Tuesday 7th January - Goodbyes...and back to normal (ish)

Today was the day of the funeral. It dawned dank and drizzly, but improved as it went on - a gentle sunshine for the actual occasion.

'Are you the celebrant'? er, yes, I suppose that is what I was. On the whole it went well - I have others to confirm my impression. Apart from starting a bit early, so two people slipped in a few minutes late, the ceremony went off more or less as I had intended.

There were buttons that had to be operated, the thought of which had caused a sudden lack of confidence on my part. However proved astonishingly easy to operate, especially when I practised beforehand, starting and stopping music, closing and opening curtains (not that I planned to open the curtains once I had closed them). 

I had a slight frisson when I realised I had nearly forgotten to press the 'close' button for the curtains during that piece of music, and a further scary second or two when I couldn't make it work (the secret is NOT to press the 'close' label, but to press the button BESIDE the label).

As for the flowers, I did the same as at my mother's funeral. The staff had told me that the deer would come and eat them, being very selective as to which flowers they liked. Well, my godmother had had a running battle with deer in her garden and I didn't see why they should win at the last, so I pulled out flowers from the big beautiful spray to make posies for the people who came (very few) and took the rest home. (They told me that it depended on which flowers were used; if the wreath spelled out a word like 'Mum', sometimes the deer would eat everything except 'Mum', sometimes they would only eat the word 'Mum'. Disconcerting.)

I spent the afternoon deconstructing the Christmas wreath (my word, that had been made to withstand a tempest!) and used the flowers for a table decoration, and a vase, and a spring wreath for beside the door.

  
A picture of the Spring Wreath will have to wait until morning. It's dark and drizzly and cold out there now.

I also cleared out a kitchen drawer (It's on a list of houseworkly tasks called 'the January Cure'

Just as well - the base was about to give up the struggle.

Look how tidy the drawer is now, no really, it is MUCH tidier. All the mess is an organised mess.

Cat news; Leo has scratched the top of her head nearly raw, where I put the topical worming treatment. I was a bit horrified when I saw the way she was going at the patch, which explained all the fur lying around everywhere. I quickly washed her head with warm water; to my surprise she thoroughly approved of this and started purring, and hasn't been scratching anything like as much since. 

Tomorrow is a working day. I have packed my school bag with various books of music and will hope for the best. Seven piano pupils in the morning, a whole class full of guitar pupils in the afternoon, and another three or four piano pupils in the evening. I did the planning a while ago - maybe it will come to me as I go along... 

Monday 6th January - ticking the tasks off the list

So, today we accomplished a number of various more or less urgent errands;

The Urgent List

* Himself needed a hair cut - done

* I needed to sort out bits and pieces to do with the bank - done

* Pay for the funeral - done. I'm acting as the 'celebrant', so, today I learned that I will have to be the one who presses the buttons to start and stop the music. It's enough to make me want to bring in my own mp3 player - at least I know how to work it... 
I may bottle out of the curtain-closing button, unless it is a big clearly marked unmistakable effort. All the funerals I have been to have had someone lurking at the back just to work the sound system. 
Oh well. It's a small, intimate occasion. I'm only expecting nine or ten people in total. We'll manage somehow between us, just so long as it doesn't turn into an episode of 'Some Mother's Do Have Them'.  

* Take McCavity the cat to the vet - she had rather alarming symptoms yesterday concerning her back end, and what should and shouldn't be coming out of it. We got an appointment. 
The first suggestion is that maybe she's got worms (so we've wormed her - that was easy as it is drops-on-the-back-of-neck rather than pill-down-the-throat-down-the-throat-down-the-throat; I've never met a cat that can't manage to spit said pill back out half an hour later)
The second suggestion is that it could be a reaction to her arthritis medicine. She's lost a bit of weight, and so may have been receiving a drop or two too much jallop which could make quite a different. So, no more medicine for now.

* Write the 'Eulogy' -done
well, sort of done. First question - what is a eulogy? Ask the internet...

eulogy /ˈjuːlədʒi/  

Learn to pronounce

1. a speech or piece of writing that praises someone or something highly, especially a tribute to someone who has just died.
2. 
   
3. Second question - how long should a eulogy be? Ask the internet again...

   Generally, a eulogy should be around three to five minutes long and take no longer than ten minutes. As to how many words a eulogy should be, that may depend on how fast you deliver them. A funeral eulogy of between 500 and 1000 written words will take from around three and a half to seven and a half minutes to speak.

That's OK then - I've done about 850 words, but don't intend to say all of them.

* Liaise with other family members who are coming - there are only two, my Father, and my Brother. I've emailed the paperwork eg eulogy, and notes on asking which buttons to press to music and curtains to start and stop to my Brother, because if we are delayed, he's going to have to do it all! 'Ah, right, I see...' I don't think he's done this before either.

The Less-Urgent List

I'm not sure what all was on this. 

Things like finishing off the 'Mindless Knitting for Christmas Time' shawl

 

And buying cloves to finish the clove orange 

And finding four books to take to Oxfam, because of receiving four books for Christmas

 

History of Science - mega-heavy paperback, why did we buy it, 20 years ago?, 

The Bookshop by Penelope Lively - a good read, not sure if I'll re-read, 

Death of a Village by M C Beaton - I enjoy her books, set in Plockton, mainly for the memory of the TV series, 

Amazing Uses for Ordinary Things - 1001 uses for Bicarb, or vinegar, or candle wax, and so on and so on... boring, 

In the Steps of St Paul by Morrow - I thought I'd want to re-read this, but haven't and now, 15 years later, I've changed my mind) 

This is a win - five books out!

I've also bought next year's Christmas Cards - how super organised

Finally, I cooked one of the recipes for January in my almanac - and it was very, very, good. Sausages, accompanied by lentils, cooked with onions and carrots and garlic pre-softened in butter, adding wine (I found the remains of some cider) and stock, and once they are cooked through, seasoning with lemon juice, salt and pepper. They were good. But then there are also carrots roasted with halved clementines, salt and pepper and fennel seeds... That was a supper to savour.

 

So far, so good. 

Sunday 5th January - Epiphany

Played the piano in church today - we didn't do 'The Thee Wise Men' as we are on a series of 'Being Grateful' which sounds SO less 'mindful' than 'Gratitude' which is what all the self-help journaling/blogging/self-care books and blog posts and what-have-you is full of these days.

Although, it does appear that looking for things small and even smaller, to be grateful for, does seem to increase one's sense of 'joy', not to be confused with mere 'happiness'.

So here's something I scavenged from facebook;

I'm expecting you all to work your way down the list and then you too can all be joyful. (Joke). (But not entirely).(that is, not entirely joking. Give it a go)

On Friday I met up for lunch with colleagues from one of the schools I teach in. They are mostly teaching assistants at the school, and a couple of ex-teachers. 'What a lovely people all they are', I thought, looking round the table. Endless patience and commitment to the children in their care, and some of the children are fairly tough cookies. One of the reasons I have given up class teaching is because of the tough cookies. I haven't the energy or patience for them any more.

We were meeting at a local garden centre, so while I was there I used a gift card from a student to buy a couple of hellebores (Christmas Roses)

I have treated myself to an Almanac for 2020

as a reward for NOT buying any 'this will make you super organised' planners and notebooks. It says that January is the time to buy and plant Christmas Roses, and you can see what colour the flowers will be. We have a lovely pinkish one at the front of the house. I have put these two down the bottom of the garden next to an over-enthusiastic primrose which came into flower just before Christmas. I thought I had a picture but no, so I will spare you that.

The almanac also informs me that I have missed a meteor shower (3rd and 4th) but there is so much haze and light pollution here that we are lucky to pick out Orion's Belt on a good night, let alone stand in the cold watching for meteors at 4 am. And this month's moon is the Wolf Boon, nad there will be a partial eclipse so when it is full moon we might just see it being a bit pink in colour. Pink Wolves... the mind boggles...

The last few evenings have been very companionable. He sat at one side of the table, and finished the Christmas Present u-gears car,

 and has now transferred his attention to a Christmas Present Wentworth jigsaw. The grey tray is a modified tray-table from Ikea, which he has been working on for the last couple of months in order to be able to fit the jigsaw on the surface. The bottom edge of the tray had to be removed, and a channel cut out, as the top-to-bottom dimension of the jigsaw is a few millimetres greater than the internal dimension of the tray.

Thes jigsaws are cut from real wood, not cardboard, and have little 'whimsy' pieces, cut into shapes of birds and people and so forth. They are a pleasure to handle, but surprisingly difficult.

I sat at the other side, and used up half a jar of cloves and an orange that didn't look as though it was going to be eaten up any time soon to make a clove orange (why? Because they were there.)

That photograph is a bit of a cheat; if I give the orange a twirl, you will see that half a jar isn't quite enough to finish the job. I'll have to buy some more tomorrow.

Now, today, Christmas has been taken down and everything is pretty much as it was three weeks ago.
The removal of the tree has revealed the next job on the list;

We bought these curtains from Marks and Spencers back in about 1981 for our last house. They were lined, but the cotton lining rotted away years and years ago, and now the polyester fabric is disintegrating. Thirty-eight years. I think it is time for new curtains, but that means a new curtain rail... watch this space.

What else? I might be thinking of modifying my New Year's Resolution regarding sending bags of stuff to the charity shop. My uncle had a rule; if he bought anything, then something had to go. Buy a new shirt or book? Discard a shirt or book. He lived in a tiny flat so space was valuable.

I wonder if I can do the same - make it even 2 or more things out, for any new thing in? I received four books over Christmas, and two pens. I'll start with the pens - that was easy; none of these work properly anymore and a local school has a recycling bin which might take them;

Have a good week! 



 












 

Thursday 2nd January - And so the Year begins

Today - the first working day of the year...

And so we did a bit of work, once I had managed to wake up, and have a bath and get dressed and all that palaver of transferring from slumbering person to wide-awake person.

The transformation didn't quite complete, so quite soon, say a couple of hours after the first coffee of the day, I found myself wilting back towards slumber. Lunch, and another coffee has helped.

I've managed to send out a third of the piano lesson invoices for next half of term, and once I have finished procrastinating (oh, did you think I was blogging?) I'll brace myself and send out the rest. If it were just a case of zapping out the invoices that would be that, but I try and sweeten the pill with a bit of a progress report for the pupils and so forth, and it's that, along with double-treble checking that the names on the invoices and the pronouns in the accompanying emails all match, (and they never do first time around) that takes the time.

We, that is Himself and Myself, also went into town and accomplished a few errands this morning. Which means I have been able to cross half-a-dozen items off my list, and also got my head around what needs to be done next.



Tomorrow we shall attempt some more items on the lists - his list, my list and our list.

Meanwhile, I shall make a cup of tea (which I don't really want) as my final procrastinate before I get on with these invoices. I keep telling myself that I will feel so much better once they are all sent off.



It's so tempting to invest in all these planners and notebooks in the hope that they will magically cause organisation to happen...

December 31st - Resolutions, Challenges, and all that bullshit

The Usual Resolutions;

1. Eat Chocolate every week
2. Keep up the page-a-day journal
3. Take 2 bags to charity shops every month - preferably with a few bits an pieces in them, preferably more stuff going out of the house than comes in

Challenges;

1. Do more drawing and painting - every day if possible
2. Do more piano playing (piano playing in the lessons doesn't count) - every day if possible
3. Do more writing - every week if possible 

Other Stuff;

1. Finish the Granny squares blanket - one or two squares to complete, connect all 15, 16 or 20 squares together and crochet a border (maybe - depends on how much wool I have)
2. Finish the Christmas Shawl - I'm at about 200 stitches across now; the shawl is finished when I run out of wool, which will be in about 80 rows time, increasing by one stitch on each row.
3. Make a start on the tapestry which is cluttering up space in the house and in my mind 

We shall see.....

Tuesday 1st January 2020 - Poems for the New Year

How about this as a bracing poem to start the year?

SAY not the struggle naught availeth,
   The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
   And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
   It may be, in yon smoke conceal'd,
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
   And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
   Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
   Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,
   When daylight comes, comes in the light;

In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!
   But westward, look, the land is bright!

Arthur Hugh Clough

 It's a real 'never give up' rallying cry. If was the only poem of his I had ever read, (and up until a moment or two ago, it WAS the only poem of his I had ever read) I might have put him down as some kind of Victorian muscular Christian; then I read this, which sort of confirmed my opinion until I got to the second line;

The Latest Decalogue

Thou shalt have one God only; who
Would be at the expense of two?
No graven images may be
Worshipp'd, except the currency:
Swear not at all; for, for thy curse
Thine enemy is none the worse:
At church on Sunday to attend
Will serve to keep the world thy friend:
Honour thy parents; that is, all
From whom advancement may befall:
Thou shalt not kill; but need'st not strive
Officiously to keep alive:
Do not adultery commit;
Advantage rarely comes of it:
Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat,
When it's so lucrative to cheat:
Bear not false witness; let the lie
Have time on its own wings to fly:
Thou shalt not covet; but tradition
Approves all forms of competition.

I found more and more gems when I scrolled further through www.poemhunter.com - he does a good line in satire. 

There is a last verse;

The sum of all is, thou shalt love,
If anybody, God above:
At any rate shall never labour
More than yourself to love your neighbour.

Looking into his biography I find I was on the right track - he went to Rugby School when Arnold was the headmaster, revolutionising public school education and developing a 'manly, muscular Christianity. Clough was a star pupil - but at Balliol he lost his faith in amongst the turmoil of the Oxford Movement.

I'm going to enjoy reading more of his poems...

Meanwhile, Happy New Year to everyone; I'm sure any struggle will not naught availeth!