The inexplicable roundabout

To my horror when the maps were given out at the group today I found that I was going to have to drive to the territory via the terrifying roundabout/road combined thing that I can't understand.   I can't see how it works and where the cars will be coming from.   I got across it somehow, but chickened out coming back and drove round the houses.   Sheila and I had a lovely morning out though.  She is wonderful on the doors and I was trying to listen and learn.  But she has a very warm personality which, alas, I do not.   She also rescued me from a spider that had got into the car - she got it out efficiently and gently with a tissue and it scuttled off about its business unharmed.
I joined the family at Helen's for coffee afterwards - haven't managed to do that for ages.
Captain B was butterflying and we shopped when we got back.
Audrey and I go out first thing tomorrow morning to finish my magazine route.

Oh dear, what can the matter be?

Bea leaves for her new home in the North next week.  We went over to Eastbourne today to take her for lunch (at the Golden Galleon), and we had a walk round Cuckmere Haven afterwards.  It was cloudy and sunny with a strong wind and beautiful Autumn light.

The next time we see her it will probably be Up North. And hopefully she will still be coming to stay with us, although she is no longer a bus ride away.

We managed to get ourselves stuck in the ladies loo.  We could not find the right door.  First we tried to go in to the Mother and Baby Changing Room, then we found ourselves heading into a broom cupboard.  When we finally got out we found Captain Butterfly waiting outside, his profile of weary patience featuring strongly.   We then found some Fools Gold (pyrites) on the beach.

I feel there is probably a poem in that somewhere, but as I don't write them anymore, I won't be able to find it.

But there is a poem by Thomas Hardy I want to put in here.  Because its not a goodbye to Bea, but its goodbye to Eastbourne and so many memories of her and Brian there.  And I was also thinking of my mother, as a child, evacuated with her convent classmates to a Convent on the South Coast during the war.


THE MARBLE-STREETED  TOWN    by Thomas Hardy (1914?)

I reach the marble-streeted town,
    Whose "Sound" outbreathes its air
        of sharp sea-salts ;
I see the movement up and down
    As when she was there.
Ships of all countries come and go,
    The bandsmen boom in the sun
        A throbbing waltz ;
The schoolgirls laugh along the Hoe
        As when she was one.

I move away as the music rolls:
    The place seems not to mind
        That she - of old
The brightest of its native souls -
        Left it behind!
Over this green aforedays she
    On light treads went and came,
        Yea, times untold ;
Yet none here knows her history -
        Has heard her name.

The Field

We blackberried this afternoon - at what I shall have to call The Field (Craggy Island style) as I don't know what it is called.   We took a big manly tupperware container and a little girly one.  The Captain soon had the big container filled and then took over the small girly one and filled that too.  I was very hampered by the spiders webs which were everywhere, protecting the berries.
Apparently its the courting season for spiders, and they are all over the place, scurrying about with little boxes of choccies tucked under their arms and bearing bouquets and charming smiles. And then getting eaten for their trouble, poor things.
Which reminds me that, as we haven't been on the beach, I haven't been able to continue my campaign to get to know Maurice the Mussel.  He strikes me as quite a ladies man though, so he might be off doing some courting of his own.
June and I were out on the door to door work this morning.  It was sunny but cold with a touch of ice in the air.
Winter is on its way.

Driving Miss Maggie

We went to some of Maggie's magazine route calls - found quite a few in and had some good conversations. We then went off down by the station to try and find some of my Not At Homes.  Not a one at home...  But we met up with a group of our siblings working on the doors down there, which was lovely.

Lots of Big Boy Grown Up Driving to do - plus a visit to the Big Sainsburys - with the Big Carpark - so I came back exhausted.  But happy.   Put the chicken in marinade for tomorrow, made the crumble from the blackberries we picked - a successful one according to Captain B, but a little too sweet.

Shouted crossly at the Captain (because I was tired and cranky) - but did apologise and made him an extra nice tea.    But talk about not practising what you preach...

Am having an interesting chat with Ari, an internet friend.  He wrote to say how he dislikes this time of year with all the Halloween stuff.  So I sent him this:

The book The Worship of the Dead points to this origin for Halloween:

“The mythologies of all the ancient nations are interwoven with the events of the Deluge . . . The force of this argument is illustrated by the fact of the observance of a great festival of the dead in commemoration of the event, not only by nations more or less in communication with each other, but by others widely separated, both by the ocean and by centuries of time. This festival is, moreover, held by all on or about the very day on which, according to the Mosaic account, the Deluge took place, viz., the seventeenth day of the second month—the month nearly corresponding with our November.” (London, 1904, Colonel J. Garnier, p. 4)

Thus these celebrations actually began with an honoring of people whom God had destroyed because of their badness in Noah’s day.—Gen. 6:5-7; 7:11.

Personally, my decision is to leave it well alone.

Reflections in October

We were at Ferring Rife this afternoon.  It was cloudy, a bit windy, a good walking day really.  We picked two tupperware boxes of blackberries and I must make them into a crumble.  We swam in the morning - in the local swimming pool, not the Rife!  Although we were accosted by a very friendly dog who had been in the Rife, or somewhere like it and he shook muddy water over us with loving enthusiasm.
We also went to Worthing to pick up Wine kits.  Plus I posted a  letter to Jo thanking her for the photo of the young us on honeymoon, and letters to Kathryn and to Margaret (enclosing the invitation from Pen).
My own reflections in October...  I found myself thinking about the Paradise earth ahead and imagining Autumns then.  Adam probably first opened his eyes in an Autumn garden - in the Garden of Eden, the most beautiful garden ever planted,  He was in Paradise.

A blackberry afternoon

Another lovely day yesterday. Audrey and I were out on the work in the morning. We did some of her route calls, which involved a lot of complicated driving (for me, probably not for anyone else), into a small village, and out again.  So many roads round here were not made for cars.  I found a gentleman I had been looking for for some time.  When I first talked to him he had just lost his wife, and we have had a couple of brief conversations since them.  He has been away staying with family, and I said i would call back in the Autumn. However, he does not want to talk to me any more.
Col and I went out to wander round an enormous field that has miraculously survived, so far, all the pressures for development on the South Coast.   Sadly, it looks like we may finally lose it now, in the middle of a housing recession.  People are obviously fighting to keep it as a field.   I don't know what could be more valuable down here, as we are all getting so crowded together.   There were some lovely blackberries we were picking and eating and, if we can find a moment, we will return with some containers this afternoon and have blackberry crumble for tea.

The Admiral and the Wasp

We were back at Brandy Hole on another perfect Autumn afternoon - cloudless blue sky - Autumn colours - lovely to be able to spend a Monday afternoon together - one of the many joys of retirement.

We were looking for a... Duke of Fritillary (all purpose name for a hard to find butterfly - an orange one in this case)... but didn't find it. However I spotted a Speckled Wood and then a pristine new Red Admiral.  It was feeding on the flowers of the ivy, along with a whole load of wasps/bees, which kept bothering it.

I think they thought the Admiral was a flower and would try to keep landing on him.  He would get rid of them with an irritable shake of the wings.

We swam this morning.   Jacks is back - hurray! - and she may join us as we re-establish the swimming routine.

And I heard from Ari - an email friend from New York.