It is strange how so much of our past lives can quickly come back to us when we hear certain words said, an expression or a quote; how many memories some small word or two can recall.

We had a dear friend who had had very little education. Bill,from a small lad growing up on a farm, had spent most of his hours working. His parents were not great talkers so his own conversation was a little rustic. He had his own way of expressing himself.Instead of "been" he always said "bin". He used this a lot so "How you bin?" lead to conversations on health "What bin doing?" led to discussions on what had occupied him in the past few days. Anything he has done in the past he would say " yep,bin".The future was expressed "One day bin do that."

I was reminded of him tonight when I was at a dinner tonight and heard one of our fellow Lions say in answer to an enquiry: "I bin busy." What the speaker had to say next has no place in my memory, I was too busy for a minute or two thinking of Bill.

I was also thinking: "I bin busy too." There are so many small and relatively unimportant things filling my time. I have the usual Christmassy things on my mind, cards,presents, menus, shopping lists. There are all the regular chores to do, more gardening than usual as the recent rain has made the grass grow and the weeds too. And then Ray has needed some extra running around as he has extra appointments, physio etc since the stroke rehab started. All in all I get overtired and sometimes pretty frazzled.

This time of the year also brings a lot of sad memories up for me too. Some of you can relate to that. Tonight I also thought af a dear Uncle who died ten years ago on Boxing Day. I always rang him on Christmas Day although he lived in England. That year he answered the phone sounding out of breath saying he had a taxi waiting at the door to take him to his daughter's house and he would ring me in a few days. The following day he went to the drs with pneumonia and died that evening. I never had that returned telephone call. I often think of that. I wondered what the conversation might have been like if I hadn't phoned when he was busy.

I have had a few drop-in visitors lately coming mainly with Chrismas greetings. I sometimes resent the time I spend on these "interruptions" but recalling Bill tonight I feel quite ashamed of my thoughts. As child I was sent to him by my mother with messages. He couldn't read or write but had a fantastic memory so would say: "Tell it to me again." and as I repeated the message he would repeat it with me and that was it, he remembered. Once when I went to see him he was doing some leather work and I apologised for being a nuisance and interrupting him. He put it down and looked at me with a big grin. "Never too busy for you gal."

So I can say tonight: "I bin busy." And I have, but to each of my visitors I should say: "But never too busy for you."