Proms, Widemouth Bay and depressing thoughts

It's completely illegal not to watch the Last Night of the Proms in the UK, so that's what I've got on in the background, today. Five year spell in Holloway, I tell you. But Alan Titchmarsh?

Alan Titchmarsh?!


I took my gran, S & T to Widemouth Bay, where, as you can see, my camera let me down stinking.

I fiddled with the shot in my photo-meddling programme (as you can no doubt tell!) since the snap came out almost completely white originally. (I got some with a little more realism, you'll be relieved to know ;), but I wouldn't share those here anyway). I know it was a very sunny day, but my camera doesn't usually produce such a pile of wank (begging your pardon), even in such circumstances.

I'm starting to think it may have had it.

Fortunately I have another digital camera, which I don't use due to laziness, as I haven't bothered to load its software, despite the fact it has a better memory card and functions, allegedly. I've only had it a couple of years, waiting to be used... The thing is, I know my present camera, its quirks and foibles, so have kept on with it.

I fear I may have to break out of my rut.

Anyroad, I went to the dentist... er, no, as I was saying, we went to Widemouth Bay. It is lovely. It has a carpark that leads directly onto the beach, so it wasn't too bad for Gran to get down - just a small slope. There's a lovely stretch of dry sand, then a small patch of pebbles, interrupted by a stream/huge rockpool before a large expanse of wet sand (which would've been ideal for sandcastles), and at last, the sea. We didn't get all the way to the sea, cos it was a long way out, and Gran was pretty much exhausted by getting onto the beach at all. I sat her down on a folding chair just beside the path down, by the wall, and the children played around her. I let S run down to the big rockpool to splash about, and took T there to paddle for a while as well. Some of the children had caught some crabs - a boy had a nice big green one. I showed S & T a shrimp that was parootling about, so it was all nice & naturey as well. Then we went back up to Gran, and got icecreams before heading off. I would definitely go there again with the children.

Gran says she's had enough (of life) and never expected to live so long. I don't know what I should say to that. I think I can understand: it must be so frustrating not be able to do everything she could, to be trapped in her body that just won't do as it's asked, which is painful & slow, to feel stupid & get patronised because she forgets things. She's still all there with her coughdrops, but things get confused sometimes and she does tend to forget the recent past. And she still misses Granddad so much. I do too, actually; we all do. But he was her ying or her yang. He was her M.

I don't want to feel pity for her, cos it's such a double-edged word, if you know what I mean, but I do feel so sad. She was such an active woman & dominant force. Although she's still that person in some ways, she seems so vulnerable now. I wish there was something I could do. When she said she's outlived her time, I couldn't really answer: I agree, really. Not that I want her to die, I just ... Eventually I stammered out something about wanting her to be around for selfish reasons.

When she dies, I am going to be gutted.