Saturday 3 March 2018

The Big Clearout Before the Big Sleep

Or I could have called this blog:  "What Will Poor Robin do then Poor Thing", as the March wind doth blow - on Thursday there was a scattering of snow down here - freezing cold - and it was bad up North.  Captain B took Jacks and me to Waitrose in the morning and we stocked up.  No panic buying in evidence, thank goodness.

Captain B chauffered me door to door to the meeting on Thursday night and the brothers decided to finish it early so that we could all get home safely. The Hall was only about a third full.  Probably all those who live inland were snowed in.

Friday - some snow on the ground - cold - and as I am writing this now in the afternoon it is snowing again. Not heavily, but definitely snowing.  We are invited to Jack's for supper.

There are Athletics on for the Captain thank goodness.    He can be like a bear with a sore head when confined indoors - and today we are both pottering about at home.  I have started the big clear out.  I am now in the Death Zone (under the Threescore Years and Ten rule) and I am worried about leaving a terrible mess behind if and when I do go.  Though I am hoping not to die at all, and that is not quite the impossibility it might seem to be if you consider where we are in the stream of time, Biblically speaking.

However, none of us knows exactly when the end of the current system of things on the earth will come (or how long we will last). So, so far, I have donated  3 large dustbin bags of clothes to the Charity Shop, and about 6 large bags of books to the Second Hand Bookshop.  I already have another bag of books to go.

And today I went through all my diaries, most of which are going to the Shredders, along with the old Butterfly paperwork.

It gave me a strange feeling to read some of them.  One of them I kept during my first trip abroad - with the school - to Switzerland - Les Diablerets, Vaud.  It was a wonderful trip.  For one thing, the Swiss army exercised and drilled their young conscripts in the yard beneath the attic bedrooms into which us schoolgirls were crammed.    We all quickly fell in love and began to throw notes down to our favourites.  And after a couple of days, the sergeants had to move their young drillees somewhere else, away from the distractions of schoolgirls.

The one I fell in love with was Nicholas.   He gave me my first kiss.  He was a real gentleman too. It was all very innocent and romantic.

It makes me wonder about what it must be like to be a young girl now. It wasn't ever easy, but now, I don't know.   This is a perfect romantic memory.  Just a kiss.  But I loved him for months afterwards.

And I note that Captain B proposed to me on Monday the 13th of January 1969.  I shall keep that and the Nicholas diary, and 2 others.

Anyway, my diaries must go. apart from one or two.  We have no children and, even if we did, there is nothing to say that they would be interested in knowing what I had for my lunch in 1975 for example.   And I have blogged our retirement - a very happy time so far - which will presumably stay online as long as there is an online. 

Saturday morning - Jean and I decided we would go out after the meeting tomorrow instead of this morning.    We can also go to Waitrose, as Jean doesn't often get a chance to shop there now, and we can get the flowers for the householder whose husband has died.

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