that bucket - i mean, bouquet - woman

Eric Mitchell posted on fb that Patricia Routledge died yesterday.

She was 96 years old, which is quite an age to achieve!

I responded, "I thought maybe they'd all died already. Nice to be wrong!".

And why had I thought they might all be dead?

"Keeping Up Appearances" originally aired on BBC from 1990 to 1995.

That's better than three decades ago, and none of the characters were children.

Also, by the time it ended, 'Richard' had retired, so I took that to mean the character was at least 60 years old.

Or perhaps he just seemed that old because wife 'Hyacinth' had worn him out?

(smile!)

I liked that all the daughters had been named for flowers.

I like to imagine that their father, or perhaps the mother as well, had been a botanist or gardener. 

All we ever knew about 'Daddy' was that he had been in World War II, he lived with 'Daisy' and 'Onslow', and he liked to get out and pinch women on their butts.

(smile!)

George Webb, the actor who played the flower girls' father, was 83 (in real life) by the end of the series and died in 1998, three years after it ended.

Mary Millar, the loose-heeled 'Rose', who also lived with 'Daisy' and 'Onslow', died in 1998, too, just a month before him, of ovarian cancer.

She was only 62 years old.

Cancer of the prostate, in 2012, took Geoffrey Hughes, the shirtless, vest-wearing 'Onslow', at the IRL age of 68.

His sexually frustrated wife, 'Daisy', Judy Cornwell, still lives and is 85 now.

Clive Swift, the long-suffering and very-patient 'Richard Bucket', died in 2019 at 82.

'Elizabeth', the next-door neighbor who spilled coffee and biscuits only in the Bucket house, was played by Josephine Tewson, who died just three years ago.

She was 91.

David Griffin, who played her divorced brother, 'Emmett', is 82 and still living.

Those were the principals in this show that I began watching regularly during the pandemic, when I focused on the PBS and SCE TV channels.

"Keeping Up Appearances" was shown on Saturdays, so I knew which day of the week it had to be if that series was on.

I still watch it for that very reason... and I still laugh out loud at the antics! 

(smile!)  

Now, the actress who portrayed 'Hyacinth', the woman who kept the others on their toes, has passed away at 96 years old.

What a life Patricia Routledge has led in the 46 years since she was cast as the would-be society maven, hosting her "candlelight suppers with the Royal Doulton tea service with the hand-painted periwinkles" - what a life!

And what an inspiration she was during that latter part of her life -  

learning Italian in her 60's so she could sing opera in its native tongue -

doing Shakespeare in her 70's so she could take the stage "simply being" -

using watercolors in her 80's with each painting "a memory made real" -

writing letters by hand and baking bread in her 90's.

Here are her own words, written after her 95th birthday.

"Growing older is not the closing act. It can be the most exquisite chapter — if you let yourself bloom again.
Let these years ahead be your "treasure years".
You don’t need to be famous. You don’t need to be flawless.
You only need to show up — fully — for the life that is still yours."

(smile!)

Now, the episode is about to begin where she has convinced Richard to move into a tiny apartment up in the rafters of a mansion.

Happy Saturday to all!