2011 — 22 March: Tuesday

I was tired last night1 so, after watching "Adam," it was off to bed I went. Meanwhile, e-mail negotiations continue with the parties involved with the would-be buyer of dear Mama's house, and there are some supplies to be got in ahead of today's lunchtime visitor.

I thought retirement was supposed to be calm and peaceful.

XKCD rules

Fascinating.

Lunch now being...

... a thing of the recent (re)past, it's time to saddle up the Yaris and whizz over to the care-home bearing chocolates and the news that — with luck and a following wind — her house sale should complete in the next two days. Not that this will mean anything to her, but she'll enjoy the chocolates.

I was unfamiliar...

... with the sociological term "rite of passage" until reading Alexei Panshin's book of that title2 in November 1970. It occurs to me, however, that selling the parental home is on a par with holding a funeral service for one's beloved partner when it comes to rites of passage that make you feel old, tired, and (frankly) rather depressed. Not that the parental home in this case is the one where I grew up as I had set up my own home with Christa a year before dear Mama moved into hers. She was to live there, alone (and rather miserably, it always seemed to us) for the next 33 years. The 33 years I spent with Christa were in marked contrast. It takes, as they say, all sorts.

Perhaps I'll sleep more soundly tonight.

It's 18:02 and I returned home after cheekily blagging a cuppa at the care-home and another at Mike's. I'm incorrigible. The species of yesterday's tree, by the way, is (as far as we know) rhus typhina aka Stag's horn sumach.

Funny stuff, Time...

It was exactly four years ago that Christa, taking a week's holiday, drove me down to Durlston for our last cliff walk together. I do miss that lady! <Sigh>

Suddenly it's 23:24 — amazing how a good book, decent music, and a small glass of Scotch can mellow a chap and lighten a dark mood :-)

  

Footnotes

1  And interrupted sleep hasn't done much to help.
2  Let's not quibble over the plot similarities between that and Heinlein's earlier "Tunnel in the Sky".