Thoughts of Christmas

I have not blogged recently. I have done a few extra shifts in the charity shop. Fortunately Mondays have been shared with the person I like working with; Ethel, who has become a friend. We laugh together at some of the things that customers say and at the behaviour of some of our fellow volunteers. We have named one person Brown Nose and another Herr Flick. The shop  manager is in a difficult situation at present. Her husband has been diagnosed with cancer. The tumour is pressing against a lung and originated in the bones. He is going to take what she calls the shrinkage drug. 

Last Wednesday I did not work  because my old friends came up from the Isle of Wight. Owing to various operations (theirs and mine) and family issues, this is the first time we have seen them this year. They are the first people to be entertained in our dining room.Dan outdid himself with the meal and I opened a bottle of my birthday champagne for Anne and me to share. I seldom drink so much; we followed the champagne with a bottle of Prosecco. She brought me a belated birthday present; a beautiful lead crystal jug. Dan received a jug too, but his is silver. I was able to give her some toys for her grandchildren and a Portmeirion quiche dish for her kitchen. Like me, she likes Portmeirion goods.  

We have decided to spend Christmas in our flat in Vence again. Flights are booked already. The old-established airline Monarch went out of business a few weeks ago and we wanted to be sure of getting a choice of flights. I am looking forward to it and hope that we are as lucky with the weather as we were last year.  It will give us a chance to enjoy our new kitchen. We have to get a door and a plinth from Ixina in Vallauris to complete the job. 

Last Thursday we went to the Yvonne Arnaud theatre in Guildford. We took friends with us to see The Wipers Times. It was excellent. We don't go to the theatre at Christmas now. We always took Katy on Boxing Day or soon after Christmas because she loved live performances.  Dan used to get cheap tickets for Monday evenings at the Kings Theatre in Southsea; we took both children to see Bonnie Langford as Peter Pan. I remember Katy leaning forward as the curtain went up, eager not to miss any of the play. I miss her. I always shall. 

Dan has been too busy to go on the Alice Holt Forest walk. Today he was at the Citizens' Advice Bureau in Petersfield, helping to manage the project of moving the bureau to the library. Next Tuesday it is the Probus lunch and the talk is about the Severn Railway Bridge disaster of 1960. One more monthly lunch and then it will be the Christmas dinner. 

Today I was on the Southampton Heritage Photos page on Facebook. I saw a comment from someone whose maiden name I recognised. We were at junior school together. I hope to chat with her on the Internet. She was not a particular friend but I remember her as a pleasant person. I wonder if she has kept in touch with anyone from that school.  I have not; I moved away from the Southampton area in 1975 and shall never go back. I am too happy here in Petersfield. I think it's the best place I have ever lived and I never want to move. Dan feels the same. I feel pleased that he has such a good social life now. Learning to play bridge and joining the walking group were my ideas but they have worked out well for him. He shoots clay pigeons, plays petanque and is president of his bridge club. I think he will be chairman of the Probus club next year. 

I shall blog again soon. I am still taking painkillers. I found that Boots no longer sell the caplets I prefer but Tesco pharmacy does and I got some from an online pharmacy. They help me sleep. I use heat patches for my arthritic neck and bought another woollen shawl last week. I am growing old, as we all are. 

A Precious Picture Rediscovered

When our beloved daughter died it was comforting to have pictures of her on display.  The saddest thing was that I could not find her baby book, with her new-born picture in. I asked my husband's sisters to search the house where their father lived but nothing could be found. Today my husband was sorting out some old pictures that were in a box that used to be under a chair in our bedroom. Some of these came from my late aunt's house (the wife of the man for whom I took responsibility). She had kept the copy I sent her when our baby was born. It has been scanned and is now on the little marble table with the other pictures. 

It is some time since I have updated this blog. We have been to France, where we had our kitchen renovated, returned from there and taken up our usual life. Dan has been playing petanque and bridge and I have been doing extra hours at the charity shop. Last Thursday we celebrated our 49th wedding anniversary. We decided to go out for lunch rather than dinner as Dan had the AGM of the bridge club in the evening. We lunched at the Turkish restaurant in Bakery Lane. We enjoyed our meal; the food and service were excellent. We forgot that we had theatre tickets for the week before last and have decided to put all our appointments in our Outlook calendars. 

I enjoyed the last Probus meeting. The speaker was our chair person's boss at one time. He is a very important government archivist and he was very interesting. At the end we were each given a handout, photocopies of prints of Domesday book pages and a few other things, including the table of heights and weights to calculate the drop for judicial hanging. The next meeting is not until the very end of the month. One more meeting and then it will be the Christmas lunch. 

We have visited the old man twice since our return from Vence. The first time he managed a little chocolate. On Saturday he did not seem to be responding at all. Yet still he lives on. I wonder how many people will come to his funeral when he finally dies. I have planned the funeral, although I do not think that his family will like what I have planned. I think that his niece wants hymns and prayers. There is no point in doing this; he had no religious faith when he was cogent. I want my aunt to be remembered as her funeral was such a depressing affair. My youngest brother's wife has been very ill with kidney problems, supposedly caused by medical negligence in diagnosing a skin rash. I doubt that he will attend. Perhaps my niece will come, as she was not able to get to her great-aunt's funeral because of the weather.

We walked on both Fridays and are glad to be back in the routine. We are considering joining a Tuesday morning walk at the Alice Holt Forest. Dan will still be able to play petanque in the afternoon and I shall be able to visit the nursing home. 

I shall write about our kitchen renovation in my next post.