18 August 2024

It’s been a fairly OK sort of week, at least weather-wise. The temperatures have been a bit less SCORCIO (low to mid 70s) with largely blue skies and some lovely sunshine. Some days have been bordering on perfect.

Following my very subtle hint about the wisteria needing trimming in last week’s Picayune, Adam showed up on Tuesday eager and ready to tackle the job. After a brief lesson on the essentials of wisteria trimming and a short YouTube video, he did an admirable job.

Wisteria puts on a lovely show in the Spring (assuming it’s been pruned properly – sometimes I win, sometimes I fail) but there’s a lot of maintenance for that two-week show of purple flowers. I remember when we were planning to build the new kitchen and we spoke with our lovely neighbours, the former owners. I was worried that they might be upset at the thought of losing one of the two wisteria we had at that time. Not a bit of it. The view of the wife was, “Thank goodness. They are lovely but they don’t half make a mess!”

Adam reappeared on Wednesday ready to tackle the long-delayed job of putting cedar shingles on the garden shed. Unfortunately, there was a very active wasp nest inside the end wall of the house about four or five feet away from the shed. There was a small gap in the mortar where they had found their way into the wall and the traffic into and out of this small hole was like Heathrow Airport. As you will remember, my sweetheart is anaphylactic. So, when I told her I was going to deal with the wasp nest, I was somewhat taken aback to be told that I was to do no such thing – wasps are pollinators and we need all the insect life we can get. And, they are very friendly and won’t bother you at all unless you annoy them. So, my plans were put on an abrupt and unexpected hold.

Having heard this explanation of the wasps being friendly, Adam set about putting the shingles on the shed and received two wasp stings in the space of about twenty minutes for his trouble (and he wasn’t able to finish the shingling job). So much for the wasps being friendly! With Adam’s assistance, I was eventually able to persuade my anaphylactic sweetheart that they had to go. As they were deep inside the wall, though, this was a job for the professionals. A very nice young man duly turned up later that afternoon, dressed himself in the finest wasp/bee keeper protective clothing and pumped a quantity of something in the entrance hole which seems to have done the trick – no wasps entering or leaving this nest at least.

We had a lovely walk in Radway on Friday. The weather was just about perfect and it was lovely to revisit our old haunts and to see what has changed. Daisy, of course, was in her element – lots of new sniffs and smells and squirrels and other critters to chase. We parked in Radway and trudged our way up the hill, admired the view from the top (it’s always such a relief to finally get to the top of that hill – it seems to go on forever) and then made our way along to the Castle Inn at Edgehill for a bite of lunch. Beautiful.

We had to say good-bye to a very good friend on Thursday. He was a friend from the gym who I probably met for the first time about fifteen years ago. He and I used to subject ourselves to the same regimen of torture twice and sometimes three times a week – spinning! The pandemic put paid to the spinning but once we were allowed to socialise again, we used to have dinners at each other’s homes as well as out on a number of occasions. Lately, he and I had taken to having lunch together every three or four weeks or so. It was he who introduced me to the Pie Pub which I’ve mentioned in the past. About a year or so ago he was diagnosed with a brain tumor for which he underwent a course of chemotherapy. The treatment was successful and he was deemed to be in remission. Sadly, the remission was short-lived and he ultimately lost his fight.

Funerals are never much fun, I guess, but his came close. He was a very, very well-liked man who made friends effortlessly. The various contributors struck a good balance in the stories they shared – there were tears at the loss of an excellent person – kind, friendly, generous – and genuine laughter at some of the tales which were shared. I shall miss him very much.

We also received the shocking news on Thursday of the sudden and unexpected death of another friend, the husband of a woman who worked with me at the Computer Unit in Oxford. They are much younger than we are which makes it especially sad.

I know that, at our age, we can increasingly expect to receive news of this sort. We all have tickets in the lottery of life and none of us knows when our ticket has to be cashed in. Which simply means that you need to tell your friends, family and those you hold dearest that you love them. Every day. And twice on Sundays.

I love you. I love you.

I have been trying to improve my French over the past few weeks – someone (and I can’t remember who) said they were using the Duolingo app to learn Spanish and that it had certainly improved their language skills. So, I decided to have a go and I am pleased to say that I am making excellent progress. I am now speaking at the level of a confident three-year-old who, strangely, is very interested in and familiar with topics such as travelling to work by train, having his passport inspected and grappling with the dilemma of whether to travel by automobile or aeroplane to Paris. Quelles sont les chances que cela se produise ?

Max started back at school this week and Brex-Anna kindly shared some photos. For those of you who might not have seen them:

Whilst wishing “Happy Birthdays” to my brother Sandy and my niece Amanda last week, I neglected to include a birthday wish for Gary Larson, the author of The Far Side cartoons. His birthday was Wednesday 14 August. He is just a few months older than I am. One of my all-time favourites:

And while on the subject of famous birthdays, a shout-out and best birthday wishes to Penny’s sister J who will be a bit older on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, keep happy, keep smiling, keep exercising, be good, be careful, and keep safe. And be gentle to wasps and bees – we need all the pollinators we can get.

Lots of love to you all,

Greg