Braii on the beach...

The weather had other ideas.

Was it going to stop us?  Not a bit!  The braii was set up on top of the rubble in the hippo bag and the job as they say was a good’un.

Our chef of the day from South Africa was an old hand at the gentle art of barbecuing.  Well gentle isn’t perhaps the word that comes to mind?  All folk strolling along the prom were spoken to, all cars waved at, even the ice cream van tooted on his second pass through the thick starter barbecue smog!  Our standing in Hythe society has taken a knock similar when I think of it to the gentle art of snakes and ladders.  

Up the social climbing ladder we crept, all to land on a snake yesterday and come crashing down.  Am I bothered?  Not a bit!  The men stood tending the fire, like men do on these occasions, us girls sat in the building site called our sitting room laughing and chatting, like women do on these occasions!  Our neighbour returning from a 26 mile bike ride and was duly invited to join us.

The new table was put to good use, the extra leaf which I honestly didn’t think would be called upon that often, was deployed.  This word is a nod to our guests Army credentials.

Mugs of spicy carrot soup to start, and we certainly needed it, as it was perishing cold.

Lots of well cooked food, salads, gravy our chef from South Africa called his potent yummy tomato and onion sauce.
Plum and cinnamon crumble, orange and chocolate torte and a cheese board.

A good happy day.

I’m on the cusp...

of becoming a recluse.

Every morning the newspaper is beamed into my ipad. I idly flick through and can hardly bear to read one word of what is happening in the world.  I am sure I am not alone in feeling this way?  What happened to core values, truthfulness, being accountable?

The me, me, me society we live in frankly makes me heart sick.

An eerie sight...

the moon playing on the water.  Two huge ships, one the Azura cruise ship and the other Faust a vehicles carrier.  Both lit up in a juxtaposition to the moving lights on the beach from the fishermen in a lazy line all along the shore.  One I have watched since his arrival this morning has snoozed on and off all day behind his wind break.  Not even a tent, just stretched out on the pebbles.

I honestly haven’t seen him catch anything or come to that attend his fishing rods.  His pickup sits on the road full of building tackle.  After a hard week’s work, what better than to sit and snooze the weekend away in the fresh air?  Funny folk these fishermen.  Happy in their own world.

How to get past...

thirteen?  

My followers are stuck on twelve; is it because no one wants to be thirteen, I idly ask myself? Or is is because no one is sufficiently interested to follow?  Are you  just happy to pop in to have a look now and then?  To be honest I love doing this and enjoy the thought when it occurs to write about what to most is old tosh.  It gives me pleasure and that is after all what this is all about.

Today has been like the curate’s egg... good in parts.  Cooking mainly for friends coming for a braii on the beach (just wished they had wanted to come last week!)  It is freezing here this!

The man went off to choir this morning while I went up to the 
farmer’s market to buy supplies for tomorrow.  I wouldn’t mind, but we are not huge meat eaters.  My fridge is groaning under the weight of food.  All I really enjoy of barbecues is the salads and vegetable kebabs. It takes all sorts I suppose, and the craic will be good, lots of leg pulling and general banter.  I so love a party, mine especially.  How sad is that?  Added to which with the building work underway, there is no real need to dust!  Now I call that a result.

Now here’s a thing...

Hippo bags!

What?  You may well cry and before last week I would have done the same.  We have come up close and personal with the wondrous big yellow bag by way of our builder.

You buy them in builders’ suppliers empty then proceed to fill them with your clobber of choice.  Easy!  When full you phone up the Hipporarium, pay on plastic and they arrange to come and spirit the bag away.  Unlike ordering a skip, no licences have to be arranged with the council and the biggest plus for me is the fact that Hippo recycle 90% of the rubbish.

So far so good...

Now for the downside... me being up close and personal to a Hippo is... I am rapidly becoming one.

Not by osmosis I hasten to add, by feeding the builder.

I do have a desire to feed folk, it gives me great pleasure.  Trouble is all the biccies and cakes, oh and home made soup, daal and the many and various luncheons that get served are strangely 

finding their way into my tum as well!

A school bell for...

a campanologist... not very original I know.

We don’t know him that well although he is doing a superb job of our house alterations.

What to get him for his 60th on Saturday.  Suddenly it occured to me to give him my father’s schoolbell which I hate to admit has stood neglected in my many and various gardens since his death in 1990.  I haven’t done anything to it to tart it up, part of the fun for him will be I am sure, to restore it to its former glory by sand blasting to clean and making a new handle.

He’ll appreciate my entrusting him with part of my family history, or at least I am pretty certain he will?  And I’ll be more than happy knowing it’s going to a worthy owner.

Dad, I know would be pleased.

I got a fit of...

the giggles, we were talking pantry doors, like you do, especially in these parts.  Wherever you go it isn’t long before the thorny subject of doors and more especially pantry doors gets dropped like a pebble into a pond.  The ripples get ever wider as you have to decide just exactly how you are going to play it?  Are you going to appear terribly nonchalant and pretend it doesn’t really worry you one way or the other which way they hang?  The mask slips as it did for me this afternoon as two very earnest men were keen to get my definitive decision on my favoured swing

of the pantry door.  I was fine until the builder demonstrated by welding the broom in front of him.

‘You can have it here, here or here!  he said as the broom swung from quarter past to half past to quarter to.  Himself stood nodding sagely as the demonstration proceeded.  Many words were spent

 on explaining the advantages of the various positions.

I tried, oh how I tried to keep a straight face.  I even made a supreme effort to enter into this  very deep and meaningful conversation.  I could see a lot was riding on my decision  The mask slipped, I laughed... my bladder isn’t what it was.

I think even now they still don’t get the reason for my hilarity.

Funny creatures... men?

The offending, soon to be pantry door.  Oh, and the bemused builder.

First day’s work...

from this

to this

in just one day.

The joiner comes today to talk 
internal windows.

Light is the name of the game.

Oak is the wood of choice, this is the part I enjoy the most...

the planning.

All my life I’ve been...

an old mans’ darling... no idea why?  As I rapidly join their ranks nothing has changed... well except me getting old!  Trouble is, with the passage of time I am now one of them.

Back in the mists of time if a boy had the courage to trog across the dance floor to request my hand in the Gay Gordon’s I would never refuse.  The fact their eyes only came up to my newly emerging bosom or that they had a severe case of pustules I felt they had earned the respect of gracious acceptance.  Not all my contemporaries felt as I did.  This has been my MO all my life and I am happy to say I am unashamedly boasting here and why not?

What has reawakened this memory you might idly wonder?  Well I will tell you.  As we were leaving the pub I was taking my leave of the founder members of the Glass is Half Full Club when I was whisked into the arms of a man who
 probably tips the scales at a tad less than half of me and danced around the pub.  In his arms I felt every ripple of my larger than life persona fit to burst out of my underpinnings.

Now some might say this is the stuff of an old man’s dreams... for me, more like a ruddy nightmare!

Send food...

parcels and gin.  All hope is lost, taken to the Lost Property Office on platform 4 of 
Waterloo Station.

I have just been bellowing down the phone to my ‘mum’ who is as cantankerous as me.  I would like to say it’s in the genes but we are just pals... I’ve adopted her and to be honest I wish I hadn’t now?  Her independence is to be admired and I do... however her countering my every sensible suggestion, and in all honesty they are so few and far between it is hardly worth mentioning them. Me and sensible don’t really hang well together.  The latest is the phone on the blink.

‘It would be a good idea to get it replaced or report the fault A!’

‘I have the hands free if I need it!’

‘What happens if you have an emergency and the phone doesn’t work?’

‘It’s obvious, I will use the other one!’

‘What in the middle of the night when you have collapsed?’

She has a habit of talking over me all the time, whether this is because she can’t hear or the phone is playing up who knows?

I put the phone down after this conversation and the email pings, it is a friend trying to get through on the phone.

Then the landline goes and I pick up

‘HELLO!’

I fog horn down the phone, the conversation is then conducted at mega decibels from this end because I am in the zone, and the worst thing is I don’t flaming know it... Well that is until now when I collapse in the chair with a sore throat and in dire need of fluid, preferably alcoholic.

Disgruntled from...

Hythe calling...

Some might say a spoilt lump and they would be absolutely blooming right!

Have you ever tried parking your not inconsiderable derrière on a postage stamp?  It isn’t easy, take it from me.  These last few days have been superb weather-wise and sitting looking out on a sparkling sea has many advantages.

You know something?  I had a pain in my heart for my lovely left behind wild garden with the frog filled pond, the ancient hedge and the magnolia tree where we sat always in its shade.  It hurt so much, sounds melodramatic but that is how I felt.

‘What have we done?’ every fibre cried out.

I sat yesterday watching folk climb out of cars having driven miles to see exactly what I see now sitting up in bed tapping this out.  Even that thought didn’t 
ease the hurt inside.

Our life now is so totally different, we have been made so welcome by all we meet, so many lovely people live here.  Our fitness improves by the day.  Our cars sit forlorn and unloved with only the odd mercy mission to call them out of retirement.  One of them will be going, that is the plan, which one?  His Nissan Micra or my Brabus Smart... no flaming contest, in my Glasses guide!

So there you have it!  I am tempted not to post this, however I will because it hopefully will do me good on rereading it down the line when I have finally settled and can truly see the many 
benefits of life by the sea.

This morning in Hythe, breakfast on the beach... what better?

Feel free to have a pop, because  I think you have every right...

blogging...

twitter, facebook, mobile phones.

Why do we have this incessant need to communicate?

Driving, even walking in the middle of nowhere you pass people on the phone...why?  What is so important you run the danger of killing someone on the road by not paying full attention.  Or that spoils your enjoyment of peace and tranquility of the countryside?

I think I like blogging until suddenly I stop and think, what is the purpose?  I read other people’s blogs and comment, why do I do that?  Communication overdrive.  The minutiae of other folks lives is it really, really interesting?  What they had for breakfast, their thoughts on the ins and outs of a knat’s arse?  Their views on this that and the other.

The politicians thinking to regulate the press when there is the power of the internet in all 
its forms, why bother?

I despair at how gullible we all are.

With a piece of ...

gingerbread in hand the colour of the coal face the builder walked the course. Walls to go, oak floor to lay, pantry to make, internal windows, for some reason a passion of mine?  Where this little aberration comes from who knows?  This is the stage I love, the planning, the play it by ear element, dreams and schemes.

Rob is a craftsman, an eccentric, we can bounce ideas off each other without fear or favour.

My excitement level is creeping ever higher.  My turn to make a mark on this faceless box in a lovely situation...

exciting times. 

A loo with a

view at 7 am on a truly glorious morning.

A deserted beach all apart from a romantic couple having brekkie

and a lady swimmer.

A warm sunny morning with the promise of a scorcher and a dead flat calm sea

A good to be alive day!

I’ts a funny thing, reading...

when you think about it? 

A mystery, a skill which if you don’t master when young gets increasingly difficult.

Old couples come to the coast in the car, park overlooking the sea, eat their picnic, admire the view,  without a thought of getting out and having a walk.  They sit and read, him the Sun and her maybe a magazine or puzzle book.  After an hour or two they drive home. 

‘What a lovely day we’ve had at the seaside!’ they tell their friends on their return.

Men are seen trogging out each and every morning for their paper, a Woman’s Own for the missus and maybe a box of Fishermen’s Friends to clear the old tubes.  Back home they sit and read the newspaper from cover to cover, secure in the knowledge they have had their exercise for the day.

The reading of signs is another difficulty especially as the message is telling you something you would really rather not know!

The other evening we went to bed to the view of a camper van parked outside, right beside the no overnight parking of vans sign. Our view is we are fortunate to live in such a wonderful place so just let sleeping dogs lie.  About an hour later we were woken up by a loud knocking obviously on the side of the van.  After a concerted series of knockings the van roared away.

Whether it was the police or one of our neighbours we don’t know.  We have been advised by a guy a few doors down to park our car opposite to save our view being obscured.  Seems a bit churlish when we live here all year: although getting in from yoga at 10 am this morning to this parked

 smack outside, I am beginning to think it’s not such a bad idea? 

What a cat!  

The call came...

not too early, but early enough to slightly alarm me.

‘Don’t come expecting me to be too bright, I’ve had some considerable blood loss. 8pm, 9pm and 4am, in total about 15 fluid ounces!’

We were off to see the specialist later that day.

At 93 I suppose you get quite blasé about your slowly winding down bod.  I made celeriac soup to take, then set off on the hour drive full of what to say and how to play it.  I had said on the telephone calls prior to me leaving to prepare mentally for being admitted and whether she was happy to go along with that idea?

We talk straight that is the crux of our special bond, she knows I will support her whatever my views are. 

Much to my surprise she didn’t look too bad, pale, but otherwise her usual self... chatty, I suppose that is a symptom of living alone?  We talked through 
my idea of taking an overnight 
bag, at 93 she like a pregnant mum to be has a bag packed in readiness!  Although slightly anti the idea I won the day by saying it can stay in the car unless and until needed.  We arrived in good time and we’re called before our bums had hit the seats in the waiting room.

The very dishy young specialist had two even younger doctors in tow.  By now A is becoming a medical mystery so her fame for all the wrong reasons is spreading.  Her blood loss he batted away like a fly.  Her curve ball of... could it possibly be 

TB from the ovary removed fifty years ago making a comeback?  He  looked into re. the blood tests and carefully explained that it most definitely wasn’t even an outside chance!  There was no talk of her being admitted, there was however still infection very much 
in evidence.  He proposed steroid 

treatment which was very clearly rebuffed by A, and the reasons why!  We looked at photos of the inner workings of her body and he suggested that she have another thorough internal with himself at the sharp end this time!

Sitting there I thought of the how the NHS gets such stick and how horribly wrong people’s perception  is. He was absolutely charming with us both and as we walked away I glanced at the clock, we were walking out at two minutes past the appointment time!

Back in the...

day 1992, I got to the final of 

Masterchef.

When we moved I uncovered a box in the loft with 

‘My 15 minutes of Fame!’

written on the side. Videos of the episodes, paper cuttings and general memos.  I had the videos transferred onto discs, I’m sorry I did now! The me of 26 years ago is a far cry from the me that I see in the mirror today.

 It made me wonder how the truly beautiful actresses feel when presented with their younger selves?  Suddenly now I can in some small way understand why they go to such torturous lengths to stay the same.

Me, well I’ve just grown old disgracefully and will fib and say it doesn’t bother me...

You know something... it blooming well does!

Call it vanity and you’d be spot on!

As I turned the...

shower onto ice cold I got to thinking...

What the f**k am I doing?

I know exactly what I’m about...

I’m buying into the latest fad!

Next question... Why?

It burns off the bad fat surrounding the vital organs, says some medical whizz kid, for the life of me I can’t actually remember who?

Next question... Do I have bad fat anyway?

Will the agony of the ice cold pin pricks make me live longer?

Maybe by two weeks, tops.

As I sit talking to my teddy bear in the nursing home, will it all have been worth it I wonder?

I think not!

The bosom season is...

upon us.

I blame it on the sun!

The first day of warm-ish weather has brought not only the fishermen en masse, but it has had an effect on the combined heaving bosoms of the nation... they are out in force!

Two by two they stroll along the prom.

Heaven only knows what effect it will have on the man when the season really gets under way?

Just shown him the photo and said

‘Look at Hilary’s face!’

His reply...

‘I wasn’t looking at Hilary’s face!?!

I rest my case...

Snippets of conversation...

‘It’s fifty years since we last met, 1967, I think it was?’

‘He’s tall!’

‘I told him your christian name, he knew your surname!’

‘After all these years, he remembered you!’

‘I don’t expect her to buy me gifts!’

‘I understand it may be her time of life?’

‘She wants sausages for supper when all I want is a tuna salad!’

‘You are worth more, walk away!’

‘He will be along shortly, he’s got the hots for the woman in the

**** shop!’

‘I remember you only got to five foot seven and a half inches in height!’

‘Yes, I got a Home Office dispensation for it!’

‘We’ve got to go, I’ve got something in the oven!’

‘He was buying nappies and the assistant said “Are these for your grandchild?”  “No for my daughter,” he replied.

‘Good to see you after all these years, we must do it again sometime!’

A flavour of Friday night in the pub,up and down the British Isles.

Cheers!

To a bloke...

sitting King Canute-like in his pickup eating his elevenses.  I said 

‘It looks like you’re pushing back the sea!’

After a moments thought allowing time for the crisps to clear he said

‘No!  It’s tidal here!’

Letting that pearl of wisdom take time to register, po-faced I said

‘Oh!... Well, anyway you’re all doing a good job, thank you!’

As I wandered away along the prom with yoga roll over my shoulder he probably thought ‘Daft tart!’

As I wandered away along the prom watching the heavy plant trundling backways and forwards, I thought at least Shepway Council are taking our sea erosion seriously. Twice a year they move the shingle back along from where Mother 
Nature has over the winter decided it must go.

I know who my money is on!

But wait: The moral of this little tale is... he was happy that he thought he had educated the uneducated.

I was happy I had let him know I for one, was acknowledging all their hard work.

Win-win, I’d say!

The old family china...

is being packed away.

After only four short months. 

30 years of languishing in various attics and lofts, my grandparents’ ‘high days and holidays’ crockery is being carefully wrapped 
and squirrelled away again in the loft.

On Monday the builder is coming to knock walls down to enlarge the kitchen.  So away it must go!  The happy memories it evoked as I ceremoniously unveiled it was truly a step back in time.  A time of rocking horse, a swing under the plum trees, kittens playing in wood shavings, celery in a vase,
 wondrous ‘jewels in jelly’ brawn made by my grandfather from half a pigs head.
As a child if I had known the ingredients required, would I have enjoyed it quite so much?  
I think not!

Here it is in all its glory.
12 place settings: does anyone have that amount of china these days?  The worse bit of all this is, it is so lovely I’m petrified to use it!

Do you have old family china that 
has the same effect on you, or is it just me that is a sentimental old fool?

She could so...

easily be my mum!

She is so very poorly and so independent: difficult to help. 
She lives alone and still drives, although that of late is getting less. I can see her fading with her dignity very much intact.  I worry, that is what you do when tasked with helping without overstepping the mark between interest into interference!  The force that is Lett meets the force that has so much more intelligence and cantankerousness than this little shrinking violet!?!

I adopted her as my much missed mum who died weeks after I had my only child.  My mother was 48, my new mum is now 93, a year younger than mine had she lived.
I love her and have promised her I will be there for her at the end. I will ensure as far is humanly possible that I will not let anyone take her to hospital against her wishes.

Leaving her body to medical science, on one occasion she was saying about keeping her weight down.  Which on questioning as to why, she replied I need to in case I get too fat and they won’t want my body.  She wondered why I nearly fell off the chair laughing?  

‘I’ve heard of slimming for life and living but never for death and dying!’

We did laugh!

What a wonderful woman? I am proud to know her and call her a friend.  My lovely new mum! We talk freely about death as I honestly think we all should.  Why is it such a taboo subject, when all is said and done it is the most natural of occurrences? 

Off to see her today...
fingers crossed.

Beach combing is what I do...

A ‘gentle’ ten mile stroll took us to Folkestone on Saturday.

Four miles there as rain demanded we hop on a bus(?)and six back. Fortified with a bowl of pasta and a glass of wine, we wandered along the Harbour Arm taking in the live band and happy crowds enjoying the shy sun!

Walking back across the broadwalk on the beach I spied a rusty object.  My magpie genes were flexed as I bent to pick it up.  It weighed a ton!  A mere bagatelle like weight wasn’t going to put off a hardened beachcomber like me.  What I hadn’t bargained for was, already my pockets were full of rather large stones.  Off we set with a spring in our step. Boy, was the flaming thing heavy, getting heaV-I-E-R with every ruddy step.  Himself offered to carry it, however his knees aren’t in the full flush of youth... I declined with the words...

‘It’s my bright idea to pick it 
up, let me be responsible for the carrying it home!’

I put it over my right shoulder leaving my left hand free to transport a 99 ice cream down my chops as we promenaded home.

Well, a girl needs sustenance in order to power home!?!

With each mile my mind glorified this most (well to some?) interesting of objects.  The key that turned the points to direct the very last train down the harbour for the passengers to step off the train and onto the ferry.

Now in my imaginings it would have been in the last century but no himself informs me that it was the 12th April 2008.

And I’ve carted the blooming thing all the way home...

Why, oh why can’t I be pale and interesting, instead strong and purposeful just like a puffed up socking great seagull strutting along the prom?

As camp as...

custard!

We now have the official colour 

required for the outside of our row of seaside homes.

‘Tusk’

Brewers Building Merchants answer to that most boring of shades magnolia!

It wouldn’t be so bad if they were all painted together en masse.  As it is the various ages of paint makes for a strange mismatch of 

insipid battery hen yolk yellow. A jaunty gay yellow I could cope with, this cruddy cream is beyond the pale, if you get my drift?

We are the new kids on the block and already I feel my bolshie gene  

flexing its muscle.

Why, oh why can’t I just settle like the sediment in an old bottle of port and do something appropriate to my advancing years.

Take up tatting, wear Crimplene,

buy slippers with buttons and pom-poms, corsets and big knickers. Instead I’m dusting off my megaphone, idly making a banner or two and generally limbering up for  

a tussle.

All hope is not lost on the ageing front though.  I did buy two bolsters the other day, if they are not an old ladies article of desire, I don’t know what is...?

I went to...

Tunbridge Wells and bought a khaki

brassiere!

Is she going on manoeuvres you might idly wonder?

With the firing range so close it is truly tempting! 
  

Teeth... Potholes...

The state of our roads, in my opinion directly reflects the state of the nations teeth.

Rotten, ill cared for!

Years of mismanagement by our politicians has resulted in money being spent unwisely.

Today I am off to the dentist.  I often say I could have bought a small terraced house with the money I have spent over the years keeping my teeth in good heart.

Sad to say, teeth are the one thing I notice about people I meet or being interviewed on the television.  I feel sad that for what ever reason the health of their choppers aren’t high on the priority stakes.  Money mostly I suspect?  That and fear!

I watched ‘Hospital’ last night and it filled me with horror.  It should be compulsory viewing for our politicians.  They should hang their heads in shame, mindful of course that their china choppers don’t fall out...

Silly me!  They will have 
beautiful well cared for teeth, in all probability at preferential rates: the balance of which is picked up by the folk who can’t afford to get their own teeth done! 

I love blogging...

Why do I do it? I do it for myself as a record of all the silly stupid irrelevant things that come into my head.  I want to capture them for myself.  It would be a lie to say I don’t look for comments.  If I wasn’t at all bothered I would keep it a private blog.  Somehow and I don’t know exactly why I want to put it out there.  It sort of validates it?

 Not many of my friends know I blog.  I think my reticence comes from me giving my son a tape of me on Radio Kent.  I was asked to do a local radio type of Desert Island Discs.  I was keen for him to hear my choices, as our shared happy times featured large.  I gave him the tape as they left to go back to York thinking naively that it would wile away some of the four hour journey.  Nothing was said and some time later I asked what he had thought about it?

‘Oh we didn’t listen to it!’

As it was the only copy, I would have quite liked to keep it for the future family historians,to flesh out the boring bones. 

‘Haven’t got a clue what happened to it!’

Says it all really!

Now I just enjoy waffling on without too much of a care as to how my thoughts are received.

Indulgence is the name of my particular game.