Aunty Grace's funeral

My much loved and beautiful Aunty Grace died in her sleep a week ago on Friday. She was an inspiration to single mothers because she had been widowed during the war.

She had a career as a chiropodist - she advised my mother on my flat feet. She was a haven from home, when my parents weren't around, somewhere else to go in the school holidays. In my twenties, she told me I could have her gold sleepers if I ever had my ears pierced, so within 24 hours I'd got her to take me to the jeweller's shop where they pierced my ears.

Aunty Grace has lots of grandchildren and even some great grandchildren too. She remarried in 1995, and that was a tale, because when she married her late husband's best man, she insisted that a woman of 80 couldn't be getting married, so they brought the wedding forward before her birthday.

They had the funeral and requiem mass for her today, and it was pleasant to meet her grandchildren and see how many of their neighbours were there too. She and her husband have neighbours who are been incredibly helpful and supportive for years. That's the big society - neighbours like theirs.

Grace was the eldest of four children. My mother mourned:

"I'm the only apple left on the tree"

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.

Singing neighbour

I wonder if you heard Handel's Messiah on the BBC Radio 3 prom last night, prom 68. Our neighbour's daughter was there, singing in the choir. We had all the radios in the house on. All three of us were listening to a splendid concert. The details are here but you have only a few days to listen.

Leprechauns, fairies and elves in the garden

One evening I hear a knock at the door. It's the second one of the evening my husband who'd answered the first one is now at the bottom of the garden collecting blackberries.

"My brother, he came here and, I don't know his name, he .."
"You don't know your brother's name?"
"No, the man, here, he told my brother he could collect apples and my brother didn't know we was collecting apples so he said 'no', and we are collecting apples, and we've come to collect apples".

They're local children. A few minutes earlier they'd lost a wooden 'sword' over our wall, and their brother had come to retrieve it.

So I let them down the garden, giving them bags for collecting apples and they were so happy that they went and called the brother back and another friend and they all went round saying the garden was wonderful, and look at the rubber horse, and swinging on the swing as high as possible till the birch tree rocked, and they'd filled their bags. Then they scuttled away, promising to come back for more, and they came back. They picked and played and climbed trees till dusk, then scampered off with their apples and plums, looking like mischievous and happy elves in the evening gloom.

Divali

Knock at door at 8.30 this morning. Nice neighbour, Kenyan Asian lady with her two younger children on their way to school smilingly offered me a present and "Happy Divali!". I've never had a Divali present before. Aren't I lucky?

They are sweet cakes and I've brought them into the office to share around. There are never many people in on a Friday so it's nice to be sociable and have something to share.