Jackie spent much of the day creating a new bower, called Gardener’s Rest, by the head gardener’s path, 
thus offering a new view across the garden. This meant some paving material was required. I therefore transported some concrete and bricks from the pile in the former kitchen garden. In an effort to select only bricks that may suit my lady’s aesthetic sense, I leant on the lid of the plastic water butt behind the heap. The lid caved in and two bricks descended into the murky depths. They are still there.
After that I decided I was best employed on a photographic project, and continued with my 1982 negatives. 
The last set had presented Sam preparing for his new sister. The group scanned this morning were taken not long after Louisa’s birth on 24th May. Her brother seems pretty happy with her arrival, unless he was simply enjoying his Smarties. Seriously, his genuine enjoyment had nothing to do with the sweets.
Michael was also present in St George’s Hospital on this day, and held his sister. Most parents count the toes on their newborn infants, just to make sure. 
This picture ensures that there can be no doubt that Louisa had the correct number on at least one foot.
Twelve years earlier Matthew had welcomed Becky, eight days after her birth on 19th August 1970. It is probably a sign of the attitudinal changes in that time that Mat had to wait until Becky came home, whereas Sam could be happily ensconced on his mother’s bed. The two sisters don’t look at all dissimilar.
After finishing this project I walked up Hordle Lane and found the elusive footpath across the fields and into that through the woods, where sweet chestnuts are falling from the trees. The sign leading from the lane had, as I thought, been obscured by foliage.
The next one, almost worn out, pointed diagonally across the ploughed field. A man patrolling this area on a quad bike scowled at me and declined to return my wave. On the path to Peter’s Farm, I was stopped by a gentleman who politely informed me that he rented the farm and I was trespassing. A lengthy discussion ensued during which I learned that this was all private land. One public footpath sign had completely disappeared, and there were no signs indicating privacy. He told me where I could pick up a footpath that would lead me onto Christchurch Road. I didn’t fancy that, so I retraced my steps back to Hordle Lane. Oh to be in Aquitaine where, in my experience, wide footpaths are clearly marked, well maintained, and ramblers are welcome. I didn’t think it politic to ask if I could photograph either farmer.
Later this afternoon Jackie drove us to Emsworth for a birthday meal with Ian, Becky, and Flo at the Spice Cottage Bangladeshi restaurant in Westbourne. Ian and I walked to the restaurant where the others joined us by car. The curry house was very good indeed. Food, service, and atmosphere were excellent on this packed out Saturday evening. There was no piped music, but muted Bollywood films were shown on a television mounted on the wall. I slept most of the way on our journey home.
Tag: St George’s Hospital Tooting
‘A Girl!’
In the ten days I had been away the streams in Morden Hall Park had swollen and the coot family were thriving. The roses were now in full bloom and groups of schoolchildren accompanied, I guessed, by intrepid teaching assistants were on a field trip. Those plumbing the depths of the fast-moving water were able to plunge their sticks in a bit deeper than the boy I had seen a while back assuring his Dad that it was ok to do what he was doing. As I did a turn round the Park the wind was blowing up a gale just as it had done almost 42 years ago the night Rebekah was born. Twigs were flying around like a disintegrating witches broomstick and rose petals were strewn around like confetti.
This could not have been more appropriate, since our daughter had been born in a thunderstorm. Insisting that she wanted another boy Jackie went into labour that August with the backdrop of a truly Gothic sky. Becky is the third of my children, but the first of the daughters whose births I witnessed. I still retain the image of that chubby, sleepy, head, with eyes clenched shut like a dormouse having been disturbed from hibernation, crowned with thick, black, damped down hair. Even more indelibly etched on my memory is her mother’s reaction to being told she had a little girl. When Jackie expresses joy her smile illuminates the room. She gave just such a dazzling smile on that occasion, but it is her voice which will ring in my ears as long as I live. Lingering ever so slightly, lovingly, over the last letter, ‘A girl!’, she cried. She had expressed a wish for another boy because she dared not hope for a girl.
That little girl has always been a determined, caring, and courageous decision maker. Perhaps it was consideration for her Dad that caused her to wait more than thirty years to change the spelling of her name to that which both she and Jackie preferred. I had registered the birth not realising that I had not spelt the name in the way her mother had wanted.
Whilst I was walking in the park Rebekah was on the operating table in St. George’s Hospital undergoing potentially life-enhancing treatment which is not without its risks. The spelling of her name had been a decision which changed her signature. Today’s implementation of a far more courageous one may change and extend her life. That is why my thoughts were of her, not of what I began this post with.
Jackie and I collected our granddaughter from school in Mitcham in a raging tempest and drove her to visit her mother in St. George’s Hospital, Tooting. By the time we arrived at the hospital the rain had ceased for the day, but the powerful wind continued so as to put the World Cup supporters’ flags flying from Mitcham’s bedroom windows seriously at risk.
A drugged and drowsy post-operative Becky largely dozed through our visit but still managed to display flashes of her trademark witty humour, such as fixing her mother with one eye when she disapproved of what had been said, or placing her small cardboard sick repository on her head as a makeshift hat. When a pharmacist with a foreign accent was trying to find out from the rest of us what, if any, medication she was on and whether she had any allergies she opened both eyes, removed her oxygen mask and pronounced something unpronounceable followed by ‘and no’, thus quite lucidly answering both questions. We stayed a couple of hours.
It was with relief and exhaustion that Jackie, Flo, and I ate at ‘The George’ on London Road, Morden. This is a Harvester pub offering perfectly good yet very cheap basic pub food offering a wide menu (largely grills, burgers and pasta) with a vast range of unlimited salad and dressings to which you help yourself, and similarly available bread rolls. Tetleys or Old Speckled Hen were the beers on offer, or you could have a variety of wines, juices, etc. Flo and I had fish and chips which neither of us could finish. My beverage was ‘the hen’. All this is served with friendliness and efficiency.