La Motte du Caire |
I carry on.
I remember.
28 years later.
This is a personal blog about my family and me. It's to provide recent news to family further afield, and friends - a precursor to social media: FB, Twitter, Instagram
Someone told me to find somewhere more convenient to live. Where? Living in a town is not like living on an estate. For instance, in town, you have to negotiate traffic, find somewhere to park, walk to your house and talk to passing neighbours, whereas on an estate you can easily park in your drive and you can ignore neighbours.
Every year or two we open our gardens, gardens that are hidden havens behind our house. I blogged years ago about about our old town gardens, at Secret gardens opening. We opened again this year and had lots of visitors to contribute to our charities (including Florence Nightingale Hospice). Here's a link to Ron Adams Flickr stream for this year's secret gardens.
Living in the town means I can walk to the library, the bus station, the train station, the churches, the shops, the pubs (and drink without driving), the coffee shops to meet friends every day. The old town residents also get sociable with a wine tasting on the last Monday of the month, a street book club and s. Living here is convenient.
Is public transport worth having? Yes because it can change your life. I'll tell you three stories.
A couple of years ago, I was in Miami on my own for three days. Three days - that far away in frightening Miami on my own till I met up with my family. The first day, I got on a local bus to go down town and explore. Watching the people on the bus, I noticed s an old man who was chatting with someone else on the other side of the bus, and when she got off he came and sat next to me, which was a bit scary. But he told me all about himself, how he'd come years earlier to the States, and he told me where to visit in Miami, recommending buses to take that would take me all round seeing the best bits. So I followed his advice and for the next two days I saw lots of Miami.This Easter I spent sharing with 20 other people, three three-generation families and an old friend I've known since 1976. She and her husband had been joining this annual Easter meet for decades, he being one of the orginal chaps from uni who would arrange to go on walking holidays staying in youth hostels. Two years ago they suggested that we join, realising that my husband and I had so much in common with their friends of fifty years. We could not go two years ago, but I joined them last year, a year after my husband had died.
They're a splendid sociable lot with intelligent conversation that my husband would have enjoyed as much as I do. There's not as much walking as they must have done originally, but they'd do outings that suited the youngest generation, who ranged from five to 19.
One day we went with kids to The Corris Centre where we could see all the craft shops, Arthur's Labyrinth, or spend three hour down a mine, accessing parts with climbing ropes, and a maze (I liked the best)
Another day, the eldest generation visited the Red Kite centre with some enthusiastic photographers snapping the best pictures.
I enjoy people's company, getting to know their lives and interests and worries. I liked all of them from youngest to oldest. What hit me was how much I've moved on from when I joined them last year, cold and lonely and still mourning. This year I'm more settled and happy and warmer - probably helps that I've fitted a new gas fire in our kitchen!
The joys of grandparenting mean I get invited to school nativity plays, ballet performances, concerts and plays. This month was a new one: a vintage & recycled fashion show. It was inspiring. The girls paraded confidently - even my shy g'daughter - displaying their creativity and sewing skills. Several used newspapers - and one had origamied a tutu of a skirt that wrapped round her like a big black and white ball. Another girl had used natural dyes to reuse and old dress, and another had beautiful flowers made of recycled material sewn down the split seam.
One outfit brought back memories when they announced that it was patch work. Yet it was patchwork of a metallic material and I remember patchworks of cotton fabrics. Natural fabrics mattered. We used to use cheese cloth and lots of lace and bought kaftans in Petticoat Lane, London. I've dug out my suitcase from the attic with my favourite 1970 dresses that I couldn't bear to give away or throw out and I shall share them with this grand daughter.
And there's the beautiful blue velvet cocktail dresses with swinging side panels that I inherited from my own aunty who'd worn it in the late 1940s-1950s.