Letter from home

The political landscape is too bleak. This Labour government is shockingly heartless and in cutting aid to the poorest and sickest, it disgraces its name and its history; and things are so bad in the USA that we have a pact with our American family that we won’t bring it up in conversation. Meanwhile Israeli forces continue in their obscenities.

On the home front…

It’s a sunny day, Cece (12) called me from San Diego beach last evening because she misses me (which warms my heart), I am off on holiday with 2 year old MsX and family in two days, and I am in so much better health than I have been. 

Today I’m going to wash, pack, and zip off to the garden centre to buy some primulas to replace the beleaguered and disappointing tête-à-têtes sitting each side of the doorstep. I planted new bulbs last autumn and had high hopes, but the severe frost burned half the new leaves that were emerging and this is what came up in the end. 

Note the self sown feverfew is still going strong 

They’ve obviously been bad Feng Shui…maybe if I had replaced them a month ago I would have recovered sooner.

Whatever. 

You’ve heard of Picasso’s Blue Period, haven’t you? Well…I think I’m in Hepworth’s Tree Period, because 5 out of 8 of the large acrylic paintings I’ve completed in the last six months are of trees…

No matter how many letters we write, no matter how much boycotting we do, no matter how many demos we go on, it seems we can't stop Israel terrorising and killing Palestinians in the West Bank or Gaza. But we can give money to support charities working there.

Medical Aid for Palestinians is a British charity that has been working in the area for over 40 years. I commend them to you. 

Reasons to be thankful

 I heard the blackbird sing for the first time this morning (at 5.20am).

Dave brings me a mug of Yorkshire tea first thing in the morning if I’m feeling rough, and often when I’m not.

The GP seems to have worked out the cause of my health problem, and found the solution.

I have had enough zip and motivation to pick up my paintbrush again.

Two thirds of my sweet peas have germinated.

In the back if the wardrobe I have found an old Monsoon skirt I have always liked, which is now probably fashionable again, 20plus years on.

I have a lovely family.

I made some soup out of a handful of old vegetables languishing in the salad drawer of the fridge, which was so amazingly delicious I had it for lunch and tea yesterday.

The daffodils are out in our garden.

‘April’ by S J Hepworth 2021

I’m going on holiday to Portugal with MsX next Sunday.

Odds and ends, fury and trivia.

I am still not well, a month after I first came down with that stinking cold. I’m really NOT asking for sympathy, I’m just reporting. 

So, because I woke up still not well I decided I was going to treat myself and do the puzzles first before I looked at the news.  I went to the NYT puzzles page for their free puzzles. I am currently addicted to Connections and Strands, but today I even did Wordle ( which I got bored with and gave up last year.)  After that I turned to a puzzle called Typeshift which I’ve been doing for years. 

Then I read the news, and I wish I hadn't, as it’s bad across the board - domestic and international. First Gaza. Hell has been unleashed again courtesy of the Israelis, and it was reported earlier this week that our esteemed ( 😂 ) leader Starmer is hosting the Israeli foreign minister in Parliament this week. 

On the home front he is going to cut disability benefits, not just to save money but in some sort of moral crusade. These cuts will hit the poorest families hardest, sending yet more children into poverty.  70% of families containing someone with a disability are already going without food, heating and hot showers. And Labour wonders why people in deprived areas are turning to Reform. 

I am thankful every day that I voted Green and not for this cruel Tory government masquerading as a socialist one. Not that my lack of culpability makes anything better.

I have written to my new “Labour” MP who never writes back, unlike his Tory predecessor, and I have signed petitions and I have donated money. I am currently selling the greetings cards from my paintings to raise money for Medical Aid for Palestinians. If postage wasn’t so horrendous I’d be advertising them on here. This is the latest most popular one:

Hey ho, let’s get back to musing about trivia. 

With reference to names and roles in the last post:

After I wrote this I thought of something else which might be relevant. Dave and I have never used the terms sister or brother when talking to our children, by which I mean, we have never said things like “Tell your brother it’s teatime.” I would say “Tell Isaac it’s teatime.” I have heard other parents do the former, but we have always used names not roles. What’s the significance of this? Any suggestions?

(I do sometimes use the word ‘daughter’ on the blog, but that’s because she doesn’t want to be named.)

I’m going to find more puzzles now. 

Feeling like me

 Ok. Just for five minutes, forget the fact that the world is being dominated by a lying, law-breaking fascist, and let’s think about something trivial.

Do you wear dresses?

I used to wear dresses and skirts when I was in my twenties and thirties and later when I worked in an office. Now I wear them once every few years. The last time was in the heatwave of 2018. That year I bought a long cool dress on impulse one day, walking through Bakewell (our local town), a place that has three clothes shops that sell dresses.

One reason for my reluctance is that I don’t have pretty legs. My legs are shapely, but they are chunky. And nowadays I have one of those unsightly vein blemishes that I really don’t want to share with the world.

Also, jeans and trousers and dungarees just seem more practical for the kind of life I lead. I feel especially myself in dungarees.

My painting dungarees

My smart dungarees 

And for posh, I look good and feel myself in well cut trousers. I’ve just looked through my photo collection and realised that I wore some kind of posh trouser combo for all my children’s weddings. 

Here’s the last.

But in two weeks I am going on holiday to Portugal with the family member who declines to be named, the lovely Jaine, and MsX, and I thought it might be warm enough to require a dress. Also, both the lovely Jaine and MsX wear a lot of dresses, and I would fit in.

So I trawled my favourite brands on the net and landed on two expensive ones (at Boden and Sahara) and a reasonably priced one in Seasalt. I bought the Seasalt one in Bakewell on Sunday, after Meeting, and it is still in its brown paper carrier on the blanket chest. Why? I ask myself. I know the answer…it’s because I am still unsure about it and I am certainly not excited about it, which is how I want to feel when I buy something new to wear. I LOVE clothes but I am puritanical about spending money on them so if I do splash out I want to be really, really pleased.

This is the photo I took of the dress and sent to Het and Chrissie to see what they thought.

Chrissie said:”It’s lovely. Really suits you.”

This is the WhatsApp confab I had with Het:

So there we are. The dress sits in its bag and I have to decide whether or not to keep it. 

The puzzle is…Why do I not want to feel like a Mum or a Gran when I am very happy to be both of those things. I wonder if the answer is related to the fact that my children and my grandchildren call me “Sue.” ( And they call Dave “Dave”.)

I had my first two children when I was very young. And the reason the first started calling me “Sue”  is because she used to call me “Mummay” (sic) and I hated it and said to her “If you can’t call me “Mummy” call me “Sue”” so she did. 

The first four grandchildren also called me Sue, but when MsX arrived recently I thought I’d try “Gran.” But then after two weeks I decided it didn’t feel like me - even though grandmother is probably the role in all my life I am happiest to fill -  so I am “Sue” to her as well. (For some reason this is faintly disturbing to the family member who declines to be named.)

Back to the dress. I don’t think there IS a dress out there that I would be excited about. Not even an expensive one. I don’t much like the fashions at the moment. At least I don’t like the ones that have sleeves (to cover my 75 year old arms) and long skirts.

And the dress sits in its bag.

Howard and Hilda of Hepworth Towers

Well. My snot finally dried up after two soggy weeks, and then I got laryngitis. I know it’s that because I checked my symptoms on the NHS website last night.

The good thing about this affliction is it hasn’t stopped me from going out on my bike. I had been depressed into the ground with the snot, on top of the cold grey weather and the dark dark news, but the sun came out last Monday and stayed out all week and it’s still out today! When I went for my first spring ride on my electric bike it was better than a dose of anti-depressants. I came home on a high. And I’ve been out for another three rides since. This has carried me through the week despite the painful throat. 

There are just two snippets of news from Hepworth Towers. 

One is that we both now wear hearing aids.

We’re the Howard and Hilda of hearing aids. 

Remember them? from Ever Decreasing Circles?

 It has made our evenings less fraught in terms of reading out crossword clues.

It had been:

“Did you say retch?”

“No! Fetch! FETCH!”

I’ve had hearing aids for three years but they were so uncomfortable and a struggle to put in, so I never wore them, much to the annoyance of some of the younger members of the family. Then I had a check up and they gave me a new pair that are easy to put in, and more importantly they showed me I had been wearing them in the wrong place on the back of my ear. So now I am a happy bunny.

When the audiologist first turned on the new ones on I flinched. “NO! Too loud! I’m a Quaker, I like quiet.” So she turned them down and programmed them to increase in sensitivity over the ensuing three months. Isn’t that clever? And all free on the NHS. 

Dave had an appointment and couldn’t believe they gave him a pair to take home the same day. He says he feels like a new man. And his guitar sounds like a new guitar. He’d been puzzling over why it wasn’t producing harmonics any more. Magically, now it does. 

At least the NHS is working in this particular specialty. Though my friends who live in Sheffield are only allowed one hearing aid each. What?

The other bit of news is that Dave was on BBC Radio 4’s Any Answers yesterday! (8th March)  

Go Dave! He was the first caller, and was talking about whether the UK could call the USA an ally now. If you’re interested you can hear him on BBC iPlayer. 

He was so impressive, and I was so proud. 

And that is our news, such as it is.

You can see why I don’t blog much now, can’t you?

No one wants to read political stuff, and actually I can’t bear to give it any more attention than it’s already taking up in my brain; and secondly, life is so quiet here.

Having said that, I do recommend this piece that was in the Guardian yesterday:https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/07/donald-trump-america-mafia-state

Enjoy your Sunday!