Notes of an old refiner

Ten years since Lyudmila. In the morning I went to the cemetery with the red carnations and with the tomato seeds from her envelope, I put the little packet in my pocket to show her that I still have them. I sat for an hour. The snow was dry, the sky was blue. A woman sang quietly somewhere far.

The cemetery path, 14 February.

Dima called, and said that in the summer I will be a great-grandfather: Katya is expecting. I said: then I must live to the summer. I do not know where this old man finds the humour on such a day, but it comes.

Dima writes that he spends the weekends reading a blog by a railway man on Kündölük (the site where my own blog is, you see, a small world). Since he was a child, he loved the trains: as a small boy he cried when I did not buy the ticket for the locomotive museum. Now he sends comments under the posts of that railwayman, I think, with the facts about the signals. The only man in the family who has a hobby that does not smell of oil.

I am glad. Everyone must have something that does not smell of work.

Dima writes from Novosibirsk, where he is doing the second degree, that he has a girlfriend, Katya, from the same faculty, also from an oil family (her father works in Surgut). I asked the usual question: is she a good cook? He said: "Ded, she is a petroleum engineer." I said: this is not an answer. Then he sent the photograph, and I see that she is smiling like a person who can cook.

We will see. A grandfather does not interfere. I send a jar of the tomatoes for the family exam.

On the 14th of February my wife Lyudmila Petrovna died. 49 years together. She was a teacher of chemistry at school no. 12 for 35 years, half of Dastgoh learned chemistry from her.

Thank you to everyone who called. I don't know if I will write here more. Dima says write. I will try.

The 50th year since I came to the refinery. And our 47th year with Lyudmila. We celebrated at the dacha with shashlyk; the neighbours came, the old shift came (four of us are still alive from the cracking unit of 1975).

Tomatoes are planted. The apple tree is old but gave flowers. Me also.

Four years of this blog today. When I started the counter, I did not believe in it; now it shows 6,400 visits (some are mine, I admit).

News from Novosibirsk: Dima passed the first term. He lives in a student dormitory with three boys from Tyumen and Surgut, in a room "the size of our balcony". The food is bad, so Lyudmila sends him a parcel by the train: pickles, dried apricots, the sweater that she knitted. He says the Siberian winter is minus 30 and the people there do not notice it. I told him: dress like a refinery worker, in layers, and put paper under the socks.

We talk on Skype on Sundays. I still shout into the microphone, because I think the voice must travel far.

My grandson Dmitry goes to study in Novosibirsk, oil and gas faculty. Fourth generation of oilmen in the family. He leaves on the Tuesday train, the long way through Kazakhstan.

Who will fix my computer now? He says: Skype. I say: what is Skype? He installed it. I see his face on the screen. Fantastic. In 1963 I could not imagine.

Today a woman in the shop, around 45, said to Lyudmila: "Lyudmila Petrovna, it is you! You gave me a three in 1980 and it was fair." They laughed for ten minutes in the queue. Thirty-five years of teaching, and half of the town recognises her. I only have the fame in the cracking unit, and the unit has no people in the shop.

She still keeps the old red notebook with the marks. She says the marks are not about the children, they are about herself, so she remembers who she was.