November. News!

November has been such a roller-coaster month.

We began by returning unscathed from England, with just a minor panic attack from Pickle the last night in Poole. The slightest pop of fireworks sets her off for hours. She burrows on the bed under the pillows, trying to climb all over us in a futile effort to escape. #thatdog

Straight back into the second half of term. By Monday lunchtime it felt as if we'd never had a week off. (I console myself with the thought that younger members of staff - some half my age - are equally exhausted... and I was only feeling somewhat fatigued because of an incipient cold/random virus.) Still, another day and then I was off to London. INVITED TO BUCKINGHAM PALACE!!  What an adventure!! Yes, I was - and still am - beyond excited.  Still haven't really come down from the high several weeks later....

The day was not just about the palace, though. Nevertheless, once my head graciously gave me permission (and authorised the purchase of my air ticket!), it was all I could think of. I made sure I would be dressed smartly enough, even purchasing new boots to replace my annually mended and resoled workhorses which had lasted me for several years. I organised to see Sue, my best friend from college, who I had not seen for upwards of three decades, before the event at the Palace; and arranged a visit to my sister – again, it was twelve years, we worked out, since I had been to London. The ‘joys’ of living on an island: an expensive air fare rather than a drive in a car or a hop on a train.

I felt like a child again, waiting for The Day to arrive. As it was, I barely slept the night before, getting up eventually at 5 to catch the red-eye from Guernsey. I managed – country hick that I am – to find my way up to London, with the help of delightful rail officials. Meeting Sue, the years rolled away almost as if they had never happened. We talked and talked; drank coffee after coffee; laughed and giggled; reminisced, the shared memories recalled with uncanny accuracy; and caught up some on the years inbetween. By the end of the few hours we had together, we were, as when we were in our teens and twenties, laughing together about nothing, just for the sheer joy of friendship.

You’d think I would appreciate a visit to London after so long: I did, in a way. I walked across Waterloo Bridge, wandered through Covent Garden and Green Park, yet barely took any of it in, so deep in conversation that I was almost oblivious to my surroundings.

From Waterloo Bridge

Covent Garden

 

Covent Garden

Canadian memorial in Green Park

I managed to listen to the buskers in Covent Garden shopping centre: first Irish music, then the most wonderful opera singer. Admired some of the Christmas decorations already outside the shops. Snapped a shot of the Thames from the bridge. Enjoyed the changing colours of the trees in Green Park. Posed for a photo outside Buckingham Palace. Didn’t want to say goodbye to Sue.

We’ll make sure it won’t be another thirty years!

The joy of friendship. And the sorrows... we prayed our way through the month as dear friends battle with (yet another) cancer diagnosis; other close-as-family friends, our relationship spanning several decades, pray anxiously over a frail and sickly newborn. Praise God, although she had to be resuscitated at birth (no heart rate, barely breathing) and showed all the signs of severed brain damage, by four days later she was pronounced 'normal', much to the surprise of the medical profession. We were not surprised: hundreds had been praying for her around the globe. Yet what a traumatic start to her life for her, her parents and young brother, not to mention the anxious grandparents and other extended family. It will take a while to recover...

These friends have journeyed through life with us for more than three decades, over several continents. Six of us - three young couples - started off together in a small East African town. More than thirty years later, our work spans the USA, Africa, Central Asia and a tiny island in the English Channel. Two of the couples had their first child on consecutive days; now, within three weeks will be the arrival of three grandchildren, one for each of us. The fourth for one couple, the second for another and the first for us.

Sometimes, numbers and 'coincidences' fascinate more than, perhaps, they should.

Other November News was the conversion of our house into a Tracey Emin-type modern art installation. It began in hall, where the inside parts of a kitchen carousel leant negligently against the wall: the eye was led, inexorably, on to the kitchen, with tins of food and empty cake tins piled artistically high on every available surface. This was paired with the removal of one cupboard to reveal a meaningful empty space and an array of copper piping, tinted with turquoise. The backdrop of walls behind spaghetti-like pipework was washed in shades of brown and dirty grey...  All translated as: there was a leak in a copper heating pipe, which could only be accessed by removing the cupboard completely. The 'art installation' was, after too long several weeks, removed...

This was the major art event of the month, but minor works, displayed for the duration and on into December, included an array of spanners displayed next to a radiator (which apparently was not working correctly; a dismantled electric socket, wires peeping out from the empty hole; and Who Knows What up in the loft, where investigations into the water system had begun....

#sogladtolivewithahandyman #saiddoubtfully  #perhaps   #he'sacleverchap #doityourself #savemoney

Meanwhile, right at the end of the month, we receive a message from Auckland: Cat is in labour.

I knit, watching 'how to knit' vidoes to hone up on very rusty knitting skills, which have lain unused for over three decades...
Richard watches Youtube videos on secondary return hot water systems.  #residenthotwaterengineer  #nothingthismancan'tdo  #latestcraze  #intoheatingsystems

And then... Cara Grace arrives on November 29th! Such a beautiful baby... not that we're biased, of course...

Spectacular sunsets...