Darling Ziggi

A few weeks ago, my friend Ziggi told me that she had cancer.  I couldn't tell anyone, she wasn't making it public on Facebook or blog yet, but now she has.  If you know her, do drop in at her new blog and give her a hug.  When she spoke to me, she had started to lose her hair, quite suddenly although not, of course, unexpectedly.  I don't think anything prepares you for that: it seems, from a distance, as if it's the trivial part but I have come to believe that it's the thing that knocks you back hardest and brings home to you that you are 'differently' ill from any other time - but it does grow back.

I'm afraid that ovarian cancer tends to be something that you have to live with, rather than be cured from, for a while.  Ziggi is young, has two gorgeous daughters, and has dumped a husband who wasn't fit for purpose, so has everything to get better for.  She also introduced me to delicious white tea - which is so delicate that you mustn't make it with boiling water - and made actual scones, with jam and clotted cream, so counts as a best friend.  I look forward to seeing her on my next visit South-West - shall I make the scones next time, Zig?

The Sage talks shop

It was dark by 5 o'clock this evening, of course.  Can't bear it, we're still in autumn.  I wouldn't mind so much in December.  I hoped that last year would be the last time the clocks went back in the autumn, but rumours were premature.

At least an extra hour this morning gave us time for a leisurely breakfast.  The Sage brought me a cup of tea in bed.  When I was up and dressed, "would you like a poached egg for breakfast?" he asked hopefully - this was a suggestion rather than an offer, I doubt he's ever poached an egg, although he's accomplished in the art of frying and scrambling.  I daresay he would not be too daunted by the thought of hard-boiling come to that.

We had just finished eating when the phone rang.  It was a prearranged interview with an EDP reporter.  Yes indeed, my star of radio and newspaper will be in the paper again tomorrow.  Someone asked him to autograph a catalogue on Friday.  I suppose it was slightly tongue in cheek, but maybe I should start saving all scraps of paper with his writing on, to keep our grandchildren in luxury in a few years' time.

I did, however, draw the line this evening (not on paper, you understand) when he asked me which buyer had paddle number 21, at dinner time.  He wanted to talk about the sale again.  I was starting to relax for the evening, and a discussion about work wasn't on the cards.  It's a penalty of working with one's husband and also working from home that we're never outside office hours.  Of course, a lot of people deal with business emails at the weekend, it's tempting to get them out of the way rather than clutter up half of Monday morning, and we've always had phone calls at any time of any day, but I think that dinner time on a Sunday needn't be a time for dealing with the smallest details.  I said so, reasonably politely, and he was quite surprised, but put his papers down good-naturedly.  I did look it up later of course.

Some of you will know that there have been ructions in Blogland over the last week, resulting in some friendships strengthening and others being broken.  At least two people are no longer blogging, at least for the time being.  Yesterday, I decided the time had come to explain to him what has been going on, since he knows some of the people involved (of whom I'm one, in fact).  After a few minutes, I looked over at him.  He was fast asleep.  So I shall not trouble you with the details, just tell you that I'm not affected personally and I'm still blogging.  But that last, you had probably worked out already.

Highlights

The Sage was having a drink with a friend, a retired auctioneer from Diss.  "Between a retired  auctioneer and a non-retired auctioneer," be said.  I said, "you could say, between an auctioneer with sense and one without."  "Ah, but which is which?" asked Geoffrey.  I gave him to understand that he was the one to be complimented.  "Still," I added, "I can't see the Sage ever quitting."  We decided that the perfect place for him to peg out would be auctioneering - I said, however, that he would have to hold on to the end of a sale, it would be most unprofessional to keel over until the last lot was sold.  "That's okay," said Geoffrey.  "I'll be his stand-in and finish off the sale."

A new customer came over from Brussels specially for the sale.  We had already spoken on the phone, so he introduced himself.  He collects sparrowbeak jugs; not Lowestoft ones in particular, but from all over Europe.  He spent several minutes telling me about his enthusiasm, he's got around 450 sparrowbeaks (these are little cream jugs, so called because of the beaked shape of the pouring lip).

He bought several jugs and came to pay at the end.  I passed him on to Susie, who is fluent in several languages and they chatted away for several minutes.  He speaks excellent English, far better than my French, so I wouldn't have ventured to inflict it on him.

The customer who bought the guglet and bowl left with it, without paying.  That the Sage knows he is as trustworthy as that will mean more to him than his successful bid, I should think.  He'll send a cheque within a few days, once he's transferred the money.  Another customer accidentally came without cash or chequebook - I similarly let him have the piece, but it was more like £150 - still, he was also pleased to be trusted.

Rog asked, was there applause at the end?  Indeed there was.

The photo doesn't indicate the size of the jugs - about 3 inches tall.

High light and low light

I should have trimmed the photos, sorry.  I forgot that these were the originals.  But don't look at the background, which is the interior of the light-box, hey.

The Sage got the price he hoped for, which was £34,500.  Everyone who viewed the sale looked at and admired them, and they have been bought by a collector for their own collection.  Since they have been in the same family since 1948 when they were last sold (for £80), it's rather good to know that they will still be handled and looked at closely, not put in a museum to be admired but not loved.

So, the sale went well but I'm too tired to think.  I'll balance the books tomorrow, right now I'm going to bed.

Two of the paintings depict Lowestoft's lighthouses.  The one on the cliff was the High light, the one on the beach was the Low light.  These are real scenes from the period and at least one of the ships can be named, as can the church.

Counting down to the auction

I must be having a bit of an Ian Ke11y moment, when Wink rang to suggest a weekend for us to meet in London and go to the theatre, I suggested the play that he is in.  Although, if it had been said to be rubbish, I wouldn't have gone.  Someone said they'd seen it in its pre-London run (he wasn't in it then) and recommended it.  I haven't yet decided whether I'll stay for a couple of nights, I will see what else I want to do.  I don't think Wink will be staying, but then she's had a couple of holidays this year and I haven't had a single night away since last early November.

We're pretty well set for the auction, I've still got to mark up some bids and the people whom I'll be phoning during the sale - we can't do online bidding, but we do telephone bids.  Someone rings the wannabe bidder a few minutes before the item they've registered an interest in.  I claim first place there, you know how I like to take charge! - the Sage is in charge, obviously, no question of a takeover bid from me, but I want to back him up and ... okay, maybe there's a slight ego problem here.

Now I'm writing down the people who've already registered.  The Sage, encouraged by my sudden keenness, has said I can do a lot of the bidding.  Which is fun, but quite stressful, I have to keep careful track of who is bidding for each lot, and there are a few either/or bids too.

Looking forward to it? ... well no, not entirely.  I do find it both more tiring and more stressful every year. The Sage loves it and has no intention of retiring.  I'm glad he's so successful and I do find it interesting, and it's great to see the 'regulars'.  But I'll be pleased when it's over and maybe something else can be the topic of conversation for a few weeks.

Though that's probably too much to hope for.

The cook, the lover, the rainbow and the fire

It was a very good day.  I went here to listen to lectures given by him about him and him.  Sorry for the linkiness, I don't like a lot of links either, but it really won't help people who innocently google any of those names - simply because I write pretty well every day, it puts me higher up Google searches than I would be otherwise, so I avoid it when I can.

Anyway, Ian was brilliant, very good speaker and a most engaging man.  To start with, he'd brought along little choux pastry swans filled with Crème Chantilly (most delicious, deffo go on the list for the next bloggers' party) and then he airily cooked while he delivered his lecture.  Talking about his three most recent books, he said that his wife had said, by the time he'd finished his book about Carême, the chef, his cooking had improved by leaps and bounds, after his book about Beau Brummell, he'd become a snappy dresser.  She hadn't mentioned the Casanova book, he said...

Regarding his research for that book, it took him to St Petersburg.  He doesn't speak much Russian, so had an interpreter.  He also had a Russian guide to take him round the archives.  As he was looking at everything, he realised that the guide was in fits of giggles.  He asked the interpreter, who was a bit embarrassed.  "She is amused at the thought of an Englishman writing about Casanova, the great lover," he explained.  And then added, "especially a ginger one..."

I arrived early, to help show people around on arrival.  There were 280 people who'd booked and I was fairly busy, guiding them to the lecture theatre and then back again for coffee.  I chatted to those I vaguely know - as I'm the Area secretary, quite a lot of people know me but I only know them by sight - a few asked to be reminded of my name, but no one volunteered their own, so if I didn't remember it, I was stuck.  Oh well.

It had been a brilliantly sunny day, but ten minutes into my journey home, I realised that the sky to my right was deep bluey grey and that heavy rain was brewing.  First I saw the double rainbow, then the downpour started.  In front of me, the sky was quite light, and the first rainbow was the starting point of the dark cloud.  It was very dark in the space between them, slightly lighter the other side.  I also noticed, and I'm not sure whether I knew this or not, that the two rainbows were mirror images of each other, not the same.

Then it cleared up, a few minutes later it started again.  I rounded a bend and there was another double rainbow.

The Sage had some good news about a potential bidder for the sale on Friday when I got home.  I checked emails and so on, and cooked dinner.  Finally, I went into the drawing room.  There was a fire burning in the grate.  He and Jamie swept the chimney this afternoon and didn't tell me, so that it would be a lovely surprise.

As others see us

You know the thing where one is asked to use three words to describe oneself?  Actually, I was told recently about an interview for a headteacher, where that was used as the final question.  One of the candidates gave, as one of his or her words ... "lazy."  No, didn't get the job.

Anyway, I came across this on a website recently (and I have put it up on Google+ so a few of you have seen it)

and the original attribution is there on the top right, though it had come along a few steps when I saw it - thanks to the person who devised it.  I shouldn't take it too literally - although, if the first words you see don't give a particularly positive image of yourself, you could give it a few minutes of thought.

I did, a few years ago, think of three words I might use to describe myself, but I admit that I can't remember them all now.  I'm pretty sure that none of them was forgetful, but maybe it should have been.  I will tell you the one I do remember, which is 'enthusiastic.' Bless her, hopeful Z of those years.

However, perhaps more telling would be for you to choose your words and then ask other people to choose words for you and compare.  I'm pretty sure that one of the three that many would pick for me would be:-

Sensible


I know, darlings, is there anything more dull? I wouldn't use it to describe myself, but I'm called it too often to deny it.  It's not used as an insult or criticism, I do appear to be a person that people are inclined to be kind to ... although I don't mind in the least being criticised.  How can one learn if one doesn't listen to what people say?  I don't suppose I'll ever learn much, on the other hand - no, I'm starting to ramble.

I don't think it is on the list above, by the way, that is put there simply for you to amuse yourselves for a few idle minutes.

And this morning, I have mostly been making potato soup.  Sensible, you see?

Family matters

Zerlina woke before 6 this morning.  I took her to the bathroom, then back to bed where she slept for a couple more hours.  Weeza wonders how I do it - z hasn't had a daytime nap for weeks and normally wakes about 7.  I am extremely relaxed and fond of rest and this evidently is absorbed by my grandchild.

We spent much of the day with Dilly and the children, walking into town in the morning and going to the local air museum in the afternoon.  Here.  Just for an hour or so, and partly to find some clues - Al and Dilly and the children enjoyed geocaching when they were on holiday and have been doing it locally too. It is half term week and fortunately the weather is still fine, although windy today.  Weeza said her husband had an arduous cycle ride to work today against the wind and felt exhausted by the time he arrived.  It took him over an hour and a half to cycle twenty-two miles, apparently.  Appallingly slow, I'm sure you'll agree, hem hem.

This morning, I started up the computer and the desktop photo happened to be one of Hadrian, taken just before he went on holiday.  He was sitting on our sofa, smiling and I was startled to realise how like my father he looked.  The thing is, Al looks like my father in his young, very thin days, but in middle age he put on some weight and his face looked fuller.  And Hay, although chubbier of face than that, had just the same smile and look in his eyes that I remember.

Bending the knees, not the back

It always surprises me, how quickly I snap back into getting jobs done while looking after a small child.  I'm adept at managing to carry a baby while cooking, cleaning and so on, and it is possible to do almost anything one-handed if one tries.  When there is a slightly older child, the knack of scurrying about in the few short moments while he or she is busy and not requiring one's full attention soon comes back.  However, there was nearly a full hour this afternoon when Zerlina fell asleep on my lap and I could do little except read the bits of the newspaper that were visible without turning broadsheet pages.  Little z has officially given up her daytime nap in the past few weeks (her own choice, not her mother's) but I evidently have a deeply restful aura about me.

Later, I managed to cook a roast chicken and a steamed jam sponge pudding and serve it two hours earlier than we normally eat, as well as taking z for a walk, feeding the chickens and giving apples to Big Pinkie.

Pinkie was a naughty girl, by the way - I mentioned a while ago that she'd gone walkabout, and the Sage and Jamie tried several times to tempt her back across the fields.  She would follow them for some way, but then simply stop and refuse to come any further.  In the end, the farmer had to bring her back in the trailer.  She wasn't too thrilled about it, and was quite huffy with Jamie, but seems back to her good-natured self now.

Back to the matter of carrying babies - I think the trick is to keep a straight back.  Bending over while carrying a heavy child is a recipe for an injured back.  As long as my knees hold out, I should be fine.

Z and the Sage plan some changes

You know the articles that there have been in the past few weeks about people being 'over-housed'?  There are, apparently, 25 million spare bedrooms in the country.  I have to say that some of them are in this house.  And I'm sorry if you think we're 'hoarding' our housing, and I'm also sorry if you are short of space where you live; but I don't think that the two situations are directly linked.  And we're not moving anyway.

But it's true that we've got rather more space than we regularly use, and that's a pity.  There are four living rooms, and we use two or three.  You might think that even that is a lot for two people, but we're the spreading sort.  So the drawing room and the study are used all the time and the dining room is used all summer and only heated in the winter if there are enough people here to make it worth the bother.  And the Sage puts stuff in the other room, which is not a brilliant idea because it ends up with boxes and trayfuls all over the place and it is unusable much of the time.

Now, we are planning to redecorate the drawing room, and while we're about it, we can do some other work there.  When we moved here 25 years ago, we bought a Multiyork sofa and two chairs, and 14 years ago we bought new loose covers for them.  However, the third time I had the cushion covers dry cleaned, the colour ran and they were ruined.  So I put the old covers back on, and did some repairs as they wore out.  I've been looking into getting new loose covers, but the cost is huge for 25-year-old soft furnishings and it would make more sense to buy new ones.  But it does go against the grain, the chairs themselves are in very good condition and haven't even started to sag or wear.  Anyway, I've gone through all the covers I've got and I've found that I can put together the sofa and a big square footstool in one material and a chair and a footstool in another, which would only leave one redundant chair, and we've got loads of armchairs, a shortage of furniture is never our problem.  However, the two materials do not go together and can't be put in the same room.

That was all the preamble to my good idea, sorry it's taken so long.

The unused room, which is so unused that it doesn't even have a name, will be turned out and have a new life as the dining room, the present dining room, which leads into it, will be another sitting room - I love that room, it's wasted as a dining room because it's got a beautiful inglenook and you hardly notice it.  Then we can move into those two rooms (instead of the study, which is full of my stuff) while the drawing room is done up, and then we can sit in comfort, each in our own space, and never have to meet again in the evening except at meals.  Which is, you have to agree, leads to happiness between two long-married people who work together and need to have something to talk about at dinner time and for bedtime to be a joyful reunion.

What is good about this too, is that it will give us somewhere to put my pianola when it eventually returns.  End of July, my left foot.

But the best part is, the Sage and I have another project (this is going to take weeks, nothing is ever simple in this house).  What I love is that we adore each other's madcap projects and enter into the spirit of things at once.  It's all completely unnecessary, of course, but it'll be fun.

A Great-Grandmother

I didn't know my mother's grandmother of course, she died about twenty years before I was born.  There is a picture of her as a fairly young woman, one of those Victorian photographs that was tinted to look like a portrait.  My mother used to say that I looked like her.

My mother's mother died when she was only twenty-five and her father's engineering job took him away from home, so it was up to the grandparents to look after the 18 month old child.  Two of the four parents had died already, but his mother and her father, who were cousins and must have known each other well, had set up home together (they were not, of course, 'living together' in the modern sense).  My mother adored both of them and was very happy with them.

Grandmother (I don't know whether she was called Granny or Grandma, she was always referred to as "my Grandmother" and I'll call her Grandmother here) was a rather formal Victorian lady and very firm about the right way to behave.  It was the 'right' way, too - not just formality for the sake of it, but to behave in the best, kindest and most honest manner at all times.  For example, a shop assistant or a maid must be treated politely and considerately - "Never be rude, my dear, to those who cannot answer back."  She dressed mainly in black of course, but suitable colours could be worn in a blouse.  My mother remembered going shopping for material to make a new blouse.  The young assistant asked what colour she was looking for.  Grandmother stood erect and firm.  "Heliotrope," she said.  Mummy remembered all her days the confused look on the girl's face.

Grandmother had three sons, two six-footers and my grandad, who was five foot seven.  Both the others died in the First World War.  When the wartime archives were put on the internet, my sister looked for and found them both.  Their mother was with each of them when they died, in fact, for one she travelled to France to the field hospital; the other was brought back to England and she went to be with him.  My grandfather was in the trenches throughout the war but was never injured, or not seriously at any rate.

Grandmother suffered from dreadful headaches (Mummy realised, later, that they must have been migraines) and sometimes had to retire to bed for two or three days.  Once, the little girl had a bad head herself and said so - it was, poor child, the first migraine of those that laid her low regularly all her life.  She remembered the look that passed between her grandparents, obviously thinking she was copying Grandmother, who asked her exactly where it hurt.  When she said, at the side and behind her eyes, she saw them realise she was telling the truth.

My grandfather remarried when his daughter was seven years old.  In the way things were done in those days, the fact was presented to her after the marriage had taken place and she had the shock of being taken away from her home and beloved grandparents.  It's not surprising that she clung on to and treasured memories of those years with them.  They were certainly the happiest of her childhood.

It didn't happen

The drive is finally done and looks great, although the chippings are still quite loose and need a good rain and being driven on a few times to bed them in.  Apparently, two tonnes of bitumen alone has gone on to the drive, as well as a lorryload of stone chippings!  I'll have to sort out a few photos and show you, it'll take a while though and I can't quite be bothered as yet.  Which is not the right attitude, but it's not that interesting except to me, let's face it, so I don't suppose you mind.

I drove over to Beccles to pick up my friends to take them to Norwich for lunch, but one of them wasn't feeling well so it was just her sister. On the way home, a car was waiting in a side road to my left (that is, on my side of the road, we being quite peculiar in this country and driving on the wrong side of the road), angled to go across the road and turn right.  As I approached, it moved forward a little so I slowed and prepared to move slightly to the middle of the road to give it a wide berth.  And then, far too late for me to stop, it pulled out right in front of me.  I cannot think what the idiot driver had on her mind, I don't think she saw me at any time.  Her complacent face didn't look towards me at all as I braked and swerved.  If I hadn't already slowed, I'd have gone right into her at 50mph.  And if the side road had not had a widely splayed entrance, I'd have hit her rear.  As it was, I had room to miss her.  Lilian and I looked at each other.  "Good as a mile, hey," I said.  I'm finally, several hours on, starting to feel a bit shaken.  Still, onwards and upwards.  It didn't happen.

Z doesn't run out of petrol

I went here today.  Very interesting and it's been a good day.  When they built/rebuilt the house in the 1930s, they spent an astonishing amount of money on it - all the more remarkable because they didn't actually own it, it was only leasehold.  They incorporated all sorts of features that I hadn't realised had been invented by then, such as an elaborate under-floor (and upstairs, sometimes over-ceiling) heating system, all powered by a boiler in the cellar.  Only trouble was, it didn't occur to the architects or anyone else that you don't need exactly as much heating in all parts of the house at the same time, so when it was on the bedrooms tended to be far too hot as it was all on a single circuit and there was no way of controlling any individual area.  They also had the facility to pipe music into any room from the gramophone and had a  system for the vacuum cleaner, so that a hose could be plugged into an outlet in the skirting board and the motor in the basement sucked all the dust up into a central container.  Rather appealing work-saving idea for people who had plenty of household staff and never picked up a duster in their lives.

We had a really quick journey and arrived over an hour earlier than we expected, so had coffee and had a look around the gardens before the tour.  We also had no hold-ups on the way home, very lucky.  I'd had to leave home early this morning because, on my way home last night, the low fuel light came on.  I have never established quite how long I can go from that point, but occasionally have gone right down to pretty well flat-lined (usually on the way home from Mike, he seems to have the knack of returning my car to me at just that point), but I haven't run out of petrol since I was 18 years old and my mother, my sister and I all used the same car ... I don't know who drove it home almost empty one Friday, but the car stopped less than two miles from home when I drove it the next day.  Taught me a lesson anyway, hasn't happened again in all these years.  It was surprising to me, how many other people were filling up at 7 o'clock this morning in Norwich.  I have to admit that, whilst I used to check oil, water and tyre pressure in my car, I've rather let the job go over the years, because the Sage does it anyway, whether I do or not.

Lucky hedgehog

I was in bed by nine last night and, apart from being woken by a phone call at nine thirty, I slept right through until the alarm this morning.  So I have functioned perfectly well today.  Music at the school this morning.  The teacher was a couple of minutes late, so I let the pupils in, they all put their bags in the corner, sat down without being told, then I stood in front of them, introduced myself (I haven't been in this class before) and said that the teacher would be there soon.  There was total silence.  I felt that they were waiting for more.  I was about to say, er, you can talk to each other for a few minutes until she arrived - when she did.  Which was just as well, that degree of good behaviour might have gone to my head.

I went to Gardening Club this evening, which was good, because I never made it at all last year.  I make my good resolutions in the autumn more than in January, and one of them is always to be more sociable and not to let duty override pleasure - good intentions always peter out after a while though, there gets to be too much to do and something has to give.

The other good thing is that my car has passed its MOT again. I'm still not fond of it, but it's been very good value.  Only cost £1500 three years ago, then on 98,500ish miles, I've added another 18,000 and the engine sounds as good as ever.  I have no excuse for ditching it - and I won't do so.  Mike dealt with it all, and so I had to get about on my bike today, which felt very worthy.  After all this time, I'm sure that cycling shouldn't still feel like an effort, but it does more often than not.

Getting on with the drive, they aren't going to be here tomorrow, but will do the resurfacing on Thursday and Friday, having almost finished the preparation (the Sage has decided we need another soakaway, so that's being dug).  It'll be quite chaotic around here, I daresay.  I must remember to move the car to the road, I need to go out on both days - though possibly by bike on Friday.  It'll be great to have it done.  The job was started in April - although we have done a lot else over the summer, it's not been a single job that has taken all that time.

The hedgehog in the title was in the road on my return home tonight.  Confused by my lights, it started to run one way and then the other; it was a narrow country road and I didn't know how to avoid it.  So I stopped, rather abruptly.  And then had to reverse because I didn't know if it had curled up or run away.

Z is still awake

I have been awake rather a long time.  I had no sleep at all last night.  Literally none, not even a brief nap. I lay for a while, turned on my phone for a while, when the light made my eyes tired I turned it off and tried to settle - nothing worked.  At about 3 am, playing PathPix Pro, I noticed something crawling across the sheet.  I couldn't tell what it was and had to turn the light on, just a flicker on and off, to see that it was a ladybird.  The light didn't wake the Sage, but opening the window to bundle it out did.  After that brief excitement, he went back to sleep.  I didn't.  I finally got up at 4, meaning to do some typing of the minutes from last Friday, but then it occurred to me that, with the Aga off for its service this morning, it was the ideal time for a really good clean, so that's what I did next.  Later, eating an apple and drinking camomile tea, I made a good start on the minutes.

I really thought that I'd have a nap at some time, but it didn't happen.  It did not help that the governors' training session in Lowestoft that I thought was going to take a morning was actually a full day.  I have been awake for 36 hours and I'm still not especially tired.  I am, however, quite cheesed off.

News of the day is that work has started on the drive.  By the end of the week, weather permitting, it should be done.

And now it is time for University Challenge.  I know nothing, but I watch it - it's almost the only programme I watch - for old time's sake, because Bamber Gascoigne was my first heartthrob.  Paxo isn't in the same league, of course.  I tolerate him, however.

Granny Z has no role models

There is something about reaching the top of the family tree, I think, that concentrates the mind.  Both the Sage and I have elder sisters, but no living parents, aunts or uncles.  And I've been thinking about my grandmothers.

I know so little about them, you see.  My mother's mother died when she was only 25, from complications in her second pregnancy, so there's very little to know anyway.  She had a lot of siblings, she was the ninth out of ten children, but my mother lost touch with them during WW2 and I know nothing more, except that her name was Janet.

But my father's mother was still about when I was born, though I doubt I had much contact with her.

I've mentioned her before, I know - she was the daughter of a very wealthy owner of a Norwich brewery, she married at the age of 16, had a son at 17, bolted at 21 and was married after the divorce to the father of her second son, had a third, then her husband died of cancer and my grandfather, seeing her destitute (her parents had cut her off when she'd 'misbehaved'), remarried her from a sense of honour.  The youngest son died in the war - not in action, actually, in a flying accident.  She had cancer in her face and had early radiation treatment, which killed the bone so that the wound never healed over and she wore a bandage tied carelessly round her face from then on.  She was an alcoholic, had a sharp wit, was not loved by her eldest son who had had a miserable childhood, abandoned by her when his father was away during the way,  my sister was afraid of her and she died, a vastly old woman from her appearance, at the age of 63.

I can flesh out very little.  On their return from honeymoon, actually on their way home, they called on friends of his or her parents in the middle of the afternoon and were offered tea - "You must be parched!" said the lady of the house hospitably.  "Actually," she drawled, "at this time of the day I usually have a gin and tonic."  However much she was wanting to make an impact, it probably worked, it being 1910 and she so young!  Apparently, it was not unusual for her to drink champagne at breakfast too.*

Once, out with the family, when my sister was a child, they parked the car at the same time as another small saloon drew up.  She watched in silence as a family piled out.  Mother, father, grandparents, a procession of small children - no seatbelts in those days and children must have been on laps, crouched on the floor, they had squeezed in anywhere there was a spare inch.  When the last finally emerged, Grandmother spoke.  "I suppose ...  the others couldn't come."  We still say it in our family.

What else?  Not much.  She was totally careless of appearances.  She had a lovely bow-fronted display cabinet in the drawing room (my parents had no idea what happened to it and suspected that the staff sold most of the house contents as soon as she died) and it was full of foil milk bottle tops.  A rag and bone man used to come round every year and was given them.  When he stopped coming, she still kept the milk bottle tops and they were shoved in the cabinet.  She listened to the radio, but didn't know how to tune it, so had three in every room, each tuned to a different station - Home, Light and Third.*

When my mother first met her in-laws, on her wedding day (and after she and my father impulsively married), the door was opened by the butler and they were ushered into the drawing room where my grandfather, just out of hospital after an operation, was in his dressing gown.  They were given sherry.  My mother took a cautious sip, never having tasted it before, and put her glass down.  She caught a movement out of the corner of her eye.  "My word, dear girl," boomed her new father-in-law.  "You're fond of sherry, better refill your glass."  Strictly rationed alcohol didn't suit a desperate drinker, and she grabbed it when she could.

My grandfather was devoted to his civic duties.  He was a town councillor and alderman for many years and was mayor of the town for a total of 13 years, including all through the war.  Their remarriage was not happy, and my mother always wondered, was Grandad always out because Granny drank, or did Granny drink because Granddad was always out?

I have absolutely no way of ever knowing, but I can't help wondering what her point of view was?  Was she reconciled with her parents, before or after remarriage?  Apart from her youngest son, my uncle John, did she love anyone?  Did she have friends?  I have a few photos of her, but they are indistinct - the most noticeable thing is the bandage or scarf knotted around her head to cover her cheek.

I have her napkin ring.  Her name was Helen.  And that's about it.



*Both these seem jolly good ideas

Forty years on

The whole family was here in the end, all thirteen of us, which was brilliant.  Must be ... oh, I don't know - well, several weeks.  A month or so, I should think, which is a long time for a small baby.  Augustus now weighs over 12 pounds and is 2 feet long.  He's 8 weeks old today.  I carried him around much of the afternoon, asleep against my shoulder.

The weather was wonderful for the fete, warm and sunny and, although it was rather slow to get going, it became busy during the afternoon.  I'd spent a couple of hours in the morning making cakes; two chocolate cakes and two dozen fairy cakes, and I bought other cakes and a pavlova, so didn't have to make a pudding tonight.  Hay, who is not officially on solid food yet but who enjoys trying flavours, spent some time sucking on a slice of cooked courgette, and some more munching a piece of kiwi fruit.

It still doesn't seem right to call it kiwi fruit, you know.  I'm such a stick-in-the-mud.  To me, it'll always really be a Chinese gooseberry.  And physalis is Cape gooseberry.  And Sharon fruit is persimmon.  Come to that, it took me years to adjust fully to decimal coinage.  I translated back for ages.  This came in handy two and a half years after the switch when I married the Sage; where we went on honeymoon, the rate of exchange was 13 rupees to the pound, so I just thought in one-and-sixpences.  It's slightly less convenient now, when I find that I am unable to think in metric weights and measures and always have to convert.  It's not difficult - indeed, if it were harder to do, perhaps I'd need grams to become second nature to me.  As it is, I'm fairly sure I'll think in pounds and yards all my life.

Cake

The Summer Fête is tomorrow, held over from July, when it was rained off.  It's very jolly to find that Weeza and co are coming over, also Ro and Dora.  Weeza hadn't thought they would come, because it will take place about the time of Zerlina's nap but unfortunately, in the last couple of weeks, she has pretty well abandoned her daytime nap, which means she's a bit tetchy by the evening - but at least they aren't so limited during the day.  I've said I'll make cakes, but I haven't had time, so I'll have to do it in the morning.  I think I'll also be helping on a stall, but with any luck there will be plenty of us and I'll just have to do an hour or so stint.  I don't think I'd be a bad influence on anyone if I nipped over the road to the pub and brought a pint back with me, do you?

Ro asked casually if I was thinking of providing dinner in the evening, so of course I said I would.  Not sure yet what to cook though.  Something that everyone likes and doesn't take long to cook.  Followed by cake.

Clearing a space

We're hoping for dry weather next week, because at last the drive is going to be resurfaced.  I don't recommend that motorbike riders come along it for a week or two, there might be some wayward chippings, but after that it should be fine.  In addition, the substantial pile of very large logs (the fallen oak from the hedge by the drive) that cluttered up the front garden are being split and moved, to be used for firewood.  The pile of sand near the logs has been used in the bricklaying and the area cleared.  And the last of the potatoes have finally been dug up.  It seems that things are finally coming together a bit chez the Sage and Z.

I had a few minutes to spare when I arrived for music after lunch today, so I went into the library to see what was going on.  A couple of tables were occupied by people playing chess and draughts.  A girl who knows me bobbed along to greet me and she started to tell me that she'd noticed a Year 9 (still the year of entry) girl spent a lot of time on her own, eating her lunch alone and then sitting reading, so she'd made her come along to play draughts and she had proved rather good at it, so was making friends and joining in with things a lot more.  Her friend (a third girl) then started chatting to me about her family, books and her interests at school; after a few minutes she politely excused herself, thanked me for my company and explained she was due at Biology.  All charmingly polite and awfully keen.  It is a very friendly school.  So unlike my schooldays, I can't imagine going and engaging anyone in conversation like that.

Music went well, I spent my time helping pupils who had never played the guitar or keyboard before.  Not that I play guitar myself, but I can show the basics.  They were playing Word Up, which I don't think any of them had heard before.  Quite a pleasure, after last year's Coldplay effort.

I have to think I'd have grown up a very different person if schools 40-odd years ago had been more like they are now.  It would have taken such determination to remain silent and withdrawn, only producing good written work and rarely speaking in class, and not bothering with subjects I didn't care about, that I wonder if I'd have succeeded in holding on to my reserve.  Nowadays, I'd be given targets and things, including joining clubs.  I was a dedicated non joiner in those days and I'm still more an observer than a participant.  That I never took up smoking, for example, was for two reasons.  One, that almost everyone smoked, and I didn't do things because everyone else was, peer group pressure had the opposite effect on me.  And two, that I had not the least intention of being addicted to anything.  That I didn't try drugs either was for those reasons too (not that *everyone* was doing it, they weren't, but there were plenty around in the early 1970s), plus that I wasn't going to do anything that might make me let my guard down without meaning to.  Evidently, I've always had that control-freakish tendency.  Although, only of myself.  Everyone else can do what they like.  Liberty Hall around here, darlings.

Z's belt is a little tight

It's a question that I've asked local authority education experts on more than one occasion at training sessions over a period of year, and they've looked startled and evaded the issue, but what I'd like to know is this.

If a pupil has been permanently excluded from a school because he or she physically attacked another pupil or a teacher, and the governors of another school agrees to accept him or her and it happens again, are they liable because they knew there was a risk?

Since they could not answer, my answer was, obviously the governors would have to refuse to accept the pupil.  If there was an appeal or (since, until now, the LA was the admissions authority; now the academy is) the LA said the school had to take the pupil, the school itself could not be held liable.  Who would, is another matter.

No, we have not at this time been asked to accept a pupil who has been violent or aggressive.  Just wondering.

Anyway, darlings, you'll be terribly impressed, or possibly laugh like drains, to learn that I've been re-elected chairman of governors.  It was a shoo-in, to tell the truth.  No one else has as much time lying heavy on their hands, or is quite as foolish as I am.  I did, in fact, tell the Head a couple of weeks ago how long I was prepared to stay, so he knows where he stands.

I had a very substantial lunch, beef stew with a cobbler topping, carrots and cauliflower.  I turned down the mashed potatoes.  It cost £1.80 and was very good.  The plate was piled high and I had difficulty clearing it, but I didn't want to hurt the cook's feelings, so I ploughed through.  I then spent the afternoon meeting sipping away at several glassfuls of water - just the one glass, darlings, I refilled it - so that I would be all set for losing a pint of fluid later.  Having once fainted afterwards, I take every precaution.

And now, I'm relaxing with a nice red wine.  I must look up what it is.  Tomorrow, Year 9 music.

Now, I shall phone Wink.  She arrived home from her holiday in Spain today, and I need her passport number to book a holiday for both of us next year.