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.