Just spoke to my Grandma on the phone. This is the welsh grandmother, with legs like a welsh dresser, and skin like old daffs, the one who's built like a harrier jump jet, all immensely strong bones, at the centre of an aging frame. Her senses are all failing her, all at once, but her mind's still trapped behind them, sharp as broken slate. The horror comes that with my mumbling tones, and her deafness, the conversation is no conversation at all. Not that we've anything to say; I can't relate my sucesses to her (because I don't work for sucess, I work for the happy life), and she doesn't know what to ask me, and knows she'll never understand my responses. Ritual sacrifice of time, for social obligation on both parts, very sad.