Good morning Mick and all GN's on a very dark and quiet morning in North Yorkshire. I can hear no rain or wind, but that is all I can tell of the weather so far. As soon as it is light enough I need to go down to the washing line on the yellow peril and hope to find my washing still on the line, bring it back , spin it and put it back out again! When I got home yesterday, having put it out on the line, it just started to rain too heavily to go down and rescue it, as it would have taken me time to get the cover off the buggy and get down there and couldnt walk that far and bring back heavy washing, so it was abandoned, and could only hope that the firm pegging would hold, so with a bit of luck I shall find everything still there if somewhat sodden.
Another rotten night and I am just reaching the end of my tether. Can only hope that I will be so exhausted that I do fall asleep tonight. When I get so tired, not only all the usual aches and pains either are worse, or just seem to be, but I find any little bruise or cut that I could normally ignore becomes noticeable too. Well that is a shame and just have to hope for something to knock me out.
Yesterday I was invited to a late lunch in thirsk. What a good job Sue said about 1.15pm, as I was so slow and took ages to try and restore things back to where they should be, and even had to turn back as I realised that my disabled badges were not in the car! Anyway I did a bit of tidying up, put the washing out on the line, and felt I had made a start on the clearing up and throwing away plan, and found my way there easily.
It is a mews flat in Thirsk close to the river, so very pleasant surroundings and peaceful. Got parked ok and was on time. I had met Sue originally in cafe Nero, but had not yet met her husband John. So there were 3 other people invited, and it was very pleasant. They have a three legged cat, called Barton, who of course is the boss of the place, (we own dogs, but cats own us!) He was very territorial and walked round the room and met every visitor and checked them out before going to sit in his chosen place and oversee the proceedings. It was lovely to stroke him, I wish I could have a cat here, but no pets allowed. Of course less tying, but my cat used to come and sit with me sometimes, and was always pleased to see me at any time of the day or night, and she used to make me feel less stressed and at least another creature was awake at silly o clock. Anyway, it was all very lovely and we had delicious lamb roast dinner, and a pear and peach flan for dessert. Such a treat, and all the work done by someone else. Everything cooked so well and good gravy! I think that you can get good meals out, and carvery places , by cooking larger amounts of meat often can make it better than you can your tiny bit, but it is the gravy that often lets it down, and well cooked home made food is the best in my opinion. So it was a very pleasant afternoon and lovely to meet some more new people. One lady , who is a pharmacist in a local hospital, is getting ready to move to Sheffield, to another large hospital and is at the stage of delivering various things to the charity shops and trying to decide what to take etc. She has a house here, so has made a wise decision (in my opinion) to let her house out for 6 months, and she is going to house share down there, whilst she settles into the job and looks about for a new place and checks out the area etc. That way , at the worst, if she doesnt like it for any reason, she has a house to come back to, and she is in demand, so would not have any problem finding another job here. Her main worry was her own cat, and she has a friend who is also a cat person, who really likes her cat so she is going to leave the cat with her until she has sorted things out, as she cant take a cat to a house share etc. Her problem will be getting the cat back I think!! So it was lovely to find people who are interested in art and music, and much talk of what is going on round here and John is singing in a choir in Middlesborough at the cathedral I think. There is going to be a Faure Requiem day, where you go to the rehearsal and then sing in the concert in the evening, which I shall try to go to , if my flipping back will allow it. I am missing singing in a choir right now, but dont think I can manage to sit for 2 hours in rehearsal every week, and would not like to let them down, so these sort of day sing together is going to be great for me. Something I would really love to do is find somewhere that is having a go at singing Spem in Alium - dont know if that is the right spelling, but it is a wonderful 40 part piece of music, that I would love to have the opportunity of singing in, but so far have not seen anyone planning to do . Perhaps if things improve a bit it can be my musical endeavour for next year and I will go on facebook or something and see if I can get 39 other people to join me to have a go!! Years ago one of the most amazing get togethers I was involved in was when we got 400 people to sing the Verdi Requiem in a courtyard. Wow, you should have heard the Dies Irae . Oh the amazing feeling, being part of this wonderful sound, which seemed to reverberate round the courtyard. Once you started singing this, you were not individual voices but an entity , where somehow , breathing together and singing at the same time made you feel like one huge animal, able to sing in harmony. Have sung all my life and loved all sorts of occasions, but remember that actual feeling of being a small part of a complete being known as a choir! Ah well that is for the future.
My aim for this morning is to rescue the washing, get through some paperwork, and especially need to check out the details of what is on offer for my car tax, which I must do this week without fail. Then have to collect my prescription, check out what if anything I need from the shops, and then get back and set up my ironing board for a long session ironing. There is so much waiting to be dealt with, but some of it wont be getting ironed. I need to keep sorting out summer clothes to go away, as I finally accept that there will be no occasion to put my shorts on etc. I choose to put stuff away washed but not ironed. I used to iron it , but when I got it out again always found myself reironing it, so now just happy to put it away clean but unironed. So at least there should be a little reduction in the basket where I fish out t shirts and shorts and thin cotton trousers. So nothing exciting on the horizon. The best I hope to manage is to find out where my bulb pots are hiding and finally get my hyacinths planted up. But will have radio 3 to keep me company, and plan to get back to some practise singing. Will no doubt be singing in various groups in and out of church and need to get my voice and breathing back in working order, so there will be specific practising scales etc, but also of course much singing along with the radio whether it is Nine to Five with Dolly Parton, or Maria Callas singing Vici D'arte, so it should knock off a bit of rust from the voice box!! So that is the plan for the day. Whether it is what happens remains to be seen!!
Hope the weather is better for your trip to Bicester Mick and that you found some cycling to watch. RoseandLilac you had a busy day by the sound of it. Grandmabatty, yes that is how we realize we are actually getting older, when even enjoying looking after the grandchildren is quite tiring, and we dont have that resilience to spring back to life the following day!! I think another problem is that as we dont recognise that we are 10 years older and cant quite do what we used to, our families just see us as mum or granny or whatever as we have always been, and no change visible, so dont notice that what we used to do easily and repeat the following day, is now quite a bit of an effort, and needs a bit longer to recover from. Sometimes there needs to be a bit of a wake up call. A good friend of mine was with her family and the discussion got round to a mutual friend. The daughter mentioned how much slower and older the friend was looking and her mother said "well of course she is nearly 80 like me!" A little while later her daughter said, Mum, I just hadnt thought that you might be finding things harder to do. You are always just mum and have done things your way for years, so please tell me if anything is too much for you now. I think we all have to accept that things may take a bit more time , and not get frustrated by the fact. Well I definitely need to tell myself that!!
Well at last I can now see the outline of the tree against the sky, but still very dark. Looks still and no sign of rain, so maybe the washing has dried after all. Huh! Fat chance! So hope for a decent weather for everyone and a chance to get on with whatever you plan to do. Take care and enjoy your day
