Still down in the dumps and Synchronicity

 I woke an hour before the alarm.  It is dry but we have had a goodly amount of rain and everything is grateful for it.  A green blush everywhere now.

I am busy with needle - my gardening jeans developed a tear on the other leg, so, pretty patchwork to cover it . . .

First I sew a strengthening patch on the inside of the leg to cover the torn area and then the pretty patches on the outside.  This should last a while now anyway.

I have also started sewing Rosie's x-stitch for Christmas which is a Puffin.  I have a Puffin I bought in a charity shop, and it is looped over a candle on the mantlepiece.  Rosie loves it, so I thought I would make her one for herself.  Nothing to show yet as I am just doing the black back of it but it is quick to stitch and I had the colours I needed in my stash, although the dark tangerine is one number out but near enough not to matter.

Synchronicity.  I watched the latest (well, 2020) movie of Rebecca this week and it just so happened I decided to buy a paper yesterday and it just so happened that this article was in it!  There is a new biography about Daphne du Maurier by her grandson, which will hit the shops next month.  I will try and see if I can get it through the Library as at £25 it is too big an indulgence to buy.  I have another biography on her and don't think he will uncover much fresh ground, especially as her diaries cannot be accessed before 2039 (50 years after her death).  It's called Last Night I Dreamt, and is by Paul de Zulueta, in case you are interested.

I am enjoying Running for the Hills, but he has his mother arriving on her own, a local taxi all the way from Abergavenny! and arriving at a freezing house and wishing there was a stove.  Well, surely there MUST have been some form of heating - an open fireplace at least - or else the last owners couldn't have lived there. She foolishly pulls out all the bits of newspaper and disgusting old rags which were stuffed in the walls and bitterly regrets it the first time there is a gale, which howls into the house through all the gaps in the walls!  I have memories of returning from Keith's brother's after going there for New Year, and our old house would be SO COLD - it was like walking into a fridge.  The first thing we did was to light the big Hergom stove, which in those early days was multi-fuel and ran on wood or coke.  It devoured wood like there was no tomorrow and I can remember Keith cutting up a fallen oak tree which barely lasted 6 weeks for fuel . . .  I also remember wondering why on earth there were the lids of (probably baked bean) tins nailed at intervals along the skirting boards . . . this was a simple and efficient way of keeping the rats out . . .

I think part of the reason for being down in the dumps is because Keith's mobility scooter is going.  With it go such sad memories of when he could barely get about and going to Malvern was such a challenge for him.  He would have had it months earlier had not Tam encouraged us to try and get funding for ex-military personnel.  It took over 6 mths - and we didn't get it in the end - and we had to declare each and every single expenditure, which was very uncomfortable to do, as you lost all privacy.  All that has returned to haunt me.  Today's challenge will be trying to reverse it backwards up the ramp, heaviest bit first, then turning it off to lower the steering column and somehow heaving it into the other vehicle.  I am glad the chap buying it will be there to do the strong-arm tactics!  We have arranged to meet half way, which makes life easier anyway and I can get some bits of grocery shopping afterwards - cat food from B&M Bargains.

Last night I was watching History Cold Case USA - a couple of programmes, where they try and trace the ancestry and identity of long-dead skeletons (over 150 years ago).  It was really interesting and amazingly they did manage to identify one young couple buried together in one coffin - she died first of cholera and her husband just a couple of days after.  Another was a Native American Indian from the West Coast, who had travelled across America and ended up buried in New York state, a Christian burial at the fort where he had been a soldier.  

Right, this won't do.  Time to get myself tidy to go out. Update: chap buying scooter had great idea of using the ramps to make a bridge between our vehicles.  Some disassembling required, but it worked a treat.  Phew!