2015

26 January 2015
I cannot believe how quickly time is passing and we are now nearing the end of January and my lovely OH's milestone 65th birthday when he will officially become a pensioner although in common with many pensioners nowadays he has no intention of giving up work just yet - it has taken nearly a year for us both to get used to the idea of him working only four days a week!

Christmas was definitely quiet for us as we were both suffering with persistent coughs and, in my case, a vicious bug which laid me low and I could not have roused myself to do anything. Still there are worse ways to spend a holiday than either lying on the sofa under a rug or in bed watching pretty dire television although the Christmas Day showing of Cinderella was just magical which cannot be said of the rest of the offerings.

Just when I was beginning to feel a bit better, the snow came and that means we are really housebound which is an absolute pain and there is more forecast apparently. I don't have as much time as I used to as I had to sack my cleaner as the discovery of an inch of dust behind the dressing-table and that she was bringing her two-year old with her and so doing a pretty mediocre job all in all meant that I could not carry on using her. So I am once more in manic cleaning mode which I actually prefer; being somewhat of a perfectionist means that no-one does the job as well as I do!

21 February 2015
So, having taken the decision in August last year that the interest rates available with the big banks are risible and also disgust at their methods, I decided with some trepidation, to move my account to a bank which was offering 3% gross interest on a current account. I already had a savings account with them so the switch went ahead. Despite all the assurances that it would "only take seven days" it did in fact take 15. This was because the level of security at the new bank was so strict that every single direct debit and standing order had to be verified in person, by phone. Anyway, so far so good.

I recently thought that the charities I was supporting through a monthly amount could well do without my patronage as they were paying their CEOs £160k per annum which I thought was outrageous and in some cases were simply not ensuring that donations were doing good in the areas which I wanted to reach. Locally the Air Ambulance service do sterling work in the peaks around here so I chose them as a charity I wanted to support, filled in a standing order mandate, correctly dated and signed, and thought that would be the last of it. Oh dear me no! My new banker rang me on my mobile and when I did not answer (withheld number so no, I don't answer them) they got me on the house phone.

They told me who they were, asked me who I was and then proceeded to ask me all sorts of security questions. I pointed out that they had rung me so how did I know who they were and the young lady with a strong Scottish accent assured me that I could ring them back if I so wished! At this stage I was losing the will to live so asked why the call was necessary.

"I need your permission to proceed with an instruction we have received"
"Eh?"
"Oh, wait a minute, is this to do with my standing order to the Air Ambulance?"
"Yes, that's right"
"Well, you have my signed standing order authority!"
"But I cannot process that without your permission"
"But a signed mandate gives you that permission"
Silence.

Oh my life! So having given permission verbally and wondering why such a level of security was needed with a transaction of a fairly small amount I forgot about it. 7.30 am the following morning they kindly texted me that they had set up this standing order and if I had any queries I could ring them up.

I didn't.

15 March 2015
The third Mothering Sunday without a call or card from Si and it just doesn't get any easier.

Facebook, the internet and the television advertising is all about "Mother's Day" (either with or without the correctly placed apostrophe!) which just thrusts the event in my face. I have managed to ignore most quite successfully and after all, Si knew I loved him and he told me he loved me on more than just one day in the year so I never needed a reminder but this year has been not too bad at all as my lovely friend A sent me a "thinking of you" card which I have pictured and one of my oldest friends has send a caring message on Facebook so I know that I am being looked after.

Not the least, OH has just let me get on with whatever I want to do, just there, quietly in the background and comforting me when I want to cry. It is eight years ago today that I lost a good friend to breast cancer and she is much in my thoughts as well.

I found when I lost my own Mum that this commercialisation of the day was painful and I feel for anyone who is grieving for their own Mums and will rejoice in the small signs of spring; they are small and slow as well!

22 March 2015
An absolutely beautiful day following quite a weekend. It started with the partial solar eclipse on Friday morning when, miraculously, the clouds parted and OH and I were able to see, via pinhole and paper, a really stunning sight. There was much blurb on the BBC about the birds falling silent etc., but our birds mostly carried on as usual with the blackbird scoffing the suet he so loves whilst we were getting excited about it all only feet away from him! I do remember the total eclipse of 1999 when I was on relief at a bank branch in Cheshire and when the total darkness was reached, although it wasn't darkness exactly, more a brown black-out, the stillness and eeriness have never left me. We did not have many customers that day either.

Then on Saturday I was privileged to sing with my choral society the most lyrical and moving oratorio by Dvorak, his Stabat Mater. It might seem that the "Sorrowing Mother" is a miserable thing to sing but this is so full of good tunes that it is a joy and it went off superbly with an audience of around 100 people enthusiastically applauding which is most rewarding.

Then today, tinged with sadness in remembering the joy of having all my family, including my son with us, we have celebrated our 12th Wedding Anniversary with a lunch at my favourite restaurant and as I am so tired from yesterday I am doing not a lot today!

14 June 2015
Some time ago I bought OH a bookmark of a Chinese proverb "Make the gods laugh, tell them your plans". As a Christian I prefer God to gods but that is by the bye. In the life of our household however, it is certainly apt. Plans were afoot for a wonderful concert in which I was to sing, with music I thought was beautiful and today we should have been driving down to my great-nephew's for the Christening of his two beautiful daughters with the whole family gathered. I had planned everything; the outfit for the day and the return, the hotel had been booked and I had started to gather stuff together for packing.

However, plans are just that - plans - and in this case they are all to pot! A phone call at 7.50 am was to tell us that OH's father, aged 95, had passed away in his sleep. A true gentleman he had outlived his much-loved wife by just over seven years and I was unprepared for how much this has affected me. I know from my own experience that losing parents is devastating but I was not aware that the closer the death, the more the effect it has. Since Si's death I have not had to face this from a close family member and of course, as it is OH's last parent it has hit him very hard.

So, God, you can have the last laugh at the small arrangements of Your people!

8 September 2015
The remainder of August has been somewhat stressful and always interesting.

The weather has been less than summer-like which has prevented much work in the garden which is probably a good thing as OH and I have had various aches and pains but some big things were taking our attention. Chiefly, the legal stuff surrounding the death of FIL and disbursement of his legacies which seems to be taking an interminable length of time but at last something seems to be on the move. Apparently the Probate Office in Manchester seems to be very much under pressure as it takes at least ten days for them to acknowledge and respond to an email!

OH was vastly amused when I bought a small solar fountain for our tiny pond and blamed it for the rapid lowering of the water level on the odd occasions when the sun had actually shone enough for it to be activated! The builders had put in a pre-formed pond which was a pretty horrible shade of green (they were definitely not gardeners!) which had developed a small, undectable leak so OH bought some black butyl liner online and emptied the pond, much to the frogs and newts annoyance, and re-lined it with the black liner. The fact that we had at least 40 times too much liner is not a problem as I am sure we can find another use for the remainder. It looks much better now and the little fountain is just lovely.

I am Secretary of a Choral Society and much of the summer was taken up with weeding out the responses to our advertisement for a new MD and then intervewing six of them in early August. Two were outstanding and were due to be auditioned at our first rehearsal last night. Then, on Wednesday last week, which happens to be the date on which my beloved son was discovered, one of them emailed to say that he had a better offer and would be withdrawing. Calamity! Although we had been swamped with applicants these two were the only ones who would have suited us so I spent the day worrying that the remaining chap would not turn up! Thankfully, he did and the choir absolutely loved him which was such a relief.

The evening did not go all to plan however as a new member who is temporarily in a wheelchair managed to get trapped in the lift in the church where we rehearse. It had worked perfectly for my friend no more than fifteen minutes before but sadly he and his wife were stuck about three feet from the exit. My mobile phone is a topic of amusement amongst my friends who say it is never out of reach but in this case it was much needed. I rang the Letting Steward to advise him of the predicament and he said
"Oh, where is he stuck?"
"In the lift"
"I'll see if I can get someone to come out tonight"

What exactly did he think we were going to do with two adults in a small, confined space? Luckily the engineer who came out in double-quick time was a lot more sensible and released them but it was not a good start. The people concerned were remarkably all right and have forgiven us. However, next week they will be using the stairs!

12 September 2015
My comments are not going to have synchronicitiy as I have had a week of a hour on the phone and emails to-ing and fro-ing in an effort to get this little blog actually to publish to the web.

In March of the year Si passed I bought him a very expensive computer with all the requirements he would need for high-render work on his web designs for RPGs, two graphics cards, 64 bit; 2 TB hard-drive and 12 GB of Ram (which OH laughed out loud at and says is quite a lot but what do I know!) and he was absolutely thrilled with it. About a year previously his monitor had given up so we got a Sony monitor which was enormously expensive as well but HD and bells and whistles.

When his flat was cleared and his father did not want the computer OH and I brought it home with the intention that I would probably use it in years to come. We did set it up fairly quickly at home and I have kept it up to date with Windows updates. Well, three years on over August Bank Holiday, which I hate, I was naturally feeling very low, not only because of Si's anniversary but also because my lovely church choir has been forced to disband by the non-musical vicar who has finally got her way after four years of disliking the robed choir. They were my surrogate family, supporting, helping, laughing and crying with me and I am a little lost without them so needed a project to take my mind off things and with the advent of Windows 10 I decided the time had come to take the plunge.

Having done a clone of my old hard-drive we then swapped the computers over and all seemed to go reasonably well with very few hiccups. Microsoft has removed the option for watching Freeview TV so I bought a program which we have used in the past but it was profoundly unsuccessful so we bought a SmartTV to put on the wall between the computers so we didn't need anything else. (Smart is too much for me so I have just confined myself to watching ordinary stuff).

Then, when I tried to update the website that was when the snags started but thanks to a lovely young man at the web-hosting company all is now well so I have been fiddling with lots of pages on here, hoping I won't lose anything, but it publishes which I am thrilled about!

31 December 2015

So, to round off the year in style these three lovely birds are to be treasured.

The first is a redpoll which I have never before seen but OH's cousin, who is a bird-ringer on Orkney, assures me that this is so and I am thrilled. It only visited for a couple of days but that was enough for me to capture some moments in its life.

The second is one of our coal tits which just loves the new feeder I bought on the advice of another birdy friend and it only took the tits about ten minutes to come and visit.

The third is a bullfinch and so bright and lively on the dull days we seem to be having at the moment.

These visitors really bring light to my days and I am so thankful.

10 October 2015

After much thought OH and I engaged a company to provide new, floor-length curtains for our sitting room and vertical blinds for some rooms and I am delighted with both. Well worth the money although all required a bit of re-arrangement in as the loss of window-sill means that several house-plants have to be re-located but overall it is splendid.

On the theme of spending money, I decided to buy a bird cam which has not been entirely successful as it seems to take photographs when the bird has flown! Just needs a bit of adjustment on our part - nothing at all to do with the camera which works perfectly.

Our first attempt probably produced the best of a batch of photographs and I have shown it here. Nuthatches are so beautiful and in a previous house we were privileged to have one nest in a pine tree in the garden which was at least thirty years ago and since I have not seen one in real life. So I am thrilled to have this one as a regular visitor. We also have chaffinches although the female seems very scared of everything - but I did get a good shot of one of the males.

25 May 2015
An unexpected and wonderful call from a lovely friend today has reminded me that I have not posted for some time and in my defence I can only plead that I have been incredibly busy with house, choir and church.

An AGM with the Chairman stepping down six days before and the Musical Director two days before has meant that life at present is a bit hectic! One was a total surprise and the other was not but both have meant that, as Secretary of this organisation, I have had a bit of stuff to do! In many ways that has been a blessing as the pain of Si's passing does not diminish over time; rather I am learning how to live round it and live to the best of my ability.

And the highlight recently has been the Greater Spotted Woodpecker which came to feed from the fat balls - OH thinks I dreamed it!