Moving in the Right Direction

 Jean and Audrey have been working on a new puzzle (Jean likes puzzles), so when I got there I jumped right in. My own mother had loved working on puzzles, until they became too intricately challenging. Then she enjoyed watching us doing them.

Jean and Audrey had already separated the pieces into bowls. This was easy because, on the backs of the pieces were the letters a,b,c,d,e and so on, according to the location in the picture. Brilliant! That way we worked on only one area at a time, thus making progress. I liked this.

"Jean, did you do the separating of the puzzles pieces?" I asked her.

"Some," she said.

I was impressed. Audrey said, "Mum still knows all the alphabet and numbers. And she reads novels."

Impressed again.

"The series she is reading now is the Adams Family saga by Mary-Jane Staples. There are 29 of them!" Audrey handed me the book. I began reading it, and forgot the puzzle for a while. "It's good for mum to do puzzles and things, because it keeps her brain cells moving in the right direction." I saw the wisdom of this, and thought perhaps I might go and find myself a puzzle, to help keep my brain cells moving that way.

Then Audrey pulled out a DVD of a violinist called Andre Rieu who presents classical concerts worldwide, where massive crowds come to watch. More than just thousands, too. I was at a very different sort of concert in LA recently where 18,000 people packed themselves in. Andre's concert was at LEAST twice as big as that LA concert. I don't know where his concert was being held (possibly somewhere in Holland), but that crowd resembled the children of Israel listening raptly to Moses.

I was mesmerized. Jean kept working away at her puzzle but once in a while she glanced at the screen and told me what Andre was saying. This was significant because he was speaking Dutch, with English subtitles flashing on the screen. The subtitles were moving pretty fast, but Jean read them to me and laughed when he told a joke.

IMPRESSED AGAIN!!!

Ask me if I could read those lickety-split subtitles! I will give you no answer.

Everything, from the welcome I received, to the cup of tea I was given, to the puzzle we worked on together, to the novel Jean is reading, to the King of the Waltz Andre Rieu speaking in Dutch to a 93 year old woman still in her own home, with two daughters attending her daily - all of this is happening in a bungalow in Cornwall, day after day. It isn't always easy, but they do it. I call it Love.

Are you impressed?

See you along the way!

the SconeLady