moving on 2

Music

This has been the latest moving on phase in my life. In fact, it has been the hardest.

From the age of about 20ish I always played music. I had piano lessons as a child and although I learned to read music notation I didn't practise. In my 20's I took up the fiddle. This happened because my older son wanted lessons but soon gave up and I took his place. One week I remember that I had to learn a Scottish reel. I practised really hard and played it for my teacher who unkindly said, "Very good. Now play it again and make it sound like music."

My younger son wanted guitar lessons and a similar story evolved. He gave up and I took over the lessons. Then in one lesson my teacher said you can sing to this tune. "I can't sing", I said. "Of course, you can," she said. So, I warbled along, and she said, "Oh dear no you can't."  

I am not sure why, but I fell in love with the clarinet. I had lessons and practised and made progress. One of my fondest memories is of the first time I made music in a group. My teacher invited me to join a clarinet choir which he conducted and rehearsed every Saturday morning. If you have never experienced playing an instrument in a group, I am not sure how to convey the excitement I felt. I suppose it is the same feeling I used to get when Breton dancing in a circle with 200 people.

I even took exams. After Grade 4 my teacher said, " Now for Grade 5 you have to do an oral." I laughed and said, "I am sorry, but you must know that I am tone deaf."  "No, no Mrs Bateman there is no such thing," and he preceded to test me. "Oh dear, I don't know what we can do."

I had a friend at the time who sang in the Ceramic City Choir, and she said that she would help me.  So, she sits at the piano and says, "Sing this note, and now this note." I warble the notes. She doesn't comment but as her back is to me, I see her shoulders shaking with laughter. 

Fortunately, I had another friend who was having clarinet lessons too and needed to pass the oral exam. She had found a way of learning the intervals. For example, when asked to sing a fifth, you sing in your head Twinkle, Twinkle little star.  "My Bonnie lies over the ocean" for the 6th, "Take on me" for the 7th, and "Somewhere over the rainbow" for the octave. She knew beginning chords for all the seven that we needed. I astounded my teacher who at first poopooed the idea and then as I demonstrated agreed that it worked. Now I can proudly say that I am Grade 5 on the clarinet.

I stopped taking exams but began playing in bands. I played in the Crewe West End Wind Band and the Nantwich Concert Band. Then a group of friends formed a Ceilidh band and invited me to join. We even got paid. 

At one staged of my life I earned a living, leading music sessions in three centres for people with learning difficulties.

When I retired, I spent my lump sum on a piano. It was an old school piano and I loved it.

When I moved to Brittany, I took all my instruments. By then I had two clarinets (a b flat and a c) a fiddle, a cello, a bag of percussion instruments and a keyboard. Oh yes and a piano.

I played with a friend for the Breton dance class. I continue to practise my fiddle and I played the piano for my own amusement.

When I moved back to Kidsgrove I left my lovely piano in Brittany. I gave it to a very good friend who had been a professional pianist and singer. She loved my piano too.  I did bring back all my other instruments back. After emptying all the bags and installing the furniture I took out my instruments to begin what had always been my usual practice each morning. Unfortunately, I discovered that my body refused to perform. Arthritis in fingers, lingering pains from a frozen left shoulder and from bursitis in my right shoulder meant that clarinet and violin were a no, no. All I can do now is to thump out Old MacDonald and Twinkle, Twinkle on the piano for the great grandchildren. 

I long ago gave up trying to encourage children, grandchildren and recently great grandchildren to play a musical instrument. I blame technology. First of all, they are all addicted to laptops and other fancy things of which I do not know the names and if they get their hands on an electronic keyboard, they quickly learn that by pressing a button the thing plays itself.

So, I have had to move on from what has been an important part of my life. I have replaced it with more writing and painting which also suffer from worsened physical prowess. My arthritic fingers struggle to write and back ache prevents long hours of painting. So, what I am saying is that creativity is at risk, but I refuse to live a life without creativity. 

GGF

 MY GREAT GRAN

I have watched her grow old. I remember when the used to pick us up from school. We would go via June's, a sweet shop. We were usually allowed crisps, but " no rubbish ", she would say. When we were teenagers, we, that's my sister and me lived with her for a time. In fact, my sister was at uni. and Gran drove her there and back for three terms for three years. Now she doesn't drive. Doesn't have a car because she says old people shouldn't drive. She still manages to collect my children from school and sometimes takes them on the bus to her house and lets them have fish and chips for tea because she hates cooking. I can see now that she is aging. She walks slowly and often loses her balance. Frequently she loses track of time and forgets what day it is and misses one of her classes.  She still paints and writes. The paintings are not quite as good as they used to be, but she has always taught us that the process is more important than the product. 

She is fiercely independent, and lives alone. She says she prefers it after being married for over 20 years. She had a boyfriend for many years and says she would never live with him and never marry again.

 

Moving on

If I look back over my life I must have moved on many times. I moved on after my divorce, I moved on after redundancy and I moved on after many bereavements. One doesn't forget the deceased but learns to live with the loss. I have always said that the three best things I ever chose to do in my life were, learning to drive, getting divorced and giving up smoking. At my age is it possible or do I need to move on?

Four years ago, I was living in France and now I am living in Kidsgrove the town where I was born. Is that moving on or moving back. Any way it happened like this.

I sold my house- well I thought I had. We signed the compromise, and I was delighted. I searched for properties in the UK. I had been steadily packing bags and boxes and giving things away, taking stuff to the dechetterie and the charity shop. On the Monday I should have signed the final papers and would have departed the next week; I had a farewell meeting with my Monday group. We met for tea, cakes and games and to speak French. We were in a cheerful mood but sad that I was leaving. It was celebratory in a way sharing presents and cards. Laughing and crying, all very emotional. It was that afternoon that it began. I heard a drip. Water was dripping from the bathroom via a light to the floor in the vestibule.

I spent the week mopping up, ringing plumbers, paying plumbers, contacting my insurance company and peeing and pooing in the garden as the water was turned off. Then the nightmare commenced. I awoke on Friday morning and listened for the drip, drip dripping. Silence. I went downstairs to find that the ceiling had collapsed. I can't remember exactly the sequence of events that followed but it involved more plumbers, experts to find the leak, insurance investigators and finally informing the buyers of the catastrophe which of course led to delaying the completion date for two weeks.

I was so fed up with pooing and peeing in the garden and the constant delays that I found a removal man who agreed to take me and my cats to the UK for a reasonable fee. My village in Brittany had no public transport. None at all. With all the other reasons for moving was that I wished to stop driving. So, I sold my car.

I arrived in Kidsgrove with all my furniture and boxes, so many boxes and no car.

At first, I woke in the middle of the night thinking about boxes and furniture then, I decided it was no use lying in bed thinking about it, so I frequently got up at three or four in the morning to deal with them.

On Sunday October 20, 2019, I wrote this list.

1) The house in France was still mine

2) France Telecom/Orange still continued to send emails and probably bills - I didn't dare to look

3)The buyers were yet to sign*

4) I hadn't received the insurance money*

5) I was still paying for a) Water b) rubbish collection c) electricity in France*

6) I was paying for a) Council Tax b) Gas and Electricity in UK

Yesterday I received a bill from the plumber in France. He said that he had fixed the leak.

All problems did get resolved and the boxes were emptied, and the furniture installed or given away. I found a brilliant builder on Facebook, and he installed French windows and a new second hand kitchen also super-duper fitted wardrobes in my bedroom. I was even given a piano and the builder heroically managed to get it into the house.

Although I lost a spectacular garden, I have created a very interesting garden here. It gives me great joy and I begin everyday by taking my cuppa outside.

I don't need a car here. I have a supermarket across the road, another 200 yards from my door which I access along a tree-lined path and a third in the opposite direction via a path lined with mature trees. I have a bus pass. There are frequent buses to Hanley, Crewe and Newcastle. I can use the money I save from being carless on taxis.

So, have I moved on? Not quite. I still cry when I read my old blog called "Living and Gardening in Brittany". At least I have two functioning toilets, no peeing and pooing in the garden which is a good job as there really is no room for that sort of thing here.

My new blog is called "Living Life in Reverse and Adapting to the Present and Looking to the Future." What a mouthful. Perhaps I should call it Janus.