Monday March 19th St Joseph's Day

LOTS TO DO

A hectic weekend. On Saturday Mother and I went to an excellent local production of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" put on by the Sutton Amateur Dramatic Com,pany at Carshalton Theratre. The Sutton group is the oldest amateur dramatic society in the world, and very proud of the fact: among its members there have been several who have gone on to become well-known actors, eg Leslie Howard ("Ashley" in Gone with the Wind....). We hugely enjoyed the play, which was M.'s treat for Mothering Sunday, and was preceded by lunch at The Woodman, where they were offering special dishes for St Patrick's Day (bacon and white sauce, and very good).

It was strange to be sitting in that small theatre - because it used to be Carshalton village hall, and the memories came flooding back.....Back in the 1970s, I made political history - well, for a while - at Carshalton Hall by becoming London's youngest borough counciollor, when I was elected there for the Beddington South ward of the London Borough of Sutton. The votes were counted in Carshalton Hall, and I remember the breathless, pounding excitement as they stacked up and up...a picture of me cavorting with glee later graced the front page of the local newspaper, and more formal portraits some of the national press....

I was a councillor for eight years and loved it. Only ceased when I met Jamie and so decided not to stand for re-electionm but to go on to the next chapter....

And now here I am, and it's 2007, and I am a great-aunt and write books and have been married for over a quarter of a century and have a blog on a computer.

The play was well done, and we really felt convinced we were in a great house in Dartmoor, with the mist swirling and the haunting cry of some terrible beast... "Mr Holmes, it was the footprints of a gigantic hound...". (Oh, if you haven't read the story, go and get it, still available in paperback at any halfway-good bookshop....). It felt quite strange to emerge into pleasant sunlight and Mother caught the 157 buis back home while I cycled on to the sttation and caught the train to town.