Blow me there’s another gone trumpeting by like a circus parade. While it was here it seemed to be all trombones and prancing ponies and balloons and toffee apples, and now it’s almost out of sight, we don’t seem to be left with a lot to show for it. Still, we smile to think back on it, and we’re glad we didn’t miss it.
arly in the year I managed to re-fit the kitchen (partly) and
two or three alcoves’ worth of match-boarding, but the job will
see me into retirement, easy. Valerie and I had a few days i
Paris. I tried peddling some pictures, but Paris isn’t ready for me, yet. Still, it was a good enough excuse to go.
The children just get bigger and smarter every day. They’ve both kept up a steady stream of certificates- swimming, music, ballet. Miriam is into colour-coordinated clothes, making bread, (housecraft generally), breaking hearts, Barbie dolls- it’s the matriarch syndrome; the dolls all do as they’re told. John is into ‘Game Boy’. He sits there, pressing his little buttons, zapping bosses on all levels, while watching TV and conversing, all at the same time, and I can’t even see what’s happening in the graphics, never mind understand. His mental agility is astounding. He’s fortunate in having two or three like-minded friends of similar ability. I have the impression that he is regarded as Top Cat, though he is obviously unaware of it.
alerie (lovely as ever) now has two school governors’ hats- one for Catfield and one for Stalham, the one day per week job at Catfield, and a steady trickle of supply work. The latter is particularly fortunate because my season’s trade has been seriously underwhelming. It was sluggish to begin with, and slow to improve, but it did improve, and we shan’t starve. I might ask John Gummer to let me join the set-aside scheme. I’ll guarantee to keep a dozen or so frames empty in return for collecting a subsidy of say 100 notes on each, every three months or so. No, as I said recently to Mr Gardiner (farmer next door)when he collared me for a mardle (Norfolk for gossip), when you’ve got a life like ours, you can’t expect a surfeit of money as well.
alerie and Miriam had their Christmas pudding-fest, I’ve cut holly
from our own tree, and it’s now in a shed, in water, under covers;
we’d lose the berries, else, and the barrel of home-made port is
brandied and bottled. We shall have the full complement of grandparents this year, plus other visitors at differing times, so it will be the Christmas business as usual at Barneybees- exhausting but wonderful. In fact this evening could be my last quiet moment, my last quiet drink.
s I just set down my glass, my eye was caught by the light in the
open-fronted cow byre down the lane. I can see the beasts’ shaggy heads as they dip and munch, in the trough and their steamy breath rising, and it’s so easy and thrilling to conjure up another shed, maybe to the right, just obscured by the dark shape of the straw stack- a stable with a bullock and a donkey. Some will already be smirking at my silliness, but if you were here at Barneybees, now, you might well be in danger of falling from the grace of reason.If you were to risk one glance through this squinty old pane, you might find yourself peering down this dark farm track, under the dim shadows of scars of old hurts and harsh lessons, beyond the arching shivering branches of shadowy memories of simple childhood dreams, trying, in spite of your oh so worldly self, trying to discern the weary figures of the Gentle Travellers plodding submissively on to their meeting with the hopes and fears of all the years…”
From Miriam and John and Valerie and Neil (and Barney)
A very Happy Christmas to you.