning which was Sunday, I was just slicing the top off my boiled egg when something large and white plummetted out of the sky outside the window. It was a swan, who then sat under the magnolia tree looking worried. After a while it lumbered to its feet and started waddling round the garden hissing and glaring at any of us who approached it. Obviously it couldn`t get enough of a runway to take off, so I phoned the RSPCA It was one of those `press one for a cow, two for a dog sort of messages, and when I got to birds, it was ducks and pigeons but no swans. After some time I spoke to a real live person in the same county who was very vague as when she would arrive. I pointed out that the elderly Quakers did not like an angry swan on the doorstep. An efficient woman came an hour or so later with a long hook and a thing like an icing bag (cone shaped linenbag with a small hole at the top for the beak to poke through)
It took a considerable time to get it into the bag I must say, but now our swan is happily swimming in the River Itchen again.
I have just come back from a few days up in Newcastle where there was a dedication of a Writing Room to Julia at Live theatre and an adaptation of one of her novels as a play, which was beautifully acted. It brought out a lot of mixed feelings especially for my two lovely grand daughters, but it is good to have her remembered and honoured. I loved seeing so many old friends too.
I had a funny time on the train last night. Firstly the guard insisted on moving me down to a first class seat as he said there was a crowd of Derby football supporters getting on at Sheffield and they `were like animals`Then a wild looking man got on, tipped out a set of very large chess pieces on the table and more or less ordered me to play with him. It was a most exciting match which he of course won, but I have never known the journey pass so quickly.I almost went past the station.

A rather stressful couple of days, but with highlights. The Emmaus hostel had an Opening Ceremony which was performed by Terry Waite who then came on to stay at the meeting house. The weather turned very nasty: cold, deluging rain and a gale force wind. The boiler which had been working perfectlywell until it was serviced that morning, went off and wouldn`t come on no matter how much I banged it and pushed all its little wires about. I felt so mortified to have a freezing cold house and no hot water, with a special guest staying, and there were two other B and B`s, let alone the other 6 residents plus a roomful of Theosophists, and half a dozen Gamblers Anonymous in the Library. Everyone in the house had a go at it, and at last D poked a wire into a hole and it sprang into life. What a relief.
The Terry Waite lecture in the evening at the University was really brilliant and we listened to him for over an hour, spellbound. Everybody in the house came down in good time for breakfast this morning, and sat in respectful silence gazing at the great man. But he was nice and friendly and very interested in the Quaker meeting and J`s work for Emmaus.
Then I had to tackle three lots of sheets, pillowcases and towels which I put out on the line to dry in brilliant sunshine, then five minutes later it started to snow!
Later today, I tidied up the kitchen cupboards and decided to make two simnel cakes with all the bits of old marzipan, cake fruit and stuff left over from Christmas cakes. Now I can`t go to bed as they are taking hours to cook but the house smells lovely and cakey.

Have just had twenty four hours of violent tummy pains, and ghastly symptoms of food poisoning. I suspect that the soup at the Lent Lunch at a local church is to blame. I long to know if others are similarly affected but can`t ask. Anyway I have stayed in bed all day and feel very peculiar now I have just come downstairs to move chairs about for Meeting tomorrow. I am a firm believer in`working it off` so I am sure I will be better soon.
Trouble is, I am trying to do my homework for the Writing Group which is on Tuesday and I find it difficult to be creative when I am not feeling well. Think of all those poor poets with galloping consumption like Keats, and the Brontes. However did they manage.

grasping the nettle

I have been Warden here at the Meeting House for fifteen years next month and the years have gone in a flash. It is an ideal job for me as I love cooking and providing meals, making beds and folding things up, tidying rooms and in truth I even enjoy cleaning and there is plenty of scope for all that here. Also I like having a houseful of people both the ones living here and all the groups coming and going. So it is quite a challenge for me to think about giving it up and but I have decided to set a date and work towards it. So I have said that I will retire on May 1st 2010, unless of course I fall down the stairs or collapse with some dire complaint before then. So it is a relief to have made a decision and I can now get myself geared up to it.

It is my day off and I am not in Brighton this week so I am going out in the garden in lovely Spring sunshine to plant a blackberry, a loganberry and a raspberry up against the wall at the end. So future wardens can make some fruit crumbles for the Quakes Sunday lunches. I am also going to buy a new lawnmower as I can no longer cope with the vagaries of our ancient petrol mower which is hell to get started. I think the lawn is starting to grow.

Terry Waite is coming to stay in our B and B room when he comes to open the Emmaus hostel in Winchester next week. He wrote recently about his five years of captivity in Beirut, (four in solitary confinement) saying that it had given him a taste for silence, and he has recently applied for membership of the Quakers though he is an Anglican priest. He says he finds church services a bit too busy, all that standing up and sitting down. I agree with him.
My dear friend J came yesterday who is younger than I am, but we talked a lot about ageing, and ways of getting to grips with it. She said she had read that Joan Bakewell who is now Minister for Elderly People or some such title ,recommends that everyone in Homes or geriatric hospitals should have their CV on the end of their bed plus a picture of them in their prime so that everyone would know what they once were.

weight on my mind

I went to the doctor for a check up and to my annoyance, my blood pressure was up and I was severely admonished for my large weight increase, not surprising as I have not kept to my New Year resolutions at all. So I have had a hungry couple of days with the prospect of more to come. No more slices of D`s fruit cake and his delicious home made bread made with the flour from the water mill where he works. The cat who is sixteen, is getting thinner I notice, and she eats constantly and lies about all day on top of the Aga, while I am whizzing around working, and up and down two flights of stairs, from morn till night. So unfair.
The weather is really Springlike, and as always, I had the feeling yesterday that I ought to be doing something special ,like walking or cycling in the countryside, or visiting a beauty spot, but in fact I pottered around in the garden, doing a bit of digging, raking, and straightening edges, with the washing blowing in the wind in the sunshine, and was perfectly content.

not a clever blogger today

I had an email for my dear friend J entitled "you clever blogger", she had just read this humble blog for the first time. So now I feel a sense of responsibility to be (a )funny and (b) clever. Not easy.
Its been the usual run of the mill here -fourteen kids and helpers round the table for lunch for a half term fun day for the family group that meet twice a week here. Sausages, baked beans and jacket potatoes, heavenly food. Then when we had washed all that lot up, E and I went to visit an old Quaker in a Care Home. Both E and I felt we wouldn`t mind moving in there straight away. No smell of wee, loads of activities: painting, glue, pom- pom making, and several bits of knitting left around that you could just pick up, I did about ten rows of bright red purl and plain with great enjoyment.
This evening, the homeopath lady did not finish her session on time in the Library and all the Gamblers Anonymous lot were milling about waiting to go in there and the AA people were also waiting to go into the Meeting Room only the GAs were in there so they came into the kitchen where six of us were simultaneously trying to cook and eat our suppers and bumping into each other. Then M turned up and said she was about to take twenty five chairs out to the garage to be picked up in the morning by a bloke who is going to re cover them. What a palaver. We don`t seem to have any chairs to sit on for our breakfast I notice.

I have a lot to do at the moment as I am trying to get the Quaker Mag, the Colebrook Courier that I edit with T, ready to take round to the printers, and Quakers keep sending more copy written in spidery writing that is very difficult to type up. If I change a word or leave something out, they are on to me like tigers, so I have to be careful.
I went to my reading group last night. The book was Engleby by Sebastian Faulks which is about a psychotic but clever man who was horribly bullied at school. I was shocked by how many of the group had also suffered from bullying at school. At my North London grammar school in wartime, I was never bullied, but just bored, and would daydream or draw pictures all over my exercise books. I would watch the teachers opening and shutting their mouths like fish and had no idea most of the time what they were on about, but bullying, no. How lucky I was.
I am just waiting for a couple of B and B`s to arrive, the house is still full of Buddhists, Narcotics
Anonymouses, Asylum Seekers Visitors, and odd Quakers and it is time I went to Bed.

I am eagerly awaiting a second onslaught of snow, it was all over too quickly last time. I am just back from Brighton and glad that the roads were completely clear. Also that my eldest son arrived safely from USA . Though he is in his mid fifties and a serious professor of mathematics, his interest in life is dance especially Latin-American, so we all had a bit of a dance in J`s front room, and he showed us the Rumba then W gave us all a lesson in Flamenco, so there we all were on a Saturday afternoon, stamping our feet and twirling around. My knees caused certain limitations but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I also gave my son in law a lesson in marmalade making so it was a very instructive sort of weekend.

It`s snow fun for the fainthearted

In the middle of our farewell party for Tamara, we opened the window as we were all so hot in our circus/clowns outfits and saw to our amazement that the the garden was covered in thick snow which was still falling fast. So some finished the evening with a snow ball fight, and tonight most of the residents are outside making a giant snowman (or snow woman) W for some reason has decided to do this wearing shorts.

We had a really good evening and Gavin, Dee Dee and Will excelled themselves with their amazing clown make up and other disguises. I had to discard my blonde wig as I got so hot whilst carving up the roast lamb, but we had two magnificent Uzbekistan national costumes, and J in spangles and everyone sported at least a red nose.

I have had a wonderfully peaceful day today as all the groups have cancelled, so apart from doing the usual Monday jobs and sorting out Tamara`s room, I had a good bit of time to do my homework for the writing group tomorrow (now cancelled of course) which is a modern version of a children`s story and I chose red riding hood only she is a hoodie on a rundown housing estate visiting her nan in a tower block, there is a bit of knife crime thrown in, and some desperate characters, but it ends happily -ish.

More snow is forecast for tomorrow. All the schools have closed, K rang to say there are no buses running in London, we don`t seem to manage snow very well in England.

no fairies at the bottom of our garden

No fairies but horrid looking chafer grubs. The lawn man came and said that drastic action will have to be taken. Such a pity as the grass was really lovely last summer with all the rain. The two big black crows are still enjoying themselves so it is not all bad.
I came back from Brighton very early today, and when I arrived home at 8.30am, there was a jolly breakfast going on with nearly all the residents up and cheerful. Amazing on a Saturday morning.
I have been watching a good programme on TV for the last few weeks called Around the World in Eighty Faiths. It is incredible to see the weird antics that people get up to in the name of religion, especially in last night`s episode which was in the bible belt of America with some of the Charismatic churches. Still I suppose that many would find a Quaker Meeting strange with us all sitting round in silence for an hour.

Two frightening big black birds

My Japanese friend came round to have a marmalade making lesson. One of the good things about marmalade is that you can only do it in late January or early February when the Sevilles arrive in the market. You need to pick a cold wet afternoon and really enjoy the warm kitchen and the lovely orangey smell. We both got sticky and so did the table, the cooker, the door handles, the taps. Luckily it set well and it was a joy to see the filled golden jars.

We are having a party on Sunday to say goodbye to dear T who is leaving the Meeting House as her three years are up. She used to work for a circus in Latvia and Russia so we are going to dress up in circus related outfits though she does not know of this yet. I cannot make up my mind about my outfit as I do not want to be cooking a roast dinner in anything tight or hot or uncomfortable.

Two big black crows have just torn up another large expanse of lawn. I do not know whether to encourage them as they must be eating some sort of grub, or to run outside and shout at them to go away. I have asked some lawn experts to come tomorrow.

sleepy saturday

I came back late last night after my day off in Brighton. It is a surreal experience doing that journey along the deserted sea front as far as Worthing then along empty motorways. I like driving at night with the radio on and the heater at full blast. When I got home, D had just arrived back from his Christmas month visiting relatives in U.S A. and so we sat up chatting, and I did not go to bed until after one am and then I got engrossed in my book, so I was sleepy all day. The house was busy with lettings which was the reason I had to come back on Friday, sad as my lovely grand daughter F had just arrived from up north. Anyway today I had time for a good read of the Saturday Guardian which I always enjoy, especially the Review and the Family section and the magazine. I usually do the crossword too but it is impossible today, so I will save it up to do tomorrow with my son T who is an expert.
I went to the cinema twice last week to see Slumdog Millionaire and The Reader, both remarkable films and I did not fall asleep once in either which is the Acid Test.

Poached with no Reproach.

The day started with the B and B`s asking for poached eggs, my most dreaded breakfast, but they ate them cheerfully in spite of soggy toast, and ragged edges, and even said they would like to come again.
Then someone came to book a room for a meditation meeting and wanted to see the guest room so I grabbed my chance and got them to help with the double duvet cover, as I had been struggling and flailing my arms helplessly trying to do it on my own.

Today the Reading Group for the Sight Impaired came, with N the bloke from the Library who organises it. All are elderly (even older than I am) with walking frames and sticks, swollen ankles and other infirmities, but they have minds like razors! N kindly asked me to join them and I have rarely been in such a lively and challenging discussion on any book. This was The Road Home`by Rose Tremain which won the Orange Prize recently and I had loved it. They saw a darker side and were very critical, and compared it ver unfavourably with her other novels.

Tonight I have the House Committee and I have to report on the past month in the Meeting House. We have to discuss things like Fire Risk Assessments and putting up the rents. Then it is my writing group tomorrow and I have written not one but two poems. I am not satisfied with either, but I have tried.

Busy Sunday

Sundays are always busy as I like to get up early to make the Meeting House shining and clean with a good strong smell of polish before Meeting. It has been very wild and windy so I had to tidy up the garden as well, as it was scattered with branches of trees blown down in the night. The Quaker teenager group stayed for lunch and once that was cleared away and the kitchen tidied up, and I had sorted out a couple of bed and breakfast who arrived for the night, I went to an ecumenical tea party. It is the Week of Christian Unity and I was asked as the Quaker representative. It was daunting to enter a room full of black suited dog collared clergy all talking away ten to the dozen. It was held in a sort of bar restaurant near the cathedral. On offer was: ice cream and exotic fruit salad, pate, french cheeses , wine, tea or coffee. There was not a cucumber sandwich or victoria sponge to be seen. Quite tasty though. Then we all went to the Cathedral and I was ushered with the other clergy to sit up at the front near the altar. I sang all the hymns with gusto, and a lovely Catholic priest who used to be in Winchester and is now a bishop somewhere else preached the sermon. (Another Catholic priest at the tea party told me that if he ever changed his religion he would either be a Buddhist or a Quaker) but all in all I did feel a bit of a fish out of water. Still, it was kind of them to ask me, and I had some good chats.

One of our residents teaches first aid and I have just been up to the bathroom to find several frightening dummies for practising resucitation laid out to dry after a bath. I asked her to move them as I thought they would frighten the two elderly bed and breakfasts. There is more to this job than you might think.

Nn such thing as a free breakfast

The Indulgent Breakfast was a success. About a hundred people came and we raised £1100. Two residents dressed up, J in a cap and frilly apron, G in a morning suit which looked splendid with his recently grown and newly waxed moustache. We had six tables going full pelt but there were lots of punters eating off their laps in the sitting room. We did the Full Monty:eggs, bacon, mushroom sausage etc and every sort of egg, also kippers and kedgeree. D sat at the kitchen table and made toast for two hours, C and G fried steadily, it was a real team effort. We all decided that we would not give up the day job and do it full time as it is a bit of a worry, always the odd person waiting disconsolately for a bowl of porridge for over an hour, or anxiety over runny boiled eggs, but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and will proudly hand over the big pile of cash tomorrow to the Emmaus project.
Very coooold still and frost on the trees looks pretty, but I have stayed mainly indoors this weekend, reading the newspapers, playing Scrabble and planning holidays. Rather going off the idea of cycling in the Outer Hebrides as I have been told that it is extremely windy.

I have been huddling up against the Aga this evening trying to get warm. Even this cosy house is chilly. I worry about the people sleeping out, there are usually one or two in doorways up the High Street and in the Park. It is Twelfth Night and we have just taken the decorations down and put the Christmas tree ready to be chopped up and burnt on the bonfire. I took the cards for recycling to WH Smiths and it felt awful to drop all those lovely pictures and loving messages into the bin.

My grandson, M is twenty today. I made him a cake with candles on it but he said he did not want all that palaver so I took the candles off and he took it away to share with his friends with 20 holes in the top. I remember his birth so well 20 years ago. in icy weather just like it is now. It was in The Hague in Holland and I gave him his first bath after we brought him home from hospital. I took him out in a big pram past Dutch people skating on frozen ponds like in a Breughel painting. He has grown into a kind warm hearted young man.

On Saturday, I am organising an Indulgent Breakfast at the Meeting House a fund raising event for Emmaus, a charity for homeless people which is just about to open a centre in Winchester. I have just read a very upsetting article in the Guardian about the way that pigs are reared so now I am anxious about the bacon. I have ordered five dozen eggs from very happy free range hens, so now must try to track down some kindly pig farmers. I suppose the kippers will be OK.

These are my New Year resulutions:
1.Have regular `treatments` eg acupuncture, shiatsu, aromatherapy, thai massage, vitamin pills, rosehips, I am up for anything that might help. I am very stiff and creaky, it is a worry.
2.Lose a stone to help the knees and ankles. No potatoes, sugar, cakes, chocolate, white bread, crumpets, or croissants.
3. Do a new poetry collection.
4. Go for a cycling holiday in the Scottish islands in May.

I think that is enough. All those things are possible.
I did not stay up to see the New Year in last night , but I was woken at midnight by an almighty racket going on with fireworks exploding all over the place. What a ghastly waste of money.
We played some nice music by the fire yesterday afternoon, three violins, cello and piano, Boismortier, Corelli, Tellemann. Did not lose our places very often, and we all enjoyed it. Fortunately no one else was in at the time.
Today K and C plus family came and we saw the New Year in with a glass of bubbly with our lunch and nice chats. The girls sang Its a Wonderful World and The Rhythm of Lfe. What a treat.