2020 is the first year that I haven’t had a paper diary. The end of days is upon us, I’d say. Let us rely on my blog for a review of 2019 notwithstanding the paper diary.
January
Oh God, January 2019 when we all got flu and the builders moved in. The memory is still horribly vivid. January 19 would have been my father-in-law’s birthday. The extended family met in his local pub in his honour. He would have liked that.
February
The misery, building works continuing, my wretched course assignment due.
March
The builders finally left. I turned 50. We went skiing. All in all, a far better month than those that preceded it.
April
We went to Tours and explored the Princess’s haunts from her time there. She turned 16. I gave up on Twitter and restored hours of every day to myself. I continue to be smug and twitter-free. I started another course, simultaneously with the one I began in October 2018. I experienced definite regret.
May
Blog entries are thin and in consequence I have no idea what happened. If it wasn’t blogged, did it even happen? I finished off course one. It nearly killed me.
June
My mother died. 2019 will always be, for me, the year my mother died. Looking back over blog entries, I see that her last coherent words to me may have been in March when she said, “Your hair is lovely.” She had been sick for such a long time but it was a shock. I still think about her all the time; my sister gave me an opened bottle of her perfume and I think of her every time I wear it; for months I couldn’t reread a Georgette Heyer as they reminded me too much of her, I don’t know whether I’ll ever reread “The Nonsuch” much of which I read aloud to her when I visited her in the nursing home; and I think of how she was my greatest supporter in all things. I regularly visit her best friend from college a delightful and entertaining woman of whom I am now very fond although I found her a bit terrifying when I was a child. When I visited her recently, I said in passing, “My mother adored me.” “I wouldn’t get carried away,” she said. Tart but appealing.
July
Even flicking back through July entries makes me feel slightly exhausted. The range of activities which we arranged to entertain our children over the summer holidays was extensive. We also made a lot of jam. Daniel told me the other night that he has a playlist that reminds him of things and he has a song that reminds him of cutting up plums with me. He also has one that reminds him of the day we moved house – when he was 7 – and he and his brother stayed with his grandparents and in the morning they were wrapped in blankets, let watch television and eat toast and honey. It seems a particularly fond memory.
August
Triumphantly successful holiday in Estonia and Finland except for missing our flight to Estonia.
September
The boys turned 14. They took it in their stride. I finished course 2. I am never getting another qualification as long as I live.*
October
This is when Daniel got the tooth injury that eventually led to root canal the following January. Mr. Waffle’s sister and her husband and little girl moved back to England. I was sad. They were a joy to have in Dublin and their little girl a constant source of delight and entertainment. Maybe we should visit them in London. Herself is standing ready to be babysitter in swinging London should she be called upon to serve.
November
National blog posting month: exhausting but no particular theme emerges.
December
“Blazing fire and Christmas treat” No sleet though.
*Possibly not true but definitely felt true in 2019.