Went to a family gathering today, a not altogether successful one, which was a shame as its design was proposed by me. Elderly relative 1 wanted to meet elderly relative 2; 2 didn’t want to hop on the train to visit 1, while 1 is not able to climb the stairs to 2. Moreover, Sunday is 2’s day to see grandchildren. So I suggested that 2 invite 1 to lunch at the son’s house, where there are fewer steps, no train and two grandchildren.
It was a slightly awkward gathering to begin with, as one person was a bit sulky, another was a bit tired, a third was in the early stages of dementia, and a fourth was trying very hard but is lacking in human empathy. And then there was me, useless at any social occasion. Also, 1 brought along a dog which couldn’t be put in the garden, so the cat belonging to the hosts had to be confined elsewhere.
Eventually things improved: food arrived, the sulky person drank a gin, and the dog was taken on a walk. Our hosts are very interested in Chinese porcelain, so I had a pleasant chat about it and admired their pieces and talked about Jingdezhen, which I would really love to visit. It’s interesting, I felt easier with them than I have since I knew them, over a decade ago. It’s taken a while, and I think it’s largely my own tightnesses and anxieties have unravelled, in addition to finding a shared interest in how things are made – not something that the rest of this family shares.
I don’t have many days left in London, and the weather is now very bad indeed, cold and windy and rainy, so it’s a good time to go. The next few days will be busy, as there is an invitation to a dinner, then I have to make lunch for a guest, and in all of this I have, as per usual, double and triple booked myself with work. Last week I had several days of working till 3 or 4 to finish up, and last night, again, I woke up at 2 to finish something and send off in the morning before leaving for the family event.
The GF, who is in Kenya, wrote to me that he is standing next to a lake full of flamingos and a tree full of lions. No further updates were received, so who knows what happened next.