In March, when I posted my last musing, I was contemplating how I would mark my next, my 100th. Because anniversaries are the thing, particularly the hundredth. Perhaps a look back at some of them: ‘A mucky business’, ‘Friend or Foe’, ‘And so to bed’, ‘Colds, whistles, buttons and plywood’, ‘How we met Bob and Bob’, ‘Lynda Snell has got a point’, ‘Beethoven keeps your ears warm’, ‘Cummings and goings’, ‘…hee iv feree fis dog’, ‘Litter, offal and Samantha’, ‘Shuffling along’, ‘You can never tell with bees’, ‘A right royal cracker’ and the 86 others should give me something to write about. Then I counted them all up and found that the last, ‘The excitement of February’, actually was my 100th, so that was that.
But it did make me think I should make up for lost time because nine months have gone by since I last penned anything. Just as I was scratching my nose and wondering where to start daughter Sophie rang and began talking about bucket lists and how about taking a trip on the Orient Express before we popped our clogs. And then, being even more helpful, suggested she be given Rosie’s antique rings now because her fingers are too swollen with arthritis to wear them and anyway it would help with the de-cluttering.
But she has a point. De-cluttering. Someone’s got to do it, sooner or later. Pre or post Grim Reaper. But getting rid of stuff is a physical and emotional nightmare. There’s so much of it. Where to begin? Old wood off-cuts, kept because they’ll come in useful one day, that’s easy. Bonfire. Old leather bound books, some in German, rescued from my mother’s house when she died, less easy. Auction. Legal documents, c1820’s, hand-written on vellum, difficult. Law Society?
And what about the 86,706 photos stored on my computer? Who’s going to be interested in them? Maybe some of them, but who’ll sort those out? Maybe it’s easier to change the subject and instead select a few I’d like to show you.
So, to begin with, the most topical: we’re marooned in Westdean as the Cuckmere Valley and surrounding roads are flooded. Beautiful but a bit inconvenient.
As a complete contrast here’s a few taken in and around Radda in Chianti where we spent a week in September. Not that you need or want to hear about our holiday but, ever thinking of my Loyal Readers’ mental health, it might cheer you up in miserable November.
Talking of holidays, our visit to Crete last year inspired Rosie to take up her brushes again. A photo I’d taken of an elderly Cretan gent having a leisurely frappé was deemed to be worth painting but, composition-wise (if there is such a clunky compound), it was lacking something. An extra chair perhaps, and maybe a dog lying patiently at his master’s feet. A quick thumb through the 86,706 photos and I found just the very thing. What do you think?
Whether or not you approve of that, the praise showered on Rosie by the owners of Dourakis Winery for her untampered painting of their garden was effervescent: “OMG, How wonderful it looks!! May I also say how honored to see amazing pictures like the one your wife created! Rosie you are SO TALENTED!!”
What else has happened since March? Well, the subject of Meet Molly, January’s musing, has, sadly, departed. Not from this life I’m glad to say, but to another home. Lovely as Molly was, her saluki genes meant she was very strong-willed and her recall non-existent if her attention was elsewhere. Fruitless hours were spent searching and calling for her when she absconded to the far corners of the forest chasing rabbits or investigating badger setts. So, after four months and with great reluctance, she had to go.
As also did our public garden openings. After 34 years our last was this year and we marketed it as such on our posters, getting 388 visitors through the gate as a result. It’s sad to call it a day but after baking well over 300 cakes over the years (Rosie of course, not me) and spending countless hours tending the garden we decided we’d make up for lost time and do other things. Probably tending the garden if truth be known.
And finally: this arrived through the post the other day. Not many of you - if any - will know what it is (apart from, obviously, it’s a tie). So I’ll tell you: LX=60. And that’s how long I’ve been an MCC member. Not only do I get a tie, which I’ll never wear of course, but my membership is free from now on. So after paying subs for sixty years totalling a sum that I dare not admit to Rosie I can from today go up to Lords and watch cricket completely free. Now I can truly make up for lost time.
