29th August

The journey back from Cornwall was fine. There were no raucous hen parties which there well
could have been on a Bank Holiday Friday and no fractious toddlers, It is a beautiful trip over the Tamar bridge and along the beach at Dawlish. Although the temperatures soared over the weekend, it is always cool here at home, so I did not wilt in the heat.
I saw the consultant on Tuesday following my CT scan. She is incredibly tall, slim and beautiful.
It was sort of good news really as though cancer in the liver has spread, the rest of it is about the same, so it may be that I have to send the Christmas cards after all. Oh, bother. I am to have an MRI scan to check out my bones as my mobility is getting very poor/
Tiger has been staying with me. WE intended to go blackberrying and make some jam but we could not find any nearby in the usual places, so she kindly did useful jobs for me instead. She has the most amazing talents: she cleaned out the fridge getting rid of ancient stuff and did the nasty cupboard behind the kitchen door, and then went through all the old photo albums sending the best ones to the people concerned and chucked away loads of others. What a sense of relief to have got rid of a lot more stuff.
I am trying to like green tea and I am making an effort to put turmeric in things as they are supposed to be good for you.
Vicky

I love the light at this time of year.  I went to a good festival called Shambala last weekend, where there is no meat or fish or cows milk or single-use plastic, but lots of partying and fancy dress and good bands and workshops.  I was moved by a play that told the story of a year in the life of a cuckoo, and some women folk singers doing songs from their ancestors, particularly.  An eccentric singer called Alabaster dePlume kept telling the audience they were doing very well, which I thought was nice, as life is so tricky.  
It was lovely to get home and do the washing and put the camping stuff away then sit outside with Vicky by her whispering green trees in Ditchling and chat as I missed her when she was away.  I am terribly mummyish.

22nd August

Vicky is in Cornwall and I won't see her until Monday.  I am so mummified I feel a sense of anxiety, but she assures me she can manage the train home and will be OK.
I stayed on Knepp Estate this week which is a rewilded farm, so there are happy cows, pigs, deer and ponies grazing and frolicking free-range, suckling their young,  and large fields full of fleabane and other weeds.  I swam in a murky pond feeling like a whimsical maiden but was disconcerted to see a large brown rat slipping into it the next day.  I wouldn't have minded if it had been a vole.  Calls of owls and other birds were all around us and the city of Brighton feels especially loud and sordid now.  I am so fond of Brighton but wish that more of England was rewilded.  The Isle of Wight is full of rewilding but no one has thought to call it that, it is more that it has been forgotten.
Josie



I am writing this in Cornwall. I am in John  Betjeman country on the north coast near Trebetheric where he wrote about sand in the sandwiches and wasps in the tea on seaside picnics, and St Enodocs church too and I sat in the churchyard imagining him there 

My dear friends, H and C are such kind and generous hosts and I have a comfortable bed and a friendly bath.  I find. some bathrooms daunting and it is a real treat to be here.

It is bothersome that I now find walking so difficult, so I tend to sit in a sunny spot with a nice view,  also a book, while H. and  C go for a walk with George the dog who was rescued from Serbia and is very lovely.

I haven’t watched any TV or listened to the radio, so I have no idea what Boris and co are up to.     I go back home tomorrow on GWR and hope for the best.    You never know with trains nowadays.

  Vicky

15th August

Back to an empty house and a straggly garden but a certain pleasure in making tasty meals for one and talking to the cat.  The hospital has been intense this week, and the wind and rain batter us as we scamper from ward to ward between buildings.  I lit the wood burner last night and flitted through channels watching The History of Scotland, GPs behind closed doors, and a daft competition programme about interior design. 
I have lots of lavender so have started sewing lavender bags.  I have special needs in sewing, but it calms the mind. 
We have been practising our interpretive dances for the play about Vick's life.  The war, her school days and the hospital. Hopefully, they will cause some amusement, however avant-garde.
Josie


Its a full-time job keeping up with everything health-wise. Hearing aid place on Monday, blood test in the afternoon where I waited for 1.5 hours with magazines dating back to 2015.  Wednesday I had a CT scan where I sat for two hours in the most depressing airless waiting room I have ever been in with a leak on the ceiling.  There was a congenial crowd of fellow patients.  We did not discuss our diseases but chatted about arts and crafts.  There is a visit to outpatients coming up to get the scan results.  It is all go.  
We had the Nibbles and Scribbles today at Waterstones.  We take turns to bring exercises.  Topics today ranged from cows to receipts and being stranded on a desert island.  It always amazes me how different our bits of writing turn out.  
I'm off to Cornwall next week on the train.  Quite an adventure these days.
Vicky

August 10th

Just returned from my spiritual home, the Isle of Wight.  My feet ache as my friend and I walked from our campsite to the ferry today which was exciting in the tornado but it was a long walk of many many miles.  We left our caravans at 8am after a wakeful night in the storm, when I wondered if all the four walls of our caravan would fall down.  We walked through the ancient Brighstone Forest where the noise from the oak trees blowing in the wind was delicious.  We ate lumps of cheese and carrots on the way and saw three hares.  The colours were pale and washed out and we passed through heathland and meadows and coastal paths, where we lost our footing at times in the gale.  We may have glimpsed a nightjar.  We passed tumbledown cabins and beach huts. We felt so tired as we reached Cowes we were beyond words. We barely saw another human on the walk until we stomped past the Pimms tents and stripey jumpers of the Cowes week sailing community. 
Overall the holiday was lovely, with lots of friends and family around, and a typical Darling party on the first day. There was high energy music and dancing but it was all over by eight pm. The Isle of Wight may look sleepy but it can be quite dramatic.  That is one of the reasons I love it so.
Josie


In my list of graduation ceremonies that I did not attend, I omitted my son C's, who got a first at Exeter.  Sorry about that.
I too am back from the epic celebrations on the Island.  Surprisingly we all got there and back safely, despite dodgy cars that sometimes don't start, or stop suddenly and ferries that are inexplicably cancelled.  We had wonderful weather culminating in 74 mph winds at the Needles, not far away from where many family and friends were camping.
I didn't camp but stayed in luxury at The Bugle in Yarmouth.  There were four generations of Darlings present.  I was no longer able to descend the hazardous steps to the beach, so sat like a benign matriarch at the top, surveying my tribe.
Health report;  feeling a bit weak and wishy-washy but Carrying On.
Vicky

31 st July

Vicky and I went to my graduation today.  I kept thinking there may be some mistake and I would never be called up in my gown to shake the Vice Chancellor's hand and I had misunderstood and never quite got a degree at all, but no, it seemed to go ahead.  Our hands got tired with all the clapping other people.  I didn't fall over on the stage either, which was another anxiety.

I enjoyed our coffee and salmon and cucumber sandwich in the Grand Hotel afterwards particularly.  I then went into work, but overall it was a high point to get my certificate.

As I turn 50 soon and start my six-month career break shortly afterwards, I feel a sense of seasons turning and things moving on.  Everything feels symbolic in an ordinary kind of way.
Josie

This morning I went to Josie`s graduation ceremony at the Brighton Centre. She is now a Bachelor of Science in Professional Practice.   Of all my five children, this the first time I have been to one. I do not think any of the others went to their own let alone asking me.  They were at  Exeter, Plymouth, Oxford, Cambridge, Warwick and Newcastle.   I don`t hold it against them. People just didn`t make such a thing of it then I suppose.  So it was a real treat to go today and I found it all very moving.  It was wonderfully well organised considering how many hundreds of people were there,  with a string quartet in the foyer playing Haydn, and kind women helping me find my seat in a disabled place.  Josie looked stunning in her cap and gown.   It is a pity that academic gowns are not more generally worn as they are very flattering to the figure. They make people look dignified and also hide unsightly bulges and odd shapes and even the silly hats look good as they make you stand up straight.

I went to the Hospice again on Friday and had reflexology done by the daughter of a famous  Ditchling resident who is a volunteer, so that was good.    We had storytelling in the morning and poetry in the afternoon.  I am so lucky to go there once a week.

We have a big family get together in the Island this weekend for Josie`s fiftieth birthday, four generations of blooming Darlings.  

Vicky

25th July

Global warming innit.  Heat changes our culture at the hospital despite the heaving ED department and lack of beds.  There is a languid feel and I can't do my normal bustling walk.  Good things about this climate include the washing drying within minutes, and the cat looking floppy.

Got up early today and swam in the sea with my friend.  Now pleased to be in my cool kitchen.  My friend said even the crows have their mouths open.

Our friend has written a play of Vick's life, which he has done beautifully.  We will perform it here in my garden on September 7th at 2 pm.  All invited.  It will include music, poems and interpretive dance.  It is a celebration of an ordinary life, but just as successful to make good jam, as being on the telly, in my opinion.

My family are off to WOMAD festival this weekend, so I will be alone and the house will be very tidy as I am a Virgo.  I have a new Japanese foreign student arriving but I do hope he doesn't suffer from cat anxiety like the last lodger.

Josie

I decided not to risk going to Waterstones in Brighton today for the Nibbles and Scribbles writing group as the doctor on breakfast telly warned that old people were dropping off like flies in the heat and we must stay indoors with windows closed and curtains drawn, drinking gallons of water.

So this morning, my friend Phil came round for a game of Scrabble and I won by getting all my letters out on the last go with a huge score, having been losing up till then. I don`t think that has ever happened to me before.

I had a lovely time at the Hospice last Friday at the Wellbeing Group. I am going again tomorrow. There was an Art discussion in the morning, then a delicious lunch followed by poetry in the afternoon. Everybody there: other inmates, volunteers and staff were so kind and welcoming. I am very lucky that it is only a ten-minute drive from home.

The one and only thing that cheered me up when Boris Johnson made his speech yesterday outside number ten were that he said he would try to improve farm animals welfare. So I am pinning my hopes on that and trying not to think about a No Deal Brexit which will ruin us all.

Vicky

18th July

I have now got my new iPad, and it is a wondrous machine. I am still a bit frightened of it, especially when it asks me questions out loud.
Tiger came to stay at the weekend and gave me instruction.  She was very firm, a good teacher.    She also cleared out all my kitchen cupboards and threw out a great pile of Stuff.  Later I secretly retrieved a bent old saucepan, the only one that makes a reliable white sauce without lumps.    But it is a treat now to see all the pristine cupboards and drawers, even the crumby one that held old unusable kitchen gadgets and rubber bands.     
Healthwise, everyone says "you look extremely well" in a rather accusatory and surprised tone, so I feel I have to invent a few interesting symptoms.
Tomorrow I go to the Wellbeing Centre at the local Hospice for my first session.
Vicky

I find hot weather rather worrying, and am so relieved it is cloudy and damp today.  The fruit from the allotment is thankfully coming to an end, which is like when the Brighton festival comes to an end and I am pleased there is not so much to do any more.  I have a sense of fatigue and am sleeping deeply for about 10 hours a night.  
My friend and I went to an unfriendly folk session last night in the pub where we couldn't keep up with the Trad Irish stuff at all.  We did lead on one Scottish song and I played my violin loudly and badly.  We are going to research all the folk clubs in Brighton in the hope of finding one our standard.  
Josie