Author Archives: Z

Z is not informed

We went over to Norwich this morning to hear a Nadfas lecture and I drove to the nearest car park, just in case … but it only takes about 30 cars, so it wasn’t surprising there wasn’t a space. I dropped Wink off so that she could order coffee (it’s very good coffee, but it takes ages) and went off to the other car park. I was about to drive in when I had a message from her, to say the lecture was cancelled because of a tech failure. Luckily, I hadn’t quite left the road, because the car park is underground and has no signal.

It wasn’t discovered until after 9am, so the lecturer was already on her train and the committee, though an immediate email was sent out, had to wait and turn people away. I’m so sorry for them and glad that it never happened on my watch. No one’s fault.

We returned home, except that Wink suggested stopping for coffee at the farm shop. The breakfast/brunch menu was put in front of us…we changed the habit of a lifetime by ordering second breakfast. Obviously, we both skipped lunch.

I’ve caught up with stuff since, having gained a couple of hours. Now very sleepy. But the winter duvet is on the bed and so is the electric blanket. Of course, this has heralded a relatively warm few days. I’ll be sweltering. But I have hopes that eCat will cuddle me – of course, this will make me even hotter, but I don’t mind that.

Two more emails to write, then I’ll read for a while. Still working on the relaxation thing, but it does seem to be having an effect.

Blogging regularly. How retro of Z

Every time I think I’m doing okay, something happens. But it’s going to, for the foreseeable, so there’s no point in fussing about it.

I took Tim’s car over to the garage for its MOT and annual service. They’d said I could have a courtesy car, which I needed as Wink doesn’t drive any more. As it was Tim’s car, I’ve been thinking of him all day. When I went to fetch the car, they said how much they like it – it’s the garage where it spent a few months, back in the early spring. It’s a really fabulous garage, I’m grateful to the chap in Yagnub who recommended it. I saved at least £3,000 compared to going to BMW (who would have tried hard to convince me that I should buy a new car) and they repaired rather than replaced, which always has to be good.

This evening, I had a meeting and came home to find a new battery pack for my phone and watch. The instruction leaflet was written in print that was too small even for me. But I had a contact lens in.

I think I mentioned that I’m living in my dining room? So I’m keeping things, everyday stuff, in the bureau. But I wasn’t sure where I’d left my lens cases and opened the wrong drawer and found Tim’s wedding ring. Well, that wasn’t a good few minutes. It hurt.

Then I closed the drawer, opened the right one, was able to read the leaflet once I didn’t have a contact lens in (never expected to have perfect sight – or rather ideal sight, because I’m still a bit shortsighted) and am charging up the power bank. And my watch. I’ll do my phone when I’m in bed.

Ecat has taken to deciding when I should go to bed. She doesn’t do it every night, but quite often. She wants to go upstairs, so I have to go too. Honestly, it isn’t worth arguing and, anyway, she’s being so sweet and affectionate at present that I don’t want to do anything but agree with everything she says. But it’s only 8.25 at present, so I hope she’ll allow me another hour or two.

Pi

I’m sorry to have to let you know that our friend Pat, who blogged for many years as Past Imperfect (Pi) has died. She left the first ever comment on this blog so was, in that sense, my first ever blog friend. We never met. I was going to visit her neck of the woods 10 years ago, but then Russell’s illness became apparent and I didn’t ever go. She was 94, nearly 95 and stayed in her beloved home after her husband died, which was a good thing. Her son Andrew posted on Facebook that she died yesterday, which was very kind and I’m sure she had asked him to, as she knew how much her online friends mattered to her and she to us.

We met the family – my family, that is – all but two grandchildren (one was working and the other didn’t quite make it out of bed in time) for lunch today. Just a visit to Pizza Express, but it’s very conveniently placed and even the university student made it there. Lovely to see everyone.

Early start tomorrow, the car (Tim’s car) is having its MOT and service. They’re letting me have a courtesy car, which is good, now that Wink doesn’t drive and can’t pick me up.

Aga-in

I’ve been away again, this time in East Sussex. I’d never been to Brighton nor to Glyndebourne, so off we went. It was a short visit arranged by the Nadfas group I go to in Norwich. There were over 50 of us and it was a lovely trip. Al kindly held the fort here while we were away. On our return, I lit the Aga straight away, which I’d been looking forward to.

The service chap, who also looks after the Agas at Sandringham as it happens, fitted a new burner back in the summer and it’s certainly a lot easier to turn on. However, whilst it used to be impossible to turn down – at its lowest setting it was at roasting temperature – now it’s the other way round. I’ve got it at 5 out of 7 heat settings and it’s nowhere near as hot as it used to be. I can turn it right up when I need to, of course, but when there’s a lot in the oven, it uses up a lot of heat and I’ve been accustomed to turning it up to keep the temperature hot enough for the final roasting of potatoes. I don’t know whether it’ll be hot enough for that – although I hardly ever need it, of course, now, for that.

We received a very enthusiastic welcome from eCat, unusually so. I found out why, when I went to bed. Al had shut the bedroom doors – she could sleep on any downstairs chairs, but cats don’t like closed doors. In the night, I woke up and Eloise cat came to cuddle me. She kneaded my arm for at least half an hour, purring. I didn’t mind, but it was quite painful as she had her claws out and it was the inside of my arm. Then she went to sleep, on the same arm. It took a while before I was able to wriggle out and then she wrapped herself round my shoulder instead.

She’s just come in to tell me that she wants to go to bed. I must obey.

Photo post

Here are a few pictures of the caravan, for How Do We Know.

As you see, the caravans have plenty of space, unlike most caravan parks where they’re lined up in rows.
From the front.
Two pictures of the living area

Two pictures of the living area. The sofa on the left unfolds into a double bed.

And one of the kitchen. The corner of the dining table is just visible on the left. Pulled out, it seats six, but it’s usually against the wall.

There are also two bedrooms and a small bathroom – that is, no bath, but a shower cubicle, loo and washbasin. Outside at the back, there’s a patio by the hedge.

Back in August, the beach looked like this at low tide
This was when the wind was starting to rise but before the storm, when the sea was really rough.

Nettin’ ‘n’ting

The caravan has net curtains and proper curtains. And a blind in the kitchen. Lovely Tim bought the caravan in 2010, so 14 years of light and sun has wrecked the nets and they’re falling apart. When I went down last, I measured them, to buy more. But I just put the length and said either “wide” or “narrow” in the notes, so realised when I looked again that I didn’t know how wide or narrow, because I’m clearly an idiot. This time, as it’s the last visit of the year, I took them all down and brought them home – I’d forgotten to take a tape measure (I did mention I’m an idiot) and asked Wink to help me measure them here. We ended up giggling. We dropped an end of a curtain, we dropped the tape measure, I mixed up length and width at one point (the idiot thing again) and some of the widths didn’t seem to equate with the sizes of the windows; or rather, they were different widths from each other. We concluded that the person who made them was pretty happy-go-lucky and wasn’t too bothered.

There were ten curtains but, when I’d written down measurements before, I’d written down eleven. I counted my way round all the windows in the caravan and suggested we count the curtains again. Still ten. I felt there should be eleven or twelve. I also wondered if I’d included both bedroom windows. But there were only ten curtains … or were there? Wink, amusedly, offered to count them again. I said I’d check the car in case I’d left some in there. I knew I’d taken down all the curtains, I said, because I thought I’d get confused if I left some behind. We almost fell on the floor laughing.

Anyway, in the end, I decided I’d buy as many damn curtains as I wanted to and hang them all and pretend that was what I’d intended all along. So I have. Sadly, our wonderful local shop that sold fabric and haberdashery and a few clothes (mostly nightclothes and underwear, which I suspect was built for comfort rather than speed) and carpets and beds and furniture and almost everything you didn’t know you needed until you spotted it when you went in for some wool, well, it’s shut. A beautiful, if shabby old Georgian building in the heart of the town, a brother and sister had run it for decades since their parents retired and now wanted to retire themselves. Their families didn’t feel able to take it on, though they are carrying on with the flooring department, in another premises round the corner. So I have ordered the curtains from Amazon. I’ll put them in the boot of the BMW, so that I don’t have time to lose them – that is, forget the safe place where I put them – by next April. Because I’m an – no, I take that back, this time. I think ahead, to avoid being an idiot, once in a while.

I’ve had quite a satisfying week, on the whole. This time last week, I went off to Pembrokeshire, calling on John G on the way. He used to write the splendid Publog, but the pub he went to closed down and somehow, though he started a new blog about visits to the next pub, he lost heart after a while. He’s been disabled for over 20 years, since a tree fell on his car – which he was driving at the time – in a storm. I first visited him 11 years ago, he mentioned, which I knew was correct, as it was the year before the Sage died. Anyway, I cooked him lunch and we chatted for a few hours and then I drove the rest of the way. I had a good time at the caravan. There was a tremendous storm, with hard rain and wind, the next evening. Bits of wood from the trees behind the hedge were hitting the caravan and then there was a power cut, so I fished out some candles. I don’t mind a bit of weather and a loud sea. I was cosy and I had books and a gas heater and cooker. I just had two days there and drove back on Tuesday. On Wednesday, I fetched our Nadfas, as I still resolutely call it, speaker from the station. I’d heard her speak, only a fortnight earlier, on Vermeer, so knew she was excellent. She was just as good talking about Van Gogh, in his 444 days in Provence, painting obsessively and marvellously. The current exhibition at the National Gallery is amazing. If you can, do go. I want to go again.

On Thursday I was vaccinated – all I haven’t been vaccinated against is shingles, which is the one I really want and they haven’t yet offered me, so I must phone and arrange it. On Friday, we went to Norwich and did some necessary admin-type errands, so I feel a bit more competent than usual. Tomorrow, it’s my favourite street fair in Yagnub: the food one. I go quite mad and buy vast quantities of everything nice. I’ve told Ro about it and he may join us – he’d semi-arranged to see a friend, but was going to check if it was still happening.

I’ve also talked to all my children in the past three days, which doesn’t happen every week, so I count that as another plus. Eldest grandson had his 18th birthday and all seems to be well there. He’s extremely busy with schoolwork, music and his part-time job, which suits him. He was a bit bored, back in the spring, but now he hasn’t got time to be bored….

Z is satisfied

It took a while to be sure I wasn’t doing the wrong thing, but I’ve got the SmartSurvey account set up, the first survey done and set out ready to go. It’s too early now, the lecture won’t happen until Wednesday. But I can just Do It then. And hope it works, of course.

Now, I’ll spend the rest of the evening reading. I’ve had a bath, I’m ready to curl up in an armchair next to the woodburner and I won’t bother to empty and refill the dishwasher until the morning. I don’t work in the evenings nowadays, unless I have to.

I used to, as a matter of routine. I was always busy in the daytime, so paperwork, which includes computer work, mostly happened out of office hours. Though, looking back a long time – before email – Mondays were traditionally housework mornings and then I did any paperwork necessary. Once email came along, Monday morning was spent on the computer. I’ve always convinced myself that my smartphone, years later, helped keep me away from the computer, because I could glance at anything coming in and decide what to do – a brief reply from the phone, go and deal with it or else delete it or save it for later. But smartphones distract in other ways. And they aren’t conducive to relaxed blogging.

All the same, the evening has gone well and I’m stepping away from the internet.

Z moves

Not moving house, just rooms.

I may have said, earlier this year, that I had a problem with my drawing room fire. I can’t remember what I said and, admittedly, checking back to May or so is a bit much, when I hardly even blog.

The chimney had smoked, I thought, until I realised that the smoke was actually seeping out from the brickwork surround. Luckily, it was the end of the fire-lighting season. I had already thought that a wood burner would be a more sensible option than an open fire and would also enable me to get rid of a fireplace that I’d never liked. However, the thought of getting listed building permission put me off. But now, I needed to deal with the situation anyway, so I’d bite the bullet.

The form for listed building permission turned out to be beyond me. I could understand what to do and fill in all the written parts, but when I had to upload plans and so on, I hadn’t any. I just had some photographs of the fireplace I wanted to remove. It’s a 1929 fireplace and I wanted to restore it to its earlier self. The form said I could upload photos, but I couldn’t, they just didn’t upload, whether copied and pasted or dragged and dropped.

I’m not doing well, on the whole. Superficially, I’m fine. Cheerful and capable and all. But I barely cope. It’s all right, better to keep going, but anything extra scuppers me. And I was really busy from July onwards, so I just left it. However, things have to be dealt with in the end and Justin from the stove place came again to have another look and he says that he can’t do anything without taking out the brickwork. He can’t even put in a built-in stove as the whole shebang may fall down.

I’ll start dealing with it next week. I’m too busy. In the meantime, I’m moving into the dining room. There’s a woodburner in there, plenty of room for a couple of armchairs and a smaller table and a desk and my computer, as well as the dining table and it’s really warm. It’s about the only room where there isn’t a bookcase, so I have three modest piles, comprising 16 books, that I have yet to read, as well as the two I’m reading.

Today, I have got to grips with MailChimp. I have to sort out SmartSurvey, but that’s a job for tomorrow afternoon – I’m out in the morning and then having lunch with a friend.

It’s raining.

Good reads

Solo, the feral cat with the badly injured face, came to be fed in the third week in July and then vanished. August was hot and I thought, after he’d not been back for more than a month, that his poor face had become infected and that he’d died. However, ten days ago, he came back – quite six weeks since he was last here. He was fine, his wound as raw as ever – the hide has gone, no hope it can regrow – but pink and healthy and he gave an appreciative little mrrp when he was given his food.

After three days, he went again and I haven’t seen him since. Someone else must be feeding him. He called in for old time’s sake and now he’s gone back to his new home. He may return or he may not but, having convinced myself that he’d died, I’m happy that he’s okay.

I am mostly reading, at present. I became daftly enthusiastic and bought all five Booker prize finalists. I’ve nearly finished the first: James – I’m blogging instead of finishing it tonight, in fact, though I don’t rule out another ten minutes’ final reading. Trouble is, now I need to read Huckleberry Finn again, to compare. But that’s no hardship. I hope James will stand up against Huck, bookishly.

Wink was away last week and arrived home yesterday, after a tiring journey. Friends picked her up and dropped her off at Peterborough station although, on the way home, there was a bus replacement service. However, they knew the time of the bus she wanted to take. On the way back, they wanted to stop as the man, who has had bowel cancer, needed the toilet – obviously, fair enough. They also wanted a sandwich lunch. No one suggests that they took an unnecessarily long time over lunch, exactly, but Wink was ready before they were and, in the event, she missed the bus by 2 minutes and had to wait another 58 before the next one.

As they were doing her a favour, she felt unable to mention the time, after telling them in the first place. But it seems to both of us that they were very inconsiderate. I’d put myself out for someone who needed help, I often have and have also received similar consideration.

In the event, the bus took less time than expected. Luckily, I’d totally messed up the time. It wasn’t until I’d set out that I realised I was an hour earlier than the time I’d meant to be early by. So I went to the little retail park near the station to while away the hour+. I’d rejected everything in Clarks and Next, bought stuff in Boots and was getting bread and milk in Morrison’s when I had a text from Wink to say they were in Norwich already. So it was just as well that I screwed up, so she didn’t have an additional half hour to wait.

I’m in the market to spend Money. But no one seems to want it. I need boots, shoes, a handbag, a coat, two jackets and anything else that might catch my eye. But nothing has. I’ve looked. Zilch, zero. I liked one pair of boots, but they were suede and I didn’t want suede. I saw a jacket I liked, but in the sale, they only had size 8 or 22. So pfft. I bought an Apple watch instead. Which brings be back to reading. Now I have a watch to let me know anything I should know, I don’t need to carry around my phone and I can read instead. Sorted.

Nearly 10 o’clock, just time to finish the book before bed. Cheery-pip, darlings.

A fortnight later

I’ve been busy. So easy to say that, but I had a catalogue to compile and it does take a lot of work. It is done now, however, printed and the labels, catalogues, envelopes and stamps have been given to D, to get ready to post. He says I know how he’ll spend his weekend. Yes, dear, it took me a solid fortnight’s work to do all this. But I don’t mind, funnily enough. Does it “give me something to do”? Hmm. I’ve got plenty to do and I could do exactly what I pleased in the autumn, if not for the sale. But, maybe it’s just stubbornness, I’m still not quite ready to give it up. I always say, maybe next year. And indeed, perhaps next year will be the last. Possibly.

I have the feeling that those dismal anniversaries might have triggered a turning point. I can’t be sure, but I am starting to feel moments of near-happiness. I appreciate any moment that I recognise enjoyment, I learnt that years ago – to live in the moment, not to assume anything for the future nor to let a cloud mar a happy experience.

What I have decided I need is to read more again. I used to read constantly and there were a few factors that stopped me being an obsessive reader. One was that life felt so stressful that I couldn’t get involved in fictional – or even factual – problems or situations. Another was, simply, the quality of “literary” novels, which were well reviewed and pretty awful to read. Not necessarily badly written, but self-indulgent, poorly characterised, overly long and gave me a feeling that the writer thought he (usually) had done me a favour by writing it. But I’ve gradually been working my way into reading more and, though it’s not necessarily possible to completely lose myself in a book for long, not yet, I hope to get there.

I also realise that I still get a buzz from involvement, in a work-ish sense – this isn’t financially motivated, some of my more fulfilling things are voluntary – as well as some of the least. Which reminds me, I should go down and check the church. I’ll do it now.