I called and gill invited me to her 91st birthday. Would you like dinner at the Angel I suggested. No, come here I have so much food to eat up, she said. And I admit I had some reservations as I prepared to go out into the dark of an icy January night. What vintage would the food be? Would I be able to clear a chair to sit on? But how otherwise the evening was, and once agin my admiration and love of gill grew.
Yes the cheese straws probably derived from a few years ago,yes I did have to send my way through piles of stuff to be sorted towards the kitchen and lift and find another place for a fresh pile of papers in a chair to sit down, but actually none of that mattered, except to illustrate a superficial prejudice.
I gave her a hug, well done 91, and not a whiff of dementia. Oh, yes, I do forget and anyhow I may have cancer, but she moved on and we never returned to that. In stead she talked of a triangle, all deriving from john, who introduced gill to Phillip, who was in love with john mills, (flat Primrose Hill) who knew nick (ucl?) who married paula rega, and the third spoke was Keith, surname forgotten also an artist. Yes john was exciting. Peter on the other hand was admirable.
She gave me her saved chicken Downes for the dogs. Nothing thrown away, nothing wasted.
Kalikellett 