Searching for other things the other day.. just thought I'd remember back in March this near and happy days in NYC.

The Vessel..

Me in Central Park, Strawberry Fields area.. John Lennon's apartment beyond me..

Just abstract colors above.. taken from my aunt's house..

This amazing old store between the high rises..

And home in February before.. deep cloud cover.. 

A huge area of Andalucia went into lockdown as of midnight last night.. Jaen, Seville, Granada, Cordoba, Cadiz, Jerez, many of the smaller towns and villages encompassed in these areas..  

Not sure why not Málaga.. it's like we're being kept out.. locked out.. not locked in.. although of course we can't get into these areas..

Maybe they want us to thin out and reclaim the beaches!!

Very strange..

This morning my alarm woke me for the first time in five weeks here in the UK..

Sounds good eh! But really probably because I was awake for a good or not so good.. three hours or so in the night..

You know, the thoughts start up, I am worried sick about moving around here in the UK, and even worse the worry again, of not being able to get home.. 

It's awful, just want this to pass.. like we all do. It'll be here next year, maybe the next? 

Children whose first years only have this? And people whose last.. what a world.

Then that set me to thinking about a lady I supported a few years ago now.. 

About how she said I was her keeper of her memories..

Until we came to support her she had not lived with anyone since her parents passing.. her fiancé having died in WW 2.. and I was her first live-in support..

So over time, I learnt and remembered her life.. 

A sick cousin whose sheep Norman, would bang on the farm door, come in and go upstairs, onto her bed, shifting her dogs off .. and lay there with her.. almost like he knew she was ill.

A day in Aldershot when the King and his young daughter, princess Elizabeth.. were being shown the hospital there, and the lady's father being the most important person there normally and his young daughter with her dog.. the young Princess noticed the childs corgi and commented on it to her father the King.

The memory of her fiancé dying and how she learned of his death; all her recent letters to him, returned unopened and left on the mantel of the Hotel the Pumphouse  in Llandrindod, being used as a war hospital.. the matron hadn't even bothered to tell her they were there, or why.

How she went into London, lost and broken hearted and visited an art gallery.. she saw a painting, a Stubs.. Whistlejacket.. and somehow she gained a strength, found in herself a reason to go on, to carry on living even though she felt her life too had ended.

How, in the hospital, a cousin, a different one, was asked to clean all the men's false teeth.. (the men were very young and dying of their wounds and missing limbs.. so many false teeth?) She gathered them all up and washed them all in a bucket! Matron was like.. " whose teeth are whose?? Stupid girl." Needless to say the cousin left shortly afterwards. 

Of how also in the hospital.. these young men, always teasing and wanting kisses.. not been near a female while fighting, and probably would never live to have a girl again.. 

Wounds these days that can be healed, or prosthetics to bring a full life back to injuries, which in the past would have lead to only death.

She told of being in church where a minister, very ungodlike, told her she could not join the mother's union as she had no child, or ever would, because her young man had died.

I have since checked, well, then and there, actually.. no one is not allowed to join now, male female any age race creed or color.

I remember for her, the awful day of Aberfan when 116 children and 28 adults died, a colliery tip buried and killed them, and she amongst others went to help, to save, to dig, to give grace and support to those who they could, and those they couldn't.

And above all that she was born in Nepal in the town of Nainital, her first sight each morning the Himalayas from her bedroom window.

Her and her brother being cared for by an ayah.. It was the time of the British Raj.. 

The now famous artists she met; a writer called Bruce Chatwin. I'd never heard of him but his info is well worth reading.. I think she held a candle to him, as the old phrase goes.

And he knew Gerald Brennan.. who of course, those of us in Alhaurín El Grande.. know of, and many other people too I'm sure.

So many memories, so much history.. I'm sure if I live long enough to start to forget.. it's her memories I will remember by mistake.. and that will confuse people! For sure! 

TTFN

Marian