Facebook has embarassed me by reminding me that 2 years ago I promised to be a better communicator and of course  have failed utterly.   But I'm trying again.   I will write something on this everyday, even if nothing has happened.  Most days I go for a walk and most days I take my phone with me and photograph interesting things to share with you- but then google photos eat up my pictures they by pass my computer (in the old days I would back up everyday and I knew exactly how to get to everything instantly) and I have lost the easy incentive to share with you.

​Anyway I've just found that google photos can interact with weebly so I'll try it now  ​Ben and Kate  Well I think the link worked but I wanted it to display as a picture.  Hector or  Sarah and friend.  Below is an image actually on my computer, I have unearthed a tin trunk full of old letters mostly written by my parents.   But this was writtin by my great uncle to my grandfather in 1904.  There are 5 other pages.  I will doodle here frequently now.  It is a way of keeping in touch with Hannah especially and also with anyone who cares enough to read it.  I have such a good family and many good friends.  I want to keep in touch.

Well we all know that the worst happened.  But Hillary actually got more votes than the man.  Can you imagine if the situation was reversed- wouldn't he be huffing about crooked hillary and rigged elections, saying he should have won as more people voted for him.   Like eveyone else I'm sick of it, miserable, what havoc he will wreak throughout the world.    Now I can't bear to see the endless repetition in the papers  and on the TV and radio with his smiling family and gracious words .  I've never, never, seen any public figure who is so crass and rude and  generally awful.   And we have to live with him for 4 years at least,   Let's hope the white undeducated men learn that he is total bullshit.

 A non day, everything is suspended waiting for tomorrow.  I am sitting at my desk and going through papers for a meeting tomorrow, wondering if the whole world will change before it starts.  I'm sorting out my desk but not organised enough to buy dollars or buy or sell US shares or anything. (Cara and Matt have bet on Trump winning as consolation if he does).
Listened to Bob Dylan's first album this morning, he only wrote one or two of the songs on it but it clearly shows where he's come from and going to.   I was alone in the house and was able to rage through the downstairs rooms while he was singing House of the Rising Sun singing along  with the words and the intonation.  A great great song, I was very angry when the Animals appropriated it, didn't think anyone could improve on Dylan's version.  Listening to that music opened up my teenage sensibility which of course is still lurking under decades of overgrowth.  Memo to grandchildren, relish and enjoy your feelings, they are as real and valid as they get and will underscore whatever later happens in your life.
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I'm spending the afternoon with Kathleen Ferrier, amazingly my non musical father introduced me to her.  So sad she died so young.

Three score years and ten.  Everything from now on is an extra and needs celebrating.  Had a brilliant feast yesterday and was overwhelmed with the joys of having such a pleasant family and friends.  We (Sharon Cara and Katherine with Reuben) went to Westonbirt for an autumnal walk in the morning and while we were out Matt set up my present- a Sonos system in three rooms while Dudley set up glasses of champagne and things for tea.  I hadn't even thought of getting a present, was too overwhelmed by the horribleness of becoming 70 but when they jointly presented me with three different speakers I realised that they all knew better than I did that one of the things I totally love in life is music and that with the departure of the HiFi (what's that?  Hector said) had lost the system I used to enjoy.  We still have the albums, 1000 of them, and the CDs, but what a pain it was putting them on and changing them  - and the wires everywhere.   And anyway Spotify is so superior.   Anyway now I can have whatever music or radio I want in three rooms separately or together whenever I want and Dudley can independedly control it is he needs to.  I love it.

So thank you Cara and Matt and Reuben and Ben and Kate and Katy and Jimmy and Dudley and Sharon and Clive and Piers and Sarah and Hector and Toby and Hannah and Erez and Gabe and Daniel and Giddy for your excellent conspiracy. And thank you to Marylin for the cake (and much more).  And thank you to Marilyn and Ruth and Judy and Wanda and Yvonne and Pat my old school friends who are much much better than I am at keeping in touch. And thank you to the people who have given good wishes on Facebook; I have loads against FB (mainly for the ads for stairlifts and funeral plans and the like) but it does link you to people who you like but wouldn't otherwise be able to stay connected with but who are valuable  and interesting in your life.

So my old age resolution is to start up the watervole blog again for anyone who cares to share it.  I want to celebrate the good things in life.   Hopefully that will include a Trump defeat tomorrow.


Here is Reuben at Westonbirt.

And here we were at the Old Bell for Lunch
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Have been meaning for weeks to recreate this blog.  Doing it today.

Last week we went to Palma and I lost myself-- that is to say I lost my passport, phone  password book and debit card.  Was immediately reduced to dependency, fortunately with others to depend on.

Now I'm reorganising my life.  End of the financial year, end, as it turns out, of paid employment.  New Passport, new passwords, new filing system, new phone (actually old phone for the minute).  New way of looking at life.

Need to plan what to do now.   Any suggestion?

The heading has very little relevance but it's what's on my mind- in the oven, cooking, using last years apples and the lanes's blackberries to make a crumble contiribution to lunch in Malmesbury with children, grandchilren and Larry and Diane.

Still experienceing what it is like to be ill rather than just a person. Reducing the steroids, another 6 days before totally weaned, and while I take them odd things happen to me.  Can't wait to be off them.  

Friends have phoned up-- they have shared expeirneces about MRIs (yes it really is hideously noisy.  Why is that?  and steroids and only having one eye.  There are 4 of us at the Bridge club= maybe we should start our own team of 4 called 4 eyes..  


The best thing is that Spring is actually happening.  January is always a dreadful month and Februrary not much better.  There are snow drops everywhere and celandine too.   

The thing I want to share is the way to deal with being imrisoned in your body in an MRI or while having a brain biopsy.   I didn;t invent it-one of my telephone friemds said the same thing.   For my first half hour experience I remembered every bedroom I'd ever slept in- from Basque House, to Great Coxwell, to York, New York, Bourton, Tilton and Malmesbury.  It was wonderful.  You remember the bed, the bedding the position of the furniture, the curtains, and inevitably the experiences around it.  You have all these things locked up in your head waiting to be pulled out.

For my second imprisonment in the MRI I went for walk on the Downs.  I started climbing up Dragon Hill, then ran, slipped down into the manger, climbed up again, walkedup the rpoad, round the track (locked in the 1950) to the Castle and the long bouncy grass and the OS pyramid thing.  Then down along the Whie Horse back to Dragon Hill.   Later I walked up Great Coxwell and went into every single house.  I remembered and thought about people and places and events as they were 50-60 years ago-  again, all filed away in my head.     Completely absorbing.

We have been in this house for 18 years.  The cooker, washing maching and dryer are that old.  One oven in the cooker stopped working two weeks ago.    The washing machine refused to empty at about the same time.   And my right eye packed up as well.

We sort these things out one at a time.  Do we need two ovens?  Shall we spend £200 on a repair or £1000 on a new machine?  I'm in no hurry.   One oven is enough, something might happen.    The washing machine is different though.  I research the world of washing machines and discover that my top-of-the range machine is not only smelly, blocked up, and  stained but it uses too much energy, can't wash pillows doesn't do a 15 minute speedwash.  I can repair it for £80 or get a new one for £300.  
Then my eye.  Do I need 2 eyes?  can I get by on one- is there are repair or replacement?  No replacement posssible, repair a remore posssibility.  Do I sit back and wait or do I call for assistance.

I order a new washing machine and I report myself to the eye hospital.  The people there repeat the information given to me before but attempt emergency treatment.  While I sit in the ward ingesting massive amounts of prednisolone I chat to the people around me, they are all much, much, worse off than I am.  I have cruised through 68 years of healthy life thinking that health is my right since I eat a good diet and exercise more than most.   But there's a lot of luck about it.    Things will wear out and must be managed.   Some can be replaced, some can't.

I came home from the hospital at the same time that the washing machine was being delivered.   It's quiet and quick and quite wonderful and I am enjoying refreshing pillows, and fleeces as well as efficiently dealing will different everyday loads.  

The hospital has tested everything about me (except an MRI, due in a few days) I have had blood tests, a biopsy, hearing tests, visual fields tests, colour tests, urine tests, reflex tests.  I have raised chloresterol, My contemporaries have diabetes, heart condiditons, wonky knees, blood pressure, glaucoma.  It happens.  We deal with it.  

Dudley went on a help line for the oven and managed to get it going again.  We'll ignore the part about the griddle shorting the electricity.  Who needs a griddle anyway?

My consultant in now reducing the steroids as fast as posssible-   they're horrible though powerful things which reduce your immune system make you liable to all kinds of horrors.  I shall be off theim entirely by 20th February.  Until then I shall stay at home keeping warm and having a lovely cuddly holiday.  My GP will prescribe statins, I shall resume exercise and a healthy diet now  and after statins  start on work and bridge club and grandchildren support.

Who needs two eyes anyway?   We have to manage on what we have.   My new washing machine is wonderful and so too are all the lovely young people you see everywhere.  They can make love, run marathons, change the world.   Make the best of what you have.  The cooker and I are quite happy to carry on the best we can too.  I'm making an Irish Stew for supper with the grandchildren this evening.  They will be sleeping in beds with clean freshly laundered sheets.   Life is good.  

Nothing in my right eye now-   well the invisible outline of a window or tv.  I remember a week ago I told Ben I could only see the small round mirror in the bathroom, now that would be a lovely luxury.

Still have none of the other symptoms, no raging headaches, my hearing went of for a couple of days but it became better yesterday.  I walked 10000 steps yesterday and felt great.

Sarah had her bunion done yesterday, D took her to Westbury and brought her home again.  She now has to spend 6 lazy weeks on the sofa while it gets better.

I have indefinitly postponed all my school governor stuff, missed a WWT finance meeting on Tuesday (but managed to chair a WWCE one).   Resigned from organising Schools Week for the MRVT.  Tomorrow we are going to London to see the family there.

We finally raised £2.9M  which is a great sucess.

One of the things that will be irreplaceable if I lose the other eye too will be playing with Reuben.  Must make sure it stops at one.  But the extraordinary thing is no one seems to suggest anything which might stop or reverse it.  No treatment, no drugs, my next appointment is 9th Feb.  They are eliminating things.

Three visits to the hospital, 2 to the doctor, 2 full days work  and two meetings.   Managing to survive, better to be busy than to worry.    D is being brilliant in supporting my various cries for help.  The best time of the day is early evening, I have a large anethetising ginger wine and brandy and D cooks supper.  Today we are about to go to the bridge club annual Christmas dinner.  After that we'll come home and eat the last piece of Christmas cake and then will declare Christmas to be fully and finally over.

I have loads of fears about my health but have been reassured now by three different doctors that I have none of the additional symptoms of a brain tumour!.  So now I'm settling down to working out how to manage my life if my other eye goes too.   The priorities are a dog and a radio that responds to voice control.   It won't happen though.  Mu left eye is oerfect and both Sarah's parents only have one eye.

Meanwhile we have raised more than the £2.7m so our solar project is assured.  I am amazed that so many people have apparently rushed to get government bonds which guarantee 4% if you keep it in for 4 years.  We are offering 7%.    

Fulfilling D's life time ambition to visit Whitby  It seems very pleasant, we arrived after nightfall and strolled around the harbour to choose a pub to eat and drink in.  
Staying in an over decorated B&B with frills and flounces but no desk to sit a netbook at, no place to put a suitcase.  We have satellite tv with 1000 channels but it takes ages to change from one of the 15 BBC1 channels to an ITV one.  The bed is a four poster.  I suspect the landlord has a fantasy {cetrtainly in our case) that  he is providing a sexual haven with an easy opportunity for bondage and porn.   I would have prefered more than 4 tiny sachets of milk so we could have more than two cups of tea.

My eyesight is getting worse,  i have only 1/8 vision in my right eye now,  We went back to the clinic to confirm that it.'not the bad kind, i have an appointment there in in a week and in neurology in 10 days.  

I woke up on Friday with fireworks in my right eye.  Then I saw, or didn't see, that I couldn't see much out of the right side of my right eye.   I ignored it, got up and went to work.

It became clear (or unclear) during the day that something was very odd with my sight. When I came home I decided to call the doctor to make an appointment (do you go to the doctor or the optician to seek advice?) It was too late for that day but the receptionist told me is would be treated urgently and I should go to my optician the next morning, who would also treat it urgently.
In the morning I called them.  Again I was told it was urgent, but this time the receptionist told me to go straight to A&E as they would only refer me there anyway.  She wished me luck.
I didn't like to do that, all the publicity we've had since Christmas about overcrowded A&Es and people who really ought to go to GPs.  But I called them, they said, yes come on in, and no actually they were fairly quiet.

So D drove me to Swindon.  It was very calm and peaceful and after being seen by a triage nurse we waited 20 minutes or so for the on duty doctor (who couldn't see anything) who referred me to the eye clinic which fortunately they hold on Saturday mornings.

Another wait of half an hour or so (there were only  two other patients in the large waiting area.  The magazines were awful- all celebrity stuff and woman's weekly, and i didn't have the heart to read the large print leaflets about cataracts, retinal tears and macular degeneration)- And I looked at the list of 10 doctors and consultatnts posted on the wall-  only one of the names was English, and the man who finally looked at me was probably Iranian or Syrian- thank god we have these immigrants)

Then he saw me, looked throroughly at everything through different machines and then told me "you have anterior optic neuropathy".    I had a blood test, also classified as urgent, to make sure it wasn't the worse kind and he said he'd phone me with the results.

Which he hasn't, so I assume it's not the worst kind.

At home I looked it all up, god bless google.  The worse kind means I might go completely and irrevocably blind within a few days.  There are some drugs which might help

The kind I presumably have means I have lost the vision in the right side of my right eye and it may improve a little or it may get a litte worse.  There's no established treatment.  It's caused by a blookage of a blood vessel suppplying the eye.  (even more worryingly described as an ischaemic (?)  stroke)

I'm pretty depressed about it, but life goes on.   I can do everything I normally do , it's just as if I have dirty glasses, or hair or a hat low on the right side of my face.    I expect I'll get used to it in a few days.

This morning it's a bit worse.   I think I only have 1/3 vision left in my right eye.  

Saw a little munjack deer today, 30 feet away from me and it didn't move at all.  I wanted to tame it, remembering the Little Prince "apprivoise-moi!   But realisied it was totally impractical.  Even if it came to live in our garden it would eat all our plants and Ginger would harrass it.   And then I wondered if it would be caught one day, like our chickens, by a fox.   Nothing I could do but shrug my shoulders and walk on.   The same reaction I have really to the suffering refugees in Syria, Lebanon etc, and the plight of the poor in Liberia and East Africa.   Home to a warm house, snuggle down with w ginger wine to cosy pizza and a night's tv while knitting blankets for unknown grandchildren.    Life isn't fair.

I put the heading working but I'm not.  I'm playing with websites (learning the huge limitations of Weebly and wondering if I should go back to a coding programme).  Haven't even started my tax return.  Actually my life obsession is my Fitbit band.   I have managed to walk 10000 steps every day since I've had it and now realise I spend about 6.5 hours asleep each day.  Cara, in her blog talks about meditation and stuff and someone with an indian name beginning with V.  I think I do what she describes as meditation when I walk, - and when I get stung my nettles or catch myself on a thorn I just wait for the pain to go, I don't turn on received techniques of pain management.   (I can only say these things because no one reads this)

Yesterday, no the day before yesterday, I took Cara and Reuben to Heathrow Terminal 3 to see them off to Costa Rica.  Two days before I took Hannah Gabriel Daniel and Gideon to the same Terminal, to go to New York.

Terminal:-- that a little what its like.  On the journey up we are full of conversation and events and struggles and food and sharing the singing and complaints and queries.  The we get there and whoosh, they are gone, you are alone, their life is entirely apart from yours, they continue without you, as they will.

At home it's quiet and peaceful and not boring because there are lots of things to do, but it's different and you wonder if the previous days ever even happened.

Years ago when we first had Skype I was babysitting for little Hector and Toby while Katy and Ben were at home with Dudley.   I skyped to see how it worked and we chatted for a minute or two then they wandered off to do other things.  I was left in a silent room watching the room in our house.  I could hear them talking and laughing.  Once in a while they came into the room to collect something.   I felt like a ghost in their house, knowing they were there, watching them, listening to them but completely unable to participate.  

I would share some photos but my phone no longer automatically syncs w my pc.  Why not?  I shall google an answer but is there anyone out there who knows?   Is there anyone out there?  Am I the ghost in my machine too?

Yesterday there were 6 boys here, ranging from Gideon the Explorer aged 15 months to Helpful Hector, aged 13 years.  Hannah and her sons were here since 20th December and the days have flashed by in a incoherent rush of disorder, noise, food, presents giggles fights, weeping and embraces.  It was exhausting.    After brunch (the boys ate 40 sausages,10 eggs, 12 croissants) we went for an walk in the sunshine across fields, up banks and along the river.

While I was taking Hannah and her sons to the airport (and Dudley was bringing a forgotten phone out to meet us) PSHT tidied up the house.  What a gift!   What a stupendously sensitive gesture of support!  For the first time in 10 days we could see the floor and the sofas.

Today it is super quiet and a day for wrapping up end of year processes and stretching out to the new year.  Our fridge is still stuffed.  I have made a huge turkey soup.  The birds- moorhens, magpies, crows, blackbirds, thrushes and a robin- have eaten up the left over pasta, garlic bread and baked potatoes.  Dudley has taken bottle and cans and cardboard to the recycling.

I have resolved to start watervole up again for anyone who cares.    I also will redo the bridge club website, fil lin my tax return and set about helping to raise the remaining £400K we need for our new solar farm.

Hannah just facebooked, they are all home and up at 7am their time.  While they were showing on my phone Cara and Reuben came in and Reben gazed in amazement at Daniel- here yesterday, a picture on the phone today.  Tomorrow C&R are flying to Costa Rica, I shall have no one to play with for a month.

All my life I have felt guilty about not doing something-- a letter or document to write, a task to do, homework not done.  I'm just wondering if being retired means not having to feel guilty and just doing the things you want to do.  Today I'm really happy looking in the Toll House, finding things I'd forgotten I have, rearranging things in the house, sorting our things to sell/give away/ recycle.  At the back of my mind is the propect of visitors, shared meals, prepared beds, generally good times with friends and family.   It's complete contentment.  Shall I give up all committments?   Am I ready for retirement (and accompanying, well not poverty but less affluence)?   Maybe I am.   

(This was written ages ago and saved as a draft.  Was it last November?))

It wasn't.  Not here anyway.  Piers  (in Denmark) and Cara (London) have posted pictures of falling/fallen trees and Sharon in Suffolk  can't play scrabble with me because she has no electricity, but we just have a stormy grey day.  There was more than two inches of rain in the night- the wagon in the garden filled up, but no dramas, nothing to be a-feared of- very disappointing.

Went to Weymouth last week, started to photograph beautiful seaside landscape but instead became obsessed with negative notices and signs.     Here are a few. 

We've been in Turkey for 5 days and it's been good. Our coach load of people are a fairly similar band of newly retired people interested in seeing antiquities on the cheap.

Well we're not all newly retired. One of us is 97. Her name is Mary and she lives in Bath. She is tiny, wears tight pink trousers and has a sharp sense of humour. This is is her first organised trip, before she has always had travelling companions but her latest has died. "I am looking", she said, "for an old gentleman with a motor caravan". Meanwhile she's with us.

Turkey is full of antiquity and the natives are friendly and have a good sense of humour. Why didn't we disscover it before?   Our education was so based on a Greco-roman heritage and we were ignorant of the wider (and earlier) influences. I shall rabbit on about this continuously, be prepared

Decorations down. Parents back. Games over. Real life starting up again.

Today I went to Cattle Country with H&T.  I have agreed to pay T a fee for creating his own blog this year.   He has chosen the name Mr Piggy- i think it is something to do with the skylander lego things, I mean minecraft, no doubt he will explain in due course.  We got very muddy at Cattle Country and i now have to remove all evidence from their clothes before returning the boys to thei parents tomorrow.

Our Christmas tree is down, this was a last picture before it went.  Happy New Year

Horrible weather.  Heating and fire on and a computer to clean up.  This is the first time D and I have been alone in the house since Christmas Eve.  Time to get our heads back together.
Nigella Lawson is on the tv in an old programme.  What utter rot, how fake the whole thing is- a familiar, easy, household goddess matey style.  Abundantly clear that the thing is staged and contrived and she's in it for the money, and what money.

Anyone of us could make these cosy comments,  "I sometimes use garlic mayonnaise but find it has a heavy flavou!.... "why not freeze the leftovers for ready meals when a friend drops in or the children are late home from school......."    "for me the evening meal is incredibly important, not just because I'm hungry but because its a time of being together"   

We no longer worship gods but instead we worship celebrities.  

380 horses just galloped past our house.

This is my second meeting today. I'm now not following a 24 slide presentation on impact. (It used to be called outcomes). I'm so glad I don't have to be immersed in this anymore. What a waste of time. Message: prove what you're doing is useful. That's all you need to know.

Correction. Impact is outcomes +. See helpful slide below.

....I'd rather be playing with Reuben.