We came “this” close to moving house today

Books that come with endorsements from Oprah’s book club tend to receive very little of my attention, rightly or wrongly. Luckily I saw a clip of the author being harassed by Oprah for passing fiction off as fact and then striking him off her ‘approved list‘ so I mentally peeled the sticker off and dived right in.

23-year-old James is admitted to a drug rehab centre in pretty poor shape, covered with a colourful selection of his own bodily fluids, missing his front teeth and with a hole through his cheek. He’s been at the chemicals for a good few years and has hit rock bottom. The book takes you through his six weeks at the centre at breakneck pace in first person, present tense and it’s hard to put down from the very start. I have to admit there is one section I didn’t read though; When he’s having root canal work done with no anaesthetic I had to skip a few pages there. Rest assured what I pictured in my head had to be worse than whatever he actually wrote there. Jesus…

You find yourself admiring him for his rebelliousness and steadfast refusal to follow the 12 steps and the self-delusion necessary to follow them. For someone who’s at his lowest ebb, he presents a heroic character. He is resolute and uncompromising, obviously quite a contrast to his former self. Despite not following all the rules in the center, he makes progress and even offers others a chance for the same salvation.

This story is about personal choice, responsibility and offers a logical, braver and God-free alternative to Alcoholics Anonymous. Whether it’s all true or not only matters if you’re reading it as a self-help guide. As a literary work, it’s deserves to be up there and above with Dave Egger’s A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius another first person memoir with interludes of fantasy.

My Nanny (Welsh for Granny) lived down the road from us from most of my life. She was 63 years old when I was born, and had had quite a life that I heard about through her many anecdotes and stories. When I was little she still lived on her own in Swansea, then moved down to my parents’ village in Somerset when I was 7 or 8. I have great memories of going to stay with her in Wales when I was little, going to the Gower and Mumbles, cooking all manner of treats, travelling on the top floor of double decker buses up front, pumping the pesticide spray in her garden while she aimed the nozzle at the aphids on her fruit trees, and visiting her good friends and neighbours.

Some of my favourites stories she’d tell were the ones about sending rapidly decomposing laverbread to London in the post, the day she was teaching in a Swansea school classroom and a monkey came in through the window and chased the kids and her travels with my ‘Auntie’ Myf. She also had vivid stories about The Blitz in Swansea when she had to look after the boys and girls in the bomb shelters during the sustained air raids. Despite Nanny’s fair share of hardship she was always stoical and ready with a smile and a conspiritorial wink.

For me, Nanny seemed at her happiest when people were doing odd jobs for her and she could be there looking over your shoulder checking your work and offering Welsh cakes and cups of tea. Nanny taught me how to prune her roses right back so they’d grow with increased vigour the next year “Let your worst enemies cut your roses” she’d tell me and would single out weeds to take out with her walking stick because they grew “like the Dduw”. I also learnt my DIY skills painting and decorating her house probably more times than it needed but it was a good excuse to spend time together and, fair play, she always paid me a very good hourly wage. After working we’d sit down with tea and a well-supplied biscuit tin and natter away or watch Countdown or Eastenders together. Occasionally we’d play Scrabble too. Playing Scrabble with Nanny was enjoyable not just for her impressive recall of the official WI list of two letter words, but also because of her stock phrases such as “Just opening up the board” as she’d place some high scoring word right where you were going to go. Bless. She started my whole obsession with Scrabble thanks to playing Junior Scrabble with us when we were little.

Nanny was always very active and lived very independently right up to very recently. Her social calendar put mine to shame. Visitors would stream through her house and enjoy her hospitality and she, likewise, had many reasons to leave the house and take part in church events, Red Cross meetings, mystery trips, pub lunches… Nanny had an impressive knowledge of where you could get a decent pub lunch, cream tea or fish and chips all over the south west. “Craft Evening” was another perennial favourite where Nanny and several of her friends from the village would meet up weekly and knit clothes for charity. As Nanny’s rheumatism played up in later years her knitting became un-knitting where she’d take apart jumpers etc so others could use the wool. The craft was just a thinly veiled excuse to meet up and keep abreast of village gossip and display her baking prowess though I feel. Nanny was excellent at keeping in touch with people by phone and by post. Last year I even got an email from her. Yearly proof of how well she’d stay in touch with her friends from all over the world came every December when she’d send out the Xmas cards she’d bought in the sales the January previously and start to receive the 100+ cards from friends and family wishing her well. Hanging the cards from strings on the beams was getting to be an industrial operation. Then of course, afterwards, she’d check the senders against her list for next year in case there were any new friends, save the cards and stamps and donate them to Oxfam or somesuch charity.

Nanny had a stroke in March this year and following this, after a stay in hospital, went to Calway House a new nursing home in Taunton where she could get proper 24 hour care. She was comfortable, well attended by family, staff and friends, even dabbling in scrabble, apparently… I feel extremely glad that I was able to visit her over her last two weeks. I got to tell her about what I’d been up to, show her photos of life in Mexico and around and even take her to the Taunton Welsh Society’s Christmas Carol service. She still had her smiles, the occasional wink and offers of Maltesers for everyone. Last Monday we got a phonecall saying she was unresponsive and we rushed to the home to see Nanny having suffered another in a series of mini strokes. She was peaceful, breathing deeply with her eyes closed. Mum, Dad and I kept Nanny company and comfortable until suddenly she stopped breathing and quietly passed on.

That was last Monday. Today is her funeral. I’m sorry I can’t be there. I’m sure I missed a great celebration of her incredible, long life. A friend of hers, Chris Rusling was available to lead the service and I can’t think of anyone better suited to do it. I’m so glad I got to spend some more time with Nanny before she died. She was a truly special person in my life who will be acutely missed.

Last Summer we all rented a cottage in Llangynidir in the Brecon Beacons and had a week’s worth of adventures, picnics, walks and scrabble… Here are some of the photos.

Don’t tell anyone. Till 5 pm Pacific Standard Time anyway…
Jayziz what a long strange trip it’s been… Break out the champagne, or the Rosenblum’s 2002 Zinfandel at the very least. It’s going to take a while to get used to this…

Personally, I like how her eyes follow you wherever you are… Or maybe I’m imagining things…

I’m experiencing the beginnings of a cold. I’m blasting it into touch with a well-thought out combination of zinc cough sweet things, chicken pozole with lots of lime juice, gargling with tequila and cutting down on the 10 mile walks…

Now I’m off to find the Tapatian Scrabble Association in Cafe Azteca and see if they’ll let rank amateurs join in.

Thanks to a combination of fantastic friends, in-laws and compliant pets we made it to L.A. in one piece. We spent today reorganising the garage to hold not only Martin & Sally’s heirlooms but 2 bunnies and all our crap too. Looks like more trips to the dump are in our close future. Sally’s been cleaning, cooking and orchestrating good times all round. Martin had me taking pictures of the house to show to one of his ham radio buddies, it’ll take a while to upload them on dial-up… (the first casualty of moving is DSL)… but we’ll get there as long as no one rings us during the process. I’ve been in L.A. 24 hours nearly and we’ve I’ve managed not to go to any malls or chain stores. We’ve got to go shopping for luxury, EZ-Clean rabbit hutches tomorrow. We might have to go to a multiplex too to enjoy air conditioning and Mr.& Mrs. Smith or Batman Begins or maybe Bewitched which is opening soon I think. We watched Finding Neverland t’other day which Sally recommends. Not my cup of tea, really, but it hit the spot.

We stopped at the giant artichoke in Castroville yesterday and had fine local cuisine for brekky/dinner, the rest of the journey I got by on coke and Snickers mind, then arrived after 7 hours or so in one piece with a tired little doggy and 2 traumatised conejitos in tow.

Righty that’s it for now. Might have some more photos up soon. Byeee