Number of days since I started this blog: 91

Number of weird things that have happened during this time: where do I start?

After my rather long blog yesterday when I told you how Lydia and I persuaded Mum to tell us about her childhood and the other Ruth, Sadie and Lydia, I promised to update you on what happened with Brian on Sunday, didn’t I?

And I will, I really will. I just need to write down a few other bits first, so I maintain my online diary discipline. 91 days equals three months, and as you can see, this daily blog has become rather a habit. I wonder when I will stop, and whether I will even know how to recognise the right time to stop when it eventually arrives?

Beyond my small world, this weekend we saw thousands of far right thugs intent on causing mayhem in London and other cities. They were pretending they were there to defend statues of Churchill and Nelson. As David Lammy says, the statues are a distraction. People support Black Lives Matter because they want to see an end to institutional racism.

Anyway, the people who said they wanted to defend the statues just succeeded in getting drunk, being photographed attacking the police and doing Nazi salutes. One got arrested for urinating on a memorial to a policeman who gave his life saving others in a terrorist attack, and another had to be carried to safety by a group of black personal trainers who had gone to the event to try and prevent young black people from getting into trouble. It is probably completely inappropriate to say that Patrick Hutchinson, the PT who was photographed carrying the other man was to safety, was seriously fit. So I won’t mention it.

And today, footballer Marcus Rashford, 22, has managed to persuade the government to extend free school meals over the summer in response to the extraordinary hardships that the poorest families will face caused by the pandemic. I don’t know what I think about this, except that it shouldn’t be necessary. But I do think Marcus has put his fame to good use and that he shows the very best of young people.

Lydia arrived back at my house last night and this morning we packed up her car with all Mum’s things, including her two zimmer frames, one for upstairs and one for down, and I waved them off.

And I felt a bit flat. But then I remembered that I have a rather interesting week in prospect.

So back to my Sunday. In the end, Brian said he would like to come to the garden and say hullo to mum and Lydia before our walk to the allotments. I felt really nervous, and nearly said no. But then I thought why not? And so he did.

And when he arrived he said hullo to Lydia and they did the social distancing version of shaking hands which seems to be an awkward smile and funny little wave.

And then he turned to my mother and said Hullo, Helen. It’s lovely to see you again.

And she said Hullo, Brian. How are you doing these days? It must be at least ten years, mustn’t it?

And I said, hang on a minute, do you you two know one another?

And they both looked a bit sheepish and I felt really cross but then they came clean and it turns out that being Jewish and having escaped from the Nazis was not the only secret our mother had been keeping from us. Because it turned out that she had been a Samaritan too. And back in the day, when you rang Samaritans, you called a local number and were quite likely to be answered by someone who lived near you and who you might even know. And so to keep the service confidential, volunteers were sworn to secrecy. They never told anyone other than their closest relative, in Mum’s case Dad, about being a Samaritan.

Mum said it was something she decided she wanted to do after Ruth died. And she had done it for over 20 years. She even helped to train Brian!

You could have knocked me down with a feather. After they had had their little reunion and talked about the old days, Brian and I went for our walk. I found myself feeling really shy with him. But we did talk about social bubbles. And we have decided, given that we are both effectively single, that it is something we could think about. We are going to think about it during this week and meet again on Thursday night.

And now I am really torn. Because there is also the potential of a bubble with Toby, Marnie and Kezia. And surely they are where my priorities should lie?

To read my blog from the beginning, just go to the link on the menu bar above or click here.