Spring flowers, and other news.

Spring flowers.

Other news.

 It's been a bit of a shock for me, following a routine ECG, to find that I have to have heart surgery . At the moment I am going through more ECGs and an Angiogram, then we wait to be called for surgery.

I'm not dwelling on this, just taking it day by day, putting my faith in God ,who has my life in His hands

So I may be missing for a while.

In the meantime, enjoying every moment of Spring.

Sad daffodils.

 It saddens me when I hear that fields of Daffodils like these, are left to rot. It saddens the growers too as they have spent time and money raising these lovely flowers. 

What's the problem?

Simply, not enough pickers. Some growers have had half the number of workers picking as they did in previous years. A Penzance grower produces 500 million stems a year and needs 700 pickers, many of whom have previously come from EU countries. Both Brexit and Covid have made travel almost impossible.

This year only around 400 workers are on site and this means huge losses for the growers . What is particularly sad is that jobs were offered to locals who turned up for a few days and then said it was too cold/windy/rainy etc.........

*******

I'm taking a little while off to deal with some medical issues, but hope it won't be long before I'm back.

'When I was young and foolish...

There has been a lot in our news lately about the 'plight' of students in Exeter who cannot return to their accommodation. A WW2 bomb was discovered nearby and had to be disposed of (blown up), which left buildings badly damaged. So they are accommodated in Hotels which can't be too bad.

I drifted in my thoughts back to my student days in the late 1950s in this rather palatial Teacher Training College. Very much a 'young ladies only' establishment , we shared bedrooms with one other girl, and had two bathrooms to a corridor of twelve rooms. Students today would feel very let down! 

What, no en suite?

We had to sign in at a certain time in an evening and no MEN were allowed in the place except in the Common room between certain hours. I think we were allowed two weekends a term when we could go to visit relations. It was all very proper and our house warden kept a very beady eye on us..

But....we were only a short train ride from London, and for a nineteen year old girl who had hardly ever left Cornwall I was in my element! 

Never would I allow my granddaughter to explore now as I did then. I wanted to experience it all. I roamed around the Galleries, discovering wonderful places like the Wallace Collection. I watched the old traditional Jazz band playing in Oxford Street. I wonder if they still play. I shopped...though on my tiny grant I couldnt buy much.

But I do remember buying myself a 'sack' dress, the latest in fashion. C and A in Oxford Street had clothes at very affordable prices.

Of course, we all had these petticoats! They went under the yards of fabric in our Summer dresses and swished beautifully. Does anyone else remember them?

We did things then that would be very foolish today. Wearing a College scarf meant, in our eyes, that you were a protected species. I think now in horror of the time a friend and I decided to hitch hike into London! We were picked up by a very charming gentleman who told us never to do it again, and dropped us safely in the centre.

We went to ballets, concerts and occasionally a session at the inimitable Humphrey Littletons' Jazz club at 100 Oxford Street. We explored the new 'Coffee bars', one named the 'Heaven and Hell'. We may even have rubbed shoulders with the Beatles! Who knows? It was all fun, a learning experience and I'm glad we did it. 

But was it really me, who with a group of students, paddled in the fountains after an evening at Ronnie Scott's Jazz club? 

Surely not......