Today is my mother's 75th birthday.
I know. I'm sure you all wish her well.
Unlike when my dad was 75, we did not have big family gathering. However, again in contrast to events three years ago, Ross was invited.
So, instead of a big family meal with speeches, there was a smaller gathering and last Saturday we had a picnic at Chester Zoo at Grace's request. Ross and I took over a special cake, which was much appreciated, and the two clematis which I bought recently.
The elephants were a great hit with everyone. I too particularly liked the new jaguar house (sponsored, surprisingly enough, by Jaguar cars who have a local production line). Inside there were not only the jaguar photographed above but also black panthers.
Linda, Mary and Ian came up for the occasion. Mary also particularly liked the elephants and enjoyed a brief ride on the monorail.
She also liked riding around on the battery operated wheelchair that Ross hired for the day. Ross told us later that she kept turning the speed up on him.
Anyhow, the aging Ps had a very good day even if the amount of walking did take its toll upon septuagenarian legs.
Apart from the four or five hours that we were at Chester Zoo last Saturday, it has done very little else apart from rain recently. This has brought some of the late summer plants on a treat. The budlia, clematis, passionflower and sweetpeas are soaring skywards. But there's been no space to sit out and take my ease on the patio.
In fact, I think that the thing I resent most about cloud and rain at this time of the year is not the dampness (it was so chill this morning that Ross put the central heating on for a couple of hours) but rather it is the denial of sunlight at the brightest time of the year. I just want to soak up that sun's rays.
Elsewhere, I've made a start on applying for jobs. I really feel that I no longer want to stay at Connect. Apart from anything else, I am bored.
I've also purchased some new spectacles as I am becoming more and more long sighted. I've noticed this reading on the bus going into work and whilst I'm at my computer. My current reading has been travel/lifestyle books by Chris Stewart. Driving Over Lemons and now A Parrot in the Pepper Tree are the sort of delightful, humane, anecdotal work that is ideal for bus reading.
My new glasses are varifocals, which is taking getting some use to as the focus varies depending which part of the lens I look through. I still have to master where my head needs to be positioned and which angle my eyes need to be at to bring objects into focus. There are still occasional vertiginous moments as I turn my head and the world lurches through a variety of refractive states.
Ross spent a few days invigilating at the exhibition of work by the school he worked with back in January - March as part of the STAR (Schools, Teachers, Artists Research) project which in turn is part of Liverpool Biennial. The panels behind him were made by the disabled children at the school. There are ten in all representing the numbers one to ten. As well as being permanent art objects that they have created, they also have a pedagogical value and will be used in teaching number skills.
