new soul, old soul

It is sunny and my grandson is a happy babe.

Today went over to help out a friend who recently walked out on her husband. Big Mistake, always ask the man to leave!

She is 82, which does not stop her having loads of energy and initiative, but after 6 months renting a drafty cottage while they thought it over - she realised she was going to have to find somewhere permanent to live [he had changed the locks].

They both assumed that the marital home would sell for a fortune, split the proceeds and move on................another victim of the Credit Crunch.

The house remains unsold, with hubby still comfortably inside having his dinner cooked by concerned friends and neighbours.

Divorces take time.

My friend was told she was too old for a new mortgage, eventually she threatened to break back into her former home if he didn't cough up a deposit, the threat worked.

So there she is in her new apartment in the sky, many boxes and no furniture except one chair, one tiny table and one new bed.

In some ways it is encouraging that she is forging on, in another it is depressing that at no age can one relax and think it is all sorted.

Like me she is a textile artist, so the spare room is awash with boxes and boxes of paints, threads, books, canvases, machinery and presses. Not surprisingly she stalled, unsure what to put where, so we had a push and pull till she could see daylight and had a plan.

The apartment block is in an old Maltings, historic on the outside, long anonymous corridors within.

What should happen is that all her lovely work is hung up and around, at least you could tell if you have wandered this way before, but who to ask? Will Health and Safety allow it. "What if everyone does it?" It looks and feels a bit like being back at school.