The last party

In the morning, I had an unusual message to contact the surgery. There, they said the hospital had contacted them to get my last blood tests repeated, but the receptionist couldn't tell me the results. I don't know if the earlier results were bad, or if the hospital had merely lost them, but WSH does have form on losing results.

This week, Ann had had a letter from her estranged sister Jane, agreeing they should not contact each other, and ending with a mournful lament that she would not see her sister again "in this life". Then another Jane, Matthew's ex, texted to ask for our address to send a Christmas card, adding that "this would be the last one", as it was best they didn't keep in contact now. Is the name Jane jinxed? There seems to be something about it that is determined to have nothing to do with us.

A long farewell to Pilot

Back home, Pilot our guinea pig, who is quite old, has looked to be dying all week, not emerging from his bolt hole nor eating his food. We cleaned his bedding, gave him big cuddles, and some tempting titbits, and today he seems more perky, but we feel he can't have many weeks left. Ann looked up information about dying guinea pigs, and discovered that when they are old, they may take weeks to die, with periods of inactivity punctuated by a sudden revival of interest in the trough. Very similar to old men dying then. Pilot is the first thing our dog Byron runs to each morning, and he always sits by the cage as though guarding him. He is going to miss him so much, we feel we may need to buy another one just for the dog!

neighbours

Once a year
we'd exchange Christmas cheer
most other days
we did not know or care
what neighbours did
or how they were.
Now we are aged
weary of limb
struck by weakened flesh
cancer
stroke
widow-making death
and sit consoling
laughing as though untouched
by cruel wrinkled life
neighbours together
squeezing out pleasure
some partnerless
some burnt with radiation
one wheeled in adult pram
incontinent and weeping
with eyes that remembered
how legs and arms once listened
and were glad to do his bidding
We drank in sympathy
with quiet desolation
a requiem for lost health
and neighbourly consolation.

Annie Elliott 

We threw a Christmas party last night - a simple wine and cheese evening as befits a Hundon party, for a few friends and neighbours. It was a party for oldies, for none of the children came, and almost everyone had suffered some form of loss or stress in the preceding year. Our next door neighbour came in a wheelchair following his stroke; the neighbour across the road was widowed earlier in the year, and brought another guest who had lost her husband nine months earlier, some of us had dealt with cancer, or advanced renal failure; others had stressful problems within the family circle. But somehow, all this did was to remind each of us how vulnerable life is, and seemed to drive us all to really let go and seize the moments. There was a lot of humour and good banter, backed by solid drinking, but even the few who took only fruit juice seemed to relax and enjoy time away from the problems. Ironically, the couple who were most staid were Paul and Cherry, a pair who'd recently moved to the area, and had no evident problems with health or family. They did not drink much, and left early because he had to visit his 100 year-old mother in the morning, but not withstanding which it was one of our better parties. However, it was hard work and exhausting, even though everyone had left by midnight, and it may be the last one we have.

The boys go partying

In complete contrast, Edwin and his partner went to a firm's Christmas party tonight in one of the Cambridge colleges. It was a fully formal affair, with food and booze laid on and, unlike ours, full of youngsters just beginning to make their way in the world and full of plans and ambition for the future. In contrast, for all its bluster, our party was filled with old people awaiting death. We all know it must come soon, on the timescale of years already run, yet everyone in the room - with the exception of David after his stroke - is capable of work of some type, no one has to use a stick to stand, and all are highly experienced in their diverse fields, but I am the only one still working. There is a lack of hope for the future, and the only forward ambition seems to be of downsizing. I'm not sure when the boys' party ended, but I wager it was a bit past midnight.

Finding joy in variety

Edwin and partner ready for Christmas

Zambia is in the news today after a court jailed two men for 15 years on a charge of homosexuality. News also that forty-seven men are in court charged with homosexuality in Nigeria, where Northern states under Sharia, the Islamic religious law, have the death penalty for people convicted of same-sex offences and other states carry a 14-year jail term. Altogether, the British Commonwealth of Nations has 53 countries, of which 37 criminalize same sex relationships. This was indeed the position of the UK when I was a child, and right through my early years in London, for it was not legalized here until 1967. In the USA, it remained a criminal act until 1991. I was brought up to consider it repulsive as well as criminal behaviour, and it has been hard to change my views. When Edwin told us he was gay, I was stunned for it went against my whole upbringing, but seeing him with his partner has opened my heart and my mind. They had spent the weekend at our home while we were up north, and were still there on our return, dressed in their Chrismas jerseys. They are so happy together, and clearly such close companions, it is a joy to see them. His partner is so bright, and can out-talk even Edwin, for it needs someone of great intellect to match his wit and loquaciousness. He is thoughtful and entertaining, and it is a pleasure to welcome him as a potential new son-in-law.

Impossible

I am older now
wiser, for sure,
and more and more
I realise how tortured
most of us are
as we try to reach
the dizzy heights
that are coldly set
not by our loving God
but by our fellow men.

Annie Elliott 

Knowing how far I and English law have come, from complete repression to active acceptance, one realises how far much of the rest of the world has yet to travel in terms of compassion, and one can't help but feel that all the petty protesters who gather for what seem like trivial "hate crimes", and vent their ire in vicious tweets, should focus the power of their anger against repression in other countries. Perhaps then the nations could move towards accepting neighbours as people of worth, and value their differences rather than fight to kill them. The Live and Let Live is a small pub in Cambridge, but its name should be a beacon for life.

Working at my desk I was greeted by a brilliant threatening sky, glowing bright carnadine in the early light over a heavy frost that lingered all day. There was no storm, but a bright cold day, and it was pleasant to stomp out on crisp white grass to walk the dogs. The climate of England is as varied as its people, and we are lucky to meet so much variety in one small region of the world.

Winter sunrise over Hundon

The Great X feeds her foxes

I say goodbye to the old car

I picked up our new car on Thursday. The salesman was showing us the new car when I made a silly error - blurting out to him that unfortunately I had forgoten to put the parcel shelf back in the old car when I took it in for part-exchange. He had not noticed till them, but it came out too quickly for Ann to kick me, so we ended up having to travel north via Milton Keynes again on Friday to drop it off.

On Saturday we met up with Lucy and her gang, before going on for lunch in the village of Hart. We had just ordered drinks to celebrate our grandson's thirteenth birthday when the Great X came in to join us, accompanied by Lucy's brother Ben and his partner Caz, to everyone's surprise: they had travelled up from Telford the night before, and no one but the Great X knew they were coming, although Ann with her second sight seemed to have a fair idea. I then made a pig of myself trying to eat a huge dish of heavy, stodgy mushroom risotto, while everyone else had just a light sandwich. Ann thought the cook must have opened a tin of Ambrosia cream rice and tipped some chopped up mushrooms into it, it was so creamy and thick.  But all that afternoon I had a bad stomach, and could eat nothing else all day, even at the evening meal to which we were all treated by Lucy and Andy. This was held in the Great X's house, which she had decorated with banners and balloons, going to great lengths to make the day special. The only negative was an absence: Uncle Dan could not be bothered to turn up for his nephew's 13th birthday, even though he was staying at his holiday home just a few miles away. His hatred is so great he cannot bear to be in a room with me; anyone else would just appear but ignore me (and there have been plenty of such people!) He does not appreciate the hurt he causes in a family, to his mother, sister, brother, niece and nephew, through total ignorance and burning hatred. Despite this, everyone enjoyed the raucous get-together and reminiscing about their childhood together

The Raby Arms, Hart Village

The Great X is visited by a number of urban foxes, which she describes as being emaciated and starving, because humans are encroaching on their habitat. She is therefore in the habit of saving scraps for them, to help their fight for survival and to encourage them to rear their cubs. Tonight, she saved all the bits of curried chicken left over from the Indian takeaway to throw out for her foxes. She also has a cat which is old, and has grown very fat, so fat indeed that Ben wondered if she had got a new cat, before he realised that the cat was sneaking out and eating all the chicken. It did explain why her foxes always look so thin and ravenous.

Contracts made and broken

Charlie, the salesman at Marshalls who drove to Lincoln to bring back a car without telling us, phoned again this morning, again to see if there was any chance of us being interested. This time he told us, the guy who had paid a deposit on a car we liked even while we were test-driving it, had dropped out. It seems he couldn't get finance for the deal, so from none, Marshalls now have two cars that might have been suitable. No wonder Charlie was keen to get us to walk away from the one we've signed up to.

Otherwise, it's been a quiet day. Just the agency I work for who rang to say, "you know that three-month extension you've agreed to and signed the contract for? Well, the company now say they only have funding for two months." So they're sending a new contract. I can understand one individual dreaming of a new car beyond his means, to be brought down to reality by a harsh bank, but it seems that even large multinational companies employing tens of thousands of people worldwide can't work out their finances two months in advance! Perhaps I should have waited before I splashed out on a new(er) car after all - but I trusted them to honour a signed contract.

The trials of buying a car

Saturday was our granddaughter's 13th birthday. We toasted her with bubbly, and sang happy birthday as the cake was brought in. Sam then produced a super roman candle to celebrate, put it in the cake, and spent half-a-dozen matches trying to light the thing, before the children pointed out he'd pushed it in upside down. Finally it went off with a brilliant fizz of sparks, and she was truly 13.

The new car waits in the rain

Yesterday we continued our search for a car with a return visit to Marshalls of Cambridge, but could find nothing we liked. They showed us details of another car that looked perfect, but it was in Lincoln and they would only bring it down for us to view if we paid a deposit of £1000, which we declined. We then went on to Milton Keynes which had a better selection and agreed to buy one.  We stopped at St. Neots for dinner, only to find the pub we usually use had a notice in the door stating it would be closed from 5.30pm at night until the next morning. They must have seen us coming, but we got something in the pub next door.

Ann waves to her fans

We had the dogs with us, so I walked them round the carpark while Ann looked for a shop to get them some nibbles. I got back to the car and watched as Ann walked back towards me. Suddenly she stopped and started waving like crazy to a man on the pavement across the street. He had a camera and started taking photos of her, and she continued waving until she abruptly saw me and stopped in shock - she had thought the guy over the road was me, and said "he had two dogs with him, and I was so pleased when I thought you were photographing me."  We left quickly, and agreed it was as well we were changing the car before we went back there.

We finally got back late in the evening to find a recorded message from the salesman saying, because the company would not authorise bringing the other car down from Lincoln, he had driven up of his own initiative to bring it down for us! I felt badly about it, but he didn't tell us he was going to go, so I had to phone him and say we'd got one now.

It's time to change

I am not an elegant eater. In fact, I'm a bit of a slob. Whatever and wherever I eat, the food seems to wander in directions other than where it's aimed. I attempted a scientific analysis of this strange effect, but the answer was too simple: I do not concentrate. I eat whilst reading the newspaper or watching television. I have dinner in my chair reading a book, and food falls from my fork. I was reminded of how bad I am when the dog began licking my jersey; it is time to put it in the wash and rethink my strategy at the trough.

My car has now travelled near on 90,000 miles. It is not old, but well-used and developing the clunks and squeaks of an old man's joints, so I suspect the suspension is protesting at our Suffolk lanes. Ann says it's the rough way I drive, but it's not – it's the rotten roads and potholes.

My XF navigates the Suffolk Lanes

Either way, yesterday we visited Marshalls in Cambridge to look at a replacement. The salesman had only been there for three days, so Ann knew far more than he about the cars; but he made up for it with knowledge about how to hold a customer all afternoon so they can't go and look at any other showrooms. We were there so long it had grown dark, and Edwin and his partner came to join us to see the cars. They had only just returned from Sheffield where Edwin had delivered a paper to the Brontë society. In the end, we came down to one model that we liked; we were on the test drive, and the salesman said three people had already test-driven it, so it was in demand. We thought, "Oh yes, typical sales pressure," only for the manager to come through and say they'd now sold it while we were out on the test drive! Then, to our surprise, Edwin invited us to eat with them, and – unbelievably – Andre offered to treat us! We ended up having a wonderful Thai meal in some hidden back-street pub they knew. But even there, eating with great care, I saw bits of noodle had somehow littered the chair under me and the floor round my space when I left.

Last night, I dreamt of Judah. His face was clear, and he invited me to join him in a room full of people. He was a friend of mine from 30+ years ago, until his wife threw him out. He then lived in a one-room rented flat somewhere in the back-end of Middlesbrough, where he went into a decline and was found dead in his bath. To my shame I never made the effort to find out where he lived or visited him. I ended up as a pallbearer at his funeral. There were six of us, for he was a big man, and we struggled under the weight of his coffin with the undertaker fussing around as we shuffled along, nervous that we might drop it and telling us not to hold the handles – they were only cheap plastic for decorative effect. I believe in a universal spirituality, where our souls merge with the Universe after death, but I don't accept the literal interpretation that we all meet up in a great heavenly party. So thank you Judah – but I don't want to join you just yet.

Ann loves to play tricks on me. Once, she hid under my desk for ages until I came in, just so she could jump out at me and make me jump, as she knows I always do. Sometimes she hides things so I think I'm losing my memory. Yesterday she hid one of my slippers, to see me search for it. Today, she had hidden a pair of frilly panties in the sleeve of my jersey. The annoying thing is, I can never catch her out – she see's my tricks coming before I've finished thinking about them.

On hypertension and strokes

Looking through my window I see over next door's garden their washing line again hanging with sheets and underwear, and I know without seeing him our neighbour has returned home. He was admitted to hospital in a dramatic ambulance call following a second stroke. Happily, it was not a full stroke, but some form of secondary seizure, from which he has recovered, but it must be a warning that he remains at risk of further damage. His wife had just bought a specially adapted car, with the front passenger seat removed and a rear ramp up which she can push the wheelchair, so he can sit in state beside her.

Ann is planning a wine and cheese evening, and we are discussing whom to invite. Some years ago, our parties were lively affairs, for we were younger with more energy, there would always be children, and we could fill the house with relatives and friends, often in fancy dress. Now no children come, and we are all old and sober. More distant relatives don't travel far, or are no longer on speaking terms. Many neighbours have moved or died and we are debating about inviting new ones whom we don't know, or our immediate neighbour who may not be able to come in his wheelchair. The music now is Alexa, commanded to play 60's music, but nobody dances. However, our friends are good friends, and these get-togethers are a great chance to meet, for there are few casual or chance meetings, and we always have plenty to chat about.

My blood pressure has been consistently alarming recently. We only have four houses on our road, in three of which the man has suffered a stroke. I do not want to be the fourth, so yesterday, I saw Dr Bone who reminded me of my own abrupt manner as a young GP. Asking what he could do for me, I said "I've got blood pressure". "Yes," he said, "everyone has." He then looked at my charts over the past few weeks. "It's going up and down more often than a newly-wed's nightie," he concluded, but this is modern PC; we used to say, "Like a prostitute's panties." Like all doctors these days, there was no examination. They seem to rely completely on the hospital reports. We had only the skills we were taught; but no one seems to listen to the heart anymore, or check the ankles for oedema, or the pulse for character. Even the respiratory consultant didn't listen to my chest. Dr Bone did however review my prescription, and suggested some increases to the doses, so hopefully we can hold sudden death at bay for a little while longer.