Wednesday 31st August   

I have been aware for many years now that I am the end of the line.  My family line, I mean.  Both of my parents, as I myself am, were only children, and as you know I had no children myself.  Although I do have cousins, great cousins actually, who I last saw at Grandma’s funeral, we have long lost touch – and besides I don’t think they really count, not in my reckoning anyway.  I just mean that I am the end of the line of my immediate family; Grandma, Mummy and me.  And in a funny sort of way I always knew I would be.  There were no babies being born in our family while I was growing up, and since then I haven’t heard of any either. It was as if we were in some sort of suspended animation; the possibility of my marrying one day and having children was never entertained. Oh, I had those romantic daydreams, based more on some Daphne Du Maurier novel than any real desires, of being swept off my feet by some super-handsome rich stranger.  But they never involved having children.  I think that my growing up as an only child, and with no possibility of ever having a sibling, made me in some way assume that I was possibly special.  The special child in the family; the only ever child there would be – and so I never imagined ever having a child of my own.  Strange? Yes, possibly, but understandable, I think.

I did have a few qualms in my mid-forties when I realised that time was passing quickly, and any chance of my having a baby was diminishing too.  But I knew deep down that it was just a passing notion, and not a serious desire.  In some ways it confirmed my special status – the special child, the last of the line.

Selfish? Yes, a bit.  But I never claimed to be perfect.

Tuesday 30th August   

The older I get the more I realise that money is a funny thing. So much of human activity is bound up in a desperate struggle to obtain it, and so much misery is caused by the disparity in the amounts different people possess, and yet in itself it is of no value.  Only as a means of exchange does it have any value, and the rate of exchange – what money can buy, or how much money one is prepared to spend to obtain something is a fluctuating thing, entirely dependent on circumstances.

When I was growing up in Putney I was not entirely aware of how much or how little money we had. Actually my mother’s alimony settlement was pretty paltry and I have since discovered that quite regularly both Grandma and my mother would be forced to sell investments to make ends meet.  As I started to earn a living I can remember how expensive clothes were, and how long it would take me to save up for them.  Later, as my income increased I would find that I was accumulating a balance in my bank account, simply because I was unused to spending money frivolously, and had continued living quite frugally. After I met Edward, money was never a problem, but neither of us spent foolishly, and although I was never short of it, I never felt I had money to waste either.  Now that I am alone I find that I have a very healthy bank balance, and several investments.  By force of habit maybe, I have these plotted on a spreadsheet, and regularly check my share values and record them in their separate columns.  But in a strange way, that is all they are – numbers on a spreadsheet – they have no real value other than that.  What on earth does she mean, I hear you mutter.  Well, let me put it this way; I have no needs that my income from Edward’s pension does not meet; I do not want a larger or a second home; I have more clothes than I can be bothered to wear and,  so, I have no intention of cashing in any of these investments in the foreseeable future.

There is comfort in the knowledge that I am financially secure, of course, but if I did spend it (on what I cannot imagine) it would no longer be there, and so in a strange way its only value is in not spending it. As I said at the start of this piece, money is a funny thing.

Monday 29th August   

Being a girl raised in the fifties, I, like most of us, have existed without our potential ever being truly realised.  Nobody expected much of us girls, and my two role models had always been the recipients of the wealth of others. Grandma had lived in her father’s house and then her husband’s without ever having to work. And when potential disaster loomed when her husband died and she was potentially to be homeless and penniless, why, along came my father, recently orphaned and with his own money and a career in the diplomatic service to boot. My mother, as I am sure you are aware, also existed on his limited wealth, and has never had to work either; though what on earth she would have been fit for I really do not know. So it was hardly surprising that not much was expected of me, except maybe, to take over from Grandma when she got old, which I had started to do before I left home so suddenly.

But as to my own potential being realised not much thought was ever given – and very little by me either. I had idled away my schooldays and my employment in Accounts just fell into place. Nobody ever talked about a career for me, and I simply looked on my work as a source of income for the most part. Then, when I met Edward, he persuaded me to give up my little job, as he called it, and become a full-time housewife, and I suppose, housekeeper, for him.

The only real thing I have ever done was to write “Catherines Story”, and now I can hardly believe I, and I alone (you must not believe the name of the author on the cover) have achieved a childhood dream – to be a writer.  I just wonder where I would have been, had I ever been encouraged, at school or home to have pursued my potential, and had I worked at being a writer, rather than having simply recorded these desultory observations of a middle aged woman.  I wonder what I might have achieved then – or is this it, is this one, sort of autobiographical novel, to be it – or is there still more to come.  We will have to wait and see, won’t we.

Sunday 28th August   

I have never understood those who suffer pain in the pursuit of beauty.  Actually I don’t really understand the seeming infatuation of the young (or some of those old enough to know better) with the concept of bodily perfection in the first place.  It is all part of the celebrity obsessed culture we appear to be living in; the worship of the few, who are chosen more often, not for what they have achieved, but for who they are openly acknowledged to be sleeping with; the triumph of the pointless over the meaningful.  Such is the world we live in.  For all the faults of us, children of the fifties and sixties, we were at least a generation of thinkers, creators of ideas and ideals; we genuinely wanted a better world for all, rather than just our own fifteen nano-seconds of fame.

Whilst waiting at a station buffet for a train, I have just noticed a girl, who must be, oh, all of nineteen. She has tattoos on almost every available and observable bit of flesh, (and one assumes the bits we cannot see also) her arms, ankles, shoulders and legs are covered, and she has that one in the slight dip just above the waist at the back, which seems to be almost obligatory these days.  Her hair is dyed the brightest of reds and she has rings in her nose, ears, eyebrows and upper lip (and probably in places I shudder to think of too). The effect is startling to say the least, and she is certainly noticed by almost everyone; though whether in admiration, amazement or disgust, who is to say.  One does wonder though how she will feel at forty or sixty when the flesh, ample enough already, begins to sag and wrinkle. How will those intertwining snakes up her arms look on fifty-year old bingo wings? Will the flowers on her calves peep from behind her varicose veins at seventy? Will she still have enough stainless steel on her face to make a kitchen sink with? Or will she have suffered even more pain and expense as she undergoes laser treatment to remove the excesses of her youth.

And don’t even get me started on plastic surgery, which, besides being such a waste of surgical talent, is almost always unnecessary and disfigures more than it attempts to correct.  Why can we not just celebrate our gently ageing bodies, with all the wrinkles of age and wisdom there for all to see?

Try this. Stand in front of the mirror. Now, smile – there, not so bad looking after all.

Saturday 27th August   

When the history of our time comes to be written, I wonder what they will say.  Will they commend our good sense, our tolerance, our understanding of the world we live in, or, more likely will they condemn us for our lack of foresight, our greed and our stupidity. And, of course, we just don’t know. When one looks back a mere one hundred years the world the Edwardians (and Grandma of course as a young woman) lived in must have seemed very secure and surely nothing was about to happen to upset this ordered and civilised world.  They were living on the very edge of World War One, and I am sure that very few people were able to predict what was about to follow.

What concerns me most, I suppose, about the way we are conducting ourselves at present is that we are forcing Western Values and Western Culture on everyone.  Will there simply be one culture in, say, one hundred years time.  With the instant dissemination of ideas on the internet, and the seemingly unstoppable globalisation of business, what will happen to people’s cultural identity?  Will it disappear altogether or maybe become entrenched in different, more subtle, ways.

And will there be some new invention, which will make computers look stupid.  Maybe that dream of science fiction writers of Artificial Intelligence is about to be realised.  Maybe humans will not be the only things capable of clear and rational thought; if they ever really were.  And will the world in one hundred years time be run by machines which never make mistakes, leaving humans to exist peacefully with each other. We all know the answer to that one, don’t we? Or, in the words of one of Grandma’s favourite songs…. “Que Sera, Sera, Whatever will be, will be, the future’s not ours to see, Que Sera Sera.”

Friday 26th August   

Well, despite my earlier experience in Paris, when I let my naivety and perhaps my curiosity get out of control, I have revisited Paris a few times.  It is not however my favourite part of France, I prefer the countryside, the small towns and villages, especially in Burgundy, La Bourgogne. But Paris does have a special allure too, the wonderful wide boulevards, the art-deco Metro stations, but most of all the street characters you only seem to see in Paris; the bohemian arty types, complete with blue Gitanes packet in hand, the chic Parisienne women with their elegant clothes and little white dogs on pencil thin leads, the teenagers who seem to have buckets more style and individuality than you see in London, and the whole jazzy feel of the place which is unmatched anywhere. Whenever I go, I like to do one of the cemeteries, Montparnasse or Saint-Denis or Pere-Lachaise; I love wandering down the rows of little crypts, and gazing at the statues or reading the inscriptions, it’s always so peaceful and still, right there in the middle of bustling Paris. I have also explored again and again the Art Galleries and Museums, though I have never managed to do the whole of the Louvre, it is just too big, and whatever time of year it is full of tourists. My very favourite though is almost a secret – it’s hardly mentioned in the guide books.  Nestled by the river in the Jardin des Tuileries  is L’Orangerie.  It is quite small, and has only a few exhibits which seem to change quite often, except the reason for its existence in the first place.   It is the home of, and was chosen to house Les Nympheas by Claude Monet, the Water-lilies.  And nothing can prepare you for them.  You go downstairs, and there in two huge elliptical rooms are the most incredible two paintings I think I have ever seen.  All around the walls in one continuous three hundred and sixty degree sweep are the lilies, floating on a deep blue green lake. And you have to just sit on the benches in the middle of the room and stare in wonder at them.  Close up, you can see the wild brushstrokes, full of greens and whites and pinks, but stand back and the whole thing calms down, and comes to a different sort of life altogether.  And no amount of description can come close to being there.  It is the main reason I return every few years and I never revisit now without going there.

Thursday 25th August   

I am on a bus to Oxford Street, and we are stuck in a long queue of traffic in Park Lane, so I have got my little note-book out, and I have decided to write.  This is not my usual routine at all; normally I compose myself, and have been thinking on and off about what to write all day, so am quite prepared.  That doesn’t stop the mind and the fingers on the keyboard wandering off a bit, as I am sure you have noticed, but I generally have a theme, at least at the outset.  The bus isn’t moving at all, and one or two people have gone up to the driver to ask him what the hold-up is, or if they can be let off before the next stop.  Our driver just shrugs his shoulders, and no, he cannot open the doors anywhere but a proper bus stop.  How I long now for the old Route-masters, which you could hop on and off when they stopped at the lights, or when they were passing an interesting shop – you got up and stood on the little square platform and just waited until the road was clear and the bus was just crawling along, and there, in an instant you were off.  Nowadays you have to wait, patiently or otherwise, until the correct stop, and then backtrack to try to find your destination.  I suppose it must be a lot safer, but not half as much fun.  And now we are at the bus stop, and there is an altercation.  A rather loud and pushy woman is insisting on getting on with her double buggy and two rather dirty and screaming offspring strapped in.  But there are already two pushchairs in the space available.  Both of the occupying mothers are Muslims, with the full hijab, or whatever it is called, on with just a little portcullis for their eyes to see out of, and they seem completely ambivalent and unconcerned at the fracas further up the bus. I seem to remember mothers had to fold pushchairs in the old days, and they were stashed in a little cubbyhole under the stairs. The woman trying to get on, who is white and overweight, and is really beginning to upset everyone, with her overtly racist comments, is not giving way.  The driver shrugs his shoulders again and turns round to announce that unfortunately he is terminating the bus here due to circumstances beyond his control.  After a minute or two of bemused silence, we all, old and young, hijabs, pushchairs and all, obediently troop to the front of the bus and squeeze past the woman who caused the problem in the first place.  An immovable object, she still glares angrily at all and sundry. I am rather glad to be off the bus anyway, and head into Hyde Park, and the nearest bench to complete this little piece.  Another day’s blog completed.

Wednesday 24th August   

I must now make a small confession.  Everything has not been so wonderful in Catherine’s world of late. I have been worried about my health and have at last decided to do something about it.  I have always had a slightly irrational fear of cancer; I am not really sure why, because nobody in my family has, to my knowledge, ever been diagnosed with it.  Even Grandma, when she had her illness a few months before Paris, before my fall from grace, never had cancer.  I was quietly fearful that that was indeed the cause, but old Doctor Winterton assured me that there were no signs of it all.  He put it down to nervous exhaustion, a frankly unscientific diagnosis, but he was sure she would recover.  And, as you know, recover she did, though never with quite the same vigour, never the same sureness, as she had before.

And my mother, who during my childhood, seemed to suffer from so many ailments, is remarkably fit.  I sometimes think she will go on forever, whereas I have been feeling really rather poorly of late. I don’t want to divulge the symptoms, but they did scare me somewhat. So I have been to my GP, and have had all number of tests, and am awaiting the results with more than a little trepidation. The rational part of me tells myself that I will just have to go through whatever fate has in store for me, and if I come out the other end, okay.  If not; well I would rather not think about “if not”, thank-you very much.  When one is young one hardly thinks about one’s mortality; old age, let alone a serious or debilitating illness are so far away on some distant horizon, that they hardly figure in one’s thoughts at all.  But suddenly that horizon zooms in on you, and you are quite alone with your worst fears.  I suppose that a lot of my agitation is to do with Edward, but he was a heavy smoker in his youth, whereas I have never smoked at all.  Still, the fear is there, and I cannot quite shake it off.  I will be getting the results through soon, and my doctor says I really have nothing to worry about at my age.

So, at what age should I have to worry about it?

Tuesday 23rd August   

Going with Grandma to the grocer’s always seemed an adventure.  Maybe because I was at school most of the time, so I only accompanied her a few times a year.  And do I hear you saying to yourselves “What is so remarkable about going to a grocer’s?”  Well, this was way before the advent of Supermarkets, and looking back one wonders how on earth we all managed without them.  Let me set the scene for you.  Ray and sons was in Putney High Street, and I am sure that Ray was the surname; today’s familiarity of shop names was unheard of in the mid fifties.  The shop was really quite large, but was arranged totally differently from today’s serried aisles straining with everything under the son.  Ray’s sold food only, and not even fresh vegetables, you got those in the greengrocers, or meat, which was only available at the butchers. Every high street had a full complement of food shops; one would never have imagined them all under one roof.  Despite this the shop was really quite large, cavernous, I seem to remember. Everything was in different sections; teas, cheese, bacon and tinned goods all had their departments. Grandma would present a list to the floor manager, who would walk around the shop parcelling out Grandma’s orders.  Grandma would be sitting in a high backed wicker chair to one side, occasionally being called over to adjudicate on the size or quality of the wedge of cheddar that was cut for her with a cheese-wire.  The tea was made up to her own blend – two parts Ceylon and one of Earl Grey, stirred and poured into a tea block, where a small sheet of brown paper had been folded to make a paper box for the leaves to be poured into, and sellotaped over to seal it.  The bacon was sliced to her preferred thickness, and weighed in front of her. Each department would scribble sales dockets and pop them into little cages that were transported by some sort of pulley system up the walls and across the ceiling on a network of wires to the cashier’s office where the bill would be totted up.  A small army of shop assistants had beavered away to prepare her weekly order.  The bill paid we would head for home and a small lad would peddle furiously past us, (not forgetting to doff his cap) with our groceries in a cardboard box balanced in a frame in front of the handlebars, as he wibble-wobbled his way to our house, where we would find the box on our doorstep.

The first supermarket opened on the High street sometime in the early sixties. I can remember the excitement of actually pushing your own trolley around the store; picking your own goods; loading it onto the conveyor belt, and carrying it home yourself. Rays closed down a few months later, of course.

Monday 22 August   

And another week has gone by; they just seem to fly away these days.  Everyone says the same thing, but I wonder if it is just our perception.  Maybe people always felt that time was going too fast, that one week was beginning again almost before the last one was gone.  One glances at the news and yes, the wretched football season has started again, so we know now that the summer is almost gone already.  Not that we have had that much of a summer this year, what started with such promise in April has fizzled out into cloudy, warm and squally days. But I don’t expect that that will stop the Met. Office, or whoever compiles these statistics’ these days, to gaily announce in January of next year that actually it was again one of the hottest years on record.

Possibly the complete saturation of our lives by news and media, means that everything that happens every year, in itself, and purely because it has happened again, becomes news, and we are reminded once again, that the first cricket test has started, or that a bank holiday, with its’ unavoidable traffic jams is soon to be upon us once more.  Or whatever the news organisations choose to fill up their ever-expanding schedules with, in itself, because it is “on the news”, becomes a reminder of the passing of time.

And can you remember this feeling as a child?  No, everything was new and vibrant then.  Christmases and Birthdays seemed ages apart; and almost took us by surprise, although we had been anticipating them for weeks. And the idea, the very notion that we would one day be grown-up, seemed impossible.  Could we ever wait for that length of time?  But before we knew it we were adults, and the lazy innocence of being a child was behind us, and we were finally of our time, on time for everything and constantly aware that we didn’t have enough time, and that time itself was going faster and faster.

And even when one really has very little of importance to do, the days helter-skelter by, and one finds oneself again with that Monday morning feeling.  So cheer up now, in no time at all it will be Friday and your working week will be behind you, you will be another week older, and in no time at all you will be in your sixties and then in your seventies, and looking back and wondering where on earth the time went.