"If I once start looking behind me .."

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It's New Year's Eve in New Zealand ... soon it will be 2020 ...  Not so long ago, so it seems, it was New Year's Eve 2010, and I was blogging serenely, sitting in exactly the same chair, in exactly the same room, wearing exactly the same teeth and slightly more hair ...

https://kurtofgerolstein.blogspot.com/2009/12/year-2010.html

In some ways, it seems that not much has changed. In others ... well ...

This dawn of a decade, it isn't 29 degrees, the shimmering is coming not from sunshine, but from a delicate and delightful drizzle, for which we are very grateful ...
Wendy isn't in the garden, for once. She's nursing a broken bone in her ankle ...

And I am way past carpentry and painting, these days, as I reach toward the three-quarter century mark ..
But the Victorian chest, in all its ancient glory, sits underneath our television set ...

Gerolstein itself has changed a bit. Winds, earthquakes and other Acts of God (who, nonetheless does not pay our insurance premia) have swept away a large proportion of our trees since 2010 ... Wendy's gardening skills have produced some glorious gardens, the peacocks have moved in en masse -- and are now in the process of being (mostly) moved OUT -- and the horse population has whittled gradually down to just a few old friends. Yes, twenty-one year-old Boofie (6 wins), twenty-five year-old Sally and her son, Mikie (1 win), are still here, all shiny and fit, a decade on. Duchess and D'Arcy have gone to the Great Green Paddock in the Clouds, while Elena didn't dream hard enough (1 win) and has moved on to friends, leaving behind a handsome and speedy son, Mr B, who, alas, inherited mamma's breathing problems. As for baby Douchelette, after winning two races, she was retired and is now the 10 year-old mother of a beautiful little girl named Emily ...

Emily (1) and Kurt (73). Waist-measurements about equal.

The grande-dame of our 2020 horsey empire, however, is Wilma (5 wins). She doesn't look that much older or fatter now, at twenty-three, than she did ten years ago. I, on the other hand, though even at 63  I was (see below) still quite sylphlike, am (see above) now 30 percent heavier and larger, and not at all the same shape as I was of yore ...

2009: Wilma (aged 13) and Kurt (63)

Then there are little Rocky who didn't make the grade, and dear, huge, Johnny (son of Sally) who never made the races because of a leg defect, and of course, there are these two ....

When we were merely kittens (aged 8)

Minnie and ChiQi have put up with each other (and us) for some eighteen years. ChiQi, the sullen thoroughbred, has kept her form admirably

Teenage calendar girl: 'I'm younger than Marilyn Monroe was...'

Minnie, the one-time wildkitty, has, like me, 'pris de poids' and prefers the couch or the fire rug to any activity which involves effort ... and, when ChiQi feels a little elderly, she joins in. At a distance.

Their patch is a jealously guarded one, and the two further 'orphans of the storm' who have joined them at Gerolstein, during the decade, do not take the risk of encountering the Queens of the Couch on their own territory (38 Maguires Rd).

Sox 42 Maguires Rd

Weekitty 38a Maguires Rd

Outdoors, the cherry-blossom tree bears blossom no longer

But a couple of years ago Wendy planted a wee sprig of wisteria at its base, and the vine is slowly twining its way up the dead trunk ... one day we shall have purple blossoms where once there were pink ...

Wisteria will grow ... wait another decade!

The roses still bloom at Gerolstein ... and yes, one of them is an original from when we moved in, nearly twenty years ago ..

the tropicanna has bloomed overnight to welcome the new decade ..

So ... into it we go! 2020, eh.

When I was a little lad, in the pre-TV cum crackly-radio era, brother John and I each had a prized 'board'. A piece of some sort of varnished hardwood on which we could rest, on our knees, the pieces of writing paper which held the first scribblings of two boys destined, later, to be somewhat known in the world of writing. On my board, I remember inscribing the date, as other children did on their school-desk. 60 odd years on, I'm pretty sure I still remember it: 25 July 1958. Over the interminable months of childhood, I watched that date, and thought 'when I'm old, I and my board will remember this ...'. Alas, when I returned from University, I found that my 'board' was gone. Mother didn't understand ... she'd kept all sorts of things from our childhood. Too much, really. Some of it is here, in a cupboard at Gerolstein, to this day. But my board, and John's, were gone ...  I guess I was supposed to have graduated to a desk ...

Goodness, why do memories and thoughts like this come suddenly back on occasions like the eve of a new decade ...

Dear Diary ...

And oh! The rain has stopped, the sun has come out ... omen felix!!!!

Hoppy, the invalid peacock who is staying

New flowers, old memories ... Alberobello jug 1977