A Gentle Woman

Is how Susie described her mother Beryl. It’s a good description. But Beryl is a lot more than that. During our get to know you chat she said, ‘Well, let’s try a month with you lodging here, then we’ll know if it works. One can’t keep ones faults hidden forever.’ Then, ‘You seem a direct woman and we can be direct with each other and we’ll say how we feel. No tears if it doesn’t work.’

She was a little alarmed at first, having forgotten that I was coming (she has some short term memory loss) but it is worth giving it a month’s trial. Susie is worried because Beryl’s been getting out of bed and going over to the neighbours, (Shayne, an Australian) who is nurse and lives with Fred? He’s very able to cope with his night-time visitor but Susie felt that someone sleeping in the house would help. Susie’s also set up a ‘voice’ (hers) that is activated if Beryl goes near the door at night. I also met Lisa. For the past five years Lisa cooks and cleans five days a week. I move in this coming Thursday so I started packing today. I’ll take a small bag over to Rose’s (to store) on Tuesday and then I’ll just have to move my suitcase.

The nice surprise for me was that Dad used to live in Harpenden when he was doing his PhD research at Rothamsted. To think of all those letters of his that we read after Mum’s death. So many would have been posted from Harpenden. I like the thought of wandering around the streets he would have. I might even go to the Methodist Church on the main street.

There’s a great train from Harpenden to London, only takes about 40 minutes so it will be easy to catch up with Rose in the weekends. I stopped on my way back at St Pancras station and went to the British Library just around the corner. They had a special display of Alice in Wonderland with many different illustrations on display from the original handwritten copy below. I wasn’t allowed to take photos but this was from a slide show.

Apparently it was so popular there were a rash of ‘Alice like’ books written later. One was called ‘Elsie’s Expedition.’

Really enjoyed looking at their permanent collection.

Illegible Charles Dickens’ ‘Nickolas Nickleby’. Extraordinary hand drawn religious texts and a copy of the Magna Carta that had a list of things accidentally omitted by the scribe which was added to the bottom. Then the Papal Bull right next to it annulling the Magna Carta 10 weeks after it was issued.

Perhaps the most fascinating was this written by Florence Nightingale in her notebook ‘Excellent, laborious, active, devoted to nursing but from a peculiarity of temper can only work by herself.’ Many of the nurses were described as, ‘Perfectly sober, respectable, honest and trustworthy,’ And ‘ has also cooked for the patients.’ Paid 16 shillings week.

St Pancras Station was something else too. Built at a time when Britain must have had a lot of money. Actually, this might be the hotel attached to the station.

But these doors are pretty amazing. They had to be this big apparently to be able to roll out the barrels of beer.