Second week at Maternal Manor

Valentine's Park, July 2026

This is starting to feel like when I was at uni and I was blogging multiple times a week because there was so much going on. This account starts more than a week ago...

The heatwave continues albeit slightly less intensely with the occasional breeze, and I haven't yet needed to wear socks while I've been at Maternal Manor. I've been working quite hard at tidying, rearranging and organising while trying hard not to leave mum behind. So far I think she still knows where everything is. (Wait until I get started on the kitchen...)

I took myself off to Valentine's Park, which is a 30-minute bus ride away, to do a bit of sightseeing. The Park itself has been tidied up a lot since my day (which was the early 1980's), and they have also renovated the Mansion that the park was named after - a house on an ancient map was named Valentine, presumably after its owner. The current house was built in around 1696 probably on the site of that house, for Elizabeth Tillotson and her family after the death of her husband, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The house and its garden and the park have changed hands and been redeveloped many times since then, being enlarged and then having bits knocked down as it fell into disrepair, but was finally restored by the Friends of Valentine Mansion who offer guided tours. So I joined one, and found out lots of interesting stuff, and in an ideal world I would have gone round again after the tour to read some of the labels and look more closely at some of the contents. But it was really hot and I was tired by then, so I'll save a second trip for another time.

Then the day finally arrived for filling the trench in the kitchen now that it has dried out after the leaks in the pipes were fixed. Two men arrived (neither of them JC or his previous sidekick), and one proceeded to do all the work while the other just passed things to him. At one point the worker was chiselling adhesive off the floor while the other watched, and when I asked about this they said that they only had one chisel. So I loaned them another.

They managed to save four whole tiles of the original colour, and we had three that mum had bought some time ago that were only slightly different, and I had bought twenty-two contrasting tiles - nine loose and thirteen in a box - on the understanding that we could return the box but not the loose ones. I spent some time trying to work out the best pattern for using them and in the end we only needed to use nine of the the contrasting tiles, but when I tried to return the box I found that the wretched workers had cracked one, probably by sitting on the box. So now we've got thirteen spare tiles including a broken one. 

When they tried to put the sink back, we discovered that the plumbing had been constructed while the sink unit had been pulled away from the wall (to allow the wall to dry). Moving it back into place meant the sink drain wouldn't line up with the outlet pipe, and the pipes prevented the whole unit from reaching the wall anyway. This means we'll have to go back to the original plumber and try and get him to come and do the job properly. Apart from that, the floor looks all right. Next step - fixing the rest of the water damage to the skirting and walls. And another job for JC, replacing the decaying garden fence.

One of my own jobs I'd been waiting to get to was to go through all the old letters I'd kept, and when the workers were filling the trench and tiling I sat and read all of 1990. This was the year that I was in Australia and corresponding with family and friends in Denmark, Manchester, Israel, London, Spain, China and France. I learned quite a lot about the younger me through these letters, and not all of it very comfortable - there was one whole batch that I left unread.

The letters contained some great passages though, which when read entirely without context suggest a whole untold back story. I present a few extracts here for your entertainment.

Letter to family: "Mario [a fellow kibbutz volunteer] shared a room with the psychopathic triple murderer and was suitably shaken by the newspaper clipping ... Rica [the kibbutz volunteer manager] wrote among other things that the mass murderer isn't the one who was at Ein Gev so I don't know a psychopath after all."

In digs in Sydney: "I love living here ... Even the cockroaches have lessened and now the place has dried out the mouldy smell has gone too."

In Australia's Northern Territory: "It's not like home where if you sit absolutely still for 36 hours with an infra red camera you stand a 1 in 50 chance of seeing a badger - here if you stand still for 30 minutes with a dog you stand a 9 in 10 chance of being attacked by a crocodile."

On a motorbike touring down the west coast of Australia: "Lots of birds of prey everywhere, and I get to watch them for ages when the bike breaks down."

Other things I've been doing while I'm here - obviously there's badminton. I joined the Oldsters for one evening, and they were very nice but the standard was not quite as high as I would like although that did mean I did a lot of winning (which I like). Still more research to be done on the badminton front.

Before I end of course I must provide an update on the house: my solicitor has written to say they have sent the draft contract and all the information in the forms I filled in to the buyers' solicitor. I have sent Mr Celery a list things I'd leave in the house if the buyers want them, and he passed it on to the buyers who have now contacted me direct and we've arranged to meet later in the month. 

Their solicitor cheekily told my solicitor that I'd agreed to complete by the date they were completing on their house; I'd done no such thing so I put them right about that. So it continues, and worries about 'what if' arise in my dreams and wake me early in the morning. But I reassure myself that all will be well, and if it isn't, it soon will be.