I have no idea where my time goes. I seem to do very little and when I turn round whole weeks have fled by. I had every intention of staying on top of my journal (Clavering) and when the calender clicked into October I remember thinking I really must get on with recording September.... then thoughts became, oh well, a couple of days late won't matter and then - good grief it's a week and I still haven't done it and now, finally, here I am - three weeks into the month and still not done. Actually I have just figured out what happens to my time .. I've just spent ten minutes blathering and achieved nothing. Into the breach.....
Any month which begins with a trip to Ikea and making a flat pack cupboard can only get better. My move back into the house from the shed (only my hobby stuff not a complete banishing) meant I needed another surface area for one of my 'projects'. The wonderful Expedit filled the spot. It only took me twenty minutes, sore hands and a ruined screwed up blouse that I wrapped round the Allen key to prevent more raw hands (and yes it was the one I was wearing) to insert two of the six bolts. Ken arrived to see how I was getting on and tightened the ones I had done and did the other four using the self same Allen key all with his bare hands ( his blouse never came into play). This took him about five minutes!! Brain v. brawn... winner is?
Week one's treat was a girlfriend-trip to the movies to see 'Brave' preceded by a pizza with a deliberate hole in its middle - how cute is that? These treats were amplified by qualifying for 'senior' rates and getting a two for one on both deals, courtesy of Orange Wednesdays. Don't you just love it when someone pays you to go out.
My daughter arrived at the end of the week with her half of a new car - her first! Luckily her partner came with her and brought the matching half. It is lovely to see your kids doing their thrilling 'my firsts'. She was so pleased with it. That said it is a lovely, happy looking Henry (its name) Hey, you are reading a woman who calls her waste disposal Oscar, so I have no issues with the car being Henry.
The following day, we had a meal booked for them, us and my sister and husband who were coming for lunch to say goodbye to the four of us before they emigrated to Canada. It was something I really hadn't wanted to do and was glad when she came to the same conclusion and cried off. The remaining four of us had a lovely meal and a great weekend and the snivelling was cut to a minimum. If I had to have done an actual goodbye to my sister and her husband I would have fallen apart.
None of this is based remotely on logic. We haven't seen all that much of each other since my mother died in 2004. Indeed they have only been to our current home once in the years we have lived here and that was five years ago. We have been to visit them a few times a year but since we sold the caravan last year that has also got less. We do keep in touch but I suppose our day to day lives trundle along pretty independently of each other. Nevertheless it felt as though the last rug had been pulled out from under me. As I am officially an orphan, my elder sister is the only person on the planet who has known all the various forms of 'me' from day one. She is my bond to family history and stories of my childhood and, being six years my senior was for a lot of years almost a second mom to me - the indulgent one. Losing her (and her husband) to the wilds of Vancouver has been, and will continue to be, a wrench.
I wish them and all those I love, the very best of life but why, oh why, can't they all do it round the corner from here. I was cooking a chicken roast dinner and all the trimmings and a Bramley apple crumble here today and I had the, not unusual, thought.... wouldn't it be nice if I could just ring my sister or son or daughter and say bob round because I've cooked too much as usual.... and we could all catch up on what's happened since we last saw each other just a few days ago.
Any way, on Sunday, a late breakfast/early lunch at Falshaws (the ice cream farm) was followed by another goodbye to my little girl and her bloke for a while as they returned to Edinburgh and their lives.
I must try to remember to catch an event there next year.
We followed it with lunch at the Mark Addy. Horrendous to think it was forty years since I last ate there!!!...... and I remembered it like it was yesterday. Now Mark Addy is a character worth reading about.
September is the month for one of the Old Langworthians' meals. A few of the staff who worked at Langworthy Road get together a few times a year to keep in touch. I miss a couple of these because of my peripatetic existence, but it is nice to catch the occasional one and see how everyone is faring. We all look a damn sight better than we did when we were teaching and for some of us that's more than ten years ago. Well done you chaps... you know who you are...
The 23rd is the big day in my calender. Miniatura. As usual it is written about in my Bentleys Blog but needs noting here too as it is a major event for a tiny nutter. I had a great day... and I do mean day. I was there a little after they opened at 10.00am and stayed until they closed at 4.30 pm. Ken trotted off to an NT house for a walk and long lunch and back in time to pick me up. I was happily shattered by the time he scraped me out of there. Imagine winkle and pin.
My grand-daughter (also in Canada) had her second birthday on the 27th. I can only repeat the way I began - where do my days go? and why is my family scattered to the four winds?
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