GLORIA’S NEW YEAR ‘ROUND ROBIN’

This Christmas it seems to have become even more a la mode to send friends a Round Robin of the year’s activities, so why should not Gloria? But is it too late? Christmas is already upon us. So the kindly suggestion has been to do a New Year Round Robin instead. Certainly, it has been my busiest year to date.

They say that success leads to more successes, or something like that. At least I think they do. People see you doing something, they get interested, and they join in with their own offers, perhaps even bigger and better, perhaps not.

For you to understand how I come to have a boyfriend in South India we need to go back more than a year to last December when Santa brought me marker pens and I colored the cover picture of the church magazine. This got me a medal award in a display, with this picture projected amongst other magazine pictures on the wall during a Christmas church service (as well as in the next magazine).

Visiting hosts at our church for that Christmas was a longstanding friend, Rev Sujeeth Kumar, a young Minister from the south of India, studying in Birmingham for his Doctorate. Particularly interested in seeing my picture, his hosts brought him to meet me in person a couple of days later at my humble abode. We had pictures together which, perhaps ill-advisedly, he sent back to his distant wife, Minnie.

It is always good to tell people ‘ Thankyou’. They might do it again for you. Excluding the Dentist, of course.

So in February (it takes that long) I picked up the telephone to thank the church magazine Editor.

Boyfriends are a bit like buses; you wait for about forty years without one and then two come along together only a few months apart. In April, John Morton proposed to me on one knee in the church yard, holding a KitKat.

‘Why holding a KitKat?’ I hear you ask.

John had just got one from the Minister, Rev DKB, who was happily handing around KitKats because after ten years effort his powerful blue monster Kit Car was at last on the road. For excitement he was even offering rides to intrepid folk who were not at home watching the Grand National that afternoon. But they were only passengers.

 

I am the only one that he would ever allow into the driving seat!

In June Minnie came over from India to be with her husband, and of course when passing briefly through Broxbourne she was keen to see me.

Girls together, she arranged the head scarf, then discovered my tartan garter with amusement.

July is when we long to be out in the garden sunbathing.

Donning a ‘cossy’,

I remembered to pose with a copy of the church magazine for entering in the coming December display.

 

I told you that one thing leads to another. In August, seeing my driving skills, Big Ron invited me to try out his big blue tractor at the farm.

But what does a girl wear when she is going to drive a tractor? Not a dress. And do I take a spanner or some WD40?

What I really liked best was riding around on the little red grass mower pulling its trailer.

Then Ron asked ‘ Which colour of boat would you like; white or blue?

So we went down to the lake where I paddled around and visited the geese.

Fortunately, I am never sea-sick.

‘Skylark’ , my foot!;

This led Lil-next-door to suggest that I might pop into her house to experience a recliner chair.

Books in hand, we had a really pleasant evening at home together.

 

Into each life some rain must fall, or Araldite in my case.

Unfortunately, reaching up to put a dress over the cossy broke my weak left elbow once more.

In truth, it was cured in a week, but I still put on a sling now and again for sympathy.

In September it was a great surprise and delight when the church brought fruit and flowers from the Harvest Festival! Do you like my wine box side table?

The least one can do is say ‘Thankyou’, even after the apple is bitten. It also seemed a suitable scene in which to launch my nice new red wig, although some viewers have recoiled, muttering ‘Vivid!’.

Notice, too, that I have remembered to include the current church magazine. That’ll give my friend, Rev.DKB, a problem to choose which of my magazine pictures to show in the Christmas display!

October. There must be very few who go to the dentist’s on the day before and stay the night to be sure of not being late.

He doesn’t mind patients being carried in, but carrying them out is bad for business!

(Actually that’s exactly what happened. Two teenage girls were peering into our empty car waiting on the pavement, and turned in great surprise as we dashed from the front door to push them aside).

Since Teresa Morton saw my picture on the surgery wall she is delighted to tell her friends “Gloria goes to the same dentist as me!”

I hardly know how to approach telling you about November. You know how the best laid plans of mice and men.....? Well this is the visual version.

For months I had looked forward to my scheduled evening in person with Hertford (and District) Camera Club, who are interested friends through seeing my portraits in competitions.

But the first twist was that an adjustment of Stuart’s Programme caused the very next week to be another portrait demonstration, this time by a professional photographer bringing his studio lighting equipment (but no model)!

So the plan was that with help from all the club members I should dress and produce a competition picture using only the lighting and backgrounds available free in their own meeting hall.

There were several possibilities, even if the result would be no more than ‘judge bait’. To check lighting and angles, Stuart fixed the trial use of the hall a week earlier. Ok so far?Now the unexpected:

On the very morning of this dress rehearsal it was found that heartless thieves wielding hacksaws had broken into the hall and cut out all the copper pipe they could find, including much of the central heating, leaving water damage to bring down some ceilings!

We were still allowed to use the main hall if well wrapped up against the cold, and needing neither tea nor toilets. Naturally I was impervious, as they say, so the ‘Dummy Run’ rehearsal still went ahead.

This is me

(A) Practicing my wave on arrival,

(B) Using the floral door curtains in colourful mode,

(C) In action with an office-type background, and

(D) Posing with my unique ‘Executive’ camera in the front row of the (simulated) Camera Club meeting.

All four scenes, quite different, are taken in the same hall.

B and C depend on using ceiling lights which happen to be there.

Four pictures from an event that never took place!

What actually happened? Instead of cancelling, Stuart managed to book a Nursery School hall; warm, but a new, completely blank canvas; not even an adult table high enough for the laptop. We just had to make the evening up as we went along, (like many another amateur photoshoot).

The tripod camera was projected for the audience to see on screen (far right) what was happening.

I did the wave on arrival. That was alright.

I also did my camera pose in the front row with Jackie.

Forget the laptop idea, and this is as far as I got with my garland picture; a rather pathetic floral background.

We even got out candles to demonstrate lighting available to any photographer, but the unrehearsed matches wouldn’t light!

So we resorted to portraits with an Anglepoise.

Still, as my badge for the evening says, ‘I did it, and I DID IT GOOD’.

And the final twist? The following meeting didn’t happen! The professional photographer cancelled because of extremely icy roads full of standing traffic! 
With which I shall close. Regards to each and every one of you, from Gloria.

P.S. When Ron tries to sell you my autograph, be careful. Ends