Another passing and another serious illness

On Thursday morning I got a call from Steep House Nursing Home to say that my aged uncle was experiencing breathing problems and refusing food. This had happened before and I asked the caller to let me know how he progressed. I did not phone the niece in Swansea who is his next of kin. I have been working extra hours at the charity shop again and have done four shifts this week. On Friday morning I put my mobile phone under the counter and around 10.30 I had a call from one of the carers or nurses. Bill had just died. I phoned Patricia, his niece, and she said that she would inform her family.  I sent my husband a text to tell him; he decided that he would go on the Walking for Health walk, which is what we do on most Friday mornings. He came to the charity shop later in the morning. 

It is hard to say what I feel. There is a degree of relief as well as the sadness that usually comes with a death. I looked after him, or at least was responsible for his welfare, for a little over nine years. I was fond of him but unreasonably felt resentful that he lived on after our darling daughter died.  There were problems in the early days at Steep House because of his officious, interfering God-bothering neighbours. Once his house was sold this changed and all was agreeable. I used to bring him chocolate, cream cakes and other goodies. When he finally took to his bed I went on bringing the goodies but last year he started refusing them. It was necessary to put a thickener in his drinks so that he could drink them without choking. 

Yesterday we went to the nursing home for the last time. We cleared out his possessions (not much; old, stained, worn-out clothes) and took them to the charity shop where I volunteer. Tomorrow we must see the funeral director, notify the bank and telephone the solicitor. I have decided on the music for his funeral. Perhaps one of his relatives could read a poem. 

I emailed my two surviving siblings to let them know of Bill's death. The older of the two lives in California and the news he sent was not good; he has melanoma, has had surgery and various treatments. He's now on immunotherapy. The younger one is well at present, despite problems with atrial fibrillation. His wife is not. She suffered kidney damage because of a mis-diagnosed skin rash. He does not know whether he can attend the funeral. Since he never once visited the old man while he was alive, there seems little point in coming to his funeral. I hope that some of the staff from Steep House will come, particularly Sandra Owen, who came to the home about the same time as Bill and was good to him. He liked her a lot. 

I miss my children. 

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. 

Two years on

So long since I last posted. A lot has happened. I am still working at the charity shop and Judith's husband is still alive. It is not easy for her. He is refusing to have carers because of his privacy and dignity. She is going to explore the possibility of engaging a Rosemary Foundation nurse or a bed in The Rowans Hospice. He is increasingly disabled and is at times not altogether compos mentis. So hard; they do not deserve this. 

Last weekend we went to the Isle of Wight to stay with our daughter's godmother and her husband. It was Mothering Sunday on our last day there. I had forgotten this. Of course, there was no card from my son. Anne did not get any cards either, but two of her daughters and her elder son phoned her and her younger son sent a text message. The night before we went to the theatre in Shanklin to see Russell Watson. It was enjoyable but there was too much amplification for a relatively small theatre. We lunched out on Saturday at a pleasant pub in Brading. We walked on Sunday morning to Sandown Bay and got the bus back. It was a very pleasant break. 

It has been milder after what was called The Beast from the East. It was not as beastly as forecast but was pretty bad. There was snow and sub-zero temperatures. We are fortunate that we live so centrally. We stocked up with food and stayed in, not walking on Friday morning as usual. We managed our Sunday visit to the nursing home. He has shrunk; he seldom acknowledges us. We sit and drink tea and eat the chocolate éclairs that I like so much.  How much longer can this go on? I have paid for his funeral and decided on the music. When we go into the chapel it will be the Morriston Orpheus Choir singing Swansea Town. During the slideshow we shall have Cleo Laine singing Bill. As we leave the chapel at the end of the service it will be Glenn Miller playing Moonlight Serenade. 

In an hour or so it will be two years since I last spoke to my daughter. I wish, I so wish, that we had gone to her that night. I wish I had phoned her first thing in the morning. I miss her every day. I have her baby picture in a little frame; during the intensely cold spell and more recent cold nights I have taken this into bed with me, tucking it under the pillow. She hated being cold. 

Tomorrow we are going to London. We shall take the train there and back (and pray that the snow that is forecast will not be sufficiently heavy to cause delays) and visit Churchill's wartime cabinet rooms. Then we shall go to a concert at the Albert Hall with our friend Jim and his sister and brother-in-law. If there is time we shall go to the V&A before the concert. We have a box with some women from Dan's bridge club.  Afterwards we shall dine at the Union Jack Club, which is conveniently near Waterloo station. I think it will be a good idea to check that trains are running before we dine. 

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. 

Tired and stressed

I have been doing extra shifts at the charity shop and I find that I cannot do this the way I used to. I am working on my own behind the till most of the time and the deputy manager, who is in charge while the manager takes time off because of her husband's illness, is not good at dealing with people. She is constantly criticising and complaining. At the end of the shift there will be fulsome thanks, which in no way reduces the irritation of the obstacle course which she sets for the volunteers. I have been thinking quite seriously of giving up volunteering, but until the manager's situation is clearer I do not feel I can do this. It is only a few weeks to Christmas, when we are going away, so I shall grin and bear it. 

We had friends to dinner last Saturday. It was the second time we had entertained in our new dining room. It was a pleasant occasion. We drank the last bottle of my birthday champagne and ate fish, chicken, lemon posset with fruit and cheese. The others drank other wine with the meal, but I did not risk it. Only fizzy wine seems to agree with me nowadays. I gave the couple some little gloves for their grandchildren. 

We are hoping to go to Shanklin before Christmas. I have the same little gloves for two of my friend's grandchildren and would like to have them by Christmas. I shall never, ever have grandchildren of my own and so I like to give to Anne's. She has five children and eight grandchildren. Often really good toys and clothes come into the charity shop and I buy these; I get a good discount.  If my son ever settles down and has children I know that he will never let us see them. My heart aches for him. He must be so lonely and unhappy. I have unblocked him on Facebook again, but there is no activity. I suspect that he calls my mobile phone from time to time; there are anonymous calls that are in the block log. Next January it will be six years since he chose to fall out with me. I never, ever thought that it was a serious rift. Now I know different.

We are going out on Saturday night. I do not like going out at nights nowadays. It is not far; just to Lavant Street. The friends who came to us last week will be there and the husband of the other couple we socialise with. His wife has gone with a friend on a bridge weekend. The numbers will be made up to six by their next-door neighbour, the widow of a man who worked at IBM at the same time as Dan. She is pleasant and good company.  I shall not drink much alcohol. 

We are walking tomorrow. The next two Fridays we shall not; Dan has a hospital appointment on December 1st and is meeting and lunching with the personnel of the local Citizens' Advice Bureau on the 8th. He has been project managing the move from a building near the Festival Hall to the library. On Tuesday it is the monthly Probus meeting. Four weeks from today we leave for Vence. I am worrying, of course. The M25 may be closed or choked with traffic. It may snow and the airport may be closed. We may have an accident; the flight may be late or cancelled. I hope not. I enjoyed our Christmas last year. I would like it to be as pleasant again. 

 

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. 

Mild indisposition

Today we should have walked, but I seem to have what used to be called a sick headache. I felt so dizzy and sick when I woke up that we did not go. I am sorry that we missed it; I greatly enjoy our walks and seeing the people in the group. The headache lingers. I shall have an early night tonight. We have to visit the nursing home tomorrow and Dan's father is coming for lunch on Sunday. On Monday morning it will be my shift in the charity shop.

On Sunday evening I must write some emails. I am long overdue to email cousin Cheryl in Melbourne. I haven't got much to tell at present. There are no recent photos to send; I have sent the pictures of our bigamist great-grandfather's gravestone and that of his sister, who accompanied him when he left his family and went to Canada.

I am feeling low. In France we avoided the presidential election by watching DVDs in the evening. It is harder to avoid the forthcoming general election. I detest this government. My darling daughter lost her benefits when she was ruled (on a system of points awarded). She appealed and when the hearing came up it took fifteen minutes for the judge to reinstate her benefits and back-date them. What a waste of public money. It caused her distress. My poor baby; she was good and honest to the core and incapable of malice and cruelty.  My son used to be a good person but I no longer know him. He has hurt me and deeply offended his father. I suppose that he is still living on benefits; he has done that most of his adult life. There is nothing I can do.

I have been listening to my iPod but also catching up on television. I love the Talking Pictures channel (343 on Sky) and have recorded some films. I am also recording the series Secret Army from the 1970s. We spent about four years abroad in that decade, from 1974 to 1980. I seldom watch television now. I have never watched Big Brother, I'm a Celebrity or Strictly Come Dancing. Katy used to watch Britain's Got Talent when she came here to stay. I am unacquainted with Downton Abbey and watched only a few minutes of the first episode of the current Poldark dramatisations. I did watch The Moorside, the quite good programme about the Shannon Matthews case.  Dan enjoys the old films that I record. He also loves car programmes. We both watch The Antiques Road Show and Flog It!

In two weeks' time we shall be at The Hay Festival. We have booked a room in a bed and breakfast establishment this time. This will be the best accommodation we have had for the festival; last year was in a tent, the years before at a place called The New Inn at Brilley. The New Radnor Barn will be luxury. Afterwards we shall spend a night or two at Pound Farm as guests of my niece and her family. Angela is one of the few relatives with whom I maintain contact.

Nearly bed time. One more lot of eye drops.  Another painkiller for the headache. I did the ironing today, tomorrow I must polish the silver.  By the end of July I hope to have the dining room I have will have waited fourteen years for.

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.

Memories and preparations

It is a week since I made an entry in this blog. It has been a fairly busy time. Both mornings in the charity shop there were few staff members. I have not phoned the dentist but I did make a hair appointment with the agreeable looking blonde woman in the downstairs hair salon. We shopped in Havant again and on Good Friday morning we walked with our WFH group. It was good to see the bluebells and wild garlic on the other side of the A272. The weather was pleasant although there was a cold edge to the wind.

I miss my daughter so much at Easter. Three years ago she stayed with us for the Easter weekend because she was so ill. We went to her flat on Maundy Thursday and called the paramedics; Katy was in bed and could not eat or easily walk. On the following Tuesday we took her to her doctor who telephoned the Queen Alexandra hospital and arranged for her to be admitted. She did not want to go; she burst into tears and cried that she hated going to hospital. We took her to medical assessment and they put her on oxygen straight away. The following day she was transferred to the respiratory ward where she stayed for three weeks. At one point it was feared that she had lymphoma. She came to stay with us for the weekend after she was discharged from hospital. Fortunately the lymphoma tests came back negative; it was just a particularly severe infection that sent her lymph system into overdrive.

Tomorrow I shall start getting things ready for our holiday. I want to change the bed linen before we leave and have as much done as possible. I shall not feel like housework for a day or two after my eye operation and shall not visit my aged uncle on the Tuesday afternoon.  We saw him yesterday and he ate a cream slice and some chocolate buttons. I have got over the resentment I felt over his niece telephoning the manager of the home about a television set that would be no use to him. I am sure that she and her daughter meant well and were just thoughtless. She would not remember the article from the Daily Mail that she sent me. It was about surgery for age-related macular degeneration. Mr McLean, consultant ophthalmologist, opined that it would not be suitable for him, partly because of his age and because it would probably not be successful anyway. The manager of the home wants me to see her about a "care plan". I am mystified about this; the residents' needs are obvious and the fees are steep. Surely no planning should be necessary over and above the routine organisation of such an establishment. The present manager is not too bad. The excellent Marion Flett left a few years ago. Her successor, one Tracy Katterns, was not up to the job and I made many complaints to the head office because of problems. It is so tiring, forever complaining. The present receptionist is sour-faced and unhelpful, although not as obnoxious as the person who worked for the dreadful Katterns.

I am still taking Co-codamol to help me sleep. I still do not want to get up in the mornings but I always do. I keep going. I have been alone behind the till at the charity shop the last two mornings I was there; Ethel was not well again. On Wednesday there were few members of staff there again. I coped; I enjoy the work. I suppose that it is necessary for me to do this or I shall become a complete recluse. I am rather relieved that my intolerance of spectacle correction does not allow me to play bridge now; I doubt that I could put up with the politics of the bridge club and I could not  meet the exacting standards of some of the people we know. It was my idea to learn and the benefits for Dan have been immense. He has made many friends and has new activities. It was because of the people we met playing bridge that he joined the Probus Club. His chairmanship of the residents' association her in our block of flats led to his playing petanque twice a week. I am glad for him; I am not much company some times. I enjoy the walks but I am being excluded now from the tougher ones with our friends. I cannot  manage the hills so easily.  I spend those Sundays alone unless someone is free to collect me and take me to lunch at whatever pub they have decided to visit for lunch. I do not mind this. I can catch up on domestic chores and listen to my IPod or watch an old film on television. The Sunday walks will begin again in June.

A brief taste of spring weather.

It is a beautiful Spring day. Later we are going to friends for a drink and I shall take a cardigan for the walk home. Our friends have a very "indoors is outdoors" garden and they have been cleaning it today and will have put the cushions out on the sofas and chairs.  We have happy memories of our daughter in this garden. Jeff and Sabine liked Katy and were very kind to her. When she came out of hospital in 2014 and her lymphoma tests came back negative, they gave a barbecue in her honour. She was fond of them, too. The picture is of a winter evening in their house when we sat in front of their wood-burning stove and put our feet up. They are very much outdoor people. I enjoy being outdoors but like just as much to be inside; I love my iPod the way I loved reading books when I was able to do so. I am not a very sociable person.

Tomorrow I must bite the proverbial bullet and find a hairdresser and make an appointment for a cut and blow-dry. I have not had my hair done since January; I cancelled my last appointment because it was so soon after the vitrectomy. I wasn't pleased with the last two cuts with the stylist I've had for a few years so I am going to have a change. I have difficult hair; thick, double crown and cow-licks and a strong natural wave. I am beginning to look like Medusa. The hairdresser on the ground floor of this building has changed hands and I have noticed a very pleasant-looking stylist doing the hair of a woman older than myself. I shall give her a try, or at least show her the pictures of my hair how I want it and see if she will take me on.

I have the charity shop tomorrow and hope that Ethel will be there. We get on well and enjoy working together. I have not seen the authoritarian Gordon for some weeks. First thing Tuesday I am going to phone the dentist. A back molar has been twinging for some time and feels worse now. I am off to France soon and when I come back I cannot have a dental abscess because the eye surgeon will not operate if I do. Dan can drop me at the dentist and I shall get the bus back; I quite enjoy the bus ride. I don't make enough use of my free national bus pass and it is a wonderful thing to have.  I may drive again after the second vitrectomy but it is not a thing I enjoy doing. I learned to drive because I was going back to live in the USA and had to think of my daughter's needs. It's hard to be a non-driver there.

Yesterday I had to look out my old diaries so that I could find some Internet information in one of them. I looked at the diary for 2012 and found that it was on January 29 that the falling out with my son happened. It was such a trivial thing; something I wanted to buy for him to which he took exception. I have tried to apologise but he refuses to believe that I am sincere. It cannot be helped. I shall always miss him. In the last message that I sent him I wished him well but I suppose that he will choose to disbelieve that as well.

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.

Just another Tuesday

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?