Tag: odd ideas

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!

After death/news of death 4

Yes, I do feel X is around – specially some days when I need a bit of help, and send up a cry – it always seems to work, but I feel a bit mean asking for him to RIP one minute and then calling him back! I do keep reminding myself to tell X that and even look across the room to his chair to remark on something.

Isn’t it sad: the old dear who had the Gallery in her house at X has died of a stroke – lovely for her to have had the pleasure of its success tho.

I heard from X that she has taken her sister-in-law’s death very badly – rather surprisingly, as she always disliked her – but evidently she hadn’t reckoned on outliving anyone – she’s been so ill for so long. It’s incredible she had her first cancer op. some 40 years ago – Poor dear, evidently she has this ??decalcifying business with her spine now and is v. bent.

Thank you for your letter, the day you heard of X’s death. Poor Y will feel very lost I expect, even though she wasn’t the world’s best and busiest about the house, from what I ever saw.

Dear X managed to escape her problems last week, and the funeral was on Friday, with the church nearly full of people.

My neighbour with her husband with awful effects from a stroke – must be 5 years ago now – remarked how much I got out and I felt quite guilty but I remember you telling me not to keep refusing invitations or people would stop asking me.

There were two funerals – yesterday was X who was wife of our former Archdeacon, now retired, most notable for her laugh which was capable of felling pine trees, or turning over double decker buses. She was 93. She used say recently, if you asked after her health, ‘Dying slowly’. She was a very loud lady indeed, but a heart of gold and undoubtedly did a great deal of good to judge at least by her funeral which must have had about five hundred people at it, and lasted an hour and three quarters. She had three parsons taking the service, and three eulogies.

Felling pine trees

I was able to explain to him the changes in our Wills which we made recently, and tell him about the arrangement we have made with the local undertaker, whereby we have paid in advance for whichever of us dies first, including money to buy you a return ticket to come out for the funeral, assuming you would like to, and can organise it. Not that we either of us have any reason to suppose we are about to decline in health, but we feel it is desirable to have arrangements in place at our age.

Sad news first, I had a cable saying X died on Wednesday 29th. I’m glad for her but it’s a wrench thinking I’m the only one of my family left, no one to say ‘do you remember’ to.

We went to her funeral yesterday morning. That was almost entirely non-religious, though there was a prayer said at the beginning by one of the family, after which it was just a series of people reminiscing about her for about half an hour, after which they carried out the coffin to an Irish jig on a fiddle. Singularly unfitting I thought, and rather depressing without any commendation or anything to round it off.

The garden at X (of happy memory) sounded delightful, and especially the owner ‘finding herself’ a widow.

And daily I expect to hear X has died, the last letter from her daughter said her condition was deteriorating and she spent all her time in bed now. I’ve since had a very shaky letter from her, you never know with X. She has such fantastic stamina if she’s set her heart to still be with them for Xmas she jolly well will be.

Art 3

Lovely new Ex. opened at the gallery yesterday. Huge oils all abstracts super colours. 10 years ago I would have fallen for one – 10 years ago – but getting rid of things is the order of the day.

Thank you so much for sending the stuff on Mary Fedden – and also interesting on Julian Trevelyan who had some work in Charing Cross hospital I remember. I shall take the pieces over to show my father, who knew them and used to go to open day parties at Durham Wharf.

We went to the Academy (David and the ‘Prisoners’) this morning, and then on to the Pitti Palace across the river. There we were both sure that there is the original of one of our two old portraits in the gold frames (which themselves seemed very Florentine). It was a self-portrait by a Venetian around 1700 called Nicolo Cassana.

We went up to X on Saturday for the opening of the exhibition. We got there with 15 minutes to spare to find the others all waiting outside though the place was open. In due course we trooped in, and found that the gallery owners had hung the pictures very well – they had managed to make them good neighbours, even when the styles were quite different! But nobody came to see which was sad! In the whole afternoon we had five visitors, and only two of those were people we knew before. The others came to see some pictures by an artist which occupied the rest of the gallery.

What a traumatic time you had getting your exhibition launched!! But it was nice to sell two big ones the first two days. Nice of X to go twice and take someone else too. I call that real support.

The art gallery was half occupied with an exhibition of ‘works’ made of bits of old motor cars, or a pair of pantyhose stretched from a cushion to two points on the walls, and so on. Some of the exhibits were quite cleverly adapted, but on the whole it was a bit way out for me. Upstairs they had some pictures from a university collection and these were nearly all abstracts, of the most abstract sort: six feet by four of brown paint with a single line running from top to bottom 2 ft 6 and a half from the left hand edge – that sort of thing.

The way-out exhibit

They had a new show opening in their Gallery. These were pictures by a woman who we had not heard of before, and not very prepossessing, but she did lovely watercolours, mostly scenery, some flowers – but much too pricey to think of buying.

There’s a lovely little bits and pieces shop opened beside the petrol station. I went in to look round and fell for a fascinating bracelet which I found was made of nails used to shoe horses. I asked if they were interested in miniatures and one of the women glowed and said she was anyway as she had a photograph of her daughter in her wedding dress she’d like to have painted (sounds hell). I think I’ll ask them over for a drink on the way home then they can see the worst before committing themselves.

I did a pastel portrait of the newly married wife of an old acquaintance last week.  He’s asked me so often it was becoming an embarrassment – she’s 65-70ish and has already buried two husbands – she’s gaunt but has very good bones and a delightful expression. I haven’t done her justice – he insisted she wore a suede pull-on hat which didn’t help at all. I must get it out of the house ASAP before I wreck it poking it every time I go past.

X seems to be getting into New Age stuff!…  She was also fascinated with some ‘art’ by a woman with very heavy ‘magical’ overtones and strange things happened to people who bought it.

This was a selection of enormous pictures all abstract, of named bits of X, which one could not recognise and all filled with strange eyes. I could find absolutely no merit in any of them.

We went to see ‘the Queen’s Pictures’. They certainly were a lovely collection of thirty out of her hundreds or thousands; I can’t imagine how they chose which ones to include. I thought one of most striking was Judith and Holofernes, illustrating a story from the Apocrypha, in which Judith gets this oppressive general Holofernes drunk and then chops off his head. The pictures shows the lady in lovely yellow gown holding the head by the hair, and attended by her maid. But the humour of the painting lies in the fact that Judith was modelled by the painter’s mistress, and her maid was a portrayal of the mistress’s mother, while the head was a self-portrait of the painter! … The way out of the exhibition involved going through a number of rooms where we were confronted with a few nice pictures and a lot of stuff like ? – the man whose painting largely consists of scrawls of writing. I never can understand why he is regarded as having any merit whatever!

Gardening 5

[The continuing saga of the ‘piranha’ grubs.] We were bemoaning our purina bugs to X after church, and she said they are having a terrible time with them. According to her they always move north and each moth produces 10,000 eggs. If the farmer to your south doesn’t do anything one year you have a time the next. Their neighbour didn’t care last year! Their son dug a hole for a tree for her, and out of a square foot (compared to the normal disaster rate of 4 grubs) he found 39! I’m glad we don’t lie north of them! – though they have been trying to combat them and have had a helicopter spraying their fields.

The 39 grubs…

[and more] Did I tell you the folk remedy for our grass grubs was ‘mobbin’. You put lots of animals on a small area and they crush the eggs 12″ under ground – as we explained you can’t do much in this line with 10 ewes and 6 lambs. I don’t think even adding 6 hens would help! Anyway the season’s come for the moths to fly, so at least we won’t have them again. We have found lots of dead ones so X’s efforts haven’t been wasted.

We had plenty of other jobs including a satisfactory start on clearance and burning of two horrid creeper bushes which infest some of the trees in our lower field and on the river bank. One is a fierce form of thorn called Barberry, and  the other a true creeper covered leaf and branch with pernicious little hooks – it goes by the sardonic name of ‘lawyer bush’ since it never lets you go once it has got hold of you.

The garden deserves more of my time – the flowers are gorgeous. I do enjoy them so much. The freesias are coming out apace now and the mimosa’s in flower but I keep clear of that as it gives you pink eye (at least that’s what my ma told me).

The real clear up in the garden isn’t quite due but as a preliminary I covered the lawn as best I could with one of those hormone weed killers – which I can’t say I really approve of because it makes the weeds look as though they are writhing in agony and it’s difficult to feel really convinced that it is in ecstasy of living a pace they’ve never lived before which their contortions are expressing.

Diet ideas

I’ve lost a bet with X to lose half a stone. I think I’ve put on 2 lbs and she, maddening child, has lost more than she set out to! This cold weather makes me want to eat more to stoke up, and last week’s bridge, or lack of it, didn’t help. I turned up all set to find my partner was already sitting with someone, she’d just failed to put our date in her programme. I was so cross I came home, bit all my nails off and then raided my tin of meringues and whipped lots of cream and ate no less than four!

He is on to something new in natural food, etc. and now his wife is on a completely raw diet; they gave me a taste of her raw bread and it did awful things to my glands and turned my mouth down so I couldn’t even try to say it was lovely! Anyway at present she is blooming and he said it was all because of twice a day raw wheat shoot drink which is grown from special organically grown wheat, from which they make their bread. He showed me the masses of little trays he was growing his wheat in; it is ready 10-14 days after sowing, about 6 inches high, when he puts a handful in a glass of water (collected once a week from a friend’s bore!) and puts it in the liquefier and you drink it straight away!!

Raw bread and wheat grass

Wasn’t it maddening, the abscess didn’t stop me eating, I could do with losing a stone! A friend of ours has just been on brown bread and water/ coffee/tea and no milk on alternate days for 2 weeks and lost 2 kgs.

We’ve just had the most sumptuous plum pie with lots of cream as Lent is over. I’m an ass, perhaps that’s why I lost nearly 1/2 a stone. I must try and restrain myself.

I heard from X that she’d gained 3 lbs – I wonder if she’ll keep it up. Do hope so.

He only weighs a few pounds more than me – tho’ admittedly I’ve suddenly gone to nearly 11 stone and can hardly bend in the middle and none of my clothes fit so I must take action TOMORROW! The doctor’s quite unsympathetic and says it’s because I feel better and the pills I’m taking have changed my metabolism and increased my appetite – no help at all!

Our newly married aged friends have just returned from a painting holiday having lost 9 lbs each, all through taking half a teaspoon of cider vinegar in water 3 times a day, sounds foul but I’ll try anything once.

The diet book looks much easier than all that calorie counting, I was surprised how alcoholic I can be without a thought! But sad that my rather heavy homemade brown bread is 18 grams an ounce; can’t believe I can keep down to 50 a day.

Church/religion 4

She seemed to be a bit paranoiac about a thing called EST (Erhard Seminar Training) which sounded a bit like the Moonies without any mention of God; she seemed determined that some of her husband’s friends who had been captured by this system, if that is the right word for it, were going to drag him into it. Their friend certainly didn’t seem to think much of EST methods of brainwashing, in order to ‘build you up’ with whatever it is they teach. But I found it difficult to discover exactly what that was!

Their son was there, now 23, quite brilliant, but got himself into a state that I can only see a psychiatrist getting him out of. He left the C of E and joined the Assembly of God and was very involved and talked in the extravagant way they have which embarrassed me. Somehow he feels they have let him down, and he’s completely turned into himself.

[re a new vicar] What is worse a whole lot of the older people have stopped going to church as they don’t like his charismatic approach and it is generally thought he doesn’t care for anyone over 50. You can’t please everyone, and he’s wonderful with the children and most of the young couples, and the Sunday School has really bloomed with him, but the older ones he’s put off are the ones who could perhaps afford to come up with $500 a family which he hopes for [to fund the planned building project].

We had a very heavy dose from the Word – my fellow retiree has fundamentalist leanings, and in addition to ramming them home proceeded to illustrate from the problems of abortion, sex education in schools and nuclear threat. ‘Has he covered all his hobby horses?’ whispered X as he finished – and indeed I think those are the main ones. His method of dealing with the nuclear threat is typical. 2 Peter 3.10 ff, he says, obviously refers to nuclear war and its results, tied up with the Return of the Lord. So not to worry or do anything to prevent it coming about. End of problem.

We have a small boy in our Sunday School who regularly comes up with classics. Doing the Ascension last week he produced this drawing. When asked what the funny black things were, he said scathingly that it was Jesus going up past the birds!

the Ascension

I could scream – they’re talking about ‘… many shopping days to Xmas’ already – it means the whole thing becomes a drag and chore – so sad – the other day was when a disc jockey came up with ‘Only … many days to Xmas – God forbid’!!!!

We had a true American to preach last Sunday morning who won a prize from the Order of St Luke (an Anglican society aiming to encourage the healing ministry of the church). He boomed on for 15 minutes (not giving any precise examples from the vast experience X said he had) and ended up by telling us how to get a ‘blessing on our bodies’. The method was not in fact to ask God for it but to ‘concentrate on the indwelling Intelligence’ (or some such phrase) and then to relax each part of you separately speaking the Intelligence in your eyes (for instance) and saying ‘Eyes, you have never seen better’ and so on. When he got to ‘Stomach, you’re doing a grand job – keep it up (or was it down), Stomach’ I nearly burst out laughing, and alternatively felt like walking out in protest against the nearest thing to the Christian Science heresy I’ve heard from an Anglican pulpit in a long time. But in the evening we had Y and he went on for half an hour and kept me awake and attentive every minute of it (which is high praise indeed, as you know).

Things children say 3

He’d been to a rather surprising sculpture display at the art gallery and when he got back to school he was asked to draw whatever he liked best at the art gallery. ‘So,’ he said, ‘I drew me’!

How are you? I have just learnt how to do writing. Mummy hos boughty me two Guitir bookS. and I am up to exercise 20. I am also Working on the Cherry Song. love from X   P.S. and at School we are working on a 100-years ago

A few week’s ago my class & school Had a bomb-scare, it was very scary. The dog’s came but They could not find the bomb. 10 minutes later the same man rang up St. X. In both school’s there was no bomb.

‘Mummy – I don’t understand’ / ‘What don’t you understand?’ / ‘Me’. As X says most profound for a 2 year old!

X and Y had apparently got into a mix-up the day before – X says that he was trying to get one of the paints out of his paint tray for Y and the tray slipped – but whatever it was, their mother answered the howls and discovered Y pouring with yet more of his frequently letted blood. I suspect X’s account of the incident may not have been exactly the whole truth and nothing but as he is being very possessive at present about anything he wants to play with.

X talks with a slight lisp which is fun at present, and he hasn’t started showing off yet, and chats away to himself about the oddest things. I asked him where his trousers were and was told ‘they gone shopping’.

School is being a great success. He endeared himself to his teacher on his first morning by walking in and saying, ‘You knew I was coming, why didn’t you put my name on my peg so I could hang my coat up?’ Little darling!

[A unit on safety in school] We also had the kids wandering round with ‘dangerous objects’ for a display – one easy way to have an accident I’d have thought! One boy brought a hand grenade which he swore was live. I have my doubts myself!

[Birthday request] A pad of drawing paper ‘white like my shirt on both sides‘. This intrigued me and his mother thought it very funny as he obviously felt fobbed off with some he’d been given to scribble on with print on the back, and obviously newsprint was not wanted!!

I got her to read road signs – 2 classics we had: ‘falling debts’ instead of ‘Falling Debris’, and ‘Wondering stock’ instead of ‘Wandering stock’.

[child of 2y] ‘Oh daddy you’ve spilt your puddy. Naughty daddy. I won’t spank you this time, but if you ever do it again I’ll be very cross.’

Older child had been speaking about her school project on gnomes. When she had finished the younger one proceeded to say something like, ‘The Catholic church is telling the members to go back to eating no meat on Fridays.’ Older one looked puzzled and said, ‘But there aren’t any gnomes alive today are there?’ Dad said, ‘No, why do you ask?’ Reply, ‘Then how can Catholics eat gnome meat on Fridays?’!!!

Gnome meat

 

Strong opinions

I find it hard to share a country with X, more especially when he is the Prime Minister and I am not. I think he has been so inept, and so loudmouthed …[too libellous to repeat!] Comes of being so small physically, perhaps? – in height, at least. He’s not all that small roundways.

Don’t want you large

 

 

I really don’t know if the child will ever survive because she only ever gave it half its feed because she told me she didn’t like large children!

 

 

The first I heard of it was when X phoned me at work and asked me to pop in – said in that voice that implies there’s no hurry as long as you are here yesterday as I have something to say to you.

You are better off as you are so long as you remember who you are.

I’m sure I was telling you once before how involved I’ve become in the whole women’s thing over the last three years. Ever since I read The Female Eunuch in fact, and I have just continued from there, reading a lot of stuff by and about women, getting a very good sense of being a woman, but realising continually how many stereotypes and roles have to be broken down.

If you can locate them ask her if she has had our letters and what’s happening – there’s no use beating about the bush or she’ll push it all in her pending tray again – she’s madly disorganised.

I laughed and laughed and then felt extremely irritated with X’s letter, as you say, a poor attempt at doing her mother! Remember you can be pretty good at a ‘put-down’ too!

Do you know we still haven’t heard about the finalising of X’s estate – I strongly believe the solicitor has put it on a horse.

Well, I hope never to see another day like this! It’s alright, no disasters but the next 5th Sunday in February is due in 2004, and I don’t really fancy remaining in ‘the miseries of this sinful world’ (quote from burial services) to the age of 92.

I’ve just finished reading X’s copy of Papillon – violent, crude and horrifying it may be but a fascinating and sensitive story – I’m not so revolted as X was.

Church/religion 3

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 simple supper

 

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.

Characters 2

He sounds an odd character – I’m astounded you managed to refrain from crowning him for long enough to get to like him!

I’ve got a terrifying new help – X phoned to say she’d been asked to work in a school library starting right away – 2 days notice after 4 years but she did give me this woman’s name who lo and behold came the next day – large, loud and bright red lipstick. She got going with great gusto and from various remarks obviously thought my house was ‘feelthy’. She keeps running her hand over lamp shades and saying X must have been v. short. How she manages to take up twice as much dirt in the cleaner I can’t think – and she likes cleaning the oven! Anyway she said she’d been with my friend so I phoned her and she told me how lucky I was and she liked her so much she’d left her something in her Will – so I’d better try harder!

The people who went there are falling apart. The old man is evidently impossible – won’t let his daughter or her husband have any friends there, let alone the children’s friends, won’t let them use the telephone. When the grand-daughter was baby sitting for the neighbours, X said had grandfather done anything about getting a ram for the sheep as it was getting late in the season, and he was told Grandfather doesn’t like anything like that, he won’t even watch kissing on TV.

We made the former president who was such a trial an honorary life member – perhaps in the hope that she would thereby be persuaded to adopt more statesmanlike attitudes and keep her fingers out of the day to day running – but I think it’s unlikely to happen. She has been putting about that when the treasurer goes off to X halfway through next year as he is planning to do that she will become treasurer in his place (on the rather odd grounds that it would be good for her husband, who had a stroke last year, to have to concentrate on some of the detail of it!)

We heard from X this week, and were amused to hear he listened to the Test Match with the radio under the bedclothes at 3 a.m. – he doesn’t age much!! He must be at least 75.

She’s gardening mad and has rebuilt the garden too. I play bridge with her, she’s much taller than I am and twice as large! and is a bit overpowering, but I’ve given up making too quick opinions about people and hope we’ll click (tho’ life style is a bit daunting)!!

She’s quite the funniest person I’ve met, and she likes everybody, except the husband of her last boss who would come into the office smelling of drink and be very rude to them and to their clients, so she complained to the Manageress who said she had it in hand and it wouldn’t happen again! And it didn’t.

X’s party was all go. Y home wearing the awful red velvet coat his father wore when we first knew him – and brown suede shoes! And his hair looked as though he hadn’t done it since he left months ago.

party attire

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