Thursday 9th January

Dear Diary. quite like that opening.  In a separate blog I am typing out my thoughts on the younger me.  It is extraordinary how you arrive at the later point of life, with all the things that have happened to you over the years, I realise I must have enjoyed my life, the miserable times were hard but I arrived in one piece.  Today is my birthday and I need to reflect for Paul's absence on this day is so sad.

Opened my presents from my daughter, Middlemarch by George Elliott which I had asked for, a good long read on the fallibility of its characters, and a long grey cardigan which is lovely which I shall wear tonight at the social meeting at the pub.

Yesterday I talked to Nigel over the road, he has been in the village for years but told me he does not know anyone to speak to on my side of the road.  Why not? is it the f****** class system that stands in the way, or is it a suburban mindset, that crafts a neat home and garden and looks down on self-sufficient people.

Also took C and J to the gardening club meeting in the afternoon, which was about, wait for it, 'Tulips from Amsterdam'. I Do Not Like flowers grown in straight lines but the Dutch obviously do!

The question of getting people, a) to get together, and b) talking has been on my mind for quite a while.  C did not know that Nigel's wife was ill though she has lived in the village for 30 years, but J did talk to Nigel, for instance when he wanted to buy hay for his sheep.

The meeting tonight is to discuss  social get togethers through the year, the next one is the Carvery at the end of this month.  Someone from the village came up to me at the meeting (I am taking on Paul's role in this it seems) to ask could not the church/parish meeting/social all come together.  Church attendance down to three, the vicar with 9 churches to look after.  But....... should the money we raise from social events go towards the church funds?

Thoughts bounce through my mind....

Just read the story of when Flush (Elizabeth Barrett's spaniel) was dognapped, it all ended happily of course.... Virginia Woolf wrote a book about Flush.

"Flush lived happily with the Brownings until he passed away peacefully in Florence on June 16, 1854 at age thirteen. Pen, then five years old, found him the morning he died, and the family cried together. “It has been quite a shock to me & a sadness,” Elizabeth wrote to Arabel. “My head aches so I can scarcely see,” she told a friend. When her son had stopped weeping, he assured his mother that in a year, Flush would be reborn. “He never doubts the prolonged existence of the dog-soul,” wrote Elizabeth to Robert’s sister, adding wistfully, “And he may be right.”