Grandma P's Ramblings Through Life

Today Bill and I have been in Ardingly once again - for a very different occasion.
We have been enjoying experiences at The South of England Show.
There is so much to see and so much walking that, of course, we have ended the day exhausted once again.
It was a delight to see cousin David in the cattle judging ring showing 3 Ayrshires with his daughter and grand daughter.
We had a long chat with David later in the day.
We saw pigs and sheep and rabbits - seemed to miss the goats because it was late in the day and our legs were complaining.
We bumped into Rocking Horse Karin in the rabbit tent.... "Shall I buy a rabbit?" she was asking. Well, they were adorable.
We enjoyed the floral displays.
We sat for a while at the main arena and watched the show jumping.
We sat in the warm sun and ate some lunch, chatting with interesting people who were sharing or table.
There were display stalls selling everything a country person might need, think they need or perhaps could be persuaded they needed.
We bought nothing - though perhaps we should have returned to buy plants.
We were there for 6 and a half hours and knew that our powers of concentration and enjoyment were sinking fast, so we went home.
We have masses of photos - some of which will appear here tomorrow.

But for now I have a collection of Rocking Horse photos - mainly for our colleagues there to share and enjoy and probably laugh at!
They were all taken yesterday evening as we enjoyed a Chinese meal together in the empty shop.
I played a little game of "Pass the camera" - take a picture of the person on your left and pass it on. That way I would have pictures of everybody without too much intrusion and without it taking very long.
They don't need naming - if you don't know the people, then probably you don't care - and of course Rocking Horse people know who everybody is.

Shop people might care to look at my index and go into June 2006.
http://grandma-p-ramblings.blogspot.com/2006/06/antiques-and-collectables-shop.html"
and
http://grandma-p-ramblings.blogspot.com/2006/06/antiques-shop-part-2.html
These links will take you to a couple of items I did in the early days of my blogging about the shop. I was attempting to explain and show family and friends far away just what the shop was all about.

So, we have been together in Rocking Horse for the very last time.
Keys have been handed in and Joy and Peter have locked the door on a chapter of their life - and all of ours.

This evening we had tables set up in a square in the middle of the empty shop and people wrote down their orders from the Chinese take away menu.
The Peking Chef is next door and in fact it is the owners of that shop who also own what has been Rocking Horse.

The food was superb and there was plenty to drink - mostly of the non alcoholic kind because each obviously had to drive to the gathering.
There was lots of chatter and laughter - quietening for a short moment when the food was served!
I ate squid for the very first time - thanks to Sue's son James for that. And I found I liked it.

Pictures have been taken - but I will not deal with them this evening.

I shall be a few days catching up with myself I should think. But I will hope to do the final Rocking Horse pictures tomorrow.

By then the camera will be full of pictures because tomorrow we shall be at the South of England Show.
I'll do them on Friday - in time for more pictures taken at our niece Michelle's wedding on Saturday.

It is hard to feel sad after such a happy evening. We have lost the shop, but not our friends.
It is time to look forward to whatever is coming next - "Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of our lives".

Goodnight.

Flaming June!
Flaming rain and flaming floods!
Where is my flaming summer?
Flaming grey and flaming clouds!
Where is warmth and flaming sunshine?

That just about sums it up, though I am well aware that further to the West people have experienced worse than we have.
In fact it hasn't rained here all the day.

This morning saw us at the hospital once again - a very easy appointment in many ways and we were in and out in 45 minutes.
I saw the lovely Mr Swinn who had done my operation. I told him, that as far as I can see, all is going pretty well.
He was obviousy pleased, but reminded me that after all I had gone through it was still early days.
This raised slight alarm bells - why was he advising caution?
He explained that almost certainly there would be nothing further to worry about, but that the biopsies done at the time of surgery showed my cancer to the most aggressive and fast growing kind and that it was only just caught in time. It was almost through my bladder.
I think my subconscious mind had told me that, before Mr Swinn ever told me that surgery was necessary. He laughed that he had never met somebody so delighted to be offered a radical cystectomy!
I knew it could be a life saver.
Other biopsies were done at the time on tissues and parts connected to the bladder, and he showed me on the screen that all were clear.
The outlook is very good.
But he did say that having had the type of cancer which mine was I had a greater risk (low level risk) of it returning in some form, than maybe another person.
Because of this I will be very well monitored. I shall have a CT scan in 6 weeks and will be seen by the urology department again in 8 weeks.
He investigated the stoma through the bag and his handiwork at sewing up a scar! He was proud of that and thought he had done rather better than previous surgeons - my belly has an abundance of healed scars!
One final comment on this great and good man is that he quoted me word for word something I had said to him on the morning after surgery, when he told me that as far as he could see all had gone very well indeed.
I had said "Yesterday I had cancer - and now I don't".
It is a good thought to hang on to.
And how special is a doctor to remember the words of a patient uttered 7 months ago.
But then I know he thinks I am special!
And so that was it for this time. I know that all in all I felt content and came out of the room beaming.
For a few days I am sure I shall return to that thought of having a greater risk of it returning. But I am more than capable of following his advice and my own strengths to look forward with optimism and make the most of each day.
I just wonder right now what new challenges lie around the corner for me.

Today I am still clinging on to the old challenges a bit. When we arrived at Rocking Horse this afternoon, the desk I would have been sitting at this day (a Tuesday of course) had gone.
There was very little for us to do.
I made cups of tea for Joy and Peter and us and were happy to be together for a while.
Bill took all the shelving out to the car.
He then played with my camera and mirrors in the shop.



This magnifying security mirror was supposed to help us spot untoward activity on the part of a very small minority of people who came in.
It was on the pillar in Bill's little area and he grumbled sometimes that it was there and he couldn't display things higher.
Never mind, Bill has had a very successful time selling in the shop.




There was a big and somewhat tarnished mirror along the back wall which certainly helped to lighten up the end of the shop.

And finally for today I add a picture to my Going, Going sequence of yesterday.

Today I give you "GONE".

Rocking Horse is rapidly being taken to pieces.
Today we went over there at about half past one and found it to be much emptier than we had left it yesterday.

This morning, at home, I began to feel a little tearful about it all; it is a time of grieving, amongst all the hopes for interesting new chapters.
Tomorrow would have been my day in the shop. Obviously in the past (without me realising), quite early during a Monday I would have had thoughts about what needed to be sorted before my Tuesday duty. It was quite a shock when one of those Monday thoughts flitted through my head and I realised there need never again be such thoughts.



This afternoon we walked through the door to a sad scene. It is hard to see now that my old area in the middle (the island area I always called it) would have been behind the pillar and plastic sack in the foreground.

Another day in Rocking Horse....... and I quote from yesterday......

It will be the first day for 12 years that I won't be able to have a little frisson of expectation, wondering if anything of mine is being sold at that very moment.

I got that wrong then!

The Rocking Horse Folk have been in and out all day long; the door has been open and in walked the customers as if nothing had happened!

The sales sheets numbered 3 for today and both Bill and I had sold things.

We arrived at about 1 0'clock to work for about 3 hours. Much has been completed. I have some more bits which need wrapping and packing and my shelves must be stowed in the KIA and eventually will take their place in a new and improved store out in the garage.

Bill has cleared most of his shelving at this stage.



Customers at the back of the shop.
And look - Bill's area is no more.
The shelves have gone - one now is upstairs in a spare bedroom and the other 2 have gone up the road to where Graham, the postmaster, is.
That is young Graham! He must be young - he was in my class before Jamie was born!



A general view towards the front of the shop with much bending, stretching and carrying.

Each and every one of us is feeling exhausted, emotional and incredulous.

Today the weather has been better - not summer, but at least dry.
This morning we were at home and I described half a dozen more things for EBay.
I am giving myself masses to deal with once the crazy activity at the shop is all over - just one more day of trading.
Bill and I went to Ardingly this afternoon with the intention of writing up our sales so far this week - to save time later on.
It was a crazy madhouse and almost impossible to get to the book because Kate was busy writing up sales all the time.
There were a number of us in there and all able to help with wrapping and carrying and unlocking cabinets.
It was very sociable - just what we will all miss so much. There were cups of tea and Peter went to the post office stores and bought chocolate bars.
But, unbelievably, tomorrow it will all be over apart from the clearing up which is major task for everybody.
Tomorrow we will go over again in the afternoon. We are all enjoying the level of sales just now - even if little profit is being made. But somehow none of us could have coped with Rocking Horse life being like this all the time.

I am hoping that we can fit in a couple of car boot sales tomorrow too.
Faygate in the morning and Edenbridge in the afternoon.
Bill has doubts about Faygate because he has an appointment with a physiotherapist (arranged by the solicitor) at a quarter past nine. I think we can still get in a good hour at Faygate before that. I can't go on my own because Bill hasn't put me down as a driver of the hire car.

This evening I am putting some of Bill's photos from yesterday for you to share when he walked back from the town centre.
For those far away, who don't know, Crawley has been a thriving little town for centuries. But just after WW2 it was decided that Crawley, along with other places ringed around London, was ripe for expansion and a New Town was formed, which seems to be still developing 60 years on.
Bill's pictures show how the old and new link together in the centre.



St John's church is in the town centre. Many of Bill's brothers and sisters were married in this church - and Bill was a choir boy when very young.


Close by is Queen's Square. It was once a large open shopping square, but this space has been reduced by the building of new shops at one end and we feel they have spoiled things. The bandstand has been used for many interesting things.
In our teens we specially loved the Sunday afternoon jazz bands playing there and young people dancing all across the square. There are still musical performances for shoppers to stop and enjoy. And during one Crawley festival our Ashley played the part of God in a church production when he was about 10 years old.

As, no doubt, you know I am collecting postcards of Crawley and in particular of Brighton Road - our road.

Today I received one that I had bid for on EBay which I think is a bit special.
It shows HMA Delta being admired and marvelled at by people in Brighton Road (the north end by the level crossing) in 1915.

Click on it to make it bigger - I think it is so interesting.



Bill has been researching this airship during today.

And Brighton Road is where we have stayed today - yet another day of constant rain, but not as fierce as on Monday.

I have described more things for EBay. These are things I have not really dealt with on eBay before so I shall just have to see how they go. There are 6 old Ladybird books with dust wrappers - like they used to have in the 50s and 60s.
And I also have some football programmes. I know they are not as valuable as some that Rocking Horse Ian sells on EBay, but here's hoping mine actually sell.
There are a series of Brighton and Hove Albion away games programmes - many for the season when they got promoted to the top division in 1979.

I am still very tired. Meanly I am almost glad when I hear others telling me that they feel desperately tired, for this must mean that there is nothing specifically wrong with me.
The others are Jo and Bill - between the 3 of us we have all experienced accidents, the end of an era as Rocking Horse closes and also this awful weather.
Maybe it is these things that are dragging us down.
Bill and I feel that we are not yet functioning - the old world has gone (old car and Rocking Horse) and we have not yet got to a time when our new world can begin.
Bill will see a doctor or physiotherapist on Saturday morning about his jarring to the body in the accident.

No wonder car insurance is so expensive - there are just so many different people and offices involved on our behalf. Let me see - insurance office, solicitors, carhire people, people organising medical checks, doctors, physios etc. They all need their slice of the cake which the other insurance company will be slicing up. Not a day goes by without letters of or phone calls from one or other of them.

There were some patches of blue sky this evening before darkness began to fall - and hooray, the weather forecast suggests there will be no rain tomorrow; no more until Friday night and Saturday morning perhaps.

And with the pleasant thoughts of a dry day tomorrow, I bid you goodnight.

Brief words for a momentous day.
It has been my last day looking after an antiques shop.
As we left home this morning I felt almost tearful at the prospect of this chapter being over.
I have been in shops for 13 years now and for the most part Tuesdays has been my day.
This last Tuesday was incredibly busy - no time for me to finish all the basic recording of the sales for last week; indeed not time for me to finish my lunch or any of my cups of tea.
For most of the day I was on my own.
I felt so tired by closing time - well a little while after closing time was when the last customer left.
It had been fun to be busy and to talk with the customers - but exhaustion had set in and my body ached.
Perhaps it was my tiredness, but my usual efficiency when sorting out all the money deserted me.
Everybody had sold things and also many people would have to have the fact that amounts from their total has been paid on a card and therefore they would have to wait for that amount of money.
Finally I had to start the lot again - there was no way I was going to walk away on my very last day leaving behind me a complete cock up!
Bill helped me to take my time and eventually we found the errors and everything could be stowed away.
So, at quarter to seven we could walk away - and I felt no emotion except relief that I could go home!
The huge hole in our lives at the closing of Rocking Horse will seem more apparent on other Tuesdays.
And now - quite early - I shall take some tablets to ease my splitting head ache and go to bed.
Goodnight.