A grand day out?

It might not have happened if Dave did not have the compulsion to get to a bus stop a quarter of an hour before the bus is due. And it might not have happened if there had been a decent seat in the bus shelter so I could sit down.

It might not have happened if I was not forgetful.

Let me explain.

We decided we would go on one last trip this summer on the open top double decker sightseeing bus, which drives through the beautiful Peak District and has stunning views. I’ve written about it on here before.

We drove to the next village and parked the car on the green and waited at the bus stop. I didn’t want to stand for quarter of an hour on my gammy knee so I tried to sit down on those two ridiculous bars in the bus stop. 

But it was so uncomfortable that Dave kindly offered to lend me his coat to make a cushion. This really helped. A quarter of an hour later, the bus arrived and I jumped up excitedly and we got on, paid, and climbed upstairs. The bus started. After about a mile, Dave started to get chilly and asked me if I had his coat. No! I’d left it at the bus stop.

It was a good quality secondhand coat, but you wouldn’t describe it as posh. The bus trip was two hours long. Would it still be there when we returned?  Could we happily sit and enjoy a trip for two hours while Dave was worrying? I personally didn’t think anyone would steal the coat. No one would stop a car to get it, and buses and pedestrians are rare.

I knew that Dave wouldn’t want to buy himself a new one to replace it because he hates spending money on himself. He will do anything to avoid it. We once forgot to take his coat on a holiday and he wore a black bin liner when it rained. If this coat was lost he would insist on going without. The prospect of his being cold for two hours on the bus was miserable enough, but the thought if his insisting going through the winter without the coat he wears all the time was horrendous. And it was my fault. 

I said “We’re going to have to get off and hitchhike back.” (The normal buses here are every two hours, and the sightseeing ones every hour, so expecting to catch a bus back to where we’d left the coat was a no hoper.) 

Dave said nothing: he just sat there exuding anxiety and misery.

“I could ring Angela,” I said. I knew Angela (our neighbour) would be willing to drive and rescue the coat and the situation, but Dave said no, we needed to clear up our own mess. We were 2 miles down the road now and I renewed my arguments about getting off and hitchhiking.

“Come on,” I said “ring the bell and get off.” The man behind us had heard our discussion and intervened.

He said “We’ve got the bell here on our seat - shall I ring it?”

Dave was feeling in his pockets. He turned to me. “The car keys are in my coat pocket” he said with a look of horror. “Someone will feel in the pockets and find the keys and hold them up and blip them and see which car they belong to.”

We were 3 miles away from the bus stop now. 

“Come on! Get off!” I said.

He finally gave in.

The bus driver looked surprised when we went downstairs and got off the bus. Most people stay on for the whole trip. They don’t alight after ten minutes.

We found a spot on the verge and I stuck out my thumb. Several cars passed.

The last time we hitchhiked together was 55 years ago. Would someone stop and give us a lift? 

More cars drove past. Surely someone would stop for a couple of fogeys who were respectably dressed…

“I’m going to ring Angela,” I said. Dave didn’t argue.

Trying to explain our situation over the phone in a hurry was not easy. At last Angela understood, and said of course she would help. She would find the coat and then come and find us. Just as I rang off, a passing car slowed down.

Hooray! Dave ran down and explained. The lovely driver didn’t understand, but said we could have a lift. But then I realised that Angela might be driving up to find us and we wouldn’t be there, so Dave took the lift and I stayed where I was and worried. What was the worst that could happen? The coat and the car would be gone. No… the worst thing would be Dave seeing the coat and rushing across the road to get it and being knocked down. I drank a mug of coffee from my flask but I didn’t enjoy it.

Twenty minutes later Dave turned up in the car - with the coat and the keys, natch. I jumped in and we talked about whether we should catch the next sightseeing bus. I was so jangled I would have been happy to just go home and have a stiff drink. 

But now Dave had the coat and the car his anxiety had evaporated and he wanted to rescue the day. Also he wanted to get his moneysworth out of his all-day hop-off hop-on ticket. So we drove back and parked near the bus stop again and waited for the bus, which arrived five minutes later.

We had a nice trip, but I couldn’t relax until we had passed the place where we got off the last time. 

I hope increasing senility and forgetfulness doesn’t lead to more such adventures. Though I have to say it was quite fun sticking my thumb out to see who would stop.

Decisions

I have decided to have an exhibition at home at the end of September. I’m inviting friends and family and if long time blog readers are in the area they are very welcome too. Contact me if you’d like to come.

I am currently trying to decide what to include. Obviously I’ll show all the paintings I showed on the blog in June - here. But I’ve been looking at all the paintings I’ve shared on Instagram and some of the ones I didn’t rate and have not had framed are well liked. Should I be including those as well?

Here are two examples…

August garden with blue fence

September

And then there is this one that I am very fond of but which was not well-liked on Instagram:

And this is the one I have almost finished that is well painted but which I don't much like:

I’m glad it’s done because I can now embark on something more exciting.

Meanwhile, Israel continues to kill and maim Palestinians - children, women and men - and the world lets them get on with it. 

I despair. 

Letter from home

My knee is healing in leaps and bounds (haha) but I still can’t walk safely on uneven ground, so Liz offered to take me somewhere in the car to sit on a bench and enjoy the view.

The fact that it was a morning with 40 mph winds might have put some people off but not us. I told her the only other person I could imagine sitting up there with me in that wind was my big sister Kath. Note the wind-whipped hair and the blanket wrapped around my legs for warmth.

Photo by Liz

Liz

Above Bamford

It was even tricky eating our sandwiches and drinking our coffee. I put my mug down for a second and the wind made it slide dangerously across the bench. The coffee itself looked like a stormy sea.

It was funny. And fun! But I felt like my gran when a young woman jogged up the steep hill wearing only a vest and shorts. “Don’t let her see the blanket!” I shouted to Liz.

I’ve been cycling on the Trail every morning it hasn’t rained this week, and getting further along it every time. It makes me so happy to be mobile again. My brother asked if I’d used the electric bike, but I never ride on the Trail on my electric bike. It would be infra dig. I told him I didn’t want people to think I need assistance on such a tiny gradient. Pete was amazed and amused. “Do you really care what other people think? You have a bad knee!”

“Yes, but I can’t wear a sign on my back saying that, can I?”

Yes, I’m hopelessly proud. I give you permission to mock. 

I’ve also been working on a painting which will be OK when it’s finished but I am currently rather bored with it, partly because of the subject and partly because I’ve had an idea for a much more exciting one that I want to start. Look at the sunlight lighting up these nasturtiums! Don’t they look beautiful? Look at the shadows, and the reflections…

Also I’ve been reading a fascinating collection of women’s writing from the second world war (which predictive text wants to give capitals to but I’m thinking - rebelliously - as a pacifist, that I will not yield.) The book is called Hearts Undefeated and is edited by Jenny Hartley.

When Chrissie first heard about my knee she came to visit to cheer me up, and very kindly brought a bag of books and a jigsaw puzzle. Unfortunately, Chrissie is one of those people who can’t bear to bend the spine on a book and barely opens it and is happy to peer in to read it, whereas I treat books as servants and bend them to my wishes. It is a measure of how good the book is that while treating it as Chrissie would, I have nearly finished it.

I am now reading a secondhand one I bought for myself, and oh how liberating it feels.

That’s been my week.

Patience is a virtue

 I hurt my knee nearly three weeks ago. I think I did it in a yoga session. I hadn’t done yoga for several years. I only knew I’d hurt it when I woke up the next day to find it swollen, painful and unsteady. I hoped if I put ice on it and had it elevated occasionally it would return to normal, but it didn’t. 

So a week later I saw a doctor and she diagnosed what I’d suspected: a pulled ligament. And then she said it could take up to twelve weeks to heal. I imagined no cycling, no walking, no gardening for twelve weeks. It was such an awful thought in the second half of an iffy summer that I chose to believe it would take only three. I had the same injury 30 years ago and it was fine after a  fortnight - I’m sure it was.

For the first week after seeing the doctor I was strict. I cancelled the exhibition I was going to have at home, and I sat around in the house or the garden with my leg up. I was fed up. Really fed up. I felt as though I was wasting my life just sitting around.

From Mary Oliver’s poem The Summer Day

I couldn’t paint with my leg up. I could read and knit and watch telly, and do some sketching, and friends came to see me - which was lovely - but I was fed up. No exercise! How was I going to get my endorphins? And this was the summer that I’d waited so long for!

My knee is much more stable now, and I can do half an hour’s gentle gardening at a time. I can cycle on the flat for half an hour with no ill effects. I am pacing myself and trying to be patient and being sensible and it’s hard: I am not a patient person. 

But I am thankful for so much - Dave, my family, my friends, where I live. 

I’m sitting in bed writing this but the Trail beckons…it is a few minutes away and it has such a small gradient that I call it flat. I’m going to get up and go just for half an hour. Wish me patience and common sense, dear friends. I am not known for either.

An early self portrait.

Hello, friends!

  “She stood there on the doorstep for a moment, breathing in the cool morning air. It had rained heavily in the night and there was a breeze ruffling the trees. The August vegetation that had looked tired and dusty the day before was fresh and lush again, but something undefinable had clicked, shifted, and they were on their way to autumn.”             From EVEN WHEN THEY KNOW YOU by Sue Hepworth

I’m back!

And sadly, so is the autumn. But hey, the sweet peas are still flowering 

and so is the exuberant patch of wild flowers we sowed in the garden that I cleared for Dave’s sunflowers.

I hadn’t planned the date I would come back to the blog, but I was looking through my photos yesterday and came across a screenshot of a quote that spoke to me, and I realised that when I’m engaged with blogging I come across all kinds of snippets to include, ideas that are helpful to me. So perhaps this is a selfish return.

Whatever, here is the quote…

And this excerpt from Shadows on the Rock by Willa Cather also spoke to me: