Tau tured glimpse into the brain of Z

I've started transferring next year's appointments from the back of my diary to the new one. I considered taking them both on holiday and doing it one night when I'd gone back to my bedroom but decided the discipline (I have to choose to be relaxed, do you? It doesn't come of its own accord) of being diary-free for ten days was too good for me to forego. It's terribly boring, this transcription, so I'm glad I didn't take them. Last year I couldn't be bothered to write in regular things so I kept being taken by surprise for the first couple of months, by when I'd learnt the error of my ways and did the job properly.

Oh. That reminds me, I mustn't forget to do next year's Meals on Wheels rota.

I dislike the tyranny of a diary as much as I rely on it. I've tried using a desktop diary or an online one, but I have to have a paper diary with me too. I do know people who are careful not to carry one, so that they can't be pushed into making a commitment they don't want to, but you only have to make notes on a bit of paper and phone up to confirm afterwards, so I can't be bothered with that. In the event of it being something I really didn't want to do, I could always extricate myself by saying that the Sage has arranged something for us both without telling me. Not that I'd lie about it or anything, oh no, as if. Anyway, the home-based diary was meant to be for both of us to fill in, so that we'd know what was going on, but in practice it was only me who wrote in it, and I had to check with the Sage and write his appointments too, so that didn't last longer than a year. The most useful thing about the one on the computer was that it would fill in the regular events automatically. I make notes against appointments - another thing I learned from my mother's imprecision - she was always saying to me - "who's *JL* and why would I be meeting him or her in Norwich next Tuesday. And where in Norwich?" One always thinks one will remember.

It's the same with the garden. You think you'll remember where you planted bulbs and what variety of bean is which, but it's not so easy once they've grown*. One year, I'd not had enough labels (no, BW, I don't buy them, I cut up yoghurt pots and suchlike) and devised a method to remember which tomato plants were which, and then Al kindly potted them on and wasn't quite sure of my method. We rather took pot luck that year with some varieties. We had an awful lot of tomatoes too, as Al could only sell the labelled ones. We probably made as many soups and sauces as Dave.

That reminds me, I must clear out the plants from the greenhouses. And start on the list of seeds for next year. I've got a couple of weeks to go for that - the gardening club gets a sizeable discount so it's worth my while. I can't remember if I told you, I'm going to have a new asparagus bed next year. Mine has been there over 20 years and is well past its best. It's also full of perennial weeds which can't be dug out. I think I'll chuck carpet on top and leave it for a year to kill off the lot.

We went out for lunch with friends today. D and her brother F, who was up for the day. The Sage and his siblings grew up with them. Theirs is an extremely posh family, and when the Sage's sister was asked at tea if she would like butter or jam and she innocently asked for both, it went down quite badly. In those days, the posher the family, the simpler food the children lived on. We didn't have bread and jam at teatime, with or without butter, so I don't know how posh we were. We had a cup of Earl Grey without milk.

By happy coincidence, the Sage has just brought me a cup of tea. He is eating a jam sandwich. I wonder if it's buttered.

*I observe belatedly that this makes no sense. I mean, of course, that I don't remember the bulbs the next autumn when they're not visible or the beans when they're sprouted but not yet fruited. As you realised and kindly didn't mention. Lucky Dave is away. Though not for any other reason, don't we miss him terribly?

A sidestep

Not a real post, and I can't remember the Greek alphabet at present. Normal (ho ho) service will be resumed later or tomorrow.

I developed a migraine within a minute or two of waking up this morning. I didn't have any pills upstairs and I'm reluctant to walk unshod as I walk funny, so I dressed, so it was 10 minutes or so before I took Migraleve. Sadly, that meant it didn't work. Now, I'm just starting my 3rd migraine of the day. I'm working through it though, it doesn't help to give in. If I did, I'd have to go to bed for at least 2 hours and I'd still feel fragile all evening.

Still, lucky it didn't happen yesterday. I couldn't have driven like this. Fortunately, I touchtype so not seeing properly isn't a problem.

Sigma self to sleep

It's always the same when you know you have to get up in good time. Couldn't sleep at all the last night of the hols. Silly thing was that I hadn't set my alarm for any earlier than I usually woke naturally. Anyway, having dozed occasionally, I was awake for good at 4. I lay for a bit, humming sotto voce - obviously, I wouldn't wake my next-door neighbour, who had had no such scruples a couple of nights earlier, when the bathroom was visited at 2.30 and 3.30 and the bedside drawers were loudly opened and shut at 6 o'clock, several times. At 7.30, he or she had a shower. I felt highly miffed. Nevertheless, I didn't retaliate, not turning on the bathroom light (which started the fan) or flushing or turning on the tv. I didn't even shower until 7.30.

Anyway, after a rather unnerving drive on a wet and blustery M3 (not a large section of the journey but the least pleasant), I arrived home in good time. The Sage had missed me so much that he'd turned out the larder and washed the kitchen floor. The chickens had kindly laid me some eggs for lunch.

It was a lovely holiday and the temperature was just right really - low 20s/70s, depending on which scale you use, so not so hot I had to cover my tender pale skin but warm enough to be very pleasant, although the shock of coming back to icy rain was not so nice.

And now I'm going to have an early night and cuddle my lovely husband in my own lovely bed. Won't need much rocking tonight, I think.

Rho Ving still

This is the last full day in Portugal, I'll be back in England tomorrow afternoon and home on Monday afternoon. Wink asked me if I could stay an extra day and go with her to Bath on Monday as she's taken an extra day off but I have a meeting on Monday evening I shouldnºt miss. Dutiful to the end, you see.

Sorry I can't get all the accents right. Different keyboard and all, can't always be bothered to go back and change.

All very enjoyable here and it's warm and sunny. Wink and the Bod were going for a long walk this morning along the beach to the next village and I cried off. I've walked rather more than enough this week and Iºm resting a bit for the last couple of days. Some people hardly leave the poolside I think (It's a bit late in the season to spend the day on the beach). It seems a mildly odd thing to me, what creatures of habit most of us are. Many of them anxiously bag their favourite sun lounger early in the day rather than risk having to move a few yards. I like to ring the changes in most instances. I fear the rut.

Anyway, I hope all's well with you. I did briefly visit Dave, to make sure heºs alive as I emailed him on Saturday and he wasn't at all well then. I was slightly frustrated on Saturday. I visted my sisterºs splendid local library, only to discover that one can no longer blog from their computers. I wasnºt even allowed to leave a comment. I can only assume that there has been Abuse of the Internet in the last few months, as I could last time I was there at the end of the summer.

I must read some emails. I'm afraid there are several hundred of them - we email because we can, don't we? Mind you, so do we blog.

See you next week, darlings. I miss you frightfully.

xxx

Another significant birthday, another present - 50

My forties were not quite what I had hoped for. Let's not go there, hey. My mother died in the March and all her affairs were sorted out during the course of the summer. There was some left-over money at the end which my sister and I shared, and I decided to buy a piece of jewellery for myself, in memory of my mother and for my birthday. The Sage wanted to be part of this, so in the end we chose a nice ring and went halves.

Didn't do a lot for the day, I think we had a family dinner here.

Fifties have been pretty good so far. Great, in fact.

Z throws a party for her 40th

It's the only time I ever have decided to have a party for myself. I was looking forward to being 40. The 30s had been good and I was very happy, with lots of friends and a social life (gosh). I planned it all and invited lots of people and it was all very jolly. Weeza was working in Greece at the time and I spent half the evening on the phone trying to get through to her.

I decided on a present for the Sage to give me this time. He had made me a wonderful oak box, a scale model of a 17th century coffer, which sits on the mantlepiece Even Now. It's all pegged together and the panels slot in and the only nails are ones he made for the hinges, also hand-made by him. To age the oak, he got hold of some pure ammonia (not self-made) and - this needed great care because of the fumes - the oak was put in a tin with the ammonia and it darkened it naturally. It was such a labour of love. I asked him, this time, to make me a music stand, having recently started to learn to play the clarinet. It's made of walnut with a brass adjustable rod which, of course, he'd devised himself. Before taking up the auctioneering trade, he was an engineer and still has his lathe and stuff.

My clarinet, by the way, was my grandfather's and is a Boosey and Hawkes Regent, made in the early 1950s, and so about as old as I am.

30, and Z is on holiday again

We didn't really do family holidays very much, but we'd booked a fortnight in Jersey at the end of August and beginning of September. Weeza was 9 and Al was 7. We decided to fly from Norwich for the convenience. Sad to say, the Sage's father, Pa, had become ill as a result of a respiratory condition brought on by the field of rape growing behind the house. He died in the middle of August. However, Ma insisted that we go away as planned and she had her daughter and Hilda (I'll tell you about Hilda one day) to look after her.

While we were away, the Sage wanted to know what to buy me for my birthday. I'm rubbish at this sort of thing as I never know what to ask for, but I had the good idea of a gold chain. We looked at all the chains in the shop but none was exactly right until the man brought out a tray of second-hand jewellery. One was just right. It was slender enough to put a pendant on but wide enough to wear on its own and it was the right length and colour.

The other shop we loved was one selling stones and fossils. Weeza and Al were fascinated and we went back there several times. We did like Jersey - I'd always lived by the sea but East Anglia has sandy shores and I really like rock pools and caves. I spent happy hours watching the sea anemones and hermit crabs on Jersey.

From the rock shop, the Sage bought a huge piece of bluejohn. This is a stone mined only in Derbyshire. Therefore, as a re-import, no tax was due on its arrival in England. This had been arranged in advance but we had to go through the "something to declare" channel. The Sage and the customs men got on very well and chatted for ages. I was in a dilemma, knowing that my mother and stepfather were waiting for us, but unable to go until we'd actually been let go. So I joined in the conversation, laughing loudly so that my mother would hear and know that, at any rate, we hadn't been arrested.

I liked being 30. I felt grown up at last. Back when I was at school, my lovely Latin teacher Mr Lamb mused once that he believed he had been born middle-aged and it gave me a shock of self-knowledge. I realised that I had not yet grown into the age I was meant to be and this was the reason I felt awkward.

Once we arrived home, Ma told us that she had decided to move from the house she'd spent nearly all her married life in and where her three surviving children had been born. The Sage told me this as we were sharing a plate of sandwiches at the Yacht Club in Lowestoft. It was one of the times I spoke and listened with interest to know what I was going to say. It was as a result of this that we moved to this house. And Ro was born, though that was the Sage's suggestion, received very well by me.