Self-Winding · A Sort of Progression

Made sloe gin with a hatful of fruit picked from a forest thicket. Am turning bottle every two days - now a beautiful ruby colour. Ready for Christmas.

The dreaded chest X-ray result came back after a long wait - all clear. It had been in secretary's in-tray for 2 weeks awaiting filing. That's not just inefficiency, it's cruelty.

I'm still coughing and about to try prescribed nasal drops for current suspected culprit - post-nasal drip.

Climbed a tree to get conkers and couldn't get down. Had to jump. Electric foot shock.

An elderly, deaf neighbour's car broke down on a remote road, caused by her second dead clutch in 9,000 miles of driving. I sorted out her tow-in & repair, and suddenly realised that she can't hear the engine revving at all - the roar as she moves off rips the motor. How to tell her?

Borrowed E. Annie Proulx' Shipping News & Zadie Smith's Beauty from library and bought some cheap paperbacks. Tony Parker's Lighthouse among them; the man whose ears were described as a 'national treasure'.

We love the newly-installed lavatory, it has push-button multiple-choice flush. I occasionally pop in just to have a wee pushy.

I was chatted up very pleasantly by a chap at next table in a Bury cafe. Quite a looker, once. Sparse hair, blazer and a cravat. Sob.

The Colonel is off back to the States for good. Leaves 14th December. I am desolated. The hunt starts for a new tenant after a paint-through of the house in January.

Lunch with B, egg sandwiches and take-out coffee in the Abbey Gardens. He dark-suited, me in jeans. Role reversal. We still fold up with laughter. "God I miss that," he said, "everyone's so bloody serious now." I miss it too, the real rib-aching stuff.

I burned my hip badly on a hot-water bottle, the cover rucked up. Daily dressings, nurse not pleased with progress after third week. Trying new gel. A bit worrying, I usually heal fast. How can you possibly sleep through a long burn?

A large bird, which obviously eats copiously, keeps roosting in the garage. My car below its perch emerges perfectly camouflaged for snow country.

Bought pansies & ivies for winter pots, have plenty of self-set myosotis to mix in. Need more silver plants, good for dry soils, esp. Perovskia Blue Spire to plant in clumps.

Trying to persuade G. that he wants to see Swan Lake. "Mmmm, the music's great but....." He may yield. If he doesn't see the price of the tickets.

Working on the papers bequeathed to me by dear old Ted. All his army and war docs, photos, letters. What I thought was just a simple diary turns out to be a major project. I have promised to do a small book for the family.





From Saturday's Times: 'The new Archbishop of York...described how he had received racist letters, some smeared with excrement, since his election as the Church of England's new Number 2 this year.'

Can't wait for the new 8 screen cinema opening in Bury St Edmunds next month; only 20 miles to go now to catch a flick instead of forty to Norwich. That is unless the Knights put the curse on that too.

I muddled an appointment and stood up two old friends in Lincolnshire for lunch. Instead of bawling me out they were concerned for my discomfort and totally understanding. My punishment is in not seeing them. I begin to think that I need a personal assistant. And a life coach. And a minder.

I stood in the darkened kitchen just now, the fridge buzzed, the central heating boiler clicked itself cool, I had just turned off the microwave after making my hot drink for bed. Above a morning load in the washer, the electric kettle gleamed in the light from the big moon outside, thin music drifted from the radio.

Next door the TV and DVD player were still on and a pile of cd's lay on top of the stereo. Four soft lamps still glowed and the 'phone from the hall lay among books and newspapers. In the bedroom I switched on the PC and some halogen glow for my toes.

Came a vision of a time when the energy fails. This place becomes cold and silent, the great tribe of power-fed objects stilled, redundant. Of a house such as this which has become a museum piece, an exemplar of the lost days of cheap electricity, profligately used.

How challenging life would be without the ease of light and warmth, the access to amusement. How hard to ration consumption to essentials only, or to go back to candles and paraffin, to red washday hands, brooms and dustpans. To paper and pen, clockwork and wind-up. And that hideous early bedtime, endured just to keep warm and fend off boredom.

I really must remember mentally to register the daily privilege of being switched on and to ponder its environmental costs and Third World contrasts.

You are a Linguistic Thinker
Linguistic thinkers:
Tend to think in words, and like to use language to express complex ideas.
Are sensitive to the sounds and rhythms of words as well as their meanings.
Other Linguistic Thinkers include
William Shakespeare, Sylvia Plath, Anne Frank.
Careers which suit Linguistic Thinkers include
Journalist, Librarian, Salesperson, Proof-reader, Translator, Poet, Lyricist.'

That's an oddly uncohesive group of fellow thinkers.

I learnt very little that I didn't already know from the media hoo-ha surrounding the 50th anniversary of James Dean's death. Seeing a lot of him again revived the same interest that I felt all those years ago. There was something in that face and manner that touched the emotions well beyond a response to the troubled teenager/method actor persona.

I replayed Rebel and Eden , watched the eponymous bio-pic and a programme that reconstructed the fatal motor accident. What remains in my head is a trivial observation, but one that unsettles my sense of the appropriate; that such a charismatic boy should meet his dramatic end at the hands of someone called Donald Turnipseed.