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.