Month: September 2024

I think I’ve had a good week. I have been out visiting, been writing, helping a friend with her words for the Murder Mystery that we’re doing, done a spot of yoga, met up with two out of three sons and their families, chatted to other son via WhatsApp and, most amazing of all – I finished the jigsaw!!

Honestly, it was the hardest jigsaw I have ever done. Enjoyable in a challenging way and a real sense of satisfaction at having completed it, however. I did wonder, at one point, whether I might abandon it, but Pete encouraged me not to give up, so I persevered. Boom! Made it!!

On the visiting front this week, I went to see our former vicar, Father Peter, and his wife Sandra, on Saturday. A really lovely visit. So relaxed and very, very enjoyable – we chatted and chatted, ate and drank really well and had a lovely walk through the town of Evesham, where they have retired. “I’ll drive,” I’d suggested to the girl who came with me. “No, I’ll drive,” she replied, “I’m a nervous passenger.” Oh. Hmm – it turns out I’m a nervous passenger, too!! Eek! We made it there and back in one piece though!

I did an afternoon of ‘Writing for Wellbeing’ on Sunday, which was smashing. It’s never about whether you can write well or ill; it’s just about writing what you feel in response to some stimulus, such as a quote, a picture or a phrase, to provoke you into thinking of good things. Rebecca F. Kuang said: “Writing is the closest we have to real magic. Writing is creating something out of nothing, it’s opening doors to other lands. Writing gives you powers to shape your own world.” She’s not wrong. It was a couple of hours of losing myself in a different world altogether. Food for thought.

Not only do I seem to to have (nearly) broken my writing block, but also my reading block. I used to love reading but, for many years now, I’ve hardly been able to start a book, let alone finish one. However, one or two friends have lent or bought me books that they’ve thought I’d enjoy – and I have read them. Fabulous. I’ve even started reading about Van Gogh. Yippee!! There’s hope yet.

On a totally different note, we used to kneel for prayers in church. No longer. We sit, heads bowed, instead. The kneelers, so carefully and lovingly worked by members of the congregation in memory of loved ones, lay abandoned in a side room. For momentous events, like Paul and Harriet’s wedding and Paul’s confirmation, we searched high and low for the one I had made in memory of my Dad – because kneeling is required in those services – but to no avail.

But there’s good news! The kneelers are to be binned and have been shifted into the back of the church. “Have a look through,” announced the church warden to those gathered in church last Sunday, “to find yours to take home, if you like.” Well, yes perlease, I thought……. so I had a rummage and found it. Marvellous and fond memories of the love that went into that piece of tapestry, The Star of Bethlehem, because, as most of you know, I hate sewing.

Mind you, now I look at it in the photo, it looks like a couple of fried eggs on toast, doesn’t it? Hehe!! I bet you can’t un-see that now, can you? God bless.

Life is interesting, isn’t it? You never know what weird and wonderful things are going present themselves to you. And I got to thinking that, as I continue to muddle through the fog, mist and other such cloudy things in my brain, my creativity button has simply switched off. A creativity menopause, if you will.

Which brings me to an apology for those who continue to regularly read the blog. I realise that I am simply recording ‘what I/we have done’ as a memoir of our family life. Mostly mundane with the odd, unexpected excitement – no more of an attempt at making the blog interesting or amusing (if ever it was anyway). A flat, 2D image of an ‘every day story of village folk’. But there we are. Maybe I’ll get my Mojo back in due course. Who knows? Anyway, here we are – a bit more of ‘this is wot I have dun….’

A week last Friday, I enjoyed a wonderful couple of hours at the NEC with Hazel (of Centre Stage and Quiz Night fame) and her friends, experiencing the Van Gogh exhibition. An immersive, 360º digital art exhibition that invited us to step into the universe of the Dutch genius. We all marvelled at the way in which the art was presented as merged, moving pictures, and we loved the event. It was so good that it prompted me to toddle to the library to order books on his life and works. On the BTBR (books to be read) pile now!

I also took delivery of Chester a week last Friday, too. A weekend away for him and a pleasure for me. An elderly boy now and slowing down a bit, meaning that the walks are more leisurely than taken at the usual run. He made himself at home, of course. And he’s not so infirm that he couldn’t woof at the next door neighbour’s cat – or get up the stairs into our bedroom, or leap up onto the sofa – all the places where he’s not supposed to be. Tee-hee.

My weekend didn’t stop there. On Saturday evening, our church choir joined up with two other local choirs to put on a concert to raise funds for supplies to Ukraine. It was great fun as they romped through popular songs; songs from the musicals; and some church music. We even had a sing-song ourselves too!!

I am not sure how much the event raised, but people certainly put their hands deep into their pockets after watching a video of first-hand experience of the horrors of war, filmed by of one of the congregation’s Ukrainian tenants.

Sunday was another Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding dinner at Paul and Harriet’s with all the local family. Great food and great company – including the puppies of course! They are still cute – but growing. Not clear from these photos but Duke is a least a third larger than dainty Mabel and growing fast.

And the week that then rushed past involved babysitting the Kenilworth Newbie children on Monday and Tuesday while Michael and Danielle strove to do a bit of work. I took the children to Kenilworth Castle on Tuesday afternoon where Paul and Freddie joined us. What a great time we all had clambering up and down the ruins – and, of course, the traditional roly-polys down the banks. Not me this time though…… but so much fun that we hardly wanted to come home! Cakes helped the afternoon swing by, too. Here’s two of the brood with theirs. Yum.

Of course, it was back to school for every little boy in the family on Wednesday (much to the relief of their parents) and the obligatory doorstep photo, in which they all looked fabulously cute and – crikey – grown up! Oh, my heart.

Great activities and great company throughout the week which I really enjoyed – and on Friday afternoon, I even had couple of hours of reading in the garden when the weather turned very warm and sunny, beer in hand, of course!

Enjoying the warm sunshine and gazing at the house ‘that Jack built’ brought John to mind. I’m still missing the ol’ man. There’s a constant undercurrent of missing his vibrancy and that strong presence in my life; his ability to self-start and get on with things; his sense of humour and strong opinions – and, oh, just his being. But on the plus side, everything I look at around the house brings me the joy of having had him in my life so long. Hurrah for that.