My Better Half and Me by Joss Ackland & Rosemary Ackland

Author:Joss Ackland & Rosemary Ackland
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Relationships, Autobiography, Letters, Family, Non-Fiction, Entertainment & Performing Arts, Diaries & Journals, Personal Memoirs, Biography
ISBN: 9781448117475
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2011-12-31T00:00:00+00:00

1996

WE RETURN TO London – very busy, so very little written.

Back in Floral Street – the flat is lovely and clean, but it is very crowded here in Covent Garden, and the young girls are very pushy, and kept walking into me. [These are the first signs that walking and keeping upright were both difficult.]

On our way back from the Laurence Olivier awards at Grosvenor House, a bomb went off in a bus, where we had just driven three minutes earlier. Coincidentally, Penny had just dropped Joel off, and was immediately behind the bus, when she saw it explode. She was very shaken.

It is 29 February so it is Joss’s seventeenth leap year birthday. [Rosemary was sixty-seven – I was a year older.] We had a party, with Frank Hauser, Johnny Dennis, Pauline and John Alderton, Annie Skinner, Eddie Kulukundis, Georgina and Jessica Andrews, Michael Frayn, Michael Anderson, Sarah Miles, Duncan Weldon, Melanie, Polly and Adam, Samantha, Kirsty and Ant, Kandy and Tony, Toni and David – a very lovely evening.

We fly to Italy.

We went to Orvieto. I had a bad fall in the piazza, and hurt my arm and right hand. Yesterday I cut my right leg on the iron rail outside the house.

Samantha picked us up. I drove back in her car, so that I could have a long talk with her. She does really want to stay in Italy with her children, and today the sun is shining, and things look more positive. She talks about Tracy, an American who lives in Italy – they met up when he was modelling in Rome.

Sammy rang to say that she and Tracy were getting married. Lovely day.

We return to London.

At 6.30 I took a taxi to the Princess Grace Hospital. Joss had his right knee operated on. The operation was two hours long, and he recovered very well. We returned home and I packed for Devon.

Joss managed to dress himself today, and he was able to drive. One of my happiest days. I was at the sink washing, and he came in, and put his arms around me, squeezed me – and we went upstairs – to heaven.

Later, back to Italy.

Sammy met us at Rome airport, looking wonderful. She is twelve weeks pregnant.

When we reached Podere, Toby rang. He’d passed his flying exam – I’m so happy.

We all got up at 6 a.m. – took the train to Rome, and then to Sammy and Tracy’s civil wedding. It was beautifully done. Jake, the American priest, joined us for lunch.

Toby, Angie, Joss and I went to Orvieto market, and bought loads of strawberries, salads and cheeses for the wedding. David, Toni, Emily and the twins arrived.

MIGRAINE very bad. I stayed in today, and prepared strawberries, salads, prawns, asparagus and cooked peppers, etc, with Melanie, who was a magnificent help. Joss brought in five trays of pasta, a wild boar and masses of food. Dozens of chickens and plenty of porchetta were being cooked in the ovens in Montecchio, and crates of wine were collected from Barberani at the bottom of the hill.

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