Tears of a Clown

Okay, so we're back on song titles....today it's Smokie Robinson and the Miracles...1967... Not my most favourite Smokie Robinson number, but one which is apt for this post.

Tom wrote recently about the difficulty in finding titles, and I couldn't agree more. I've spent hours in the past staring at the screen, thinking about "naming" the post. In the end I usually just start typing and see what happens....and today, once I had decided the few things I wanted to say, it came to me.....and I'm sure our reader will work it out.

We are all slowly settling in to "new things that we need to do"....and one of those is certainly shopping...specifically for food. Earlier this year Tom decided we needed to start using Amazon Pantry...does our reader know of it? It's basically online food shopping....not fresh or local produce obviously..but long shelf life stuff....tins, bottles, detergents, etc. We bought an "Amazon tablet".... a mobile screen that sits on a stand in the kitchen and links straight to Amazon (amazingly!)...and started to see how we got on. We can shout at it (SIRI, ORDER SOME TINS OF SWEETCORN) and Siri tells us what's on offer. Once we have enough in "the box" it just magically gets delivered. Okay, it's not quite a simple as that...and often Siri hasn't got a clue what we are talking about, but what's new? We quite often have conversations around the kitchen where people have no idea what others are saying!

Anyway, back to food shopping....and the fact that I am (slowly) finding my way around supermarkets. I've actually got to the point where I can accomplish a Waitrose shop all on my own without any hiccups....well, nearly. I was pretty chuffed the other day that I had managed to fill my trolley....I had found everything I needed without problems....I hadn't wandered around vaguely trying to discover the location of the last item on the list....I had managed to do "self service checkout"... I hadn't used the Waitrose card to try to pay (3 times) without success (instead of my credit card)...I hadn't had to "call for assistance"... and I got out to the car feeling pretty good (yes, I know it's something I should be able to do with my eyes closed...but....it's all new to me). I unloaded all my bags into the boot...still feeling proud....and then realised that I still had the self service scanner plugged firmly into the handle of the trolley. Total dismay...felt a bit of a clown..time to have a cry(?)....I still haven't managed to get a "clear round" at Waitrose....maybe next time.

I've mentioned sharing before...and how Jilly and I shared so much. We have so many "personal" things around the house...quirky things...things that were personal to "us".... not personal to "me"... but us....I mean, who has an old (very old) set of potato bag weighing scales in their house?

Something else that was personal to us was the "height chart" in the hall at Cottage Farm. Over the years when we at the farm, across the road, we had stood the children (and anyone else who decided they wanted to participate) against the wall and marked off their height. As the years went by we plotted the children's progress...they all grew much taller than we ever would have imagined! Yes, it was "writing on the paintwork"...but it gave us so much enjoyment. Anyway....we were given a photo of the said wall during the summer...VH very kindly had the picture framed and gave it to us as a present. Where to put it is now the question? It's exactly the sort of quirky thing that Jilly and I would have loved to share with everyone....and I feel lost without her input. While I'm deciding I can at least put a photo up.

I'm still slowly sorting through things...but one of the problems with having such a large house is that there's lots of places to "put stuff". I keep discovering things...forgotten cupboards with Jill's tall boots in...small cupboards with, for example, a stack of teeshirts in...one "T" from every charity walk/run/swim etc that Jill ever did! I guess it was "memories" that she liked to keep....and there were plenty.

I have moved my office into the main house......some of you may know that Jill had an office opposite the dog's utility room (no, our dogs don't have utility room of their own (obviously!) but with another utility room across the yard that's the name we called it). Anyway, in clearing space in her office to fit my desk I came across yet another file box I hadn't looked in. It was named Jill/personal/2018. I wasn't sure what to expect...

The box contained (amongst other things) a named envelope for each of us....Me, Tom, Jack, Stephe, Dan and Bex. I couldn't bring myself to open mine for a couple of days...but eventually I did. I don't think I was worried about the contents...I think it was that I knew that reading whatever was written would almost certainly set me back in the grieving process. It wasn't pages and pages...but words that summed up Jill's thoughts on our life together. How our very humble beginnings (a small cottage with no furniture and no children...) turned slowly, over the 33 years, into something quite different....quite unimaginable at the outset. How she wouldn't have missed it for the world...... 

Neither would I.