Useful?

So... not much has happened, though I've spent a long time at my computer Getting Things Organised. Biggest Granddaughter (6) drew this splendid picture of a cat teapot and cup, which is large and very cheering. I don't know where she got the idea but I like its boldness.

We've been on walks.

It's getting chilly - we've had a few frosts.

On Tuesday, I had coffee with a school friend. I waited for her in the street and tried to remember why this pillar box (postbox) had been painted gold. I decided (rightly) that it was for Chris Hoy, when he won a gold medal in some cycling event in the Olympics. Cycling round a velodrome doesn't seem to me the most interesting of activities, nor yet the most useful to society, but - each to his/her own.

This friend and I had both been very friendly with Mary, who sadly died of dementia a few years ago in her early sixties. Mary was a lovely person, very clever and sociable and successful and talented in many ways, but she married, in her forties, an older chap who was controlling and not interested in her friends. So we didn't see much of her after that. He was twelve years older and I always thought (somewhat uncharitably) that when he died, we would get Mary back.

And today, his death announcement was in the paper. He also died of dementia. Too late for Mary to join us, though. There are now up to 10 of us who started at the same school at the age of 5 and who now meet up every three months for lunch. I'm sure Mary would have loved to come.

Talking of activities that aren't particularly useful to society, I've finished a cot quilt for the baby of a friend of Daughter 2. She asked for it to be bright, in blues, and in solids. (She's an architect and doesn't do fancy. I'm lucky she didn't ask for grey and black.) This isn't my usual sort of thing and though I quite like it, it's not my favourite of the quilts I've made so far. I used some colours that aren't precisely blue and sneaked in little corners of pattern - I'm not sure why and I kind of wish I hadn't - but I think it's fine.

I did go slightly rogue on the back, though. He's got to have something interesting to look at. And if his first words are house, carousel, flag, bunny, elephant, bird, birdhouse, cat, teapot, butterfly, seagull and book, then I shall take full credit.

PS it was so nice to have comments from people I'd hardly heard of. Thank you! And also I do appreciate comments from people I have heard of but who don't have blogs for me to visit and reciprocate. Hello to you all.