Well, the gas man is here installing my new boiler. I'm on holiday and feeling shattered - not a good state of being given that I'm teaching in Oxford later in the week.
Why am I exhausted?
Well, it's been a busy few days.
Don't think for a minute that having Ross here whilst he was packing his belongings wasn't also a drain on my spirit. As much as he was bidding farewell to hopes and aspirations, so was I.
It partly came out in healing that night with Margaret. We are certainly making progress. Lots of very old material is beginning to shift and move. Some of it still seems to be associated with my throat. There's a definite block to letting something go. We'll just have to see where all of that leads us. But it was a draining, though satisfying, session. I'm getting further with this sort of counselling than I ever did with talk and word based counselling.
I was up reasonably early on Saturday morning and drove up to Merseyside. It was a fairly easy drive. Overcast and not too close. Time spent with Albert and Grace was good. They're concerned about me knowing that I'm going through a difficult transition but knowing that they can't intervene. Partially because it's all stuff that I have to work out for myself but also because they know, from my teenage years, that I simply will not be told - which is unfair given how much I try to tell everyone else.
We talked about a range of stuff - Linda, becoming grandparents, becoming an uncle, the Liverpool Blitz, bravery (my mum has always said that you should always put yourself first but like me she can't live with herself if she lets things go and, many moons ago, when a neighbour's house went on fire, it was she who went into the building to make sure that the children weren't in there), trees, Irby in the early 60s (I can remember the school bus being held up as the herds of Friesian cows were driven through the village for milking), me being gifted, hyperactive and demanding (much denied as being problematic by Grace), analysing things (Grace and me), always wanting the security of knowing what's going on (Albert and me), needing to achieve a balance in our lives (all three of us), Quakerism, Methodism, David's death, grandpa Ward's death and the whole damn kaboosh.
The only thing we did not speak about was Pride which was featured on the television news but which was noticeable only by my absence.
The drive back was pretty pissy but the worst thing was that I
scraped the car while I was parking it at then end of the journey.
So, it's Monday afternoon and George Michael's Older is playing on the computer. It's grey and overcast and the gas man is still making slow progress. There'll be lot of cleaning up to do after the work is finished but the good news is that he's been able to use the old cupboard, so a lick of paint in the autumn should cover a multitude of sins. Mind you, I found out recently that my neighbour, Sid, is not well with a hernia and a perforated bowel. So he's not going to be around to do my household odd jobs for a while. I must try and get a card to him.
I've just had a letter from the solicitor's handling David's estate apologising for not having responded to two letters that had sent to them. For various reasons, there is still no settlement. Trust David to make it difficult for all concerned.
Out in the garden it is green and lush, drizzle falls and the grass grows. The colours
are dominated by the mauve range of the spectrum. There's the lavender, the budlia,
two sorts of clematis, the honeysuckle, one of the hostas. The lupins are a mass of
greenfly that do not seem to be treatable. Maybe they'll settle down for next year.
But, wonder of wonders, this year it looks as though my passionflowers will flower.
