One Years Reign

So it's been a busy week. I think I may have started a previous blog with the same words, but it's true. Monday saw some corporate work in London and then an evening theatre visit to see the lovely Joan Iyiola in "'A season in the Congo"-a very enjoyable and theatrically exciting retelling of a piece of history of the Congo.

Some of the gang from :Him and Her" Series 4 filming

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, saw a trip up to Yorkshire to see Mum, and Friday and Saturday saw more filming in our top secret location……. near St Albans. Ooops!

Although it's impractical to go up to Yorkshire in the car on every visit, it's great when I have the opportunity to do so. Mum is still very keen as she approaches 92 years of age, to keep as active as possible and most of her days involve a trip into Rotherham  if only to sit and have a coffee in the bus station cafe  and chat to one of the many people she knows who go there. To have me at her beck and call with the car is a great treat, and she certainly made the most of it. On Thursday we had a full day out. A trip to the big out-of-town Marks & Spencer's outlet, and a coffee, followed by a trip to Wentworth Woodhouse garden Centre and a delightful lunch in the garden of Le Bistro.

A Sherry at Le Bistro

Being chauffeured to the hairdressers in the afternoon was the cherry on the cake.  To her great credit she's waded through all 208 pages of my book, and while I'm not sure that there are many opportunities for 92-year-old  corporate role players, I'd wager money on the fact that she remembers enough of what she's read to understand it. Her reading is a great joy to her,  She can get through books at an alarming rate. While I think it's a little too late to introduce to the magic of the Kindle - she still regards a mobile phone as something that has landed from Mars - she always has a huge pile of books by her bed, devouring historic romances, Hollywood blockbusters, the pulp of Danielle Steele, and absolutely anything about The War.

 There is probably, a very good book in her life,  and how wish I had the time to sit down with a tape recorder  to get her story. My lovely friend Lorraine has sifted through the love letters she found written between her mother and father  during the Second World War and has created an absolutely riveting blog withlovefromgraz.blogspot.co.uk  and if you want some good old-fashioned romance, then check it out.

 I suppose it's part of this "remembering what has gone on" that has started my keeping a diary once again. An iPad app allows me to do this every day,  and the convenience of being able to do this on the move is fantastic. One of the things that Richard insisted that we save from my mother's house were my teenage diaries. Keeping a record, sometimes banal, sometimes prophetic,  of the years between 1972 and 1979 means that I can flick back through the volumes and remember other things connected with the sometimes mundane incidents I have recorded.

Boxing Day 1973 -  Not much happened. Watched telly.  Had pizza. Went to bed.

 Dull perhaps, but actually with the workload that I'm currently coping with, I think I'd kill for a day like that.