Luckily mum is doing well and we chatted 19 to the dozen. After seeing mum I stopped outside daughter’s house to have a walk with grandson, who is on half term. In the few weeks since I last saw him he has grown and is now the same height as me and he is wearing a bigger shoe size! I’m not allowed to blog his picture and I respect his wishes. This partial photo will have to do – in his new away kit. I’m desperate to have a big hug with the boy but that will have to wait. He misses the small holding and the animals and his grandpa and I miss him.

Perky’s lambs were born on January 24th and they are growing well. They will soon need some solid food as well as grass, water and mother’s milk.

Eggs, that is

Outside it has changed, overnight, from biting winter weather to sunny, spring sunshine. Time to take the glass off the pea plants growing in the wooden frames

The oldest of the five girls of immigrant parents, Anne worked in her parents’ thriving business until she married Grandpa. She had wanted to study but her parents needed her accounting and office skills and she had no way of refusing. Her marriage to Grandpa was happy even though, financially, they both had to work hard and struggled to remain solvent. Their only child, my mother, can remember them taking her to the market to buy a new coat before the Jewish New Year. She was mortified when they walked away from the stall holder because the price he quoted was too much. He called them back and they agreed terms which enabled mum to wear a new coat for synagogue that year. Maybe that’s why mum so hated the fashion, when I was a teenager, of rummaging through second hand clothes at jumble sales. I loved the history of old clothes and the feel and cut of the cloth – she wanted me only to wear new garments.

Grandma Anne suffered from Psoriasis which may have been the reason why she developed arthritis in her hips at a very young age. She was literally “crippled” with pain and walked with a stick but she worked all her life and if you asked, “how are you?” She always replied, “fine thank you”.

We lived in a block of flats opposite to the block where Anne and Charles lived. My brother and I saw them nearly every day and our kitchen window looked almost into theirs so we could wave at each other

Grandma nearly died just before I was born, suffering colitis that she lived with for the rest of her life and which later required a serious operation. Again, she never complained and she enjoyed her marriage, playing cards with her sisters, trips to Brussels with Grandpa to visit her married sister Minnie, her work (with Grandpa) in the office of her cousin’s wholesale hairdressing business and a quiet, but fulfilling family life with my mum and dad and my brother and me. She taught me to play whist and kalooki. She gave me a love of word puzzles in newspapers. She was a fantastic knitter and crocheter and, in the Swinging Sixties, she made me risqué crochet mini dresses. She even made a complicated cricket jumper for my young husband – and scarves for both of us

Grandma was the reason that J and I got married. At the time we didn’t “believe in the institution of marriage” and planned to share a flat with friends when J came down from Cambridge. Grandma, for the first time ever in my life, told me that she disapproved of my intention. I loved and respected her so much that TWO weeks later we stood under a chuppah in the synagogue and were married in front of a small group of family and friends

One of my regrets is visiting Grandma in the old Middlesex hospital, when she was dying after two heart attacks. I was just a few weeks pregnant with my son and wasn’t telling anyone for fear of bad luck. I just wish I had told her.

So why The Deer Hunter and grandma? Well, grandma had loved dancing before arthritis prevented this. She would sit in her chair and play music on the record player and teach me to dance. She taught me the kazatzka and, last night, in the film during the wedding scene, the men danced that Russian dance and it brought back happy memories of my wonderful grandma. I miss her to this day.

In a post on Friday I called Pinky, Perky (if you get my drift). Perky is Pinky’s sister. Perky had twin lambs at the end of January and Pinky was the mother we helped to lamb on Thursday.

Pinky and her twins, Britney and Spears, are getting on beautifully and Britney’s bent hoof is now perfectly straight. Both lambs feeding well and we will let them all out into the field tomorrow