Is there any place on this, our one and only home planet, where the inhabitants are not dreading each new day's weather? And if you are a climate change denier don't bother to tell me, the science and the poor blighters who fear for their continued existence are against you. As are the young, your children and grandchildren, whose protests are drowned out by the fossil fuel industry, run by fat cats who will all long be dead when Earth becomes uninhabitable.
I am so tired of it all. Even my garden gives me less and less pleasure. The plants that didn't die during last winter's unusual week of hard frost gave up when the temperature climbed to unseasonable heights and prolonged drought in late spring. For six weeks I worked like a maniac to get it all done, at least on the surface, for the Open Gardens weekend. And ended up with a wilderness of volunteer plants and weeds instead of a finely graded display of colourful perennials and flowering shrubs. The people who traipse round the gardens don't look too closely, luckily, but simply stroll through and throw a vague "very nice, thank you" at the owners. I don't really care all that much anymore. I will chat with the few knowledgeable ones who ask intelligent questions or praise a particular arrangement, the others can come and go with as much attention as they pay the space I have worked so hard on.
So, May and June were almost completely taken up with outdoor work. And when I wasn't working outdoors I was inside, out of the heat, my feet up and devouring books. Mostly rubbish, but there were two which I really liked, a Louise Penny Inspector Gamache thriller and a delightful book from an author hitherto unknown to me, namely Stephanie Butland's 'Found In A Bookshop'. It deals with the lives and misfortunes of a group of people during Covid lockdown, mostly unknown to each other, some sad, some uplifting, all very human. And all connected to each other via a bookshop struggling to keep afloat during this most unhappy time. 'A perfect summer read', says the blurb and I agree, although it would have pleased me just as much during any other season. I must warn you it really is for true book lovers only. At the end of each chapter you even get a list of books suitable to cure the particular heartache the chapter deals with. It will not be the last of her novels I read.
And Louise Penny? I just love Chief Inspector Gamache, a man after my own heart. The characters, mostly the inhabitants of the hamlet of 'Three Pines', are people with whom I would love to be friends.
Apart from physical work and eye strain from reading I have been utterly lazy. There are piles of correspondence gathering dust on my desk, even my solicitor felt it incumbent upon her to threaten me with the imminent "closure of my file" if I didn't reply to her last letter within two weeks. Sad to say she has reason. This is still about my new will and provisions for such time as I am no longer able to take care of myself. Do we ever seriously consider a time when we aren't master of our fate? I hate the thought. My problem is that, for one reason or another, I feel there is really no one who deserves a share of the spoils. I am not rich but my house is worth a fair bit. I can't actually see my daughter being willing to take an inheritance from me, she quite clearly wants nothing to do with me. Or is inheriting money a different matter? My son would gladly take as much as I am willing to leave him, he is the only one in the combined family who needs it. In his case the problem is our differing philosophy and the fact that I have little sympathy for his way of life. I think I am being unreasonable to some extent, his way of life is entirely his own decision. However, seeing that God will get all the credit for whatever I do for him irks me. Beloved's lot will get a just percentage, not that I have any close contact with any of them but fair's fair. As for the rest, there's the charities which have seen me and my pets through some hard times.
It really shouldn't be as difficult as all that to make a final decision, should it? I think that I am using this post to gain clarity in my own mind; also to get some things off my chest that have been bothering me for ages. It is six years since Beloved up and died on me, the rotter. I hate that I am entirely on my own and have no one to consult; the thought of a long dark lonesome winter frightens me. I have an acquaintance, also a German, who lost her husband only at Easter time. She has already booked herself a cruise for this autumn and people tell me she is never at home, always on the trot. After more than fifty years of marriage. It really takes all sorts to make a world and all of us react differently to the vicissitudes of life.
What was it someone said? At the end of life we regret the things we didn't do more than the things we did. Ah yes, that wise old bird Mark Twain.
