We'll take some honey and plenty of money...

Because of the news (Scotland's going to have another referendum for independence AND I JUST CAN'T STAND IT) I shall concentrate on quilts for the moment. My aim was to make one for Grandson with the leftover bits from Mr Life's railway quilt, including the four-patches that I somehow made too small.

And here's the finished top, pre-quilting. I did buy some extra material - the fabric for the red sashing and the blue borders - and I'd previously bought the turquoise fabric with traffic lights, telephone boxes and lampposts with the vague idea of doing something for Grandson. But otherwise I used up scraps.  So thrifty. Ish.

Grandson's favourite colour is red - which is just as well as it turns out. It's actually not such a scarlet shade as it looks in the quilt top photo. Possibly the photo above gives a clearer impression.

I'm very much a beginner and I learn something with every (simple) quilt that I make. In this case, I've discovered that if you take a fairly, but not startlingly, bright fabric and make it into sashing, this intensifies the effect of the colour. I suppose I thought that it would diminish it - being cut into bits. Perhaps it's happened because the sashing is quite wide.

Anyway, Grandson isn't going to be particularly critical of the aesthetics so it doesn't really matter.

Meanwhile I'm considering decamping to a small island somewhere in the middle of the sea till elections, referenda, arguments and counter-arguments are all finished. This may take some time; meanwhile I shall sit and fiddle with bits of fabric and listen to the waves crashing on to the sand. Sounds like a good plan?

(Mr Life - thank you to those who have asked - is considerably better, though this may be because he's stopped coughing and is on painkillers. But his normal life has resumed for the moment.)

Flowers

The horrible news about Brussels is so depressing that I'm posting pictures of flowers in a lalala, not listening sort of way. I apologise for my feebleness.

On February 14, I took a photo, above, of a £3 bunch of roses I'd bought from the local supermarket. I'd had them for a couple of days at that point.

These photos, above and below, are the same flowers, today, over five weeks later.

That's slightly hard to believe, isn't it? But the evidence is there in my photo albums. What good value! One of them is starting to go slightly brown at the edges but the rest look fine. I find that cutting roses short is the key to making them last, but it doesn't normally work this well.

 And the city parks are full of spring flowers. So I suppose you just have to keep hoping.

Bump

I've been struck, I think, with Januaryitis. The weather has sometimes been beautiful, as above, but at the moment is wild and stormy, though not cold. But I seem to be a bit brain-dead. It's hard, when one is getting older and things are not quite as one would wish, to face up to a new year with brimming enthusiasm. On the other hand, it could be a whole lot worse. I do realise this.

The grandbabies have been unwell and Granddaughter especially so. I went round to see her today and she fell asleep on me. After half an hour, however, Grandson arrived back loudly from nursery and woke her up, which wasn't especially successful from her point of view. She cheered up, however, and started staggering about: her balance seems to be affected by her illness, so she kept falling over. And then, though I was sitting right beside her, I managed to let her fall against the door frame and she bashed her forehead badly. It came up in a huge blue lump and Son-in-Law 1 and I, who were together, got a real fright. However, after telephone advice from Doctor Son, we calmed down, and she seems to be all right; or at least not permanently damaged.

Grandson is spending the night with us here and is lying on his back, fast asleep with his arms spread out, looking very sweet. He did enjoy his bath, earnestly pouring water from a little jug into a funnel and thence into an empty shampoo bottle and noting how many jugfuls it took to fill the bottle. And then we read "Mr Bump", with whom he sympathised after the trauma of his sister's accident.

And now I must go and battle with my very difficult (to me) piano piece. I hope it's warding off dementia, if nothing else.

The camper van birthday

Dear little N was 3 yesterday. His other grandparents are visiting and they all came to tea, but since they didn't all fit in the car, Son-in-Law 1 and his father came by bus. There were presents to open, but he patiently waited until his dad and grandfather arrived before opening them. He and Granddaughter played happily with my polished stones. He will with justification be able to tell his children that when he was young he made his own amusement and played with (sticks and) stones.

He got various presents. One of them was ...

... a yellow camper van...

... - a companion piece to one of his favourite toys, which is a red camper van.

He forgot about the unopened presents for a while, though his little sister was quite interested in them.

He also got a scooter and was very serious in his attempts to ride it.

And then there was cake, made by his mum. He was extremely pleased to see it and very happy when we sang "Happy Birthday" ("Again!" - so we sang it again) and quite keen to eat it as well.

Inside it was chocolatey. It's amazing how babies who have never seen chocolate cake can still recognise it and reject their healthy raspberries till they get a bit of it.

Another satisfied customer.

And then when they all went away and we turned on the news, we learned about the awful attack on the Malaysian Airlines plane.

Nationalism. It's madness. People are people; what do labels matter? Kindness matters.

Scotland is having a referendum for independence in September and we will be voting No, for those very sorts of  reasons.

'Tis the season to be ... jollyish

It’s a funny thing, grief. At first when Mum died, I think the relief at her being out of pain and discomfort lessened my sadness that she was dead. But now weepiness overcomes me from time to time. It’s not the old-lady Mum that I miss so much – though she leaves a big hole in my life because I was very involved for the last ten years or so in looking after her, to an increasing degree. But more and more I remember what she was like when I was a girl. We were very close and used to laugh a lot together. I miss my younger Mum.

 

Today I went through the cards and letters we were sent when she died. There were 65 of these, which is quite a lot for a 90-year-old most of whose long-term friends are already dead. It was interesting to reread them – I really didn’t take them in at the time – but it was upsetting too. I’ve kept a few - the ones that said insightful things about her - but have firmly thrown most of the ones that just (kindly) expressed sympathy. We’re trying to cut down on clutter.
 

Part of the difficulty of this sort of grief – grief for someone of her age – is that it feels unreasonable. Being orphaned at the age of 62 is not exactly headline news. I was lucky to have her that long. But it’s more complicated than that. I’m sad because I miss her but also because she was still interested in life and didn’t want to die and also because of the sad fact that we must all die. It seems a poor system, though – yes – better than the alternative, I know.
 

And missing one’s children (sorry Anon, if you’re still reading) hurts because it’s unreasonable too. Of course they must fly the nest and of course they must be independent because Mr Life and I going to die one of those days and it would be terrible if they couldn’t cope on their own.
 

Well well. I like to spread a bit of Christmas cheer. (I think this has come on partly because of the imminence of Christmas without Mum. Also, we got delivery of a double bed today for the room that was Daughter 2’s and then Mum’s and now is just another spare room. Which will of course be useful when most of the family comes for Christmas. My brother and family used to stay with Mum and now will be with us – and that will be nice. But different.)

 

 

Meanwhile, more jollily, here's Daughter 2's gift to us today. Ho ho ho. 

 

 

 

And here's ours to her. Why the match? (It's actually a pen.) Does she smoke? No, but I thought it was mildly amusing. Much like a gingerbread man wearing a Santa hat.

 

Now back to the piano practice, which as ever is driving me nuts. Why am I doing this? I could be lying in a nice warm bath reading a book and eating chocolate instead of making a big hash of Silent Night, which my teacher probably thought would put me in a Christmassy mood. Ha ha ha.

Big and little boy

 

 

Today we drove up to Son's to sit in his house in case the electrician arrived before Son got home from work on a half day. (He didn't.) The countryside looked very autumnal, with those rolls of hay - don't know what they're called: not haystacks because they're not stacks. Those black clouds rolled over without giving us rain, despite their threatening look.

 

 

We collected the keys of Son's house from the surgery where he works. Here he is, looking like a real doctor. Well, of course he is a real doctor.

 

 

This was one of our Grandson days, so the little one came with us. It seems but a few moments since Son was just like this.

 

It's lovely to see the wandering offspring but I'm always sadder afterwards. No cure for this disease.

Thank you!

Oh, you are all so kind to send your suggestions about our son-in-law. I’m really touched.

I think he reads this, so shouldn’t really broadcast his problems to the world (but it’s a very select part of it, J …). He’s been on every medication known to man, including homeopathy, and none makes any difference, or at least not any good difference. He’s had therapy and the only one that helped (for a while) was Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, so he’s on the waiting list for more of that. And he does exercise, or at least he does when he feels well enough, and you’re all quite right: it does help. He runs and cycles, though I’m not sure how much he’s been doing of these in the last few days.

But many thanks for all your suggestions. I shall follow them up. And if anyone has had success with boiled nettles or vitamin E or cutting out sprouts from the diet … do let me know. All ideas gratefully received. It’s comforting to know that there are clearly so many people out there who’ve had experience, directly or indirectly, of depression – and survived. He’s such a lovely lad and has achieved so much in his life. (Yes you have, J.)

I wonder who it is that reads my blog in Dublin. Sometimes twice a day, which seems very unlikely. Unless it's two different Dubliners. Well, either that or one very bored one. Hello there, anyway.