Post 391. WE ARE KEEPING ACTIVE.

IT'S ALL YOU CAN DO.

OUR ROZ WILL BE CREMATED on 20 May 2021 at the Isle of Wight crematorium.
The non-religious ceremony - gods have never been high on our list of certainties - will be given selective screening on the net. The family met here with a representative of the funeral directors earlier this week and emerged from the experience relieved of a few organizational concerns and (to my ancient mind) a lot of money. I shall probably have more to say at a less stressful time, but right now can only say thank you again to all those lovely friends of our girl who, since her death, have been in touch to express their sorrow and sympathy and to offer any help needed. 
MEANWHILE.
I have finished David Mitchell's Back Story. Takes you up to when he met, and a few years later married, Victoria Coren. A good read. I am still reading Born in a Burial Gown by M.W. Craven and have started to re-read Terry Pratchett's Witches Abroad.

Reading, like normality, is not so easy right now.
Good luck with any lockdown reprieve.

Post 390. DREADFUL NEWS, DEAR FRIENDS

OUR LOVELY ROZ IS DEAD.

SHE DIED OF AN EMBOLISM BROUGHT ABOUT BY CANCER on April 12, 2021, in St Mary's Hospital, Newport, Isle of Wight. She was 51 years and one month old: brave, kind, and fiercely loyal to family and friends.
Here she can be seen peeping out to smile for the camera on what none of us dreamt would be our last ever Christmas dinner together.
Mo and I have been welcomed to spend Christmas day with her and family, both at her former home and here, for more years than either of us can possibly remember. The festive season will never be the same again.
Rosalind Anne Barnden was the youngest of our three children: a bright infant, a determined youngster, a nightmare teenager: and a wonderfully worthwhile adult. All in all, a woman to be reckoned with. 
As soon as she could walk she wanted to ride a horse. Knew she could do it: then proved it with decidedly favourable reports from the two most respected riding school instructors in the area. She was a natural horsewoman. Might have gone a long way, but there was never equestrian country money in the family and I guess boys eventually became more interesting.

For a variety of reasons, school was not always the happiest place for her. She was bright, but clearly had no desire to take the path followed by her older siblings and seek further education at a university. She did, however, excel at athletics (high jump, long jump, and two hundred yards) and, from around the age of twelve, held an Isle of Wight high jump record that I believe was only beaten some three or four years ago.
Her teens were spent in a state of rebellion about which, years later, she would reflect: 'I was a nightmare to you two and I don't know how you put up with it.'

We knew. She was family and there was a fine young woman waiting there.

She tackled a variety of jobs. Shop worker. Barmaid. Door girl. Manager of the IW branch of a security firm. Hospital cleaning supervisor. And, eventually, a LSA at Medina College, Newport, IW. where her  empathy with the more disturbed and difficult of youngster was regularly evidenced.

She was twice married, twice divorced, and had a child from each marriage: Jessica, who is now a clinical pharmacist at St. Mary's Hospital, and Ellis who is still a pupil at Medina College.
Jess has just bought her first house. It is in Ryde. Needed TLC. And she and boyfriend James are busily making it habitable.
Ellis, who readers of this blog may know has been living here with his mother since March, 2019, will remain with us at least until the end of this term when his Medina education will be completed: a recent audition for Platform One music college in Newport was successful and he will start there in September. He plays bass guitar. Whether he will then opt to live more permanently with his father and stepmother in Cowes will be for him to decide.
While we live there will always be a home for him here.

Roz's dog, Buddy, who is still pining for her (the person of utmost importance in his entire life), along with her cats, Angel and Spike (to whom I am the most important as long as I have a bag of cat treats in my hand) are welcome to remain with us, too.
Jess's father, Daryl, and his other half, Sian, are currently exercising Buddy daily, and Ellis is making sure the entire pack is watered and fed. I think Roz, who recently renamed herself Bee on Facebook (apparently something to do with privacy), would have been deeply touched both at this kindness and by the myriad messages of condolence and offers of help from near and far.

She had some wonderful friends. So do we: and great family.

It was on 14 July, 2018 (Post 309), that I first reported: 'The younger of our two daughters, Roz, has been diagnosed with invasive breast cancer...and has prepared herself with a thoroughness that has been one of her more positive traits ever since she came of age.' The post concluded: 'At present we are feeling very old and sadly aware that we have nothing to offer but concern and love.'

That has remained throughout.
Years ago, on one of her special occasions, I gave her a tape of Michael Bolton singing 'If I could.' It expressed, better than I ever did personally, exactly how I felt about her.
I hope those of you who loved her and somehow get to read this will forgive all that is missing.
There has been so much and I am not as tough as I would like to make out.
Too many tears.
No child should predecease its parents, let alone:
ROZ BARNDEN 12. 03.1970 – 12.04.2021.

Daughter, sister, mother, devoted friend. 
Wherever you are, you won't stand  any nonsense, kid.
Love you xx 

Post 389. YOU'RE GLAD THEY ARE THERE.

BUT DREAD NEEDING THEM.

OUR DEAR DAUGHTER ROZ is back in hospital. 
The ambulance took her on Tuesday.
She had been suffering considerable pain for many weeks (see posts 386/7) and it had reached the stage where she had difficulty even in making her way to her en suite bathroom. She struggled down the stairs when the ambulance arrived, however, and was loaded straight onto a mobile stretcher and thence into the ambulance and away: what a lovely crew the ambulance people are.
She has since undergone innumerable tests, undignified delving etc. No word yet of when she may be back with us.
We wait and hope.
TELEVISION.

Gogglebox (Channel 4) continues to prove that the people watching television can be more amusing than much of the crap they are required to watch. This week, amidst the customary dross, they viewed a harrowing Line of Duty episode: their reactions to the climactic scene in a lake were worthy of BAFTAs. And it is to the programme producers' credit that they did not interrupt it with 'breaking news' of: The Death of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. This forthright old fellow was almost a hundred and had a privileged life saying and doing pretty much whatever he chose to say and do. I think the assertion that he has been a firm prop to an occasionally teetering throne is a fair one. But he was no saint, and the decision by every BBC station, presumably at the instigation of its new Director-General, to fill a complete day and more with carefully doctored propaganda about him, was unnecessarily OTT. 
The Walking Dead (Fox UK). A few weeks ago I mentioned watching the opening episodes of The Walking Dead and, considering the pandemic, giving it time to settle in. A couple of nights ago we watched the latest episode, Here's Negan. Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who plays Negan (in case you didn't know), supported by his real life wife, Hilarie Burton Morgan, gives an acting master class in what was probably the best background story ever told in any series of this comic book inspired horror tale. Well done Mr. and Mrs. Morgan.
AND FINALLY.

Daughter Jac captured this picture of yours truly wearing Mike's driving glasses and emailed it to me under the heading Den Corleone. Mo had expressed mild concern after my last blog post that somebody might put out a fatwa on me. I doubted that. Would you threaten a guy who looks like this?
Had your jab yet? 

Go for it.