Sadie, Rose’s dog, has gone to live with Rose in Tennessee. Oh! How quiet the house is! We have no barky alert when someone comes down the street. There is no auto-vacuum in the kitchen or under the dining table. We miss our walking partner on a leash.
Sadie’s favorite place in the bedroom was the recliner. She spent hours there while I wrote and read blogs. Whenever I stood up, I’d pet her, and she’d squirm around so that I could scratch her tummy.
She is no happier being photographed than the rest of the family.
Today the shams are back in place on the bed. Several weeks ago I was surprised and pleased that Sadie jumped on the bed and took a nap with me. I barricaded her after that, because I didn’t want fleas in the bed. You see, I gave Sadie fleas. A couple of weeks before she came to stay, I saw a flea jump from the counter in the bathroom. I must have brought it and its family in from the garden. We vacuumed more often than usual, but the fleas loved catching a ride on Sadie. If we find more fleas, we’ll use a spray, which I didn’t want to use with the dog in the house.
Sadie barricades in place
This is my favorite photo of son John $pencer with Sadie. They had been playing hard, and he held her for a minute to calm her down. We both petted her a lot the days before she left.
I missed our morning routine. When I was dressed for walking, I’d say Sadie’s name softly outside $’s door. In two seconds, I’d hear her feet hit the floor and would open the door to let her out. She’d go straight to the front door and wait for me to attach her leash.
Hello CAT As we walked toward the bend in the road, John wondered how long it would take the cat to come out again. Twice she came nervously to the top of her driveway as John held Sadie a distance away. It had been weeks since we’d seen her. Today she jumped out of bushes and ran over to greet us. We call her CAT. She has a fancy name given her by neighbor Warren’s daughter, but Warren calls her CAT. I say it in a softer tone of voice. She loved the petting and walked along with us until something prompted her to hunt in the woods. I took a quick photo, because she is not one to pose for me. She seems to have forgiven us for walking Sadie.
CAT
Rose sent $ a video of Sadie meeting her grandson Easton. The three-month-old sat on the floor next to Sadie. The baby reached out his hand as Sadie sniffed him and licked his hand. They are off to a good start. Good girl, Sadie!
The most fun part of our week was having Aunt Val and Uncle Haakon staying with us. They flew into Heathrow from Oslo and caught a bus that brought them right into Reigate. I checked the bus stop every 15 minutes, and we met with no trouble. [That must have been the truth, because I might have remembered getting them if it had been troublesome.] They spent the first two full days in London, going in with John, and the third day poking around Reigate. I think they squeezed as much into their stay as was possible. It was simple to drop them off at Gatwick. [Heathrow was quite a distance away from our house, but we could see planes landing and taking off from Gatwick if we walked across the street to the top of the hill we lived on.]
Aunt Val and Uncle Haakon
John $ did a somersault out of his pushchair in Bejam’s [a store] but was kept in by his new harness. There he was, hanging upside down and was too surprised to cry.
Lisa and I identified the jay (bird) this week. It is a big bird, but has movements similar to our blue jay, though it isn’t colored the same.
I was cutting up toast to make bread crumbs, having a tough time of it, so sharpened the knife. Later I forgot what a good job I did on the blade and sliced myself. I found it hard to roll out pastry while licking the blood off the thumb every two seconds.
I’ve had several embarrassing things happen since we moved to England, but the worst yet has to be the time I dropped six eggs in the store this week! No one blinked an eyelash! I found a girl in the store who said she’d clean it up, and the check-out girl wouldn’t charge me for them, even though I told her to. The one that fell in the sugar display didn’t break, and I could see that two had broken on the floor. Couldn’t imagine where the others were until I was emptying the basket and found them broken all over the things I’d loaded in it. Yuck!
Lisa’s friend Caroline H came over for dinner Friday night. I wanted to serve something children would like, so did pigs in a blanket. She thought they were sausage rolls, ate one, refused another and was too polite to say what she thought of them. I wonder if she’s ever had hot dogs before. ???
Kate’s friend from school, Anna L, came to play Saturday. Kate wasn’t sure of the last name, but thought it sounded like “lawn.” It’s a Dutch name – the father being from Holland and the mother from Finland. They met at Cambridge in an English class for foreigners [probably before the term English as a second language was used] and courted for seven years before marrying and coming to live in England. He is in the chocolate trade.
We finally found someone more shy than Kate! When Anna’s mother was leaving, Anna burst into tears and begged her mother to stay. She did, for an hour! Later she slipped out, and Anna didn’t seem upset to find her gone.
John $ has experienced mittens for the first time. He peered at them, snatched at them, and tried to pull them off. After his walk, he had gotten them off, but they were hanging by the connecting string which ran from one hand, up the sleeve, behind the back and down the other sleeve. He picked it up over and over, trying to drop them over the edge of the changing table. When that failed, he exasperatedly jerked first one and then the other, producing a see-saw effect.
Changing John’s nappies requires great strength and ingenuity. He hates being changed, constantly trying to wriggle away. I’ve put pants on him while he was sitting, turning and crawling away. Today I hit upon a new strategy. I laid him down with his head and shoulders hanging over the edge so that he worried how to get back on the table rather than how to get away from me! The only disadvantage is that it left me with one hand to pin with, the other being required to hold that wiggle!
Happy baby on the changing table
Today we went to Clandon Park, a house owned by the National Trust and certainly the most beautiful we’ve seen so far. Petworth was grand, but not a match for Clandon. Since this one is so close to us, we hope to be able to take most of our visitors there if the house is open. Today was the last day of this season. The entrance hall is so large that I think you could fit our Stony Brook house into it! The plaster work is stupendous and the colours (English spelling there) are so vivid. I especially enjoyed seeing the kitchen in the basement with its huge roasting spits and series of pulleys to help in moving gigantic cooking pieces.
Clandon Park
I’ve another list of products and their country of origin that I’ve been jotting down. I should go to a map and make sure I know where all these places are – a good assignment for all the children in the family! We’ve had some bananas from Equador and others from Costa Rica. We have rubber gloves from Malaysia, almonds from Spain, onion powder from Italy, brown sugar from Guyana, salami from Belgium, broccoli from South Africa, garlic from France, canned tomatoes from Bulgaria, and mozzarella cheese from Scotland.
A couple stopped us after church today to tell us their daughter, Annette, had recognized Kate from school. They knew we were the ones from the US and wanted to welcome us. They spoke glowingly of a trip they had several years ago to Atlanta where come Baptists had taken them into their homes. I don’t think they told us their names. The woman said she recognized me from seeing me at the school. I just smiled because I didn’t remember seeing her. I hope I’ll remember her tomorrow! Lisa’s French teacher saw her and spoke to her, and another lady from the school seemed to recognize us. I have the feeling that one is likely to bump into more people one knows here than in Stony Brook! Isn’t that funny? It’s a big town, but perhaps we’re meeting the core people.
I thought I had a lot to write tonight, but that’s all I can think of at the moment. We think of all of you often and do appreciate all the letters we’ve been getting.
Oh, forgot to mention that I was thinking how well Lisa had done with her retainer. Not more than three days later at 4:30 a.m. she brought it to me with a broken wire! We found one half of the case with John’s toys and the other under the back seat of the car. I wrote the letter of explanation and John saw to mailing it in the pouch back to Lisa’s orthodontist in Setauket. We hope it won’t take long to fix and return. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is quicker than taking the mouth from Stony Brook to the next town, Setauket.
Son John $pencer talked about Sadie’s liking water. When he and Rose would hike near streams and waterfalls, Sadie was always eager to get wet. We found that she liked the run-off from a neighbor’s French drain. I would not have wanted to splash through that cold water barefooted.
It was amusing to watch the dog run through the stream. She would go two or three steps and dip her head to take a sip of water, without breaking her stride.
As we neared home, I took a shot of John and Sadie with neighbor Joyce’s tree. Those leaves turned orange and began to fall almost immediately. There is never enough time to get tired of fall foliage.
Perhaps Sadie saw it first, but I became aware of a cricket hopping across the bedroom carpet. I like crickets. I like singing crickets, but not at night in my bedroom. I picked up a small paper cup I keep on the computer desk for catching unwanted critters. As I moved toward the cricket, Sadie jumped off the recliner and lunged toward it. I couldn’t have said Jiminy Cricket before she had it in her mouth. Maybe it tickled her tongue, because she spit it out. In a split second it leaped out of sight. Sadie sniffed all around but couldn’t locate it. An hour later I saw the cricket again, and Sadie beat me to it a second time. When she let it out of her mouth, I swooped in with the cup. A political flyer was within reach, and I slipped that under the cup. Apologizing to Sadie all the while, I opened the door to the deck and flung the cricket into the night. She looked longingly into the darkness. More than likely, the cricket fell to the ground, since there is no floor on the deck at the moment.
I decided to take Sadie for a walk late in the afternoon, hoping to add another mile to my total. Walking, even at my pace, would be good for this high-energy dog. It might have been a humdrum outing, but I heard running footsteps behind me, and there was Logan (10)! He asked if he could go with me as he pulled on his jacket. Sadie was very excited to see her two-legged playmate. In an instant she rushed at him, jumping for joy. After passing two leashed dogs at the top of our street, she began to play roughly with Logan. I don’t like her jumping on him like that. As I held her tightly, she backed out of her collar! When I fumbled getting it back on, Logan clicked the collar easily. Sadie escaped again. I am so relieved she didn’t run away. Who knew an afternoon stroll would turn into a wrestling match? Thankfully, Sadie calmed down, and we walked to the stop sign without further trouble.
The sunlight was fading quickly as we headed home. Logan agreed to hold Sadie and pose, because he knows I love taking photos of him. You can see the golden light of a fall afternoon surrounding boy and dog. We got home as dusk deepened, when it would have been dangerous to walk on the road.
Yesterday was son John $pencer’s birthday. I used several of the photographs from his first birthday 40 years ago in a blog post, but I didn’t use the one showing him with his birthday cake. I liked the-deer-in-the-headlights pose.
John $pencer on his first birthday
He agreed to a non-flash photo this time around, and his smile was my reward. I was amused to find he still has only one candle on his cake. He was fun at one, but his stories have improved dramatically.
The cake was put together with things I had in the house. The layers were devil’s food cake, chocolate moose tracks ice cream, and whipped topping. M & M’s were sprinkled on top, and we had just-made hot fudge sauce to ladle over it. The sauce would have made cardboard taste good.
Here I am again after a wonderful visit with my folks. It was so good to have people to share son John $ with, to have help in the kitchen, buffers for the war zones between the girls, and to catch up on all the news that somehow never gets written.
The only disaster during their stay was a visit we had from the Lutheran pastor who has refused to give Lisa communion. She had taken a class and was regularly taking communion at our home church. The pastor said he will consider giving her a blessing at communion time as he does for infants. [This was a blessing, after all. We didn’t go back to the Lutheran church, preferring to go to English churches for the rest of our time there.]
I was summoned for a conference with the head mistress about Kate. I don’t know why being called in makes me feel I’m to be reprimanded, but I was glad when it was over. Miss Kinman suggested we either get a tutor for her or put her in a lower form. I was shocked to find that poor Kate had been struggling with 4th grade work as if she’d skipped a grade. We had made it clear that she was with children a year younger during our first interview, and the woman then told us she would be in 2nd form. I thought Kate was with the right age group and that Lisa was with those a year younger than herself. Turned out Miss Kinman always likes to keep youngsters in the correct age group, but now understands why we wanted the other arrangement to begin with. Kate talks happily about school now and seems to be doing well. She is getting her preps done by 5:30 or 6 every night.
Mother had her hair done at the hairdresser’s where I get my hair cut. She told us that she could hardly understand the first girl who washed her hair, kept asking her to repeat things, and explained that she had a hard time understanding different accents. The girl said, “You’ll really have difficulty with the owner who comes from Germany.” The owner started work on her, and Mother found she could understand every word the first time!
Someone asked what a common is, and Lisa popped up with the answer. She said it was an open place and anyone who is common can go there.
One morning my father woke earlier than I did and busied himself making biscuits for breakfast. That’s the first time I’ve ever come into a pre-opened kitchen – every drawer and cabinet was open because he was searching for the ingredients. The biscuits were delicious!
Last weekend we went to Dover, saw the hovercraft, had glimpses of the huge castle there, and drove on to Deal to go through the coastal artillery fort built by Henry VIII. I enjoyed that scalloped castle, though it is stark and not a beautiful dwelling as some are. We also drove through Canterbury, though not too close to the cathedral.
Family at Deal Castle
We also drove through the Knole property where everyone enjoyed the semi-tame deer. We went on to Leeds Castle, the most lovely castle we’ve seen so far. Someone commented that it is a fairy-tale place. Parts of it are ancient, parts just old, but gorgeously furnished.
Leeds Castle, front and back
It was quite cool while my folks were here, and one evening they and I became chilled while sitting talking. I did the quickest thing I could think of and got us each a blanket. John came to the door, stopped short, said we looked like furniture with dust sheets, and offered to turn on the heat. It’s funny that I never considered heating the whole house. I was too well-trained in survival techniques from winters in Stony Brook.
One day while the girls were in school we drove to a large estate where the gardens are open to the public. The four large lakes are lovely, just like landscapes painted by English artists.
One of the lakes at Sheffield Park, with the stately home in the background
We kept on the move and realized it was terribly windy when we got back to the car to eat a picnic lunch. My folks did the sensible thing and climbed in the car, but I kept $ in the stroller to feed him. We would have had wall to wall cottage cheese if I’d turned him loose in the car. His hair was standing straight up, and he’d squint up his eyes to see the food coming toward him. That baby never ate so slowly! He finally finished, and I started changing him which I couldn’t do on top of peanut butter sandwiches in the back seat. The wind was whistling around the corners of the car, but I battled on. Had to hold $ with one hand, the dry diapers in place with another, and felt it might be easier to manipulate the pins with my teeth. At this point a real gust picked up the stroller and started hurtling it down a hill. A wild hook with the foot missed, and on it sailed. Somehow I finally got it all together, much to the amusement of a couple calmly eating their lunch in another car. Nice to know I provided mealtime entertainment.
One day I was working in the kitchen while $ thumped around, and I was unaware he had climbed the stairs and headed straight for the shower room. I found him happily chewing on the drain strainer and sitting in the wettest puddle. He lived up to part of his nickname – Sopper. I wonder how many times he’s done that, and I thought the wetness was from another source.
Kate left her hairbrush within someone’s reach, and the whole upstairs got the brush-off. Stirred up the dirt so effectively that I was able to fill the carpet sweeper quickly.
The afternoon my folks left, John $ didn’t sleep well. I think he was cold. I climbed in my snug sack and held a nap in my lap. He slept for an hour before it was time to get the girls from school.
My dad playing with $. $ used the night table to climb up on the bed in the guest room.
We celebrated $’s first birthday by letting him chew on a pretty birthday card or so, opening presents, and eating cake. He loved his new dog, disdained the new harness, and smacked his lips over the cake. Thank you all for his gifts, cards and birthday wishes. I don’t think he is any the wiser after this milestone, but hopefully we have pictures to show him in later years.
Today the girls were invited to dinner and a long walk with the family across the road. They were having two cousins from boarding school also.
Tomorrow John’s aunt and uncle arrive, and we’re looking forward to their visit.
Happy Birthdays to Bill, Bob, and Kathie. Also to everyone else I missed!
[Written by John to fill in the gap while I spent time with my parents.]
Just a quick note to let you know that all is well over here. Anne has been busy with her folks. We have enjoyed visiting with them.
Last weekend we did a considerable amount of traveling. On Saturday we went to Dover, Deal and Canterbury. On Sunday, after going to St. Mary’s, we went to Leeds Castle.
From a distance, we watched the hovercraft come and go from Dover. [There was no tunnel under the English Channel back them.]
Here is a side view of Leeds Castle.
Leeds Castle
Lisa seems to be doing very well in school – doing double duty on French and also taking Latin. Kate is not doing quite as well in adjusting. She is now in Form I, with kids more her own age level – but she constantly talks of tummy aches. So, we will have to watch her and give her extra help.
Fall fell last night – temp about 45 degrees at night and 55 degrees by day. Just had a tremendous storm with winds up to 86 mph, but today promises to be nice.
Sadie has been training me quietly and effectively. I used to put pillow shams and a bolster on the recliner at night, but no more. That is Sadie’s favorite place in the bedroom. When she tried to get on the pillow-filled chair, either she fell back on the floor, or the pillows scattered. This morning, she had her arm possessively on the armrest. Would you argue with a dog over recliner rights?
You woke me up!
One of Sadie’s favorite activities is playing with her blanket. Son John $pencer throws the blanket over her head, and she charges at him and bites at his hands. Usually the dog lasts longer than the human. I learned NOT to play that game, because I didn’t get my hands and arms out of the way quickly enough.
I was standing near Sadie when she wanted to play. She took the blanket in her mouth and shook it, depositing it at my feet. She looked at me and said with her eyes that it was my turn. I didn’t move. She nudged it with her nose until it covered her eyes, and then she began to lick my toes. Ugh! She won, but I don’t think she played by the rules.
I saw something I don’t think I’ve ever seen before this week. With the sun shining, blue sky showing, and only fluffy white clouds overhead, I saw and felt rain! I was tempted to ask the first person I met on the street if I felt what I thought I did, but I chickened out. Drove on home and saw a lovely rainbow arched across the sky. I wasn’t dreaming!
One night John was late running for a train, didn’t check the board carefully and went to Gatwick Airport. I was helping Kate with her preps (homework) and went out to search for him in the car when I realized how late it was. I was in time to save his walking up the steepest hill, anyway.
The day before my parents arrived, I whizzed through the shopping, going to a supermarket, the freezer center, and a green grocer with a quick time out in one parking lot to take off the nappy next to John $’s skin. There was a reason for that, as you can imagine, and he didn’t seem to mind having a half-wet one put back. All of that was accomplished on a one-hour parking ticket. One can’t always move that fast because sometimes there is no hurrying an Englishman.
Thursday the folks arrived. John had called the airport to check on the flight and discovered it to be an hour or so early. He rushed off to be there, waited until almost time for the girls to go to school, drove like mad to get home, and had me drive the girls to Micklefield while he played with John $. The driver’s seat wasn’t cold before he was back in and on the way to Gatwick. He waited and waited – nothing compared to the 2 ½ hour wait the folks had going through the passport peeking line. Their feet found it hard to be civil when they got here! The girls were so excited that they were in the car in a flash when I went to pick them up at school.
We keep telling people what a large house we have. It was so large that Dad lost his teeth. He made no mention of it, so I was a little surprised to draw bathroom curtains and find a grin lying on the sill. I exclaimed over them, and he said, “There they are!”
“How did you eat dinner?”
“It was terribly hard!”
Later I heard Kate telling young friend Marianne, “My Granddaddy has teeth he can take out.” We persuaded her it wasn’t proper for her to ask him for a demonstration.
John $ has had a cold, so we didn’t go much of anywhere Friday, since he seemed to need extra sleep. Both Lisa and Kate were invited to the Hull’s across the street for supper, so I quickly revised the menu to include all the things I know they’d love to miss.
Yesterday we saw Stonehenge. [No photo this time around.] I was shocked to see it just out in a field by the side of the road. How tiny it looked! I expected huge things visible for miles because of the photos I’d seen of it. It did appear much more impressive close up, which is the view everyone is used to. The weather was not the best, nor did it help that Dad had no protection and Lisa had forgotten her raincoat. We went to see the stones in shifts! Forgetting the rain gear was nothing compared to what I forgot – John $’s food and bottles!
Thanks to John’s spotting of a chemist (drugstore), I was able to sprint across a busy street and purchase a training cup, lonely and dusty, high on a shelf. That did the trick. We stopped for lunch at a family restaurant where baby food was served and poured the milk into the cup. That evening we found another chain that also served baby food, and John $ ate high off the hog.
After Stonehenge we went to a big house called Vyne. Never did discover the reason for the name. Anyway, it was an old thing that had survived the rebellion because one of Cromwell’s right-hand men had bought it. It was elegant. In a long gallery there was scheduled a flute concert for later in the evening. I thought I’d heard snatches of melody drifting around, and sure enough, when we got to that gallery, the young lady was practicing. Sounded lovely. As we were going out, the lady manning the ticket desk asked how we’d liked the house. She answered one of the girls’ questions as to who lived in the house, and she said she did, with her husband and two dogs! When she realized it was suddenly pouring cats and dogs and we didn’t have enough rain-proofs to go around, she told John how to bring the car from the lot right near the door. Wasn’t that kind?
So many of these old homes have art hanging on the walls. I wish I knew more about it. There was one verified Holbein and one they thought by Holbein of Henry VIII. Dad loved the huge table, and I liked the chapel. One of the stained glass windows was supposed to have Catherine of Aragon, who had stayed in the house at some time. Kate loved the acoustics in that chapel and made the most of them with her clogs. The rather disapproving elderly lady showing that room said, “She’s a noisy so and so, isn’t she?”
My parents in Vyne.
This morning we went to St. Mary’s, which turned out to be the family service. It was so terribly informal that I said it out-Baptisted the Baptists. Dad said, yes, he felt right at home. They even sang one chorus that he knew, and I heard him sing in church for at least the second time in my life!
All over England it was the Harvest Thanksgiving service day, according to the sign we saw later while driving. At St. Mary’s the vicar called the children forward, and they filled the aisles carrying home-grown vegetables, store-bought fruits and canned goods. I think they were piled up before the altar. There were huge bouquets of flowers on every pedestal and apples piled on the ledges. They called for volunteers for the next day to dismantle all the food and deliver it to needy families.
After sandwiches at home, we drove to Brighton. I had wanted to see the Pavilion, which we did – twice driving by. Couldn’t find parking nearby. That was OK; I understand the outside is much more interesting than the inside. We did park near the beach and wander for a while on the promenade. The girls got their feet wet, and Granddaddy got his pants wet chasing the waves!
John $, John, Grandmother, Lisa, Kate, and Granddaddy
G’mother and I were fascinated by the little enclosures that lined the walk that people evidently rented for long periods of time. Some were wall-papered, and all must contain chairs. Many people were sitting half in and half out of the sheds, reading.
Brighton
Drove on to Alfriston to see a clergy house that was built in the 14th century. It had the most beautiful thatching on the roof. The village itself was most picturesque, but we were too late to take pictures of it or to have time to wander around. Thought we saw three hang gliders hovering above the hills as we left the village. I’d love to go back there some day.
We’d carefully warned the folks not to drink the water upstairs. Dad took a cup of water up with him, and he caught Mother drinking from it. He hit on the perfect way to ensure she wouldn’t drink any more. He said, “My TEETH are soaking in that!”
My name is Suki, my human is a writer, and this is about my world. The world according to Suki The Cat. My humans smell funny, look weird, and I can't understand a thing they say, but they feed me, so hey, what are you gonna do?
Mehrling Muse 