Jet lagged this morning
I only finished nights yesterday
Needed coffee and Mosseri at the kitchen table
Coffee
Last week I took part in a zoom lecture/discussion on creative writing.
I remember the breakout group was lively and animated
One chap, older than I lived up the coast and was nearer than most of the others who were dotted around the British Isles.
He turned up at the hospice today and dropped an envelope off for me.
It was an invitation for coffee and his telephone number
Ive accepted
I remembered him from class
He was quiet though asked some interesting questions ,was very smiley,
And he was wearing an old arran jumper in blue
A Flower Show Moment
My Last Official Flower Show ( as top bottle washer and dogsbody) was back in 2017.
I didnt realise then it was going to be my last show as organizer but it was the last one Auntie Gladys went to and indeed, some of you may recall that she opened the show with a speech worthy of anyone more used to public speaking.
Now if you look at the photo, you can see me hugging the winner of the cookery section.
I'm not usually that tactile with strangers but she was a special case that year.
The mum of a friend I used to work with on Intensive Care, she had suffered a devastating stroke that left her physically compromised, terribly fatigued and emotionally very low indeed and at a bit of a loss my friend had suggested she enter the show in several categories as way as some therapy.
what everyone didn't expect was that the lady in question worked so hard at her entries that she swept the board at judging time and it was amazing to see just how shocked and overjoyed she was at winning several classes outright.
There wasn't a dry eye in the house as the the word got around
and I think it was one of my favourite moments in running the show for a decade
The Ties That Bind
We all have our own trajectories in life.
Some like the ones I have with my friends of long standing are running more or less parallel
Others occasionally Veer away or in the case of one , Jane, intersect on a surreptitious level.
Many many moons ago Jane and I were an item. She is a free spirit and has an empathic and generous soul
And I came out shortly after we had split up.
I hurt her badly and I regret that hurt to this day.
But she , forgave me ( after planting a fully iced birthday cake in the centre of my new lawn) and eventually we became good friends again.
That seemed a lifetime ago.
Jane has a husband and two beautiful grown up daughters and lives in Sheffield
We speak regularly.
Last week she went on holiday to a tiny mountain house in the middle of the Andalusian mountains.
She went alone which took some balls, but she did it and FaceTimed me several times sharing the triumphs of that bucket list adventure.
We are both feeling our ages.
Next week the both of us are off to Barcelona another first since we were together a lifetime ago and I know it will be lovely.
Lockdown allowed us to share our worries and our dreams and thoughts about getting older, both have embarked on changes in work snd study late on in life.
Both feel we have lots of things undone, rather than unsaid
And now it’s the time to do them
Water Gardens
I got there early and explored a dilapidated church nearby.
Out for lunch in the country makes you feel as though you’ve been out for the full day .
When I got home I found my newest ( and poshest) Walking Dead T shirt had been delivered,a kind gift from Georgian Jackie D.
Thank you deArheart
Getting her interest in the future of the hall could prove useful
Leiter
The documentary on Saul Leiter was dreadful. Not enough of his photographs and early life too much elderly rambling Leiter for my liking.
I walked out and got tutted at by the organiser which I thought outrageous, if he had followed me I would have told him so too.
The cottage living room always looks at its best at night
Cosy and lived in when I got back
I missed Albert tonight too
Lying untidily on a chair
SRA
A simple breakfast today, panini, vine tomatoes, olive oil and a sprinkling of salt and parmesan
Next week I’m off to Sheffield to see Miss Saigon then fly to Barcelona the day after.
This week, I’m trying to save money, but it’s not always easy to stay home.
Later I will go and watch the documentary In No Great Hurry at Colwyn Bay, which explores the work of photographer Saul Leiter., thats my treat for the week,
Yesterday afternoon I took part in an on line tutorial about creative writing which I booked and paid for last year and in one group discussion I was the only person present not to have ever written a love poem or a love letter of sorts.
This kind of upset me, as all of the 18 others on zoom had obviously done so
This morning I remembered something, hidden away in a recess, something I used to say to my husband when I all loved up, or when I looked at him in a certain way when he didn’t know he was being watched.
I would say the letters SRA to him.
And he would know where I was at.
SRA always stood for the words Sudden Rush Of Affection
They still do….
…. I just haven’t remembered them in a while
Kindness
My dyspraxia was worse than normal this morning. Now there are coffee grains all over the floor. A product of too loud a radio programme, feeling overwhelmed and hurrying.
I know I’m going to drop something when those stars are in line.
Usually a millisecond before it happens.
I’m sat quietly at the table Vernon Kay’s sweet Northern Chatter turned off and some quiet orchestral music on.
It’s the Portuguese Love Theme by Craig Armstrong
The gift of oak saplings made yesterday a nice day. The older I get these kindnesses mean so much more than they did when I was younger. Sure kindnesses are always nice when you are on the receiving end of them but when you are single , somehow they mean just that little bit more important and , well…….kind.
I posted on Facebook a blog about my plans to go to London soon recently and one of the replies was from my great niece Ellie who works in the capital asking to meet for coffee.
That touched me greatly.
Another text, this time from Affable Despot Jason , inviting me to his daughter’s 18th birthday party, the words, she really wants you to come, touched me greatly too as did Village Elder Ian’s recent offer to shrink my front garden gate to it will close properly.
Little kindnesses are of such importance
And so in a similar vein, I’m asking for some kindness from my “ troll” here on Going Gently. I’m asking for them to please stop provoking an argument out of nothing.
I’m big enough and ugly enough to cope with such comments but the drip drip nature of them, usually in the most innocuous of blog entries has become somewhat wearisome to say the least.
I’m also going to ask people not to react to any when and if they continue to arrive
After this personal request, I hope that will not be necessary.
My mother, for all of her faults, was a kind woman, all told.
I remember when I was around 10, we lived in a large detached house on the corner of a busy road. On the opposite corner was a veterinary practice, built on the back of a residential house. One day she had been watching a woman sat in a car outside for a while before she asked me to do her a favour . She had collected several roses from the garden and had wrapped silver paper around the stems and asked me to take them down to the lady in the car.
Being a shy child I refused , and being a shy adult she pushed herself to offer them to the woman in the car herself. When she returned, pink cheeked and sweaty, I asked her just why she had given roses to a stranger. And my mother said that the she had seen the woman take her elderly Labrador into the vets and had seen her return just with his lead.
The woman had been sobbing in her car, presumably after having the dog euthanised and my mother felt she had to do something to offset her pain, just a little.
It’s a big lesson to learn at 10
Not only that my mother was capable of such a small glowing act of kindness when she didn’t always act in a kind way at home.
But also that she was painfully shy and probably in need of such little kindnesses herself
Ps
Strange thing serendipity
This arrived this afternoon , many thanks Elaine
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