GOSSIP AND BLACKBERRIES

Seven in the morning found me making cups of coffee for the boys , Pa had a taxi booked for nine and an eleven O' clock appointment at St Tommy's so it was every man for himself until Pa was safely dressed and away. Things went quit well as Pa is so much more alert these days.

I waved Pa off to the station and went indoors to bake the bread. I did attempt to use the wooden cooker knobs but they still did not work and so it was off next door to used the neighbours oven. Both the boys were at home and so as the bread baked I joined them in a cup of tea, then as soon as the bread was cooked we went back to my kitchen where we all sat down to a breakfast of hot buttered crumpets and muffins with strawberry jam.

We had just poured our second cups of tea when we were joined by another friend who of course was invited to join us for breakfast. There was a great deal of hilarity over the wooden knobs on my electric cooker and much discussion as to what I should do about it. There was also a lot of interesting gossip about estate matters and we all enjoyed ourselves immensely. Our last visitor brought with him a huge basket of blackberries and as soon as they had all left I mixed these with an equal amount of apples and some water and set them to boil after which I put the mixture in to a jelly bag ready to be turned in to apple and blackberry jelly tomorrow.

While Pa was out my son and I vacuum the house and steamed all the floors and carpets and by three we had finished, the chores were all done. Pa returned soon afterwards and his news was good, his consultant at Tommy's was pleased and the new medication regimen seems to but a huge improvement on anything tried before.

I celebrated by buying us a set of garden quoits from the garden centre, such a nice gentle game fit even for old crocks such as myself to play. Actually I am quite good at the game as in my youth all the village children practised for months every year before the village fête in the hope of winning prizes, in fact most were quite accomplished at these and other rural skills such as trout tickling
pheasant poaching and scrumping. Illegal ...yes but not in the same league as the childish pranks of today such as mugging, stabbing and gang war, no I am not going off on another rant, I simply state the case.

There is another piece of good news, a friend arrived with a leg brace which she had made after a skiing accident in the eighties and asked if Pa would like to try it, He did and it works wonderfully supporting his leg much more efficiently and comfortably that the hospital ones. What is most amazing is that he can walk with his knee straight and not buckled and bending to the side. It needs a little adjustment but we are hoping that his consultant will agree to make it fit, oh yes it does not rub his skin off either which is a plus
For a while this afternoon I sat beside the river under the drooping willow branches listening tho the water lapp against the riverbank each time a small boat passed by. What a life the river has and what a history. It is easy to imagine Thomas More hurrying home the his beloved family after a stormy time at Hampton Court.
. Elizabeth the first in her royal barge with Leicester, Essex or Raliegh leaving London for Richmond on a hot summers day. The pomp of Royalty, the furtive plotter the lighterman, the bargee, all have used this river, it has seen so much.

Just below the spot where I sat today there remain the posts and staves of an old pier and a little further down the even older wooden remains of a Saxon fish trap. Some times I can almost see them emptying their catch. I can almost hear the sound of lutes drifting across the water or the lightermen calling to one another, and I am now a tiny part of the rivers history, I have seen what they saw, the gulls, the geese and the waving willow boughs as eternal as the river itself.

I came away with a feeling of perspective, a feeling of how small my troubles are compared to others past whom this river has flowed. It is all to easy to become bound by the chains of daily cares .we are all prey to this, yet all things pass and tomorrow anything may happen. I may well become stressed again as I battle on ,but I know where to go for the cure. The lovely old Thames, grand, gentle cheap and tawdry regal and rustic, all things to all who look and wonder at all she has beeen and all that she has seen.