Editorial

9 September 2007

Greetings,

Our two new SSBCs clubs at Runcton & Angmering are now well under way and for the first time we have assistant facilitators, all widowed, to help with each group. So, along with our four Sunday Scene Social Club leaders, our management committee of five and other members willing to help wherever they can, we're now creating quite a few voluntary opportunities and the 'family' is expanding.

This autumn also sees the start of inter-group activities, the first being Sunday lunch & skittles for which we have a full house, to be followed in the next few months by a quizz, a dinner and a barn dance. We're also seeing quite a lot of ad hoc intermingling between the various SSBCs and SSSCs members, adding generally to busy social calendars and an ever widening circle of friends. Whilst all this is still only available to a relatively small number of people in West Sussex, we hope that eventually other groups will spring up in different parts of the county and many, many more widowed people will be able to benefit.

With quite a few members now connected to the Internet we're hoping that this autumn, we'll really get the Sunday Scene Chat Room going and will soon be making arrangements for link-ups at particular times of the week. We hope some of you will join us!

With all this going on plus our first Annual General Meeting which took place on 6 September, there hasn't been a lot of time to think about the impending sale of my cottage but we're now moving towards contract exchange and the inevitable removal! Whilst I sort drawers and cupboards, the grass, weeds and hedges grow and when I stop to tend to those, I remember the 101 other hings that still need to be done ! There's a very large sheet of paper pinned up and I make a note on it every time I think of something else like - having the chimney swept, items to be sorted for the local auction, small bits of furniture that need repair, services that have to be notified, a reminder to hire a carpet cleaner, the need to prepare a box of useful information for my buyers to help settle them into the cottage and their new community, organisation of a removal company and storge - and not least, to remember to eat some gorgeous ripe figs before I go! By making a daily plan for myself and endeavouring to stick to it, I'm hoping that come the final day, I'll just about be ready - but at this stage, am still not certain where I'll be going!!!! Right now, I'm too busy to feel any sense of sadness but I know that it will be hard to say goodbye to what has been our family home for the last twently five years. On the other hand, many precious memories are lodged in my heart and I'll take them with me wherever I go.

The next time I write, it should be from a new location, hopefully not a tent in a field - so watch this space!

Jacquie