It’s been months since I wrote the last piece in this series. I had reached the time when we moved from Weymouth to Oulton Broad, to my father’s family home. I’d meant to stop there, as I was writing about my family’s story and not mine. Now I’ve changed my mind. I’m not sure how much I’ll remember though.

I’m not sure why, but although we moved house in the summer and in time for the start of the school year, it was decided that my sister, who is five years older than I am, would remain at her school in Weymouth until Christmas. She lived during the week with friends, whose daughters were much the same age as she (this is the family I mentioned before, whose daughter Roseanne was born the same day as Prince Charles and who received a fabulous layette from Buckingham Palace) and, at weekends, with Grandad. She enjoyed this time in many ways, but did feel cut off from us, and found it very hard when she started a new school in the middle of the year.

This must have been the start of a happy time for my parents. My mother adored the house – it was she who had been desperate to move there. My father was considerablymore ambivalent. He had not had a happy childhood and I think he must have felt that the weight of being ‘the Major’s son’ would be hard to shake off. However, he had many friends from childhood days and it was a lovely place to live.

The house was called Seaview. Sounds like a seaside boarding house, but it was Grandpa’s idea of a joke. It was three miles from the sea by road but, being three stories with a copper dome on top, one could see the sea from the topmost room. All we were ever able to see was a grey-blue haze, but this was the theory.

Six years ago, we were invited to lunch by the people who now live in half of the house. It was a strange feeling, revisiting. We were shown over and I found myself looking for features that I didn’t know I still remembered.

Can I describe the house? I don’t know. It’s completely clear in my mind and I could walk every inch blindfold. This may take a few posts and I apologise. I’m being self-indulgent. I absolutely understand if you skip.

The house was built in 1912, so my father was not born there but moved in as a toddler. It was the first house to be built in the road, and my grandfather bought the prime sight, with a wide river frontage on to the broad. Building materials were brought to the house by river on barges – from Norwich, I suppose. It was typically Edwardian, with big windows and airy rooms with high ceilings.

A wide yellow front door led into a lobby, which we called the ‘airlock’. On the left was a cloakroom and washbasin, which led to the downstairs loo. It was always cold. Back into the airlock and into the hall. This was huge. Well, large. On the left, a short passage led into the gunroom, which was lined with cupboards, wooden doors below and glass ones above. My father did not shoot, so the upper ones were used for books and the lower ones for stuff that never saw the light of day. At the end was a desk and on that stood the telephone. In front of the telephone was a dogbasket. We stood in the basket to make phone calls. In retrospect, this seems odd, but it was quite natural at the time, and of course no one had more than one telephone in the house, which was always kept in the hall.

Going clockwise round the hall, the doors then led to the drawing room, the passage (it led outside but was used as another glory hole), the study, the dining room, the kitchen area, then, the other side of the stairs, the cupboard under the stairs. This was sizable, and was known as the beer cupboard, but all the drinks were kept there. Now, it’s a spacious cloakroom.

The rooms were not all that large, in fact, though I thought they were at the time. I suppose about 16 foot by 14. There was a large bay, the width of the room, in both the drawing and dining rooms, with big sash windows. The central panes must have been 6 foot wide and 5 foot high at least – one above the other, of course. The side windows, which were the same height of course but narrower, were the ones we used to go in and out to the garden. The dogs used to queue up to go in and out and there were always paw and breath marks, however often they were washed. When our pony roamed about on the lawn during the summer, she used to come up onto the terrace and knock at the window too, hoping for a treat. I was awfully glad to see, when I returned a few years ago, that the brass fingergrips were still the original ones, as so much else had changed. It was a pity that, although the fireplace was still there, the cast iron fittings weren’t. The doors closed, which kept draughts down when the fire wasn’t in use, and really drew it up when it was. You lay and lit the fire, closed the doors for a few minutes and it was ablaze. The wall the fireplace was on was angled to throw maximum heat into the room. There was a rather ugly, massive wooden chimneypiece which, some years later, was simplified so that only the mantelpiece itself remained.

If you can’t picture it, then obviously I haven’t explained fully enough 😉

Remembering particularly today, my grandfather, who spent the First World War serving in France, in the trenches and his two brothers, who both were fatally wounded there, my father’s half brother and my husband’s cousin, who were killed fighting in the Second World War. John, my dear friend throughout my teens, who died serving in the army in Northern Ireland in 1975. My father, who was proud to say that he had never aimed a gun at a person in his life, but served in the Medical Corps throughout the war and was prepared to die for his country.

Recalling the memorial tablet I saw in a church in France last month, to a man and his three sons who were all killed in the Napoleonic wars, and of his wife and their mother, who was left to outlive them.

Praying particularly today, that the leaders whose ambition, beliefs or self-justification lead to conflict will talk and listen instead.

Remembering, with affection, Kit, who died yesterday.

And thinking of my beloved mother, whose birthday is today. She died in March 03, and in our last six months together we put behind us the difficulties of the previous fifteen years. When we were told the diagnosis of untreatable cancer, that time fell away and we both felt the pure love and unity of my childhood years.

It has struck me (notwithstanding that I said a few days ago that I kept crying – resilient woman that I am) that I feel remarkably well at present. All cheerful and energetic. Is it this startlingly healthy diet that I eat? Is it that I am biking keenly, as long as there is no undulation in the road, for miles and a bit? Maybe it is simply that I’ve reached the high point of my life, and it will be downhill all the way from now on – and I don’t mean in a ‘whoopee’ cycling sort of way.

I will find out in due course.

Night are a bit difficult, however. I go to sleep and wake, needing to turn over, but I find that the joints have locked and it is agony. This happens about every hour. It’s boring. Also, I realise that the Sage has the habit of leaving a hand on or under a hip (either hip, they both fucking hurt), at times when it is really not conducive to marital happiness to say ‘ow’. I need to explain this politely at a neutral sort of time, when passion will not be killed. I haven’t just realised this, but it is getting harder not to say ‘ow’ instead of ‘wow’.

Otherwise, things are exceptionally good. I oversaw the autumnclean (very like a springclean) at the church and people kept coming to ask, meekly, what to do next, and I told them. I noted Useful Information in my big black book to do things about. I remembered things that need to be planned for.

The day had started slightly oddly, as I had woken early and not got up, for why would I? At 8.15, I heard a vehicle and saw, through the window, a flashing amber light. I creaked lightly from the bed to peer outside and found, at little lower than window level (Tudor house, low ceilings), a JCB with friend Alan in the cab. I do not wear nightclothes. I dropped to the floor and crawled out of the room…I don’t know if he had seen me, for he is too polite to have said.

Anyway, the laurel hedge is now a pile of upended bushes, which will be moved to the bonfire in the next few days. I’m a bit perturbed that the Sage did not have Alan move them, but see his point, that it would have churned up the gravel and the grass to have the JCB go back and forth. They are big chunks of laurel, though.

Tomorrow is my Holier than Thou (unless thou art Dave, which thou art not as he is away) Sunday, as I will be up early and in church by 7.30, and again by 10. In between, I will cycle in to town for the paper. Unless it is raining. I may be a saint, but I’m not a martyr.

Indeed, I have a job. 50 minutes per week and, of course, unpaid, but I am to be a teaching assistant in the music department.

Today, I had a meeting with the head of music and we talked about the department and the work she does, based on her self-evaluation form (SEFs are all the rage at present), my observations and what she wanted to tell me. At the end, having noted various things, I asked if there was anything else practical I could do…she said, humorously, that if I could provide a general assistant…so I offered. It is something that has been discussed with the Head and will happen, when someone is available with some time to be allocated, but the teaching assistants are in the Special Needs department and so those children come first of course.

We decided that I should go in and help with one Year 9 class, for the one lesson a week that she has them. After a while, we’ll evaluate it to see if she feels it’s made a difference, and if it helps then that would strengthen her point, that she needs a paid assistant regularly. I am looking forward to it – I used to help at the village school for years and only stopped when I became chairman of governors and needed to step back and take a more management-based and less personal role. I also helped as a parent when Ro was at the Middle school.

I thought I’d better run it past the Head, to make sure he approved, so I told and asked him – and also pointed out that I would be likely to come back to him next term requesting an assistant for all the year 9 classes, for if I have a devious plan, I make sure the victim knows about it. He is quite happy with it all – and I am confident I’ll get my way here, because I’m not easy to say no to, for I look so disappointed or else so happy that people love to please me. I asked if he wants me to update my Criminal Record Bureau check (yes, we all have to be CRB-checked if we want to talk to a child) but he says he is satisfied with my credentials. Ooer, cheeky lad.

In other news, the church boiler is all right but the radiators needed to be bled, and we are not flooded, but it was a damn’d close-run thing on the coast and some people have been flooded out. A few more inches and it would have caused real problems – the Environment Agency were right to give the warnings and take action. It’s been a bitterly cold day for all the people directing traffic, helping with the sandbags and the evacuations etc.

I rode my bike all of a quarter of a mile. It was windy. And cold. I should like some credit, if you please, for riding to the church and back.

And I have booked my train ticket for London on the 23rd. I shall stay with El and Phil on Friday night and spend Saturday with them, but am footloose on Friday.

I did bike in today, as I expected to be home before dusk. I didn’t quite make it up the hill to the High School and … er… got off and pushed. I went into town at lunchtime as I had some free time afterwards, was told by the Sage that my lights had arrived and dropped the bike off on the way back to have them fitted (the front light is easily removable, Badgerdaddy, and I will not leave it on the bike). During the afternoon it absolutely bucketed down and I felt a bit dismayed at the thought of the ride home. But of course it stopped for me, because even the weather can be kind, though it was a murky afternoon and I was glad I had the lights – not to see, but be seen.

A worrying weather forecast for the East coast. Any Lowestoft person is aware of the dreadful 1953 floods, which swept down the coast and caused huge amounts of damage and killed many people. As it hit each area, everyone was too busy with their own problem to think to warn people further south, so each town was unprepared. If all goes as badly as it could, the surge could reach similar levels, but flood defences are better and they know the situation.

I had a lovely day in the music department and thoroughly enjoyed it. There was a Year 9 class, which split into five groups to practise music they were working on. I rambled between them, asked a few questions and made constructive (I hope) comments – for example, one girl was having trouble working out a note on the saxophone. I was able to explain that B sharp is the same as C (it was a high note, above the stave and she hasn’t been learning long). She got it right next time and glanced at me to make sure – that felt nice. Then there was a Year 10 GCSE class and later an Upper 6th A level class. They were talking about the classical style of music (classical rather than baroque or romantic, for example, I mean) and discussing a Beethoven string quartet and a Mozart piano concerto. Tomorrow, I’m going in again to talk to the head of music and have lunch with the department heads and that’ll be all until next week, when I’m visiting the new skills centre in the next town, which serves three local high schools for vocational study. Sadly, then I’ll have to write it all up.

Well, not exactly ‘work’ – more ‘watch other people work and write it down’. It was the first of three days observing lessons and stuff at school. Then there was a meeting. More of the same tomorrow, but I start a little later and finish a little earlier, which is just as well as I must do some washing soon or run out of clean knickers – except the sensible ones, and we don’t want to resort to that, do we?

I had planned to cycle in, until it dawned on me that I would be coming home in the dark and I haven’t got any lights yet. They may arrive tomorrow, in which case I could get them on the way home. It would be foolish to attempt it at lunchtime, as it’s uphill to the high school from the cycle shop and I will already have made the amazing effort once. It remains to be seen how I will get on on a bike in a skirt suit. Not a short skirt, I think. But if I leave soon after 3.30 I’ll be home before dark in any case, especially as it’s downhill all the way.

The Sage has been to see his engineer and car buff friend, Mike, who reckons he can repair the car. It will cost far less than the garage would charge, and since the Sage took to the chap because he jumped straight from his car, apologising and saying he would stump up without question, he naturally wants to keep the cost as low as possible.

I haven’t started work yet. I put blogging first…well, second, after food. Moussaka. Of course I didn’t fry the aubergines, what do you take me for?

I had a meeting in Norwich this morning, and in the afternoon the Sage had an appointment in Wildest Suffolk and I went with him for the pleasure of his company. Apart from the fact that the people we went to see got it in their heads that I was his daughter, they having spoken to El on the phone last week, all went well. After trying to explain a couple of times, we accepted the situation and went along with it – though not to the extent of calling my husband “Dad”.

We came home by the scenic route, and very lovely it was. My unscheduled taxi ride through Essex last month showed me some delightful villages, and so there are in Suffolk too. Lots of old cottages, sympathetically looked after without being too neatened up, with trees and hedgerows around the fields. It was a pleasure.

It’s getting a bit nippy though.

Only a week ago I was saying complacently that I had caught up with most of my work. I’ve fallen behind again now, and I’ll be out every day for the rest of the week. There won’t be much time for blogging, I don’t think. Unless I get up early, of course.

A flying visit to London today, to see friends over from Madras for a few days. It’s nearly three years since I last met them, when I was last over there. They had a business appointment in the middle of the day and this was the only day my sister and I could manage, but at least we had a good hour together. Afterwards, Wink and I met El and briefly visited her office to have a discreet gawp before having lunch together. Then we trotted into Fortnums, reminisced for a few minutes about the griottes en cognac (brandied cherries in chocolate) that we always had at Christmas time, and that I’d break my diet and she would break her non-chocolate eating resolve for one (though we didn’t) before we went off to browse round the bookshop.

Outside, there were whole lots of people in a good-natured queue. Upstairs, there were several dozen more, most of them sitting on the floor leaning on the bookshelves. It seems that young L*w*s H@m1lt0n, having ‘written’ a rather precocious autobiography, was turning up at 4.30 for a booksigning. Two hours earlier than that, there were about 150 people keenly waiting.

I was vastly happy, when we parted, to find myself hopping on a Routemaster bus, complete with helpful conductor. I thought they’d all gone. It finished the day nicely.

I keep saying that when I come to London I’ll see if any of you lovely friends are free to meet up, but there wasn’t time – this was arranged at short notice and I had to give my Indian friends priority as it is such a flying visit. The only day I have free for the rest of the month is the 23rd, which is a Friday. Any good to anyone? If you’d care to form a disorderly queue, I’d be thrilled.

The Sage was taking great care of me. He slipped one of the kitchen staff a fiver to move all the tables into position, because they are solid oak and, he decided, too heavy for my feeble old body. For once, we also had time to have a nice cup of tea before people came crowding in at the start of the view (they always start to arrive well before the advertised time).

There are always newcomers, too. Some of our buyers have been coming ever since the start of our specialist china sales in November 1983, but a few more turn up every time – this does not mean it’s a complete crush of course, because others have fallen by the wayside in one way or another in the meantime. With twenty different vendors and nearly fifty different buyers, as well as lookers and unsuccessful bidders, it makes for a good many interested people.

I’ll put the prices up and, if I get around to it, write a sale report and put them on our website in the next week and put in a link. The two pieces I liked best, an early saucer and a beautifully painted coffee pot, went for higher prices than I’d have been able to pay, so it’s just as well I wasn’t bidding. I’m glad they were appreciated.

I find that driving in Lowestoft is very confusing now. They have reorganised the whole traffic system recently, pedestrianising some roads and making others that have been one-way for the last few decades two-way again. When you’re used to getting into the right-hand lane and you realise that there are oncoming cars in it, it’s disconcerting, as is driving the wrong way down the street.

During the sale, it occurred to me that El, Phil and Ro had all arrived by train and we needed the back seat of the car, or most of it, for all the stuff to take home – about twenty lots had been bought by absent bidders who had given their bids to the Sage beforehand or bid on the phone, and we had to take them back with us. Then there were all the fitted boxes the china had been brought in, the computer and printer, the chiller for our food…this could be quite a problem. Luckily, lovely Charmian was with us and after the sale I asked her if she could help out. She drove El and Phil the extra three miles from her house to ours. We hadn’t expected any difficulty as Al had hoped to join us, but wasn’t able to in the end.

We’ve all had a really good couple of days since, chatting and catching up with news. Back to the grindstone now – I’m out all day tomorrow, so will do tomorrow’s work tonight.

El and Phil were going to borrow my car for the day, so they took me to the bicycle shop first. It all took some time, as I wanted to order a whole range of useful accessories, such as lights and panniers and stuff. It was all most … I was going to say exciting, then I thought better of it and nearly put interesting, as I have never looked through bicycle accessory catalogues before, but actually that’s not the word either. Insert your own word, if you will.

The Sage had, indeed, announced that it was to be his present to me, which was very sweet of him and, with his usual delicacy, he slipped a wodge of banknotes into El’s hand, so as not to sully mine with the touch of Filthy Lucre. She, I believe, was buying the accesories, but I became a little confused. I paid for nothing, just pointed and squeaked “I’ll have that one!” several times.

And yes, I’ve ordered a helmet too. I’ll look a complete plank, but with any luck one made of growing rather than dead wood.

I got on the bike, got off again and asked him to lower the seat as much as possible, reascended and wobbled purposefully to the corner. I rode to the bike parking places thingies near the bus shelter and went to buy food, left my bags with Al and fetched the bike for him to admire. We put the shopping bags one each side of the shelfy thingy at the back, each dangling from its handles and I set off home. As I swept down the hill down castle lane, I reflected that I’d never be able to cycle up it again. I reparked outside the post office, carefully setting the combination lock, and went into the wholefood shop and then started to pedal the final mile home.

So cycling a couple of miles is within my capabilities. I hadn’t been sure. And I did look on the keenly watchful traffic warden with a detached and lofty air.

However, later, there was an accident. Fortunately, it did not result in any injury – indeed, it didn’t involve me at all. The Sage drove into town for some chicken food and parked outside the pet shop. While he was in there, he heard a crash and went out again to find a 4×4 with its muzzle thrust hard into the rear of his little car. Although it is still driveable, he suspects it will be a write-off, but the chap concerned says he will pay, whatever.

I will tell you about the auction sale tomorrow. Pip-pip, darlings.