12 years

Twelve years ago today, just four weeks after I retired, I arranged to go with a fellow baldy to Brighton for a head shave.  He and I had been chatting on the internet about where to get a decent professional head shave, and he'd heard of a Brighton barber who was good.  Within a couple of weeks we found that we were in love, and have stayed that way.  (Meanwhile, the barber seems to be on the run from the bailiffs.)  On another trip to Brighton a little later, we exchanged rings - sitting in the good old Peugeot in the station car park - and when the law allowed it, we became civil partners in a low-key ceremony, witnessed by our closest, and performed by a registrar who is now a fellow magistrate and friend.

What a lot has happened in those twelve years!  Martyn has taken an excellent degree, and enriched the lives of hundreds of school and college students, joining me in retirement just less than two years ago.  I've joined the local bench, and gradually taken on more and more responsibility, though I fear I can't claim to have enriched the lives of many of my customers.  We've chosen a house that is ours rather than his or mine, and are gradually getting it the way we want it.  It's a shame that our parents aren't around to see us in our happy state and agreable surroundings, but at least Edna got to see both.

Turning to said surroundings, we have spent some time in the open air today.  We've weeded various bits of the garden, and it was at last just dry enough to give the back grass its first cut.  I've pricked out 96 rudbeckia seedlings, taken another dozen fuchsia cuttings, and planted out a hypericum cutting and a bit of box to fill a gap in the hedge. 

On sad note, one of Edna's fellow residents, Elizabeth Butler, died on Thursday, aged 82.  She had been at the care home for some time before Edna went there in 2006, together with her long-term companion Margaret, who died last year.  They served in the army together for many years, and later shared a home in the town until they could no longer live independently: Margaret because of failing eyesight and Elizabeth because of diabetes.  Elizabeth was a tough one.  She had lost both feet because of diabetes-related circulatory trouble, but was soon walking again with the help of a walking frame.  She shrugged off cancer surgery a couple of years ago in short order.  Fortunately, her eyesight remained good, and she was an avid reader.  It was also not unknown for her to read magazines containing advertisements for mail-order chocolates, however, which meant that the care home nurses had to keep her blood sugar under surveillance all the more assiduously.  It's a tribute to Corina and her team that she lived so long: one of the GPs said recently that, when Elizabeth came to the home probably around ten years ago, he hadn't expected her to last six months.