Sundays

I have no interest in ghosts, neither believing or disbelieving in them.  I have been told that there are ghosts here, but I haven't met them and don't want to, although I'm told that they are benign and the shades of people I'm fond of.  Perhaps my disinterest deters them ...in which case I'll keep it up. I quite like being on my own and have no wish to share with anyone, even the disembodied.
The house once belonged to my lovely aunt.  The garden has been greatly neglected over the last few years.  It was a pleasure to uncover bluebells under layers of weeds, which then cooperatively flowered. Revealing hidden treasures feels attractively like "The Secret Garden", although I sometimes have a magpie walking along as my companion instead of a robin.  I doubt that I will make much of a dint in such a large untidy space, particularly as I am fairly indolent by nature... well, really lazy, actually.  But, I do enjoy cleaning up a huge mess much more  than daily dustings.
I feed the magpies and kookaburras cheap minced beef - maybe quite the wrong thing to do.  I do not feed the crows...ravens? . . because they tend to bully the others. This is possibly quite unfair, as each bird is obviously out for himself alone, and we are all victims of our own personalities to some extent, aren't we?  I may have overdone things with the magpies, because I found one in my kitchen this afternoon. Fortunately, he followed me outside without a fuss.  Memo:  Keep the back door shut.
The library here is small, so I resorted to Gutenberg on the computer where  I enjoyed reading many by Josephine Tey.  Although the denouments tended to be rather weak, I found the writing to be a great pleasure: it was similar to enjoying Agatha, Poirot and Sherlock on telly for the characters,costumes and furnishings rather than for the plot.
I also read "Mrs Miniver", one of 1940's top sellers, and found it so peaceful and inconsequential and full of whimsy and occasional sharp insights. Who wouldn't enjoy her description of  "a half opened leaf like a little pointed paw"?  Out my window I could see unfurling leaves precisely like that.
I am considering no longer dyeing my hair darker.  My hair has a very fine texture: a slight puff of wind and at best I look like a dandelion, at worst like struwwelpeter.  All I've asked of it for the last x years is to be neat, so I brush it back into a sort of bun. This must be close to the least flattering style one could choose, but it is certainly neat. When grey of course it is also very ageing, so a change of colour would seem to need a change of style.
I watched "Jam and Jersualem" to be inspired re older-women's styles: unfortunately, they were all dreadful. Good looking hair obviously needs good grooming,  As, (see above), I am indolent and poor at day-to-day housekeeping, this seems to be an ask too far.   And, this year Hillary Clinton has sometimes adopted my bun-style "do", affirming that it is the most practical. What to do?
How one "presents oneself", if that's the correct expression, is so much a product of the culture. I have been watching old family films, in which my mother in law at age 56 in 1952, looks exactly like a respectable matron of the time should look, and very like the way she looked at age 78, when I first met her.  She looks old enough to be the mother of her granddaughters, who are now older than she was then...(her family was very age spread out, I hasten to add: her older grandchildren are close on my heels).  Does any of this kind of thing matter?  I'm not sure.
A light globe fell out of its fitting one night and bounced unbroken on the floor. "They are trying to contact you," I was told. Stubbornly, I resist.  Perhaps I am being foolish - not for the first time - and they. whoever they are or were -  can provide me with all the best answers.

I am somewhere else.
Having lived 40 years in the one house, I am now, for 6 months, living somewhere different: a tiny, old weatherboard cottage. Front door with windows on either sides, like a child's drawing.  Corrugated iron roof.
 The topography is different: coming from the flat country, I look out the windows to see myself half way up the trees. From the back window, the land falls sharply down to a lower area where there is a tall, rangy gum tree, a fine oak whose lower branches spread out as if waiting for a child's tree house, a splendid fir.  Possums bounce on the roof at night. Magpies visit, looking for treats. King parrots have been busy at the spring blossom:  what is that about?  Is it like the way that the little girls used to tip up and drink the sweetness from the camellia flowers?
The rooms are few and small. With ten foot ceilings, the rooms feel like cubes. I find it astonishing that 4 of them have fireplaces, although one is bricked up.  And none of these rooms was the kitchen.  What kind of workman's cottage was this, where they had fireplaces in the bedrooms?  I have seen much grander houses where this wasn't so.
I am living with someone else's furnishings, collections, artifacts.    This is not how I would necessarily like to present myself, which is interesting in itself.  It is somewhat like going out in public in someone else's clothes.

There is a coincidence, in that the house block, at 4/10 of an acre, is slightly larger than those neighbouring.  Of course there are also multi-acred estates nearby, so I am seeing this through a small prism. And what I see is that I have always, always lived in slightly larger spaces. I find this to be odd.
 Another "always, always" is that I tend to get sunny weather on holidays. Odd and pleasant coincidences.
There are probably odd and negative "always" too, but I refuse to collect those.