Bit of a long silence. I've been staying with my husband's cousin for a week, because she's single and lives alone and has just had a hip replacement operation. This, above, is the view from my bedroom window in her house. She lives not far from us. It's been a bit... odd. It's not easy to need help if you're normally independent, and it's not necessarily easy to do things for someone who normally lives alone and who definitely has their own systems for doing things. Anyway, I'm glad I went and I'm glad I'm home!
Frustratingly, it was beautiful weather while I was there, mainly sitting around talking, and my garden, somewhat neglected while we had visitors in August, needs a lot of tidying up. We did a bit of gardening earlier this afternoon but then the rain came on quite hard, and though it's nice again now, everything is wet and I don't feel inclined to go out again. I'm sitting here listening to Brahms's Song of Destiny, which our musical director goes into raptures about but which isn't yet hugely gripping me. However, I need to learn it, since we're going to sing it in a concert in the spring. It's growing on me.
Minimalising Monday didn't happen this week because I wasn't here, but I was casting about yesterday for something to dispose of when I came across this photo of my paternal grandmother. Son-in-Law 1 kindly put it through some magic thing and produced the version below, which is much better, though she had white hair by the time this photo was taken. I think, but don't really know, that she had light brown hair as a young woman.
This was her passport photo for going abroad with my missionary aunt and uncle to be looked after by the hospital in which my aunt was a doctor, because, sadly, she had dementia by then. She was getting confused by her early seventies, as far as I remember, and later my aunt had dementia too. I think I'm all right so far... I didn't know her well because she moved down south when I was four or five. I remember that she saved the combings from her hair to plump out her bun, which struck me as a cunning idea when I was a small girl.
We took a walk in the Botanics this morning, which were lovely as usual.
Leaves are turning colour here, the hot summer has taken it's toll, the season has definitely changed.
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