Eros in a Small World

When I admitted in a tag, last Autumn, that I had met my husband on a Greek island, I was surprised by the curiosity, interest and requests for a post that this fact generated. I have waited until now to post about how I met my husband. Today is our wedding anniversary, so it seems as good a day as any for this post.

It was the summer of 1989. I was a single working girl with a mortgage around my neck and a hole in my finances, after having to pay a string of unexpected bills. I needed and wanted a holiday and worked out that I could afford one week in the sun. I decided on a week's holiday on the Greek island of Alonnisos with the tour operator Small World. I had been with them a few times before. Their brochure advertised 'social holidays for single people' mainly in villas, in parts of the Mediterranean which were only semi-commercialised.

I set off early one Friday morning in July, driving to Gatwick airport at the crack of dawn. The flight was delayed which meant that we were late arriving in Skiathos and missed the Flying Dolphin hydro-foil to Alonnisos. I and my fellow travellers had to sit around, for an hour or two, in the Greek afternoon heat, wearing clothes that were more suited to a grey day in the UK, whilst we waited for the next hydrofoil to Alonnisos. By the time that we reached our destination it was early evening. We just had time to unpack and have a shower before dinner.

Meals, which were eaten outside in a small courtyard, were prepared by the villa girls, known as Muribirds, after the founder of Small World, Colin Murison-Small. Some of the group were half way through a two week stay. For others it was the first week of a two week holiday and for those like myself it was the start of their one and only week. After dinner which was washed down with plenty of wine, all eleven (four girls and seven lads) of us, that were staying in the villa, walked down to the harbour for a drink. Husband to be (HTB) and I hit it off straight away. I could not tell you what we talked about, that first night, but I managed to establish that he lived not far from me back in England.

The next morning those on their second week showed the new arrivals the way to the nearest beach, which meant a 45 minute walk or taking a water taxi. The other three girls opted to take the water taxi but I decided that as I was holidaying on a shoe string that I would walk to the beach with the lads and save myself the cost of the water taxi. There was not much to do on Alonnisos, so most days we walked to the beach. Then late afternoon, on our way back from the beach, after a hard day of sunbathing, we would stop at one of the harbour tavernas for a thirst quenching and well deserved beer. Over the course of the week HTB and I often walked together. We got on very well and I remember thinking what a pity it was that he had a girlfriend back home as we seemed to be made for one another. Our relationship was totally platonic. HTB was the perfect gentleman.

Too soon it was time to return home. We were up early on the Friday morning to catch the hydro-foil to Skiathos where we had breakfast at a taverna before heading to the airport. At the time HTB was a smoker and I rashly agreed to sit with him in the smoking section of the plane. They say that love is blind, it must also have lost its' sense of smell. I have never smoked and HTB stopped smoking at the end of 1989. When we got back to Gatwick airport I offered him a lift home as he only lived five miles from me. We got to his house to find his girlfriend there. Goodness knows what she thought of me. At some point we exchanged contact details. The relationship with the girlfriend did not last but it was not until about a year later that we started to see each other on a regular basis. We got married almost two years after we met.

Although we only lived five miles apart, it is unlikely that we would have met, had we not chosen to go on the same holiday, as our social lives took us in different directions.

Life's a trial

I hope that the title says it all. Recent computer problems and family issues that have demanded my attention are the cause.

About January time my husband bought himself a new lap top computer. He then installed Vista on his old laptop and handed it down to me. Right from the start the thing was difficult to use - slow, stiff, awkward and cranky. I was not sure whether it was the laptop or Vista that was the cause of the problem. Slowly it got worse until the point where it took me 45 minutes to navigate my way around one blog. Then it decided to switch itself off in the middle of the day. I could not blog, send e-mails or surf the Internet. We have become so dependent on computers that it is difficult to manage without one. My husband has now updated Vista to Windows 7 and the laptop is behaving itself.

When my mother went into the care home eight weeks ago now, the contract that I signed made it quite clear that the first six weeks of her residence would be a trial period. Yes, those six weeks were a trial and in some ways the trial continues. Not only has it been a trial for my mother, of which she is blissfully unaware, but it has also been a trial for me. Making sure that she has everything that the home requires her to have and most difficult of all sorting out her clothes. When I wrote in Eleventh hour booking that it was back to normality I had forgotten about the suitcase full of my mother's clothes that needed sorting out. All of the clothes needed to be machine washed then tumbled dried so that I could be sure that they would meet the home's requirements. Some of the clothes needed to be soaked before washing, to remove a variety of stains. Then the clothes needed to be named. The home had ordered some iron-on name tapes for my mother and had used them to name some of her clothes. One day whilst tidying her wardrobe at he home, I noticed that her round neck jumpers and cardigans had a strange square indent at the neckline. At first I could not work out why. Then I realised that it was the imprint of a hot iron used to iron on the name tapes. These clothes only needed a cool iron. I know that the clothes were not expensive and that my mother sees very few people but I was annoyed that clothes had been damaged before she had even worn them. I had taken the precaution of buying some sew-in name tapes for my mother as I realised that iron-on name tapes would not be suitable for all clothes. So it was back to sewing name tapes into her clothes. I did allow the home to name some of the clothes that I considered could not be damaged by a hot iron. Anyway, the six week deadline came and went with no comment from the home but an appointment had been made for a review meeting, regarding my mother, on June 15. It was a bit like a parents' evening in reverse. The home are pleased with the way that Mum has settled, which is a relief, although I would not say that she is totally settled. I think that that will take a few more weeks. I am pleased with the way that the home have handled Mum, as they too were on trial and if at the end of the six weeks they had asked me to remove her I would have seen it as a failing on their part that they could not manage her. If my mother did not settle in this home I could not see her settling anywhere.

Whilst computer problems and care home trials are going on life itself goes on or doesn't. Unfortunately my mother's sister died about three weeks ago now. She was quite a bit younger than my mother who was sixteen when she was born. My aunt was sixteen when I was born and she has been more like a sister, than an aunt, to me and I shall miss her. She was the only one that I could turn to, apart from my husband, earlier this year when my brother was being so difficult. The help and advice that she gave me in the search for a care home for my mother were invaluable. So ten days ago my husband and I returned to my East Yorkshire roots for my aunt's funeral. Then I had the unenviable task of telling my mother that her sister had died. She appeared to take it very well but in fact it did not sunk in and I still do not think that it has.

It would be nice to be able to get my head above the parapet and keep it there, with life on an even keel. However, I think, I might just find that a bit dull.

Coming soon(er or later)

The return of Cheshire Wife.

Jobs that could not be put off and problems of one sort or another have got in the way recently, meaning that I have not had the time for my blog, but I do intend to return to writing it, when I have got on top of things. In the mean time I am going to try to catch up with my visiting to find out what you have all been up to. For now I shall leave you with this photograph, that I took at Great Dixter, of a stunning paeony.

Wonderful last Thursday night

Late last Thursday afternoon I caught a train from Chester to Manchester to meet my husband. On arriving at Chester railway station, late courtesy of the taxi which arrived late to collect me, thinking that I was short of time to purchase my ticket I headed straight for the new fangled automated ticket machine. In my haste to buy a ticket I purchased a return ticket instead of a single.This is the third time that I have used this machine and only once have I managed to purchase the correct ticket. This machine has no instructions and could never be described as user friendly. Realising my mistake, I debated queuing at the ticket office to change the ticket but decided that I did not have the time to join the queue. The risk of missing the train was too great. At Manchester Piccadilly station I was met by my husband. Our intention was to walk towards Manchester Victoria which according to him is a 15 minute walk. Manchester was at its' best. It was raining heavily so I suggested that we wait until it slowed down, but he did not want to do that so we set off. I did manage to get him to shelter when the rain became even heavier, then he had the bright idea of getting a taxi. By now we were already half soaked. We clambered into the taxi and were whisked away to the restaurant that we were aiming for. The evening had not yet started and already three things had gone wrong. But now, that we were in the warm and dry, perhaps things would improve.

We had a very nice Chinese meal swiftly served but no so swiftly that by the time we went out it had stopped raining. Now for the purpose of the trip to Manchester. We headed for the MEN area. We were early. We had a wander around then made our way to our seats. The warm up act came on, on time at 7.30 pm to a half empty arena. Whoever they were, they were so loud that I was vibrating with the music, if you could call it music. After half an hour they left the stage. The lights went up and still the arena was not full. Amazingly for another half an hour the audience casually sauntered in. As I had nothing better to do I quite enjoyed watching them. They came in all shapes and sizes from teenagers, through heavily pregnant to senior citizens, with walking sticks, white sticks and hearing aids - I am not kidding. By 8.30 pm the arena was as full as it was going to get. The lights went out and Eric Clapton and his band took to the stage. For a 64 year old, who lived life in the fast last during his twenties and thirties, he looked very good, with a full head of glossy brown hair, his only concession to ageing appeared to be his trade mark metal rim spectacles. Wearing a casual black, short sleeved shirt and denims he spent two hours on stage performing from his repertoire of hits. My husband is the fan, so I have to say that I did not recognise some of the numbers that he played. However, I did recognise I Shot The Sheriff and Layla which was performed as an easy listening number rather than the raw version which was a hit all those years ago. Then he went on to murder Somewhere Over The Rainbow. Judy Garland would have turned in her grave if she had heard it. And of course, he had to play Wonderful Tonight, the song that he wrote for the model, Patti Boyd who he later married. After an encore, they were gone. Clapton was good and he is still master of the guitar but his voice is not what it was.

Eleventh hour booking

Last week's break had been pencilled in for some time. My husband had taken the time off work and we had planned to go to the Lake District. We had not got round to booking any accommodation and when it became apparent, earlier this year, that we needed to be 'on call' to get my mother into a home, we decided that we would have to do a last minute booking. Last year we made the same plans and were not able to go to the Lake District because my husband was not well. We stayed at home, gardened, went to Ness Botanic Gardens and visited Another Place. Hopefully next time, that we plan to go to the Lake District, will be third time lucky! We needed to go to my mother's bungalow in Sussex, to collect some more clothes and bits and pieces, which meant that the most logical destination would be in the south of England. We had decided on the New Forest and Tunbridge Wells. So we found ourselves, at 11 pm on the last Bank Holiday Monday, trying to book accommodation via the Internet. After a compromise we stuck a pin in the computer screen and booked ourselves two nights in Tunbridge Wells, in Kent and two nights in Lyndhurst, in the New Forest.

After a reasonable journey down to Tunbridge Wells on Tuesday, we checked into the hotel where we were given room number seven, which was called Victoria. It was almost a suite, with a separate sitting room, a good sized bathroom and a large bedroom with an enormous bed. Albert was the next room. After unpacking and a cup of tea we went for a walk around Tunbridge Wells eventually finding The Pantiles - photographed right. This hotel was a good find and we would go back again. The only criticism that I had, was on our first morning we were woken, half an hour before we had set our alarm clock, by an alarm call that we had not booked. After that I unplugged the bedroom phone each night.

On Wednesday morning we drove into Sussex to my mother's bungalow, where we spent a couple of hours sorting out her clothes and shoes. I didn't know that she possessed so many. We left with a suitcase full of clothes, a holdall full of shoes and several other bags of miscellaneous belongings and headed back towards Kent. We had lunch at the Swan at Lamberhurst, where my husband had a Stilton ploughman's and I had a ham sandwich, after which we both felt so full that we could never imagine wanting to eat again.

Then on a perfect sunny May afternoon we set off for Great Dixter - the home and garden of the gardening writer Christopher Lloyd. Over the past few years, as I have worked on our garden at the cottage, I have become a great fan of Christopher Lloyd. This was somewhere that I had never expected to see, as it is about 300 miles from our Cheshire home, so this was to be a real treat and it did not disappoint. From the village of Northiam we followed the signs that took us about a mile down a single track road
until we came upon the house that we have seen
so many times on television gardening programmes. Great Dixter is a 15th century timber framed hall house. We were allowed into three rooms. The construction and the beams are amazing. My husband was particularly impressed. Considering the time of year I had not expected too much of the garden, but it was an absolute riot of colour and the planting is exquisite. I took so many photographs that it has been very difficult to select just one for this post. It was the nearest thing to gardening heaven. After this anything else was going to be a let down.

On Thursday morning we set off for the New Forest. We were there by lunchtime and spent a cool damp afternoon wandering around Lyndhurst. It is an attractive little town full of estate agents, tea shops, charity shops, antique shops and gift shops not seen in the Chester area unless they are there and I simply do not see them, because I live here.

The following day the weather was no better so we opted for a drive around the New Forest to see the places of interest. The New Forest is England's newest National Park. It is busy market towns and picturesque villages of thatched cottages and old world charm with stunning scenery, but we were not seeing it at it's best. Nevertheless where ever we went we saw lilac, hawthorn, laburnum, horse chestnut, clematis, bluebells and rhododendrons in flower. Then there are the ponies and the cattle grazing freely. Pictured right is the pretty village of Burley, where we stopped for lunch.


There is history to the New Forest, too. In the churchyard in Lyndhurst is the grave of Alice Hargreaves (formerly Liddell) who was the inspiration for Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. The village of Sway was the setting for Captain Marryat's Children of the New Forest and in the churchyard of the tiny village of Minstead is the tomb of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.

The hotel in Lyndhurst was not worth a mention. Needless to say we will not be going back there. We enjoyed our break. We had too much to eat and too much to drink and now it is good to be back to normality, whatever that is.

One becomes two

When I posted The Winds of Change, a few months ago for a photo tag, several of you asked to see a photograph of the tree when it was in blossom. So here you are and as you will see it is not one tree but two!






The tree with the white blossom comes into flower about two weeks before the tree with the pink blossom and by the time the tree with the pink blossom is in flower the white blossom tree has finished flowering. I took these photographs a couple of weeks ago and I apologise for the quality of them. I cannot try to improve on them for another 50 weeks as at the moment most of the blossom is lying on our patio!




Hazy daze update

This last week has been more difficult than the previous week. When I telephoned the home in desparation, after Easter, the only room that they could offer me was in the nursing home on the same site as the residential home. So for the first week my mother was in the nursing home. Then a week ago now, they moved her into the residential home. This made her more confused then ever and very angry. She thought that she was in an hotel, when she was in the nursing home. Now she realises that she is not in an hotel, but is not sure where she is.

Later today we are going away for a few days - back in a week's time.

Hazy daze

Last weekend went far better than I could have hoped that it would. Absolutely everything went to plan! And it had been planned with military precision. Fortunately we have done the trip down to Sussex enough times, now, to have got the routine of it sorted to a 't'. My husband and I had a good journey down to Sussex. We spent the night at Forest Row which is a very pretty village not far from where my mother lived. It is a typical Sussex village of tile hung elevations, black and white timbers and yellow sandstone cottages. I wished that I had taken my camera but I forgot it. We stayed at the 15th century Chequers Inn, pictured right. Inside it is all old beams and brick open fireplaces. We had a good meal there on Saturday evening, followed by a good night's sleep. Then on Sunday morning we packed up my mother and set off back to Chester.

As we got my mother out of the car at the home, the manager of the home came out to meet her, offered her her arm, which she took and walked straight into the home without any problems! The nurse who manages this home is amazing. She has told me that she has been working there for ten years and has recently had a baby, but she looks as if she has just left school. It is not just the policemen who are getting younger! She was so good with my mother. She was like putty in her hands. The possible problems that I had envisaged just did not happen. At the end of last week, when the staff at the home could see how worried I was about actually getting my mother into the home, they assured me that they would be able to handle her. I didn't doubt them but I was not totally convinced as my mother used to be very awkward at times. They made it all look so easy.

Mum is now settling into the home, but is very confused as to where she is and is hoping that my brother will collect her and take her home, this coming weekend! He won't. I have spent most of my time this week looking for clothes for my mother. The home requires that her clothes can be machine washed then tumble dried. Most of what she currently owns is hand wash or dry clean only. Then everything needs to have her name in it. The home has ordered name tapes for her but for now I am using my old school name tapes, cutting off my first name and just using the surname. This last week has disappeared in a haze. It is probably just as well that I can not remember too much about it and I know that my mother can't, as by Monday she had no recollection of the events of Sunday, for which I am grateful.

I am sorry that at the moment I am not managing to visit your blogs but hope to resume visiting as as soon as I get my mother sorted out.