So there is something rather special now that e have actually arrived at the month of May. This for me, and I suspect for many others, is a month of intense social activity in which birthdays feature prominently. When I was working in the University of Winchester, it occurred to many of my close colleagues that five of us had birthdays in this month and so it seemed sensible to pick a day in the middle of the month and to have a joint celebratory birthday meal. We started doing this about 21-22 years ago now and have tried to maintain the tradition over the years if it is at all possible. Two of us (including myself) have birthdays practically in the middle of the month and we have generally organised a meal in the middle of the month in the Winchester areas. I dubbed the group of us as the ‘Old Fogeys’ and as erstwhile colleagues, we sometimes chunter on about how excellent things were when we were in harness and how terrible they are now. We each of us have personal news to convey to us and, unfortunately, with the passage of time a very few of us have gone to meet our Creator and most of us, whilst keeping ourselves pretty fit are bearing some of the ravages of time. We tried to have another meeting before the Autumn started so that we could eat and meet twice a year but COVID and other national exigencies has generally reduced our meetings down to one. Of course some of us are now approaching the age when we have 80th birthdays to celebrate (my own being last May year) and the tradition is being kept alive by the special postponed 60th birthday party (now a 65th birthday party) being thrown by one of our number in about ten days time in a gastropub in the Berkshire area to which I am looking forward tremendously. This month is going to be especially poignant for me as my wife of nearly 60 years, Meg, left us on 10th May last year, the day before my 80th birthday (with exquisite timing, so that my birthday celebrations were not adversely impacted) But there are lots of other things going on as well. In the forthcoming week there are two U3A (University of the Third Age) events taking place and about a fortnight later, we have a coach trip organised for us to go o Bakewell in Derbyshire and also a viewing of Kedleston Hall which to National Trust members is a ‘free’ visit. Now that the weather has improved, I am sure that many of us will seize the opportunity to hold little impromptu garden parties in our own houses – once I have my patio professionally restored to some of its former glory and I am not so ashamed on my neglected back garden, I will also almost certainly invite all and sundry to visit so that we can enjoy the fine weather. It will also give me an incentive to do some judicious clipping back and restoration of some of the flower beds. I always used to reckon that if you were on top of the gardening activities in April-June, then the rest of the year was plain sailing but if anything happened to disrupt getting the garden into good shape during these three months, it was very hard to catch up during the rest of the year.
The day started off with some lengthy telephone calls with my Bank as they had intercepted a possible scam raid upon my banking account which their own fraud department had intercepted. Nonetheless, it took the best part of an hour and half to completely get the issue resolved which we did, after which I went to collect my American friend for our trip out to Alcester. The weather was glorious and we spent a delightful time ‘doing’ a selection of charity shops before we finally alighted upon one of those ‘Aladdin’s Cave’ type of shops that sells a whole range of ironmongery and household requisites. My friend was absolutely bowled over by this store and we spent quite a lot of time in it and I finished up buying some stationery, a sewing kit of threads and needles to help to reattach some missing buttons and a very reasonably priced trowel. We visited the local Anglican church which has roots back to the 12th century and we enjoyed the simplicity of the interior. My friend and I were minded to light candles for our loved, departed ones but there were no candles available to be bought (next time, we visit, we will bring our own little tea lights) But they did have a delightful little ‘prayer and intentions’ tree in which worshippers could write their messages and them affix them to one of the branches of the tree (which I did) Then we managed to repark the car into a designated space and went for our lunch where I had not been for a couple of years but where the waitress remembered me (and I was pleased that I remembered her first name as well) Afterwards we hit the charity shops again and I found a 100% glazed cotton shirt by Next and superior to the run of the mill shirts in that it actually had insertable collar stiffeners and was exactly the right collar size. From another charity shop I espied a glass decanter which I thought would be useful to me for middle-of-the-night drinks in and, egged on by my American friend who had spotted a minute chip, successfully negotiated the price down from £3 to £1. We then made our way home on what was a blazing afternoon and enjoyed some of our own flavours of ice cream in the garden. After a bit of a rest, my friend enjoyed a light tea of melon, brambles and original Greek yogurt and than watched the catch-up edition of Question Time before I ran my friend back to her own house after what had been a really delightful day for the two of us. The Bank Holiday looms ahead for both us and neither of us has much inclination to roam very far afield so we are going to keep in touch by text and then decide what other little ventures we might undertake once we have got our various domestic tasks undertaken.