Everyone left except Squiffany, who was quite happy to stay and play on her own.  Eventually, her mother came and fetched her home for lunch.  Wink had phoned to say that she was on her way, so I expected her for a late lunch.  Then she rang again.  Assuring me that she was fine, she had been involved in a car accident on the M11.  A woman, driving fast, had lost control and swerved into Wink’s lane – fortunately, Wink had seen her in her wing mirror, driving erratically  and had slowed.  The very front of Wink’s bumper was grazed, not even dented – we think she was remarkably lucky, if she hadn’t slowed there could well have been three dead people – the other driver, her teenage daughter and Wink.  Although delayed considerably, Wink was pretty relaxed about the whole thing.  It didn’t happen, so no fuss.  Worse things have happened, no one was hurt and she drove away from the accident.

I was down at the church when she arrived, for the last hour of the Church Cycle Ride (you may remember, Phil, Weeza and I took part last year), so she came down to see me.  I was getting ready for tomorrow’s 8 o’clock service while I was in the building anyway.  After we went home, she couldn’t find her phone.  She thought she’d left it in the church, so we went back – several times, as we kept thinking of another place to look.  I phoned her, of course, but we couldn’t hear it ring.
At last, we came back and gave up.  Then my mobile rang, and it was from her phone.  A lady had found it in a plant pot in the supermarket 5 miles down the road – Wink had stopped to buy me a begonia and the phone had evidently fallen quietly out of her bag.  I thanked her profusely and she said she’d hand it in – it was nearly time for the shop to shut.  We’ll go and fetch it tomorrow.

The Sage was given a large quantity of overripe, though freshly picked, figs and home-grown peaches today.  I sorted through the figs.  Dilly took some, and then there were 60 squashy ones and a couple of dozen still intact.  I hastily looked for a suitable recipe, and found one for fig and cardamon ice cream.  I used the 60 to make three batches of that – at any rate, the first part of the process, which is simmering the figs with sugar.  I’ll do the rest tomorrow.  And decide what to do with the rest of the figs.  I know I’ve got a good recipe but I can’t find the book.  When I have home-grown figs, I usually just eat them.  They don’t last long enough to cook with.

This is from my phone as my home Internet connection is iffy again. So it will be short. Thank you for lovely messages, and now my age is again the product of two prime numbers, something I’m always comfortable with.

Slightly tired and a bit tiddled, you can tell.

Lovely relaxing evening, we’ve all had a difficult week and we all let it go and were cheerful. The three grandbabies are allcuddled in a double bed together.

More coherent tomorrow, possibly. Goodnight, darlings.

BTW, I’m tired more than drunk. Though, admittedly, a bit of both.

The main reason for which, I’ll tell you about in due course.  It’s not by any means a secret, but it’s only half a story at present and isn’t my news in any case, so it can wait (I’ve blabbed on Facebook, but that is only read by 11 people, so isn’t so public as here).

What with one thing and another, I didn’t get everything done today that I’d meant to.  Much of that was because of the weather, which was delightful.  Warm and sunny, quite unexpected.  I kept on wandering outside for a while to speak to Dilly, who was doing some clearing in the garden.  I was rather wondering how I’d get everything done, but in the afternoon I discovered that I’ve unexpectedly gained an hour and a half tomorrow morning.  I hadn’t got around to confirming the music lesson I usually go in to on a Friday morning, and when I finally did, was told that there won’t be a Year 9 lesson at that time this year.  So we’ll arrange a different day, assuming the teacher will still find me useful, and I’ll start next week.  It wasn’t really very convenient to go tomorrow, so this is good news.  I’ll even have time to practise the hymns for the funeral I’m playing for tomorrow at 11 o’clock.

After that, Weeza will come and finish the condition report, I’ll type it and label the photos and we’ll choose the ones for the catalogue.  Apart from proof-reading, that’ll be my part in the catalogue finished.  Weeza puts it together.  I have, however, in the next week, got to get to grips with a programme called Nuance, which I’m not looking forward to, largely because it’s on the Sage’s computer.  I can use a pc, but I’m not used to it and nothing is set out as I expect it to be.  I can work things out better than the Sage can, but that’s really not saying a lot.  He wanted to look up a website the other day and was having difficulty.  I looked, and discovered he was typing the name into eBay.  “Um, that’s  a website, not a search engine,” I said and showed him what to do.  Today, he asked my how to answer a phone call on his mobile.  “I thought there was a button to press,” he said.  I phoned him and found that you have to drag the screen down to answer or up to refuse it.  He still seemed to find it difficult, though.  Truth is, I think he rather wants my iPhone.  He’s not having it, though.

Friday night will be lovely, because we will have a houseful of people staying.  Weeza, Phil and Zerlina, Weeza’s friend Susie, I hope (yet to be confirmed) – Susie’s family has been friendly with ours for more than a century and my father was best man at her grandfather’s wedding – and Pugsley and Squiffany.  The three children will share a room.

What I like best is when there are lots of people to feed and look after.  Our dining table seats 12, though I have never quite forgiven the Sage for, when it was being made, changing his mind and having it 6 inches narrower than we’d agreed (without mentioning to me) because he thought it would make the proportions better.  I daresay it does, it’s a lovely table, but the reason we’d decided on 4′ wide was to seat 2 people comfortably at each end.  Now it’s a squash.  In fact, the dining room is out of bounds at present so we’ll have to have Friday night dinner at the kitchen table.  The children will be in bed by then but – again it’ll be a squash – Al and Dilly are joining us so there will be 7.  If Ro and Dora announce they are coming over, I’ll have to add another little table at the end.

Anyway, in preparation for all this we changed all the beds today.  I asked the Sage for help because of my bad back, but also it’s good for him.  The phone rang part-way through it all and it was a call for me, and I needed to come downstairs and consult the computer.  The Sage followed me.  “did you finish the bed?” I asked.  “No, I didn’t know where the things were kept, I brought down the linen to be washed,” he replied.  I went back upstairs and showed him that the sheet was folded on the bed and the pillowcases on the pillows.  On the bed.  Hm.

We did the photographs for the catalogue this afternoon.  It was nearly raining, but I put on a coat.  Still staying with the sandals though, not intending to give them up before I must.  We’ve just been doing some alterations to the catalogue this evening, there were a few prices to be changed (sometimes, vendors are over-optimistic, but the Sage has persuaded them down a bit).  He’s also changed around the order of a few lots.  I’ve had to print a copy out and send him to alter it, because my tired eyes don’t want to fiddle around while he changes his mind again.

Dilly and I went to a lovely plant nursery this morning, which specialises in fruit, particularly peaches and similar, figs, grapes and citrus fruit.  She and Al want to buy me a peach tree for my birthday.  We’re not actually ready to plant it yet, so will probably get it delivered in the spring when I’ve prepared the soil.

We spent some time this afternoon working in the garden. I do not call it gardening, more hacking and clearing. It was after 7.30 when we stopped, and it was agreed to have another session later in the week. The Sage, Al and Dilly said that they were free on Thursday evening. “I’ll be out”, I said. “can you manage without me?”. “I’ll put on a pretty skirt and strappy sandals and take your place”, offered Dilly.

I’m feeling pretty good about life this evening.  The Sage had an email with the agenda for the PCC meeting tonight, yesterday.  It was news to him, he thought the meeting was at the end of the month.  I checked the minutes for him, they’ve put in an extra meeting.  And I am not on the PCC any more.  So I don’t have to go  –  the one at the end of the month will have a single item on the agenda and I’ve been asked to go to that one, in fact, chiz chiz, but it won’t be too much of an ordeal I hope.

We had dinner slightly early and then he left, instead of my leaving dinner for him, leaving before 7 to set the room ready, make coffee etc.  I have poured a celebratory glass of wine – the family of the lady who died sent a bottle for me, kindly, to thank me.  And the youngest son of the family came up to me at school and thanked me.  Pity I’m not a better organist, really.  Still, I did try hard.

So, it’s quiet here just now.  I shall sit and read and do nothing else.

I’d been sent the hymns yesterday afternoon, and I didn’t know one of them at all.  I looked it up, it was a modern one – more of a song than a hymn with a flowing bass line, and I had a feeling that it wouldn’t go well on our church organ.  So I arrived early, rather expecting not to be able to sight-read it that easily, and that I’d have to spend a bit of time learning it.

When there are a lot of notes and no one knows the tune, it’s easy for the extra bits to get in the way.  I spent some time working out a different arrangement, based more on chords, that would sound all right but suit the instrument and be easier to follow.  This sounds cleverer than it was.  I just left out a lot of notes, basically.

I took it along and chatted for a few minutes to the people who had arrived.  Finally, “what time is it?”  “Two minutes to eleven”, I was told.  “I’d better fill an awkward silence while we wait for the Rector and the rest of the conversation, then” I said as I hastened back to the organ.

It was noticeable that I’d practised in the past week, as I played better than usual.  The Rector arrived and came to speak to me.  “Everything all right?” she asked.  I nodded.  “I couldn’t find the words I’d printed out for that new hymn,” she said.  “Can you find something you know well for the second hymn instead?”

So, I spent a few minutes looking up the Bible readings and finding something suitable.  I did.  I’ve already forgotten what it was, but it was fine.  I’ve got another funeral to play for on Friday, so will be well practised by then.  I can coast along without much effort for weeks afterwards.

Today, I have eaten 9 Victoria sponge cakes, 5 plates of brownies, 3 plates of savoury muffins, 2 plates of gingerbread men, a dozen pots of jam, 8 pots of chutney, 2 pots of pickle, 5 jugs of non-alcoholic summer drinks, 10 plates of fruit scones, 4 plates of cheese straws and 5 jars of marmalade, and cracked and inspected 4 eggs.

After that, I had lunch.

We had fish and chips for dinner, but I couldn’t eat all mine.

I’ve got a slight overabundance of one of my children’s birthday presents, and nothing for another.  It was Dilly’s birthday while they were on holiday – I’d planned to buy or contribute towards a camera, but it turned out that her family were buying it.  So I bought things from her Amazon wishlist.  I bought little things too, so there would be something to unwrap on the day, and have the books here.  However, I received a text from her this evening, thanking me for my part in the buying of her camera, and it turns out that my offer was actually accepted by her parents, as they’d gone for quite an expensive one.

It seems that I have some of my Christmas shopping done already.

On the other hand, the things I’ve ordered for Phil haven’t arrived yet, and it’s his birthday tomorrow and we’re invited over for a barbecue.  So I’ll have to do some emergency booze shopping on the way.

Sad to say, it was the Sage’s turn to lose keys today.  However, since I may sound critical of him later, I shall finish the story of my lost key yesterday.

When I arrived home last night, the Sage was already cooking dinner.  He came to greet me, looking a bit anxious.  “Is everything okay?” he asked.  “Fine,” I answered.  “I nearly didn’t make it, though.”  He looked quite shocked, so I hastened to reassure – I meant, of course, that I nearly didn’t even leave home.  It wasn’t until he heard my story that he delicately told me that he arrived home to find the doors open.  “What, actually open?  Not just unlocked?”  Yes.  I realised, and explained, that when I went to try the key (from a different car) in the ignition, I hadn’t expected it to work.  When it did, I must just have driven off, forgetting that the house was left open to the world.  I was quite embarrassed, but the Sage was more relieved that there was a logical, though rather foolish, explanation.

Anyway, tonight he couldn’t find the key to the toolshed.  He’d last had it a week ago, when coal was delivered – the key to the coalshed is on the same tally, as are several other keys.  We always keep this group of keys in the same place.  We always have, for 24 years.  “It has been put in the wrong place,” observed the Sage, irresponsibly.

He found them in the end, of course.  They were in a jacket pocket.

The rule is, when something is mislaid, the first place to look is the pockets of every jacket in the house.

It’s been a bit of a day, in one way and another.  I went off to practise the hymns and Jesu Joy and other voluntaries quite early, because a bit of time on my own is useful.  I tend to play carelessly the first time, because it makes me quicker-witted.  I find that, if I’m playing a piece I know well and make a silly mistake, I can be quite confounded, but if I am used to making mistakes I know how to cover them up.  I am a genuinely poor player and I need trickery to get by.

The family came in early and didn’t follow the coffin, which meant that they would hear everything.  Bummer.  I played various stock voluntaries, checking the time every moment my left hand was free (only trouble with having a phone as a clock, the display turns off) and counted 20 after 5 minutes and started the intro.  I noticed, with interest, as I counted the final few silent seconds, that my hands were shaking.  I played through, got to the end and there was no sign of the parson.  I had planned for that and more-or-less seamlessly started again.  He came in, intoning, part-way through Page 2.  I’d planned for that too, and marked a section I could leave out and go to the final half page.  Remarkably, the timing worked perfectly. I entered the final bar as he spoke his last words and, with a held-on final chord, gave him time to reach his place and the pall-bearers to leave the coffin.  It rarely happens so exactly.  In due course, I launched into the first hymn and, when it finished, observed that my left leg was twitching jerkily.  I couldn’t feel it, but nor could I stop.

It doesn’t normally hit me this way, but they are a really musical family.

Anyway, it was all right and afterwards the churchwarden said that she wished I was their organist, so it must have really been all right.  And the Sage came up to say I’d played well, which was very kind (he’s totally unmusical so he hasn’t a clue really, but it was appreciated as he isn’t free with praise).

I had said to him, if a family member invited me to the bunfight afterwards I’d have to go, but otherwise I wouldn’t; he’d go anyway and could give my apologies.  And that’s what happened, which meant I had time to come and let Tilly out and go and do some sorting out at the shop and phone in the order before my next appointment.

Later, I had a further appointment at the blood donor clinic.  I haven’t donated since my hip operation, as I reckoned I’d want 6 months to be all fit and hearty.  I got home and drank a pint of water and had a mug of tea in preparation, then went and read the paper for a bit (I did other things but not a lot) and then realised it was 20 to 7 and time I was off.  I went for my car keys.  They weren’t where they should be.  I looked in the car.  Not there.  I’d driven to the church, about 4 miles away, this morning, but cycled the 2 miles to the afternoon appointment.  I searched everywhere I’d been.  No luck.  I was running out of time.  Finally, as a last resort, I fished out a key from the Sage’s last car, which had been passed on to him by Dilly when she got another one, and tried that.  It worked.  I drove to the donor place, left the car unlocked (I was sure the battery in the keypad must be flat) and they cheerily accepted me as the last appointment of the day.  I drank another pint of water (having fainted once, I’m not ready to again) and duly did my civic duty.

The Sage was cooking dinner when I arrived home.

We both searched for the key.  No joy.  Finally, I thought that the only place left to look was in the pocket of my jacket; I’d put it on to go to Yagnub in the afternoon but taken it off when I’d been too warm.  Indeed, there it was.  I had evidently picked it up automatically, even though I was using a bike not a car.  Fool.  However, at least I now have a spare key.  I shall get new batteries for both, tomorrow. I learn lessons.  I’m a slow learner, but I try not to repeat too many of my mistakes.