Autumnal Thoughts

 

 Summer's ended, Autumn is here. The cherry tree leaves are turning.

A day of rain and wind today, I've not been tempted to go out at all. The seasons turn so quickly, we had several days of high temperatures earlier in September, now it's jumper weather again. 

Cyclamen are out in force and shrubs are glowing their final hurrah of the year before they settle down for winter. The hedgehog visits the terrace at dusk, almost on the dot of seven now and I must remember to put out food betimes. It'll have to be earlier and earlier I suspect, until they go into hiding for winter. There are often two of them and there may even have been three last night. By morning the dish is licked clean.

There seems to be a trend at the moment for decluttering. I've wanted to do it for a long time but never quite got round to it. I have now, but I'm starting gently, with a drawer full of digital cables and such, all the stuff that comes with new gadgets which you never use. Also theatre programs of the last 30 odd years, London Westend ones, and from all sorts of theatres in the South East, South West of the country, the Edinburgh Festival and the Midlands. My, we must have seen hundreds of plays. I am keeping the Stratford programs for now. I don't know quite what to do with concert and opera programs. They will probably end up in recycling. These things cost a lot of money, yet you buy them, read them and put them into a box somewhere.

A young woman took them. I had asked the local book charity shop if they wanted any. No they didn't but they might know someone who does. All my unwanted programs are going to be exhibits in a tea room in the Shropshire Hills, for customers to look at while they recover from long hikes over a scone and a cuppa. She was a very pleasant young woman, within the first ten minutes she had confided half her life story to me, her past and plans for the future. She and her partner also rescue dogs in the next county, which pleased me no end and made handing over two large boxes full of programs a pleasure. Jennifer, the young woman, is interested in stars of yesterday and has posters of what we used to call 'divas' on her walls, European film stars of the 60s and 70s; I have some posters of opera performances of the period which I might pass on to her. She promised me a freebie in March when she opens up again and it'll be interesting to see what she's done. A quaint idea, don't you think?

My son was here for a few days, one of his regular tri-monthly visits. When he comes, he does some jobs I've saved up for him and he always takes a load of stuff to the local recycling centre, often needing two or three trips to get rid of it. There is also a day in the middle when he offers to take me anywhere I can't get to now, either because I no longer drive or it's just too far. You'd think I'd ask for a trip to somewhere special, somewhere of great interest, somewhere totally out of my reach now. Sad to say, I can only come up with a particular garden centre in spring and summer and a very posh supermarket the rest of the year.  What a sad state of affairs when my heart yearns exclusively for plants and fancy groceries. I couldn't even take him to the restaurant I'd promised him, the place was fully booked and we had to make do with the nice but ordinary White Horse, the local pub.

We spent a few pleasant days together; we don't have a great many interests in common, but we are family and family matters. We have the past, of course, life in Germany, where he spent his formative years, so we always have the German side of the family for reminiscing over. At one point we mentioned his sister with whom he also has little contact and when I asked if a reconciliation between her and me would ever be possible he said  "No Mum, that ship has sailed."

That must be one of the saddest phrases in the English language.

Apart from decluttering I am also trying to sort out financial and legal matters, which meant going through two desks. Would you believe that I have bank statements from over twenty years ago? Not any longer. Neither do I any longer have ancient receipts and invoices and credit card slips. What on Earth was I thinking? Sure, keep them for a year but don't file them away tidily in envelopes marked with the year where such transactions took place. Last century, anyone?

While I've been typing night has fallen and I quickly rushed out with my dish of cat food for the hedgehogs. Now of course I will have to loiter by the back door to await their arrival.

I've been feeling a bit gloomy again hence the delay in posting; Perhaps all this decluttering means that I am tidying away one kind if life and starting another? Who knows.

Who gets to choose, me or someone else?

Recently I went for a meal out in a restaurant with a small group of people. There were six of us. The restaurant was somewhat better than the usual pub style and I was very happy to be able to go. Beloved and I often went out for a meal and occasionally we treated ourselves to a fancier, classier place. Since he's been gone that's happened less and less for me, so an opportunity for a smart meal out is something I enjoy.

One of my fellow diners was new to me, that is to say I knew them but had never been to a restaurant with them. 

I was sitting at one end of the table and the waitress came to me first to take my order; I gave it and chose a glass of wine to go with the meal. It honestly never occurred to me to wait and see what everybody else was having, as we were all going to pay for our meals and drinks ourselves.

Gradually I became aware that ordering took the others rather a long time and there was much discussion as to what everybody should have and which wine to choose. And the new-to-me person decided that they should choose the wine and buy a bottle rather than for everybody to have a glass of their own preference.

As I had already ordered this did not apply to me and I kept quiet. The waitress had gone and promised to be back once the table was ready to order.

Eventually the discussion ended and the meals plus a bottle of wine were duly ordered. Embarrassment over, for now.

The meal was good and we had a pleasant evening with everybody happy to talk and laugh.

Until it was time to pay up. Again my bill was relatively easy and straightforward. I paid, added my tip and awaited events. 

There was now a great need for debate on how to pay; should everybody pay for their own meal and share the cost of the wine, or add up the cost of the total bills and wine; one person would pay by card; they would then get out their calculator and work out how much everybody's share came to. That also meant that everybody would have to have the exact amount of cash in their wallet to reimburse.

The waitress had disappeared once more and I was embarrassed all over again. Eventually they sorted it out somehow, I am not sure how they did it in the end. I went to the bathroom.

What would you have done? Waited and consulted everybody else?  I get to go out so rarely nowadays that I feel entitled to choose my own meal and drink. I also heartily dislike the kerfuffle arising when it comes to paying. I eat and drink what I like and pay for it myself.  

Right? Or bad manners?

Mood Swings, from the Garden to The Swan

Those of you who have commented on my state of mind in the previous post are quite right. I do indeed sound sad and unhappy. Rereading the post has confirmed that I really must do something to retrieve my mojo before it is too late.

But, hang on a minute. Must I? However we happen to feel at any given moment, are we not free and entitled to do so? These feelings are our very own and are we not allowed to feel them? If not why not? Who says? Since Beloved's death six years ago now I have missed him tremendously and, in spite of being a person who enjoys solitude, I often feel lonely. Agreed, it is not good to overindulge in the "poor me" side of things; on the other hand I am not going to feel guilty for allowing myself a heartfelt, deep sigh now and then.

However, thank you for picking up on my unhappiness; it means that you gave attention to my post and felt close enough to say so. Thank you. I appreciate it.

If only I could get my hands back into the earth. August is a slow month in the ornamental garden, although spring and early summer have left gaps and tired patches, high summer brings exuberance and colour, and even though it is all a bit wild and woolly, I don't want to mess with it until September. I've been pruning the shrubs that flowered early, leaving them ready for next year . But the real hard work  must be left for now. In September hedges will be cut which means piles of bonfire material. From October onwards herbaceous clumps will have to  be divided and replanted. 

Hm, writing this makes me look forward to the work. Perhaps my mojo will return? I told you it is all a bit of a wilderness, very English cottage garden.

Have you ever allowed yourself to be shamed into reading a book? I have. The 2020 Winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction was 'Hamnet' by the esteemed Irish writer Maggie O'Farrell and several friends were praising it to the skies. I had actually started to read the novel, the part-imagined life of Hamnet (Shakespeare's son) and the effect his early death from the plague at the age of eleven had on Agnes (Anne Hathaway) and the family. But I had given up  fifty pages in; although able to appreciate O'Farrell's  luminous language I simply found the casual violence and brutality of the 16th century hard to take; perhaps I was in one of my 'delicate' phases when only escapism would do. 

The review in The Guardian was glowing and I trust The Guardian's critic to get it right. 

"Hamnet is evidence that there are always new stories to tell, even about the most well-known historical figures. It also confirms O'Farrell as an extraordinarily versatile writer, with a profound understanding of the most elemental human bonds – qualities also possessed by a certain former Latin tutor from Stratford."

What finally persuaded me to read it was that friends and I had been lucky enough to get much coveted tickets for the adaptation of the novel  for the stage. The whole run was sold out and this was the show chosen to reopen The Swan in Stratford after two years of Covid closure and extensive refurbishment. Tickets were like gold dust and my friend had booked our seats almost twelve months earlier.

That meant I simply had to read the book. I picked it up and started from the beginning and found I could not put it down. I think I must have read it in maybe two or three sittings. It is a wonderful book. Even those whose interest in Shakespeare is less than mine will find something in it. The one thing you do have to have to read it is a an appreciation of good writing and a deeply human story.

We had quite a good time in Stratford, I'll have to get back to it. The first outing away from Valley's End for two years!

Happy Spring Holidays

Once every 33 years Ramadan, the Christian Holy Week and Passover fall in the same month. If the stars can do it, how wonderful if we, mankind, could let that be our inspiration to live in peace with each other. And yet we fight, there is bloodshed in many corners of the world.

War is the vilest thing in the world.

Men come together to kill each other,

they slaughter and maim tens of thousands

and then they say prayers of thanksgiving 

for having slaughtered so many people.

How does God* look down and listen to them?

Leo Tolstoy, 1828-1910

War And Peace, 1869

(*The God of your choice - my words)

The Japanese cherry tree is in bloom; if ever there was a sign of renewed hope it is that. I have been working on pots and tubs in the garden. Taking out compacted and overgrown herbaceous perennials, freeing them from thick mats of weeds, split them, then replacing the soil, adding fertiliser and water retentive material like vermiculite, perlite or garden compost. Only hardy perennials have gone back into the pots, anything tender will have to wait until mid May. Rarely, if ever, do I manage to wait that long; I usually start half way through April, hoping for the best; I have lost many a choice specimen due to my impatience.

I've been rather foolish, twice, in fact. I did some push ups (against a large chest of drawers, not the floor) and forgot to warm up first, another sign of my pig headed impatience. Naturally, I injured my shoulder. It's been hurting for weeks now. Wrestling with large pots and tubs and their contents hasn't helped either. Today my shoulder is even more painful and I am having serious words with myself about resting up. If only I listened. Tomorrow my son is coming for two nights and he will take me to my favourite plant nursery which means choosing plants rather than dealing with them.

Kind and Loving Hearts

 

Oh how I wish. But, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. This beggar remains just that, a beggar. No horse. I scroll youtube a lot on rainy days like today and sometimes get stuck on those 'recognise yourself' sites which pretend to help you find deep insights into your psyche. "5 Signs You've Been Emotionally Neglected In Childhood". 

Okay, let's see. I said it was raining, so no chance of going out and doing something worthwhile.

Emotionally neglected in childhood, yes, that's me. All 5 signs present and correct. When I finished, my first thought was: "the poor blighters didn't have the first idea themselves. How would they have known how to be emotionally available?"

My next thought was: "Hm, did I pass that on, maybe? Is that why?" Maybe. But there is nothing I can do about it now. And there comes a time when we must grow up and take responsibility for our lives ourselves.

There is a reason for this long introduction.

A couple of times a months I meet with a group of people for German Conversation. Not long ago a lady rang our group and asked if she could bring her Dad to a meeting. She said he had been a soldier in the British Army in Germany and had learned to speak almost fluent German. She warned us that he was very forgetful now, but she hoped that people speaking German would trigger his knowledge of the language and stimulate him. Of course, we said, bring him along.

It turned out that he was far gone into dementia. Not only did he not understand what we were saying in German, it became quite obvious that even an English conversation was beyond him. His poor daughter was distraught. "Oh, we are having a bad day today", she kept saying. "You were so much brighter yesterday." Throughout, she was calm and caring, constantly addressing him, in English, making remarks, asking did he understand, did he remember, while we in the group did our best to include him and her, in English, but with no real sense of penetrating the fog in his head.

And that's where the Kind and Loving Heart came in. This lady was the warmest, most patient, most loving daughter I have ever seen, totally focussed on her Dad, sitting close to him, calming and comforting him the whole time. The most shocking thing was that she herself was seriously disabled, suffering from a debilitating and progressive disease which would inexorably lead to her complete disablement and early death. She was entirely dependant on crutches. At first I thought she might have broken a leg or something, but no, she smiled sweetly and almost apologised for her physical condition.

How many of us could bear this load? When I think how I complain now and have complained in the past about small and large misfortunes, I feel ashamed. 

Night Terrors

I looked the term up, they are a thing. Maybe you knew? I didn't, until now.

"Night terrors are episodes of screaming, intense fear and flailing while still asleep. . . . . .Like sleepwalking, sleep terrors are considered a parasomnia — an undesired occurrence during sleep. A sleep terror episode usually lasts from seconds to a few minutes, but episodes may last longer. Causes are unknown but can be related to extreme tiredness, fever, stress or trauma." I am rarely extremely tired nowadays and haven't had a fever for years.

For several years I have had nightmares, long, unpleasant dreams, which leave me breathing hard, heart pumping, but remembering the dream. I am usually trying to escape from some danger. Night terrors are different. I appear to wake myself up with a scream or shout, sometimes a speech. Several times lately I have been violent, for instance thumping my elbow into my own pillow and once fighting with the bedside lamp, knocking it over.  I must have won that fight but my hand was bruised afterwards. Once I was half out of bed, one foot on the floor, fighting the bed clothes. One of these days I will find myself on the floor, with no idea how I got there.

I am the least violent person, I have actually been afraid of violence since childhood. I run away from people shouting at each other rather than towards them, my curiosity in such events is nil. I would say that emotional violence or aggression are not part of my nature either. I'd rather avoid any such turmoil.

I have booked an appointment with my GP. I'll come back and tell you what she said. Am I going mad? Is it dementia? Or is it stress?

Now for something entirely different, or maybe not.

Let's invent a couple, let's call them Fred and Freda. You've got to know them better during the last two plus years, you have spoken on the phone more often and you have actually seen more of them during visits which have lasted from between two to three days. You've tried your best but have realised that you simply don't like Freda. You consider her to be a bossy, manipulating bully who is trying to bully you as she bullies her family. For Fred's sake you have put up with her, mostly walking on eggshells, keeping quiet. Obviously, you have not allowed her to bully you, which makes her stomp off in a huff.

You like Fred although you can see that he is very much under Freda's thumb. There are other circumstances which make the relationship tricky. But although you are sometimes offended by their actions you put up with them, again, keeping quiet. You'd like to remain on reasonably good terms with Fred.

WTF are you going to do? Did I mention stress earlier? The night terrors may have nothing to do with this relationship but the time line is similar. Coincidence? Possibly.

 

yyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Books, Gardens, and a little Lesson in Humility

I have only very recently discovered a new to me, very powerful, story teller: Elizabeth Strout.  "Olive Kitteridge" is a beautifully observed novel, each chapter introducing and later revisiting and fleshing out a set of characters, all interconnected, living in a small town in coastal Maine, New England. It took me a long time to accept the emotional pain and troubled lives Strout uncovers for the reader, but she is gentle and empathic at all times and her characters, though complicated and flawed, become likeable in spite of themselves. I am glad I persevered, I have already bought "Olive Again" and will certainly explore more of her books, which are quite famous in the UK now, since she won the Pulitzer Prize.

I have been reading a lot of lightweight mysteries, as well as rubbishy novels which I've given up on (life's too short to let irritation take hold); lately I have felt that a better reading diet would do me good, so I've downloaded Anne Tyler, Penelope Lively, Rose Tremain, Maggie O'Farrell, Ali Smith, and a few others whose work I don't know yet; and for light relief, Nancy Mitford and P.G. Wodehouse. I have just counted the unread books on my Kindle, including non fiction, Travel, Myths, Nature and Poetry, there are 40 books in total. The unread books on my shelves come to a hundred or more; is it time I stopped buying new books?  Is it possibly an excuse that my Kindle books are all very cheap, under one £Sterling, all offers by clever booksellers and publishers to draw the unwise in? Winter is coming, it's too cold and wet to do much gardening, and I can most often be found curled up in a comfy chair with a book (or Kindle) in my hand. 

Talking of gardening: I haven't yet mentioned the Open Gardens on the last weekend of June. As always, visitors seemed to enjoy themselves. Saturday was cool and damp and windy and there were fewer than a hundred people all told.

On Sunday the weather was glorious, warm and balmy, neither too hot nor too cold and crowds turned up.

I sat on the sun terrace and had generously placed a few garden chairs around, there are always lots of people who have need of a sit down and many gardeners enjoy a natter about all things horticultural. As do I. There are also a few benches dotted about here and there and visitors are always welcome to make use of them.

I had quite a number of enquiries this year about trees; I watched a group of people clearly wondering what sort of tree my elderly walnut tree was and seemed unwilling to accept my explanation - in a nice way and with much exclamation of surprise. Not many people nowadays have walnut trees in cottage gardens. Another couple was smitten with my weeping pear tree. I admit it is a rather splendid specimen, I hadn't cut its umbrella of thin, graceful ash grey branches and silver leaves at all this year. It looks like a ballerina in a wide hoop skirt about 2 ½  metres across. I too would admire it if I came across it in somebodies garden.

I am glad that I decided to put myself through the effort and hard work; I freely admit quite an important reason for my decision was to show the world my "suffering at the mean hands" of my neighbours. (He actually turned up, the cheek of the man!) That's not all, of course, I like gardening and am quite proud of the result of my labours, as well as the positive feedback from visitors. Nearly everybody always praises my views; like I told the estate agent who came to value my house "It's a location to die for". Well, maybe not quite.

There is something I learned from the Open Gardens too, something about a failing I know I have and have had forever: I am inclined to judge people by their appearance.

There was this elderly couple, late 60s maybe, a little drab, even shabby looking, with the colour of people who work outdoors, gently strolling about. By and by they reached the sun terrace where I was sitting and stopped to chat about a plant or two, I forget which. I don't know how it happened - did they ask who tended the garden?, was I the only gardener?,  did I live alone? how did I cope? ; eventually, in the most unassuming manner, without in the least pushing themselves forward, they opened up and said that they had both been widowed and quite accidentally found each other and saved each other from the blight of loneliness. I was right to think that they lived on and off the land. She said "he brought a flock of sheep into the union." They were quietly happy and contented, probably not very well off. I had the impression they had everything they needed. So there was I, sitting on my sun terrace, with a house behind me larger than one person needs and proudly showing off my garden to these people who have so much more than I have in my lonely existence. Me and my stupid middle class superiority, I have swallowed wholesale the idiotic English attitude that class matters. Time I remembered where I come from.  I have envied the little couple ever since.

 

Things on my Mind.

When I finally rolled out of bed this morning, a little later than normally because I had no plans at all for today, and filled the kettle for a cup of tea I looked at the smart meter which sits right by the breakfast counter. At first I thought it had gone wrong, perhaps it was broken? But no, everything else looked fine and I had to believe the rather alarming figure the meter showed. By midday, the total consumption for the day so far, without using any electricity except that first cup of tea and things like fridge and freezer, clocks and other stand-byes, had reached the charge that even last week would be my total cost for an ordinary day without laundry, vacuum cleaning or other heavy uses of electricity. Twice the cost already and in October energy prices are increasing by another 80%! And again in January. There are people in this country whose income is less than the cost of their energy. How are they going to manage? It's utterly frightening. And winter's just around the corner.

At the same time there are "preppers", millionaires and billionaires, I read this morning, who are discussing among themselves and with consultants, how best to organise life in underground bunkers come the inevitable collapse of society, for whatever reason. Climate change, mass migration, nuclear winter, a plague worse than Covid, you name it, they are preparing for it. Or so they think. Several of them have already retained small armies to defend their underground fortresses. When it's all over and they crawl back into whatever light of day there still is, do they think that their money will see them through? Money will be worthless in a post-apocalyptic world and they themselves will be surplus to requirements. Strikes me that only skilled people will survive, bakers, gardeners, engineers, etc. and any Navy Seal who knows the whereabouts of the preppers' food and water stores will make damn sure they will get their share of it, by whatever means.

For those of you who say 'don't believe everything you read' this very long and reputable article named names, quoted sources and was signed off by a 'consultant' who had been hired to advise the tech titans.

Some of you have asked "is the shroud + scaffolding gone?" No it isn't, and not likely to for some time, the very least until the end of October. As if I weren't miserable enough yet. I have cut small holes and gaps into the shroud, but I will soon be cutting larger windows. I have asked my solicitor to explore if I can have compensation. If only it weren't so expensive to involve legal experts like solicitors and judges.

On a lighter note: I watched the 1940 film of Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice' with Greer Garson, Maureen O'Sullivan and Laurence Olivier on TV at the weekend. (Do those names mean anything to people nowadays other than to such as me at my advanced age?) I have seen many newer versions on the BBC, some very recent, and I have to admit that the MGM 1940s version was a bit of a letdown. Large chunks of plot were left out, the women wore clothes from different eras, Regency customs were mercilessly adulterated, and the characters hardly developed from beginning to end of the film. Jane Austen's old dragon Lady Catherine de Burgh was turned into a fond aunt, I ask you. Mr. Darcy did not rise from the lake in his frilly shirt as Colin Firth's Mr. Darcy did in the 1995 version, much the best in my opinion of all the many adaptations. 

And then best news of all: it's finally raining!

Guns in America

I had never heard of gun buyback events until I read about it during one of my idle news scrollings. So, you live in the US, could do with a little money top up; what to do? Swap one your old guns for $150, that's what.

The queue of cars was long, the drivers waving every kind of gun about. Not that I would know the difference between a hacksaw and a handgun but even I could see that these were dangerous weapons.

Drivers were being interviewed, the common denominator was that none of them saw any harm in them or their possession. From handguns to assault rifles, they were fine with all of them.

The comment which brought me up short was: "I like guns, if I counted them I'd say I have about thirty back home. To me guns mean freedom. We have freedom in America and we don't let anyone take that away from us. In fact, what I'm probably going to do is turn this one in, get my $150 and buy one for my son whose birthday is coming up. He wants one for his birthday." The boy, no more than maybe 11 or 12 years old, was sitting right next to him, sheepishly staring out of the window straight ahead.

One old fellow trotted out the usual explanation: "Guns don't kill people, it's people who kill people. Guns are good. Bad guys are bad guys."

Only one middle aged woman in the whole of that long chain of cars seemed to be neutral, neither for nor against. I have this gun - she showed the camera a small handgun - I have never used it and never will; I don't need it. But I need $150." 

In the UK the police have the occasional "handing-in knives-event.  But you don't get paid;  here, carrying a knife is illegal, - unless you can prove it is carried for a good reason -  and the access the public have to guns is very tightly controlled by law.  There is less gun crime in the UK than anywhere else in the world.

Dripping mad

In my previous post I said "When you get to my ripe old age you realise that nothing much matters..." I haven't changed my mind about that but you can still be surprised. One often says "I've seen it all before, and, equally often, that is true; yes, I frequently use the claim that old age prevents me from doing things I really don't want to do and yes, my slightly crafty and ever so slightly dishonest wheeze gets the required result in that somebody kind and helpful will do that job for me.

But back to the surprise. I appear to have a leak behind the tiles in the new shower room, not a very heavy one but the sort that will eventually cause damage if it isn't rectified. I can hear the steady drip drip when I use the bathroom quietly and listen for it. I have never made a claim on the house and contents insurance and it came to me that perhaps this is a job they would pay for. There's nothing wrong in asking, after all.

Believe me, asking is fine but the reply astounded me. In my innocence I thought that insurance companies either turn you down or they send a workman to check the claim. Was it ever thus? First of all the insurance lady at the end of the phone line, who is so sweet and helpful when it's time to renew my policy was not at all nice now that I was asking for their money. After an exhaustive list of questions which I answered to the best of my ability she ungraciously accepted that my claim might - just might - be accepted but first there were several hurdles to overcome. First of all they'd have to send a building firm who would establish where the leak is. Following that they'd have to send a surveyor who would establish the extent of the job, the probable cost and determine whether the job would indeed constitute a genuine claim acceptable to the insurance company. I would have to pay the builders' fee (£300, the excess on my policy for "escape of water") upfront regardless of my claim being acceptable or not. The final insult was that the company to whom I pay my annual premium is not the company with whom I am insured but is underwritten by yet another company.

To recap, my relatively small claim involves two insurance companies (both well known and reputable), a building company representative who normally charges £800 for finding a leak but whose services I could have for the sum of £300 - I know where the leak is, I told them I know - and an official surveyor to say yay or nay. All want paying, by me, their hapless customer. And there is no guarantee that the claim will actually be accepted.

Can you blame me for erupting? In a nice and polite way, of course. I find that being calm and polite always pays, nobody is going to react kindly to a foul mouthed harridan. I had two subsequent phone calls from two different company employees - I didn't even bother to understand which company either of them represented - and both were most apologetic and assured me that I didn't have to pay anything up front, that they would simply deduct the excess from any services rendered at the final reckoning. Success! Would you have quietly paid over £300 before you even knew if your claim was valid? Lots of people probably will and do and kick themselves afterwards.

I still don't know how this will pan out. The builder is coming on Thursday, but I will most definitely not pay him £300. Come hell or high water (even if it's only dripping).

Are you sure you are living the life you always wanted to live?

If you found out, right now, that these are the last few days of your life, could you say, tonight, that today you did exactly what you wanted to do?

For the moment, forget about pestilence, politics, war, famine; forget about smouldering fights with family and friends; forget about anything you have no control over, focus on yourself and what you can control, here and now, in your own life. 

Has today been deeply satisfying? Have you sailed through? Did you take the time to smell the flowers, savour a fragrant cup of coffee, do a kindness, to yourself or someone else? Yesterday was Sunday, was it the same day as every other or did it hold a special moment? Are you at peace with yourself?

I don’t know where any of this has come from. Like for so many of us older folk, the pestilence has brought me a lot of thinking time and observing time. The nights are drawing in, they are also getting cooler; I noticed that some leaves on my ornamental Japanese cherry tree are turning red, always the first sign of autumn in my garden. For several weeks I have been thinking how come I cope with solitude as well as I do, why am I not missing daily contact with people. And then I remember that daily contact with people has never been a priority for me and that some contact has actually been against my better judgement.

Vaguely I have been wondering why I continue to feel that I must make an effort when I don’t miss some people or activities at all. Indeed, why have I never realised that there are positively toxic people and toxic activities I’d do well to shed. Does it matter that some people’s feelings might be hurt if I don’t jump when they whistle?

My needs are modest, I aim for modest pleasures in life. There isn’t a great deal of time left, I must make sure that how ever many last days there are, I enjoy them at my own pace.

Of Matters Temporal and Temporary

It looks like I am not going to take sensible advice anytime soon.

“I think this could be a lot of work to keep it all going. Are you sure you want to carry on? Do you think you can?”

I had my son and his wife for a visit and a lovely time of almost endless talking it was. My voice was quite hoarse when they left. However, to qualify, we chatted for hours, with the exception of the time they spent clearing up more of those heaps of prunings, choppings down, clearings out and repair man’s leavings that I seem to collect nowadays. Only about six weeks after the previous five trips to the dump another three followed this time.

My daughter-in-law admired what she saw but there was a definite look of concern on her face. She hadn’t been to visit for a year at least and, not only did I become older by a year, but my house and garden haven’t shrunk in that time. Even worse, my gardening obsession has returned and, my knees having become stiffer, my energy levels lessened and my old codgerdom having increased, she had every right to express doubt in my general ability to continue my slightly head-in-the-sand attitude. For the knees I have bought a kneeler: it is not too difficult for me to get down on my knees, it’s the getting up again that’s the problem. The kneeler has two upright handles which allow me to heave myself up quite easily. I combat the energy loss by working for short, hour-long, bursts and taking a rest in between. As for the old codgerdom I try to make a virtue out of it; I quite enjoy looking helpless and asking all those nice men who come to do jobs, and even neighbours, for assistance.

I believe that my d-i-l’s concern is genuine, not the ”let’s-put-mum-out-of-her-misery-and-put-her-in-a-nice-home-for-the-elderly" syndrome. Not at all. She did, however, while we were sitting idly not watching a TV show neither of us was interested in, look around and remark on the ’stuff’ I have. The full book shelves, china and glass cupboards, pictures, rugs, ornaments, CDs, vinyl, DVDs, etc; all the stuff one has around and hardly uses. And that was just one room. I could see she was really bothered, which in itself was unusual for me; nobody has been concerned for me in any way for years, maybe even decades. My own son has only recently started to ask “Are you alright, Mum?"

“What do you want done with it all?” she asked.
I was puzzled. “Done with it?”

“Yes, all this stuff that you value and enjoy and then somebody comes and takes it away, and your whole life just disappears."

I think she was thinking of so-called house-clearers who bring a van, tell you they’ll take it all away if you just pay them a few hundred pounds and skedaddle.

It appears she was worried about the two of them, after my demise (which she hoped wasn’t for a long long time yet), having to descend instantly, sort out and dispose of, and vacate the house almost the day after the funeral. Come to think of it, the funeral too was a problem, had I made any arrangements?

Poor d-i-l, she was thinking of her own parents after their death, when she and her sisters laughed and cried and reminisced while clearing out the former home. There are three of them to support each other. I think she was comparing their situation with mine, as she imagines it, solitary, unregarded and neglected and unloved by the very few family left. She only relaxed when I told her about the facts and procedures of probate (which I also hope won’t be necessary for a long, long time yet) and that there will be no need to vacate the house until after that complicated process has been finalised.

Her visit has made me think. She is quite right, I must go back over arrangements made years ago; I have actually been meaning to make changes to my will for some time now. Then there are unofficial bequests of bits of furniture, jewellery, books, etc. Charitable donations need decisions. And maybe I should appoint a second executor, the one named now is getting a bit old himself. And as I am going to live for a long long time yet, he might be senile by the time I pop my clogs.

However, regarding what started this all off, my daughter-in-law’s musings about house and garden and all things temporal and temporary, I say this: good advice is always welcome, but what you do with it is up to you. You only ever ask for advice when you already know the answer, having already made up your own mind anyway and all you are really asking the other person is to confirm your own decisions.

Having ordered a load of large plants like two Italian cypresses, a couple of bamboos, a mahonia, and a hydrangea, from a wholesale supplier on the internet, would confirm my decision: I am not giving up gardening and garden designing anytime soon.

Just Saying . . . .

I made a disappointing discovery: one of my friends, someone I was not only fond of but admired greatly, has turned out to have feet of Covid19 clay. Supposedly, we are all in this together, but some of us are further out on the periphery than others, able to dip in and out at leisure. Looking around me I have judged that this one or that one would maybe not stay the course, crack under the strain of isolation, break the rules and get out from under without considering the consequences. In some cases I was right. But this particular friend I judged to have excellent self control, determination and staying power, yet this is the one to break the rules in the most spectacular fashion.

We are all only human, we all make mistakes, we are all getting fed up and nobody wants the situation to go on for longer than it needs to. But to flout the rules deliberately and claim special status for reasons of personal convenience is just despicable and highly irresponsible.

Maybe that friendship has run its course.

We have to pretend, said Old, we have to pretend about so much these days. We have to pretend to like things we don’t like. We have to try so very hard to be non-judgemental.
The Dept. of Sensitive Crimes by Alexander McCall Smith

Instead of sitting in judgement and feeling disappointed I should just continue to do what I’m doing, get into the garden more or less every day for at least two hours. The longer and harder I work the less attractive the beds are. More and more naked earth appears. I used to accuse Beloved of pursuing a ‘bare earth policy’,  he was keen to strip the beds back to basics and proclaim lots of my favoured plants to be weeds that needed clearing when we first came here. Now it’s me who does that. I have ordered a few pots of herbaceous perennials and some colourful annuals to close the biggest gaps once I get to replanting.  Luckily, the garden has a respectable 'bone structure' in the form of shrubs and trees. Spring flowering clematis like the one in the picture help too. Paul is coming tomorrow, I hope that together we will knock a few more weedy problems on the head.

Last night the outer scab came off my lip, quite naturally. The inner scab came off a few days earlier, the inner scar healed very quickly, I am glad to say. No infection anywhere. There is a small visible scar and a small patch of scab left, but nothing to spoil my beauty. I’m relieved.

Compliments and what they lead to.

"You are looking really well. Have you got over . . . ?” That’s where she stopped, a little unsure of whether she had paid me a compliment or been tactless. But she did sound surprised and as if she meant it. Christina is not one of my close friends; we just happened to have been invited to the same Remainers’ Party.

She was by no means the first person to tell me that I am looking well, several others have said so recently, close friends as well as casual acquaintances. Looking in the mirror I noticed pink cheeks but no great changes otherwise. Apart from a slightly shorter haircut. Jay, who is a friend, had complimented me only a few days earlier, also with a surprise in her voice. So I decided to find out what they thought the difference was.

“Tell me then, if you find me looking surprisingly well, how did I look before?” Both Christina and Jay were taken aback; apparently it is not polite to put people on the spot, we are meant to say ’thank you’ and move on. Both eventually gave in. “Well", said Christina, “you look less oppressed, freer, brighter.” And Jay said “a cloud seems to have lifted from over you.” Nothing to do with health, nothing to do with make-up or dress; nothing but a change in attitude. And because my general attitude has changed I sleep better, I appreciate small things in life, look forward more than backward.  There are days when I feel strangely elated for hours on end, burrowing into a a deep sense of well-being, as into a safe and cosy nest.

It’s taken three years since Beloved died to find myself again. I expect there will be sad and dismal days, but the worst is over. One never gets over the loss of a special person but it gets easier to cope.

I believe that Christina Koch had it right when she said : "Do what scares you. everyone should think about what intrigues them and what draws them in. Those things can be scary, but they usually mean you are interested.”

Ms Koch is the female astronaut who has just returned to earth after the longest continuous spaceflight a woman has ever undertaken. 328 days in space, just think of it, nearly a whole year.

Should we all challenge ourselves, no matter how old or infirm? Taking complete control of my life, dealing with authority, workmen, the day to day running of my household, having sole responsibility for finances and making them tally, overcoming such challenges as facing the taxman, lawyers and officialdom; rain coming through the roof and windows leaking; yes, I have had quite a time of it and, yes, it was scary most of the time. I have not been on a spaceflight like Ms Koch but I might as well have been for all the lessons I have learned.

As, for example, on just one tiny occasion I was dithering if I should accept the new toilet bowl the plumber had brought. I hated it, it left a large piece of flooring uncovered after he had installed it. I knew I would hate it forever and feel newly annoyed every time I went into the bathroom; the old me had Beloved to back her up, the single me was worried that the plumber might simply refuse to change the bowl for one with a bigger pedestal. Still, I stood my ground, quaking inside, and he agreed to dismantle the new installation. He charged me, of course, and next time I will know better and check before any job is completed. But, and this is the important bit, I felt enormously proud of myself!

No wonder I am looking better. It’s true, a cloud has lifted, I am coping.

So, what do you think? Is it good for us to come out of our comfort zone and face new challenges with courage and determination? Or should we look for anything for a quiet and undemanding life? There are times when the latter is not possible, of course. Many of my still coupled friends say they don’t have the first idea of how to cope without their husbands. I hope they won’t have to, but, if they do, I can tell them that anything is possible.

The Taxman, Viruses, Kindness and Otherwise

There is just about still time to wish you all a happy and peaceful new year. Had I waited until tomorrow, being February, it might have been both embarrassing and possibly even offensive. If only we could all assume that 2020 will be less harrowing than 2019 was, what with the horror news from so many parts of the world. Although the WHO’s warning of a global epidemic caused by an unknown strain of coronavirus doesn’t give cause for much optimism for the next few weeks.

Talking of the virus, one of the Ladies Who Lunch brought it up as a subject and the oldest member of the group, at 92 at least a decade ahead of the next oldest member, instantly remarked :”Well, I hope it doesn’t come here.” And, I am certain, she was definitely not thinking of anyone’s wellbeing but her own. It surprised me, I would think that at 92 continued life is precarious anyway. There was no empathy for anyone suffering the effects of the virus, which one would consider to be the automatic response to start with, just “not me please,” Does one get more selfish the older one gets? Of course, nobody, me included, welcomes any kind of illness, world-wide or localised, but a little of the milk of human kindness towards others goes a long way to make life pleasant. Or am I wrong? Too much rose-tint?

After two months of silence from me there may not be anyone interested in my thoughts. I developed a positive aversion to using my computer. I spent hours on the iPad and my phone, checking up on news and opinion pieces, but couldn’t bring myself to open the Mac. The reason is positively weird: I had the greatest trouble accessing the taxman’s site. Since October I have struggled to convince HMRC (Her Maj’s Revenue and Customs for those of you lucky not to have dealings with them) that I exist, that I have lived and worked and paid taxes here for decades, and that all I wanted was to be allowed to continue with the latter part in retirement. Do you think they believed me? Endless repeats of trying to gain access, endless rebuffs; each time I was told : you have tried to prove your identity too many times, come back in two days’ time. I sent emails, requests for assistance, even a long and heartfelt letter, all without success. So, since I use my Mac for official communications, (as well as blogging), it became my enemy, because HMRC remained closed to me. In the end I rang them. In an hour long call the first person I was referred to couldn’t help; the next person, a superior tax adviser person, scratched her head and was willing to cut me off when she was equally as flummoxed as the first.

I have to say that I am very good at begging and pleading and announcing my great age, and therefore great need, to all and sundry in the cause of soliciting assistance. Quite shameless, that’s me. So, once I had a real life person on the line rather than an uncaring computer, I begged and pleaded for all I was worth, even explaining that I was quite likely to be deported if I couldn’t prove my willingness to pay the correct taxes. I forgot to say that one of the questions the soulless computer threw at me many times, was, “do you have a valid British passport?” I don’t, but what has that to do with the price of fish, i.e. tax payments?

The superior tax adviser person softened and, during a further hour long phone conversation, dreamt up a whole new persona for me, going back to my tax records of years back. In the process she and I discovered that I have two “Unique (yes, unique) Tax References, two addresses, and two names. I think I am going to start next year’s tax returns right at the start, i.e. next April. And perhaps I’ll use a paper return. Last year I paid my accountant £600 to fill in my tax return, I am not willing to be fleeced again for work I have already mostly done myself, so now that this year’s return is done I am hoping that next year’s will proceed more smoothly.

I should mention that Christmas was fun. Ten days beforehand my son came; he put up the tree, with me giving instructions. We had  Christmas music, a festive dinner, some convivial family chat and rekindled old memories. This visit, on his own, is becoming a tradition I love. He also took me to the county town for a shopping trip; he carried my purchases between shops and car, which makes it all so much easier for me. I quite dread having to stumble my way through crowds, burdened with bags.

My friends were the real stars of my Christmas. Sue said I might as well come for Christmas Eve dinner as well as Christmas Day itself, which was really kind of her. She had some houseguests too and we all got on very well - no Brexit fallings out - and after a lengthy and leisurely dinner we read ’The Importance of Being Earnest’ with me taking over the role of Lady Bracknell. Halfway through the read-through my voice started to go which made it all the more grittily posh, just what is needed for the part. It was great fun and so much more so than slumping in a chair, replete with overindulgence and half drunk as well.

My voice going was a harbinger of the chest infection to come, which started more or less on Boxing Day and only stopped when the practice nurse forced me to take a course of steroids after New Year. I was really quite poorly with a cough to rattle every tooth in my head. The infection was doubly disturbing because I have recently been diagnosed with a recurrence of my childhood asthma. Apparently that is not uncommon, childhood asthma will frequently show itself in old age, when we become more susceptible to allergies. Strange that, you’d think we’d have become inured to many infections because we’ve had and survived so many of them through life. Not so, it seems.

I have mentioned Brexit but once today; in common with many friends I am sick and tired of the whole business, depressed too. In an hour’s time I am off to a Brexit wake party for remainers only.
I’ll be back here soon, unless we all throw ourselves off the castle battlements.

Happiness Factor? It’s a joke, right?

So there I was, aiming for human interaction resulting in happiness, or at least a semblance of contentment.

Fat chance.

Not that it was all bad. A friend and I went off to see a modern re-imagining of John Gay’s 1728 work "The Beggar's Opera" by Mid Wales Opera Company, a production for small spaces and therefore very intimate. Renamed “Mrs. Peachum’s Guide to Love And Marriage” it is a splendidly bawdy, ballsy take on relationships and the relative virtues of virginity. We enjoyed it and, what’s more, my friend and I didn’t fall out in spite of getting into politics.

Another event was a Spanish Evening set up by a local group. There was tapas, Spanish wine, some haphazard music and three short, separate, talks about the painter Joaquin Sorolla, Spanish food and how the speaker liked to cook it and wine talk. The wine talk was the only professional talk, which means that the whole hall could hear that speaker. The other two never remembered to speak into the microphone, in spite of an audience member begging them to do so. What made it worse for me was that I had chosen to sit at a table towards the back of the hall (ready to scarper?) just in front of the wine table where the volunteer wine server chose to use the time of the talks to rearrange his crates of bottles, picking up each bottle, checking it for dregs and plonking it back into its hole in the crate. He took absolutely no notice of my anguished looks in his direction and clinked on busily. Not the most enjoyable evening all told.

You can simply not rely on people to do as they say. I took a very wheezy chest to my doctor; yes, he examined me, asked a few questions and came up with the idea that my childhood asthma might have returned. And yes, he was going to investigate and consult another doctor. "So, should I make another appointment,” I asked. “O no, I’ll ring you later this afternoon.” That was two weeks ago. Not a peep out of the surgery since then.

Gadgets aren’t a whole lot more reliable, either. The whole area had a power cut. When the power came back on after several hours I mentally congratulated the electricity firm and settled down for a cosy evening. By and by the room cooled down, quite considerably by the time I bestirred myself to check on the boiler. One very dead boiler. This was Friday evening of the coldest weekend this year with frost and freezing fog forecast. I fiddled around and tried to relight it but it just grumbled and coughed at me. I spent some time online trying to find the nearest engineer but gave up and rang the manufacturer's company itself - Worcester-Bosch - who are many miles away but have always seen me right in the past. Many miles away also means an expensive call-out, of course. “Yes, we’ll come, On Monday.” Between Friday evening and Monday morning I wore thermal layers, several pairs of thick socks, my pyjamas under trousers and jumpers - who is going to undress completely in a freezing cold bathroom? - , carried around two small fires, and forgot about personal cleanliness entirely. What on Earth do people do who do not have immediate access to the wherewithal necessary to pay for an emergency like this? I had ice flowers on the windows, for heaven’s sake. The female engineer discovered that the power cut had blown the circuit board. She replaced it, serviced the boiler and made sure that all was back in order before she left.

Next stop a major building job. I had my windows on the South side of the house replaced, all eight of them. I was pleasantly surprised by the result. Beloved would have been livid, several years before we debated if we should swap wooden windows for plastic. “Absolutely not,” was his conclusion. "Wooden widows are so much more attractive.” No they’re not, says I. They require constant repainting, repairing and splicing, none of it cheap. So now I have perfectly fitting, draught excluding, plastic windows on the weather side. I was also pleasantly surprised by the workmen doing the job. They were relatively quiet, cleaned up after themselves and caused minor disruption, allowing me to escape to a different room with each window. Even so, there was a moment when the boss man and I almost fell out. Over Brexit, what else. He was a fervent Leaver who trotted out all the long-discredited lies we were told three years ago. There is no getting through to some. I wished him Good Luck and left the room quickly.  I had learned my lesson from a previous experience, much more painful and embarrassing, which I’ll come to next.

You see, there was this dinner party at a very good friend’s house, the guests being a couple from London, a couple from Valley’s End and me. We have met at this house in previous years, always get on well and usually have a splendid evening, with lots of wine, food, good conversation and a general feeling of goodwill to all assembled. Except this time I related my experiences and feelings about the need to apply for Settled Status after 50 years of living the UK, once Brexit has become reality. O dear. It appeared that the couple from London and the host, with whom they were staying for the weekend, had already had a falling-out the previous evening. So my remark simply stirred the flames all over again. It was most unpleasant for a while, a lot of wine had been consumed and tempers flared, in a quietly genteel way, neither bad language nor insults were employed, but tempers flared. I know that families have fallen out, co-workers have fallen out, friends have fallen out over this wretched business but I never imagined that a genial host and his guests would suddenly, in the middle of a most enjoyable dinner party, stage a mini-war. At the moment the UK is not a friendly place.

So, human interaction is all very well, but it does not necessarily lead to happiness.

Looking back , looking forward

My darling Millie has died. In her last days she could barely make it to the lawn and often poo'd on the flags of the terrace. She deteriorated quite quickly and I finally had to make the decision to call the vet to the house. Lovely Marzena, my Polish cleaner, was here. She too loves dogs and she sat with Millie, cuddling her and scratching her neck while we were waiting for the vet to arrive. I gave her her afternoon feed hours early, which she ate with visible enjoyment in spite of her wobbly legs. Without Marzena I could not have done it; as it was, I cried and cried and was ready to change my mind again.  The vet knows me for the wimp I am and she and her nurse came within the hour. So that’s that.

I’ve not been terribly happy since then, in fact, I’ve not been at ease with myself ever since Beloved died. Millie was the last living link with him, she was my companion, a creature I talked to and petted, who followed me around and gave me a reason to get up in the morning, to go out in all weathers, to feed and water, to keep as happy as she was making me. With all of them gone, Beloved and Millie, before them my parents, the goodwill of one child gone for good and only a loose connection with the other, I am truly alone in any meaningful sense. The house is empty and quiet. I have no family here or in Germany.

So now it’s time to come to terms with the remainder of my life. A peaceful existence is what I am aiming for. This should be my time for being, not doing. No more struggle, no more achievement, no more passion. All passion spent. A time for being only myself, in kindness and forbearance rather than trying to make changes, in my life or  that of anyone else.

Old age brings calm, if we are lucky. With so much experience, a lifetime of ups-and-downs, of miserable times as well as deliriously happy times, of ill-health and good health, much like any other human being, why do I still feel that I must be doing, actively go forward, get involved, be part of movements, experience new horizons?

Tuesday evening I went to a restaurant with a friend who is madly active, who has just spent a week in London as a First-Aider during the Extinction Rebellion demonstrations. Once again I felt ashamed that I seem to have lost all fight, all passion. That I feel disinclined to climb on barricades, take up new studies, a new cause, an all consuming hobby. Soon people are going to suggest that I must be bored at home, that I must lack much needed stimulation, that I ought to go on exciting holidays. Etc.

Basically, if I am truthful, I must say that I am rather lazy now. There is a battle going on inside me, a battle between letting go on the one hand and feeling that I must not be seen to have stepped off the treadmill on the other; that my own little bubble, now much shrunk, is where I would like to live without shame or guilt. Being lazy makes me want for the desire for disappearing into my bubble to win. There are so many things right here at home which please me, books, talking to friends, my garden, modest social occasions, tv and visits to see plays or listen to concerts. Instead I seem to be recycling the same thoughts, the same questions, the same uncertainties, over and over again, without ever coming to a decision. I would be happy and contented if I could come to no more than simply a workable resolution that doesn’t particularly lead anywhere except to an acceptance of the status quo.

My friend Jay called this afternoon to help me with my Application for Settled Status in the UK post Brexit. About time too that I got down to that. Having prevaricated for ages is just another sign of my current state of mind. The Home Office still can’t cope with iPhones; my friend uses Android so she very kindly made the application for me on that. Afterwards we came to chat and I told her about my current lack of motivation. I speculated if I should go and see a therapist to rid me of the feelings of guilt and shame at my idleness. I have an inkling where these feelings come from: years and years of being responsible for the smooth running of my life and that of first, my parents, and then my children. My friend said, fine, now we know why you are feeling useless, but, and this is the big but: whose rules are these? Who says you must be doing, achieving? You are no longer responsible for anyone but yourself. Jay became quite heated. “If you want to sit all day picking your nose, you can.” She is right, of course, but how do you change the conditioning of a lifetime overnight?

This is getting to be a long post, I’d better stop now. No doubt I will be pondering these existential questions for some time yet, like many others have done before me. And many who come after me will do. And also no doubt, I will be rehashing them here. For now writing this down is helping.
 

Room to Think

Rain, rain, nothing but rain.

Yesterday, when I saw the weather forecast, I was pleased. A whole day to myself with nobody to disturb my peace. It’s been a busy  couple of weeks, with gardening, a shopping trip, a family visit, a couple of luncheon engagements with friends, nothing arduous or stressful, but enough to make me look forward to solitude.  It was the American poet Marianne Moore who said "the cure for loneliness is solitude” and I must admit that seeing too much of people often leaves me feeling lonely.

Today, I feel differently. This rain is too depressing and I’d love a bit of company. So, in the absence of ‘live’ companions, I am turning to you.

One of solitude’s gifts is room to think. Not that thinking leads to much in my case on a day like today, but when I sit doing nothing else thinking stray thoughts is a natural consequence. Normally I’d sit and read but, unlike my natural hedonistic attitude to life, I felt a bit guilty for doing nothing all day. So I sat and thought. Mainly about people and my perception of them as relating to me. And that is, of course, where things get complicated. I do tend to overanalyse.

I may have mentioned it before: do you enjoy a good argument or do you go with ‘anything for a quiet life’? When meeting groups of acquaintances and friends do you prefer like-minded people or are you happy to leave your comfort zone and listen to opinions you don’t share? Do you bite your tongue when someone expresses themselves in a forceful manner on subjects which you find yourself diametrically opposed to? Do you allow them to have and hold opinions in the spirit of free speech or do you fight your corner, always realising that that might lead to a fight? Or do you say ’there is no arguing with some people’ and leave it at that? Some of the ladies I meet read newspapers I wouldn’t keep for toilet paper and they do insist on repeating the viewpoint, angle and stance such papers espouse. Sometimes it’s just gossip, for instance the permanent negative bias towards Meghan Markle or ridicule of the environmentalist teenager Greta Thunberg, at other times it's the vicious anti immigrant, anti gay, racist mindset. Bearing in mind that these subjects do not come up every time you meet and that these ladies are actually friendly and helpful in many other respects do you continue to meet with them? Or is meeting with them just not worth the hassle?

Tell me what you think.

Old Gardener

Old Gardener has died. In the end it was all over within a few short weeks, the cancers took him quickly, I am glad to say. So there will be no more gardener’s tales over a cup of tea in the sun, no more crafty fags, no more tuneless whistle of a short sequence of notes, which never were nor ever could become a tune. Gardener, who was extremely hard-working, not always reliable, who often took umbrage when his feelings were hurt. Who fell out with his missus and son and made up again. Occasionally he fell out with me but I learned to grovel and he’d appear again as if nothing had happened.

At the beginning, many years ago, he came all day and worked all day. At lunchtime he ate his sandwiches sitting in the car, listening to the radio for half an hour; we had a mid morning cup of tea and another one in the afternoon, when Beloved joined us. After work he’d stop and sit on the terrace and talk. And talk. And talk. Usually I was ready to call it a day by then, ready to have a wash and collapse and often wished him gone. But old gardener could not be hurried when he didn’t feel like it. It was always just another cigarette. A dreadful Woodbine, one of the worst for nicotine content.

Later on, after he had a heart attack, he came for a morning once a week, maybe four hours. But even in those four hours he did the work of two men.  During the last year, until last winter, when he stopped coming altogether, he did less, sat down on a bench and rested now and then for a few minutes. His work got less careful, some jobs he simply didn’t undertake. I always forgave him, I had plenty of other problems to worry me what with Beloved falling ill and later on being poorly myself. We did what we could between us although he most certainly did the lion’s share.

Throughout his decline he continued to smoke. He said he had taken advice and now smoked filter-tipped cigarettes. He was quite pleased with  himself. When I pointed out to him that he smoked his cigarettes right down to the filter, getting the full blast of nicotine, he waved my comment away. When I told him to only half load the wheelbarrow, to lift smaller weights of bags, to turn the compost heaps over two work sessions rather than the one, he waved those concerns away too. Instead he deliberately lifted an even heavier weight with a face that said :’that’ll show her with her interfering ways’.

Gardener was 73 when he died. In this valley the ‘leaving’ age is mid eighties, there are plenty of 90 year olds. Gardener had a hard life, leaving school at 14 and going straight into farm labour where he stayed until the landowner sold his herd and gardener, who was  the cattle man, became unemployed. In late middle age he took up gardening for people. He knew nothing about it but was willing to learn, which he did, and although I had to watch him when he got too near ripping up one of my prize specimen in his eagerness for a scorched earth policy, he also learned to ask, most of the time, at least. Occasionally he dug up first and asked later but those occasions got fewer and farther between.

I am sure it was hard work and smoking which did for him. Last autumn we sat side by side on a bench in Beloved's memorial garden and talked. He told me that he had savings, of wich he was very proud, and he was looking forward to doing less and less and maybe treating himself. To what, I don’t know. Gardener knew little beyond work, his interests were few and Jane, his wife, had made him get rid of his beloved homing pigeons. “Filthy vermin” she said. Instead they adopted a little dog, a small terrier like creature, an awful yapper. He loved that little dog and could talk about her antics for hours. Jane too loved the dog, he said, but neither of them ever thought to give it a name.

While we were sitting talking and he was telling me about his savings he said “if I don’t make it at least Jane will have something to keep her going.” I was surprised that this wiry, stringy, tough old, 'horny handed son of the soil’ had a soft side and that he was willing to share it with me.

I miss you, old friend, and not only because I miss your work. There’ll never be another Austin.

Paula

Roughly once a month Paula and I meet for supper and a glass of wine in the White Horse. We book a small table in the pub window which seats two comfortably and four at a squeeze and spend several hours chatting nonstop until we’ve set the world and our small corner of it to rights. Paula has been widowed for several years more than me, she is also a good number of years older and wiser. In spite of her great age she has a permanent twinkle in her eye, she enjoys her life and has no intention of giving in to old age. In our rural world clothes are of little importance really, but Paula always makes an effort, uses make up and has beautifully kept nails. Compared to her I am scruffy.

Provision for old age is high on the agenda in our talk. Both of us own our homes and both receive an old age state pension. We also have additional occupational pensions; maybe Paula’s is worth more than mine as she has been a teacher for many decades and teachers’ pensions in the old days were generous. What I am actually saying is that, things staying as they are, neither of us needs worry about putting food on the table. And yet, we worry.

The funny thing is that Paula worries about the distant future. Her usually so jolly face turns serious. “But what if house prices fall when things get bad with Brexit?" she asks. It seems she has worked out how many years the value of her house would safely see her through the cost of residential care. “So, if in a few years’ time I have to go into a home and my house is worth less than now I could only  afford to have care for five or six years.” Paula sees nothing but penury ahead. Although she spends money on holidays she certainly doesn’t spend freely. Apparently her accountant has asked when she intends to spend a bit more, reminding her that she can’t take it with her. And yet, Paula worries. Paula is in her early 90s and fit mentally and physically so there’s no immediate prospect of her having to go into a care home. (If I could be like her I’d happily live into my early 90s too.) The average lifespan in a care home in the UK is between 1 and 3 years. Therefore, ‘in a few years’ time’ plus several years in residential / nursing care would bring her close to the end 90s. True, none of us knows what lies ahead but I think that her house, pensions and savings will probably see her to her end comfortably. When I tease her and ask how long she plans to go on for she laughs ruefully and admits that she’s both over-ambitious and over-careful.

Here’s a question which exercises me too:

do you splurge or do you hoard ?
do you live every day as if it is your last or do you save your money on the chance you’ll live twenty more years ?


PS: yes, I know this is strictly a first world problem and a very nice one to have. So please don’t remind me of the millions of people who have a hard time putting regular meals on the table and would only be too glad to worry about an old age they may never see. That’s a problem I cannot solve.