Tag: life

Whoops!

X has a slight blonde haze on his chin and lip, I thought he really ought to start shaving, only to find he’s hoping to grow a beard by next month as the girls’ school has asked him to be Arthur in Camelot!!! I was glad I hadn’t remarked on it!

Decluttering

In my effort to get rid of things I advertised my knitting machine. I got one answer and expected to get some $250 for it with table and all the books and wool winder – and got $25.   I phoned all round and they’re v. difficult to sell but it was in perfect condition, if basic. I was quite sad to see it go – but haven’t used it for yonks.

I think all these friends and acquaintances dying off make me realise more than ever we’re in that range for unfortunate occurrences. We’re both trying to get rid of junk etc. I’ve decided to take on some help again chiefly because I can’t face up to the idea of spring cleaning which hasn’t been done for years.

X allowed me to come into her garage and have a big clear out a month afterwards. I spent 5×9-hour days tidying and throwing the odd thing away! We gave away or threw away 3/4 of the gear!! Quite an achievement – X was very good and stayed away most of the time allowing me to work through it all.

I decided to sort out my famous drawer of stamps – I got in an awful mess of piles of this and that and about midnight started being a bit ruthless, came across a cut out embossed one of Queen Victoria – the kind you get on stamped PO envelopes. I must have cut it out in my youth, it was right round the edge of it, and out it went. Within days I saw in the paper the first embossed stamp of QV was now worth £2,000. I don’t know which printing it was but could have wept. X very kindly sieved the whole of the incinerator, and then undid all his little parcels of garbage in the dustbin, to no avail. Ah well, I suppose it was unlikely it was the right issue.

Children 8

I felt quite flattened after 9 days of dear little X and Y and her American friend for 5 of them. X is really delicious but totally time-consuming – so good and very intelligent tho’ he only has a few words. I think he enjoyed being king of the castle for once and not having to fight his brother for everything. I took him to the family service one Sunday. For half the time he sat in angelic silence but once he felt at home he walked up and down the pew and took a great liking to one of the young fathers who he clutched affectionately round the neck.

We had the family to lunch yesterday which was a trifle exhausting, though taken one by one they are all delightful small boys. I can’t think how she survives them all the time. Three Labrador puppies would be easier to cope with.

We went down to the X’s of course for lunch, passing at least 2 parks in which fathers were sitting with hordes of screaming children round them.

I’d be ashamed to leave the house: the children have wrecked their walls – I don’t remember you all being so destructive – apart from X who drew on all the hall walls when we were at Y, and X had to repaint them. (It was she who scratched her new wallpaper – aged 13 or 14 too – as I reminded her when her oldest tore a strip off his new wallpaper in the first week!) However perhaps I’ve given you all awful inhibitions with fierceness.

X is bumptious, rude, too clever by half and rather adorable!

X was trying to work a little helicopter thing his grandfather gave him (you know those things you pull a string and they take off). He wasn’t being very successful so GF decided to show him how, only to have the thing sail over the house, accompanied by X’s bitter comment ‘Now you’ve done it’! Luckily it landed the other side.

I told you about X’s black eye and the dr’s comment of being a ‘bloody stupid thing to do’ and her rejoinder that ‘very’ would do – and anyway it wasn’t bleeding!

I had X for the inside or a week, and he very earnestly told us at lunch one day that he thought Mummy was going to get a new baby soon, ‘I think she’s going to buy it at a shop’, I suppose it’s because he’s the youngest he doesn’t know better, the other two are very up in the subject!

She’s still as embarrassingly loving as ever, she attacked the vicar when he came to see me about something t’other day. I’m WAITING for her to grow out out of it – I can’t think of any way to stop her without giving her hang-ups. She’s also taken to having some terrific paddies, every toy was thrown out of the dolls’ cot the other day, the smack helped me but had absolutely no effect on her. However after about 10 minutes screaming, she came out of her room, pleasant as ever, gave me a big hug and said sorry for the noise and carried on as though nothing had happened.

Characters 5

The first of a new show X is hosting – 4 critics of various media – very good – nice and relaxed and unjolly. He looks so much better now he’s abandoned his toupee and has short back and sides (and no top!)

We were having an ice cream cone and my crown came off my front tooth – I looked v. nasty – praise be my dentist was kind and fitted me in next morning. He’s now away for 3 months – so I hope it lasts that long. I don’t like him and don’t think he’s all that good at finding holes – I actually have to tell him – but he made such an excellent half plate for X, I feel I must stay with him in case I need one (sad day that will be!)

We thought she’d be staying a night or weekend but found she’d planned a 2 week visit. She’s an amazing person actually – she must be 76-ish – absolutely exhausted us. She’s evidently a graduate from Reading, horticulturist, violinist and pianist – this came out bit-bit only. She also had a motorbike back in the 1920’s when it must have been quite amazing for a woman. It was rather sad actually as I think her visit to her son was not a success – I don’t think they got on and living alone she talks non-stop and knows it but can’t stop!

I have had my hair all cut off – never before has it been shorter than X’s and completely but completely straight and grey – I had second trim yesterday and felt so self-conscious I wouldn’t go out in the evening and feel I should get a wig. It’s the first time in 43 years I‘ve had straight hair.

I fear Mrs. X has misguidedly worked madly to give family all the things they didn’t have. I think they’ve all had anything they wanted and they had to go to town to potter round the shops the first Saturday home as there were definite withdrawal symptoms.

property – values / repairs/purchases/layout 3

We could weep for you over the flat – are they all as delayed as this, or did you just happen to hit an exceptionally bad scheme? I don’t wonder you’ve taken to drink-making and window-sill forestry. The former for its near-immediate relief and the latter to lengthen your time perspectives!

The man came to cut the hole in the roof of the dining room and it has certainly vastly improved the room. It was a threatening morning and sure enough, when he had got the old tin off and was just arranging the first sheet of plastic, up came a squall and blew the other sheet out of reach against the chimney and knocked his ladder half down into the bargain. So I had to hop up and help hold things down until he got them screwed. Even then it couldn’t be finished with the second sheet of plastic inside as in the process of removing the soft-board batts insulation etc. there appeared a large electric wire diagonally across the hole. So an electrician had to come to fix a couple of junction boxes on the rafter at the side of the hole.

We’ve had the power put on our section. I would have had the water put on too but when I applied to the Council I was told I couldn’t have water connected until I had a building permit. When I said that seemed rather unjust as I was paying a water rate the man said, ‘Yes, but that’s the rules’.

God speaks

We were so taken with the beauty of the patch all over again that we started talking about seeing the Lockwood man to discover the current price of houses and I spent two wakeful but happy hours planning all the things I would grow until the good Lord suddenly said in a loud voice, ‘This is very foolish – if you could do all that now you certainly couldn’t for more than two or three years, and what about all the other things you want to do?’ – so I stopped planning and went to sleep!

We had a couple of men here yesterday renewing the guttering of the house (known in the Yellow Pages as Spouting – a term which foxed me for quite a time when I was looking for them). They got it done in a day which was quick, and hopefully they have made a good job of it though it hasn’t rained enough yet to put it to the test. I had hoped that the copper which they were taking down would be so valuable that the whole thing would more or less be paid for, but no such luck. The estimate for the copper was only about $100, though the price per kilo was quoted as $2.80. I didn’t manage to get hold of an odd foot of the stuff to weigh it and work out whether I was being swindled, but in any case it would have been difficult to work out how much the copper weighed and how much the paint on it!

There is a funny little room with no windows – I think the previous owner built it on as an extra space for his opossum skins to hang and dry out – which is going to be easily adaptable a a darkroom with very little trouble – and I’ve managed to pinch the electric lead to an outside light which he had for his kennels and we don’t need, to provide the power for it.

They live in a house which we once considered buying (as do a great many people here!) – with a bog of a field next door in which I could quite easily have drowned when I went to look at it in midwinter.

[Re house just sold]

I hope to goodness they enjoy it – it’s going to be a squeeze, I think, with 3 grown sons and a teenage daughter: and outside will be worse since they own a car 3 feet longer than the carport, tow other cars, a small van, a horse float, and 2 horses, besides which he normally brings home the Firestone van which he drives for his job! All that on our hilly and bending drive will cause a few problems of priority on a Monday morning, I fear. But as we have left $9000 with them on mortgage repayable over about 7 years, I trust they are going to enjoy it. Mrs. X certainly didn’t want to contemplate another move, she said.

Parties

We had a very pleasant little party for 30 ‘close relatives’ to meet – spoilt by the boyfriend of one bridesmaid who spent the next 24 hours with his arm round the girl and had nothing to offer the party – he was the gate-crasher of all time!

We’re having a Pimps and Prostitutes party. I’ve made a horrible pair of shorts for it: in red shower-proof very shiny material with a black zip and black lace up the sides, to be worn with no panties, tights and black boots and a black blouse tucked into bra straps and a packet of cottonwool in the bra to provide a cleavage! I tried them on the other day and the effect on X was stunning – I hope I’ll be safe!!!

On Saturday we had a really good party at our place – a Christian Passover feast. We didn’t start till 11 p.m. when I got home from the Revue but X had prepared all sorts of Jewish dishes and we had a service and then the food. We had 4 guests. Then at 2.30 we went for a walk in the botanical garden. Lovely.

They entertain madly, which they both enjoy, and I’m glad they seemed to have acquired a lot of musical friends, who are very easy to amuse as they do it themselves!

I don’t think I’ve written since the ball – it was a great success. Everyone dressed up in fantastic costumes and had a fabulous time – one chap dressed as a traffic cop and, I gather, had a wonderful time on the way there and home telling drivers what to do. He ticked off a taxi for double parking, asked 2 people coming out of the pub if they were planning on driving home and actually stopped one couple and asked to see their licences! I bet he enjoyed it.

We had our pre-Christmas-break dinner for our Thursday group – an admirable contributed meal, to which my appointed share was only a green salad (which is of course the one thing we never eat!) However I have now got half the French dressing which I concocted from half the spice jars and bottles in our cupboard left over in the frig so some time I shall have to buy another lettuce, to use it up. I made two bowls full and it all went so I suppose it got a pass mark.

salad dressing

The Xs came to dinner and bridge – we don’t work on the same channel and he and I usually clash as we have quite different ideas about what’s funny. But they play bridge much like us and it was pleasant.

At our dinner party after a detailed discussion at dinner on birth control (X had just come back from a vast conference in the Philippines of it – he was asked to go by the Government and report to them – they’ve evidently had incredible results – all by blackmail and bribery – $50 if you’re sterilised after third sort of thing!!) and of course from there to abortion – at one point she apologised for him and asked if I’d like her to change the conversation!!! – we then got onto what sculpture was going on the front of the new cathedral.

We had a ‘rags to riches’ ball at the college about a week ago. It went really well. It was a do it yourself affair; bring your own grog and a plate and a home-grown band. By way of fancy dress I went in my dinner jacket and bowtie etc on my top half and shorts and holey socks below – it didn’t feel proper at all!

I laughed and laughed at your journey home from the party – obviously the sooner one of you moves the better – I always feel so let down when people aren’t as nice as I thought they were. It’s just as well it wasn’t his shoe I upset the wine in!

We have a strange party in prospect next month – re an elderly Methodist lady. She has been a widow for some years, and last year had a most unfortunate second venture into matrimony. I don’t know what happened, but it lasted only a month or so. Now she is to try once more! – with another elderly Methodist whom they knew in their first marriages.

She came too as we had our wedding-present dinner to X and her new Y. I was so glad that we did it in one of the houses we go to, instead of spending $30 each going to to the pub in the village or somewhere. As it was we had a most splendid meal and could move around to talk more easily. It was a pity that Z was ‘cantankerous’.

Hobbies 7

Did you know I’d taken up potting fairly seriously? I’m about to embark on buying a wheel. I sold $20 worth of bits at a recent country fair, so I’m getting all inspired to make my fortune!

I had a good time at bridge. I was playing with X (who was our President at the time we were building our rooms, and I was secretary-treasurer). She is much better than me, but I managed to stay awake, and not make too many mistakes in the calling, hopefully. Anyway she congratulated me (with a little too much surprise in her voice to be entirely complimentary) on playing one or two hands brilliantly, so that was all right.

I rashly and regrettably put my name down to do a mask making course, so this Saturday and Sunday was taken up with the first half of that. What a messy do it is – I didn’t enjoy having Vaseline all over my face, then have bits of plaster they use on arm setting etc. stuck all over my face, 4 pieces thick, and the subsequent steps.   We continue next weekend and paint and model on our mask taking one of the moods of his characters in the play. [Otherwise described as] For our mask making we put masses of glycerine all over our faces then stuck 2”x2” patches of gauze all over our faces, then the glue and more gauze and let it dry. Mine was far too wet and had to be dried with a hair dryer before it could be lifted off. One of the men has written a play for about 5 or 6 people and all the masks they use through life, and is hoping we will produce ones he can use, on a stick I suppose, to follow it through. I hope it all comes to something – it’s booked to be shown at several different places later in the year.

Mask making

I’ve joined X’s adult drama group – we went this week – only about 8 of us and great fun. He reduced us all to one level by making us hop round holding one foot and pushing imaginary things about, then gave us speeches, poems etc. to read on a stage complete with mike and recorder – rather good agony as everyone was asked to criticise afterwards. He most amicably chopped us all down to size and I wish I’d ‘had a go’ half a century back!

I am sending this in an envelope so as to enclose three of the pictures which I managed to take at X’s. I managed to make these last week before we went away, by putting one of the camp tables up in my shower, and propping the enlarger on top of the loo – not very comfortable but my darkroom has really worked its way to the top of my list of jobs now, apart of course from the spring work in the garden which is just beginning, and preparation for three meetings of various sorts and a two day conference all of which are due to take place in the next fortnight!

I don’t think I told you I’d knitted a long cardigan for myself on my machine. Apart from the fact it took some 2 weeks with several undoings, not one and a half hours the women in the advertisements say so gaily, and it doesn’t match a think I’ve got, I suppose it’s a success!

My table in the sitting room is covered with all the papers re my father’s forebears, then my ironing is at the ready and the latest Gibbons stamp catalogue has come from the library and so I’m catching up on sticking in the ones I’ve got but didn’t before know the date of issue – and then… my playroom is covered with bits of polystyrene and models galore – rejoice with me – I’ve got the commission!

We got home 6.15 – ate and got to bridge at 7.15. Even X joined me in a whiskey – we must do it again – first I put him into 6 no trumps which shook him – and he made it – he then put me into 7 diamonds which as he’d given our opponents a quite wrong meaning to my initial call – shook me even more. However everything opened and shut and I made it, and we made another small slam we hadn’t called!!

Health 2

I wonder if a homeopath Dr. would help if t’other can’t – I was put off in Toronto when I went to one with swollen glands and recurring throats and he asked if I found it difficult to keep my feet covered in bed as I was tall! Mad I thought then but really v. sensible.

It doesn’t sound as tho’ your sinus trouble has really cleared up. I went to a German? Dutch specialist and he drilled a hole through the top of one (inside!) of my nostril through to the sinus. I think I found it a relief at the time, but it was about as bad as having miles of stuff put up your nose!

Our electric blow fire finishes me and we seldom use it now – it stirs up all the dust and blows it at you and dries up the air at the same time most cleverly.

I’ve got my hearing aid – X’s altered as he’d used it no more than 3 times. I can’t think why they didn’t cut all the hairs out of his ear, it must have been impossible to put in. I find it very easy and don’t notice it, and have nearly forgotten to take it out before getting in the bath, which is the one thing that kills it. I don’t really want it but I do have the TV louder than other people like to have it.

The dr. found an unexplained ‘black spot’ on his retina. He told me he’d never seen anything like it before. As a matter of course X commented that he did often think he saw mist coming out of that eye and sometimes when he looked at the board at school he’d see a word, and when he looked again it had ‘changed’.

The mist…

The medical was to check on some swelling in an unmentionable place which our doctor here had thought might be worth having minor surgery for. However the surgeon assured me that as these things go mine had not gone very far and it’s all quite benign – so we decided to let it be for the present.

Unfortunately I got into such a stew about coming in here, getting the kids looked after, etc. I ate back all the weight (+some) that I lost whilst I was ill. Much as I hate to admit it, I think Weight Watchers is the only way for me to go. I just read an article on tension and I seemed to have 3/4 of the symptoms to a greater or lesser degree – so maybe a change to a new outlook on life would be a good thing as ‘1066 and all that’ would say. But how does one change a whole outlook on life? Start by losing weight I suppose!

The Registrar when he had finished his examination started off by saying, ‘Well, I’m glad to say you have nothing untoward growing there’ or words to that effect. I had of course wondered so it was cheering news that he thought it was just old age!

I got a stinker of a cold in the head which lasted most of the week and turned into a loose cough, rather of the graveyard variety, which I still have with me though I am hopefully on the mend.

I’ve had a stiff shoulder: after a time I went X’s doctor who ‘manipulates’ on the side – but he said it was just a strained muscle and gave me a week’s course of pills which he warned me might upset my digestion. They did nothing for the shoulder but were most effective in their side effects which started as they were finished and so far remain in full flight. I shall now have to go back to my own doctor and see if he can give me something for my middle which doesn’t cause any more joints to seize up!

Adult learning 3

We also asked X what good it was doing for mankind to know about these extraordinary birds which use compost to keep their eggs warm. And there doesn’t seem to be any answer, except ‘It looks good in one’s CV’!

And I suppose it teaches her something about scientific method, which is probably good for her and could be applied later in life to some really useful research.

Compost warms eggs

X phoned the other night to see if we’ll be seeing them over Easter for long enough for her to do one of her psych. tests on them – last time she did this she sat on the stairs outside their bedroom and heard them planning awful things and didn’t tell the fond parents. They weren’t amused!

I must do a little practice on my bass recorder as we have a new player with us who plays a flute and is much better than we are, in that he plays at sight everything we have laboured on for years without getting much better! Still, very good for me to have some incentive to practise, I know quite well it is lack of practice which is why I never get any better, but don’t manage all the same to do it!

The Professor is rather dry but with an obvious interest in the subject and the odd ray of humour: ‘Now to come to another aspect of English; I’m going to write an obscene word on the board. Er… just give me a few minutes to think of one.’!

If you need to put any stamps on letters to us and the Stephenson rocket ones are still about, could you use those? They tell us scrounging is the first thing to learn as a teacher!

This is a new sort of letter which I hope in a moment to illustrate – not done with my word-processing program but with another called ‘gem’ which includes a facility for ‘painting’. One of the problems is that it shows no margins and does not seem to wrap around like the W.P. And another is that I can’t see how to go backwards except with the mouse, which is not very accurate.

No news here re X yet either – he has another gruelling weekend with umpteen interviews – he was told unofficially at 11 p.m. that the ‘assessors felt v. positive about the application’ – I s’pose it could be positively NO but he didn’t take it thus – I fear he’s going to be very hurt if turned down.

I spent two days making a spread sheet on the computer summarising my expenditure for the last two tax years: only to find yesterday evening when I turned it on again to add a bit that the first year has disappeared altogether. It’s maddening: but at least I have one copy printed out to prove that I did do it once! I don’t know why it happens, but think it is something to do with being given the choice, when you start to save the programme [sic] between making a back-up and ‘Over-writing’ which the book says ‘Use with caution’ without explaining why. Or it might be because I thought to save time by making a copy of the first programme and then deleting all the figures to leave the description of what I had spent them on, and then renaming that with a new file name, and filling in year 2’s figures. Perhaps I forgot actually to copy Programme 1 when I had loaded it, so that it was the working copy which I deleted. Anyway it was very annoying, and undermining to my self-confidence!