Spring, perhaps

I have thought about this blog a lot over the past two months. Easter has come and gone and we have spent two weeks in Vence. There has been snow and rain and last Saturday morning Judith's husband finally died at home. He had spent a week or two in a hospice but wanted to come home for the end of his life. I am working extra shifts, as are some of the other staff members. 

We left for France on April 6th, two years to the day after our daughter's funeral.  I took the little picture of her as a new-born, an original picture in a little frame. In the cold weather I kept this under my pillow, remembering how she hated to be cold. I have continued to do this. the weather was disappointing; it rained for four days in a row. We went to Antibes on Friday instead of Thursday and sat inside the restaurant. The journeys there and back were trouble-free. The weekend of April 27th to 29th we spent in Winchester. After our Friday morning walk we returned home, finished our packing and went to the Royal Hotel. This is in the centre of Winchester and was originally the bishop's house. Dan played bridge and on Saturday morning I went to see the Gerald Scarfe exhibition in The Gallery, which is in the public library in Jewry Street. I enjoyed it. He is undoubtedly very gifted, although I know nothing about art. I met Dan for lunch and then he want back for more bridge. I went to our room and read; I started using the e-reader again when we were in Vence. Dan is going to buy me a Kindle Paperwhite for my birthday. I have already got his birthday present. He found a new Stetson cap in the Chapellerie in Antibes. This replaces the one that he left on the train when we last went to the Albert Hall. 

We have bought our tickets for the events we want to see at the Hay festival. The How The Light Gets In festival will be back at Hay but we were disappointed last time and do not want any tickets this year. Afterwards we shall spend two nights at Pound Farm and meet the new canine additions to the family. I shall, of course, be glad to get home. Dan has booked our bed and breakfast accommodation. Our friends have bought a caravan which they will use. 

My poor, sick old uncle lives on, although one could hardly call it living. I have a bottle of wine for Sandra but forgot to take it when she was actually working a shift. This week or perhaps next week we shall see her. Yesterday, when I was working in the charity shop, a woman came in who used to work at Steep House. She was surprised that he is still alive. He does not answer when we speak to him. He is like a little husk.  

There is no news of our son. I doubt that we shall ever see or hear from him again. A man at the Probus Club, who is Dan's vice-chairman, is estranged from his daughter. He thinks that in four or five years Neil will return and want to be our son again. I do not agree. He is gone for ever. Dan will not have him back. 

I have been in a lot of pain recently. I am trying not to take Co-codamol. I have run out of the Voltarol patches that we buy in France. My neck is sore and I have been taking Ibuprofen; that is really cheap. My doctor prescribes strong Co-codamol but I do not like to ask for too much. There is a little arthritis in my left ankle and foot and that is the side where the sciatica strikes. Old age ain't no place for sissies. 

Post-Christmas Gloom

How long it is since I posted in this blog. I have been busy; since Robin Nettle was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, I have done some extra shifts in the charity shop. It has not been easy. Donna is not coping well and constantly nit-picks. She takes every opportunity to wrong-foot me and Ethel is finding the same. However, just before Christmas she did apologise and told Ethel just how difficult she is finding it all. 

We had an enjoyable weekend in Shanklin from December 1st to 3rd. My friend gave me a navy blue Laura Ashley overcoat, which I have had dry-cleaned and also had a small repair made. I wore it when we went to France for Christmas. We went out on Saturday and Sunday and saw Yarmouth and one or two other places. The Isle of Wight is a pleasant place. 

We went to the Probus Christmas lunch; very nice food, most of the company was good but we were seated on the same table as a very opinionated woman. Dan is going to be elected chairman at the end of this month and so we shall be on Table 1 for the next two years. I hope we can choose whom we sit with. We also had the Walking for Health lunch at the same pub; better company and the same meal. The following day we took off from Gatwick for our holiday. 

We spent Christmas at the flat in Vence. It was very pleasant and we were lucky with the weather again. It rained on Wednesday and Thursday after Christmas but was pleasant enough when we walked up to lunch at La Farigoule on Thursday December 28th. We only had one other meal out. We had come back from Vallauris, where we were chasing up some parts for our kitchen, and we parked at the Leclerc supermarket. We had quite a shopping list. Dan suggested that we have lunch out and I suggested the Restaurant les Baous, very nearby. We went and had a most enjoyable lunch. I could not finish  my pizza so asked for and was given a box to take it home in. 

The picture is of my father's youngest brother. There were four brothers, of which my father was the eldest. All three of his brothers predeceased him. One died in infancy. The youngest died in 1954 at the age of 36. The other died in Melbourne, Victoria, at the age of 65. It is the youngest whose picture heads this post. He had no children but was married to a very sweet woman who stayed part of our family after he died.  She married again and had three children, two sons (one of whom was stillborn) and a daughter. Her second husband was absorbed into our family and made a speech at our wedding. Since my mother died Ruby has continued as my friend and confidante. Lately I have noticed that she is getting deaf. Today we took her out to lunch. On our way to collect her we stopped at my youngest brother's house to drop off some watercolours that my late aunt wanted him to have. He said that he had spoken to her on the phone and she was "hard work". Yes; it is true that there is a degree of confusion. I think that he is exaggerating but the problem is there. I was planning to get in touch with my eldest brother's first wife with a view of taking Ruby to see her. Ruby is only four years older than Gaye and they used to be good friends. When I mentioned this and Ruby said "Which one is that?" I realised that I must abandon that idea. Gaye has multiple sclerosis and is very frail. Perhaps she, too, is slipping into dementia. What a cruel condition that is. 

Tomorrow is the first day back in the charity shop for me. I am not looking forward to it but needs must. I do not feel that I can leave while Judith is struggling with her husband's ill health. She was very kind to me when Katy died.  In the evening we are going to see some friends as it is the husband's birthday. Despite my resolution about presents Dan has bought him a bottle of Armagnac for his birthday. His wife's birthday is next month. It still rankles that I am not worth a present; a share in someone else's second-hand kitsch or nothing at all is good enough for me. I shall rise above it. 

My old uncle lives on, although one can hardly call it living. I have asked the manager of the home to let me know at any hour of the day or night if he dies. The next hurdle will be his funeral; I have planned a cremation (his wish) and a simple service in the chapel where my daughter's service was held. We shall see. 

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. 

The Laying Away of the Dead

We have just visited my aged uncle in the nursing home. At first he was completely unresponsive but did finally say that he would like chocolate and a cup of tea. He ate a very little chocolate. We stayed a little longer than usual in the hope that he would wake up and drink some tea and eat more chocolate.  I wonder if he will ever do that again; it seems so sad that he just lives on and has so little pleasure in life. I did not manage a word with Sandra but when I do I shall ask if she can still talk to him.

On Thursday it was my father-in-law's funeral. Although he was Irish and a cradle Catholic, the service was held in the Anglican church where he worshipped with his second wife. We collected my old aunt, who knew Elizabeth and her first husband. She came to Elizabeth's church service. She used to talk to Paddy and Elizabeth in church most Sundays. Aunt Ruby is ninety-one and getting frail after a fall when a bus started jerkily and sent her sprawling. We took her back to her home after the service. Anne, Dan's cousin Philip's wife came for Oxford for the church service and the committal at the crematorium.

It was a good service; the vicar delivered a touching eulogy. One of Paddy's granddaughters who is a musician played You'll Never Walk Alone and the Londonderry Air on the piano. Her mother, who was married to the second eldest son, read a poem by Robert Service. Her second husband was not there; perhaps he did not think it appropriate.  I wonder if the hymn Hail, Glorious Saint Patrick was ever sung in an Anglican church before. The wake was pleasant, although we did not stay long.  Some of the family spoke to me, some did not. I shall never have to see them again; the family entity is broken now that both parents are dead; we were never included in family occasions because of the petty, spiteful grudges borne by my late mother-in-law, her favourite son and his wife.

I am so, so glad that my Aunt Marjorie persuaded Paddy to join the over-sixties club. He met Elizabeth there and that was a wonderful thing. I have happy memories of Christmases at our house in Clanfield and here in Petersfield. They would go to the morning service at the local church and after our Christmas dinner I would light the fire in the living room and we would watch television and snooze. Katy loved having her grandparents to stay at Christmas. She used to tell darling Elizabeth that she loved her like a real grandma. Neil was fond of her too. He does not yet know that his grandfather is dead.

I must shower and put on fresh clothes soon. I wonder when the phone will ring and it will be someone at Steep House to tell me that old Bill is dead.

I saw the optometrist today and took a pair of old glasses with me; at least, I have had them for a few years but have never been able to wear them. He gave me a very low prescription which I hope will help my poor  brain cope with the new clarity of vision; Andrew M told me that I now have a perfect camera. He has not yet heard from Optegra about the second vitrectomy because the surgeon's secretaries have been ill and on holiday. We shall see.

Tonight we are going out with our friends to a local restaurant to celebrate our birthdays. Dan will be seventy tomorrow and I shall attain that age the following Sunday. I bought Dan three polo shirts in Crew Clothing for his present; I am having extra audible.co.uk credits. Next Saturday Dan and I will have been together for fifty years. He came to my twentieth birthday party, walking back into my life with a bus ticket in his mouth and a crate of brown ale in his hands. We have been together ever since and will have been married forty-nine years in October.

Another June

We arrived home yesterday afternoon after a very pleasant break. We had a good journey to Hay-on-Wye last Friday and found our bed and breakfast accommodation quite easily. We are very pleased with the Old Radnor Barn and have booked a room for next year. It is very difficult to get accommodation in that area when the Hay Festival is on and I was lucky to see this one on Facebook. We met up with our friend Sabine and as our Friday night event had been cancelled we went to the Sun Inn, a pub/ restaurant that Dan and I discovered on our first visit to Hay in 2014.

We enjoyed all of the events we booked. My absolute favourite was the first one we saw, Another Man's Shoes. This was delivered by the daughter of Sven Somme, a fisheries scientist who played a very active part in the Norwegian resistance in World War 2. He escaped from the Gestapo and managed a long walk (and sapling vaulting exercise) to the Swedish border. His daughter had his shoes, kept by a woman who sheltered him. He exchanged them for a pair of mountain boots.

Gary Kasparov is an excellent, energetic speaker although Stephen Fry did not ask him the questions that would have interested Dan. Fry also talked to Peter Singer, the third most eminent philosopher in the world. Perhaps we shall be vegetarians in a generation or two; I shall certainly look up charities on Effective Altruism. Michael Rosen, who was also talking about his children's books in other events, entertained us all on the subject of Emile Zola's escape from Paris with only a nightshirt wrapped in a newspaper.  I now see some of Jane Austen's characters in another light and shall explore Colm Tóibín's books. Simon Schama was as entertaining as ever and has put on a fair bit of weight. The only disappointment was the talk on the Society of Friends. The speakers included Sheila Hancock and Tracy Chevalier. It was interesting but not as good as we thought it would be.

Our bags were searched each time we entered the festival site and there were armed police in pairs and we saw three spaniels with policemen; sniffer dogs, I suppose.  We said good bye to Sabine on Sunday night and on Monday morning we set off to Pound Farm. Angela, my niece, and her husband are kindly taking some presents to my great-niece and nephew in Waltham Massachusetts. We had a pleasant stay and met Rose, the Romanian street dog who has been rescued. Cari found her in the shelter where she volunteers. Rose is about nine years old. The Miles family has had Rose spayed and her blind and infected eye removed. Her coat is glossy now and she has gained weight; she is affectionate and came on a walk with us and Dolly, Cari's Cavalier spaniel. On Tuesday Glyn took Dan for a spin in his Morgan. I think that they both greatly enjoyed  that. They are both very enthusiastic about cars. Glyn has parted with his Harley Davidson motor cycle.

On Tuesday night we went in Glyn's new Porsche to The Inn at Welland for a delicious meal. When we left they gave us presents for our forthcoming 70th birthdays. Angela reminded me that next time we go there will be a new Vizsla puppy; Angie has her name down for a bitch from a recently-born litter.

Looking forward to Hay-on-Wye and Pound Farm

Last night I drank a half-bottle of rather nasty Prosecco from Morrison's supermarket. I think that I am better off without alcohol. I felt very headachy this morning but it isn't too bad now. I must try to do without Co-codamol as it is addictive. I alternate prescriptions from the doctor with over-the-counter tablets. I have been  busy today with a few chores. Dan has the gun club tomorrow and I shall do the ironing. We visited the nursing home today and I shall go again on Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon. On Monday we shall go to Whiteley for my follow-up appointment with the eye surgeon and thence to Southampton General to visit Dan's father. I shall buy him some orange chocolate. It will put a little flesh on his bones I hope.

We walked yesterday and it was very pleasant to be with the other members. Several people were not there because they had gone to see the rhododendrons at Exbury Gardens. We had coffee and biscuits as usual and then set off home. I collected my Austin Reed trousers from the dry cleaner and bought some low-calorie soup from Waitrose. We are very well-supplied with shops in this little town. There is Tesco, Marks and Spencer and Waitrose. I am a great yellow-sticker fan; I always eat ready meals on the nights when Dan goes out to bridge.

On Thursday we shall be packing to go to the literary festival at Hay-on-Wye. This will be the fourth time we have gone. We have bed and breakfast this time. Last year we had a tent and I was cold and miserable. I could not face such a thing again and it is very difficult to get bed and breakfast accommodation in Hay when the festival is on. We shall arrive on Friday afternoon and leave at lunchtime on Bank Holiday Monday. Then we shall drive to my niece's home to stay two nights. We shall meet Rose, the one-eyed Romanian rescue dog that has been adopted from the animal shelter where my great-niece volunteers. There are also six guinea pigs. Things have changed since the above photograph was taken. The dogs are Gizi,  the Hungarian Vizsla, Maddie, the boxer and Dolly, the Cavalier spaniel. Gizi and Maddie are both dead, Gizi from a heart attack at seven or eight years old, Maddie from cancer. There has been another Vizsla, a savage-tempered bitch called Hebe. She attacked Dolly once with the intention of killing her and was then segregated from the little spaniel. She was shaping up well as a gun dog but after an encounter on the Malvern hills with a boisterous Ridgeback, she became vicious and unpredictable again and it was decided that euthanasia was the only solution. I think that Angela is searching for another Vizsla; she likes to do her research. The weather forecast is good for  both Hay and Dymock but we shall take our Wellington boots all the same. We enjoy walking the dogs.

Coping and continuing to function

I am home for a few hours as I have agreed to work the afternoon in the charity shop. I went in as usual, taking the box of biscuits that I bought in Leclerc. I stayed for an hour or so and then came home via the health stores where I buy most of my breakfast cereals. I also visited some of the other charity shops in the town.

Yesterday Dan went to Alresford to play petanque as usual. I did not visit my aged uncle as my left eye is still sore. Around 5.30 Dan's cousin and his wife arrived. We had a very pleasant meal together at the local ASK Italian restaurant. Philip is a very eminent professor of astronomy. We have visited him in La Palma, off the coast of Tenerife and Cape Town, where he was leading important projects. He and Anne have twin sons. It was good to see them and catch up on their travels and activities.  Anne is a scientific programmer and they met when Philip went to NASA. She is an American from Dublin, Pennsylvania. We have an invitation to visit them in Oxford.

I had my second vitrectomy on Monday afternoon. It went well. I was not so heavily anaesthetised this time and conversed a little with the surgeon. During cataract surgery one is conscious all the time and can make conversation with the surgeon's team. I am now washing my hands more times than Lady Macbeth in order to carry out the regime of eye drops. I have antibiotics four times a day for a week and anti-inflammatory drops four times a day for four weeks. When I go out I wear dark glasses. The pupil of the left eye is still a little dilated, making the vision fuzzy.

I have some emails to which I must reply. One is from my cousin in Melbourne, one from an old school friend and the other from my friend Adele. She and I met in Kingston, NY in 1974. Our respective husbands were both assigned to the IBM plant in that little town in the foothills of the Catskill mountains. We would have got on well together however we had met and have been firm friends ever since. Adele separated from her husband in 1976 and has not  married again. She has come close to it twice but remains single. At my daughter's funeral my three oldest friends were present; one from schooldays, one from civil service days, one from IBM assignment days. I value them all.

The weather is getting warmer. It has been very cold during our absence in France. I left the warm quilt on our bed and am glad that I did. I think that I shall change it next week. Tomorrow is chores day; ironing and polishing the silver. My dining room is going to be complete sometime in the summer. I am looking for a little table for the living room and for lamps for the dining room. There remains one room, the smallest (or smaller) bedroom, that needs a new oak floor. Dan uses it as a study/ office. It still has the rather horrid carpet that was there when we bought the flat. This, too, will come to pass. Patience.

Bearable Probus Club Meeting

I went to bed early last night but did not sleep until after midnight. Dan went to his Monday night bridge session and I took my small Bose device and iPod to bed. I am listening to Jodi Picoult's Salem Falls. It's a good novel, about an attractive teacher who has been falsely accused by a teenage girl of statutory rape. After a short spell in jail he happens upon a small town where he gets a menial job, working for a woman who blames herself for her daughter's death from meningitis and behaves as if the child is still alive. That strikes a chord. I hope it all ends happily for both protagonists.

The matter of false accusations is a serious one. The most notable one recently was that of Mark Pearson, a commuter who possibly bushed against an actress in Waterloo Station. She made the most preposterous allegation against him and the Crown Prosecution Service decided that it was "in the public interest" to prosecute him. It has been suggested that this was because of the soap-opera cast member's "high profile". Does this mean that the same allegation brought by a factory worker would have been ignored? I firmly believe that there should be absolute anonymity for both sides in cases of sexual assault until a safe conviction is reached.  The accuser in the Pearson case was named on the Internet and had to close her Twitter account down. What a horrible woman she must be, to lie another human being into the dock. It could have resulted in a prison sentence and his having to be on the sex offenders' list for a number of years. I wonder if, had her victim been convicted, she would have waived her anonymity and presented herself as a "brave survivor of sexual assault".

I did not visit the nursing home because Dan was not able to come to the Half Moon with me. He was delayed showing a double glazing fitter around some other flats, so I got a lift with the chairperson. I always take cake and sweets and would have had to take these into the pub. I shall buy cream slices and go tomorrow afternoon when I finish at the charity shop. I hope that whomever I work with tomorrow is congenial and that Judith is in a good mood. I shall buy the little tea light lamp and take it to Vence together with the umbrella stand. I shall bring the tall bread basket back for the charity shop, unless our friends want it for their kitchen showroom.  I am looking forward to going to Vence, although I know that I shall start fretting to come home when I have been there a few days. I am always relieved when the Wednesday before our Friday departure comes. I start tidying and ironing and on Thursday morning I put the suitcase on our bed and start to pack. I am happiest of all here, in our flat in the little town in Hampshire. I am not a very sociable person.

When we are in Vence we have to entertain our neighbours from the top floor. She is a very talented artist and he is good company. They have invited us to Sunday lunch and we had a drink in their flat at Christmas. We must return their hospitality this time. They spend time in Brisbane as well; I think that is their main home. I have cousins in that area and one day we plan to visit them again. But for our son and his troubles, we would have spent our wedding anniversary there in 2013. We shall give Nessie and Jeremy good food and wine and provide Nessie with an ashtray. I wonder if Yvonne and Ron will be upstairs too. Yvonne was suffering from a sarcoma on one arm the year before last and Ron had gone through heart bypass surgery. We are lucky to be so fit and well. I was a sickly child but a healthy adult. My daughter's death was because she inherited genes from my father's family; my poor baby suffered from respiratory infections from very early childhood. She died of chronic interstitiary pneumonia, which caused cardiac arrest. I love her and I always shall. I hope that there is a safe, warm heaven where she is with her step-grandmother, Elizabeth. I have no religious faith but I so want to believe that is possible. She deserves heaven and Elizabeth was an angel in human form.

Signs of Spring

I have survived Mothering Sunday. I spent most of the day alone, catching up on chores and emails. I looked at my friends' pictures on Facebook. They were with their children and had received gifts and flowers. I did not, of course, hear from my son. I have removed all of the pictures of him from view; I have many of Katy at various stages of her life but there is none of Neil on display. The only recent picture of him is one I found on the Internet and downloaded. I think his hair is beginning to recede. He has gained a little weight; he will be forty-one in less than two weeks. I still miss him; I always shall but I have to write him off.

The weather is a little warmer and the wind has moderated, although it is still a little cold.  I am waiting for a pair of trousers that I sent to have shortened. They went to the seamstress at the end of January and it is now nearly the end of March. I wear trousers from Autumn to late Spring and now I need this lighter pair. I also need to get my hair cut. I cancelled my appointment because of the vitrectomy and have not got around to booking a new one. Tomorrow is the Probus lunch and I shall comb my hair in the shower and squeeze the fringe so that it doesn't get in my eyes. I have one pair of light trousers to wear. There was another pair but I gave it to the charity shop, not knowing that I would have to wait so long for the new ones to be shortened. Perhaps I shall go into jeans and cotton sweaters for a while.

This coming Sunday my father-in-law is coming to lunch. We have also invited my aunt; she is ninety-one but still sprightly and cogent. She was married to my father's brother. He died in 1954 and she remarried. Her second husband was absorbed into our family and regarded as an uncle. He died two years ago, having suffered from vascular dementia for some years. She and my father-in-law know each other from the Anglican church where Paddy's second wife was parish clerk. I have realised that, if one does not  make the effort to keep in touch, the years go by and then the opportunity to keep up friendships is gone. There are times when I feel sad that my lot seems to be the geriatrics and other friends and relations have grandchildren, but these times are getting fewer. We are too old and set in our ways to enjoy grandchildren now.

When I am in France I shall shop for clothes for my new great-nephew. I enjoy doing this and like the French outfits for babies. My niece and her husband are going to visit her cousin and his family this summer so she will take the gift together with a silver articulated fish for William Jae-Sun's older sister, Evelyn Jae-In. The fish belonged to my aunt, the wife of the old man I look after. Her name was Eva and she was known as Eve, so it's appropriate to give her near-namesake this keepsake. Evelyn's mother is of Korean extraction and I think that fish have a special significance in the Orient. I hope that she will treasure the pendant. There is a gold fish too, but I still wear that. I shall pass that on to one of my great-nieces eventually. There are four of them.

Dan is playing bridge tonight and I shall go to bed early with my little Bluetooth Bose and the iPods. I am listening to a book by Simon Tolkien, the grandson of J R R Tolkien. He writes well but there are a few too many Americanisms. However, I enjoy his books. I have several unread books on each iPod and am not going to buy my extra audible.co.uk credits for a few months. The Hampshire digital library has some good new additions and I have some pre-orders on audible. I shall save some to listen to while I am in Vence and travelling there and back.

I did my shift at the charity shop this morning. It was quite pleasant, although I missed Ethel who is off sick still. The usual Monday customers came in including the rather peculiar woman who insists that she had her handbag stolen from the shop some weeks ago. In fact, she dropped it on the pavement a little way up the road and a man took it into the estate agent nearby. The police were not interested and so a young woman brought the bag to us as a donation. Another customer found the woman in the town; the circumstances were explained to her but she still insisted that it had been stolen. She continued to repeat the lie around the town but it has not discouraged her from shopping with us.

I hope that the window man comes early tomorrow, as Dan has to let him in and it will make him late for the Probus meeting. We shall see.

A Chance Meeting and More Memories

Today was shopping day. Dan did not play petanque as he usually does on Thursday morning as he has recently been appointed vice-chairman of the Probus Club. He went to his first committee meeting instead. I did a little ironing and one or two other chores. The young woman who has bought the flat next door and round the corner called and I told her that Dan would knock on her door when he returned home. Her father is helping her renovate the kitchen of her flat and they needed Dan's advice on the water supply.

Thursdays are poignant for me; we found our daughter dead on a Thursday afternoon. We went today to the supermarket in Havant where she would shop every other week and where we went the day she died. Dan had his car cleaned and filled up on petrol. When all of this was achieved, we went into the centre of Havant and parked at the Meridian Centre. I saw an old workmate from my days at the Portsmouth News. We chatted for a while and she told me that another former colleague recovered from cancer and is now well. I told her of Katy's death and how nothing is personal at The News any more; when I placed Katy's death announcement I wished that dear Arthur, who was front office manager for so many years, had been there to talk to. It was good to see her and catch up a little.

There have been more calls from a withheld number on my mobile phone. I blocked my son some time ago. I went to the O2 shop and the technician there activated the facility to block anonymous calls. Then my son phoned and did not withhold his number so I blocked that. Sometimes there will be calls on my blacklist log that follow the same pattern; two calls, quite close together. This has not happened since November but there were two calls today. It will be his  birthday soon. When we arrived home there was a message showing but no one had spoken; that, too was from a withheld number. Is he lonely? Is he ill? I worry that he has been smoking pot or skunk and that this has caused the change in personality. I still love my son and I always shall but I cannot see that there will ever be a reconciliation. I hope that he will one day find happiness.

Dan has gone to his bridge club. I am going to have a light tea with a glass of Prosecco and then go to bed with my iPod. I have to phone the charity shop first thing to see if I am needed. If not, we shall walk as usual.

The daffodils from Marks and Spencer are beautiful; creamy white, the sort with layers of petals and a little yellow in the centre. They give me hope and lift my spirits. The fine white orchid that our friend Sabine gave us a few years ago is blooming again; only two stalks this time but the stalks have extra branches. The bulbs from the market have been disappointing this year but we shall take them to Vence and plant them in the garden as usual.  Spring flowers are the daintiest. Katy loved primroses.

Still functioning socially

Yesterday we went to London with a friend and that friend's brother-in-law. I managed very well with the help of my iPod. The three men talked on the train and I listened to an audiobook. We went to Carluccio's at Waterloo station and had a cup of coffee together while we planned what to do before going to the concert at the Royal Albert Hall. I found Jim's brother-in-law a very pleasant person and got to know him a little.

We looked at my pocket-sized maps and guide books and decided to go to the Victoria and Albert and then to the Science Museum. The tube journey was not too bad; there was the usual argument about which side of the underground we needed to be. I even got a seat without too long a wait. Mindful of the unfortunate Mark Pearson I tried not to brush up against anyone and was a little timid at the barriers but I found that young people were very pleasant and polite and stood aside so that I could go and present my Oyster card to the machine.

The V & A is a wonderful place, even better than expected. The Art Deco exhibition that I had expected was not running but there was a great deal to see. I have always loved jewellery and feasted my eyes on the collection there. Jim jokingly asked if I was going to steal any but I reassured him that I sell or give away jewellery now; I have more than I need and the insurance premiums are prohibitive. It was an easy walk to the Science Museum but we did not see very much, just the space travel section. We shall return one day and see this place properly.

We had an expensive snack in the Royal Albert Hall. I stuck to fruit juice, partly because alcohol does not really agree with me nowadays and partly because I refuse to pay £14 for a glass of champagne. We went to our box and found that the ladies from Dan's bridge club had brought a cornucopia of food. We nibbled and I drank a glass or two of Prosecco. The security men had allowed the ladies to bring this in after a little pleading.

The concert was wonderful; an exceptionally good tenor, an excellent soprano and a superlative choir. The organ was everything an organ should be. The band and the orchestra fulfilled our expectations. One had to queue for the loo rather a long time, but one cannot have everything.

I thought of my daughter all day. I do think of her every day and blame myself for failing her. The four of us talked of my son when we were dining at the Union Jack club. I found I could bear it; I even managed to speak of his cruelty when his sister died. He could not blame me for her death more than I blame myself. I still love him and would take him back into my life but I do not think that his father will ever be able to forgive him.

We caught the 9 pm train home and met the bridge club ladies in the same carriage. They were had obviously enjoyed their evening and were laughing and joking among themselves. I listened to my iPod again; a Robert Bryndza  novel from the Erika Foster series. We said good-bye to the two Jims at the station and walked home to our flat. The iPod accompanied me to bed as it always does. I have two of these excellent devices, one for fiction and one for non-fiction. I can no longer manage print books and even my e-reader has had to be put in a drawer.

Dan is going to the gun club today. I have some chores to do and this afternoon we shall visit the sick, purblind and demented old man for whose welfare I am responsible. I must buy some custard tarts as he might enjoy one. There is still chocolate left to feed him with if he does not want the cake. Poor old man; none of it is his fault.

I must go to bed early as I have a follow-up visit to the eye surgeon tomorrow. It means I shall not be at the charity shop where I help out until Wednesday.