I woke this morning to hear it raining steadily.  A little later, it poured harder and I went downstairs to check none was coming in at the vulnerable window.  The work that the Sage and Jamie did a few weeks ago has cured the problem, none was coming in and the paving outside the side door, which Jamie took great care over, had no sign of a puddle.  One cannot see a slope, but it does drain slightly, to the side away from the house.

By the time I left the house at 7.30, it had stopped and soon the sun was shining, which was jolly good as it was Zerlina’s birthday party today.  Since her actual birthday was so close to Gus’s due birth date, it had been decided just to have the family over then and save a get-together with her friends until later.  We didn’t go, but Squiffany and co did, it was held here (there is music on the linked site, in case you’re at work!), Weeza works for the owner, who has children around Zerlina’s age (which was how she came upon her job, she met their mother at toddler get-togethers) and it was a lovely day for it.  It was going to be in the morning, but of course the guests would have all-day passes, so once the party itself was finished, anyone could spend the day there if they wanted to.

The Sage had a business appointment in Ipswich; we had intended to go out together but plans were scuppered by that.  Just as well someone was about as Big Pinkie got out yet again – I don’t know where, I couldn’t find anywhere obvious, and it wasn’t easy to open a gap in the wire to let her home again.  She was waiting by the field, wanting to get back in to be with her two companions, that wasn’t the difficulty.  Managed it in the end and tempted her with a couple of apples, then I went over onto the field on the house side on the beck and called her over with the aid of a couple more.  The Sage and I went over and mended where I’d let her in, later.  She’s a rascal, but very sweet-natured.

I mentioned numbers yesterday.  I am not very good at remembering numbers, so I have to work out arithmetical links.  My friend John told me, years ago, that he was taught at some time to have a picture association with each digit – the example he used was, if a bed is 1 and a swan is 2 (because a swan on the water with its curved neck looks a bit like a 2), 21 could bring a mental image of a swan sitting on a bed.  I wasn’t sure it would work for me, I don’t have much imagination and wouldn’t be able to think of or remember the images (he’s an accomplished artist so his brain is wired differently from mine).  And how would I know whether it was 21 or 12?  No, what I do is multiply or think up simple number links.  Which seem to some people to be quite relatively complicated.

For example, my old mobile phone number.  07884002278.  They all start with 0, so that was no problem, and then I had to remember 7, but then added one and it was a double number so that was easy, then I halved it and there was another double which made it 400, then the 4 was halved again and that was a double number again, and it finished as it started, except for the 0.  And I thought, 07 double 8, 4 hundred, double 2, 78.

Weeza’s phone number in London was 020 72787397. The recurring 7 was the key there.  I had to say, 0207 (which I knew because it was a central London number – I know the 7 comes at the start of the second batch, but I couldn’t remember it without the correct intonation) 27 (which repeated the 2, which helped) 87 397.

The local telephone numbers all start (after the code) 89, followed by 4 digits, which gives me problems.  It’s like breaking a code, there isn’t enough to go on.  I remember the numbers, just not whose phones they apply to.  I can remember my PINs, however, because I apply myself.

As for numbers I like – these are not lucky numbers, I don’t have lucky numbers – these are usually related to my age.  I think that the year before the change of decade is too much like standing on one leg with the other about to step forward, so I’m not too fond.  Last decade was different, because it was a square  I like squares and am looking forward to 64, as it will be both square and cube, the only time I will have such an event except when I was a year old.  I am fond of ages that are divisible by 3, especially if they are the product of two prime numbers.  69 will be brilliant, upside down, back to front, 23×3 so product of two primes, and generally enjoyable in all ways.

In fact, I have little objection to the ‘up’ years in any decade anyway.  Roses always thinks of Wednesday as the ‘hump’ day in the middle of the week, but then it’s downhill swiftly to the weekend.  The downward slope of a decade is just leading on to be 10 years older overnight.

Phil’s parents are over for the weekend and they all came over for lunch today.  It was warm enough to sit outside in the morning, but we came in to eat – we made it simple, salads and so on.  Gus is three weeks old today, a pound and a half heavier than when he was born, and now just (we think) starting a growth spurt, as he’s been feeding and sleeping more in the last day or two than he has for a while.  After lunch, Al and family came in and the three older children went off to play while the babies were cuddled.  Hay is also pretty hungry right now, he’s over the colicky stage and spends a lot of time awake.  He finds it boring to lie down for long, enjoys being with people and is starting to take an interest in toys.  It’s interesting to compare the two of them, a week less than three months apart in age.  It’ll be brilliant, watching them grow up together.

After tea, the Norwich family left and then we went next door because Al and Dilly had invited us for dinner.  I have rather dreadfully (but enjoyably) overeaten today and must cycle energetically for the next week to counteract its effects.  Both Ro and Wink phoned during the day too, I’ve been very looked after.

And I really am feeling most alarmingly old.  I prefer odd numbers, especially those divisible by three.

I’m so sorry.  I’m not sure what happened to yesterday, I wondered why I hadn’t received any notification of comments.  So, this is yesterday’s post, okay?

The day started absurdly early because I had said I’d be at the school assembly at 9 o’clock.  I know, darlings, I washed my hair and ironed two whole garments, specially.  Then I had a meeting with the Head, because there’s a whole lot of stuff to sort out this term, and then the conversation got around to the First World War, as it does.

It was perfectly sensible, a staff member’s father had recently died and the Head referred to that, as she is very upset, and I said that I’d known him (the father), he lived in our village and, when he moved here, I’d asked him to read out the Roll of Honour at the Remembrance Day service, he being one of our few remaining residents who served in WWII.  He had become a friend; I was already friends with his daughter.

I mentioned, as I have here because it always shocks me, that 25 of our village’s young men (which had to be almost all of them) had died in that war, and that led the conversation on to those boys of the Grammar School, the precursor to the present High School, who had been in the armed forces at that time.  One of the schoolmasters had lost his life in the Great War, and something had moved him (the Head), being a historian and very interested in the subject and the school, to look up the school magazine from that period.  He brought out a book, which comprised the magazines from 1914-1924, and said he had ended up reading it from cover to cover, it was so interesting.  He said that the Sage’s family name had recurred time after time.

The Sage’s father had three brothers and all four of them had attended Yagnub Grammar School, Pa having been nearly 16 when the war started.  He and his younger brother were mentioned many times in the magazine, for academic and sporting achievements,  then he was mentioned as having graduated from Cambridge and becoming a member of the Law Society, as was his eldest brother.  The Head has lent me the book to show the Sage, and I think that all our children will be interested.

Genealogy is so popular nowadays and I don’t really get it – I honestly don’t care what my forebears were doing a couple of hundred years ago, unless there’s something that lets me see them as people.  For example, my three-greats-grandfather was big on public service 160 years ago, as am I, I suppose – don’t know if that’s nature or nurture, but it is some sort of connection (and also, coincidentally, with the Sage’s family) and I know a little of him as a person because of some letters we have, but I have no great urge to research the family.  I’m not that into it.  But this is different, because we did know him, my elder children remember Grandpa lovingly and we will all be really interested to read about his schooldays.

I’ve always been a TW3 sort of girl – it’s over, let it go.  But blogging has made me see the interest in keeping a record, not just for me now, but for the future.  I pity any poor person who reads all my waffle once I’m dead or gaga (not planning either right now, but at least the former is bound to happen, I’m ageing jolly fast, I can tell you) as there’s so damn much of it – but, having read it, that person will really know me pretty well.

Hadrian is now three-and-a-half months old and is a fat and cheerful baby.  All mine were very chubby, so were H’s brother and sister, but all became thin once they were two or so, they just grew outwards before upwards.  Zerlina, on the other hand, was tall and skinny from the start. I have not been able to get Hadrian to acknowledge me at all.  I looked towards him and he looked away.  I moved to his line of vision again and he refused to catch my eye.  I chattered to him and he looked politely bored.  My sister came to visit and he looked at her at once and started to smile charmingly.  I thought that was a bit off, I have to say.

However, the other day, I somehow made the breakthrough.  He suddenly, when I was holding him, noticed the top I was wearing, which was white with red and black markings.  He found it very interesting and gazed for some time.  Then he glanced up at me.  He looked me in the eye, then looked all around my face and finally gave me the most splendid smile.  Since then, he’s smiled whenever he’s seen me.

Tomorrow, I’m planning to go to Norwich again.  I know, darlings, mad consumer frenzy has me in thrall.

When you want to replace an appliance, it can be quite tricky to find the particular features that you want. Recently, for instance, when I needed a new washing machine for one of the London flats, I needed it to be a particular size – but that wasn’t offered on the website.  Price, colour, manufacturer, but not size.  But that was fundamental – if it didn’t fit in the space, it didn’t matter if everything else was right.

Quite often, it’s only after buying something that you find out what feature you liked in the old machine that you don’t get in the new one.  Even if you knew that you wanted it, it might not be mentioned.  You want an example? Darlings, you shall have one.  Our last telephone.

Our last phone had an amber light to show that the answerphone was switched on.  Then there was a red light, which flashed when there was a new message, and stayed on without flashing when there was a message which had been listened to but not deleted.  This was ideal.  The first one to see it listened, if it was for him/her they dealt with it and deleted it, if it was for the other person it was still visible so he/she listened, dealt with, deleted.  That phone finally died, some years ago, and I was unable to find one which I was sure had the same feature.  The present one, which (with four handsets) was expensive, doesn’t.  A light shows that it’s on or flashes to show a new message.  And that’s all.  Once it’s been listened to, it doesn’t show.  And this causes a few ructions.

The thing is, I’m not very telephone minded, and the Sage is.  So it’s usually he who listens to messages.  When I get in, I’ll check the phone, possibly not for a while, but he goes to look straight away.  Most messages are for him anyway, people normally phone me on my mobile, text me or email.  But if there’s a message for me, he leaves it for me to find.  However, if there’s not a new message, it doesn’t occur to me to check the answerphone, particularly because he doesn’t really know how to delete messages and so there might be 15 of them to listen to before I find the most recent and so I tend only to do it if there’s one for me … which I only know if he’s told me.  Today, he told me there was a message for me, I listened to them all.  One for me was from last Wednesday, which quite dismayed me.  Another for me, he’d phoned back and not even told me.  The third, fortunately, I remembered who it was from and was able to look up her number – because afterwards he tried to delete the old messages but lost that one instead.

This is not intended to be a complaint, the Sage and I manage to live with each other’s shortcomings.  What I would like to know is, if anyone has a telephone that shows messages, even when they’ve been listened to once, please let me know its make and model, because I will buy it.  I will pay hard cash not to be irritated.

Another thing, when I bought this phone I listened to its own answerphone message and I was quite dismayed by the speaker’s voice.  Dreadful vowels, darlings.  I couldn’t put up with it.  So I had to record my own message, posh little girl with a surprisingly deep voice being better than no discernible regional accent (which would have been fine) but badly spoken – but that means that most people, when leaving a message, speak to me whether it is for me or not.  “Hello, Z, will you tell the Sage…” … probably not, I’ll not have heard it in the first place.

Having spent a lot of time holding babies of late, I’ve been thinking back to when Al was born.  He was due a couple of days after Weeza’s second birthday, but actually arrived a couple of days before it, missing the First of April by a day.  He was born at home, or rather at my mother’s home.  It was a bit unusual, 35 years ago, not to have a hospital birth but I’d hated the stay in hospital when Weeza was born, our doctor, near retirement age, was very willing to officiate and I was in perfectly good health, apart from the anaemia that affected me in each pregnancy, to the extent that I had to have iron injections.

The only stipulation that Dr Kit made was that an oxygen cylinder should be on hand, so it was ordered from the local chemist.  It arrived on the morning of the 2nd, and I went to help the van driver bring it in.  “Better not,” she said.  “Might bring on labour, it’s jolly heavy.”  I didn’t tell her that I was already in labour and had been for a few hours.

It all went well, I put Weeza to bed in the evening and was then free to get on with having the baby, who was born at 10.30 at night.  The oxygen was not required, and the doctor left about an hour later.  The midwife, who was the wife of the Lowestoft Methodist minister, finished with us by midnight, and my mother came in to ask if she would like a hot drink.  “I’m quite hungry, actually,” I remarked.  She said there was a cold leg of lamb in the fridge (Dave not being here, I don’t have to be concerned that anyone will point out that you would expect meat in the fridge to be cold, so I won’t explain that it had been cooked, part-eaten, cooled and then put in the fridge) and she could make sandwiches.  So, ten minutes later, baby asleep in cot, we were all eating sandwiches and drinking tea.

I did sleep, later, and trotted out in the early morning to go to the loo, and then picked him up and fed him when he woke, and changed his nappy.  Weeza came in to greet me.  I lay her down to change her nappy and ‘kissed her all over her face’, which always made her shut her eyes, hold her breath and open her mouth with pleasure.  My dear little girl looked so big and white against her skinny little baby brother.  I felt wonderfully lucky.

Al was welcomed into a very happy household, in fact.  My mother had remarried in February, six years after my father died, and her husband had lived alone for many years.  He was thrilled to find that her children welcomed him and treated him as one of the family from the start, and the birth of a baby in their house made him really feel like a grandfather.

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve finally relaxed completely.  I kept August as clear as I could, but it’s only been since Gus’s birth that, I can now look back and realise, all tension has drained away.  As a result, I’m not fretting about the work that September will bring, but looking forward to it.  Which is a bit stupidly naive for someone as old as I am, I’ll be grumbling in no time!

Having said that, I remember that there was a whole set of papers that was due to be emailed out this weekend.  It will wait until tomorrow.  I’m still on holiday until then.  I lay in bed reading for an hour this morning before getting up, it was like old times.  It still puzzles me that, after half a century of reading voraciously, I hardly read books at all at present.  I read a fair bit, two newspapers per day, quite a number of blogs and a few pages of two or three books, but I used to read anything up to two books most days and that’s gone completely by the board of late.  I’m up to page 233 of the book I started last night, however, so maybe things will revert to normal again.  

In my end-of-season enthusiasm, I’m filled with determination to keep some control over what I do – that is, to do what I would like to and not let the obligations take over from the pleasure, as tends to occur.  If there’s too much on and something has to give, it’s the social and pleasurable events that are lost every time.  I really shouldn’t let that happen.  Actually, I know what it is, I start the autumn well and then, as the days get shorter and darker, I have less energy and being sociable doesn’t quite keep its appeal.  But it’s wrong and I should make the effort, or just give apologies for a few more meetings.  I can’t quite remember the last time I went to a concert, the theatre or the cinema in Norwich, I didn’t go to the gardening club at all last year and I only managed a few Nadfas lectures which, considering I belong to two societies, is a bit daft.

If anyone has an iPad/iPhone and is looking for a good puzzle app, do try Aqueduct.  It starts easy but ends up very tricky indeed.  The last half-dozen levels took me hours but, having completed the whole game, I’ve reset it and started again.  The free version, Aqueduct 101, has enough levels for you to know if you like it.  I don’t think it’s available on Android at present.

Last night, I drank beer rather than wine.  I was cooking a fish curry and lager seemed appropriate.  I checked the label: 1.8 units.  That is a really quite annoying level of alcohol – one is not enough and two is too much.  So tonight I’m drinking red wine, a proper drink.

The Domestic part of the show schedule read – Lemon Drizzle Cake, 3 Cup Cakes, decorated, 5 Choc Chip Cookies, 5 White Bread Rolls, 5 Cheese Scones, Jar of Jam, Jar of Marmalade, Jar of Chutney, Jar of Pickles, 6 Eggs, A Jug of Summer Drink (non-alcoholic) and Gentlemen’s Class – Fruit Crumble.

I shall repeat that list with, as far as I remember, the number of entries.

Lemon Drizzle Cake (10), 3 Cup Cakes, decorated (0 – I know darlings, none, its not that sort of village, evidently), 5 Choc Chip Cookies (5), 5 White Bread Rolls (2), 5 Cheese Scones (about 8), Jar of Jam (8), Jar of Marmalade (5), Jar of Chutney (11), Jar of Pickles (1), 6 Eggs (1, unusually.  Usually it’s a popular class), A Jug of Summer Drink (non-alcoholic) (3) and Gentlemen’s Class – Fruit Crumble (9).

Marie and I sampled every one, except the eggs, one of which we cracked into a saucer and examined for quality – there may have been only one in the class, but it still has to be worthy of first prize, which it was.  Perfect, new-laid and lovely colour, inside and out.  In almost every class, we had to sample several of them at least two times before we were sure we had made the best choice.  With the jams, we couldn’t decide between two good damson jams and gave them equal third place.  We also gave an additional prize somewhere else, can’t remember where, think it was two equal seconds.

At some point, when we were earnestly debating the merits of different examples, I said “This would be a damn silly way of earning a living, if we were actually being paid!  But of course, that it’s all for fun doesn’t make it not important.  There was only one entry in the pickle class, but we tasted it anyway, and it was excellent, a lovely cucumber pickle that I took a second spoonful of because it was so good.  The chutneys were hard going.  We left them to last, there were a lot of them and there wasn’t that much to choose between them, all nice but none exceptional, and we were tired of tasting and the jam had taken its toll.  After all decisions were made, of course, it was time for lunch.  I didn’t eat much.

Al will be on a different postal round next week, because the person whose round it really is has returned from long-term sick leave.  He will be on a bike.  In town, new round to learn, different day off.  His van needs a new exhaust, so he’s borrowing my car on Monday.  It’s rather bigger than he’s used to (an elderly Mercedes estate car) so we will take a spin round the village tomorrow to get him used to it.

P.S.  A query about how we judge the eggs, which is on appearance only –  The eggs are fresh, raw and in their shells.  We don’t eat them, we look at them to see if they match well in colour or size (if all from the same breed, they don’t have to be), then crack one onto a plate and look at it again.  A really fresh egg has the yolk sitting well up on the white, which isn’t watery.  Ideally, there are no white spots or red streaks on the yolk, but there’s a bit of luck involved there, one might crack the only egg with an imperfect yolk.  Oh, and the shell has to be strong and crack neatly.

Wink left after an early lunch, and phoned at 5.30 to say she’s back home.  There was an accident (presumably) on the M25 on the other carriageway, she felt very sorry for the people in the miles of tailback.  Some of them were sitting on their stationary car roofs in the sunshine, so they must have been there for quite some time.  The traffic wasn’t too bad on her route, though there are nearly always some hold-ups somewhere or other.

Today is Dilly’s birthday, the first of five family and several friends’ birthdays this month.  Hadrian’s present to his mother was a full 9 1/2 hours’ sleep last night.  She said she woke several times and checked him to make sure he was all right, though!  I’m pretty impressed, none of mine managed more than a few hours at a time without being hungry.  Hadrian certainly doesn’t look at all undernourished, he’s a chubby baby.  So were his elder brother and sister, but they aren’t now, although Pugsley is naturally stocky, though not at all fat.  As is the way of things nowadays, Squiffany, at 6 1/2, is already aware of body issues, but fortunately not worried about them and knows she is slim – and is pleased about that, without fuss.

I didn’t do much this afternoon.  I’d intended to go to the plant nursery to buy some bulbs, but the sun was shining and I lounged about a bit instead.  The area near the newly paved area is intended to go back to rough grass with bulbs in it – at present, there are snowdrops, aconites and bluebells in it, mostly, but I’m going to add some more low-growing, early bulbs because the area won’t be disturbed.  I’m also going to plant a rosemary bush, mine has died.  The cold winter nearly finished it and the spring drought finished it off.  Having one near the house will be more convenient.

Tomorrow, I’ll be judging the Domestic classes again at the next village’s annual show.  I’ve looked up the schedule, there are a dozen classes ranging from chutney to lemon drizzle cake.  I think a slice of dry toast for breakfast will suffice.

Over the years, the grass has crept over the edge of the drive – only by a few inches, but when we have it resurfaced, obviously we want to go back to its original width.  So this afternoon, Jamie started the boring job of scraping off  grass and earth to the edge of the tarmac.  He also cut through the ivy on the big oak tree on the drive.  It is normal to have ivy growing on trees of course, and a healthy tree isn’t damaged by it, but the oak is probably 300 years old, or so the Sage thinks, and it needs all the help it can get.  The ivy growing on the trunk rather masked the full sight of the circumference, and the picture above still doesn’t make it entirely apparent.  But its size may be more evident in this picture.