What a year it's been this 2012. A Jubilee and the Olympics; a Jubilee birthday for me and the friends I was at school with, and the wonderful gift of a Grand-daughter.  I've a feeling 2013 has a lot to live up to. 

By and large, even years seem to be better than odd one's for us, and though I'm not superstious about the number 13 there aren't many predictions that things are going to improve nationally or internationally anytime soon, let alone in the small corner of the world we call home.   Despite her every effort M hasn't had as much as a sniffle in the last year and recovered with great speed from the accident which damaged her arm. In fact, with her indomitable will and self-assurance she could make a bid for world domination any day soon. I'm in no doubt whatsoever that she isn't going anywhere anytime soon, either into a nursing home or another place (- though if she could become a lodger with a friend in W*****, she'd go tomorrow) and I'm sure I shall be writing this just the same at the end of 2013 .  (Unless she's finished me off by then!)  The fact that she's phoned all her friends to announce that it was her last Christmas can be added to the last Christmas announcements she been making since 1995.  I hope the friend who was sent money for M's farewell lunch last year has had it in a savings account gaining interest above inflation or she may well land up out of pocket.

So here we stand at the gate of the year, looking back and looking forward.  I hope you will all have a happy New Year's celebration wherever you spend it and the year to come will bring you all the things you wish yourself.

Signing off...

The terrible light in this photo taken yesterday gives you some indication of how dull it's been outside.  Mercifully, we don't flood here but my heart goes out to everyone who has been.

The presents are wrapped (no prizes for guessing that the largest amount is for the smallest person), the food has been delivered by the nice man from Abel & Cole and the fridge is full to bursting.  The clementines above have already been reduced - well we had to try them out, and we've had the usual debates about whether we need more cheese, bread, sherry?  And H is proposing a trip to the French bakers tomorrow, so goodness knows what he'll come back with.  Tomorrow I shall do everything that can be done in advance - including cooking turkey for M who won't eat the duck we always have instead.

So, I hope you all have a lovely Christmas, and I'll be back next year. X

Staying in, catching up

Yesterday was a brief respite from the rain, but today we're back to grey skies, dripping trees, rain -soaked garden and drive and disappearing views to the misty hills.

Last week was busy. Daughter and Grand-daughter and cat came to stay for four days as Daddy was away, so we were fully occupied providing laps and shoulders for miss to sleep on and getting down on the floor - a challenge to our aged knees - to wiggle bright toys and tickle little toes.  We are now rewarded with beaming smiles and frantic arm and leg waving as she starts to recognize our voices and faces.  The weather was bitterly cold and foggy but we chanced a trip to the cafe where she was cooed over and admired while we sipped good cappucino.  We didn't have any broken nights - much to Great-granny's secret annoyance as there was no excuse to complain. 

This week has been one for catching up - I have been forced to go out a bit in the awful wet weather and I've been very wary as although we are quite a way up the hills, run off does collect on the roads and a lot of tree work has brought road works and queues on all the local roads.  Yesterday was a beautiful day, fortunately, as I was playing taxi for Daughter, but there were still large pools of standing water on minor roads and it's raining hard again now.

Taking advantage of staying in, I at last finished the little rug which has been sitting in the WIP pile for months -

It looks a bit wonky in the photo, but that's the photographer's fault!  It's very warm and cosy.  All the yarn came from the stash and it's a real mixture from merino with cashmere to just plain acrylic.  In theory it needs a further border, but I felt it would be better in use than sitting waiting for more work.  

Feeling more inspired, having ticked off one UFO, I made a set of cot bumpers for GD's swinging crib,  and finished some more Xmas cardigans.  I'm now knitting a small hoodie in Purelife Eco wool  -  I bought a whole lot about two years ago in a House of Fraser sale and it's really lovely to use, light and 'lofty'.  A rug made from this would be incredibly light and warm.

In a rare burst of energy, I actually made a Christmas and then a fruit cake - I've used an old Good Housekeeping recipe for years and it's incredibly quick as everything is put into the bowl at once.  Kept for several weeks in a tin and 'fed' with booze it makes a great Christmas cake, but eaten the next day after cooking you get a very moist fruit cake which is quite light in texture.  M hates this cake as she likes fruit cake to be like occasional raisins etc. stuck in dry sand, so we don't waste it on her!  Similarly, home-made mince-pies are scorned for not having pastry like plaster - when I met H he wouldn't eat pastry as he associated it with M's over-worked effort which was teeth-breakingly hard. My mother's sweet soft shortcrust was a revelation to him, though he still won't eat a savoury pie!   The fridge was over-stocked with veggies so soup has been created in quantity and several stews, though again, separate meals have to be created to suit M's taste. 

Next week will be busy again, so I'm hoping the bad weather will abate.  Have a cosy weekend!

As I write this, the sky outside is a beautiful clear blue and the sun is shining - I'm glad those who are standing at the Cenotaph in London or at the many, many War Memorials large and small around the country are not enduring bitter cold or driving rain as many will be elderly and will find it a harrowing experience. 
I am sitting alone in my little study and I can hear the service playing on M's television.  I shall also be able to hear the bugle calls from our local service which takes place on the main road not far from us - if H wasn't already out I would go to the service.  Not because I have lost anyone close in war, but because remembrance was a duty impressed on us all as children by my father who never missed the service.  Most of us born immediately after the WW2 grew up with the expectation and duty of remembrance and we grew up with old soldiers and tales of their wartime exploits - my uncle, amusingly went AWOL before embarking to fight in Burma and had to be collected by Redcaps but redeemed himself and went on to be mentioned in dispatches. These days we are again mourning young lives lost in foreign lands. To commit two minutes of silence in memory once a year out of our hectic lives seems very little to give.

How did it get to be November?

Misty November mornings - clearing into. sunny days

Thank you so much to all of you who commented or emailed your good wishes for our new grand-daughter.  She is one month old today and is growing and starting to focus and smile.  We've had a few ups and downs - a virus infection which was very worrying and some problems with feeding - but progress is now being made. Daughter is now much better and the days when one of us had to spend part of each day with her to fetch and carry whilst she got over the caesarian have now passed, and she is enjoying going out with the baby in the pram even if she can't yet drive.

During all this M was at her worst - she can't bear not to be the centre of attention and is currently trying to tie me down to being at home at everyday at 4 p.m. to put her pyjamas on (don't ask why she has to do this at 4p.m. when she doesn't go to bed until 10p.m., I don't know)  as well as showering her and dressing her each morning, so my day will be condensed into the hours between 10.00 a.m. and 4 p.m. - difficult enough  to fit in everything around 11.00 a.m honey and lemon drink, 12.30, orange juice, 1.00.pm. lunch, 1.30 after lunch drink and 4.00 p.m hot chocolate - all things have to have a strictly adhered to time, which H can at least deal with. Visits to daughter, food shopping, seeing friends etc all have to be done with one eye on the clock and sometimes there just isn't enough time. So the choices are to be 'late' and suffer the temper tantrum, or leave early and miss out.  H feels badly about this but he can't really deal with her in the shower or naked and waiting for pyjamas.  She has long tried to make it impossible for him to be out during the day so we shouldn't be surprised that she's started on me too, I suppose.  I'm sure she regards us as the downstairs staff and she sack us if she thought she'd find some other mugs to do the work or some other place to live where they'd adhere to her silly schedule. I now know what it feels like to be part of the 'Sandwich' generation! I do feel though that Daughter has more right to my time at the moment -

H's flu has gone, and I didn't get it, thank goodness.  He's managed to see quite a lot of grand-daughter since, but as she goes to sleep as soon as he picks her up, he rarely sees her with her eyes open!

Our favourite eating place from Worcester, Mac & Jac's, has opened a branch in Great Malvern, so I've managed a few quiet early-morning coffees and the odd bacon sandwich en-route to the bank or the post office - well even this life has to have some upsides.  I've also managed to get through quite a lot of knitting, and finished several UFOs.  A trip to the Malvern Quilt Show with a friend provided some inspiration - not yet acted upon!  A quilting fabric shop has just opened in Great Malvern and was busy with two classes when I visited this week, so hopefully it will thrive like our excellent wool shop. 

 I've started on knitting for Christmas - all the small people I knit for are getting sweaters or cardigans knitted in Aran weight wool for speed!  Whether I also get round to sewing is debateable but I've got some great doll and rabbit patterns that would fit the bill.  At the last Antique Fair at Three Counties I managed to find a terrific (and v large) print of Worcester cathedral for H who is notoriously difficult to buy presents for, and I've already ordered Christmas food from Abel & Cole.  I'm not usually this organised, it's a bit spooky!

Weather today is beautiful at the moment and I'm off to have my hair cut - as soon as H returns from an organ lesson.  Box and Cox have nothing on us...

Early one morning....

Some mornings lately have been fabulous despite the few grim foggy grey days.

We've had silvery mornings.   And some truly golden mornings -

And we've had mornings where balloons drifted across the sky or sunk slowly out of the sky into the surrounding fields -

And the early morning light has been magical against the late flowering plants in the new border -

And the trees which are now turning -

But the best morning was the one when were woken by the telephone in the dark early hours to the news that we had a grand-daughter.  The excitement of the wait had been tempered by a lot of worry but she is, of course, absolutely worth it.  Unfortunately, H has flu so I can't go and see her at present and I shan't be posting her photo on my blog so you'll have to take my word for it that she is beautiful.

Hello, October

September seemed a very long month - and not much time for blogging.  It was, however, a month for getting things done: a real admin-start-of-year sort of month.
So with that incentive my 'done list' for September is quite impressive.

Since buying a new computer and getting it working, I've:

Changed the broadband to a much faster version and unlimited download - not connected yet but we live in hope!

Changed utilities supplier which I hope will cut bills a little (we are obliged to heat the house to tropical proportions for M's benefit) - again it hasn't happened yet but it's in progress.

Called the Gas Board out to fix the radiator that was stuck on in H's study.  They say we need the system powerflushed but the plumber is sceptical.  Anyone got any experiences to share on this?  It's an awful lot of money to lay out if it doesn't need doing and I'm not sure it isn't just them drumming up trade.  On the other hand I don't want to foul up my maintenance contract with winter looming.

Got the leaking shower and dripping taps mended having eventually found a decent plumber , but not before M decided to flood her bathroom leaving a large brown patch on the hall ceiling (again).

Persuaded H to take on the job of printing his own flyers, posters and U3A teaching material as his new computer now talks to both printers so he's no excuse! (I know it wasn't an arduous job, but it was driving me bats).

The reduction in the hedge, though not as much as we should have liked, has at least allowed us to get some things done in the garden, and the flower bed continues to take shape.  To put up the fence we had to dig out a trench nearly four feet deep in places, so it's taken a while to afford topsoil and compost to fill.  The lower third is still to do and, of course, we're still cutting the hedge back where it wasn't professionally cut on our side.  If they'd only cut it down about another foot, we'd have a view from our sitting room and conservatory when we're sitting down - instead you have to stand up to see it.

 The fourth photo in the sequence above shows how wide the hedge is - foliage only remains on our side.  We're still paying the price for living in a small development of houses that all the neighbours complained about when they were built - though that was 20 yrs ago.  The fact that there are only 6 houses all lived in by very quiet respectable middle-aged couples who all park on their own drives, don't have noisy children or dogs and never complain about their annoying stuck-up neighbours, cuts no ice.  None of us have lived here since the houses were built, but you'd think we were the worst sort of council estate lived in by a load of hooligans.  The real joke is that before the houses were built, this was a builder's yard and rubbish tip and had previously been a pottery factory.  Instead we have  one lot of neighbours who can't bear to look at the back of our house so let their trees grow up above our roof whilst complaining that we can look down on their boring roof and 15 ft blanck brick wall, and another who are so paranoid that we might be able to see their garden that they let their hedge get out of control.  Strange people!  All we want to do is see the wonderful views.  Thank goodness the owners of the other adjoing properties are lovely!

Knitting is back in favour as the weather's slightly cooler, and I've finished off two WIPs which have been lurking in the basket

I've now gone back to finish a rug that's been on the go for ages -

It's a good stash busting pattern.

I didn't manage to show photos of the play mat I made in July so here are some now.

The alphabet fabric came from Doughty's in Hereford and the backing from Ikea a long time ago. It has 1" polyester wadding to give it strength .

Last week we unfortunately had an accident.  I fell in M's shower trying to put a hand rail back on and somehow, although she was sitting safely on her shower stool, the skin on her arm, which is very thin, tore and peeled back over a large patch.  We're now in to visits from the district nurse team and all the difficulties of stopping her taking the bandage off, getting it wet etc.  She was 94 yrs old last month, perfectly lucid and has a good memory, but it doesn't stop her behaving like a naughty toddler.

Yesterday was our 37th wedding anniversary, it was a full day - H spent two hours talking to the Occupational therapist trying to get M to accept aids, then he went out for a very long and irritating committee meeting and I spent a frustrating morning trying to stop BT changing our broadband at a wrong address and a frustrating evening trying to get M to stop complaining about the OT and making a fuss about her eyedrops. before eventually getting her into bed.  Maybe next year will be better.

Is it me or are the trees very slow to turn this year?

It's still very green looking towards the hills - I'm sure all this had started to go gold and brown this time last year, if not earlier.  Must be all that rain - it's pouring at the moment.

Sorry this is so long, and probably not very interesting, keep hoping something more exciting might happen.......

in brief..

It comes to us all eventually - the computer dies and you have to buy a new one with a whole new set of quirks and foibles.  Like not wanting to receive one's email and not wanting to load the virus software that you've already paid for, and so the list goes on.  Now multiply that by two because H's computer decided to die completely just as we'd come to the conclusion that mine was on the replacement list.  Now for all those of you that have one computer between you and your other half, I must explain that my husband is unable to function without a computer and sharing just isn't an option, so if you'd received a blog comment from me lately that lacked coherence, apologies, I've been managing on my phone with a very tiny keyboard facility.
So now, at last I have a new computer with all the problems that brings.  Bear with me, normal service will be resumed eventually!  Hope you're all enjoying this lovely September weather.

STOP PRESS....... The evil hedge was reduced by about 6ft yesterday - not a brilliant job and we've got to attack the ragged finish, but we can now see the hills and the view for the first time in 3 years.

Missing photos and an update..

 Above is the old fence more or less destroyed by the evil hedge

And this is the evil hedge taken from the top of the house - Glyn the builder is about six foot tall and the hedge towers above him.   Photos of the new fence to follow -it's pouring down with rain as I type so disinclined to go out to photograph it!

These are the clothes I made for baby P and little E

And this is the small bat who came to visit!

Since I last posted I celebrated my birthday - it did rain - rather quietly but I enjoyed it, and I'm promised further celebration when we've a bit more time (hollow laughter but the promise is sincere).

Nearly got run over in Homebase's carpark - didn't break my arm thankfully but badly bruised my foot  so I'm limping at the moment!  August is obviously not my month.  Should be going to the Festival of Quilts tomorrow but I've had to postpone it sadly (I had hoped to meet up with a couple of other bloggers) as something has come up that H needs to do and we can't both be out - though the way M is behaving the impulse to leave her to get on with it is very strong.

Next week is going to be very hectic and H has someone coming to stay - hopefully all this musical activity is going to run down at the end of August, then we've only got M's 94th birthday to deal with in early September. 

I'm sure I shall get that lovely beginning September feeling when it comes - my absolute favourite time of year as it always seems full of possibilities.  Perhaps that comes from years of working and living in an academic enviroment - wish I could send M back to school (preferably boarding) :-)

Monthly Bulletin

Well where has that month gone?  As I said in an email to someone the other day, H and I have been like the man and woman in the weather house (did you have one of those as a child?).  Not inappropriate when you consider how many wet days we've had since I last blogged!

Three kind souls missed me  and emailed to ask whether I was OK - I have now replied to you all so I hope you got the emails,  but for any one else wondering here's a brief list:

In no particular order I have been:-

Holding the fort quite a lot as H has been out, involved in a lot of musical pursuits.  This, unfortunately, does not give me time to blog or sew as M seems to have a constant stream of requirements

Taking advantage of my accrued brownie points to leave H to cope when he is here and spending time with daughter pottering and having lunch and teas out - bad for the figure but good for morale

Watching a very expensive fence taking shape at the end of the garden and now trying to aquire some topsoil to make a nice new border (it'll be lovely when it's done :-) Photos will follow at a later date.

Spending a day in Worcester to see the Queen when she visited, and as always, marvelling at the number of people who will turn out for the smallest glimpse even in the rain

Frantically sewing a playmat and buying suitable toys for great nephews aged 4 months and 16 months who visited for 3 days - great fun, but they've unfortunately left H and M with rotten colds!

Enjoying newly painted spareroom, stairway to basement and bedroom, thanks to another visit by Adrian and Sharon our lovely decorators

Knitting and sewing for new baby P - sister to little E

Cooking rather a lot of soup and comfort food to accommodate the weather and now looking forward to salads instead

Deciding not to risk Art in Action due to the weather, having earlier been nearly stranded in a pond which appeared in the road  whilst I was trying to go and see friend who lives in Shropshire (did finally go to see her the following week)

Looking forward to my birthday on Sunday although I shall be into my next decade, and making plans to go to the Festval of Quilts in August- anyone else going?

Trying to make myself deal with a pile of accounts and returns which always appear at this time of year and which I know don't take long but I can't quite make myself start - deadlines have their uses

Re-reading a lot of favourite novels as I always do in Summer and finding the new re-prints of Barbara Pym reduced at The BookPeople (some of mine are falling apart)

Disovering a baby bat hanging on a storage box in our bedroom and seeing it safely dealt with through the Bat Conservation Trust - a really beautiful little animal clad in dark brown fur

Hoping I can enjoy August this year as I broke my arm this time last year, and looking forward to September when exciting things may be happening

Finding that I have two copies of this The Knitter's Year when I tided the book shelves.  Leave a comment if you'd like it and I'll pick a name out of a hat if there's more than one person interested

Enjoying the BBC Shakespeare - especially Ben Wishaw as Richard II

Not looking forward to the Olympics in theory, but know I shall enjoy the Dressage and the Diving if I can workout the complicated instructions to find out how to watch them

Hoping it doesn't pour with rain as other people will be disappointed, but have to warn that it always rains on my birthday

- 0000000000000 -

Sorry this is short on photos - computer is being difficult - hopefully I'll rectify this next time and you can see the fence and the awful hedge, some of my sewing and the baby bat!
And finally, for those who have been waiting with bated breath, of course M didn't pop her clogs on the last night of Wimbledon and has now decided that she'll wait till after the Olympics.... Hope it's hot and sunny where you are.

Oxford revisited

The first time I visited Oxford I was 19.  I went to Ruskin College (not one of the University Colleges) for an interview for a course I needed to take for the profession I was then following.   I didn't care much for Oxford in 1971, it was crowded and grimy and I much preferred Cambridge which I'd known since childhood - colder in a bleaker landscape but with wider skies and room to breathe, or so it seemed to me.  I was offered a place on the course, but also a place on a similar one in Birmingham which was better suited to my needs and offered accommodation and placements.  It was a good choice and I enjoyed my time - I didn't regret rejecting Oxford.

In the 1980's Oxford came back into my life.  H needed to choose whether to pursue his PhD there or stay at the University of Wales. Finances were a big factor, we couldn't afford two homes or to make the move ,so he chose to stay with the Department he already knew (he may he have once regretted that but it's water under many bridges now). But due to the field of his research,working in the Bodelian was essential, so he spent many hours inside, and I spent many wandering around Oxford, often with small daughter in tow, waiting in the Bodelian courtyard at the end of the day for my scholar to tear himself away from its riches.  It's a good place to people watch, but there's nowhere to sit!

In the 1990's, H finished his thesis and went back to teaching.  I had a job working in a university department.  Part of this involved organising conferences - national and international, and dealing with a lot of academics and students.  Oxford became a place I visited professionally, but even on a private shopping trip I would  meet people I knew - often academics from overseas on sabbaticals or students taking postgrad courses or on fellowships and scholarships.  H was still researching and gathering teaching material but without the pressure of an impending viva.  There was more time to linger over coffee or browse in Blackwells - where visiting the appropriate section I could find weighty tomes written by people I'd met in person, and even some that I'd helped to typeset and index - with my own name in the acknowledgements.  I'd come to enjoy Oxford, if not quite to love it.

In 2004, H was diagnosed with a health problem which meant he gave up full-time teaching and, by a miracle, our finances were stable  During this halcyon period, we indulged in short breaks in Oxford staying in the incomparable Randolph Hotel.  We enjoyed golden early-summer mornings before the tourist rush, wandering around in the early light before eating wonderful breakfasts in wood-panelled diningroom, and coming back in the afternoon to indulge in long leisurely teas - teapots constantly replenished and delicious food making dinner later totally unneccesary.  Despite Morse and Lewis there were no murders  in the times we stayed.  We still met a few people we knew - H 's supervisor had moved back after retiring and a few postgrads were now academics or fellows, but we were happy wandering around the colleges, museums and the botanical garden, just taking time out.  Looking for the Oxford of Barbara Pym and Evelyn Waugh, I suppose - a bit Crampton Hodnett* .

There are still a smattering of Oxford eccentrics if you know where to look, and Ede and Ravenscroft stands firm, but Fuller's and Ellison's are long gone (mentioned in Pym's novel)  You do still see Sweet's AngloSaxon Reader in bookshops though it's largely been replaced by more modern text books and AngloSaxon is now called Old English (don't know if anyone's told Aelfric or Bede).

Now, of course, leisure time is limited.  H's interest lie more in the field of early music rather than literature these days, and  last week he went to the AGM of one of the societies he's involved in. (Long term readers may remember that last time he went to one of these he missed the train and it was all chaotic.)  Fortunately, I was able to go with him this time. I had a quiet day - the academics I knew are retired or living abroad and I doubt I'd recognise the students now so I didn't see anyone I knew, but I pottered, lingered in coffee shops, wandered in the covered market and browsed in the bookshops.  There weren't too many people about and the buses that once crowded the High belching diesel fumes have been abolished, replaced by mime artists and people selling bubblemakers. 

When I met H, after his meeting, he said rather wistfully that being in Oxford again was like having a break from reality and it would have been nice not to go home.  It would have been nice to have had tea at the Ranolph but 'always at our backs... Times winged chariot......'* * It's only a short drive from here (less than 2 hours) but it felt like another lifetime.

Footnotes: 

* A non-existant village conjured up by a character in the novel as the home of a fictional friend - an excuse for missing evensong.  This is one of the funniest novels I know if you like quiet English humour, do read it if you can get a copy.

**Paraphrased from To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell 1621-1678, a poem I have loved for many decades, though if I start talking about Metaphysical Poets this post will go on  too long.  At present, the last eight lines might seem the most appropriate:

Rather at once our time devour Than languish in his slow-chapt power.   40 Let us roll all our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball, And tear our pleasures with rough strife Thorough the iron gates of life: Thus, though we cannot make our sun   45 Stand still, yet we will make him run.

With thanks to Daughter, without whom the day out would not have been possible x.