Dilly

March, 2006

No word yet as to whether Dilly plans to attend the reunion. I received this from her in the Fall:

"Thank you I did get your email cyber news; alas; I am not as yet sufficiently proficient to respond on the website. My technical advisor only appears briefly and the last visit was changing my broadband server which took a bit of doing.

The best I can do for grandchildren so far is four Indian runner ducklings and I am not sure they are 100% runners anyway. However Bethia and James are buying a house they hope as the little church house that is rented for them is small and horrible; 12 foot wide and so pinched on every side.

You must be a dab hand now with all these babies; here we are breeding so slowly no-one knows any more how to manage babies and it is hysterics all round."

September, 2005

Perhaps you remember the lovely family photo and the photo of Little Yarford Farmhouse that Dilly sent for the Christmas, 2002 edition. She later sent this account, which though sadly out of date, seems so wonderfully “Dilly.” I can just see her sewing her wedding outfit the night before, and would love to hear her in person ranting about trees and people of the “other” political persuasion! “This has been the year we planted our trees (some of them); stirred up by Bethia, 30 or so abandoned their pots for the open ground; the holes were so big I had to climb right into them to shovel the soil out. My hip is still complaining. Brian, needless to say has spent all the year in the garden and with success. We had a lovely sunny weekend for our National Garden Scheme opening which cleared £1,000. It was all worthwhile and the plants made more than the cream teas.

Otherwise local politics have taken over the year with not one but two by elections. It is impossible to out do the Lib Dems with leaflets but we made a valiant attempt. We also found and ran with a little Survey on Crime. This was a huge success in terms of response and information. Apart from such mundane activities, I could willingly strangle such dinosaurs as Clarke and Heseltine. The freebie copy of The Independent I got at the Party Conference was so vicious about it as to make the event unrecognisable to such people as myself who were actually there, but perhaps I was concentrating more on the free food at the fringe events. But I will add The Independent to my collection of examples of compensatory myths.

Bethia is now in Plymouth and her great excitement has been the purchase of the end of an “L” shaped barn conversion, done by a small time fly-by-night developer just within the Dartmoor National Park (Mother, I do not want a smart flat on the Marina nor a Victorian Town House and no way a house on a housing estate). It used to have tractors underneath and dogs over – we are searching for the Devon dialect for a doghouse. The best so far is “tallet” – a hayloft over cow stalls. The water supply is private to about 5 households but we reckoned with the Dartmoor rainfall a borehole would never run dry. I like it but Brian doesn’t, as it has no garden.

Benjamin remains based in Carlisle with Operation Mobilisation and trips abroad to such hotspots as the Sudan. Apart from videos his main chef d’oeuvre has been kitting out or rather building a whole recording suite in a truck. It was finished just in time to hit the continent for the conference season. He came South in September to help Bethia who was house sitting, with a grand sort out and tidy up – and we came home to some space for a brief while

We spent the first half of September in the States, on the way to a family wedding via the Rockies. This meant flying to Denver and driving 2,000 miles round the Wild West. Had I known I was going to the Wild West I would not have gone - me and cowboys! However, it was fascinating, dinosaurs (bones), the Oregon Trail, wild life, deserts, mountains, the Indians (very, very sad), museums, art galleries and steaks so large we shared one between the two of us each night, but no cowboys!

My nephew Marc’s wedding took place in Omaha, Nebraska to the youngest daughter of an Irish American family. Weddings seem to be somewhat more formal and structured in the U.S.A. and this one was organised in great detail in the Roman Catholic cathedral, booked 15 months before, with flower girls, candle lighters, maids of honour in crimson and supporting ushers. The bridegroom’s mother was exquisite in silver lace. We all stayed in the same hotel with space and an ironing board for the silk jacket I was stitching to the very last moment. There was just time for the Art gallery of international repute but not the Botanic garden. We returned via New York and the generous hospitality of Michael and Doris in Peekskill. Our aim was the Botanic Garden (all 500 acres) which to my relief was closed on a Monday.”

Dilly’s activities abroad have not curtailed her political activities in Somerset. We exchanged e-mails around the time of the General Election and it was obvious she was campaigning vigorously, and a Google search on her name shows plenty of activity on the part of Taunton Deane Councillor Dilly Bradley, responsible for Culture, Art and Leisure, or, as she was described in an article, “Leisure boss.” I even found the following notation:

Councillor Dilly Bradley

Dilly is Member for Staplegrove. She is involved in the plan to make Taunton the ‘Tree Town’ of the Southwest. Dilly is a member of the LGA Rural Commission and has spoken up for rural life and businesses. She is a trustee of Relate and the CVS.

Does Brian know about this newfound appreciation for trees?