Home Diary 2014

October

Roger resumed short mat bowls in the Toddington village hall on Thursdays, while Teresa and Jay started an Irish dance class, also on a Thursday evening. Their skating outings were less frequent. Roger also audited the bowls club accounts and started to paint the garden fence, left, while Teresa continued to excel with her cooking, for example this Princess torte, below.

The ‘end of tenancy’ arrangements after Jay left her flat in Oxford were just as fraught as we expected. Despite having the flat professionally cleaned and left spotless, we immediately received a claim from the landlord for additional cleaning, which was withdrawn as being ‘a mistake’ when we challenged it. Instead we were asked to contribute to some three year old improvements to the furnishings, alleged to be at Jay’s request, but actually the landlord’s own not very satisfactory solutions to deficiencies in the window coverings. Teresa eventually suggested a small ex gratia payment to bring the unedifying exchanges to an end, and this was accepted.

One consequence of Jay’s temporary return home was the need look critically at the accumulating piles of clothes, books, games and assorted gee-gaws that were taking over all the spare space in the house and garage. Some of it was good only for the tip, but we also amassed enough to consider a boot sale, which we duly enacted on Sunday 19. Helen was home that weekend, and we were extremely grateful to have her organising skill and retail know-how: she co-ordinated the whole thing on the day, and we did much better that we expected, not only disposing of most of what we took, but comfortably covering our expenses with something to spare. Somewhat to our surprise, clothes and bric-a-brac sold well, but hardly any books. Jay even had some buyers for some of her horsey stuff.

Roger makes a sale Jay and Helen setting up

On Tuesday 21 we all accompanied Helen back to London – Roger’s first visit on the train since the year he retired. We went to Helen’s flat in Hendon, which Roger had not seen before, and then to the near-by Brent Cross shopping mall – a cornucopia of retail extravagance for us rude provincials! Helen navigated us on the buses, and we marvelled at the frequency of service and the cashless payments – capped at £4.40 for any number of journeys. Roger and Helen finished the day with a stroll through the Middlesex University campus where Helen spends much of her time, just 400 yards from her flat.

On Sunday 26 we went to Oxford for the day, where we met Helen, and Teresa and Juliet renewed their acquaintance with the ice-rink.

A bonus for much of the month was the mild and often sunny autumn weather. A particularly fine day on Tuesday 28 saw us take a trip to Malvern, where we were able to sit in the park in glorious sunshine for our lunch. We also visited the large Waitrose there, but were very disappointed that, having registered for ‘scan as you shop’, which identifies us by name, and having used our loyalty card for a ‘free’ coffee, their software failed to apply the customer discounts to which we were entitled.

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