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.