Friday 5 October 2018

Today

Today has been an 'after the Lord Mayor's Show' kind of day really, particularly as it has rained steadily all day and so, at six o'clock in the evening, I have drawn all the blinds around the bungalow to shut out the thoroughly dismal evening outside.

Of course we all met for coffee as we always do on Friday mornings.   There was hardly any market - very few stallholders bother to turn up when it is wet, particularly as it gets towards winter.   I bought my fruit (pears, russet apples, grapes and bananas this week - peaches and nectarines have more or less come to an end). 

After this W and I went up to our Library where there  was a really interesting exhibition on the role of Quakers and others who refused to bear arms in both wars.   Of course I remember something of this as I was thirteen when the second world war finished.   Many of these men and women took a very active and important role - they became stretcher bearers, medical people (many of whom worked near to the front line) and many were involved at the end of the war in being amongst the first to enter and assist in places like Belsen and other concentration camps.

I vividly remember the many thousands of Displaced Persons after the war, men who came from places like Poland, where their country had been devastated - many had met English women and wished to remain here.   Many did and I worked with young men  who were the children of  such marriages.   A fascinating exhibition.

Then it was out to our usual eating place on Fridays.   But before we ate we went round a lovely exhibition called '100 hearts'.   Put on by the Embroiderer's Guild, each heart commemorated a person or an aspect of war.   The standard of workmanship was excellent and the sentiments expressed were heart-warming too.

Lunch (potted shrimps and chicken and leek pie) followed and then it was home.  Tess arrived at about the same time as I did after her rather wet walk with PetPals.   We turned up the heating and sat down for the rest of the afternoon.   I started my new book, which is my Book Group choice for the month - 'The Forty Rules of Love' by Elif Shafak.   I am up to Page 29.   So far, so good.

20 comments:

Rachel Phillips said...

I am still envious of your day yesterday. Beautiful day here, sunshine all day and 20 C on the way home from a film at 5pm.

angryparsnip said...

I am always so inspired by your days out with such good friends.
Fall is finally here sort-of. Another storm is blowing in with a cold front first. It was 7o when the dogs and I walked outside. It has not been 70 for about 5 = months. So happy !

cheers, parsnip and badger

justjill said...

Been a lovely weather day here. Plus the last of the Exhibition meetings, next is the actual exhibition. And breathe. Then I am going to do what you do.....

Heather said...

In spite of the dismal weather, your day sounds very interesting. I am a few years younger than you and was very sheltered from all news during the war years which accounts for my fascination of things connected to that time. It has taken a long time to for me to begin to fill in the gaps, and I am still learning!

John "By Stargoose And Hanglands" said...

I was at school with many children whose parents were displaced people of various sorts - a Polish man who had married an Irish nurse, an Italian POW who'd wed an English woman, a former Nazi soldier whose wife's family had been shot by Nazis before the war began, a Polish man who brought his fiance to England and married here. Then there was a family displaced by the uprising in Hungary in 1956 and even a family from the Windrush generation who somehow arrived in deepest Cambridgeshire - and all this in a school with a total of no more than 40 children! Multiculturalism is nothing new.
I think we've got your weather coming to visit us tomorrow with rain forecast for most of the day.

The Weaver of Grass said...

John I am fascinated by the fact that a quite remote school was so multi cultural.

John Going Gently said...

That lunch was pretty eclectic

Joanne Noragon said...

I've never had potted anything. It sounds good.

Cro Magnon said...

We are promised rain from midnight tonight, and all through Sunday. I hope they're right; we haven't had any for months. My wife will be off to Blighty quite soon for her annual pre-Christmas shopping trip. She keeps telling me she'll be going to a favourite Fish-n-chip restaurant on Brighton Pier.... I'm so jealous. Your potted shrimps make me feel much the same.

Derek Faulkner said...

Such a difference between the two halves of the country yesterday (Friday). You had a wet day and needed the CH on, and after early mist we had a cloudless, warm and sunny day which was almost like summer through the afternoon. Walking round the reserve this morning it's clear that we are heading into our third dry winter on the trot, water levels are very low again and trying to dig my garden is almost breaking the spade, as well as my back!

Bea said...

I remember in a German class years ago, a woman came to give a talk about having been a DP after the war. She was from a part of Germany that had been annexed by Poland. Her talk was very moving; she was sparing in details, but we understood what the Russian soldiers had done. Tough times, indeed. I can't recall how she made it to the states.

thelma said...

I remember as a child, Louisa who was Italian, she lived in and looked after the house, went and married a Polish man. I was invited to the wedding, which was very lively. The men danced that funny squatting dance and there were sugared almonds. She embarassed me in the park one day by breastfeeding her baby in public ;) Those were the days!

Sue in Suffolk said...

Very warm here yesterday but we are forecast rain today.
Your lunches out always make me envious!

Rachel Phillips said...

We had many Italian Prisoners of War working on farms in Norfolk and some stayed and married local girls. When we used to chop out the sugar beet by hand hoe my father said the Italians would work in the night by moonlight, they were very hardworking although I suspect they were probably paid by piece work. There were also many Italians working in the Peterborough area in the brickworks in the 1950s.

Librarian said...

The exhibition sounds fascinating. Where I live is one of the most affluent parts of Germany, very attractive for immigrants looking for work. At elementary school, there were as many children from Turkish, Italian, Spanish, Greek and Yugoslavian famikies as from German ones. It must have been rather difficult for our teachers to make sure no kid was left behind because of language problems.

Rachel Phillips said...

By the way, the book, I will be interested to see if you still feel the same after 100 pages.

Ruth said...

Reading your blog is like reading a book a little at a time - a wonderful book that takes me to a beautiful place far different from mine - with foods unheard of where I live! The meals you describe make my mouth water! Thank you Pat. I hope between blog posts you're writing your book!

Derek Faulkner said...

Well, after my jubilant weather report above, today it has been lashing down with rain in a cold and strong N. wind, not nice at all, although the ground needs it.

Simon Douglas Thompson said...

I was just lazy, tired and rubbish on this very cold wet day, although I did manageto do a little bit of tidying.

Anonymous said...

"(potted shrimps and chicken and leek pie)"

Some of my favourite foods.