Now for something somewhat different …

I’ve come across five questions which it seems it is worth us all asking ourselves. Five apparently simple looking questions but which turn out to be quite hard when you actually have to answer them and which make you think about both who you are and what you stand for.

The five questions are:

1. How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?
2. If you had the opportunity to get one message across to a large group of people, what would your message be?
3. What would you do differently if you knew nobody would judge you?
4. When is it time to stop calculating risk and rewards and just do what you know is right?
5. Do you ask enough questions? Or do you settle for what you know?

Yes, they’re tricky aren’t they! No-one said it would be easy. So I’m going to try to answer each of them, one at a time, over the coming weeks.

It’ll be interesting to see what I come up with, because I don’t know the answers either.

Round one in a few days. Watch this space …

And remember: Questions don’t have to make sense, but answers do.

Experiment, week 33. Here’s last week’s selection of five things which have made me happy or for which I’m grateful.

1. Optician. Just as I enjoy going to the dentist I enjoy visits to the optician. I’ve always believed in regular eye tests (I’ve had glasses since I was 14) and not just because of my diabetes. Although I get my diabetic retinopathy scan done by the NHS I also get my optician to do it — if nothing else he now has a record of all the past pictures so if there is any doubt he can cross-check with earlier years. And we always have interesting conversations, just as I do with my doctor and dentist. The only thing that hurts is my wallet: why are glasses so expensive?



2. Adnams Gin. I discovered this in Waitrose and as Adnams are my favourite brewers I had to try it. Wow! It is so much more fragrant and aromatic than the majority of available gins. Well worth the extra few quid, in my book. If you’re a gin drinker it’s definitely worth trying. The Copper House Gin I bought is the cheaper of their two offerings; I shall have to also try their First Rate Gin.
3. Lamb & Kidney Pie. Last weekend Noreen did one of her yummy lamb and kidney pies: hot on Sunday; cold on Monday. Even better than steak and kidney!
4. Broad Beans. Yet more fresh broad beans this week. They always feel as if they’re not good value and with so few beans to the pod they’re probably aren’t; but at this time of year, when they’re fresh and in season I think they’re worth it.
5. Family Reunions. All I shall say is see here.

Thursday was one of those days one often hears of other people doing, and which one sometimes dreams about! One of those brilliant family days.

We’d better start with some background … My late father was the eldest of four siblings in what we all now agree was a dysfunctional family. His next brother down (David) was severely handicapped and died at the age of about two. His second brother (Cyril) is now 85 and still going strong. Then there is his kid sister, Jessie (now 82). They were Baptists and brought up in Canterbury, although during the war Jessie and her mother were evacuated to Newbury. Then all the wheels came off.

The dysfunctional family in late-1930/early-1931.
L to R: My Grandfather; my uncle Cyril (standing; aged 3-4); my Father (aged about 10),
my aunt Jessie (under a year old); my Grandmother.

My grandfather was in the RAF during the war as barrage balloon ground crew whereupon he absconded with some floosie WAAF by whom he had a daughter (Pam, born in 1944). Being of a good catholic family Pam was brought up by her maternal grandparents (I met Pam once when I was about 10 and she would have been about 18.) My grandmother wouldn’t divorce my grandfather. And grandfather subsequently had another two daughters by the same floosie; they are both within a year of me in age; I’m told they were both brought up by Barnardos; I have never met them.

So my childhood was pervaded by the running saga of Jessie (by then a nurse) trying to support my grandmother; and my father trying to stop my grandfather going completely off the rails and get him to look after his second family, my grandmother and himself. Needless to say this became drawn battle lines: Jessie, Cyril and my grandmother thought my father was on grandfather’s side against them and vice versa.

Then another twist. When I was in my mid-teens Jessie decided to marry her cousin Ray (some years older than her). My father deeply disapproved of this (although he knew children were out of the question) as he thought Ray was a “drip”; the feeling was mutual. The battle lines became entrenched and contact was infrequent and acrimonious; from that point I lost contact with my grandparents, my aunt Jessie and uncle Cyril and their families. The final and total severance came when my grandmother died in 1973.

And so it continued until my father died six years ago. At that point I decided that Jessie and Cyril, if they were still alive, should have the courtesy of knowing their eldest brother had died. I managed to trace them and write to them, not expecting any response. Within 24 hours I had both of them on the phone and we have all subsequently been reconciled after some 40 years. Lots of misunderstandings have been righted (mainly as Jessie and I have swapped family letters), especially that my father was actually all those years equally annoyed by his father’s attitude and trying to ensure everyone got a fair deal, to the extent that my parents at one time seriously considered adopting my two youngest half-aunts (Pam being by then over 18). Anyway, as long-time readers will know, Jessie and I have re-established contact and been in regular touch.

Jessie with a portrait of my Grandmother,
painted by my Mother in early-1960,
which we presented to her on her 80th birthday.

Some while ago Jessie expressed the wish to see my mother. This is quite a challenge: Jessie is in east Kent, my mother is in Norwich and Jessie is not very mobile having had a stroke which affected just her left arm and leg. We’ve considered various plans over the last few years but they haven’t borne fruit. But Jessie has now found a good “driver” and commissioned him to take her on a day trip to Norwich! We figured we’d better go along — although Jessie and my mother have corresponded and talked on the phone you never know how these things are going to pan out. In fact I ended up facilitating the whole thing, arranging dates, rendezvous, maps etc.

My Mother in August 2011

Thursday was the day! Noreen and I travelled up to Norwich as usual, popping in to the care home to see my mother briefly in the morning and then running errands for her. We had arranged to meet up with Jessie and her driver at a village pub (King’s Head at Bawburgh; highly recommended) for lunch — great fish & chips! — before spending the afternoon with my mother.

We spent that afternoon, just my mother, Jessie, Noreen and I catching up, drinking tea and eating cake. It was fine. Everyone got on. Some tears were shed. Some healing was done. We swapped pots of jam and bottles of wine. And I breathed a sigh of relief. It was a long day; a tiring and stressful day. But a wonderfully successful day. It was one of those days you always dream can happen.

Now of only we could have done this for my father before he died! But I knew I daren’t have even tried because with my father there was never any going back. So sad.