Gloomy Sunday.

May Day passed, the weather celebrated by getting even older with snow on the hills, frost and hailstones down here. I started a disgusting cold; the wet, sneezy, dripping, hot-flushing sort, the like of which I haven’t had for a year or so. Today I’m making myself a big pan of chicken soup with a whole corn-fed chuck, leeks, onions, celery, lots of garlic, and, from my herb garden, sage and thyme, natural antibiotics. Hope that fixes me.

The fennel was feathering up prettily until a couple of hard frosts got it, along with the fuschias and a shrub the name of which I have completely forgotten. It’s a hard life up here for plants.

Sophie (daughter living in London) has just landed herself a job in Oxford, the necessary get-out card for her flight from the smoke. It was the first she applied for which says a lot about her (motherly pride alert here!), jobs being less easy to come by these days. Sadly her celebratory mood has been dampened by the feeling of letting people down, which of course she isn’t but she’s a very caring soul. When her supervisor heard the news she tried to be pleased for Soph’s but looked as if she was going to cry. This company, an imprint of Penguin, has been pleasant to work for until recently when the management, who obviously have no idea what it’s like at the pit face, began to ignore working conditions (and reason) in order to make cutbacks; basically to get blood out of stones. Sophie has wanted to move to Oxford for some time, since London began to lose it’s shine and the incessant noise of advertising and service announcements, traffic and sirens, along with foul air and a press of tense, miserable, humanity got through to her. Until some moment last year when things began to get difficult she enjoyed her work, now she will miss her colleagues and is beset with guilt at leaving them struggling to meet deadlines, but for her own sanity she has to go.  

The same circumstances have made our son sole manager of an area of Devon and Cornwall that used to have three or four managers.  Fortunately he still enjoys his work but  his day often starts at 5am and ends at 9pm when he has to travel to the further water sports centres. Even when he gets home earlier he works once the children are in bed. He has always been a well-balanced, laid back, conscientious, sort of chap with a very good sense of humour, but it puts a strain on family life and his pay in no way reflects the amount of work he does. 

I read the paper every day but it’sonly when the situation actually affects me and mine that it becomes real. My gas bill has gone up by almost 100% in a year. I can’t believe things have got so bad.