Zoë is busy and purposeful (yeah, right)

 I promised to be upbeat.  So a progress report.  

Of arrangements for the kitchen, I've got the units, work surfaces, floor, window, door and fitter sorted out and am waiting for the fitter to get in touch to tell me when the job can be done, which will inform the ordering of everything else - deposits have been paid.  Weeza thinks I should have tiles behind the Aga, which is fair enough, but I haven't found anything suitable yet.  I haven't given any thought to the colour of the walls.  I've ordered a new, big upright freezer, which is arriving on Saturday.  The reason I'm getting it now is that I need to empty the big chest freezer in order to move it.  Ultimately, I'd like to just have my slightly smaller chest freezer and the upright, but I'll have to juggle between the three for a while first.  I'll get a new tall fridge after the kitchen is installed, to replace the two I have now.  The new freezer will go in the porch to start with, but the tortoise run will have to be moved first, the tots being outside all the time for the next few months.

I moved the lovely oak dresser into the dining room some weeks ago and I've put mostly blue and white china on it - some Lowestoft, also old Delft tiles and some other random china, I don't want it to look too tidy, of course.

A great many books have been moved upstairs, to a room with a very good floor (you know how heavy books are) and the bookcases had to be cut in half to get them into the room - that will be done on Thursday, when Wince is here.  He'll put them together and then the books will go back.  I've set aside a few hundred to dispose of, so far.  

Wink is away for a week and I'm being very busy in her absence.  I'm emptying the kitchen cupboards and taking a lot of things out of the larder, which I use for storage rather than for food.  I'm putting pots and casseroles and plates and so on into the big dining room - unfortunately, I wanted a tablecloth today out of the chest that a lot of heavy stuff is on, so that ain't happening.  I'll just have to wash a tablecloth, dry it and put it back on the table.

I have a lot of papers to sort out.  That's a job for tomorrow.  The start of it, anyway.  There will be a lot I can get rid of and the rest will be properly filed - I always used to keep up with that, but it slipped a while ago and, once that happens, it's very hard to get back under control.

I've got a very big wine rack, a metre wide and I know where it will go in the end but, so far, I'm not sure where it'll be in the meantime.  I want to declutter the kitchen completely in the next few weeks, though it'll make the rest of the house crowded.  I also need to empty the study, so it can't go in there.  

Within the next few weeks, I should hear from the listed building people about my application to alter the drawing room fireplace.  They may need the chap from the council to come round - I don't mind what they tell me to do, as long as I'm allowed to do it.  I really don't want to have to reinstate the bricks that will have to come out to get the old fireplace and chimney liner in, but surely they'll prefer me to have a stove than an open fire.  It's going to make a huge difference to the warmth of the house in winter and be easier and safer - much as I love an open fire - and less polluting too.  I don't have central heating and it really isn't feasible to put it in.

The house will be at sixes and sevens for the blog party, but it really doesn't matter.  It's the company that counts.  And the food.  

Age is more than just a number and we shouldn't pretend

 Various things have been ticked off the list, but it still gets longer.  However, I feel generally optimistic about a lot of them.  And my next post will be a cheerful one about the progress I'm making.

What is less cheering is the matter of the problems facing Pam and Peter, in part because they can't accept how grave these are.  It's nearly 4 months since Peter had his stroke and, though he's a lot better than he was then, he has no movement at all in his right arm or leg, he still needs a small amount of thickener in drinks and not much texture to chew in food, or else he might choke.  He still believes he will recover, but he does little to help that to happen.  He has some simple exercises to do - basically, to lift his bad arm with his good arm, to exercise them both.  He's supposed to do 10 repetitions of 4 exercises, 3 times a day and he doesn't.  I'm not confident he does any of them.  Nor does he do the cycling exercise, where the good leg powers the cycle machine, but it moves the other leg too.  I think he believes he will heal spontaneously, like a cut or a fracture does, but he's not making progress in his physiotherapy sessions either any more, and complains that they hurt him when they move him - it's really that he's not trying very hard, so they have to push and pull him more.  They have made it clear that he has to do the work and ask to be taken to the cycling machine, it's his effort and mental attitude that count.  He's a lovely man, but will relax as long as he can, it is always Pam who's been the driving force.

Yesterday, he was very upset, because he had been told that he won't be likely to drive again and that the DVLA should be given his licence back.  He asked Pam if she thinks he's fit to drive and she said no.  He said, she had really disappointed him by saying this, as a quite hurtful criticism.  Yet he cannot sit up properly, unsupported.  He can't, for example, sit on the edge of the bed and move to a wheelchair.  He needs a hoist and two people to be moved.  He does nothing to help dress himself or really do anything else.  The OT woman used the fact that, though he can see on his left side, he is unobservant as a result of the stroke and it would not be safe for him to drive.  She kindly didn't point out that he can't even get into the driver's seat.  With a paralysed left leg, he could not move from a chair to a car seat on the driver's side, even if he could then operate the controls.  Which he couldn't.  He's totally in denial, but if he truly faced the situation, he might give up hope.

A social care woman came to talk to them while I was there and I stayed, with permission.  She gave options and their likely costs, which shocked them - as well it might.  Peter is determined to go home and not into a care home, but he has no comprehension - this is not a lack of intelligence or mental ability, but an inability to face up to it - of how disabled he is.  Even Pam, who is facing it more, thinks that, once he's home, she'll get him to do his exercises and it'll transform his abilities.  This is unlikely to happen.  They need various adaptations to the house - mostly, the ground floor is all right, but there are no suitable washing or toilet facilities.  He thinks that the bathroom would be usable, but it wouldn't, the shower is a good size but there's a step to get in it and it's not wide enough for a wheelchair and a carer.  Besides, he hasn't given any thought to how he'd get upstairs.  He wouldn't be safe on a stair lift and the staircase isn't suitable anyway as it has a half landing and the wall is on the wrong side (the staircase splits to left and right at the half landing and the bathroom is on the banister side).  A lift would take up half the landing and half the study and a hoist would then be needed in both the living room downstairs and the bedroom upstairs.  He needs a wet room downstairs instead.  Rather than give up the study, however, he wants to use part of the garage and access it via the utility room.  But the wheelchair doesn't have room to manoeuvre around to that, it would need two tight turns, and a lot of building work would be needed.  Comparatively easy would be conversion of the study to a wet room (the small downstairs toilet is next to it) and I suggested to Pam, on the way home, that she asks her plumber to come round, look at it and give an opinion and say how soon he could do it - they want him to move out in the next few weeks.  She said, he's very helpful, he even kindly offered to drive her over to see Peter if she needs help.  I explained that creating a whole new bathroom is a bit more time consuming than two hours to help her visit her husband, which hadn't occurred to her.  

I'm so sorry for them and I'm doing what I can, whilst not getting emotional about it, which wouldn't help.  The social care person is visiting their house next Thursday and I've offered to be there.  I'll take notes and help to explain.  She said she appreciated my input, when I asked if I was a nuisance when I chipped in and I think she meant it.  

It makes me annoyed when people say 'oh, but age is just a number."  Really, it isn't.  Fine if you're in good health, but even then being 80 is not the same as being 40.  Your attitude and approach to life makes a huge difference, but age counts.  We are all in denial.  I am, I'm not pretending I'm not.  But at least I know it.

Zoë''s busy but excellent day

 It's been a better day than I'd expected.  First I went to Rose's place, to drop of some suitcases as she's moving house tomorrow,  Always lovely to see her, of course.  Then, Wink and I went into Norwich and had a straightforward lunch in the cafe at the Forum, of bread and soup. We went our separate ways after that, as we both had some shopping to do before my optician's appointment.

It became a bit amusing because the chap who did the sight test didn't ask me to remove my contact lens and we mutually apologised, when my eye test make so much little sense.  But even after that was sorted out, my sight has improved, oddly.  I need new glasses and new contact lens, because - excuse me while I speak up - MY EYESIGHT HAS IMPROVED, markedly.

I'm not complacent, just grateful.  I can still read without glasses.  I'm 71.  My sight isn't far from perfect and I have no idea how I've come to be so lucky,  If it all goes tits up in a year or two, you absolutely can remind me that I appreciated it while I had it

I wasn't right about the separate ways at that time, because we both went to the market after lunch, I bought local peas, potatoes, cucumber, raspberries, tomatoes and a few other less local things.  So delicious that I ate most of them raw, rather than waiting for the local crab that was meant to be the main course.

Now, I'm so tired that I've had to edit almost every word in the last paragraph.  Tomorrow, darlings.  I've got a whole lot of library books and, if I have any more energy (spoiler: I haven't) I'll just read.  

If Z's epitaph reads 'She was useful' then Z will be fine with that

 I've booked nearly all the speakers for Nadfas next season, which is September to June.  I'm waiting for two replies and I've kept one more month free, in case someone can't do the month I've suggested.  I've also booked October next year, as that speaker can't come in January.  It's taken hours of work, but I've enjoyed it.  I wish I could book all the speakers I want, but there are only ten months when we meet.

One speaker has a disability and walks with a frame, so I'm just making sure all the arrangements will work, which I'm sure won't be a problem.  There's level access to the theatre, as long as he can manage a gradual slope and he can stay at ground level instead of the stage.  The pub where we have lunch is an old building, with several steps down from the road, but there's level access from the car park and we'll ask for lunch in the dining room rather than the smaller room we usually have to ourselves.  You know, I've been put on this earth to be useful, it's what I'm best at.  

I woke up early, around 5 o'clock, though I didn't get up for a couple of hours because I hate getting up early.  It's now 6pm and I'm feeling almost ready for bed, which is silly.  Sometimes, after rising early, I need a nap before noon.  Which reminds me, the chickens are still being such good girls.  They're thrilled to go out and croon happily all day in the garden, but put themselves to bed in the middle of the afternoon. 

Tomorrow, I'm taking some boxes and suitcases over to Rose, because she's moving house on Tuesday.  She hasn't got all her furniture where she is, as it was a temporary home, but clothes, books and so on take up more boxes than you'd think.  After seeing her, Wink and I will mooch around Norwich for a while and then I'll have an eye test, just a routine one.  Then back the next day to be useful again, Nadfas on Wednesday, return to Norwich to the dentist on Thursday morning and then back to take Pam to visit Peter - I'm assuming that, as I haven't been in touch yet.  Friday, meeting Weeza - yes, in Norwich again - to choose tiles for the kitchen and I may have time to go into the wallpaper shop too. 

I seem to have offered to cook for 50 people for Sunday, but I need to check the arrangements.  It's just slow-roast pork overnight, as far as I know, but I may have volunteered myself for more.  Useful, you see.  It's what I am.  

Z expands

 As the header says, the blog party will be on 16th August.  As always, guests are welcome to stay, the more people here, the happier `I am.  How chaotic the house will be is uncertain, but no one comes here expecting any sort of tidiness and it'll just be wilder than usual.  

My children telling me that I shouldn't worry about moving, but prepare the house for the long term has taken away a pressure that I didn't know I felt.  I'm planning to use the whole house, in a way I don't usually.  When you've got more bedrooms than you need to sleep in, you tend to shut them up.  But why should I?  So I'm moving more bookcases into the furthest bedroom and I'll also move Tim's big tv and hifi system there and it'll be given a new purpose.  It'll make room in the study, which will be another dining room too.  That'll make three.  It's ideal for the mornings as it faces east and south.  It will also be something of a kitchen extension and still be a study, so it's just a room for me to eat breakfast and lunch in - the reason my children realise there's little chance of me downsizing is becoming clear.

It's not that I have any objection to moving somewhere smaller, it's just that nothing suitable is ever built.  People want somewhere big enough for their nicest furniture and they don't want steep staircases and they do want some privacy.  They want at least one spare room, a study, a dining room and storage space.  But people who have a family and are looking to upsize want the same thing.  Starter homes are not suitable for people preparing for old age.  Narrow cloakroom that there's no chance of getting into with a walking frame, a narrow, steep staircase that's dangerous to come down, with no space for a stairlift and the bathroom never has a shower that an old person can use, not if they need a chair or someone to help them.  The retirement complexes that are built are certainly usable and I've got friends who are very happy there, but they're a nightmare to sell, if the owner needs care or dies, and huge service charges are payable, even if no one is living there.  Not that it would suit me, at any age.  But anyway, I'm planning to spread out right here.

Z cracks on

 Right up until the day before I planning to leave, I intended to go to Wales.  But I hadn't contacted the people I'd meant to call on, so I knew that my heart wasn't in it, as I said in the previous post.  If I'd gone to Scotland, I'd have had my laptop and wifi, but I wouldn't have any internet in Wales, apart from occasionally on my phone.  I wouldn't get anything done and I really couldn't spare the time, though I wanted to go.  Then, on the night before I was due to leave, I felt faint again - in the bathroom as I was getting ready for bed.  I managed to sit down (on the toilet, not the floor) and I think I did faint, though I didn't fall.  It was the soan papdi that did it.  It's so delicious.  I had opened a box (that I'd had for ages and it needed to be used, I convinced myself).  I'd eaten a bit every night or two, but it doesn't keep all that long - which was why I'd resisted it for a year or so - and that night, I'd eaten two large cubes.  I think it was all the sugar.  I don't normally eat much sugar and I think my blood sugar rushed up and then crashed.  Lesson learned.  I'd also learnt my lesson from the time I fainted at the top of the stairs.  Once I felt well enough to move, I crawled across the landing to my bedroom.

Of course, driving 350 miles the next day was not a good idea, so I waited, just in case it was something more than that and I was getting a virus of some sort - and decided to stay home.  I had written a lengthy to-do list and asked Wink to enquire pointedly about progress every day.  I've cracked on, too.  I've written the newsletter, emailed and booked a couple more speakers, emailed and confirmed arrangements with next week's speakers, written up the feedback for the last speaker.  I've emptied the L'toft china cabinets and sorted out the porcelain.  I'm in the process of emptying the two big bookcases in the study, in preparation for taking them upstairs - this is going to be quite a job, I'm not sure if it's possible without sawing one in half first.  I've chosen and paid for the kitchen flooring, which will be put in the study too as I'm opening up the doorway between that room and the kitchen.  I've got the kitchen units and worktop chosen and am waiting for the quote before ordering.  I've had a quote from the decorator and accepted it.  Weeza kindly came over yesterday to help me with the listed building form.  It's not finished, I still have some writing to do, to send to her, we need some info from the woodburner firm and she has photos and plans to upload.  

There's still a lot on the list, but none of this would have been done if I had gone away.  I'm sorry to say that I didn't tell Pam of my change of plans, as I'd then have found myself offering to take her to the hospital and, as she knew she'd have to make other arrangements, I've left it at that.  I won't tell her.  It'd hurt her feelings and I feel quite bad about it already.  I love her and Peter and I'm very willing to take her, but I needed time to get on with things.  I'm also busy next week, but I'll make time for them on Thursday, after going to the dentist.  

I finally let the chickens out today.  They could have gone out earlier, but one of Wink's chooks had, we're not sure how, managed to get out and she'd vanished.  We thought a fox must have got her.  But, several days later, she came back.  We think she'd laid an egg, sat on it and then was hungry so came for some food.  So it wasn't a daytime fox - but then we had rain and wind, so I left the girlies indoors.  Today, however, I opened the door of the run.  The six chickens in the run were thrilled and came out at once and I left the door open.  Eight more were in nest boxes, being lazy.  But later, when I went to check, four of those were outside too.  All but two came in at 5 o'clock and those were having such a lovely scratch in the compost heap that I left them.  The good girls came back a while later and all is well.  Scrabble is now over 10 years old and still looking fine.  She loves being hand-fed mealworms, but joins in with the others when I feed them treats and she is never picked on.  They're nice-natured bantams and don't bully old or weaker chickens although, if you watch for a while, you see there's a pecking order.  I make sure they all get their fair share. 

Z's trip is in the balance

 I'm struggling to take a week off, there's just so much to do.  I'll see how it goes.  I have made a list, so it may make more sense to stay and deal with it than to have it facing me on my return.

Of most concern at present is the lack of reply to three emails.  One is to the lecturer on Wednesday week, just to confirm arrangements.  The others are potential lecturers in October and December.  If they can't come, I need to find someone else fairly rapidly.  Or sometwo.  I'll give it one more day and send a polite nag.  I shouldn't have to.  I've rechecked their email addresses.  Even if they're on holiday, who doesn't check emails?  Or, if that's impossible, have an out of office reply?

Tomorrow, I'll continue to plod through my list.

Z makes quite vague plans, but they won't be vague for long

 I'm finally getting around to booking Nadfas speakers for the autumn.  I should have done this earlier, but going on holiday in late March scuppered me.  However, I'm sorted out now and have a few back-ups if anyone isn't free.  Once they're booked, I'll do next year until June, which is a priority for the next few weeks, then until the end of next year because I've got so many people I want - actually, I could easily book 20 people, but I only have 10 places a year.

Rose is coming over tomorrow, which will make Wince very happy as they're fond of each other and he misses her.  He has a dry sense of humour and they teased each other.  I'm sure nothing will have changed there.  I'm picking her up from the bus in Yagnub and she's planning to sort out the things I have stored for her, as she's expecting to move house quite soon. I hope she'll come to this year's blog party, but she's not sure at present.  The blog party will be in August, probably the 16th or the 23rd, but possibly a weekend either side.  I waited ages before planning it because I was waiting to hear from Ronan about holiday dates and now I'm checking with people who hope to come.  I'll confirm before long.  I don't think that any former bloggers read this blog but, of course, you're all welcome if you can make it to sunny south Norfolk and, if the date matters, let me know.  Nothing has been confirmed yet, but it will be soon.

As will my holiday next week, within 24 hours, I hope.  

Z is hopeful

 It must be said that Blogger is a blessed nuisance.  It always logs on with an email account that isn't my main one, so I have to alter it and then choose which blog I want to add to it.  When I have posted the update, it then reverts to the wrong account, so I have to change and sign in again if I want to reply to a comment.

You'd think that they're trying to kill blogging, innit?

Anyway, never mind,  It may be that, this time next week, I'll be in Scotland.  I hope so.  But, if the plans don't work out, they will do later in the year and I'll be in Wales instead next week.  I think Scotland, though.  Mostly, I want to go back to the Burrell Collection, near Glasgow.

Lovely Blue Witch has invited me to stay on the way north (worth going for this alone!) and then I hope to stay in Glasgow - I haven't booked a hotel yet, but there's availability - and then get about by public transport.  Then I hope to go north to visit friends in Fort William.  Their daughter and family live in Glasgow, so I hope to see them too.  But it's half term, so they might all be really busy and I won't know until Wednesday night or Thursday.  I'm relaxed.  It'll all work out.  If I end up visiting Scotland twice in a summer, then that seems a pretty good option too, as I love Scotland and haven't been there anywhere near as many times as I should in my fairly long life.

Z the former saver

 The house isn't falling apart of course, but it's not in its best shape.  Several rooms need redecorating and updating, especially the kitchen.  As soon as my children told me I need a new kitchen - that is, the next day - I went off to the kitchen company that my daughter used some years ago and is still pleased with and talked to Jonathan.  He came along, having made notes, to measure up.  We talked again and a week later I went to discuss his preliminary plans.  After a couple of hours, he had amended his drawings somewhat, I'd listened to him and he'd listened to me.

Since then, Al and family have helped me move furniture, including the dresser out of the kitchen.  Last night, I texted the joiner and the decorator and we're making some progress.  By Monday, I'll have spoken to the flooring company.  I hope to have tracked down the local kitchen fitter too.  Then I need to go back to the wallpaper company that I visited when I still thought I'd do some wallpapering myself.  It's not going to happen, which is a pity as I love wallpapering and do it perfectly.  The decorator has looked round and will send me a quote.

I'll probably use all my cash savings this year, but I'm relaxed about that.  My income is adequate and I've got more savings tied up.  I've never overspent in my life.

When I had my first Saturday job, my wages were less than £1 a day.  But this was 55 years ago and I was still at school and it wasn't unreasonable.  My wages went up by inflation plus an age-related increase every year, I had 2 paid weeks (single days, of course) a year plus all public holidays (the holiday was usually on a Monday but the library closed for the weekend).  I was very lucky, as I loved the job too.  Working with books, what could be better?

Anyway, it was just after my father died unexpectedly and, until the estate was sorted out, my mum was very short of money.  So, when I got my monthly pay cheque, the first thing I did was buy a treat.  It was usually food because, in the circumstances, that was more of a help than anything else.  No one suggested it, least of all my mother, who wouldn't have accepted money either.  I usually bought steak or grapes or something useful and normally unaffordable.  With the rest, I had a rule (I was an odd child).  Obviously, there were some unavoidable everyday expenses (though my mother kept me of course, I was a schoolchild and she paid for what I needed) but, if I wanted to buy clothes, for instance, then I wouldn't spend more than half my money.  If a dress cost £4 then I had to have £8.  In practice, I had to save up for three months for this, by which time I didn't want the dress any more.  So I bought books instead.

This was just my instinct, which I didn't tell anyone about, but it was surprisingly sensible, from a young woman who was quite immature and also in a state of shock.  1970 started dreadfully and just kept getting worse.  I suppose I was keeping myself together by self-control.  Anyway, it's stood me in good stead, because I knew from the start that I had to take responsibility for myself.  I was also a peculiar child and, now, I wish I'd been a bit more relaxed about life.  Poor kid.

Z takes control

 The title is nonsense of course, no control involved to speak of.  However, in relative terms, I'm less out of control.

I watched all 11+ hours of presentations and made notes on every one.  Quite brief ones, sometimes "too far" or "too dear" and once, "oh dear" but otherwise the cost of the lecture and an indication of my interest.  A few, I jotted down on a notepad as fairly definite.  Next, I need to bring them down to a shortlist to share with the committee and then, once they've been chosen, I start writing to ask if they're free when I want them to come.  At least it's all done by email nowadays and not telephone, which would be a trial.

Also, I've texted the local painter and decorator and he's coming over tomorrow afternoon to see what I want done.  A lot is the simple answer.  I've also texted the chap who I hope can do the kitchen window, but he's very busy and I just need to know.  Once I've got going with all that, I need to find another carpenter to do some cupboards and then a builder and a kitchen fitter and someone to do flooring and tiling (that may be the builder)...I can see why I've put off starting.  

I've got so much else on my plate, but all this had better come first.  I also want to fix the date of the blog party, which will be in August and I'm hoping to get away for the last week of this month, but before I decide about that, I have to email a couple of people.

There was a time when I would have just got on with it.  Now, it's enough to make me want to panic.  But it's all about self-control at the Zedery, innit?

Zoë has square eyes

 I probably have said, a while ago - but can't look it up because it's on the blog I can't get at for now - that I arrange the programme for our local branch of Nadfas.  While I was away in Mexico, the annual Directory Day took place.  There are a good many speakers who are registered to the society - they're all independent of it but, if accepted by an auditioning process, they go in the Directory and the programme secretary of each individual branch can book whoever they like for their annual programme.  I'm not sure if I've made that quite clear, but I hope you gather what I mean.

Anyway, it was an online process this time, which meant that they could take many more lecturers, over two days, each with two minutes to speak (the new lecturers get three minutes).  A total of 11 hour-long sessions, plus a few more who were added later.  I'm finally getting around to watching the entire process.  Of course, not all in one go, but I've seen 8 hours worth over two days and made notes on every single one.  In some cases, it's been simply 'too far' or 'too expensive' and never more than a sentence, but I'm doing the whole job conscientiously.  All this for nine lectures (I've already booked one).  In addition to typing the notes, I'm jotting down on paper the ones I think are definites and highlighting in red the typed ones I think I may look at again for my long list.

I'm really late with all this, I should have speakers booked up to Christmas (September to December) and only have the first one, as yet.  So, now I've started, I have to crack on.  I thought I might manage a final hour tonight, but it's nearly half past nine and, well, no.  I can manage another in the morning, maybe two.    It doesn't seem fair, not to watch everyone - there are more than 250 videos altogether.

So, that's what I've mostly been doing today.  I've got two computer monitors in front of me, so that I can watch the videos on one and look up the details of each speaker and make notes about them on the other.  With a pad of paper next to me, of course.  I'll finish watching on Wednesday and then get going with the choices.  It's no wonder I never watch television.

15, 16, maids in the kitchen

 Let's start with the kitchen - or rather, two days earlier.  I'd asked my children to come over without their families, not to leave anyone out but to minimise distraction.  We talked a bit and then the conversation turned to my future.  I'm 71 and I want to stay here until 2028, as that's the 100th anniversary of the Sage's parents buying this house.  After that, perhaps I should finally downsize?  Thing is, if I'm going to, I need to start preparing as there will be a lot to do and, unless there's a dire emergency, it can't be done in a year or so.

I've got a couple of friends now and I've always had friends, for years, whose families have recommended that they should move out, buy something smaller and more sensible and then they can enjoy their remaining years and they won't be a worry to those who love them.  But the families don't ever think it through.  If you've lived in the same house for decades, there's a lot of Stuff to consider.  It's daunting.  So is finding somewhere smaller, if you aren't ready for a retirement complex.  A nice 3 bedroom house with a manageable garden, room for your good (but unsaleable) Victorian furniture, the stairs not too steep, the garden just big enough - that's what the couples moving up from their starter homes want too, less the Victorian furniture.  So it's expensive, with selling your house that needs redecorating, getting house clearance people in because, though it breaks your heart, thousands of books and a good, solid table and chairs that no one wants and you won't have room for, the cost of moving, the stamp duty and so on - "just move' isn't helpful.

To my surprise, though I hadn't expected anyone except possibly Al to say that, I didn't really expect "don't move.'  But what when I die, I asked?  It'll be hell for you to sort out.  It was made fairly clear that their stress about me moving would be greater.  I can put in a lift, buy in help, get contractors to do the garden when Wince retires.  Not that any of this is imminent.  Oh, okay.  And, they all said, start with a new kitchen.

My kitchen has needed an upgrade for a long time.  But I couldn't face the disruption.  However, my children have spoken, so I have listened and acted.  There's an awful lot to do, I am not sure if I'm even capable of blogging the process.  But I've made a start and have got a handle on the basic design (I'm changing a lot.  Not the Aga but almost everything else is relocated or vastly altered).  I hope to have it done by November.

Z, always appreciating an oxymoron, is rigorously lazy

 Of course, mentioning the various things I want to write updates on, this is about none of them.

It's half past eight on Friday evening and I'm sitting in bed with my laptop, a cup of tea and a glass of iced water.  A couple of years ago, I fainted at the top of the stairs and woke up in the hallway.  Since then, I have been rigorously lazy after a blood donation.  I arrived home, went to give some food to the chickens (I had brought leftovers home from lunch, mostly pastry and bread), told the barn cats it was too early and went indoors.  

The tortoises had been living outside, but it's been so chilly and they'd just buried themselves, so they're having a few days of indoor comfort.  So I gave them a bit more food and then I went indoors and sat myself on the sofa with my feet up.  This was at 3pm and I've not done much, physically, since.  I've caught up on some paperwork, though.  And then Wink cooked my dinner and now, as I said, I'm in bed.  Not sleepy, but I'm not risking anything (I have to go and wash and clean my teeth, though).

While I was lounging, I heard a noise from upstairs.  The cat was on my lap and I couldn't tell what it was but, after a while, I suspected a pigeon down the chimney.  Indeed it was, daft thing.  Unhurt, but trapped.  I drew the curtains across every window but one, which I opened, but the tiny-brained creature flapped all over the room, crashing into ceiling and walls, rather than just following the light.  Eventually, by luck, it swooped out.  Last time, I had to trap it into a corner (a different bird, I presume) and pick it up.  I'm really glad I didn't come up and find it now, or else be woken at daybreak by it.  

This is the first time I've ever brought the laptop to bed.  I did bring my iPad occasionally, after Russell died, to watch a programme, but tv in bed has never been my thing.  Bed used to be for three things, now only for one, ie sleep (we won't count the wakeful hours in the night).  Which reminds me, I looked at the sleep app on my phone today, which takes its data from my watch.  My sleeping time has gone up over the past 23 days, to an average of 5 hours, 54 minutes a night.  From 2 hours 45 minutes over the 5 days before that.  However, looking back over the time I've had my watch, since September, some months I've even averaged 7 hours a night and I think that's pretty good.  

Sorry

 I'm here, still alive and well.  It's just busy at the Zedery.

I will have to write some catch-up posts, there's been a lot happening since I was a proper blogger.  Even today, I have to go out in half an hour for a meeting, followed by a drive to Norwich to meet Rose for lunch, then on to take Wink to a hospital appointment.  By the time I come home, it'll be time to catch up with household stuff and animal stuff, then I'll be tired.  

Being tired in the evenings has absolutely scuppered my ability to do anything much.  It's a nuisance.  I seem to be unable to help it. I'm fine in the day.  I won't get into the way of dozing off in front of the tv, though.  I'm not that old.

So, things to write about include:

Tortoises updates

Kitchen news

Lowestoft china news (this is about buying it, which has happened more than I expected)

Visits to London.

It's fine to nag.  It's about the only thing that spurs me to action.

Now, I must plug the computer in for a bit before taking it to the meeting, because I write the minutes.

Mexico Way 6

My final morning here, I'm being picked up to go to the airport in a couple of hours.  I'm the last wedding guest here, the penultimate 8 people left yesterday.  I've packed and am now down in the lounge by the pool.  It's been a really good visit - the wedding, of course, provided many amazing highlights and the trips I took afterwards have been excellent too.  

Chichén Itzá is, of course, incredible.  I wasn't quite prepared for how vast the pyramid is.  If you're thinking of going there, do take on board that the heat is oppressive and the sun is very strong.  Not somewhere to go if you've got any breathing or heart problems.  The city of Tulum is easier, as it's by the ocean, so there's always a sea breeze.  I'll try to write more about the excursions when I'm home and can more easily upload photos.  

I haven't sorted out the other blog yet, I guess I shouldn't have expected to be bothered while I'm on holiday.  Once I've done it, I'll update it with what I've written here - but I'll also talk to Ronan about possibly exporting everything from the past few years to this site, as it's been on my mind for a while, long before the problems.  As it's a paid-for site, everything will be lost completely if the annual fee isn't paid for any reason and it seems a pity.  But that's for another time.

Although everything is very good at this hotel, I'm confirmed in my view that a sunbathing poolside holiday isn't for me in usual circumstances, after a few days.  There's a lot to be said for an all-inclusive holiday if you have children with you and need to know your budget, of course, but I'm very glad I booked the excursions once I was here by myself.  I've had enough of swimming pools and bathing in general and I've even eased off on the alcohol - a waiter coming to offer another drink every half hour is very nice, but I don't need it.  

I also wonder what happens to the leftover food?  The staff are amazing, very good quality food of all varieties - of course, in the restaurants it's cooked to order, but there are a couple of well-packed buffets too and there must be a lot left.  

I was pleased to see an agouti yesterday evening, on my way to dinner.  It was quite small, but I don't know how large they grow.  I'm envious of Charlotte, who saw a humming bird one day, I must walk round where there are trees in flower to see if I can spot one too.  When out and about, I've seen a few dogs but only one cat, which is surprising.  Maybe they sleep in the day and come out at night.  

Miriam and Zach set up a WhatsApp group for all the guests and it's agreed that it'll be kept - a lot if friendships were made and honestly, the warmth and fun of all this will stay with me forever.  Everyone was so lovely!  I've acquired an extra family myself - I'm not related to Miriam at all though, as I've said, our family friendships have gone down the generations for around 120 years.  But having now befriended the Scottish branch, we've arranged to meet over the summer - quite possibly both at home and in Scotland, if I can manage to get up there - and I feel like an extra granny to Kit and her brothers.  Also, Katie is quite interested in the tortoises, but was going to leave it until she got home before broaching the subject with her partner and son.  So we'll see.  I'll send her more information and some pictures.  It won't be until the summer, anyway.  

My flight leaves mid-afternoon and I'm due at Gatwick around 8.30 tomorrow morning, British time (which is 6 hours ahead of Mexico, thanks to Summer Time kicking in last Sunday).  Then I have to drive home, picking up some china for the auction on the way.  See you on the other side, darlings.

Mexico Way 5

 I'd brought four possible outfits for the wedding celebration - I usually make a point of not overpacking, but I just didn't have much time to think about it in advance.  I had looked for a new dress, but there was absolutely nothing suitable in the shops.  Dresses that might look right for a beach wedding in a hot country just aren't about for a short person like me, it seems - not in Norwich, anyway.  Anything not closely fitted is huge and long.  So the skirt I wore for the night before the wedding was one I bought in Yagnub last year, with a M&S teeshirt that I ordered online but was, by good luck, the exact shade of pink I wanted.  I'd bought another pink one that went pretty well, but this was just right.  For the wedding day, I wore the dress I bought for the first Indian wedding I went to, in 2000.  It gets hauled out a couple of times a year and the only reason it's not "vintage" is because I'm the original owner.  As it is, it's just "old."  But I'll probably wear it for the rest of my life.

As I said, the wedding was magical, very much in the Mim and Zach style, but the details were left to each person who took part, so there were many lovely surprises for them.  Afterwards, cocktails and a buffet dinner next to the beach and then dancing.  All the children stayed up for most of it, some for all - they were having such a great time and were very happy.  

The next day, we wound down - unfortunately, Miriam was bashed in the head when in the pool by an errant volleyball and had to lie down for the rest of the day, though she was up and about in the evening.  I didn't see her and, clearly, will have to visit Canada.  Farewells to as many people as possible and I posted a thanks and bon voyage on the group WhatsApp, as I was leaving for Chichén Itzá early next morning.  

It happened that Katie (another bridesmaid, from England), Matt and young Henry were on the same trip, so we had lunch together, which was nice.  I don't mind being on my own, but it's good to have company.  James and Christine have also stayed on and we're seeing each other for lunch.  They're Mim's Scottish cousins and their daughters and grandchildren had come along too.  One of the daughters is an artist, she  had painted and then had made the table runners for the wedding dinner.  Her website is here.

It just so happens that, years ago when Weeza had just moved to her present home, she wanted new bedlinen and asked me for a duvet set - it was one of Fiona's, though Weeza had no idea that she was anything to do with Charlotte's family.  I told Fiona the story, she was very pleased.  She and her husband have possibly the most adorable children in the world (apart from my family, obvs).  The two boys had a whale of a time at the wedding party and the youngest, Kit, is the most charming little girl who chatted to me as if we were old friends and ran up for a hug at her bedtime.  I'm in love.  I've exchanged details with J&C and we hope to visit each other (they're in North Scotland, so it's some way to travel).

I'm meeting them for lunch, so I must take my laptop back to my room and trot off to find them.  I'll leave my sunhat - I suppose I should call it a sombrero which I'm in Mexico - in the room too, as it's too windy to wear it safely.  We're right by the Caribbean but I don't complain about the wind - so very hot and humid inland, it's exhausting, though the actual temperature is much the same.  I don't really mind hot and humid, but fresh air is better.

Mexico Way 4

 This will be the third day of celebrations and tomorrow, the majority of people will leave for home.  It's been a most wonderful, magical wedding.  Miriam and Zach have been exceptional and so have all their family and friends.  

With a wedding to think about, you wouldn't believe that a couple could be the most considerate, vibrant hosts too, but they've looked after everyone, made sure everyone has been introduced to everyone else and joined in all the fun.  On Friday they had a rehearsal on the beach - I wasn't involved in that and went to the quieter adult pool instead.  In the evening, they hosted a dinner party for everyone, where there were speeches and so on too, and then we finished the evening dancing.  Yes, Z danced.  It would literally have been rude not to.  Even Charlotte, who has limited standing and moving abilities, found a pole to hold on to so that she could dance.

Charlotte has done fantastically well this week.  Although her balance centre is badly damaged and nothing can be done to cure that, it isn't completely destroyed (my friend Jo had that done when she was given antibiotics in hospital, with a known, but extremely rare side effect.  She had to use crutches for the rest of her life).  She's happy and relaxed and has also been taking a lot more exercise than usual, which she feels is strengthening her legs.

Yesterday was the wedding celebration.  It didn't start until 5 o'clock because of the heat of the sun earlier (even I had some pink on my back yesterday morning, despite my frequent applications of Factor 50, though it's gone now) but they'd had all the formal family photos done earlier.  When I say formal, I mean posed - as a family, they're anything but formal and Zach and Miriam themselves are exuberant.  

In fact, they were already married, back in Toronto, to get over any future questions of legality and so that they didn't have an extra level of complication here.  So Zach's sister acted as celebrant, which she did superbly.  

I don't know if I've mentioned that Zach is an actor - he's best known for a Canadian TV series called F@mily L@w, which I've not seen, but I'll have to watch, obviously - and Miriam is a scriptwriter and producer.  She has lived in the US, when she was at university in Florida, and in Australia, as well as her home countries of Britain and Holland and she has the knack of making and keeping friends forever.  That we all travelled from everywhere shows how she is loved.  Zach is her equal in this too, they really are a great couple.

I will add photos in due course, but I'll have to find the connector to upload them from my phone, as I don't really want to fill up my Cloud usage with all the junk photos I never delete from my phone.  Will I ever get sorted out?  It seems unlikely.

Mexico Way 3

 I think that everyone has arrived for the wedding on Saturday by now.  The Australian contingent turned up today, those from Scotland came last night.  

Whilst not pretending to be a better swimmer than I am, at least I can join in and not stand, looking awkward.  I've had enough sun and cocktails for an hour or two, however.  I'm sitting in my room, eating a banana instead.  I'm almost tempted to go to bed for a nap, but that could lay me out for a couple of hours and stop me sleeping tonight.  So I'll have a walk, now it's not so warm - it's actually been quite windy today - and then read for a while, until people start to gather together.  I've probably met about half the guests by now and maybe have around 20-something names pegged.  

I've booked a couple of excursions for next week, which should be enjoyable.  I'd planned to have a spa treatment day on Tuesday, until I saw all the prices and now I'm thinking about it.  Charlotte is leaving on Monday, so I'll have to say goodbye to her and anyone else who's going then too, because I'll leave for Chichén Itzá just after 7am.

Mexico Way 2

 By the time Charlotte was up, showered and dressed, it was 9 o'clock, which is a perfectly civilised time to have breakfast, but it felt like lunchtime to me and, though I don't tend to get hangry, I was decidedly hanxious and not feeling very well.  Fruit and yoghurt put me right and I carried on with cheese, onion, guacamole, salsa - actually, it was all fairly random.  But I'm not entirely sure about some of the Mexican breakfast dishes (for breakfast, that is. Fine later in the day) and I don't fly thousands of miles for egg and bacon.  I'll investigate the tortilla station and the omelette station during the rest of the week.  

Afterwards, we started to meet more members of the 111-strong wedding party, including the bride and groom.  I had a lovely day.  Everyone is so friendly and happy.  People have travelled from many countries, there are whole families, the youngest child being 104 days old and adorable.

We've all got inclusive packages, which makes food and drink easy.  There are different levels, mine being slightly higher than Charlotte's as I get a half bottle of tequila in my room every three days, plus some money-off vouchers for the spa (these will amount to 10%-20% off, so obviously the aim is to encourage me to spend more).

Today, there's the stag and hen dos, or rather bachelor and bachelorette parties.  They've hired a boat for a luxury trip.  Both the men and women on the same boat, which is a nice idea.  I don't know what I'll do yet, except that I want to book a couple of trips for next week.  Can't come without seeing some archaeological sites.  I might make it into the pool, who knows?  Yesterday, I opted out as, by the time we'd chatted and relaxed, it was after noon and the sun was too strong for me without a hat.

In the afternoon, we made bunting from cloth provided by various people.  Katie, chief bridesmaid, donated three dresses from previous weddings where she was a bridesmaid - they were all lovely, but you can't really wear them again.  Eventually, rather late, a group of us went for a Japanese meal, which was delicious.  In an international hotel, one might as well eat what's there - there are several restaurants - and not be hung up over local food, as it won't be local at all, anyway.  

The only fly in the ointment is a blister on my foot.  I brought some sandals - I had two identical pairs as they were comfortable and I liked them, and wore one pair last year, so brought the second.  Unfortunately, they rubbed.  Not much, but it's hot and humid and a fairly long way from my room to the hotel complex and walking there and back has done me no good at all.  I do have plasters and blister plasters,  but I need my foot to have recovered by next week.  

Mexico Way 1

 I've brought my laptop, which I don't usually do on holiday, but I'm expecting to wake up fairly early, so hoping to get some work done then, which won't take up the rest of the day and my thoughts - that is, I won't be worrying about all there is to do when I get home again.

Charlotte (aka MoB) had her centre of balance damaged some years ago.  She's not quite sure what happened to cause it, but it was trauma to the head in some way, not illness or a side effect of a drug.  Anyway, though she can walk, she is quite wobbly.  She'd booked assistance at the airports, but it was still useful for me to be there to help.  Unfortunately, I'm staying on longer than she is, so she'll have to make sure she isn't left alone on the way back.  She's resourceful and not hesitant about asking for help, but I do feel bad about it.

The journey was fine, right up until baggage reclaim, which took forever.  We were among the last 30 to get our bags back and then, unfortunately, we'd booked transport to the hotel with different companies, so I had to abandon her.  I haven't heard about it yet, we didn't catch up with each other later in the evening except by WhatsApp.

The good thing about travelling west is that you can have a lie-in and still be up early.  Now half past seven, I read in bed, had a leisurely shower, unpacked, made coffee (nice coffee machine) and I'll text MoB to see if she's up yet.  She must have been exhausted last night, everything is more tiring when you have a disability.

The room is very comfortable and spacious, with a balcony.  There's also a sofa with a coffee table and a small dining table with two chairs and a desk with another chair, which is a lot more sensible than many hotel rooms.  Of course, the bed is huge and very comfortable - it's true that the bed is really the point of a hotel room, but all hotels really go to town about that now.  Lovely quality bedlinen and I slept soundly - not too surprising, I'd actually been up for 24 hours at least, though I had an hour or two's sleep on the plane.

Ronan - not sure if I mentioned this - flew into the same airport a day earlier, for a business trip.  Sadly, he can't stay on - I asked if he could, it would have been lovely, if only for a couple of extra days, if he could have come on here.  But he's got the children this weekend and work on Monday, so it's really not feasible.

This may take a while...

 I have to submit an account recovery form and that wants a copy of a bank statement or utility bill, plus photo id.  I'm fairly sure they never asked for that when it was first set up, so I'm puzzled, but there we go.  Anyway, I don't have time at present.  I'm taking my laptop with me while I'm away, as I've got a lot of work to catch up on (this is dismal, I've never had to do that before) and I'll try to work it all out over the next fortnight.  I'm still getting emails about my account from the website host but, when I try to sign in, it says they have no record of that email address.  

Anyway, it's all been quite chaotic here, for one reason and another, every one of which is because I've been helping people.  Never a good deed goes unpunished, as they say.  I have, at any rate, managed to get my clothes sorted out and my papers together (not the work ones, but the travel documents) and it's suggested that I take US dollars for tips and so on, which I already had.  I'm not going to get any Mexican money, but will get cash out there if I need to - I don't expect I will.

Once I get back into my blog account, I'm seriously considering returning to this one.  I'll have to ask Ro if he can bring all the posts back here - he was able to migrate them from here to there, so it might be possible.  I'm paying for this and getting a poor service.  The host was bought out by another company and I don't think much of it.

I've realised that the hotel I'm going to is a rather dressier place than I'd expected, so I'm packing all my best clothes - not sure which I'm going to wear to the wedding. I have three outfits bought for weddings and I'm taking all of them.  

Next, I have to gaze dolefully at shoes and think, oh well.  They'll do.

Something isn't working and it isn't Z

 Yet again, my other blog isn't available and I don't know what's the matter.  I pay all the fees that are due automatically, I'll have to look into it.  I know some people still have this on their feed reader, but I've already had someone ask what's up with the Razorblade.

I'm rather busy this week - should be doing something completely different at the moment but it's been a distracting morning.  My sister's boiler went off again - it's just the pressure tap, but it shouldn't keep needing to be dealt with and the last time was less than a week ago.  Even then, the nuisance is not doing it, so much as having to get down the loft ladder and go up into the attic, where a previous idiot plumber thought it was a good idea to put the boiler.

Dilly was pregnant at the time so, when the plumber suggested putting the new boiler in the attic, to make more room on the kitchen walls, she protested.  Al and the (not so) Sage went along with the idea, however - I didn't know about this aspect for years and said to her, she should have insisted that I was consulted too, because I'd have said no - and, to make things worse, it was before the days when you had a separate remote control and so, if ever it didn't work or she needed to change the timing, she had to wait for Al because a pregnant woman who isn't great with a loft ladder that's constructed for a man's height can't manage.

When we needed a new boiler, I said I thought it should be down in the kitchen again but the now plumber assured me he'd cured all the faults that the previous plumber had created, so he persuaded me that it would be far simpler to leave it up in the attic.  After it was all done, he showed me how to do the pressure valve.  I was pretty horrified - I haven't had a boiler for decades, because I have the Aga - and asked how often it needed to be done.  He sort of sniggered.  Does one ever learn not to go against one's instincts?  If ever I leave here, I will not have a gas boiler.  

Anyway, I've asked the guy to come round and give the boiler its annual service a month early, because this shouldn't be happening so often.

Wink has been in India for the past 6 weeks and I'm going to Mexico next weekend.  Life is busy here, in the meantime.  

Z lunches out

 I may return to Blogger, my other blog is playing up.  I don't know whether it's my server or Wordpress or what, but I can't get into it tonight and I'm losing patience.

It's now six months since Tim died and his house in Reading is on the market.  It has to be sold, I am not moving there and it would be absurd to keep both of them.  It's a lovely house and would make a wonderful home for a new family, especially if they love to throw parties.  It's perfect for parties.

Today, my sister Wink and I took my younger son Ro out for lunch at his local pub, which was really excellent.  His small children were with us and the children's menu was a decent one, including the option of the Sunday roast that Ro and I had.  The children were adorable and behaved very well.  It's worth getting children used to being in restaurants, if possible, because they learn how to behave in company.  Young Perdita had fish fingers, mashed potato and peas and she pretty well ate the lot, and it was a generous portion.  She's only just two, but she has a very healthy appetite.

I'm lending Ro my car, because I've bought an electric one - I've kept Tim's lovely 14 year old BMW and it is expensive to run, so I've got one that's cheap to run, to balance it.  But Ro could do with a car and it's a decent one, so this makes sense.  We had a quick run with it this morning - it's the first time he's driven an automatic and he didn't quite know what to do with his left hand or foot.  It' won't take long for it to be second nature.  I've always alternated between automatic and a car with a clutch, it's fine ... mostly.  Next time I go to Reading, later this month, I'll go in the BMW and it's fine until, after a long time on the motorway, you come to a junction and, ahem, forget about the clutch.  I haven't actually stalled yet.

If you're used to an automatic, an electric car isn't that different.  A few things to learn, though, no doubt I'll report back.

Sometimes I think that Tim is just behind me, but I don't look back because he isn't.  It's all very dismal and lonely, but of course it is.  I cope as best I can, and my holiday in Atlanta, back in January, was wonderful and did me a lot of good.

Comfort comes in odd ways

 From 21st September

I drove back down to Reading this morning. It was the last thing I wanted to do but I'm having to share my time between Norfolk and here for now. I have a list of things to do over the next few days - notifying all the other companies etc and changing direct debits, getting the house valued, going through music to choose tracks for Tim's funeral and starting to sort things out. First will be his clothes, which will be put into bags, taken back and put into the Scope charity bin at the village hall. He's got a surprising amount of clothes in the wardrobes and drawers, but they're nearly all old because everything he wore most of the time is in Norfolk - where I've got to do the same job.

First, though, I had an appointment to see Tim, to say goodbye. He'd already gone, of course. I talked to him for ten minutes or so and stroked his face and his hand, then left. 

I'd had a bit of time at the house before that, which I used to look for documents, the one I needed being Viv's probate certificate. The solicitor had mentioned that Tim had told her that Viv's name had never been taken off the title deeds of the house - Viv was Tim's late wife. So I needed proof that he was the sole owner. I looked everywhere possible in the house, with no result, so went online to order a replacement. It's a mere £1.50 to access online and is a simple process. I had found Viv's funeral service leaflet so knew the date. But I ran out of time to finish the order and was going to do it later.

Having arrived back, feeling even worse than I had all day, it occurred to me that Tim's office, unused for a few years, was outside in the brick-built shed. It looks like a garage, but inside there are two rooms, the other being a toolshed, and he'd told me that he used to do all Viv's admin when she was an Ofsted inspector, some 20 years ago. Perhaps the papers were there.

It took me a while to find the keys, but I got in there and found a filing cabinet. Neatly labelled files at the top, box files in the lower drawers. It's all there. All his bank accounts and investments and all the papers I needed. Tim didn't really send me there, of course, but I think I'll choose to believe he did, because it's some comfort at a wretched time.

I've rather hit the buffers now, but nice people are coming to clean the house soon, so I'll just clear away anything in their way and then browse through music for a bit. Admin can wait until tomorrow. Lovely friends have invited me over tonight, so I won't be alone this evening. 

Lovely Tim

 People don't update bookmarks and notifications any more - I know that I don't.  I use a feed reader, so at least I know when blogs have been updated, even after several years.  But I touch base here once in a while, if there's something to say that you might feel you'd want to know.

I wish I didn't have this to say today, but I'll have to.  My Tim died a fortnight ago.  It was sudden and unexpected, though he was waiting for an evaluation to decide on treatment for a failing aortic valve.  There isn't much more to say, I've had to repeat the tale too many times already.  He died at his house in Reading, so I'm holding his funeral there and then bringing his ashes back here, where there will be a short service in our local church, where we were married.  

People are looking after me but it's hard to bear it.  There isn't any alternative, there's too much to do.  

Family getting together

 Blogger is becoming impossible.  I don't often write here but I've started a post twice and, after a couple of lines, everything I've written has vanished.  This will be my final attempt.

I've continued to blog on the newer site, of course, but i know some people only have this one marked.  So, a quick update, from the middle of lockdown 2.

Rose and family moved out during the summer from the annexe.  She had been my very welcome guest for nearly six years and her Boy lived there too, once he'd finished university.  A year or so ago, he moved his girlfriend in and then Rose moved her new partner in.  Everyone got on well but the whole thing wasn't really sustainable, especially once lockdown came along and, in the end, Boy and Girl moved to Ipswich and Rose and Man moved nearer to Norwich, but still on the edge of a village next to a field.

We were perturbed about the prospect of the annexe being empty - there was no question of renting it out. The council had allowed me to have a friend living there as a guest, but it's a family annexe, not a letting property and that's fine by us.  It adjoins our house and you have to be very confident of a relationship to have anyone else here.  I didn't have anyone else who I thought I'd welcome except for a short time.  But it suddenly struck me that my sister Wink wanted to move up here and, though she'd been thinking of buying a place - no one thought of taking away Rose's home! - she might like to move in.  So, in short, we asked and she said yes.

It's been several months' process, but she finally moved in this week.  And all is well.  

Z chatters about anything but what's on everyone's mind

What strange times across the world.  I'm blogging (in The Other Place) to take our minds away from it - this has its disadvantages in that I won't have the memories of how it feels to look back on, but I see my role in life as cheering people up, on the whole.  Anyway.  http://razorbladeoflife.co.uk, if you're looking for it.

HNY and all that...

Trying to comment on a friend's blog, I find I've been signed out of Google.  I haven't of course, but I do get signed out of Blogger and it's quite a trick to get back in again.  I come here and I'm signed in but I go elsewhere and I'm not.  Of course, Blogger is free at the point of use, so not important to the mighty Google.

Hope all is well with you.  I do have notifications of a visit a day or so and, though I assume they're from spammers, if you're a real person and prefer me to post here than on my other blog, I could do both.  Let me know.

Z remembers the house - er, hotel - where she was born

A friend said that blogging with Blogger is awkward on a Mac, so I thought I'd have a go; though in fact, she uses an iPad and I'm on the desktop.  The desktop iMac, that is, for you literalists out there.

We went to visit my sister last week, which was a lovely break.  We visited Weymouth one day, where I was born.  LT grew up a bit further along the coast, so knew the town rather better than I did; though everywhere has changed a lot in the past half century.  He decided not to go to his home town of Bournemouth, he thought it would be too depressing.  However, we were rather gratified to discover that Weymouth seafront and the old harbour were much as they had always been.

This is the old harbour. The side where we walked still has cars parked facing the water, but now there are huge sleepers to stop them rolling into the water as well as a kerb at the edge, which is very sensible but, perhaps, removes the little frisson of daredevilry that there used to be.

And here, in the random order that Blogger always loved, are pictures of the Riviera Hotel, where I was born and lived until I was three or four. It looks magnificent as you come round the bend and down the hill but is, unfortunately, marred by the funfair in front. It has been nicely maintained but it's not as smart as you'd think such a fine Art Deco building would be.

Up and running

Not me, darlings, my other blog.  I just couldn't face dealing with it yesterday, though I had plenty of time.  I had a sense of despair at the thought of it.  I'd perked up by the evening however, so looked up the details and cracked on with it this morning.  It took quite some time with a helpful chap in IT support on the host website and now I've got a much better deal for less money.  He tried to point me in the right direction to set that up myself, but I knew that wasn't going to happen and pleaded uselessness.  Just as well I did because, it turned out, there was a fault after all and he had to disable *something or other* to get the blog back.

I appreciate this stalwart old blog, though, and was glad to use it.  So I'll double-post sometimes, for the benefit of those who prefer to come here.  The 'official' site is, again, razorbladeoflife.co.uk, all the same.

Thanks to you kind people for leaving comments while I've been here.

As the Bard said, what's .......

I can't now remember why, at dinner, Tim told me the Italian for onion.  I was intrigued though, because it's nothing like the French, which the English is derived from.  I looked it up in several different languages and I'm still puzzled.  It seems that both the Spanish/Italian/Portugese/Romanian come from the Latin, but so does the French, from a completely different word.

Time was, I'd have done all the research and discovered what I wanted to know.  Now, I'm not sure I can be bothered.  I will remain intrigued, without quite enough zest to mind.

We were talking about names, too.  I know several people who've chosen to change their name, for one reason or another.  Brenda was 70 years old when she finally decided to change to Zella and, such was the strength of her personality, no one ever called her Brenda again.  Sophie was called so by her husband-to-be, who mistook what her name actually was (not his fault) and said that Sophie suited her far more than Janet, and so it does.  Dorothy changed to Jane because Dot rhymed with Stott and she'd been teased for too many years - her mother (and Sophie's) never accepted it though, so which you called her depended on which side of the family you knew better.

Most people seem not greatly to like their given name.  I liked mine, growing up, because of the Z, mostly.  I enjoyed the slash - slash - slash of the Z, like Zorro (I was a child addicted to television, so have always been tolerant of computer games and so on), I liked the ë diaeresis, that the name was a Greek word, that it was distinctive and I didn't mind too much that no one knew how to pronounce or spell it, if they could remember it at all.  I quite happily answered to Snowy, Suzie, Zo or anything else, and still do.  Indeed, my friend Sophie and I were quite used, as adults, to answering to each others' name.

I really do call my sister Wink, or Winkie.  But her name is Melanie, though she's usually known as Mel nowadays.  Why she's Wink is quite another story, however.

Wince

Wince, our gardener, is such a nice man.  He's worked here for nearly six years, having been at the same job from the age of 15 until 60, when he was made redundant because the business closed.  He didn't want to look for another job, so decided to do odd jobs - just what we needed.

He rescued me, many years ago, when I fell into the icy river and, though I could stand, couldn't get out, and we'd always passed the time of day (what an odd expression, but you know what I mean).  He always lived at home with his parents, then his mum, never married, though he has got a girlfriend   and now he lives alone since his mother died a few months ago.  He's very interested in nature, conservation, photography, engineering and music, but it's not easy to know him well, he's quite self-contained.

He was such a help to me after Russell died.  I'd been really struggling to keep the garden going - mostly, the grass cut - for several years but, even though I thought I'd sell and move on, I didn't want the place I'd lived happily for nearly thirty years to be neglected.  So I bought some new equipment and Wince was very pleased with it.  He isn't as much of a gardener as I (theoretically) am, to tell the truth, and has sometimes dug up choice plants when he is carried away with the weeding, but that's accidental.

When he arrives on a Thursday morning, he wants to know if I have a Plan, and professes to be disappointed if I haven't.  I can usually tell what he has in mind, though, because he brings a wheelbarrow with any tools that I don't have and he does - today, it was a hedge trimmer because Rose had some tidying up in mind and Wince correctly surmised that I didn't have many jobs for him.  Often, I've mentioned two or three things that need doing, sometime in the next few weeks at his convenience, and he's done them all by the end of the day.  He just never stops.  Today, having done the pruning and tidying that Rose needed, it suddenly poured with rain - so he took himself off to the barn and split logs until the rain stopped.  Then he said he'd finished an hour early, so wouldn't take a full day's money.  As I said, such a nice man.

Food, glorious...

LX and Vagabonde have triggered more thoughts of proper English food - how could I not have mentioned scones?  British scones, not American ones, which are more like our drop scones, I think.  Simply butter rubbed into flour with a little sugar and mixed into a dough with milk.  You can add an egg and you can add some raisins or sultanas, but you don't have to.  Gently roll or pat it out, not too thin, cut into rounds with a cutter or simply divide into pieces with a knife, put on a baking sheet and into a hot oven for ten minutes or so, while you put jam and whipped cream or butter into dishes and make tea.  Simply perfect.

We love our cakes, the traditional English cooks.  They tend to be variations on a theme - whisked sponge cakes, either baked in a round tin or in a flat rectangular one, when the filling is spread on and they're rolled into a Swiss roll; or else creamed butter and sugar, egg added, then flour, with whatever flavourings you want.  The tradition is to cook in two shallow round trays, as a Victoria sandwich (you can sandwich with fruit and cream or butter icing) - but it was much this mixture that I steamed into a sponge pudding.  We loved fruit cakes, as everyday or rich as we wanted - I don't often make cakes, but when I do, the simplest is a boiled fruit cake, where you put the butter, sugar, dried fruit and some water in a pan, simmer it for a while, then cool and add eggs and flour, then bake.  There are pound cakes, Dundee cakes, Simnel cakes, gingerbread, parkin - parkin is a fabulous one, made with oatmeal - lemon drizzle, chocolate sponge, coffee and walnut ... it's a wonder we're not all fat.

Oh.  So we are.

We like preserves, too.  Do other countries make chutney?  I don't know if they do, to the same extent.  I've had mango chutney in India and some very spicy pickles.  Tim and I had pickled walnuts with our pâté and cheese for lunch.  I've never made them, because you have to have a walnut tree so that you can pick the walnuts when they're very young, before the shells have started to harden.  My father loved pickled walnuts but I didn't eat them for years, until I noticed a jar in the local deli.  Now, I buy them until they've sold out that season's produce.  Piccalilli (sp?) is one that I've never seen in another country.  I've not made that either, but it's mixed vegetables in spiced vinegar with the addition of turmeric, basically, I think.  My mother didn't make preserves generally, except pickled red cabbage.  I've not found the perfect red cabbage yet.  I made some, but I'd had to get a commercial mix of pickling spices and it had too much chilli in, it was wrongly proportioned and wasn't a great success.  We do make quite a range of chutneys and pickles, though.

I mentioned toad in the hole - the same batter is used to make Yorkhire pudding, which is so delicious that a lot of people nowadays eat it with any roast meat.  Correctly, it only goes with roast beef and is made in one big tin, not individual ones.  But hey.  Whatever anyone likes.

What I do love is a fresh seasonal vegetable.  I won't buy imported asparagus.  If served it, I wouldn't refuse to eat it, but it's one of the few things that, as far as I'm concerned, has to be locally grown and in season for me to buy it.  It's a traditional Norfolk crop, which is just as well.  I was telling Tin the other day about a meal I cooked in May or early June, coming up to 16 years ago.  I bought a whole fish from the fishmonger - I'm not sure if there were three or four of us, but it was big enough for the family and I baked it whole, seasoned with home-grown herbs.  I had dug up the first new potatoes, picked the first peas and some broad beans.  Everything was fresh and seasonal and simply cooked.  It was immensely special, as meals go, for that reason, and we all enjoyed it.  But, looking around, I realised that no one in my family knew why it was so special.  First potatoes and peas, all homegrown herbs and veg, perfectly simple fish, perfectly cooked - the only person I knew who would have felt exactly the same as I did was my mother, and she'd died in March.  

Glorious food

I still haven't sorted out my other blog.  I've probably lost half my lovely readers, who've stuck with me all these years and I'm sorry.  But it's rising to the top of the list, that job, as long as nothing more pressing happens tomorrow.

Tonight, we had kippers and roast potatoes for supper.  I remember my mother being a bit shocked, when she accidentally called on our neighbours, back in about 1964, at about 6 o'clock, and found them tucking into their evening kippers.  They were a breakfast dish, as far as she was concerned, possibly lunch at a pinch, but not appropriate for the evening meal.  I reckon that kippers are suitable at pretty well any time of day, though.  There's a saying somewhere that a British breakfast is just about right at any time of the day, and I'd certainly go along with that.

LT and I were talking about typically English - moving away from the whole UK as we're both English - dishes, the other day.  Roast beef, obviously, and actually roast any meat, including game.  Also fish - fried fish in batter and chips, grilled sole, kippers and bloaters, fried roes, they're all straightforward food for people who like to see what they're getting.  Whitebait.  Herring in all its forms - two of which, maybe three, I've mentioned already.  Cabbage.  Carrots.  Good honest bread and home made puddings, such as suet puddings, sponge puddings, rice puddings, syllabub and trifle.  Tim and I slightly disagreed about macaroni cheese - I said that macaroni has certainly been used in this country for over 500 years, so it counts, but he reckons it's very similar to meals in Italy and other countries; which I don't think matters - but there we go, let's compromise on cauliflower cheese.  Pan haggerty and lobscouse and bubble and squeak.  Liver and bacon - bacon, actually, the proper stuff.  Black pudding, tripe and onions, kidneys and other offal.  I've never eaten lights - lungs - though I cooked them for my dog, who adored them.  Shellfish - oysters, mussels, winkles and so on. Broad beans (fava beans, darlings) and fresh green peas.  Potted meat, sausages - how could I have taken so long to mention sausages?  Toad in the hole.  Steak and kidney pie.  Steak and kidney pudding.  Pork pie.  Stilton cheese, Wensleydale, Cheshire, Cheddar, all the delicious regional cheeses that guarantee I can't become vegan.  And eggs.  Fried, poached, scrambled, coddled (does anyone coddle an egg nowadays?  I don't), meringued - ooh, proper puddings can take another sentence.  Queen of puddings, Eve's pudding, burnt cream (yeah, there's crème brûlée but we share with our French cousins), apple pie, apple crumble, rhubarb fool, strawberries and cream, baked apple, gooseberry tart.....

Having said all that, our cookery is inspired from all over the world.  Why should it not be?  Sometimes I decide, or Tim decides, to be inspired by a single country, but mostly we're all over the place, in a good cause.  If it's good, we'll cook it and we'll eat it.  

The darling dozen come for lunch

The whole family came to Sunday lunch, which went very well.  Roast beef, Yorkshire pudding etc, followed by Proper Steamed Sponge Puddings and custard.  As traditional English as you can get.  Jam sponge and chocolate sponge, and almost everyone had a little bit of both.

Later, I went and played on the Ups and Downs with Zerlina, Gus and Rufus and, after they had all gone home, I was tired out.  I had a bath and came down again and couldn't really stay awake.  Asked if I was hungry, I had to say I'd rather go straight to bed, which I did before 8.30 in the evening.  The cooking did take a lot of effort, but I swung into action with energy and good cheer (the potatoes just didn't want to roast and I had to fry them into crispness in the end) and I was vastly grateful that LT took over all the jobs that weren't actual cooking - including hoovering, sorting out drinks, tidying, lighting fires ... honestly, he just cracked on and took all the burden - but, though I wasn't at all tired all day, I just unravelled by 7 o'clock.  I'm old, darlings.  I don't mind being old, I've always had a good many older friends and I've always appreciated them, but it can be a bit disconcerting to feel the age one actually is.

Anyway, the Baby Belling cooker not having quite come up to scratch in terms of potato roasting, I've ordered a new table-top cooker.  Splendid as the Aga is, I can't fit everything in and it's occasionally useful to have something else - and, in the summer, I aim to turn the Aga off altogether.  I've also, recently, bought a new, useful toy - I have nowhere in the house to dry more than a small amount of washing.  If the weather isn't suitable to dry everything outdoors, it has to go in the tumble drier.  But I found a firm that makes two-tier racks to sit on top of the Aga, plus an extra rail in front and - though it was expensive - I bought them all and they actually are very good.  It's a bit of a faff to carefully fold each item and lay it on top, but I haven't used the tumble drier this year yet.  

Z's week. Or Z's weak, possibly, who knows?

Sorry to say that a week has gone by and I've done nothing about the other blog.  I limit the stuff I deal with in a day, and it wasn't top of the list on any of them.  It's a nuisance, and sometimes frustrating, but the only way I can plod through things without getting overwhelmed.  Next week, I'm sure.

I typed out a list of 28 lots for the next auction today - it's not until October, but I've got more than half the lots booked in already, as well as a couple of potential new buyers.  I'm not sure how long I'll carry on with the sales - I do them out of nostalgia and friendship, mostly - the work involved is not so very arduous but it does take quite a lot of time, for what that's worth.  I'll plod on year to year, for the time being.

The family is coming to lunch on Sunday - it'll be my Christmas menu of roast rib of beef etc; it having been the first time we've been all together since then.  When we went to the butcher today, he'd had a run on ribs of beef, which was a bit alarming.  I was busy planning an alternative, but he kindly went and phoned the wholesaler, who can put in an extra delivery tomorrow morning.  One of the good things about local shopping.

Actually, the proprietor of the butchery died suddenly a couple of weeks ago, of an aneurism. It was sudden.  He was very involved in local affairs; having been on the council, a former Mayor, Town Reeve, he raised a lot of money for charities and catered at many local events.  His is the last butchery in the town, so we hope his wife will decide to keep the shop going.  There are two other butchers and an assistant there, and we think she will.  A couple of farm shops, which do their own wild boar and goat, some game and chicken, but not everything, there is certainly scope for a butcher.

We are quite lucky for food shops in Yagnub.  There's a fishmonger, whole food shop, deli and greengrocer within a few yards of each other.  There are also a good many places to eat out.  Our favourite opened again today, having been closed during January so any refurbishment can be done and the owners have a break.  So we hot-footed it down there for lunch.  Which was splendid.  

Z is old and sensible

I've made all the marmalade we'll need for the year and it's nicely tucked away on the larder shelf.  There are still half a dozen pots from last year, which have been brought into the kitchen.  I've also frozen a few oranges in case I want to cook with Seville oranges during the next year.  I'm more efficient than I used to be, in some respects, which feels a bit boring; but hey ho.  It's bound to catch up in the end and it seems that I've finally grown up, chiz chiz.

I don't think I mentioned, last time LT and I were in Reading, we went to Ikea to look at wardrobes.  I know.  I know, darlings, I've avoided this sort of stuff for so many years, but I have finally entered the stage of my life when I want a dressing room.  So bookcases will be shifted in favour of wardrobes.  The books will be kept, of course, I haven't changed fundamentally.  Anyway, we were so enervated by the job of circumnavigating the Ikea showroom that we couldn't quite face ordering anything to be delivered 160 miles away, so just wrote it all down and haven't glanced at it since.

But tonight I want Tim to cheer me up because I'm feeling old and dull, so he's playing Fats Domino. Hooray.  The Fat Man Rules!

Snooze and chips and sealing rats. And a happy blog day.

I slept soundly for three nights*.  I said to Tim yesterday that I mustn't read anything into that - neither that it was too good to last, nor that this was a breakthrough and that I'd sleep better in future.  As it happened, I didn't do too well last night - 9 o'clock now and I won't last until 10, I don't think.  Getting old is fine, but it can be a bit tedious on occasion.

It's still all Man (in the mankind sense) against Rat in the henhouse.  After the last disaster, I put a layer of chicken wire on the base and coming well up the walls of the shed, then concrete slabs on top as far as I could, because they didn't fit exactly and I didn't have quite enough anyway, and filled in with bricks and there were still a few gaps where I put in big stones.  Then I covered the whole lot with a piece of vinyl floor covering offcut and some chipboard.  And, on Thursday evening, I noticed that it had been nibbled.  I panicked a bit, covered any possible areas with bricks and had to leave for London the next morning.  On Saturday morning, I found another newly nibbled area.

We searched and puzzled, took out all the moveable bits, including nest boxes, and really couldn't work out how the little buggers were getting in.  It made no sense - until Tim spotted a tiny gap at the side where they'd nibbled through the corner of the shed and slipped through the edge of the wire.  So he jammed a stone in the hole and staple-gunned the wire and I've filled in every gap, one way and another.  I have to have a sheet of tin in front of the door because they are eating their way through there.  They do no harm to the chickens, but other rodents - I suspect stoats - do.

The rat-proof feeder isn't, so I have to block that off every night too.  Then I leave the door open to the greenhouse so that the cats get in during the night and worry the rats a bit.  I haven't tonight though, it's very blowy out there.  It's not actually that cold, but it feels as if it is.  Snow is due, apparently, in the next couple of days, so I rather hope that the wind has died down by that time, as it tends to form a three-foot drift in the drive if it's windy.  I'd call it a metre deep, to encourage the young, but it would be an exaggeration.  But many's the time I've dug our way out to the road, all 100 yards or possibly metres of it.

Talking of cats - as I did, briefly - even the shyest lets me stroke him now.  Not for long and I don't meet his eyes, as it's too challenging for him.  But there is a pleasure in having a wild creature trust you.

I've had an update from Tessa about Tim the hedgehog (for he's a boy, so we're doomed to confusion. Eloise cat is one thing, but Tim hedgehog takes far too long to say).  He's getting better and put on 100 grams in the first couple of days.  Tessa reckons that he'd have died by now without help.  She's going to check his teeth to be sure he can catch food in future - though if he can't, he can just join the throng down in the barn.  I"m sure the cats won't be at all bothered.

It's my 13th blogging anniversary.  Gosh,

* I was awake in the intervening days, of course.

Z writes a thank-you letter

I went to London yesterday to meet my builder at the flat and, afterwards, a friend for lunch.  He was slightly disconcerted by the restaurant I'd chosen - simply because it's next door to the flat - but spicy Louisiana food was a bit outside his comfort zone, I think.  I hope he did enjoy it though.

I've just been on the Greater Anglia train website, to send feedback about the return journey.  I got to the station in good time - I'd had a really easy time of it all day, journey-wise - and the announcer said that my train was delayed.  An incoming passenger had been taken ill and was being helped - I think they used a different train in the end - anyway, it was actually only delayed by about 15 minutes, but the guard explained that, as we'd missed our time slot, there would be a further delay as we went along.  It ended up as about 18 minutes.

After that, the driver really put his foot down, though the train didn't feel rocky in the least.  By the time we got to Ipswich, the guard was able to announce that ongoing connections could be caught after all, if people would go promptly to the platforms, which he told them.

I'd been amused for a while by the woman and her son in the seats behind us.  He was a textbook petulant teenager.  At one point he was whingeing about his phone - it was useless, it was reeealy old and embarrassing and she didn't care at all... - and she answered with slightly amused patience.  Then she told him they'd have to be ready to leave quickly, so he needed to get ready - "Whyyyy???" - and she told him about the connection that had been announced, if he hadn't been so busy complaining.  I noted him as they left - about 14, neat school blazer, I'm sure he's a nice boy really!

The guard had said we'd be at Diss at 17.58 but we were actually there at 17.48, which was pretty impressive.  The driver was trying to get to Norwich on time for passengers to make their connection to Great Yarmouth - don't know if he did so.  The guard quipped "Please close the doors behind you so that we can get going as quickly as possible - those doors don't close themselves" and "We've just crossed the border from Suffolk too Norfolk.  If you're leaving the train at Diss, please have your passport ready."  No one had been cross about the late departure of course, it was no one's fault, but the odd chuckle never does any harm.

So the feedback I sent was appreciative, and I've sent my thanks.  I hope that the message is passed on.

Z drops in again

A small hiatus on the razorbladeoflife.co.uk front, darlings.  It's gone down and I have to get on to support.  Yeah.  I know.  I thought I was going to do it after dinner this evening and then we went out to the hen house because of my anxiety over rats - I'm not coming over all Room 101, this is perfectly reasonable of me - and now I don't feel like a conversation with a helpline.  I'll be in London tomorrow and so the odds are that I'll be hors de combat for a couple more days at least - or anyway, the Z part of me.  And then, I trust, all will be well and we can start talking about this year's blog party, if such a thing is destined to take place.  All is willing and able at this end, so it's up to you lovely people to come along and join us.

Z drops in

A friend, John of PubLog - which he has let fallow for some time - thought he might start blogging again, but he hasn't been able to sign in to it.  So I thought I might check out this one.  It recognised me through my Google account, but it's taken me several minutes to work out how to write a new post.

I have never stopped blogging, of course, but I do it elsewhere now.  Same name, Razorblade of Life, but it's  http://razorbladeoflife.co.uk nowadays, as it has been for a few years.

In the time since I left blogger, a lot has changed in my life.  But I'm still here.

Pretty picture

Tim tells me that he can't post a photo using Internet Explorer on his Blogger blog any more, so I wondered if it could be done with Safari.

And it seems that it can -and it's easier than it used to be, in fact.  Just drag'n'drop.

So here's some pretty Lowestoft china for you.