A month of life, started with death, continuing with birth

We celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary this month. Both having been widowed, we have more than 50 years of wedded life between us, which is something to celebate. We cherish each other and subscribe to the "till death us do part" bit. 

Death came to his brother at the end of June, and his funeral is now, three weeks later. Funerals are family events. The first funeral I went to was my grandmother's in 1973. As her coffin was lowered into the grave, I choked. Remembering how hard I found that, when I came to another funeral in the 1980s, a lad of about 18 years old, killed in a glider collision during a competition, I stood well back from the main funeral party. I watched his family go to the grave, his parents, and his sister, the only sibling, who would never have nephews and nieces. 

I've been to other funerals since: my late husband, my cousin, parents, aunts and uncles. Today, was the funeral of someone of another of my now older generation. At the meal after, they had a photo album of his life, as a toddler with his mother, as a young man with both his parents, as a university student with his brother, his wedding day, his own little boy, now a grown man who wrote his eulogy.

Yet two days ago a child was born into our family. That day was I showed his toddler brother photos of when their father was a toddler, and his baby sister was born.  Life goes on. 

House upheaval

Nearly degutted kitchen

Last week was traumatic. Not only did I have operations on both eyes because of retinal tears, but the builders arrived to gut our kitchen in preparation for our new one.
This meant moving contents of kitchen cupboards into... somewhere else. So now we ask, "where did we put them?" "I was looking for a bit of mustard..." "Do you know where I can find a tea towel?" "Where are the sprinkly things?" (aka spices).
Poor husband was traumatised by this chaos. He'd planned to bake a cake on the Friday before his train Risex exhibition, but with two builders, two plumbers and an electrician wandering about the kitchen, noise from drills or saws, old plaster and paint falling off the ceiling, no cupboards, water or electricity sometimes going off, dust sheets or dust over everything, and where are the scales? Er? no! No cake this year.
I hope the Risex visitors aren't traumatised by lack of cake.

Some contents of some cupboards

Memories of music: the Hallelujah chorus

The Hallelujah chorus comes from Handel's Messiah. My dead husband introduced me to this music when he used to sit of an evening on our brown sofa, his one long leg resting on the other, his arms conducting enthusiastically, and me playing ignorant pleb. When they sang, "Oh! We like sheep..." one day I responded, "and I like lamb!" causing husband to choke a chortle at the impiety. With practice, I grew to like that magnificent music.
Years later, would-become-new husband took me on our first real date to hear The Messiah. He was, unbeknownst to him, onto a winner that brought me happy memories.
This year The Next Stage Choir performs the Hallelujah chorus. I sing with the sopranos. The high notes challenge me and the long holding of breath challenges even more but the choir master and fellow sopranos say it will come with practice, so I'll practice. With practice, I'll get to sing it.

Busy, busy first day when we visited Niagara
and then drove in this newly hired car to Waterford to see Glen's karate class. We didn't get back to our B&B in St George till well after ten o'clock, so I got to drive in Canada in the dark.
We got to eat poutine.

Yellow month

Apart from the day the glaziers took the roof off the conservatory, it hasn't rained much this month and the leaves are yellow and gently falling.  In this photo, 38 years ago, the weather was similar. The rain held off and the leaves gently fell.  It was a good day and the start of a good life.
The men of this somewhat yellow photo have fallen now.

Family favourites talking

It is so nice to have grown up children who can talk to you adult-to-adult.  Over supper, husband, daughter and I were discussing showers, the difference between showers and baths, and the hygiene of showers.  This involved explaining fluid dynamics with reference to Bernoulli.  Have you heard of his work? He studied and explained how differences on pressure affected water and air flow and his theories are relevant to gliding, and to shower curtain hygiene. This principle explains why gliders fly, and why shower curtains gather germs, and it's fluid mechanics  that you would study at honours level in mathematics or physics.  Daughter did not wince a moment when husband explained the theory and he gave me a thumbs up when I asked, "when you have a shower, what does the shower curtain do?   Does it move in or out? That's the effect that Bernoulli models"
Similarly, decades ago, at meal time, I mentioned something about educational theory - Piaget's ideas of how a child saw and compared volumes when asked. My teacher mother exclaimed in delight that now there was someone in the family who knew what she was talking about. Isn't a pleasure to be able to discuss ideas with your grown-up family?

Bowling together

Bowling together [1], not alone, demonstrates friendship, networks, and links.

My girlfriends, together with their partners or child in some cases, along with some very close members of my family went ten-pin bowling for my birthday. Some friends came from very close, being neighbours, and others from miles away, people I knew when our children were small, friends from the Open University, and friends from tae kwon do.

Unfortunately friends from belly dancing and toastmasters couldn't make it or we could have had some performances and speeches.

Husband made a wonderful cake - the best tasting he's made yet, and he bakes good cakes. He iced it with numbers

00111100

People gave me wine, flowers, smellies, chocolates and books, so I'm having a week of luxuriating in the bathroom. There's sparkling Saumur left to share if you have the time to come and visit me.

I don't know who gave me a dozen pink scented roses - they're beautiful. Thank you, friend.

---

[1] Putnam, R. D. (2000) Bowling Alone : The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Simon & Schuster, New York ; London.

Intelligent husband

Happy husband has passed his Open University photography course. Maybe he'll give me some good photos of his trains to show on Facebook, now

Devils

Husband took two grandchildren youth hostelling earlier this week in Snowdonia. They went up Snowden, the highest mountain in England and Wales, so can be proud of their walking abilities and energy.

In this photo, husband or grandchild is in the "Devil's chair". If the weather is so bad that you can't see the chair, they say the devil's sitting in it.

Montreal bikes

Husband explored Montreal, mainly on foot, but also hired bixis, which a cross between bikes and taxis. You put your credit card in the machine and you can then pull out a bike to borrow. It costs nothing if you use it for less than half an hour, so great for commuting, then the cost goes up the longer you have it, so not for touring really. However, if you return it to a stand in less than half an hour, wait five minutes and you can take a bike out again. That way, keep borrowing a bike, and you can take longer to get across the city and explore.

Seedy side of Montreal

Husband is discovering aspects of Montreal that perhaps the organisers of this conference hadn't intended us to discover.

For instance, he went out early Friday morning, early Canadian time, but we're still on UK body clock, to look for breakfast, when a black woman came up to him and asked him if he wanted 'company'.

Then, today, when he tried to negotiate the steps into the hotel, there were some youngsters sitting there smoking. One announced, "Hey man! We're just smoking a bit of weed." and the stubs on the step are the evidence of that activity.

So these stories tell of a more interesting side of the city.

Not salubrious

"This area is full of drugs and prostitutes!"

remonstrated our taxi driver as he dropped us off at our hotel, Abri du Voyageur

This is not an auspicious start to our stay in Montreal. we have a studio flat for a week. The flat is ok, (I have internet access on my eeePC) but it's the sort of area I wouldn't want my son or daughter to stay, but they are not with me. Daughter is alone at home - again a tad worrying and son is staying on at uni on a grant to build a fusion reactor this summer - quite exciting. Husband will explore, and cycle while I attend an academic conference.

Lost a friend

An email today tells me my friend's husband died yesterday while out on a bike ride with friends from work. He was her best friend.

She's my age. She has children the same age as mine. We did our OU degrees together. We both tutor OU courses. Four years ago our paths split as she took on the role of staff tutor and I started my research studies.

Her husband's died. I remember how she feels.

Husband's new toy

Husband likes to go to MK to have lunch with working and retired colleagues, but then he has a pint and can't drive home, so he goes on the bus instead, but the bus station is miles from the pub. Once he cycled up there, but it's a forty mile round trip and he's exhausted by the time he gets back.

So
he's got a new bicycle, a folding bicycle. And is he pleased!

Younger wives

Husband has just discovered here that having a wife younger than himself is good for him.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8325579.stm

New lodger arrived

Our new young French lodger arrived.

I'm at work, about to go off to a one o'clock meeting, a tad late, when the phone rings.

Our new lodger is standing outside our house, but I'm twenty miles away and husband has gone out. He's not answering the door - the house seems empty. I don't have his mobile number in the office here either, and he's probably gone out without it anyhow. Or he might be in the garden and not answering the door. I get lodger's mobile number, then put the phone down and ring son to get husband's mobile. Son doesn't answer. I facebook neighbours:

"Are you in? Can you help lodger who's just arrived at our empty house. I'm at work and husband is not in. Lodger is standing outside the house."

Within seconds, neighbour is round at house, just as husband arrives home from his voluntary work and lodger is welcomed into her new home.

Not an auspicious start but we've got great neighbours.

Husband on cold glass roof

Knock, knock, knockty, knock. Knock, knock, knock.

I could hear this noise, and vaguely wondered what husband was doing but he's such an active man, that I just thought he'd found something else to fix, mend, or bash. I blithely carried on marking assignments. Son came in.

"What's that knocking noise?"

I gave him my opinion and we started to chat about other things.

Twenty minutes later the door bell rings. Son goes to answer it and comes back creased up laughing.

Husband had exited the house via a bedroom window, but he hadn't told either of us of this intention. He'd closed the window behind him so he could paint behind it, but then he couldn't get it open again, and was stuck on the conservatory roof! He'd tried knocking to get our attention, but we ignored the poor man. So he'd had to semaphore down the hill to a neighbour in her yard to get her to come round, tell us the problem so we could open the window to let him back into the house.

Good communication we've got round here.

Ireland - youth hostel

We're in Ireland, some miles from Bray in a youth hostel, here to celebrate the 40th wedding anniversary of some university friends. Tonight we're berthed in the "honeymoon" suite. May be it's called that for its splendidly large double bed - the sort that comes with two single mattresses that fit onto one slotted wooden frame, like you get in Germany. It promises to be very comfortable. But even more impressive is the view. (Wait for photo - not allowed uploading from hostel). Lying on the bed, I look out across rolling green hills, pine trees and deciduous, dells, dales a farm house and a pair of serious walkers with big back packs.

But I'm hungry! We left home before eleven, so well after breakfast, drove to the airport where we ate our packed sandwiches, tomatoes and apples while waiting to board. The airport was the usual unpleasant experience, bombarded with warnings about liquids having to be in plastic bags, and anecdotes from fellow travellers on being allowed only one bag and squashing a handbag into your on board bag. If they hadn't killed themselves in the tower, I could thump those terrorists that have caused all this hassle round the world. And I guess so would everyone else in that queue.

We ate nothing on the plane, landed and caught a city bus straight into Dublin.

On the city bus, husband took suitcase upstairs. So we're looking out from the top deck, when he suddenly decided it was our stop, hurled himself and suitcase at the stairs just as the bus jolted away. Husband and suitcase tumbled down stairs, he splitting his nose open as his head hit the wall at the bottom. The whole incident made a whopping big noise and upset everybody on both desks. The driver was most concerned - bless her - it wasn't her fault. But at least it meant the bus stopped again for us to get off at the station.

At the station, we don't break for tea, nor even for plasters, but jump onto the DART (rapid transit) to Bray. At Bray I drag behind him, pointing out the tea stall as we're leaving the station but he says we'll look outside. Then he looks for a bus, not for tea. Not for plasters - you should see his bloody nose - wait for the photo. We catch the bus. I put the suitcase on the luggage rack and we stay downstairs.

At the end of the bus line, we have to walk for 40 minutes along a peaceful and increasingly narrow country lane. It's a nice walk apart from the din that his suitcase wheels make on the tarmac. By six o'clock we arrive at the hostel. The hostel doesn't do food.

Bah! Husband's in the doghouse.

He's arranging a taxi now, to take us back the seven miles to the nearest pub for supper. Good.

BBC Childrens prom

Husband and I took two grandchildren up to London to the children's prom, which was great. Big bangs and videos and music (of course).

The excitement was before we even arrived at the Albert Hall because grandson jumped into an overcrowded tube train just as the doors were closing and gran'pa didn't jump in fast enough but something was stuck in the doors, and grandson was all worried because the train would go with him and he'd be all on his own and gran'pa was trying to heave the doors open and every one was getting very excited. Fortunately the doors opened again, and grandson got out and waited with us for the next train, and I had a go at gran'pa for scaring us all.

OU's 40th birthday

The OU celebrates its fortieth birthday this year. There's to be an open day on campus this Saturday. See http://www.open.ac.uk/platform/campus/events/open-unlimited-anniversary-open-day. And here.

Last time I came to an open day here was 15 years ago with my two small children and husband in tow, my first visit to my university although I'd finished my degree by then and started tutoring. Daughter got photographed in an OU magazine, playing maths with the maths clown. This time it looks full of interesting activities again, and what's unusual is that some of them seemed aimed at teenagers rather than small children. I'll be there. I might have husband with me, but I don't know about large son. Pity daughter won't be around.