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Grateful memories of Adrian; the death of a favourite author; belated advice for Chris Evert; Julian bids again for the Olympics; Rick, with birds, on the telly; Andy – a scholarship to Oslo; a great day in East Anglia; signs of age; enchanted by a little girl at the Lake; a kind response to a donation; the “guttersnipe”, John McEnroe; Gran meets Zola Budd, and has a fall.

Book 210

It is 1984 and on January 12^th, that most significant day in Gran’s life, she writes:

Julian is thirty-one today and I wish him very many happy returns of his birthday and a long life of happiness and success.

It is also thirty-seven years today since you, Adrian, my dear, passed out of this life and left me desolate but with grateful and happy memories and you have been in “my” life for ever since. You increased my love of nature and inspired me to paint the wild flowers that brought us together in spirit though we never met in person.  Julian is very special to me, not only because he was my first grandchild but because he came on the sixth anniversary of your passing and eased the pain in my heart…  It has been a lovely sunny day…

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 170)

Age Concern chaos; lucky Geoff; a sporting gesture; a good run in Oslo; trouble with bees; troops return; the Fowlers celebrate; peace and quiet at St Cross; Sherborne House School – 50 years old; orchids at Farley Mount; an inscription from 1890, and Spotted Flycatcher – still using the garden.

On Mid-summer’s Day 1982, Gran joins a coach trip to Mottisfont Abbey.  She is not usually one to complain, but the day leaves a lot to be desired in her view, even though she is delighted to find a Southern Marsh Orchid in flower on a grassy pathside when she manages to escape the crowds.  “The outing had been arranged”, she says:

… by Hampshire Age Concern and it was chaotic from the start, far too many old folk having been encouraged to go.  The coaches were not allowed to go into the Abbey car park, so that the approach road was completely blocked by the coaches, and the leading one had to disembark its passengers before the others in the queue could reach that point…  We were received at the Abbey grounds by the blaring of a ghastly hurdy-gurdy but after viewing the small part of the Abbey open to the public, I made for the river.

Lesser Whitefronts and a visit to The Studio; Cambridge – to be rejected; enjoying Torville and Dean; infuriated by the milkman; Eric Ashby and his “little green van”; a long walk; “Jenny’s beastly little cat”; next door has an intruder; “Mrs Hawkeye”, and the end of the Falkland Islands conflict.

A cloudy and mild day and one of great excitement, dawns for Gran on February 6th 1982, when Barry drives her to the Wildfowl Trust at Slimbridge, arriving at Rick’s home there, Moorend Farm Cottage, in time for breakfast with him, Beverly and young Tom. 

Several pages of the journal are dedicated to this visit, Gran enjoying special treatment, in particular access to bird-watching hides normally unavailable to the general public. 

She records a fine array of wild waterfowl including, within a flock of 4500 White-fronted Geese, the Bean Geese that had not impressed Princess Diana earlier in the winter, and also two rare Lesser White-fronted Geese, new to her, “… from a small hide to which Ricky took us, and, when he went to fetch some other visitors who particularly wanted to see them, I came away to make room for them…”, she writes.