BLOGGAGE

I've been thinking about Blogging lately.  I have all these thoughts in my head all the time but few seem joined up enough to actually write a piece for my ABC account. So I wondered what I could make of a Blog. I dip in and out of other peoples' Blogs, they all seem so interesting I often wonder why they are just Blog entries and not actual stories. I did a daily Blog a few years back, but that was mainly aimed at the London Transport (sic) system, or TfL as it likes to be known.  It got right up their noses and did manage to change a few things.

So I've decided to put some of my thoughts down just as they come this week, which has been quite a busy week for me, and apparently the country.

Saturday 9th July 2016 was a good day, Nice and sunny too.  I dont see my little sister very often as she has a very disabled husband and lives quite far away.  This Saturday was a school reunion at the fine old Girls Grammar school we both attended (though she was asked to leave just after O Levels so they didnt have to expel her). Easy journey for me from Croydon, bus, tram then overground train (new experience!) all the way to New Cross Gate and there it still is, Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham Girls' School; a bit more modern but looking good for its antiquity. Husband came with me (I'm not great at directions) and we met Tricia, driven by her husband, on the corner near a new notice board which now reads 'Haberdasher's Aske's College' being sadly now a comprehensive inhabited by both sexes. My husband joined hers and they went off to do what two boys and a wheelchair do. We had a good afternoon looking round and meeting old friends - it was 50 years since her year started - and a nice afternoon tea, lots of cake (made sure I took my Diabetes meds!) and gossip.  Looking round I did feel we rather wore well.  (miaow)

The homeward journey was awful.  At New X we got on overground train purporting to go to West Croydon; at Crystal Palace, deep in our nattering, I suddenly realised the train was going backwards.  We and everyone else got off and there ensued a keystone cops performance of getting on and off trains, running over bridges (poor old legs complaining in high heels) until we eventually got to an actual railway platform where we had to wait half an hour with other disgruntled passengers (Sodding Southern Railway) and eventually arrived back at mine a good hour after expected.

The boys being hunter gatherers as well as explorers had managed to forage for cold meats and whatever else in the fridge, so were quite content to wait for my rather delicious if I do say so myself Chilli con carne to be heated and rice cooked, which we consumed with a healthy salad (well I had the salad) and more cake at around 9.30 pm, the visitors leaving for the long drive home at 11pm.

Sunday 10th July 2016 was different.  I am chair of a cancer charity founded by a good friend of mine who was a Labour Mayor of Croydon and a Cliff fan therefore a thoroughly good egg. She's been dead now 2 years and we had organised a second Sponsored Walk in aid of the charity, which provides counselling and alternative treatments, indeed anything reasonable to make the lot of cancer sufferers in our local area easier.

Long story short, it pissed with rain most of the day.  Half the people registered to walk didn't turn up - although the present Mayor and his partner, a very pleasant down to earth chap who is our first gay Mayor of Croydon, hurray, did come and walked round in spite of the rubbish weather. Lovely chap he is, as my grandson Jack who received an award from him recently had said. Jack hadn't thought much of the previous (lady) Mayor because be said she couldnt string two words together (he is of a literary bent though autistic and only 13 (Jack I mean not the mayor))

A few soggy burgers and a drink or two later, the speakers on the music tent blew up and all the papers on the childrens' art table blew away along with the marquee, and possibly one or two of the smaller kids; so we decided to call it a day and packed the gear into the undertaker's van we had borrowed, a local undertaker being one of our main supporters. I spent the rest of the day bathing my nettle stings having walked into a load of the little whatsits and no dock leaves in sight.

Completely knackered we dozed off in our armchairs after a bottle of wine or two and had an early night. 

And I think I will end this inaugural blog there and hope it gives someone something before I launch into the rest of the week.

It all goes to show that life does not end at 60 (and the rest).