Letter from home

You know those whodunnits where the cop asks a suspect 'What were you doing on the night of October 19th?' 

Do you ever think 'How can they possibly expect to remember that without checking their diary?' And if there was nothing in their diary, what then? 

Currently the only things in my diary are a vet appointment for Chione at 10 a.m. next Monday, and the boiler man coming at 3 p.m. the same day. Oh, and I suppose my zoom sax lesson every Thursday morning. That's it. Blank diary. It's technically an ON Christmas at Hepworth Towers this time, but who knows what that means this year? The world could have ended by December 25th.

But back to the diary, do you find the days all run together and you have no idea what the day of the week is, let alone the date?

This week I have done some stuff, but who knows when? This is a jumbled sample:

Had various Facetime conversations with friends and family, though currently I'm thinking of paring that down to the Coloradans, because the first Sunday my brother ever facetimed me (two weeks ago) he exclaimed 'You've got a double chin! That doesn't show on the photo on your blog!' The following Sunday he said 'Oh that's a better picture. I can see your wrinkles now.'

Even my good friend Chrissie came out with something like 'You know, Sue, Facetime can be rather cruel. You look much better in real life.'

The family in America are never rude. They are lovely.

Here are the girls in their Halloween costumes, which Wendy made for them.

Medusa, looking threatening, and Hermione from Harry Potter.

One afternoon I missed my dear friend Mary very badly. It swept in out of nowhere when I was painting. 

Other days, I've been on the phone so much it did my head in, trying to find an affordable quote to get my Hugs picture printed onto greetings cards, to raise money for Help Refugees. 

I think I've found a printer now: I am just waiting to check a sample of his work.

I've been cycling, walking, and I've been painting, as I said. Isaac takes beautiful photographs and I'm working on a painting based on this one he took recently when the family went on their annual trip to buy pumpkins.

On Thursday afternoon the postman brought my order of bare-rooted wallflowers, but nothing but heavy rain was forecast, and anyway, before I could plant them I had to pull up the last flowering cosmos, dig over the bed and plant tulip bulbs. The wallflowers are to share the bed with the tulips. 

On Friday morning at 8.30 the rain had not arrived so I spent a feverish hour doing all of the above, trying to beat the rain, and knackered myself for the rest of the day. This is what being 71 looks like. Oh yes, and add in the double chin (from sagging, not from fat) and the wrinkles. 

Which leads me into this poem by Mary Oliver, 

Lines written in the days of growing darkness

Every year we have been
witness to it: how the
world descends

into a rich mash, in order that
it may resume.
And therefore
who would cry out

to the petals on the ground
to stay,
knowing as we must,
how the vivacity of what was is married

to the vitality of what will be?
I don't say
it's easy, but
what else will do

if the love one claims to have for the world
be true?

So let us go on, cheerfully enough,
this and every crisping day,

though the sun be swinging east,
and the ponds be cold and black,
and the sweets of the year be doomed.