Well, tomorrow I leave this lovely house and all the good people. I went for a last swim in the College pool this morning, cycling along Kingsgate Street as I have done for the last fifty five years. I reckon I might have swum to America and back in all those lengths (well France anyway)  I have been hugged and kissed by the most unlikely people, who have all assured me that will very soon turn up in Ditchling. That will be nice as long as they don`t all come at once.  The leaving parties were embarrassingly well attended in spite of my fears, and the sun shone on a garden filled with tulips and bluebells.
The car is filled to the gunnells with objects gathered up  around the house: wellingon boots, music I will never play, Quaker marmalade, ancient rusty baking tins, and also a large acer tree given as a present which will tickle the back of my neck all the way to Ditchling. I must not forget to pack Daphne the cat who is wandering around the house well aware that Somehing Is Up.  The bike and cello have been farmed out for others to take.  I will change the name of this blog when I get there as alas I have no Aga, it should come up as Ditchling Daze but I am not sure where.  Dear J tried to organise it for me. I may have to get the grand daughters on to it in Brighton.
I wonder how I will feel when I set off early tomorrow?

From the 1st May I can be found at Ditchling Daze.

the last ditch before Ditchling

Life is busy. If in doubt, throw it out is my motto. I did a car boot with J on Sunday and objects from my childhood home in Palmers Green were cheerfully sold for fifty pence. Last week I moved my possessions to the teeny tiny cottage. it was chaotic but with the help of grand daughters G and M we unpacked all the boxes and made up the beds which looked bouncy and inviting. A kind bloke came and assembled the Ikea flatpacks so there were bookshelves to stow away all the hundreds of books that I could not bear to give to Oxfam, yet. I cooked my first big saucepan of soup for my kind family who came to do the broadband, tune in the telly and arrange the books in alphabetical order would you believe.
I am now back in the Meeting House for my last two weeks until I finally move on May 1st with my cat, my bike and my cello. Everyone is being nice to me and it makes me feel tearful. I tried out my farewell speech on M last night and got a lump in my throat. I am still worried that no one will turn up at my leaving party.

too much stuff

Everyone who comes to the house is ordered to take something, anything away, coal scuttles, my mother`s dinner plates, brass candlesticks, teapots,woolly hats,maps of the Lake District, fish knives and forks, but even so the number of filled boxes piling up in the garage, on the landings and in my flat seems enormous when I consider my tiny living space in Ditchling.
Tomorrow, J, an ex resident whose dad lives up North is taking some superfluous furniture to grand daughter F for me , so I thought I would buy an outfit for great grandson little Arthur, to go with it. What a shock to see what baby boys of four months old are supposed to wear: combat trousers in thick denim, orange striped rugby shirts. It all looked rough and tickly.
Normal life is in suspension at present, and I have not celebrated Easter properly at all. This time last year I was up in Northumberland cycling round Cragside on a family holiday in spring sunshine, but here I am ,up and down the stairs with bags of coat hangers and bubble wrap feeling anxious about the imminent moving day.

more last things

Today some of the morning swimmers took me out for a farewell coffee at the cathedral refectory. Of course it was not my last swim, but several of the others were off for the Easter Hols. It was nice to meet with all our clothes on for a change.
I did gardening with K later, in a bitterly cold wind. Everything is very late, and lots of loved plants died in the winter snows. Odd to think I will not be here to see the dahlias that K planted.
Some of the Alcoholics Anonymouses are very kindly carrying some furniture downstairs as I write this with much groaning on the bends in the stairs and landings. Another friend is driving these things up to Newcastle to granddaughter F. What a pallaver it all is.
Next Wednesday is the Moving Day though I will not leave my job here till May 1st, but my flat must be painted for the new incumbent. I spend many waking hours in the middle of the night, thinking `if I put that bookcase there and that table there, where will I fit in the sofa?` and so it goes on.

The end is nigh!

I am doing things `for the last time`now. Today was the last House Management Meeting and I look back over sixteen years of reporting the leaks in showers, kitchens, blocked up pipes, recalcitrant residents, minor and major disasters of every description. In the meantime I am trying to pack up books, and the idea was to take half of them at least to the Oxfam bookshop, but I find it is so hard to get rid of them, especially the poetry books. My dear friend I is going to take an entire cupboard full of music, which has been sitting on the landing being a Fire Risk for years.
My friend M is busily painting the Ditchling cottage. We decided to remove all the fake old beams in the sitting room and now there are great gaping holes and an urgent need for a plasterer. I suppose that the last owner was the one who stuck them on,. Still it all makes work for the working man to do. I am spending a fortune buying things like a broom and a dustpan, a rubbish bin and a Hoover. It is like setting up home for the first time as all my stuff has been absorbed into the Meeting House. I have warned the residents that I will be taking the Scrabble, the dictionary, and the electric hand mixer. They will also miss my Guardian and the quick crossword every day.

I have just disovered that beds from Ikea are six inches longer than English ones, Swedes are taller I suppose. So the super comfortable new bed I bought a few months ago and have been luxuriating in ever since, will not fit into my teeny tiny bedroom at Ditchling. One more worry. I am dementedly making lists and measuring things, also trying to give my possessions away. Every time I go to Ditchling, the house looks smaller.
It is a bit like death, this moving business, speculating as to whether there is an After Life and what form it will take. J gave me a notebook for Mothering Sunday with a list of things I can do if I wake up in the morning, it is raining and I have nothing planned, (this never happens in the Meeting House) Ideas range from writing a novel, making half a dozen quiches for some unnamed recipient, or simply lying on the sofa and reading a book.

kippers and quiche

Another long gap, and after two more lots of penicillin for the ghastly elephantine leg, I then got a face like the elephant man too. I suddenly developed an allergy to penicillin and woke up on Thursday morning with a great swollen face and red weals, it was most alarming. Daughter J took charge and got me seen at the Brighton hospital by a very kind helpful doctor, who said no more penicillin ever and then the leg miraculously recovered. I think my body is saying to me, no, you can`t move to Ditchling, you have to stay here and work at the Meeting House for ever.
Yesterday we had the great Fabulous Fairtrade breakfast. A dozen of us scuttled round the kitchen, serving and cooking the Full English and also strange combinations such as kippers with a poached egg on top or kedgeree with scrambled eggs plus one slice of white bread and butter. Oh so capricious the punters were. Still it made about £750 for Emmaus and generated a lot of goodwill.
It is a beautiful Spring morning, the garden is full of snowdrops, crocuses and the daphne is flowering. Lots of Quakes are staying for lunch after Meeting, but it is is laid up ready, (quiches of course!) and it is time for me to put the jacket potatoes in the Aga.

flying babies

The week started with a proper Sunday dinner at the rectory next door with my dear neighbours and this was the first real meal since I became ill the previous Saturday. Most delicious. Yesterday, I was properly back at work, and getting meals for other people including a Quaker speaker who came down from London, who I discovered was married to the poet, Carole Satyamurti, known to Julia and me Today I having been catching up on admin stuff on my computer after my enforced week of idleness. I don`t feel a hundred percent, am on a second batch of antibiotics, also I still have a leg like an elephant, I shall be so glad to get back on my bike and go swimming again.
Great plans for the weekend for the twins`fiftieth birthday. I must start the ritual quiche making. Baby Arthur, my great grandson is flying from Newcastle (in an aeroplane I must add)

once more dressed and in my right mind

Thought I had better write again to say that the crisis is past (as in Victorian novels with deathbed scenes.) I am feeling perfectly well today and though my leg is not a pretty sight, it is much reduced in size and not quite so lurid in appearance. I have had a constant stream of kind visitors bearing; yellow tulips, soup, exotic fruit juices, grapes, chocolate, plants, and I have simply lain back on my pillows wallowing in all this attention. I had thought I would get some reading done during this week (almost) of enforced idleness, but, no, the days have been taken up with conversation, and has seemed like one long party.
Jackie Kay,the novelist and poet who had come to do a reading in Winchester came to visit. She was a great friend of daughter Julia`s so we talked a lot together of her yesterday afternoon, and today she went to look at the Jane Austen house in College St where Julia was born. So I treasure that time together though I was sorry to miss the reading.
If you look up my illness, erysepalis, on Wikkopoedia you get a list of people who have died of the disease (also some horrid pictures of people with it on their faces) Included in the list are: Charles Lamb, John Dryden,St John of the Cross, Pope Gregory xvi, John Stewart Mill,John Brown (Quenn Victoria`s friend) and Kelkpa,a Nordic whale who died in the Thames in 1996.

in bed with the doctor

It has been a long gap. The reason for this is that I am ill. I am lying in bed, having trays carried up by kind residents and friends who arrive up the two long flights , gasping for breath as they deposit a tasty snack. Sadly. I have little appetite, so I know I am not well as I do love my food. I have a red, hot, swollen leg. The doctor has just been to look at it. he did not come at first, but sent a prescription but we got him here today. and he will decide tomorrow if I have to go to hospital, I do not want this as hospitals are unhealthy places at the best of times.
The good thing is that now my temperature is more or less normal, I can read, watch TV, listen to the radio ,and struggle with the cryptic crossword in the Guardian. Also I have a succession of lovely visitors, so apart from worrying about the crumbs on the Aga downstairs I am as `well as can be expected`
Today, they are interviewing applicants for my job. Two have been up and put their heads round the bedroom door to say hallo. It is all interesting but quite stressful. I shall be glad when it is settled. I suppose I feel as if I am abandoning ship. Then there is the leaving do to cope with. A speech? Perhaps it can be in verse? Several friends have told me that they have put their foot in it in their retirement speeches, and upset people. I must be very careful.

Last week there was nothing, but today there are clumps of blooming snowdrops by the gate where they come up cheerfully year after year. It has been sunny and springlike today and I went up to London for the second week running. I met friend K and we had a delicious lunch at the Quaker HQ Friends House in Euston Road, then wandered about a bit to the British Library, then the Foundling Museum in Coram Fields.
Last night I went to see the film Precious, which is unutterably tragic. Very difficult to hear the words, and this was not just my wonky hearing as M couldn`t catch much of it either, though she heard more than I did so put me right on the plot afterwards. It is a good film and I am glad I saw it, but oh so sad. The main character had no acting experience, she had just worked in a call centre. It was like the film Slumdog Millionaire, using real people not actors.
The first of the candidates for my job is being interviewed tomorrow, so I must have a special tidy round tonight, especially my flat. It feels very odd. I shall just be so glad if someone gets the job who loves it as much as I have done.

earthquake poetry

I have just come back from a day in London with good friend M, who is an expert at organising outings:train times, bus routes, vouchers for restaurants, reading matter for trains, the lot. We went to a a marathon poetry reading at Central Hall Westminster in aid of the Haiti Earthquake Appeal ,organised by our very own Poet Laureate, Carol Anne Duffy. It started off with no less than the PM, Gordon himself in casual open neck shirt and baggy trousers, his wife beside him, giving a nice speech in praise of poetry (and C.A.D whom he kissed warmly) I think there were about 16 poets, maybe more, and apart from the fact that many were inaudible until we moved to the second row from the front after the interval, it was a lovely occasion and we both loved it.
I am going to try to go to London more often, what with the free bus pass and greatly improved walking after the miraculous horse treatment, I don`t feel at all weary after my day out.

My knee is miraculously cured by the horse physiotherapist! She is starting on my wonky ankle now, so perhaps I can gradually get her to work through my whole body. I am back to swimming and cycling to my great relief.
Had a busy day yesterday as it was the start of the Quinquennial Survey of the Meeting House and also the annual inspection of resident`s rooms The QS is being done by two architects, but the other is me with another Quake. The residents got in right old panic, dashing up and down stairs with hoovers. They all have their rooms absolutely stuffed full and it is interesting to see the different styles of decor. I had a good haul of missing china and cutlery: twelve dinner plates six bowls and too many glasses and mugs to count.
I went to the theatre to see James Fox being Anthony Trollope, acting out excerpts from The Warden and Chronicles of Barset. he was very good and I did not fall asleep once. Interesting that Trollope wrote his novels on the train with a pencil as he was travelling around on his job with the Post Office.

going for gold with my knee

My family never cease to surprise me. Today fifty year old son, T announced that he has taken up knitting and is making a scarf for little Arthur, my new great grandchild, and his great nephew. He has recently got keen on cooking especially jam, chutney and bread. What next I wonder?
I have started seeing a physiotherapist for my bad knee. I discovered that she treats the horses for the Olympic eventing team as well as the riders, so I feel I am in safe hands. I have torn some sort of ligament. Also the clutch has gone in my car so I am expecting the washing machine to break down any day now as these things always go in threes.
I look at the two cats curled up so contentedly on top of the Aga and think Oh the poor things they have no idea of the terrible disruption in their lives when they go to Ditchling. I seem to remember from my counselling days that this is called transference. In fact I do feel quite excited at the thought of an After Life from the Meeting House. It is just the trauma of packing up and saying goodbye to so many lovely old friends that I find daunting.

Blog on, blog on ...

I feel a moral obligation to continue this blog after a positive avalanche of emails from people that I never dreamt read it regularly including a lovely bloke from the Czech Republic who stayed at the Meeting House years ago and likes to `know what is going on here`
On a personal level, my right knee has suddenly seized up for no apparent reason and I resorted to using a walking stick this morning which immediately made me feel ancient and decrepit like those road signs that say Beware of Elderly People. So perhaps it is a good thing that I am shortly to retire, though footballers and Olympic athletes get bad knees from time to time.
It is sunny today and the garden looks unnaturally green after all the whiteness. Lots of people have come to Meeting and everything is back to normal after the chaos of the snowy weather. I`ve a busy week ahead in the house with some catering for two groups, so I am about to start my favourite job: making Lists of Things to Do.
I am reading The Children`s Book by AS Byatt and it is a winner, can`t put it down. I read it half the night.

dumplings in the stew

I made a stew with dumplings, for the residents tonight and it went down a treat. I am trying to think of good things about the cold weather, and one is it seems acceptable to eat old fashioned fattening food. We have had proper oat porridge for breakfast for the last week with cream and brown sugar. D remembered she had a tiny souvenir bottle of malt whiskey from a visit to a distillery many years ago, so we solemnly added a tot to our porridge bowls. Whiskey for breakfast in a Quaker Meeting House, how shocking ! But it is OK because of sub zero temperatures. J says it is even worse in Brighton and the chidren have not been at school for days and days. When will it all end?
We had our book group planning meeting last night, it is always very exciting to have the prospect of 10 or more books to read monthly for the year though I will have left alas mid year, but I can read them anyway. The good thing about book groups is that you get to read things you would never choose yourself and I often so enjoy them (but not always)

Strange days, with few groups turning up and the quietness everywhere that comes with snow. It has not snowed again however in spite of dire daily warnings of impending blizzards, I am quite disappointed. I crunch my way across the the front lawn to get my car out to drive a resident to work as she is nervous about falling over on the ice rink that is Colebrook Street. On the way back I skid and nearly bump into a wall, so I decide to stay indoors and do boring admin jobs at my desk in the warm by the aga. But I feel lazy and unfit with no early morning swimming or cycling. One group that did come this morning was a new Pilates class and the meeting room was filled with young women lying on the floor with their legs in the air. I often marvel at the range of activities that go on in that room: Quaker silence, Buddhist chanting,yoga, circle dancing, earnest discussions, children playing, to mention a few.
I lit a fire for meeting for worship yesterday and someone spoke of the `ministry of the fire crackling` which is an interesting concept.

the more it snows, tiddlypom.

I had begun to think I would stop this blog, but due to popular request (well anyway , my brother P`s ) I have decided to resume. There has been a lot of weather about lately and life is very disrupted. Most of the groups this week have cancelled, including the Reformed Jewish Group, and Spiritual Healing, and countless others, but the Alcoholics, Narcotics and Gamblers Anonymous are still braving the elements. We residents are huddled indoors playing Scrabble nightly and the cats are sitting nearer or actually on top of the Aga, (we have Shirley from Brighton still here from the Christmas hols)
The garden looks truly beautiful today but the street is like an ice rink, and it is too cold outside to raise any enthusiasm for making snowmen. so I am trying make my desk more efficient for my successor in April, hopeless really as I have never been one for keeping paperwork in order.
The job has been advertiesed in The Friend and there have been many applicants. I just hope they will appoint someone who will keep the Aga top free of crumbs.
I am very gratified that the poetry book that I felt so anxious about is selling briskly in aid of Emmausn Winchester so it was worth doing after all. Less trouble than organising Cream Teas and Indulgent Breakfasts