I hope I didn’t sound too gloomy yesterday, but somebody must have thought so, because we were suddenly overwhelmed with offers of help from Rachel and her family. She is keen to move me and my husband out altogether – to London, Loch Fyne, or Strathardle – and have one of them take over during the worst of the ceiling-fall.

When it comes to the point, I am reluctant to move. My husband must go somewhere for the sake of his lungs. Going somewhere, anywhere, with him involves a considerable element of hard work, and I don’t feel I’m up to that plus the inevitable return to the post-apocalyptic scene. Normally, we come home from London or Strathardle or anywhere, and go straight to bed for a nap.

Rachel even suggested on the phone yesterday that we could leave “men” to deal with the dining room pictures. (The ones in there are prints, and there are quite a few of them.) She has known my husband almost as long as I have, and, what’s more, is actually related to him. She should know that care of pictures is never delegated.

We got them all down yesterday and fairly securely stashed. I also got the knick-knacks off the mantelpiece.

The happy result of yesterday’s fuss is that Rachel’s younger son Joe (now back from Thailand) is coming up to lend a hand on Wednesday. His youth and strength and cheerfulness will be invaluable. We should be able to get the dining room completely empty while he is here. There are a number of tea chests and tin document boxes around the periphery – don’t ask – which will have to be crammed into the spare room along with Joe himself.

Today’s job is to try to get a date for the ceiling to come down. This week’s job is to forward the furniture-repair estimate – as yet I don’t have it – to Upstairs’ insurers, and begin to get an idea of how much of a fight we’re going to have to get compensation. They haven’t replied to my email about how their floorboards will have to be lifted to inspect the “deafening” layer. That seems ominous.

Comments

It was particularly welcome yesterday, a fairly grim day,  to find two commentators familiar with scenes familiar to me. Isn’t the internet wonderful? Mary G., my maternal grandparents lived in Dallas. We often visited. My Aunt Louise, my mother’s brother’s widow, is still vigorously alive in her 90’s, living in the house I remember, next door to my grandparents’ one. She is the one (mentioned here before, I think) who was waiting at the luncheon President Kennedy’s motorcade never reached. I hope she saved the menu. She and Uncle Nat had planned to go to Fort Worth for his rally in the evening.

So it’s good to know madelinetosh is there, too.

And, rosesmama, you obviously know the hardware store I mean, where I bought our Princess Diana matroyshka doll. Way over there on 9^th, is it? The man said that they were painted back in the Old Country by his mother or granny or aunt, which fits with your recollection of the phenomenal selection. He didn’t grasp the iconology of our one, tried to tell me that Carling and Hewitt were Princes William and Harry. (See yesterday’s blog post, if this is unintelligible.) But Will Carling has a distinctive cleft chin, like Kirk Douglas. I made that identification right there on 23^rd St, and told him so. Hewitt took a bit of subsequent thought, but not much.