As I expect you all
suspected, we had a bit of a crisis last week. Luckily I wrote the
blog on Thursday - as I usually do. However I had not selected and
processed the pictures. If I had I would have scheduled the blog to
be posted on the Friday morning. What I didn't know was that early
Friday morning I was to hit the buffers as my iron levels suddenly
dropped – again. Nobody seems to be able to explain why this
happens but when it does I find myself stuck in bed. It is all rather
horrid. What is really odd is that I don't feel it coming. All seems
to be well and then, completely out of the blue, it hits yet again.
Anyway (and sorry about
this), during the day I forgot all about the blog – the penny fell
in the evening. When it did I was feeling a bit better so managed to
put some photos – not very brilliant ones I’m afraid – with it
and post it, just, on Friday. I was surprisingly pleased that I had
not missed a week. Childish, really.
Since then I have had
more tests and another iron infusion. My doctor – a really nice
guy, by the way – has decided that in future I should have a
regular monthly check up to try and stop me falling off the cliff, if
you see what I mean.
After four days in bed,
it was time to go and see something of the world. Marcia had to go
down to Dartmouth so I went along for the ride although I didn't get
out of the car. Imagine my surprise when I saw that the George and
Dragon – the public house that was run by an uncle and aunt and in
which my mother and I spent most of the war years – father being
abroad – was undergoing what looks like a major face lift.
In those days the
entrance was round the back in Silver Street and the bit this side
was our back yard. It was enclosed by a high wall – you can see the
remains of that to the right of the hoardings – in which there were
a pair of large gates with a small wicket gate. Anyway, what really
made me talk about this is that someone has drawn some rather jolly
pictures on that hoarding, as you can see, which reinforce the family
connection, Philips were an important employer and the biggest
shipbuilding yard in the town. A number of relatives worked there
including my grandfather, a couple of uncles (one being the son of
the landlord of this pub who married one of my mother’s sisters)
and my mother who ran the accounts office for some years. All these
pictures are of craft (except for the paddle steamer) built by
Philips.
Meanwhile, the
'Companion' has been progressing albeit more slowly than I had hoped.
There are now pages up for The Sea Garden and The Christmas
Angel. Matters are a bit more difficult now – I had already
prepared notes for the earlier books but not for those two or the
ones still to be dealt with.
Thus the need to consult what materials
we have – our diaries, my photos (thanks to the ‘date taken’
tag) and Marcia’s notebooks plus, of course, many discussions
starting with, ‘can you remember that day when we . . . ?’
Actually it has been
great looking back. There were plenty of disasters along the way but
what we remember most is the laughter and fun that we had.
