A cold night babysitting

It was really very cosy under my lovely rug last evening. My, but it was a cold night! Upstairs it is reasonably warm, with the thatch sitting on top of the little cottage like a tea cosy, but downstairs it is a different matter. Being such an old house, with no foundations, the cold seeps up from the ground and turns your feet and legs into pillars of ice. There is a wood burning stove in the other room, but to be honest, I’m nervous about lighting it; it used to be Dennis’ job. On the odd occasions when I have dared to light it, when I’ve had visitors or the family have been here, I’ve been awake half the night afterwards worrying in case it hadn’t gone out properly and, in any case, most of the logs he left in the lean-to - still quite a pile of them, shows how rarely I have lit the fire - need chopping smaller and I’m not all that happy about wielding an axe. I did ask Miles once, but he turned them into kindling. He likes you to see he's very strong. He has a personal trainer, you know.  

Anyway, as I was saying, with my lovely new rug and with my hot cushion squeezed comfortingly between my knees, I was very cosy. I wasn’t very relaxed though and I quite missed what the lovely Stephen Fry had to say on the subject of language, because he's very clever and you  do have to listen very carefully, don't you - never mind not having got to grips properly with Coronation Street earlier.  Sandy had popped out after she had put Genny to bed, to some sort of fund-raising do that some woman she met through Bedales was having - not sure what it was for; I don’t think she  ever said.  They live in a fabulous house, Sandy says; seven bathrooms, twenty-two acres and a swimming pool! I must go and have a peep at it from the road sometimes. She felt she really ought to go as she was staying very close at hand.

I had wondered what the beautiful midnight blue evening dress she had hung on the back of the bedroom door was for, I'd kept meaning to ask her; it seemed an odd thing to bring with her for a couple of days in the country with me.

I didn’t mind at all, of course, very happy for her to go, though it did mean that I had to keep one ear open and make several trips to peer round the bedroom door just to make sure Genny  was sleeping soundly, so I didn't sleep very well.  It's especially hard to switch off  when you are  responsible for somebody else's child, harder than it is for your own. I often get quite worn out following after her, making certain she is all right.

Not, of course, that I mind.


  

shopping

It was really nice having a little granddaughter to take out this morning.  Such a pretty little thing and Sandy has bought her lovely clothes!  She even has a little velvet hat with felt flowers and a brim:  so sweet!  Must have cost a fortune.

 The two boys were lovely, of course, each in their own way, but Genevieve seems much easier to amuse; less boisterous and far less full of beans. We did the feeding of the ducks, of course, as usual, but we also spent a lot of the time peering into shop windows.  She really seemed most interested; I sensed quite a kindred spirit in her.

 I am getting the hang of the pushchair again now. Going into shops backwards and things:  amazing how you forget.

 There was a very nice, calf-length, red wrap dress in the window of Help the Aged today, which would be lovely to wear over Christmas.  I was very tempted to pop in and ask what size it was, but the shop was very crowded and, of course, I couldn’t have left the pushchair outside. (It’s so difficult to find anything the right length when you are getting on, and I do hate trousers: seem to cut me in half and I never feel womanly.) Genevieve liked it to, I could tell; she pointed a lot and gurgled. We decided that we would pop over again tomorrow and have another look if it’s still there. If we go early enough we should be able to get the pushchair inside.

Sandy hadn’t got back by the time we got home, so I got on with making some nice chicken sandwiches for lunch and a little chicken mousse in case Geraldine can’t cope with the bread. It took her a long time yesterday, Sandy, doing her shopping, four hours or so, I think; I was beginning to get worried.

 Geraldine?  who’s Geraldine? Genevieve, I mean.

Of course, I didn’t mind missing my watercolour class; I shall find out what they did and practice on my own before next Wednesday.)  

Sandy  had said she was popping out for Pampers, but I didn’t see any when she got home. You should see what she did buy, though" I'll try to remember them all:-

A silk tunic thing, deep crimson, almost black; lovely! It did suit her. (Oh, and the boots were gorgeous, too: long, black, soft leather lace-ups. And the heels! It must be well over forty years since I wore heels that high. I blame those five inch stilettos for my nobbly, misshapen toes and my bunions; they did warn us, but we wouldn’t listen)

Two new dresses, a dear little pale blue dressing gown and a pair of pink and orange overalls with a matching pink tee shirt for Genny. (I’m going to call her Genny, now. It’s less confusing.)

Some smoked salmon and a box of freshly-baked chocolate brownies (we had those with our afternoon tea).

Some games to send for the boys for their X- boxes, whatever those are. (Both at Bedales  now! My goodness, doesn’t time fly. Well, not Bedales exactly, it’s their junior school. William will be moving up to Bedales proper next year, but Archie’s got another two years to go. I think he’s enjoying the boarding now; he wasn’t, very much, at the beginning. 

Fancy, two of my grandchildren at public school! Or do you call it ‘Private school’? I don’t know; is there a difference?

What else? Oh, yes: - a new mascara. Yves St Laurent.

Some  watercress and some sort of low-fat, healthy-eating pasta salad in a tub. I think she had bought it for our lunch, but of course she had missed it. (Not Pot Noodles, of course, she wouldn’t hear of it

A fine, soft, button-up cardigan, navy, with tiny pearl buttons, in what she called ‘tissue cash.’ I presume that’s cashmere.

A set of six green glass water tumblers.

Nothing for Miles because she said he always rejects the things she chooses; prefers to buy his own. There are plenty of nice shops round where he works, in the City. He can have things sent up so he can choose in his office.

A squeaky hippopotamus and a pair of stripy tights. (For Guine–  I mean, for Genny, not for her.)

 Oh, and she bought me a lovely, warm knitted rug thing for my knees; be wonderful for watching telly.

 Oh,  and a  plant pot: very pretty, beige and green.

 She is extravagant.

#

You can’t browse around for ever in our Boots, though; it’s a very small branch. No wonder that she got side-tracked.

Whilst I think about it...

Whilst I think about it – isn’t ‘Genevieve’ a little bit of an old fashioned Christian name, too? Oh, I did  love that film, didn’t you? Did you ever see it? The one about the London to Brighton race. What was that actress called? Used to be my favourite. Oh, she was lovely. Margaret… Muriel..?  No, I think there was a Muriel in it, in the film, but I don’t mean that one… The other one! Oh, you know the one I mean! Lovely. Tall. Very elegant. I think she died very young. Oh, you know her! Mary..?  

Oh. Oh, yes. Kay. Kay Kendall.

I wanted to be her.

 Anyway, Genevieve is a very pretty name and I was grateful for the thought and indeed deeply touched. Just wish I wouldn’t keep calling the poor child ‘Guinevere’. It does confuse her.

Whimpering softly...

I turned my face to the sun, whimpering softly with pleasure. Relief blossomed and swelled like some powerful, wicked genie released from its bottle, pervading my whole body. Closing my eyes, I breathed out a deep, long sigh of satisfaction. Wreathed in happy blue haze in the golden glow of late afternoon, I was reckless of the wasps buzzing around me in the pulpy mush of fallen plums and of the water dribbling from the neglected hosepipe and steadily darkening the leather of my dusty sandals. I was heedless, too, to the distant crunching of tyres on the gravel at the side of the cottage, but then I heard a car door slam heavily, and panic struck me like a bolt of lightning.

They were back!!

 To explain: Sandy and my little Genevieve have come down for a couple of days, which is lovely. (Genevieve was named so on the basis that ‘Gen’ or ‘Genny’ sound the same as ‘Jen’ or ‘Jenny’, because Sandy had the kind thought to name her after me, but  ‘Jennifer’ was thought to be embarrassingly dated and ordinary and very much maiden-aunt, like ‘Mildred’ or ‘Gladys’ -  a point, as I think, which Miles helpfully pointed out. Or was it Sandy?

 Lovely as it is to have them both here, it’s also very nice when they pop out for a little while, because then I can relax and have a proper cigarette.

 Yes, I’m afraid I do.

 When we first moved here, I thought I was the only smoker in the village. (Where have I heard that phrase before? It sounds familiar.) I’m not, as I’ve discovered over time, though almost all of the others are either under twenty five and have the bravado of youth and the knowledge that they are going to live forever, or they are men who ostentatiously puff away on pipes or cigars as if to say, these of course, don’t count.  I have tried to stop, of course, because to be honest it is very difficult to be a smoker now, but I won’t bore you with the history of my efforts; suffice it to say that the attempts have been many and varied. After fifty years of smoking, the shock to my system of withdrawal is insufferable. It’s so used to them, my brain goes into complete panic, screaming ‘Help! Help! Do something! We’re dying! Dying! Danger! Danger!’  and I become a tearful zombie wading through treacle and failing to get anything done.

And don’t tell me that it’ll be fine after I’ve done three weeks; I’ve done six months several times and week by week things  just  got incredibly worse.

I’ll take the consequences. It’s not worth it to me. I’m a wimp.

*

Dennis

About Den. Four years now. I still miss him so, I hurt.

sleeping badly

Naturally I didn’t sleep at all well last night. Every little rustle or click or creak, of which there are many in such an old cottage, heralded the approach of something or somebody nasty. The latch on the door rattled a little at some point as if a breeze from somewhere in the house was making the door shudder. I managed to convince myself that I’d left the garden door or the top of the stable door in the kitchen or one of the windows open and I had to get up and creep downstairs with my torch and Dennis’s cricket bat to check. Don’t ask me why I didn’t just put on the lights instead of using the torch. It would have been much easier to see where I was going, not nearly as dangerous on the stairs and not nearly as spooky as it was with only the weak beam of the torch.

 (NB. Must get a new battery)

 (NNB. Remember Village Show on Saturday. Get  some Self-raising flour.)

 I keep the torch at the side of my bed in case we have a power cut. We get lots of power cuts; it’s something to do with being at the end of the line or having a very modern and sensitive fuse box (especially sensitive to spiders), depending who you are talking to. The fuse box lives behind a removable section of wood at the back of the larder cupboard, hidden behind the Weetabix, the Cornflakes, the Quaker Oats and the chocolate-flavoured stuff which I wanted to try but which is really rather nasty, the extra big cake tins that won’t fit elsewhere, a supply of light bulbs, a box of assorted screwdrivers and any spare packets of things like kitchen rolls. (There’s simply nowhere to store things in this house.) All I have to do to get the power back on is to flick a switch, as Dennis showed me, but it’s such a palaver getting everything out first and putting it all back that I dread it happening.  

And, of course, my scary nocturnal journey hadn't been necessary. I had closed and locked up everything before I had gone to bed - in fact, quite early in the evening, whilst there was still some daylight.

Nowadays I prefer the light.

I used to sleep well. I was never this much of a worrier or an insomniac while Dennis was still around.

hairy things.

There was a thing on the radio this morning about another man who has been charged with raping old ladies in their late seventies and eighties! Can you believe it? How can they do that? The poor women. In their eighties!

There was an old lady, not that much older than me, who lived by herself very near here and who was battered to death for her pin number not that long ago. They've never caught the man who did it. Makes you very nervous when you're getting on a bit and living on your own.

Of course, I'm nowhere near eighty. No. Not at all.

Not yet.

There’s one little bit of comfort when I think about it; her house was rather isolated, surrounded by tall trees.  Mine isn’t. It has hedges all around, but the other cottages are close by and it’s a friendly village and you have the reassuring feeling that if you opened the window and shouted, somebody would hear and would dash over to lend a hand. Of course, they might all be away on holiday or you might not be able to get to a window or you might not be able to shout; I believe you can lose your voice if you are very scared, but in principle...

I keep Dennis’s treasured old cricket bat close to the bed now, just in case - though I gather that I might find myself being arrested and charged with assault if I tried to use the thing on a burglar.  

There are some things that have puzzled me about getting older: there are certain things that happen to a woman and they are not all as freely anticipated as long hairs sprouting on your chin or starting to grow a moustache. (Dennis used to pretend to twiddle the ends of a pointy one and joke that I was getting ready to join the RAF if I hadn’t used my tweezers for a while.)  Just one, for example. You don’t just grow white hairs in your eyebrows; you grow great, long, black, wiry ones as well. If you left them alone, you’d start to look like that politician, what was his name? Big bushy eyebrows...  Chancellor of the Exchequer...  Jim. Jim somebody. Definitely began with a ‘J’. John? James? Jeremy?

Oh, no. Denis.

 Denis Healey. Same as my Dennis. Should have remembered that.

And whilst the hair is growing luxuriously all over the face, it is rapidly fizzling out everywhere else. I understand from the magazines they have at my hairdressers that some young women are paying for what they call now ‘Brazilians’ or ‘Landing Strips’ and designs with names like that. If only they would wait they could save themselves a lot of pain and money. To our surprise, many of us older ladies are becoming remarkably on trend.