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She has become a most attractive little girl – in looks and personality – some get better and t’others get worse – X is a real whiner – even when cheerful (which isn’t often) she whines – drives her father round the bend. I was staggered – not to say horrified whilst in the home – as there were two kids one of 15 and another of 16 having babies ( this – apparently – is average) and on the day I was discharged there was a girl of 18 who was having – wait for it – her 4th!!! (She was married). X’s birthday was great fun. You should have seen him eating his cake – it was really funny. First he picked it all up and screwed and squashed it between his fingers; then with the one remaining whole piece which was about 3″ long he picked it up in the middle and squashed all the middle part hard into his mouth so that lots oozed out of the sides.  [Re child of 4] He’s got quite a sense of humour and has also started to do naughty things – like throwing X’s pyjamas out of the window which makes him much more human. I’d previously felt he was just too good to be true! The children played lots of pretend games while there and since she’s been back we’ve had cows under the bed, piggies in the meat trays that have to be fed half a weetbix every morning and little ghost monsters who have lost mummies and daddies and have to be given a drink of milk and then taken home! X is doing so well recently – I wish you could see him. He’s now spoon-feeding himself and drinking out of a cup alone. (He’ll even put his spoons in his bowl when he’s finished now – the latest manners I’ve taught him, which was very difficult as he likes to keep them to bang on the table!) She brought the boys over on Friday plus the others who were overlapping for two days. [So, 4 grand-children.] We had quite a good day with a batch of games to be played and scored for an overall prize – not too much competitiveness though: both X and Y are liable to near-tears if they get beaten at anything. He is quite sweet as far as newborn babies go! Has blackish hair and nothing very outstanding. Neither big nor small – 7 lb 5 oz and medium size nose – his eyes look vaguely Chinese at the moment but I think that’s cos he’s hardly opened them yet being only about 38 hours old! X’s boys have had their usual calamities – a brick came out of the wall with their help and gashed one just above his eyebrow. The doctor couldn’t stitch it but used special plaster that had to be left on for days and looked pretty gory. The next day she left two of them in the car whilst in the shop and when she came back one was weeping blood and tears – I fear Y must have poked his finger in his eyes. Fortunately it was the whites that were bloody. It was the day of the oldest’s birthday tea and she had to go and sit for an hour in the surgery before the doctor could see him. He apparently saw MASH whilst in hospital and when we revisited the hospital for his check-up he looked very respectfully at a passing stretcher complete with old lady being wheeled up to the theatre and stage-whispered to me, ‘She’s going up to God, isn’t she’. After much ssshing and after she was out of earshot, I asked him what on earth he meant, and explained that they were called stretchers, and were for people who were too sick to sit up but had to be moved around. ‘Oh no they’re not,’ he said ‘you go on those when you get killed in the war and two men in white coats wheel you up to God. They’re called God’s cars’!! We’ve now sorted this out. She went by herself to play with a little friend nearby the other day and when she returned I enquired whether she had enjoyed herself. ‘Oh yes, but she was a bit shiny when I got there’. I asked her what she meant and she replied, ‘Well, she hid behind her mummy and wouldn’t come out for a little bit.’ The little one has started the hiding-under-the-table-with-the-sugar-basin phase. T’other day I caught her trying to squeeze into the bottom shelf of the fridge with caramel yogurt and a spoon, and a couple of days later I caught her sitting in the rubbish box with her back to me tucking into the remaining half of X’s birthday chocolate. |
Author: Filed words
Emigration/moving house
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I agree with your reticence about emigration – it’s a lot of bother if you decide it was the wrong thing to do… I think it is harder for single people, too. Oz seems such an exciting place – strictly for the young? So many people I know are moving there. It seems many people’s Mecca. People are getting very fed up with the violence here, and Australia seems to appeal, preferably to UK with its bad climate and high prices. I am slightly soaked in Australia just now as we have just had a re-run of that awful movie Thorn Birds. At last we seem to be part of the scenery down here. It’s a great town and there are such friendly people of all types and interest… but don’t ever be tempted to move away from your patch. I have put this house up for sale, but I don’t really want to sell! So I will see what God will do. I am asking 2.65 million for this property, 2.85 if I don’t like the people!! I bought it for 450,000 15 years ago. The problem is no proper fence and gate so someone needs to buy it who can afford to do that. [I should think if someone can afford 2.65 million in any currency, they will have enough for a fence!] We went to the village to attend, for curiosity, the auction of a house just outside of the railway (well, 200 yards from it). We had been told they had already turned down an offer of $72,000 (3 bedroom, 1 sitting, on a very small section, made of wood so requiring expensive maintenance). In his opening ‘blurb’ the auctioneer led up to his valuation of it as $95,000 – but he couldn’t get a bid until he had come down to $60,000 – and 2 bids and long pauses later, they withdrew it with the price at $65,000! We are not planning to move yet! I saw the ‘new’ house with X – it could be v. nice but is in an abysmal state at present. It’s to be redecorated and she says ‘they’re’ putting formica etc. in the bathroom and it needs it – I’d have thought it would take a good month’s work and several thousand $$ – it was supposed to be done before they move but as someone didn’t turn several moves along the line it’s all been held up and they must move by the end of the month for someone else to go into their house. To add to the difficulties there is even less built in cupboard space in the kitchen than they have at present and there everything is three layers deep. Hope it works out. Did we tell you we were weak enough to look at a house near the village – all we’d need in our senility but mad as mortgages carry vast interest. Really, all that’s been wrong with me is general home-sickness and there’s nothing anyone can do about it, except me – got to learn to live with it.
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Dowsing 2
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Now she’s on this dowsing lark – she’s got expensive meters and taking a course – I can only use a map or twig – not so convincing!!
Evidently the diver has several wrecks he wants to follow up and first is going to employ people to use machines to try and ensure which hold gold. I’ve just been trying my hand with gold here (X obligingly had 2 objects) and it worked both by walking over it and on a plan of the room with a piece hidden by her – so if we’re nearby I think I’ll suggest I’d be much cheaper!!!
 As I’ve despaired of getting through to any of the oil companies I’m on a new play. I’m backing myself! I’ve bought a modest 700 in the company before they start drilling (when all the shares go up) and 2 days later went to their AGM. Present: chairman, 32 directors, 2 pressmen, 2 other shareholders (male of course) and me!!! I dressed in a v. conservative and elegant manner – pearls, gloves, the lot – and asked questions about a concession they said they had in their report and which my map said another company had (apparently they share it – but not according to my records). I asked if they could tell me the exact location of the drill they hope to make in March – but was rather there, there, little woman’d – ‘We leave that to the geologists’. I didn’t say any more as I could see dubious headlines about black magic, but made my number with one of the directors and said I’d write.
I thought to myself why can’t he find which wreck has gold on board before he goes to the expense of getting special electrical equipment etc. so I called on their house. He clutched his brow when I mentioned dowsing, as evidently a woman had commissioned him to try and retrieve the gold from a boat which was sunk in 1809 on the result of her having dowsed for it, and had a go at digging it up herself, and not surprisingly gave up after 3 ft. He actually got down to 24 ft and struck wood, which he says was hopeful as all round was rock, but couldn’t get his digger to go any further. He was all for giving me her plan and for me to write to her if I found anything too. I thought this was a bit cheaty, but took particulars of where he said he’d dug, and indeed, on the spot, map-dowsed on her rough drawing. (You’d have giggled, I used a cotton reel with black cotton and a gold cufflink of his and her wedding ring!!) I firmly announced she was north of the actual gold, in a manner that convinced even me. Evidently a black African wrote to him saying he could find gold, and he’d told him not to come, but come/go he did. So the diver had hidden several paper bags in the sand (in case someone was watching and could tell the man) and one had gold in it. The man full of confidence went forth using his hands only and walked straight towards the right one, but unfortunately also walked right over it! So the whole trip was a dead loss, I think one chance unfair, too much depends on it and the poor man must have been in a state. |
Purchases
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We spent Friday afternoon doing some detective work on a 1978 Mini which had only done the incredibly small mileage of 11,000 km [in 1985]. It turned out to have belonged to an old lady who used it mainly for going to church. Admittedly the old lady had had to have the clutch repaired twice because she used to sit at crossroads, revving like mad and slipping the clutch until there was a gap in the traffic. Otherwise I thought it was a bargain. The jack was still in its original plastic bag, unopened! Not to mention my accounts! for some reason I have let them run on for just over three weeks in which time I seem to have spent $40 in cash which I can’t account for – and I seldom spend any cash in quantity these days except on petrol, which goes into a book in the car, and groceries when I shop for X for which I generally get a chit from Woolworths – so I am at a loss, I suppose it’s just a stream of small things which add up, as you know! [Oh yes!] Thank you for your letter and the pamphlet about the new bike. It looks gorgeous, and six gears sounds almost superrerogatory. I am distinctly jealous. A 4 stroke that peaks at 10,000 revs sounds fantastic to my pre-war experience! They must work to very fine tolerances to get such a good balance, even allowing for a twin being easier than a single in that respect. But half the size would do me very nicely now – though I’m not all that likely to get it. I wonder whether it wouldn’t be worth getting yet another mowing machine – a rotary. The thing is that X doesn’t want me to swop the little electric one as she can manage that so much more easily than the motor-mower if I’m laid up again any time; and it really would hardly seem to conform with Franciscan simplicity (part of yesterday’s sermon) to have three mowers! Last month X and I and two very good friends purchased 20 acres of land on the island which is a beautiful, wild island 121 miles long and 3 miles wide off the coast. This is where we are going to make our house and hope to reach self-sustenance (i.e. not work for a living!) by growing our own food, keeping a goat for milk, chickens etc. The first year will involve a lot of expenses: tools to clear the land and build our house, seeds, animals, etc. But after all the initial expenses we should be able to be our own masters. Such freedom and whereas before I thought it was all impossible, very day now it’s becoming clearer in my mind what a simple and obvious and possible thing it is to do. [!] Another friend of ours is going to live on the land with us, too – so with five of us, none of us will be tied to the land. If X and I want to travel or work in Europe we’ll be able to go, knowing that the others are there to look after our garden and animals. The land is magnificent, very secluded with huge trees, a stream, ferns, enormous maples, wild flowers and plants and birds of every description – we saw deer on the land one day, too. Now, of course it’s just forest, but we’re moving up there next spring to start work on it. A lot has to be cleared but a lot of the forest we’ll leave as it is. X and I bought ten acres and the friends bought the 10 acre property next to us. Obviously we will share the land, but we’re going to build separate houses.  The others are going to build a log house – X and I are building a geodesic dome. Read ‘Walden’ by Thoreau and you’ll understand why we know it’s possible to do all these things as an alternate life-style. X is working for next three months and we’re saving money hard. |
Church/religion 3
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The headmaster wanted the whole Easter message at a service on Maundy Thursday because, as he put it, it was the only Easter service most of his pupils would attend, and I had to fit in with the hymns the school band knew – about 4! However I think all went well – there were neither boos nor snores; although I didn’t actually test the effect of the sermon by having an altar call!! He’s been reading masses of books on different religions and is now sure Christianity is all wrong. Have you read that book – I have it from a friend. I found it most reassuring that all the learned people he quoted obviously have the same queries as I have and don’t seem to have found as satisfying a relationship with God as I have. … [The author’s] wife is playing hymns on the radio every Sunday morning. I think she must be trying to make up for his emptying the churches, which is the widely held view. Has the ‘Toronto Revival’ reached you? The ordination went very well which is more than can be said for the ‘simple supper’ (the Bishop’s words) afterwards. The cathedral supper room had been double booked so the event took place in a ‘cosy’ Methodist tea room over the road. Not only could only about 1/4 of the people get in at any one time but when they did the ‘simple supper’ was a cup of plastic coffee and a tea-biscuit! 
The Sunday morning service was not X’s cup of tea at all, because she was told that she had got to look more cheerful while she was singing and that she thought was too much. The singing was all choruses, always sung twice and sometimes more, and that part I didn’t enjoy as most of them are so repetitive anyway – musically very simplistic too; but our imported speaker was quite good. They’re extending the Cathedral, every new Dean feels he must do something to be remembered by (my opinion). I suppose it must be easier than saving souls. I think it needs to raise some 8 million dollars which with people queuing for food handouts doesn’t seem quite proper. There’s s hoohah going on in the parish because the vicar wants an assistant which will cost $20,000 a year and our income barely covers costs – if anyone queries this two couples who ‘run the parish’ tell them they have no FAITH – and they’re going to ask every family to give $10 more a week to help!!! The Vicar has also decided on curtains for their sitting room which will cost $900 – Sanderson linen. [continuation of topic] Yesterday we had the Church Fair. There are 6 of us at our church who produce things for our stall. I do far the least but took down coffee jars full of shortbread biscuits made with the machine, boxes of meringues, six jars of marmalade etc. but the farmer’s wife who is one of the old originals had 16 boxes of goodies, absolutely masses of pickled onions, dozens of jars of jams, chutneys and other things, and our MP’s wife had made quite 6 dozen packets of 6 chocolate truffles laced with sherry and various wines. I doubted if they’d sell but they all went. Anyway between us we raised $460 plus, and were a little put out when the money man told us all the funds were going to go together now – not our plan at all. Last year we gave it to general funds so this year they’re taking it for granted. However we’re firmly holding onto it until we sort it out. We pay for all the expenses of our little church and Diocesan quota, which is ridiculously high for the tiny congregation. There’s a storm brewing as the Vicar wants an assistant for which $20,000 a year is required, so he intends asking every family to pay an extra $10 a week to cover it. I fear I may have told you this bleat before, but we’re feeling very sore about it. I’m afraid he’ll also decide to close down our little church as the congregations are so small, but it would be very sad. Last Sunday we had the most awful service – all action songs and two people ‘sharing’ their conversion and a dance group who changed on the spot and pranced all over the place. … The Vicar said the most he could suggest is one service a month as congregations of less than 20 are irrelevant and rumour has it he’d like to sell the church and land – for money money money. We had a nice normal service this morning – our patronal festival – tho’ few people and not a big do in flowers etc. – as we used to in ‘our day’ and afterwards X played his bagpipes outside which was lovely. I loved your story of the scruffy old man at church even if he was so ordinary as to have ‘red woolly socks only on his feet’. The whole episode reminds me of an ‘interesting’ service I went to in a very big, empty and dull church in Notting Hill Gate. All went well until some ‘rooster’ at the back found that it was the appropriate time for him to contribute loudly and in tongues! There followed 5 minutes during which there was a competition between this guy and the celebrant to see who could deliver the Spirit’s authentic word most loudly. I can’t remember who won, but I don’t recall that it was the Spirit! A friend and I had a good day. We organised a Quiet and Bible Study day for our parish. We were relieved because it seemed to go really well. Our Vicar was rather pessimistic and said we must be happy if only 5 or 6 people came; and I must say I didn’t disagree! However it pays to advertise (or pray or something) as we ended up with 20 people and the retreat house almost overflowed. |
Hobbies 3
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We’ve been in for two bridge tournaments since I last wrote. As usual we were in the last quarter of the list both times. It really is very irritating that we play bridge so badly and don’t ever seem to improve. There must be some sort of knack for visualising where all the cards are, after the calling, and then remembering which ones have gone and adjusting the picture of what remains as they turn up – but neither of us seem to be able to acquire it. And of course we tend to stretch the rules a bit when we are calling so we even manage to deceive each other. However ‘it’s only a game’ – and a pleasant enough one unless one has a whole evening with hardly a hand to call on, when it can become temporarily boring. [Limericks were a family amusement] X the cheeky boy started off one: How red is gran’papa’s nose continued by others with Perhaps whisky or port is his dose But those in the know Say it cannot be so For see it turns blue when he’s froze  In spite of their daily ration of ‘nuts’, the poor sheep are perpetually hungry just at present – not the best of times as the first lambs might be born any time in the next week – though the Farm Advisory man I spoke to about it said thin sheep generally have their lambs more easily than fat ones. I hope so, not having had any midwifery practice. At least X seemed to think that they are all going to produce – so the ram seems to have done his stuff in spite of his youth and tentative manner, whenever we saw him making advances to them. I’m going to take up fishing when I get back – such an easy way to do nothing. X put together the poncho thing I had made for her in two halves, but it didn’t hang right, and also she felt that it might prove too delicate in construction to stand up to much wear (though it would not be likely to have much because it was as warm as wearing a whole fleece!) – so in the end I made a diamond frame of wood and it now adorns the wall in the dining room, and looks quite decorative. I’m sure I told you when I last wrote how avidly I was reading Doris Lessing’s books. Well, I also read ‘The Golden Notebook’ by her. Honestly, it is powerful stuff, not only a whole social document, but the women, who are the main characters, are marvellous, real: ‘I urge you to read it’ as the reviewers say! Also I read ‘Jane Eyre’ for the first time since I was at school, and again I was so impressed. Jane is my heroine: such standards of honesty and trust and integrity I can only hope to attain after a lifetime. Also I loved the whole style of the book; not a spare word in it. T.S. Eliot has a poem ‘East Coker’ which you probably know. There was another discovery. These three things I have read are my big reading discoveries of the year. Thought I would share them with you. I have actually made a little start with weaving – but only on a frame loom you hold in your lap, using a long wooden needle to manipulate the weft. So far I’ve only done – or half-done – one piece and that only six inches wide, because the only thing I could find for the warp was a limited length of fishing line. It started as six inches but is now down to five, because I have been pulling the weft up too tight – especially in the sort of rows where you go round each warp string separately to produce pretty patterns. A further snag is that the variations in my spinning make it difficult to discern the pattern when you have done it! However I am getting more regular in my results (thanks among other things to a spinning seminar which I went to a couple of Saturdays ago, at which I picked up quite a few tips, including the importance of really good carding of the wool before you start). They tell me that after a time it becomes positively difficult to introduce the lovely airships which at present add such variety to my yarn! |
Weather
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…it snowed – and snowed and snowed. None of the children had ever seen snow falling so this was a real treat. It took me all of 5 minutes to tire of the novelty, as memories of the slipping and sliding and slushy mud came flooding back! We’ve had a stifling hot month – I spent the whole time with my hair soaking and dripping face, impossible to do anything vaguely energetic until after 5 p.m. The ground got absolutely dried out, and now we can’t have the hose on untended at all, and only water by hand alternate days. I swear you imported those blasted little ants, I’ve never seen them before! There’s not a lot but enough. Spring is under way, though rudely interrupted today by a howling gale with many showers of rain and lowering clouds. X says rain makes the ewes produce their lambs – but our last three are showing no signs at all and look as though they are going to give it a miss this year. But the egg yield seems to be going up again, just when I have been expecting the hens all to go broody. They have overheard my remarks about the deep freeze and be laying for their lives! – though a more prosaic suggestion is that the days are getting longer!  Officially the last day of winter here, and I must say it has been looking and feeling like it. Driving hard drizzle all the morning, and I lit the sitting room fire after breakfast and have been very glad to keep it going this afternoon while I have been writing letters. There are some vague signs of spring, including cherry blossom in the orchard and plum very nearly ready to come out too, though it is wettish and a cold wind today. The grass is growing a little, but I have taken to giving the sheep a ration of nuts daily, as well as some of the hay I made last year, which they eat to a certain extent though a good deal just gets pulled out of my improvised hayrack and trodden about. Still quite a triumph that they eat it at all. It reduces the sheepnut expense a bit. Lambs are due any time after the 23rd. I haven’t managed to get anything into the veg garden yet. 6.30 p.m. and another day vanished away like morning frost in the sun. Then to look out of the window, knowing it is cold enough to kill you if you stayed out for only a short while, but seeing those fantastic mountains. We have had a good winter here. It was hard before Christmas; very very icy-snow-bitter-cold. We were working like maniacs to finish all building, insulating etc. We had our first snow here last week. This place is so incredibly beautiful when it snows. I have a love of this land where we live that gets deeper all the time. |
Celebrations 2
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We went to a fabulous wedding when we got back from holiday. X wore a lace sari and looked fabulous with lots of dangly gold chain jewelry and a headdress of medallions across the forehead and her bridesmaids wore raw silk saris, which I thought looked even nicer than the lace. Several of her friends from England ended up coming back for the wedding and she had asked them to be bridesmaids if they could make it, so it was a large bridal party! They had a reception preceded by a traditional ceremony. About 300 to sit down to the meal – no wonder the family were saving for years for the wedding but lovely on the day! Christmas was fun with all the kids home but it’s quite nice to be back to ‘normal’ now with just the dog to look after (and X [partner] of course!) The party went well apart from the sausages on sticks which got left in the microwave and so didn’t go at all. Sad! One unfortunate bit of X’s bash was Mrs Y and her sister had a rather noisy quarrel over, of all things, what was going to happen for Mrs Y’s 70th birthday – her sister and husband walked out eventually – very embarrassing. At the after-show party for Cinderella, X (Buttons) was most in demand from the 6 girls in the children’s chorus, he danced like maniac for 3 hours and chased the girls round the hall to give them an elaborate kiss on the hand before leaving! [House warming] In spite of no curtains and the whole house littered with cardboard cartons of possessions, they invited about twenty people up for a drink. I admire their ability to ignore such inessentials. (They had found the glasses). We are having a visit by the Archbishop of Canterbury. There is a welcome in the evening. X picked up her ticket for the latter after church. I got held up talking to someone and when I got to the car she was in it already together with a vast and leafy stalk lying on the floor. I said ‘What’s that?’ and she, thinking I referred to the envelope with the ticket in, said, ‘My welcome for the Archbishop’ – which reduced me to giggles. I can just see him advancing up the aisle a la Palm Sunday! Many thank yous for the delightful anniversary card. We bought the most super duper Prestige set of kitchen implements, very expensive, but the best designs I have seen. X also took me out to dinner at the new restaurant in our village. Most intriguing from the outside as it always keeps its red curtains closed, and only opens some nights. Our first surprise was the people there, one couple was a she and a she/he, but he turned out to be a he/she and another v. odd couple – foreign I should think, both young, one tall and a continental looking back [?! I presume he didn’t turn round] and t’other small and scrubbed looking and not at all bright who wore a black cap all the evening. They went through two bottles of something which I presume they brought, altho’ they scrutinised the labels, and smoked large cigars. I think they had packs with them. The others were a couple who we could only see when a leg came round the corner, which didn’t appear to have trousers above the boots, and the last guests were a duller collection of six of our type celebrating something – we ignored how expensive the dishes were (for the first time ever, I think!) and had an exotic meal which was followed a day or two later by a weekend of being entertained. 
We went to X’s 80th birthday last Sunday. She’s amazing, always a menage in a car, now drives herself to the city and back and takes all her old cronies about. I don’t say I actually enjoyed it, but it was good of her daughters to lay it on for her, there must have been over 50 there. |
Learning
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Two days ago I at last managed to remember and get to a session of a seminar I signed on for, and paid (!), on the gloomy sounding subject of ‘Practical Preparation for my last years and my death’. I managed to miss the first four of the six sessions (which perhaps says something about my subconscious?) I think I really joined because the syllabus set out in the blurb didn’t appear to say anything at all about preparations for death, as opposed to dying. This session was led by the doctor in charge of palliative care at the Hospice where 90% of their patients are dying from cancer; and she was very consoling about the process of dying, but brought a nun along with her as she was no expert, she said, on the spiritual needs of patients. I think as far as algorithms are concerned my mental age is about 3. When my study notes gave us the one for finding a number out of 100, it seemed to me that I had never been taught the heuristic method (that is a lovely word, which I have never before come across; I was quite surprised to find it in my dictionary at all!) It didn’t help that the study notes kept on talking about larger, when it meant smaller, and vice versa. That particular set must have been prepared in a hurry: it had several similar mistakes in it, making the whole subject all the more confusing.  We were led by a German professor of the most phenomenal and terrifying eruditeness. It was really quite a strain listening to him for more than half an hour at a time – though in fact he had a pleasant light touch and remarkably good colloquial English (thanks to living in Glasgow for 8 years and New York for 12 – without a trace of either accent, would you believe?) After qualifying for one profession and trying others, he’s now half way through studying to become a doctor whilst the wife is the main provider – quite a thing with 4 children with the eldest 13. |
Gardening – 3
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Filed words 