Faded Voices; Distant Lives.

"Memories I had locked away, have begun to break free, like 

shards of ice fracturing off an arctic shelf. In sleep, these

broken floes drift towards the morning light of remembrance.

Tan Twan Eng.

 On our communal birthday, July 28th, 1941.
Aged 1, 5, 7, with our mother in the front
garden of 14, Lindhurst Lane, Mansfield.

 A project, rather long in the making, is nearing completion. I have written down some Childhood Memories occasionally, over the last ten years or so. I am unsure as to where the impulse sprang from to do this; a feature of ageing perhaps? Although a friend’s example may have pushed me to actually make an effort with these early memories. John, an 84 year old friend in San Francisco, had a fund of interesting and amusing stories of events in his earlier life, in his head, and I urged him to write them down. He loved reading and wrote well and easily, so it would not have been a daunting task for him and yet, he never realistically embraced the idea. He pleaded laziness,

John in Santa Monica.

disinclination and the old chestnut: “But who on earth would be interested in them after me?” I did relate to the last cry! Who, indeed, might want to read the assorted memories of an eighty something person, of family events, feelings and personalities so long ago? That was exactly my remark to my elder daughter, then subsequently, to my son at his similar suggestion for me!! He was sure my grand-children would, perhaps now, perhaps eventually, find such a narrative fascinating. And maybe one or two from the wider family might enjoy these far-off tales. These were exactly the suggestions I had made to John, who continued resolutely to ignore me and died, about ten years ago, with nothing written to leave for his family. As no one in his family knew about my suggestion, his memories are not missed but they would most certainly have been relished had he made the effort.

My sister, Heather, visiting me
in Bruges. She died
one year ago.

My sister, Esme, on her 80th birthday
in 2016. She died in 2017.

My own small effort has been ready for months, despite occasional, and chiefly unnecessary, tweaks, and meanwhile, over the past year, I have moved countries, towns, residences, downsized significantly and mourned my sister, my best friend who died a year ago. Even so, the short text is as complete as I feel able to make it, and I have added the texts of four tributes I have given at family funerals over the last several years as they incidentally contain information from the past. And additionally, as a small, final flourish, there are copies of several old photographs at the end. My local grand-daughter, currently about to begin her third year at Uni. offered to put the various articles, reports, memories into one document for ease of printing and then on to a USB, something which I did not know how to do. She has, in fact, done this several times as each time of transference from one to the other, something has slightly changed; a space missed or inappropriately created; a photo caption omitted, etc. Eventually, the result was complete.

Niamh, the modest amanuensis
and producer.

After a trip to a local printer who printed me one example, a copy with a card cover and plastic curly-wurly black spine. Not beautiful but I felt it would have to do as the only option available to me. However, Niamh, a/m grand-daughter, was pretty contemptuous of the result and offered to do it all online. And, to pass over the unnecessary detail about her sterling efforts, I now have two dozen beautiful little books with the above title. The whole undertaking is modest but I am thrilled that the appearance is so attractive and surprisingly professional, thanks to Niamh.

Fortuitously, I shall be able to distribute several next weekend when the family, plus many others, will be in a gathering of the clans in Perthshire for the wedding of my eldest grandson and his Gorgeous Girl! I expect nothing more than kind remarks but I secretly hope that one or two will be really interested in the contents and that possibly, at some future date, there might be someone in the family who can use some of the memories as background material for a film or a book. Now, that would be fun! And happily observed by me as I wander the Elysian Fields in search of good material for my next heavenly blog!

We three aged 14, 12, 6 in 1948
in Scarborough, with our mother.

Almost certainly a birthday, with collective hair curled.
Probably in 1943.

Mind The Gap

 

At least he says he won't serve in her Cabinet!

On my wavelength at present, the ghastly Liz Truss is totally impossible to ignore. Her proposals demand attention, and that doesn’t mean approval. AND I have just re-noticed that she is supposed to be Foreign Secretary though any recent activity in that quarter is non-existent! It is also barely tolerable to contemplate around another two weeks of this languid lacuna in any meaningful government though Truss cannot be blamed for that. It’s just the way the Conservatives choose to go about electing a new leader. Sloooowly; ponderously; tiresomely slowly, while ignoring doing anything meaningful about the threats of inflation and cost of living hikes . And to what end? It looks like a Truss victory is in the bag; I can’t believe I have just written that!! One cheery note from a Truss victory, however, will be the almost definite defeat in the 2024 for the Conservatives.

But in the meantime, Liz’s trumpeted plans feature reversing rises in National Insurance and Corporation Tax which proposal she further embellishes by refusing to allow scrutiny of the details by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility. The Tony Blair Institute has calculated that the N.I. cut would help the poorest tenth of households by 76 pence a month on average whereas the richer households in the U.K. will be better off by £93 a month. And presumably the voters in this leadership contest either do not know or do not care that “Almost 90 percent of the [N.I.] giveaway will go to the richest half of households” according to Stuart Adam of the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Liz, in one of her poses.

There are fascinating figures available. The top one percent of earners take home an employment income of around £208,000 and this group of what one might call, ‘pretty rich’ number around 524,000 individuals to whom a 1.25 per cent N.I. reduction, will gift £2,445 per person, per annum. Apparently, the Treasury will be giving to this comparatively small number of people, around £1.3 billion which is a little more than Truss will be giving to the bottom 60 percent.[£1.1bn] Somehow, without invoking a class war, this hardly points to a just and fair society. This scenario was the reason why Sunak chose not to reverse his N.I. rise when pressured to do so by Tory M.P.s but raised the threshold for payment instead. Sunak commented on the Truss tax plans as ‘promising the earth to everyone’ and signalled he would not serve in her Cabinet if asked, while Michael Gove, a latecomer to Sunak-support, suggests she is taking ‘a holiday from reality.’ Gove adds, “I cannot see how safeguarding the stock options of FTSE 100 executives should ever take precedence over supporting the poorest in our society.” Dominic Raab meanwhile describes the Truss efforts as ' a suicide note.'

The British public too.
Wise words from Warren Buffet.

Paul Waugh on inews suggests that Boris's huge success in the 2019 election was, in part,  wildly successful because it came

Dominic Raab

 from his claim, which was believed, to be on the side of the ‘little guy.’ Waugh suggests that Boris’s much-trumpeted levelling up was effectively an admission that ‘trickledown’ economics did not actually work. But Truss’s economic plans plainly imply that they do; she claims that her tax cuts will ultimately benefit everyone because they will help jump-start the economy. And all this in the face of a huge bills emergency with frightening inflation [possibly up to 18% in a couple of months’ time] and fuel costs on the rampant rise, make not only her plans incomprehensible but her considerable support among Tory voting members, equally mystifying.

Third visit to Kyiv for Boris to meet admirer, Zelensky.
24/08/2022

Boris has just [24/08/2022] paid his third visit to Ukraine which prompts an unkind remark about his total lack of any Prime Ministerial action in Britain during the past several weeks. However, a little further study has shown that his fondness for posing in a safe war zone [Kyiv]seems to be founded on genuine feelings of protective fondness for both Zelensky and Ukraine and is one of the few strands of his job that he genuinely cares about. Johnson has now been presented with the Order of Liberty, the highest honour in Ukraine for foreign nationals. Zelensky avers that Boris is “a great friend of Ukraine”; It’s just that he is a total failure in British government even though many in his party still love him and would prefer him as P.M. rather than either Truss or Sunak! As I wrote above, ‘mystifying’!

Michael Gove

Karim Brohi, trauma surgeon,
Royal London

Post Script

Dr Karim Brohi, trauma surgeon at the Royal London, tweeted last weekend that there had been multiple admissions for suicide attempts, a continuing increase in such abuse as a result of financial pressures. Debt and economic hardship are leading to more domestic abuse, more alcohol-related injuries and more examples of multiple jobs causing tiredness and accidents.

Always look on the bright side ....

 

Optimistic song always associated with 
Eric Idle.

Snoopy, the Eternal Panglossian

 

Gordon Brown

In spite of gloomy news writ large wherever one looks, it IS cheering to read of Gordon Brown’s interventions and realise what a sane and balanced commentator he is, or he has become, especially when compared to his relatively inglorious term as Prime Minister, a job for which he was intellectually, though not temperamentally, suited. His several comments recently demonstrate his sane, considered approach to government and politics, clearly motivated by the wider public interest. SO refreshing after the selfish, egocentric Posh Boys’ Club supposedly running the country now. Boris is on his second holiday this 
month while paid for pretending to be Prime Minister and despite the fact that, after September 1, he will be unemployed with lots of spare time.

I was also cheered this week by reading of a remark by Lewis Hamilton when explaining why he had said that he didn’t like driving. He was referring to ‘leisure driving’ which he finds ‘stressful’. His comment that I empathised with was, “I try not to do things that don’t add to my life.” That totally hits the spot with me and it is exactly what ageing has taught me to do. Lewis H. is not only a courageous 

Lewis Hamilton

and talented world-beating racer, but he is clever. Based on that principle, in the face of declining energy, I have stopped cooking. I simply buy a week’s dinners from Cook which are of excellent standards and sensible prices, without, I believe, preservatives and other E-nasties involved. This adds to my life by removing any effort at all from deciding on meals beyond my weekly selection from Cook and, of course, from preparation and cooking.

Oleksiy Rednikov
Ukrainian Defence Minister

Another super example of having fun, and in this case, in a deeply unfunny situation, is in the trolling by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence, of the Russians. It was following extensive, unexplained explosions in the Saky airbase in the Crimea which did huge amounts of damage to Russian aircraft there. The defence minister, Oleksiy Reznikov tweeted, “Don’t smoke in dangerous places!” Later he released a catchy little video teasing those Russians who had been holidaying on beaches near Saky, about their mistake in choosing a vacation in occupied territory. “You could have chosen Dubai, Turkey or Cuba but no, you chose Crimea!” I found this gem in The Observer, by Rowan Moore who rather splendidly observed that “you have to take your schadenfreude where you can.”

Liz in Maggie-mode, appealing
to Tory leadership voters.

Lord Norman Tebbit

And then, in the same newspaper, joy divine! An article by Will Hutton headed, "Liz Truss’s economic plan is ruinous nonsense with no reference to reality." I have been saying to myself for ages that the Conservatives must have a death wish if they actually elect her as leader, so this article was really on my bright side! Though I would personally rather like the death wish forecast to be on the nail, the idea of being British when she appears on the international political scene will be embarrassing, it is true! On the same Truss theme, I saw online that the Very Old Norman Tebbit who happens to live locally, looked after by carers, doesn’t think it democratic for Conservative members to be choosing their new leader; it should be solely M.P.s, implying that people who had merely paid a subscription to join a political party, might not have the expertise or knowledge to be trusted with choosing the new Dear Leader. I agree with him. He also commented on Liz’s politics that “she is a former card-carrying  Liberal and a firm Remainer. In fact, she has in the past held opposite convictions on just about every major policy issue to those she now proclaims.” Do wish dear Norman were still as influential as he is eloquent!

What else cheered me this last week? Sad to hear that the lovely Raymond Briggs has just died [at 88] but rather jolly to read a discussion that he might actually have disliked children! I loved his stories and

Raymond Briggs, iconoclastic national treasure,
with the sad ending of The Snowman

his evident grumpiness, his divine illustrations and his creations. Who can ever forget Fungus the Bogeyman while his Snowman, a secular saint, almost equals Santa in Christmas popularity? Briggs apparently turned down an offer to be the Children’s Laureate, saying, 

Fungus the Bogeyman

"No thank you. All that running all over the country, all the bookings and bed and breakfasts and railways. I don’t want to go to schools and give talks on children’s books. I don’t actually know anything much about children. I try to avoid them as much as possible.” I can readily relate to all those feelings of unwillingness to make huge and continuing efforts, which would have changed his life considerably, but there’s no dislike of children there, really just a wish to keep his distance from the unknown and Too Much Work. But it is a pity that he and his wife chose not to have children because of a mental condition she had; he would have made a gloriously imaginative and memorably grumpy Grandad!

Joe Biden

Although there is little brightness on the U.K. political scene, Joe Biden is scoring high with the amazing reach of his legislation passed, against all the odds including the chicanery of the Republican Trump cult. His government has

Liz Cheney,
unusually courageous right-wing Republican
on a mission to defeat and remove Trump

 passed the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and now the Inflation Reduction Act. These measures are enormously popular and include: lower medical costs, including provision for over-the-counter hearing aids; bridge repair; broadband access and investment in science. In spite of these legislative successes, Biden continues to score a dauntingly low satisfaction rate among the general public, even lower than Trump. Trump, a man unfit to govern and with an ego unable to grasp its own ineptitude, still has  huge support. Witness yesterday's Primary in Arizona, which Liz Cheney won handsomely last time around, but who lost this time, with support languishing in the 30s, percentage-wise. The Trump-approved candidate who subscribes to his Big Lie about the last Presidential election, scored double Liz Cheney's tally. I am hoping that the bright side of this reversal of Cheney's fortune will be when legal action against Trump manages to succeed and American democracy begins to be saved, in spite of the Maga-hat wearing, permanently angry Trumpettes. Signs from the Cheney camp suggest that she will run for President in 2024, knowing full well she cannot win but also aware that her candidacy will split off at least some of the Republican vote from Trump.

                                                        

                                                        Post Script

Norman Tebbit with his wife, Lady Margaret.
She was paralysed in Oct 1984 when the I.R.A. bombed the
Grand Hotel, Brighton where the Conservative Party
conference was based. Five were killed; she spent the
rest of her life in a wheelchair, dying in Dec 2020.

   

Pigeons: Genus Columba Domestica.

 

Pigeons, preening.

This is an introduction to an unlikely late-flowering love story. When I moved to Bury St Edmunds into a small apartment earlier this year, I found, faute de mieux, that I was living quite close to pigeons. My large terrace in particular, while not a home for them, more a place to visit, is a pigeon vantage point for me. Leaning on this terrace wall, surrounded by roofs, I see and hear pigeons all around. They rarely venture to share the terrace with me, though cast-off grey feathers testify to their presence at other times. But they settle on nearby tiles and roofs, cooing the while in that rolling, roiling, round, surrounding, soothing sound which I have grown to love. As I fix my face and hair, early in the day, standing near my bedroom window, I am entertained by the sight of pigeons, seduced each day by a little water outlet, below the large terrace wall. They virtually start queuing up on nearby tiles, to alight on the tiny platform, often two at once, to peck and perhaps drink, generally from around 7.00 a.m.. And while I watch, I listen to the wonderful murmuring they produce, a communal cooing which envelops the listener in a wholly relaxed warm sound of solace. I feel lucky to start each day thus.

My conversion to pigeon-lover has been relatively recent and sudden. Shamefacedly, I have to admit to long being in tune with Tom Lehrer's clever song, Poisoning Pigeons In The Park. Six months ago when I came to live here, I only saw pigeons as feral and invasive; all around in towns and cities, chiefly despised or barely tolerated; part of the urban landscape and rather annoyingly forever in search of food as they deposited their droppings over pavements and public buildings. Funnily enough, while people dislike what are called feral pigeons, they are simultaneously admirers of so-called homing pigeons which are applauded hugely for their incredible navigational skills. The two groups of pigeons are virtually one. Both are pigeons!

When I was a small girl, local miners were great

A handsome feral pigeon.

pigeon-fanciers and racing pigeons was a popular sport. I always loved it that men who spent their long working lives in the dark labyrinths of the mine below the earth’s surface, just loved pigeons which can fly free for hundreds of miles and then ingeniously find their way back home. Always, creatures of the air and light. Interestingly, pigeons can find their way using smell, landmarks, the Earth’s magnetic field and infrasound [sound waves too low for humans to hear.] They can follow each other and learn routes from each other. They understand human transport routes and often rely on that knowledge for navigation rather than their own internal magnetic compasses. We are still learning about these remarkable birds which mate for life and are attentive parents. They are the descendants of wild rock doves, the world's oldest domesticated bird, adopted by man perhaps 10,000 years ago. Certainly, Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets mention the domestication of pigeons 5,000 years ago as do Egyptian hieroglyphics. Over many centuries, they have been treasured both for food and especially for their supreme navigational skills, valued as particularly useful in times of war as messengers. They thrive now in our cities because our tall buildings and window ledges mimic the caves and cliffs of their original, natural home and they can easily find food from the messy, careless humans below.

Jacobin pigeon.

Our contemporary disdain for feral pigeons was not shared during the mid 1800s when many new breeds were being developed such as Jacobins, fantails, tumblets and barbs. 

Fantail.

Charles Darwin became a pigeon aficionado and used these examples of diversity among one species as part of his explanation of natural selection in The Origin Of Species. Interestingly, I chanced upon a 2009 account from John Murray, Darwin’s publishers, of the 200^th celebration of his birth and the 150^th anniversary of the publication of his seminal work. Six live pigeons apparently featured in the celebrations; definitely I shall investigate as I feel another pigeon-related blog on Darwin and John Murray gestating.

The critical message carried by Cher Ami.

Homing pigeons were used extensively during both World Wars to deliver vital messages between battalions and to fly with tiny cameras for reconnaissance missions. The most famous war pigeon ever was Cher Ami who was awarded the Croix de Guerre in 1918 for delivering messages from an encircled U.S. battalion with many badly-wounded men  under heavy fire. He was shot through the breast, blinded in one eye and his right leg was hanging on by a tendon when he delivered his last message. He was one distinguished bird among 32, including G.I. Joe and Paddy, awarded the Dickin Medal, the animal V.C. over the period of the two world wars, for saving human lives. Cher Ami died in June 1919 and his body was preserved at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington. 

Iridescent plumage with exquisitely delicate sheen.

Since arriving in my little Bury flat, I have grown to enjoy watching the local pigeons who live so close to me. I now admire their absolutely beautiful plumage; watch their ongoing social interactions and see pairs preening each other rather tenderly. I am charmed by them and was impressed only this morning, early, in the Abbey Gardens, when another walker who was chatting to a park gardener, held up his practised arm for a pigeon to alight and remain in a regal pose! When I expressed astonishment and admiration, he said carelessly, “Happens all the time!”

Mates for life.

Hall Porters' Chairs

 

Aforementioned lamp table

When I moved to Bury St Edmunds in February of this year, serious downsizing had to be managed in the face of the move from a large family flat in  Bruges, to a rather more modestly-sized apartment. The process was complex and occasionally difficult. Where to direct the unneeded furniture and impedimenta? How to part with beloved pieces, part of my life for 40/50 years like the Regency Linen Cupboard or the 1920s lamp table. Eventually, all was solved, mostly given, occasionally sold, generally for ridiculous prices. For example, £60 for the lovely lamp table which I longed to keep!! I would have loved to have given that to someone in my family but failed to find anyone interested! This is almost certainly part of the normal ageing process and one which has to be seized and accomplished like so much else!

Smalley Hall, Derbyshire.

Perhaps my total favourite item of furniture over the years, has been the beloved Hall Porter’s Chair which I 

Forest Farm, Papplewick.

obtained at an auction at Smalley Hall in Derbyshire, soon after I had sold Waingroves Hall near Ripley in Derbyshire in April 1983.. I was temporarily storing my furniture, and staying, in an empty cottage on my sister’s farm, Forest Farm, near Papplewick, between Mansfield and Nottingham, and she and I went to the Smalley Hall two day sale together and had a great time. I know Esme bought at least one carpet and a rug, plus several more items, and I know I saw the hall porter’s chair for the first time and fell for it, knowing nothing about it but loving its appearance. I also bought a small Chinese rug from the servants’ quarters, still in service. Oh, happy times!! I had recently received, unsought, a cheque for £400 from the tax people, which was apparently the unexpected bonus of the recent separation from my husband. I never did understand it all but received it gratefully, £400 being a not inconsiderable sum in 1983! As the chair featured on Day 2 of the sale, this meant I dare not bid for anything else as my bonus £400 could all be needed in the pursuit of the Chair. I did eventually buy it for a total of £440, a small fortune for me then, and only after a bidding tussle with an unseen person, though the Delight in the purchase dominated the day!

Object of desire for almost
40 years.

It now resides in all its natural splendour in my son’s home, its most recent abode!! It was described in the auction booklet thus: 

Victorian oak-framed hall porter’s chair upholstered in green velour, the lofty winged back with arched canopy and scroll arms, on turned supports with brass castors. The estimated price range was £200/£350.

Porters’ chairs originated in 17^th century France, usually made of cane or wicker and known as ‘guerites’ [sentries]. The name suggests a defensive mode though popularly then these chairs were often used for the elderly and infirm to protect them from draughts. The hall porter was an important cog in the machinery of the large and affluent house; he was the gatekeeper, admitting or refusing callers based on his memory for the faces and names of his employer’s acquaintances, and his assessment of the individual caller’s social status and suitability. In an 1857 book, The Household Manager, Charles Pierce wrote:

I think this may resemble 
a guerite, popularly used by
invalids and the elderly in
the 18th century.

“If his master be a rich man, and a charitable one, that master is being for ever applied to by the distressed, the needy and the imposter. … Hence is called into exercise the necessity for the porter’s searching and discriminative eye, and into his scrupulous pause before receiving a letter or answering an enquiry.”

Georgian Hall Porter's Chair
circa 1820.

Entrusted with this crucial role in maintaining the security of the house, the hall porter was expected to man his post at all times, sleeping in his chair after dark and often taking meals there. Some porters’ chairs had drawers beneath the seat where supplies could be kept and occasionally there are examples of lined drawers for hot coals to supply warmth in draughty halls. Most hall porters’ chairs were large and often hooded, to exclude draughts and were incidentally helpful acoustically, slightly amplifying the volume of the voice. But, with progress in other forms of security, the hall porter’s chair was considered old-fashioned by the mid 19^th century and became obsolete by the early 20^th century.

Interestingly, hooded wicker chairs for protection against sun and wind were very popular on
Scheveningen Beach, near The Hague, Netherlands; in fact, between circa 1860 and 1972, these canopied beach chairs were a noted feature of the Scheveningen scene and there is a recent interest locally in reviving the fashion!

Scheveningen beach in Edwardian times.

News from Nowhere

William Morris
1834-1896.

Strawberry Thief.
A William Morris design.

 I wrote the above title without much thought, intending to write a blog on several small items, noticed or experienced by me but chiefly unconnected to each other. It was a title to suggest Odds ‘n’ Sods, already used previously. BUT News From Nowhere is a famous title of a novel written by William Morris, that prolific writer; poet; designer of carpets and cloth; artist looking back nostalgically to the Middle Ages; leader of the Pre-Raphaelites; social reformer with a formidable work ethic and actor. In his relatively short life, 1834-1896, he gathered a huge accumulation of achievements and remains a well-known name today. His designs for furniture, fabrics, stained glass, wallpaper and other decorative arts generated the Arts and Crafts movement in England.

First edition,
News From Nowhere.

His utopian News From Nowhere, published in 1890 as a series, imagines a future in which common ownership and the democratic control of the production of life’s necessities are based in a pastoral paradise where people find pleasure in nature and in their work. The book explores the organisation of society and the relationships that society engenders, tackling a common criticism of socialism, the supposed lack of incentive to work in a communist society. So, my title is borrowed, but not stolen!

'Borrowed' from The New
Statesman, 15-21 July 2022.

My list of sights and sounds, unrelated to each other but catching my attention this week, must begin with the ghastly Conservative Leadership contest which goes on and on, It also happens to be a process to choose the next Prime Minister for the 60 million or so of us uninvolved save for the forced witnessing of the populist theatre being frantically played out by two people [one, able; one, less so] each, no doubt, quietly promising Cabinet seats in the future for public support now. It is not a pretty spectacle nor is it a just and civilised way to choose a country’s leader.

Much more interesting and beautiful is the present state of the Great Churchyard stretching in an abundance of headstones from St Mary’s into the Abbey Gardens. I was astonished yesterday,[3/08/2022] to see that overnight, the tall dead or dying grasses and seed heads wreathing round and hiding the stones, had all disappeared, scythed to the ground by unknown hands to reveal far more headstones than I had thought possible. Dramatic and oddly touching to see so many quiet memorials to past lives. The earliest reference to this same churchyard [once part of the Abbey of St Edmund] is in 1197 when Jocelyn of Brakelond, the great chronicler of the Abbey, commented that wrestling bouts between the Abbey’s servants and the townspeople in the cemetery, led to bloodshed. It is now perpetually serene. On my early morning walks, I often go along an avenue lined with trees leading to the West Front and stopped, months ago, to read one tombstone adjacent to the path and only partially covered by earlier cow parsley. It bears the names and dates of William and Harriet Chapman who lived in

A view of part of the Great Churchyard after 
the great mowing earlier this August week.

Austenian times and seem to me to have had the perfect names for early, early nineteenth century Bury St Edmunds. I nod in recognition and greeting each time I pass!

I live in anticipation of a hosepipe ban in the present drought though perhaps, fear would better describe my feelings. I water with a hosepipe from a water butt; all technically correct in these climate change times BUT the fact is that I now have to stagger out with four bucketsful of water each morning as the original plan to harvest rainwater in my politically and environmentally correct water butt, does not work in a drought. Times are hard and difficult decisions lie ahead; water as usual but at 4.30 a.m. when all neighbours are abed, or let my beautiful plants die.

My water butt which would provide my Green 
credentials were it ever to rain!

Last week I was 88. I knew that the supremely lucky number for the Chinese is 8 so I went online to check, hoping that 88 might mean double the luck. Not for the first time, China disappointed me. 8 remains the luckiest number in Chinese culture, BUT 88 symbolises good fortune and luck. By happenstance, I also discovered an interesting fact should I ever have to appear in a quiz! The 2008 Beijing Olympics opened at 8.00 p.m. on the 8 August [8/08/2008]. I tried to ignore the fact that the Nazi abbreviation for Heil Hitler was 88, H being the eighth letter of the alphabet, and comforted myself with the thought that Hitler lasted less than twenty years while Chinese superstitions span centuries!

Chinese characters for 88.
Regrettably, adorning a baseball cap!!

Part of the terrace. Left, back corner,
gorgeous hydrangea blooms burnt during
the worst heat recently.