Summer concert

I took a break from my weekly Sunday posts last week to see if I got any more comments to my post about Blogland, but suffice to say, nine comments was the sum total (a big thank you to those who did), so back to my weekly post again.

Our recent summer choir concert was a huge success. We'd been building up to it since New Year.  The overall theme of the concert was Earth, Water, Air and Fire, so the songs reflected that theme. Our choir  leader always  chooses challenging pieces and this year was no exception. She chose the 20-minute long medley from Hunchback of Notre Dame as our piece for the second half - lots of Latin, jaunty songs and sad ones all in a mix - all learned off by heart - very challenging at my age! I have tried to include a video of it but am being told the video is too long to insert. So you will have to make do with a photo instead. We had to wear clothes that reflected the colour of earth, water, air and fire - so blues, greens, oranges and beiges - as usually we are in a uniform colour, most often black.

We received the news a few days after, that our choir mistress is stepping down for a year as as she has too many commitments at the moment and needs some time to refresh. She has acquired a temporary replacement for the next year, so that begs the question whether our repertoires will change in some way to be less challenging. Time will tell. 

Blogland

I've been blogging since 2008. I first came across blogs when Wife in the North began blogging. As a journalist with the Sunday Times, she moved to the North East and wrote in an amusing way about the change in pace up there compared to London. One of her quotes which stuck with me was, when asked by her children on a car journey "where are we?", she replied "1959".

I then began blogging myself when my alcoholic husband Greg was making our family life intolerable. At the time, I believed trying to suppress everything and bottle it up, not telling friends and family, was the best option, but then needed somewhere to go to blow off steam. The blog provided me with that escape and tons of steam. It was a help for my sanity as well as a record where we were heading. I soon discovered I had a lot of followers - some in pretty much similar circumstances to me who all said they were relieved to read my experiences were like theirs. I also had a lot of alcoholic followers who, by the time Greg was fading fast and dying, said it had helped them back from the brink to sobriety. They realised they could not put themselves or their family through what was becoming my reality.

Of course, since Greg has died, my blog has morphed into something else - the ramblings or rantings of a retired, widowed Londoner. For me it has been a diary of important events to look back on - some things I had forgotten entirely when rereading some of the older posts. My followers seem to have dwindled from 70 at one stage to one or two now. Maybe the drama is what they came for and now the boring posts don't cut the mustard. For me, it will always just be a diary. I try to write once a week to keep it going, although to be honest, sometimes it is difficult to come up with something new. I oscillate between stopping altogether, but being afraid to drop a comfort blanket.

Some bloggers post everyday. Some of the earlier blogs I visited no longer exist, including Wife in the North. I wonder why you blog or why you read other's blogs?

Land Girl

I was away on holiday at the 80th celebrations of Victory in Europe (VE) Day, so I am a bit late to the party with this post. Just before VE Day, the manageress of the foodbank charity shop where I volunteer, wanted to dress the shop window with Union Jack flags, books about the Second World War and CDs of war time songs - as she put it, to celebrate peace, not glorify war. She asked us volunteers to provide photos of family who had served in the Second World War. My mother was a Land Girl so I provided the photo below of my mother (in the very centre) talking to the Duchess of Gloucester who had arrived with her entourage to watch the Land Girls at work, harvesting potatoes and doing their bit for King and Country. 

My mum would have been so chuffed to know her photo was on display in the local High Street.

SURVIVAL CLASS

Following on from my last post about being pre-diabetic......

When the problem was first diagnosed from raised sugar levels in my blood a few years ago, my GP suggested I be referred to our local gym for 12 free NHS-funded gym sessions. I was introduced to the lovely Gloria who took me on a tour of the gym and showed me what all the equipment was and got me exercising on them. She took weight, height, BMI and many other measurements and said she would update those as the weeks went by. I have never been a particularly sporty person - in fact I hated it with a passion at school and I even tried to be hockey goalkeeper, so I wouldn't have to run around the pitch!! I have never kept up sport in my adult life, so approached this new venture with somewhat nervous trepidation.

Surprisingly, as the weeks went by, I found I actually enjoyed exercising on the equipment and at the half-way stage all measurements were taken again and it was found I was losing a little weight (not that I had much to lose) but other statistics were reducing or improving, such as body fat percentage, muscle strength and cardiovascular endurance. A lot had improved by the end of the 12-week stage and a blood test revealed that I was no longer pre-diabetic.

The gym of course then asked if I would like to become a permanent member on senior citizen rates. The rates were so reasonable and far less per month than I was already paying to do a single pilates class at my local church. The gym rate would allow me to do hundreds of classes per week AND use their swimming pool AND use the gym whenever I liked - all for less than  I was paying for those 4 pilates classes per month. It was, as they now say, a no-brainer. 

I try to do three classes a week. One is a class purely for those of us who were referred from the NHS. A lot of the participants have high blood pressure, or have had heart attacks or strokes or maybe like me were pre-diabetic. The class is reasonably gentle with exercises that increase heart rate or with the use of weights increase muscle strength. I find I'm the most energetic one there and that gives me a lot of kudos.

On another day, I do two other classes back-to-back for anyone over the age of 60. The first of these two is what I call my manic class. Another lady calls it her survival class. The teacher is a lovely woman who herself is over 60 and plays fast beaty music in the background but I think she thinks we are all 16 and not 60. By the time you have done one of her 45-minute classes, you come out nearly on your hands and knees with the sweat pouring off you. I always feel I have achieved something by the end, but often half-way through I am clock-watching waiting for it to be over! Occasionally I will find the time to do some zumba classes or go into the actual gym itself, but parking fees often dictates how long I'll spend there and how often. 

Who knew, I would discover exercise in my seventies? Maybe I'll be one of those people who run the marathon in their nineties.

KEEPING FIT

A few years ago, after a routine blood test, I was told I was pre-diabetic. Not close enough to the cut-off point to be on medication, but close enough to need to do something about it.  I have always tried to eat sensibly and exercise a little at home, but confess I am a chocoholic and, because people know that, I often get chocolate as presents for my birthday in November or at Christmas. The blood test for diabetes is referred to as HbA1c and the cut-off point is 48 mmol/mol.  You don't need to know what that means, but only that my readings have been consistently about 42 over recent years and the latest one in January showed it was 47. Sugar levels can stay in your blood for three months, so to have an annual  blood test in January covers November and December - the very months when it is my birthday as well as Christmas and I gorge myself on the chocolate presents given to me. 

My GP was about to give me a stern talking-to when she gave me the recent results, but I have managed to convince her that January may be the wrong time of year to take the blood tests, as I am very good with my diet for the rest of the year. I have persuaded her to repeat the test in August or September and hope the readings will be more favourable. I'm trying hard not to eat chocolate and sweet things or too much carbohydrates. September will tell if I have succeeded. 

I also read recently that as we age, the level of sugar in our blood rises anyway and that the cut-of for diabetes should be about 56mmol/mol and not 48mmol/mol. If that is the case, my reading of 47 is way off the danger zone. If any professional out there can comment on that, I'd be interested to know.

Shingles

Two days after my return from Devon, I had booked an appointment with my GP surgery to have a shingles vaccine. The medics have been pestering me for years to have it done and I kept refusing, partly because I was getting enough jabs as it was with Covid and flu to keep my arm looking like a pin cushion. But another reason to avoid it was that a relative of mine had had the shingles jab a few years ago and gone down with shingles some three weeks later. The doctors had told her it was a huge coincidence, but a coincidence I did not particularly want. However, the nagging doubt that shingles itself would be far worse without the immunity, I decided to go ahead with it last week.

Shock number one was the condition it left me in! For five days afterwards, my arm was so painful, red and swollen I could not bear to lie on it in bed. Additionally I felt so tired, as if someone had pulled my plug. The day immediately after the injection, I woke as usual in the morning, had breakfast and was so exhausted I went back to bed and slept for an hour. Then I had lunch and went back to bed for a further two-hour nap. After supper, I returned to bed for an early night. I googled side effects of the vaccination and those symptoms I was having (swollen, red arm pain and extreme fatigue) were within the bounds of normal, so I just had to put up with it. Five days later I was beginning to return to some semblance of normal. However, in one of my  gym classes this week, which are manic at the best of times, it was all I could do to keep up and was sweating buckets, so much so my hair was as wet as if I'd just had come out of the shower.

Shock number two was that it is no longer a single vaccination but now in two parts, six months apart. I have the same to come (if not worse, as someone has knowledgeably told me) in November. Boy, am I looking forward to that!!

Torquay in Devon

When I was a young teenager, my parents and I used to holiday down in Torquay in Devon. I have not been back for 60 years, so when my best friend offered to go on holiday with me and asked where I fancied (given that she hates flying and not keen on train travel, so that cancels out somewhere abroad), I suggested Torquay. We were away for 5 days (4 nights) and stayed at the Hampton by Hilton hotel which was literally 30 seconds from the harbour. I went down by train changing at Exeter and arrived at the hotel on Tuesday afternoon. Amazingly, my friend, who had travelled separately by car from Hertfordshire, arrived by my side just as I was checking in.

Once we had unpacked in our separate rooms, we met up to wander around the immediate vicinity of the hotel - the harbour and promenade - and to get our bearings. I have to say Torquay had not changed much from my memory of it. Maybe a few different shops and a bit of modernisation, but it was still very much like it was in the 1960s. We were incredibly lucky with the weather - deep blue cloudless skies and a gentle sea breeze.

Torquay Harbour

Torquay Harbour

Torquay from the pier

The following day, we went to Buckfast Abbey - a monastery famous for its mead and tonic wine production. There are still 13 monks living there and I think I spotted two of them. The Abbey was only finished in 1932 on the site of the old abbey which was plundered and dissolved during Henry VIII's time when he broke with Rome. More of its history can be read here.  It has a mixture of styles - Byzantine, Norman and Gothic but with a modern twist. The grounds are enormous and you can wander through herbal gardens and sensory gardens, as well as lawns of immaculate grass.

Buckfast Abbey

A secluded garden at Buckfast

Buckfast grounds

The following day (which happened to be VE Day) we decided to visit the National Trust house that belonged to Agatha Christie. The house was amazing and crammed with artefacts and belongings - she was clearly a hoarder. It was her favourite place to stay. Again the grounds were spectacular with forest bits where the paths zig-zagged down to the River Dart and where her boat house was kept. An added bonus for me was that, because it was VE day, they had two people dressed as an RAF officer and Land Girl wandering around the grounds and at the end, I had my photo taken with them, as I had mentioned to the Land Girl that my mum was one. She was very interested to hear my story.

Agatha Christie's house at Greenway

View of the River Dart from her garden

Her garden

RAF officer and Land Girl in the grounds

The final full day was spent visiting Dartmouth via a steam train ride from Paignton to Kingswear and a short ferry ride across from Kingswear to Dartmouth. The houses are built in terraces up the hills bordering the river and are painted in yellows and pinks and pale blues, as well as white which make them look very attractive. Towering over it all is The Royal Naval College. We only had a few hours to wander around Dartmouth and grab a late lunch before catching the ferry back to Kingswear and the last (16.05) steam train back to Paignton.

Steam train to Dartmouth

Kingswear on East side of River Dart

The Boatfloat Dartmouth

mouth of the River Dart

Royal Naval College, Dartmouth

We checked out on Saturday to return home - my friend by car to Hertfordshire and me by train back to London Paddington. Of course, being Saturday, the timetables were not as easy as the outward trip and once in London, there were lots of cancellations on both the underground and overground because of engineering works, so my trip from Paddington to South London took almost as long as the trip from Devon to Paddington. Furthermore I had  changed trains or buses so many times and also lugged a heavy case with me up and down a lot of station staircases with not an escalator in sight! I arrived home shattered and very much in need of a holiday!!

Back from Devon

Sorry, my usual Sunday post is short this week. I've just returned from a much needed break in Devon. More of that in my weekly post next Sunday.

Communing with nature

I help out as a volunteer at our local park's Information Centre and have done so for about 20 years. The centre is only open for a couple of hours on a Saturday and Sunday afternoon. We sell notelets with pictures of the park, notepads and pens, tote bags, leaflets on trees or ducks and all kinds of food for feeding birds, squirrels or ducks. We also try to answer any questions from the public about a particular tree or duck or problem that has arisen. The park has an enormous lake and is home to about 30 or more herons, so we are an interesting case for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, who every April come to visit with their cameras, telescopes and binoculars to view the herons nesting with their babies.

When we first moved to this area (see here), we visited the park frequently as a married couple just chilling from our busy jobs. I always find walking by water (be it the sea, a river or a lake) calming and I can empty out any worries I have. When Kay was born, we would take her to this park and she would enjoy seeing the ducks and geese  or playing on the swings and seesaws. Then as a dog-owner, I would visit every morning to give the dog a long walk off-lead and through that got to know many other dogwalkers, one of whom has become a close friend. When Greg was at the height of his alcoholic addiction, I found it a calming place to come to escape the nightmare. I still keep involved through the Information Centre and do a shift about once a month there.

When the Covid pandemic struck, the centre was closed for many many months and only gradually re-opened when it was safe to do so. But many volunteers were either shy to return in case they were exposed to Covid or just got complacent and stayed away, so the centre was still often closed for lack of staff. The result was that a lot of the public did not know the centre had reopened and were often surprised when they found it was. I have recently been involved in recruiting more volunteers by advertising on our local Facebook group and a good twenty people have come forward. I have been involved in the last few weeks in training them up to do the shifts.

Last week we officially opened our community garden - a patch of land alongside the centre which we are turning into a place where people can come and plant flowers or vegetables or just watch others doing so.  Amongst our newly-recruited volunteers have been a few men who have been very helpful in doing a lot of heavy lifting, sawing and clearing to make it possible. On Friday I was given permission to drive my car into the park at 5mph to transport loads of plants the Chairwoman had bought from a local chain nursery. She is unable to drive so needed help getting them there. There were all sorts of plants ranging from tomatoes, lettuce, bedding plants, perennials and small fruit trees. This weekend they will all be planted by the public who want to get involved.

With good weather and the summer finally approaching, I hope it will be a success in getting more people in the community involved in communing with nature. 

I wasn't born yesterday

I had one of those scam calls on Easter Monday. When I went to pick up the landline phone, it told me the number was "withheld". Not sure who it was, I picked up the call. An extremely well-spoken man asked me if I was Addy and gave me my address, to which I replied that he was correct. He told me he was from HSBC bank and that they were reopening their branch in my village. It had closed about 2 years ago and has since been turned into a gym. When I asked where they were reopening the branch, he told me it was the old NatWest building (NatWest had also closed 6 months ago).

He asked why I had not replied to their letter about issuing new bank cards. I said I had not received such a letter. He said that funnily enough a lot of people had said that, so he was following it up with a call. I needed to get my debit card changed quickly and I could either get it done at branch A (which is my nearest one, a bus ride away) or he could deliver it personally to me that very day. When I said I could get to Branch A myself, he corrected himself and said Branch A was being refurbished and I would need to get to Branch B which is an even further bus ride away. No problem, I said, I can get to Branch B too. He kept stressing he could save me the bother and deliver it personally that day. I asked what the urgency was and he said the card would expire in 2 days' time. I repeated in that case I would get to Branch B before it expired. He then asked for my date of birth. I told him I do not divulge such information over the phone. At this point I heard a click and he had hung up.

I suppose I should have realised it was a scam, because what bank would ring you on an Easter Monday and personally offer to deliver a new debit card, but to be fair, the call came out of the blue in the late afternoon, when I was a bit weary, and the man was so well-spoken -not like a lot of scam callers where English is not their first language and it is difficult to decipher what they are saying. I was therefore initially thrown into thinking the call was genuine, until it didn't seem to make sense.

I am glad I did not offer any sensitive information, although the man clearly had my name, address and phone number. I reported it when I went into Branch A the next day, although they seemed pretty disinterested in my story. I also reported it to their Fraud Team at Headquarters, who just advised me to keep an eye on my online account. I also reported it on our local Facebook area group and to my surprise two people knew someone it had happened to the week before and one lady said she had had the very same call with the very same details of conversation on the same afternoon as me.

I don't know how these scammers sleep at night. Their parents must be really proud of them.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter to one and all. I leave you with a picture of my Easter tree - a tradition I brought back from my time living in Germany. Each year I add more ornaments. The pink and blue one hanging at the bottom I sewed from a kit myself.

Dr Addy will see you now

I have always had a passion for watching medical programmes, be it the real thing in documentaries or dramas. From a small child I was engrossed in watching Dr Kildare, although I rather suspect that it was because Richard Chamberlain was very dishy and the main attraction! Then came Emergency Ward 10, Gray's Anatomy,  Casualty and Holby City. The documentaries such as 24 hours in A&E, Casualty 24/7, GPs Behind Closed Doors and Surgeons at the Edge of Life. I have watched so many I swear I could open my own practice! When watching them, I can usually make the correct diagnosis before the doctor does! 

My closest friends have a dislike of all things medical and any mention of blood or gory operations has them running for the hills and sticking their fingers in their ears, so as not to hear any detail. Me - I can watch a documentary inside the operating theatre showing a complex operation, while I eat a plate of spaghetti bolognaise. It really doesn't bother me one bit, but it does mean I cannot share my interest with my friends. 

I sometimes think I should have chosen this profession as my career, but in reality, at school, I hated chemistry with a passion and veered more to foreign languages than the sciences, so that ruled me out from the start. It was therefore only ever going to be a pastime.

I often wonder whether I had a subliminal influence on Kay choosing medicine as her career, as she was kinda forced to watch these programmes with me, as she grew up. She says, it didn't, but, like water on a stone, it may have had some effect. She is now progressing in leaps and bounds in her career and I am immensely proud of her. 

April Showers

My tooth extraction continues to give me problems and is taking an age to heal. It is 2 weeks now and I still can't eat or chew normal meals or drink hot liquids.  Given that I was half-murdered in the process, I suppose it is not surprising. The good news is I am losing weight, but I yearn for something crunchy rather than the sloppy meals I have been having for the last 2 weeks. I have held back from doing my usual volunteering and going to the gym, but yesterday I decided I would do a shift at the foodbank charity shop on the till. I thought that would be a gentle reintroduction into some semblance of normality. I took a bottle of water with me, as it was a very warm day. On my arrival, the manageress was very kind and offered me a hot drink which I obviously declined. I'd not been there 20 minutes, when I decided to take a sip of water. But because I have not drank directly out of a bottle since the tooth was extracted, I found it difficult to get my mouth round the bottle top and managed in front of a shop full of customers to spill a good deal of it all down my chin and clothes. Thankfully it dried off fairly quickly, so I didn't look a complete idiot for the entire shift. Note to self.....drink out of a glass next time.

Fangs for nothing

I've been a bit below par this week. It started the week before, when biting down on food made one tooth feel very funny indeed. It felt like had a small grain of something stuck to my tooth and when I bit down on it, a pain shot into my gum. I thought it must just be that it was extra sensitive for some reason, so soldiered on a couple of days until last Saturday I was brushing my teeth and a filling dropped out.

Sod's law it was the weekend and my dentist was not open. I had heard from a friend that you can buy temporary filling kits, so I nipped out to the local chemist and bought one. As Kay and her dentist husband live nearby, I popped in to ask if he might help me with the temporary filling until I could see my dentist. On investigation, he broke the bad news. The filling had fallen out because part of the tooth was cracked and would not hold a filling. As he was not in his surgery, he could not say without an xray whether the crack went below the gum or not, but, if it did, he feared the whole tooth would have to be extracted and would be unlikely to be saved. I must admit, I could feel the cracked side of the tooth wobbling terribly and every time I tried to talk or swallow, my tongue caught it and the wobbly bit sent a pain shooting into my head.

I soldiered on all that weekend, unable to eat or even drink properly and rang my dentist first thing Monday morning. Thankfully they were able to fit me in as an emergency, although I did not see my usual dentist but one of her junior staff. After an xray, the young dentist confirmed that the tooth was beyond saving as the crack did go well below the gum. I agreed to have the tooth extracted there and then. It took him well over 20 minutes to rock the little blighter back and forth, as it refused to budge. I even joked he might need to use gunpowder. I began to panic that he would never manage to extract it, as it did seem rather out of his depth to manage, when eventually he confirmed it was out.  I came out £270 poorer with a face looking like Quasimodo.

I've not been allowed to eat hot or chewy food or drink hot drinks for the last 6 days. The good news is, I've lost 3 pounds and reverted to my pre-Christmas weight. I've had a banging headache too which I think was due to all the pulling and tugging on my skull. I've even got a bruise on the outside of my cheek where the dentist tried to get more traction. I look as if I've done ten rounds with Mike Tyson. I've cancelled all gym classes and other engagements this week and felt sorry for myself. I'm hoping normality will resume this coming week.

But in the words of the poetess Pam Ayres ......

My Village

The little enclave in London where I have lived for 46 years has always been a pleasant area to live in and houses a population of about 45,000. It has always had a peaceful village-y feel to it - a small sleepy High Street, old churches, a village green, one cinema and lots of pubs, yet it boasts nine railway stations and a tram stop connecting us within 15 minutes to all the major hubs in Central London. We are a ten-minute drive from the Kent countryside too, so have the choice of either visiting busy inner London or picturesque Kent villages, depending on our mood. We also have two enormous parks in our midst - one quite wild with an 18th century mansion and woodland; the other more cultivated with a lake. Greg and I chose this area for all those qualities. Greg came from rural Lincolnshire, so was not happy living in the hubbub of inner London. I had been raised in Lewisham - a multicultural inner London borough which because of its proximity to the docks had been badly bombed during the war and very much a place of deprivation in the 1950s and 60s, so I welcomed the village-y feel as an upgrade.

Since the arrival of the internet, where many people shop online, the high street shops began to close gradually and in their place coffee shops and restaurants sprang up. In the space of 800 yards, I can probably count at least five Turkish restaurants, three Italian, a Greek, a Lebanese, two Thai, a few Indian and two kebab shops, a West African restaurant, various pub chains, a dessert shop, an ice cream parlour and at least 15 cafes. Sadly the number of shops where you can go in to buy a gift for someone or browse has fallen dramatically. The only shops where you cannot get a service online are hairdressers and nail salons, so many of these have sprung up too. We have four of the major supermarkets still here, but all the banks have closed to move to a neighbouring suburb, so we can only get banking services at the local Post office in which the queue spills out into the street because of the demand. It has meant that the High Street is quite quiet during the day, but comes alive at night when the restaurants and pub chains are heaving.

As I say, until recently, it has been a sleepy village sort of place, but in the last few years it has changed. We have gangs going around stealing cars (I am advisedly informed to take to Eastern Europe) and stealing tools out of workmen's vans to resell at car boot fairs. There's been quite a few mobile phone snatchers riding bikes. In addition, because we are sandwiched between two relatively deprived areas, we have trouble with warring gangs and there have been quite a few stabbings, They are almost becoming a weekly event and so much so that nobody bats an eyelid. This week a completely innocent person was walking past a supermarket minding their own business and was set upon randomly by someone who proceeded to bash them on the head. The poor victim died in hospital a few days ago.

It is quite concerning how life has changed recently. I do not want to be one of those people who constantly say "in my day, we used to ....", but it seems life has changed quite a bit over the last twenty years alone and not necessarily for the better.

Flight or fright

There has been a Channel 4 series on TV (see here) where a clinic in Amsterdam can cure people of their phobias. Apparently getting people to confront them until their fear is right off the height of its scale and then giving them a single beta blocker renders them perfectly OK to face their phobia the next day with no problems at all. 

It is amazing what people have phobias about.  Quite common on this programme were spiders, snakes, frogs, birds and mice. Less common and in some ways difficult to comprehend were balloons and clowns. One really intriguing one was a fear of dachshunds. The man hated the little short legs and long body. He didn't have a problem with other dogs, but dachshunds caused him to go into extreme panic.

The trigger for phobias usually starts way back in childhood when a parent passes on a phobia (say, a child seeing its mother freak out in the proximity of a spider, which then ingrains into that child the fear that spiders are horrible and to be avoided). It can also originate from a personal experience someone has that then induces the fear of that reoccurring. 

I can't say I personally like spiders or snakes, but not enough to be terrified of them and if I find a spider in the house, I tend to dispose of it myself. My mother was terrified of stag beetles and to this day I cannot bear to be outside in May when they fly about at dusk. It's the size of them and the fact they tend to bump into things that worries me. We tend to get a lot in South London and Kent and I am always glad when June comes and they are gone forever.

Male stag beetle

My biggest phobia, however, used to be eating out in public. I was fine until I was about 19. Then one evening when I was at university, I went out for a meal in a restaurant with a boyfriend. As the meal was served, I took a few mouthfuls and then came over all hot and faint. I found I couldn't swallow and felt everyone was looking at me. Of course, nobody was, or, if they were, probably just glancing across the room rather than AT me. My heart was pounding and I felt sick. I was forced to stand up and rush out of the restaurant for fresh air and never went back to finish the meal.  After that, I was unable to eat out in public for many many years. I would avoid invites to weddings and work business meetings, where I knew a meal was involved. The very thought of it would make me feel sick. I'd make all manner of excuses. This phobia remained with me for a good two decades after that, including my own wedding, which caused no end of problems and extreme panic leading up to it.

It was really only after Greg died that I had to put my big girl pants on and face the fact that sometimes I had no choice. And to my delight, I managed to overcome it in time. Now, I don't think twice about accepting invitations to dine out and have no problems at all.  In fact, at Kay's wedding, not only did I sit at the top table and face 80 people while I ate, I also took on the Father of the Bride speech in front of them all with no qualms at all. 

When I think back, the trigger probably originates from when I was at secondary school. We used to have school dinners, six pupils to a table. We used to help ourselves to the main course from tureens on each table. Only once we had finished eating that, would the kitchen staff take those tureens away and then bring the dessert tureens to each table. One day, I had helped myself to  one too many boiled potatoes for my main course and had left one on my plate. Our history teacher was on lunch duty, came and stood over me making me eat it while everyone watched, eager to get on with being served the dessert. The potato was cold and dry and difficult to swallow, but that teacher still stood over me until I had eaten every last bit. Only then would she give permission for the main course tureen to be taken away and the dessert tureen to be served. I swear that was most likely what caused me such anguish for those twenty odd years I suffered that phobia. Being a teacher is a very respected profession, but do they realise what damage they can do? I bet she never ever realised what harm she was doing me but what gave her the right to force-feed me? She probably won't remember me, but I have never ever forgotten her.

Solid as a rock

Earlier this week, I decided to educate myself and join the posh classes..... I went to the opera. In my lifetime I have only been to a few operas, mainly when I was in my twenties and living in Germany, but have not been to any since. One I have never seen is Madame Butterfly, so, as it was on for one night only in my local theatre, I decided to go along.

A friend, who is a massive opera fan and was a regular visitor to the English National Opera at the London Colosseum, before she became housebound at the age of 90, advised me to a take a box of tissues with me as the story is quite sad. I got there way too early as I had left the car behind and travelled by bus, but settled into my seat and watched the hordes of people coming in clutching glasses of wine and in some cases food!! When did that become a thing in the theatre? The opera, written by Puccini was sang in Italian but thankfully there were surtitles above the stage with the English translation projected,  so it helped to know what they were singing about. I had studied the synopsis of the plot, so had a vague idea of what was going to happen. I was well prepared when at the very end, Madame Butterfly stabs herself to death which was quite dramatic.

At the very end the cast came on stage one by one to take a bow and the audience clapped and cheered as each of the main characters brought up the rear. But that was not the end of it. The opera had been played by the Ukrainian National Opera Company (both singers and orchestra) and they began to hold up an enormous Ukrainian flag whilst singing in Ukrainian. The surtitles projected the English translation about them loving their country and fighting for freedom. I kid you not, every one of the audience, well over 800 of us - myself included - took to our feet and clapped wildly and cheered. It was so emotional as we obviously all wanted to show our solidarity to them in the light of what had happened in the last week or so. They in turn seemed stunned by our reaction as maybe they don't usually sing that patriotic song at the end of their performances or, if they do, maybe the audiences don't normally react so demonstratively with a standing ovation. Either way, it was THAT that brought me to tears rather than Madame Butterfly. I think everyone felt the same, namely that we wanted to show the Ukrainian people we stood shoulder to shoulder with them.

The irony of it was that Madame Butterfly had fallen in love with an American naval officer who toyed with her emotions and then discarded her. Even when he knew she had a son by him, he proposed to take the son back to America with him and be raised by the American woman he was now married to. It was the ultimate cause of her suicide of honour. It just goes to show you can't trust some Americans, I thought, as I made my way out of the theatre. There's one I can distinctly think of right now.

Fifteenth anniversary

This week on 6 March sees the 15th anniversary of Greg's death. For me, fifteen years as a widow. 

Last week some choir friends and I went to see the latest Bridget Jones film. I won't give too much away, but in the first few minutes you learn that Bridget is now a widow and that her Mr Darcy was killed whilst out in Sudan on a humanitarian mission. She is having to cope with raising two small children. Her friends are urging her to get back out there and find someone else. It was hilarious in places and my friends came out buzzing with excitement. I didn't want to spoil the mood, so said I had thought it lovely too. In reality I found it hard to watch as it touched so many raw nerves.

It is true it gets easier as time goes by, but the grief never entirely fades away. It is just different. I still yearn for what could have been, what we could have done in our retirement together - places to see and things to do. It is just not the same on your own. I try to keep busy (sometimes too busy) with things that distract me - volunteering for foodbank, the park, gym, choir - but it never gets easier, when you come home to an empty house, climb the stairs and turn out the lights on your own. Night after night after night. Not easy when everywhere you look you see so many elderly couples still full of the joys and holding hands.

It's not been good for him either. He's missed out so much on the world news he loved and worked for - goodness, what he would have to say on the current world situation; he's missed out on the success of his daughter at university and becoming a medical doctor; and he's missed out on her falling in love and marrying a wonderful man.

His death was of his own making which also makes it harder to accept sometimes. If only he had stopped drinking. But addiction is hard to overcome and I guess in the end, he was too troubled and too far deep to stop. For those caught up in addiction, look here for how things could turn out if you don't stop. It doesn't make easy reading, but it may turn you against what will happen, if your addiction takes hold. If it helps one person, this blog will have proved its usefulness.

Wooden carvings

Yorkshire Pudding's recent blogpost about wood carvings he had seen in a church gave me an idea for this post.  My daughter Kay and her husband bought a house near me two years ago. It was in a pretty bad condition as it had been lived in by a little old lady for many many decades and was still in a sort of 1960s time-warp. She had a thing about water and had several ponds (including one in the tiny front garden) and many ugly water containers up the side of the house all linked together to collect rainwater. The house - a small modest end of terrace Victorian house - needs a lot doing to it and is a work in progress. London prices are extortionately steep and it cost well over half a million pounds (more than 4 to 5 times its value elsewhere in the country), so there is not a lot of money to spare to renovate it. I'm helping them where I can. (Incidentally Kay has just read this and thinks it looks like I'm boasting about the house price. I mention it purely because property is so expensive in Greater London compared to elsewhere and it always seems unfair we can barely afford the house and certainly can't afford to furnish it, compared to other parts of the country.) Rewiring, re-plumbing, new windows (there are mushrooms growing in the current ones!), new kitchen and new bathroom are just some of the projects to be done, not to mention re-landscaping the garden as the ponds take up the entire space where maybe lawn should be. Kay and her husband regard this as a ten-year project as their busy jobs also take up any time to do it themselves quickly.

The little old lady was a bit of an artist and we have found hidden under the undergrowth in the garden many metal animals, which she must have crafted, now sadly rusted and only fit for the rubbish dump. However, one thing they are keen to keep are the carvings on the bannisters on their staircase. They are quite unusual and, we think,  probably carved by the old lady, but Kay has fallen in love with them.

an owl

a squirrel

Not sure if this last one is a rabbit or a nun!

Spring is on its way

The weather here in London has been very wet for weeks and weeks on end and, with the windchill factor,  very cold, although temperatures have been mostly above freezing. The greyness has been the worst I have known for a long time and the sun is rarely to be seen. However, one little bright sight in my garden is the appearance of snowdrops. Against all the odds, they struggle through the hard soil and are a joy to behold. Hopefully spring is just around the corner with brighter, warmer days ahead.

Wicked

The choir I go to does some very challenging pieces which is why I like it. Very often when we start the term's rehearsals of the new songs, I don't necessarily like what we are singing,  as the songs are sometimes discordant or just plain difficult to learn.  But over the weeks, as we rehearse and fine-tune them, they grow on me until I find myself humming them or, worse, going over them in my head at 3am in the morning when I am trying to sleep!

Last year, we did the entire repertoire of Wicked, the musical. At a concert with 3 other choirs, our choir was voted the best, which pleased us all no end. A few weeks ago, some of our choir members invited me to go with them in a group to see the film version of the musical which recently came out. I have not been in a cinema for decades. I have hearing problems which means I would normally sit through a film only hearing a fraction of it. Hearing aids are all very good, but only make people, who mumble, mumble more loudly. It's the clarity to make out words from a string of meaningless vowels and consonants that is a problem. I much prefer to watch DVDs with subtitles to catch up on modern films. As this was mainly a musical and I knew the vague story from the research I had done, I agreed  to go along to the cinema with the group.

Oh my goodness. Not having been to the cinema in so long really was a culture shock. Our local cinema had 8 different screenings of which Wicked was just one. The foyer was like an airport lounge with different food stations in a circle - popcorn, sweets, drinks, ice cream, coffee etc. The cinema itself was full of about 150 leather armchairs (ten rows of 15 seats) which could recline so it was almost like you were lying in bed with a small table to swing over you to place your drinks and food. At least, if I don't hear anything, I can nod off in comfort for a couple of hours, I thought. I know this is not something new for most of you, who do regularly go the cinema, but I was like a kid in wonderland!

Fortunately, the volume was so loud, I think I would have heard it a few miles away and the film so engaging that the 2 hours 40 minutes flew by. My group was so tempted to sing along with the songs, but we bit our lips and sang along to them in our heads. 

The sets were mind-blowingly amazing and must have cost billions unless they are computer-generated. I came out buzzing. I don't think I'd manage with a non-musical film as the dialogue was still a little hard to hear at times, but it was quite an experience just for the cinema alone.

This is an extract from some of the Wicked repertoire our choir sang in 2023.....

I shall never ever forget

I am publishing an old post this week, as today's date means a lot to me. You'll see why.....

I suspect, should I ever die and they need to perform a post-mortem on me, they'll find the First of February 2001 etched in my brain like a stick of Brighton rock.  It is a date I shall never ever forget.

In mid December 2000, I had been told I needed an urgent hysterectomy operation. I had developed a large mass in my womb. If I lay face-down on a hard floor playing a board game or doing a jigsaw with Kay, I could feel it digging in to me. The consultant gynaecologist I went to see was fairly hopeful it was a benign fibroid but because of its large size, could not rule out it was something malignant. He needed to open me up and see for sure, but did not want to leave it too long. However, with the Christmas and New Year period in the way and therefore an obstacle both from my and the NHS point of view, my operation, although urgent,  was fixed for the 2 February 2001, some six weeks away.

However over Christmas, it became apparant my father was very ill. I have written before here about how special he was to me, how close we were and how upset I was when he died, untimely ripped from our lives by leukaemia and (cruelly) to have two kinds of the disease at the same time: one which he could have lived with for many many years and, apart from the occasional blood transfusions, would have caused no problem, but the second type was more aggressive and by mid-January 2001 revealed the diagnosis that he had but a few months if not weeks to live and he was too weak for chemotherapy. Not certain when exactly he would die, I was nervous to go ahead with my operation, but my father begged me to carry on, as it was much needed and he would not be happy if I postponed it.  He argued that I still had my life in front of me and would be recuperating by the time he grew worse, so we stuck to the schedule.

A few days before my operation, Greg, a nine-year-old Kay and I drove the sixty-odd miles to stay with my parents for the weekend. We visited my father who was by now very weak and in hospital. The consultant haematologist told us that Dad was rapidly fading and that his blood was showing more of the killer leukaemia cells day by day. Again I protested that I ought to cancel my operation, but again my father insisted I should go ahead and be all the more stronger to deal with what would happen to him later. At our parting, I hugged and kissed him and could not bear to let go or turn the corner out of view from his bed in the ward, all the time trying to keep a brave front for Kay who did not really understand or suspect what was going on.

A few days later, it was Thursday 1 February 2001: the day before my operation. I had been told to report to the ward at about mid-afternoon. I was to have a bath at home beforehand and to have brought a case full of stuff to last me a week in hospital. The hysterectomy and removal of the "mass" would take place on the Friday morning. I was at home busy preparing myself and making sure that Greg and Kay would have enough to be fed and watered during my 7-day absence. I was also packing a case and getting ready to have a bath after lunch.

At about 12:50pm the telephone rang. It was my mother in floods of tears. My father had suddenly passed away ten minutes before. I froze. Now what to do?   I was all for rushing to be with my mother but Greg wanted me to have that op so badly  as he was nervous it could be bad news and to postpone it was madness. However I could not leave my mother to cope with Dad's funeral on her own and in any case I did not want to be incapacitated for it either. I decided to cancel the operation. I rang the hospital and left a message with the consultant's secretary. I rang around my circle of friends and relatives telling them the grave news.

I was in a daze. I could not think straight. There were a million and one things to think about, not least of which was how we were going to break the news to Kay. The phone kept ringing.  Then in the late afternoon my consultant rang me back. He said he sympathised with my position, but he would seriously urge me to reconsider the operation for the next morning. "Your father can no longer be saved, but YOU can", he said. He also said he could not guarantee that putting it off for a few weeks would have a good outcome if the mass was malignant. He begged me to think about it and ring him back with my decision. Meanwhile people were ringing me saying much the same thing, that my father would want me to go ahead with the operation. My mother even rang to say she had been taken by close friends to collect the death certificate and the funeral could be arranged for three weeks hence by which time I would have recuperated. There was nothing else for me to help her with, so even she said I should go ahead with the op.

Thus it came to pass that on the evening of 1 February 2001, Greg delivered me to the hospital and then rushed off to collect Kay who had gone back to a friend's house since leaving school that afternoon. I found myself sitting up in a bed in a large old Victorian  gynaecological ward of twenty beds or more, ten down one side and ten down the the opposite side. I sat listening to people laughing with and chatting to their visitors, while the tears rolled down my cheeks. My beloved father had just died;  I sat all alone surrounded by people; and I faced major surgery the next morning. A day I would never ever forget.

Twenty-four years on, I still miss him.

Working from Home

I recently saw a programme about working from home. Since the covid pandemic, when people were more or less told to stay at home and not mix with others outside their family bubble, working from home took off. With most people having computers or smart mobile phones, it made working from home a reality that could be implemented. It would probably not even have been possible back in the 1990s.

Suddenly everyone was jumping on the bandwagon and, even when covid restrictions were lifted, many continued to work from home, including those who work in large organisations and government offices. This meant procedures that usually took only a few weeks then took months. I knew this to my own pain, when I tried to apply for Power Of Attorney and the whole procedure was frustrating (see here) and took nearly a year to process.

For the employees, this is ideal - they can stay at home in their pyjamas and work in their lounge, bedroom or kitchen. They don't have to pay travel costs to get to work (which in London can be horrendous) or add hours onto their day by the commute. They can be with their children or closer to schools to pick them up and manage their day to their own timetable. The programme I watched even showed one office employee working at a computer in his local golf club and playing a round of golf when he needed a break!

The downside of this is that many workers are cut off from their colleagues and the usual banter and mentoring that goes on falls out of the window. It has led to a huge increase in mental health issues, as staff grapple to work in isolation. Meetings via a computer screen are not the same as being able to socialise and swap ideas and information in person round a table.

Of course not all professions lend themselves to working from home. Hospital doctors, firefighters, train/bus drivers, beauty salons, dry-cleaners and restaurants/cafes immediately spring to mind.  Many of these have apparently seen a decline in their businesses, because of home-working. 

Some unions are taking up the baton to make it an employee's right to work from home. I am not sure I agree with that and would love things to return to how they were pre-Covid, as it only seems to complicate matters and reduce efficiency of the service the organisation provides. Not to mention having a huge impact on mental health. What do you think?

One Life

I mentioned in my last post that we had recently watched the DVD of One Life. My hearing is not so great to watch films in a cinema so I always prefer to watch them at home on DVD, when they come out, as I can use subtitles. Darcy had bought me this DVD for my birthday as he knew I would be very interested in this film, given my family history.

The film portrays the life and work of Nicholas Winton who bravely masterminded the evacuation of 669 children from Prague to England at at time when the Nazis were about to invade Czechoslovakia in 1938. It  alternates between following Anthony Hopkins playing a 79-year old Winton reminiscing on his past, and Johnny Flynn as a 29-year old Winton who successfully helps 669 predominantly Jewish children to escape the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia and the threat of living in ghettos or facing concentration camps, just before the beginning of World War II.

It was a very emotional film on various levels and I won't go into any more detail to spoil it, in case you do want to see it. Although my father escaped Nazi Germany in early 1939 (not through the help of Nicholas Winton but with the help of English Quakers via the Kindertransport), there were many similarities, such as the children arriving at Liverpool Street station in London with labels round their necks to match them up with the English people who would look after them. My father had also arrived at Liverpool Street Station at the age of 15, not able to speak more than ten vital words of English. Seeing it as a film, it drove home to me what it must have been like for my father, rather than just the sketchy hand-me-down stories in our family history. 

Anthony Hopkins looked remarkably like the real man. I recall as a young woman watching the That's Life programme on television which featured at the end of the One Life film. It brought shivers down my spine to see it again. 

He was awarded an OBE and later a Knighthood for his humanitarian work and many more accolades, including a statue of him in Prague railway station. He died in 2015 at the age of 106. What a man. What a hero. 

Anthony Hopkins in the film as Nicholas Winton

The real Nicholas Winton

Back to normal

This week has seen me getting back to normal after the month of December had virtually seen all my usual activities cancelled because of flu and lack of energy.

On Sunday, I did a shift at out local park information centre. It is run by Friends of the Park. We sell calendars of the park, notelets of the same, pens, notebooks, tree guides, bird guides, duck guides, and food for the ducks and squirrels. We also try to answer any questions the public may raise about trees or ducks. Unfortunately it was pelting down with rain and was very cold. Suffice to say we had no visitors at all and took no money at all.

On Monday I went back to a gym class for the first time in a month. I normally have no problems doing this class but on that day I find it hard. Even the class instructor singled me out in front of 25 others and asked if I was OK.  It was quite embarrassing.

On Tuesday I visited an old work colleague of mine, whom I haven't seen since last March. She has a beautiful show home - puts mine to shame - beautifully decorated and tastefully furnished. We had a lovely morning catching up on all our news including of course Kay's wedding. 

On Wednesday, I attempted another gym class which thankfully went much better. I rushed home to shower as that evening I went out with four of my choir friends for a pub meal. Snow and very low temperatures were forecast, and, as the pub was some 4 miles away, I was a little hesitant whether I would get there and back safely. It was snowing as I drove there and it was settling on the roofs of cars. We had a lovely convivial meal exchanging stories of our individual Christmases. Fortunately, the snow had turned to rain and by the time we left (or rather were thrown out as the last people to leave) at 10.30pm, the rain had washed all the snow away and I got home in one piece.

On Thursday, I went to a U3A (University of the Third Age) meeting about Charles Dickens. It was very interesting as it was seen through the eyes of the man himself..... what he himself had written about his own childhood and adult life and how that compared with what had appeared in his novels. In the evening I again risked an icy drive to go to a choir party. After our Christmas concert, there was little time before Christmas itself to get everybody together for a social evening rather than a singing evening, so it was arranged for this day. It was lovely to have longer chats with people I know by sight but not always by name.  I was determined not to stay within the comfort zone of my usual friends and mingled with people I had never spoken to before. We had been asked to provide either food or drink for the party and I made a double batch of crispy cheese cookies - a recipe I had recently acquired from a fellow gym user. They went down very well and at least 5 people asked me for the recipe.

On Friday, I did a foodbank shift. The church that runs it also offers a sit-down cooked meal held in the church hall. This leaves little room for bags of food to be handed out inside, so we do this outside. Knowing the temperatures were barely going to be over freezing and I would be standing on the spot for over two hours handing out food, I donned five layers on my top half and tights under my jeans on the bottom half. Not to mention hat and mittens. All in all I survived without turning into a block of ice. I then scurried home to cook a lovely meal for Kay and Darcy who were coming to visit for the evening. I cooked chicken cobbler,  pigs in blankets, red cabbage, mixed vegetables, roasted potatoes and sweet potatoes, followed by Christmas pudding and custard. After that we tried to stay awake to watch a DVD Darcy had given me for my birthday (more about that next week).

I am now home alone for this weekend and catching up with admin and a general potter around the house. As I said, back to normal.