There was sun today, although the wind has a bitter edge to it. I went to the nursing home and the old man was pleased to see me. He ate a whole custard tart and a lot of small pieces of chocolate. He managed to upset his tea and it went into his bed. A repair I requested has been done but it seems that the door catch will be replaced with something else. A young carer, one of the Eastern European men, is annoyed because he feels that he and his colleagues are being blamed for the damage. I reassured him and told him that my engineer husband thinks that it was not installed properly when the new wing was built. I have complained many times about the handyman.
Dan played petanque at Alresford as he usually does on Tuesday afternoon. It is a pleasant little town and the players are an agreeable lot. I am not interested in sport although I enjoy walking. After the nursing home I walked home again, visiting various shops on the way. I am always looking for bargains for my two Christmas shoeboxes. In recent years I have become disillusioned with some charities; I do not see why salaries have to be so large. Watching the Camila Batmanghelidjh's "torrent of verbal ectoplasm" when she and Yentob appeared before the Commons public administration committee further increased my cynicism.
I do help out in a charity shop as I like to feel useful. I have been criticised for giving to the shoebox appeal but I shall continue to do it. I shall never have any grandchildren so I might as well give two stranger children a little happiness at Christmas. It is not a time of year that I like.
A friend called in with worktop samples. Our gas hob has a fault now and my husband, who is the cook, is thinking of replacing it with an induction hob. This will mean a new worktop. We may also have dining room at last. We have used that room as a second bedroom ever since we bought this flat. We moved from a large house and left three rooms of furniture behind but brought a lot with us. Dan's father and his good, kind, truly Christian second wife used to stay at Christmas along with our daughter. Those were happy times because Katy adored her step-grandma and her affection was returned. Darling Elizabeth died in September 2014 and now Katy is gone too. Father-in-law is ninety-six and increasingly frail, although fairly compos mentis.
I have to work in the charity shop tomorrow. I suppose that I do not have to do it; I am a volunteer. It is the second charity shop that I have volunteered at. This one belongs to a big charity and the other one supports the local hospice. I enjoy the work on the whole and like most of the customers. The one thing that can spoil the day and make me reluctant to continue is the problem of getting on with some of the other volunteers. I try to get on with everyone and think it reasonable that, as we are all working to the same end, that people will try to get on with me. Not always the case. There are the workplace bullies, the ultracrepidarian bletherskites and the just plain miserable. The manager, too, can be very difficult.
So why do I do it? As I said, I want to do something useful. I also enjoy seeing people get bargains. When an old lady finds a good-quality cardigan, new with its tags, on the £2 rail, I am as pleased as she is. When a mother comes in to find clothes for her son for cub camp I enjoy helping her search the rails for waterproofs and T-shirts. When a commuter walking up to the statin early in the morning sees an interesting item in the window and telephones to ask us to put the item by until Saturday, I hasten to do so. I am happy to bring things to the window and hold them up for customers who cannot get into the shop because of limited mobility. I sympathise when a customer tries something on and finds that it is not quite right. When our daughter died we gave most of her things to the shop and they raised a great deal of money. When the shop was broken into two weeks ago it was heart-warming to see how people dug into their pockets and purses to fill up the collection box again. It is worthwhile, if only one can put up with other people's idiosyncrasies. I shall continue to work there for as long as my eyes can manage the till.
Then what?
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