Sunday 20 August 2017

Sundays

When one lives alone then Sundays can be a bit of a pain because it is the day in the week when families do things together.   But it doesn't need to be like that.

The four of us - four friends, all widows ranging in age from early seventies to mid-nineties,  meet for coffee in the week and for lunch every Sunday.
We have many a laugh, never have to think about cooking Sunday lunch, take joy from one another's company.   How do people who have no friends manage through life? 
 
I left a line full of problem washing (handwash only;line dry; wash and iron inside out with a cool iron; wash dark colours separately - you know the kind of thing) flapping in the breeze when I drove off to collect friend W for lunch.   When I came back it was all dry and it is now inside and waiting to be ironed.   Although it said wash dark colours separately the red cotton blouse has not made my white knickers pale pink, nor has the navy blue cardigan made them pale blue. I sometimes think that manufacturers print these things in garments just to protect themselves.  I just plonked it all in the washing machine together (I might of course change my mind when I find that one of the garments has shrunk!)

Suddenly the land around us has taken on a different aspect.  The two fields in front of the farmhouse have been harvested (wheat) for wholecrop, the fields have been double-ploughed and today they have been re-sown for next year's crop.  The fields around the farm which have recently been silaged have now been well and truly 'mucked' (leaving a rather healthy but unsavoury smell permeating the whole house).  In the garden at the side of the house the rowan is being summarily stripped of its berries by blackbirds.   The tree is full of them as they furtively hop from branch to branch helping themselves - dropping more berries than they consume but not somehow having the sense to fly down and pick the berries up from the floor.   Can anybody explain why it is that these same blackirds can spot a grub of some sort at close quarters, or a worm emerging from the ground?  Yet they can't see a dazzlingly orange berry they have just dropped?

22 comments:

Mac n' Janet said...

Friends are so important, they obviously make your Sunday a special day. Our driveway is covered with some sort of berry, don't know if it's a vine dropping them or birds.

justjill said...

Perhaps they just like them fresh, and I assume like our Rowans they dont have to vacuum off the floor as the trees are laden with fruit! Years ago we lived next to a farm which had pigs, when they spread that, oh it was foul.....
Love the idea of the lunch friends. I think it might be an idea for me to set up, tho not a widow, I dont meet up enough with friends.

Doc said...

You truly live a good life Weaver. Friends and birds to brighten your day.

jinxxxygirl said...

i live a fairly fulfilling life Pat with few to no friends.... I find i do not have the patience it takes to nuture friendships... i enjoy my time alone with me, myself and i... I'am comfortable with only my company... Now i would be lying if i said i didn't occassionally miss having a friend to go to the movies with or such but honestly the time and effort it takes to maintain such friendships i just don't have it in me.....Please don't think my life is not full because i don't have them.. I'am so very glad you have your friends though Pat as you seem to need them so very much....... Hugs! deb

Jules said...

Such friendships are to be treasured. X

Heather said...

How nice that you and your friends have each other - it must mean so much to each of you.
The year is tearing along and there are signs of high summer everywhere, even signs of autumn with berries and even some leaves changing colour already.

Joanne Noragon said...

Will you still meet with your friends after you move? I, for one, have found it very difficult to make new friends quickly to replace friends with whom I shared generations of history.

Derek Faulkner said...

Pat, people who have no or few friends, such as I , live like that because they prefer it that way. One's own company is the best company, people put too much store in needing friends, in living in twos and too often end up miserable for various reasons. The friend or partner that one sees in the mirror is the best friend.

Rachel Phillips said...

Each to their own.

donna baker said...

People.... People who need peoplellll. Are the luckiest peoplellllll....

John Going Gently said...

I like your chatty posts like this weave

Librarian said...

Isn't it a good thing that we can all (more or less) choose whether or not we want to have friends, how many of them, and how close? Some of the comments here sound as if they were sort of belittling you for appreciating your friends so much. But just like you do not see the "no friends" people as inferior, they shouldn't look down their noses at you whose heart is big enough for friendships.

For me, it is a question of balance. Sometimes I don't want to see or talk to anyone, just be on my own, alone with my thoughts. Other times, I renjoy being with just one or two good friends, and then there are occasions when I really love having a lot of people around, such as on my birthday; people I like or even love, and who like or love me in return.
If I get too much of one or the other, it makes me feel cranky. Therefore, balance is king :-)

The land around here is changing, too. Many fields have been harvested a couple of weeks ago already, and I have spotted the odd coloured leaf on chestnut trees. And rosehips! I love rosehips so much.

Yorkshire Pudding said...

It's nice to have one's home filled with the aroma of the countryside. It is surprising that air freshener companies haven't latched on to the possibility of a new country smell - "Mucked". It would surely fly off the shelves in urban supermarkets.

Derek Faulkner said...

"Belittling", "looking down their noses", if those comment by the Librarian were aimed at my comments then, which apart from Deb's, appear to be the only ones different from the mainstream, she couldn't be more wrong in respect of my thought about Pat. I was simply answering Pat's question - how do people who have no friends manage through life, and giving an honest answer.

Rachel Phillips said...

I think Librarian has misunderstood some comments and Weave knows those of us who are happy on our own well enough to know we were merely adding to the conversation and belittling could not have been further from our minds.

Librarian said...

Thank you for clearing up my misunderstanding.

Rachel Phillips said...

I explained it for you Librarian, now perhaps you would apologise for saying we were looking down our noses.

The Weaver of Grass said...

Come along now - lighten up. I think we all agree by now (after all we are adults) that some of us are happy with our own compeny and some of us need friends. Also some of us are a mixture of both - sometimes out with our mates and sometimes needing the solitude for our own thoughts. That is how life should be - us humans are a diverse lot - I wonder if others in the animal kingdom are the same.

DUTA said...


'The friend or partner that one sees in the mirror is the best friend'- how very true, Derek!

Anonymous said...

It's to do with conserving energy. Continually flying down to the ground and back up again uses up valuable energy. If they did that they'd cancel out the benefit of eating the berries in the first place. Once they're stripped from the tree they'll Hoover them up from the ground (assuming the mice haven't done so first!).

Anonymous said...

Just read everyone's comments above and then mine which made me giggle because of the context! I was of course answering your question about why the blackbirds aren't flying down to eat the berries on the floor, rather than adding to the friends/ no friends debate (although I suppose having fewer friends does conserve energy on some level!) :o) xx

Unknown said...

it must mean so much to each of you.
The year is tearing along and there are signs of high summer everywhere, even signs of autumn with berries and even some leaves changing colour already.

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