Remembering Dad

This is probably the last photo taken of Dad and me together. It was taken in 2007 after my brother's wedding, while we were in the grounds of the hotel where the reception was being held.

It was the last wedding service Dad took and less than a year later he suffered a massive stroke/brain haemorhage and died a week later in hospital. The date was 28th June 2008, a year ago today.

So, one year on, I'm remembering Dad. I'm remembering the happy times we all had together as a family, before Mum died in 1999. I'm remembering how much my daughters loved spending time with their Grandad and Granny. I'm remembering how he took up running at the age of 50 and ran many marathons, including ones in London and Paris and the Great North Run.

I also remember what an honour it was to share his last week with him and to be there when he passed away, so I could stroke his head, kiss his cheek and hold his hand.

Dad believed he was going to a better place. I'm not sure what I believe, but I like to think that he was reunited with Mum, somewhere there would be no more pain.

Rest in peace, Dad. I love you.

Life's Too Short

Just a short one today.

This morning I found out from my best fluff friend that one of our mutual friends had died in a car accident on her way home from work yesterday.

I was stunned.

Yesterday, we talked on her wall about her fish and also on fluff as she sent me a beautiful gold habitat (the pink bedroom) which I was going to give to my daughter Julia. Annie's message with the gift was 'Have a happy week darling'. Her last facebook status said 'Back to work, only 20 minutes to go...' and that's the last any of her fb friends heard from her.

I didn't know her in real life and knew very little about her. I think her real name was Jessica and I think she was married and had a daughter. For them, her sudden death must be almost unbearable. My heart goes out to them and I've been thinking of them all day.

How poignant that Annie's profile picture is a black and white photo showing an unknown woman with wings and that one of the first paragraphs on her page is about the memorial page for Meetu, another young woman who died suddenly and tragically - in the Mumbai bombings.

It all makes me realise how unimportant most things are and that the only things that are really valuable are our families and friends.

Where did the last month go?

I had intended to write something for my blog at least once a month, but it's now over a month since I last visited and I really don't know where that month has gone!

Spring has well and truly arrived and, with it, the wildlife has returned. I suppose it never really goes away, but is just more noticeable in the better weather.



Paul and I have been walking over to the heath, which is near us, a couple of times a week. We've been watching a pair of Egyptian Geese with their babies. They had 5 to begin with, but 1 disappeared fairly soon after it hatched. Maybe a Pike got it? Lots of people walk their dogs on the heath and they're not all well behaved, so it could have been a dog which got it - we'll never know!

Anyway, there are 4 goslings left and they're growing up so quickly. The whole family are quite friendly and will come close to us so we've been able to get some photos of them. The Canada Geese try to chase them away and fly in as soon as they see us. They're so used to people feeding them that they assume we'll do the same.


In the garden we've had lots of birds. On our feeders we get goldfinches, great tits, blue tits, chaffinches, starlings and pigeons (yes, pigeons - they're such a pain as they can eat their way through a lot of seeds in a very short time). We've had sparrows in the garden this year, after a few years when we haven't seen any - maybe their numbers are increasing again at last.

Last week we saw a young hedgehog for the first time. He was drinking from a bowl under the bird feeders and stayed there, really still, when we went outside, so I managed to get a few photos and then let him wander off. I saw him/her again this weekend - this time he was 'running' across the garden past the wild rabbits and I didn't have time to get my camera before he disappeared into the shrubs.Yesterday I saw a Green Woodpecker in the front field. When I first moved here there were a pair with 3 young and I watched them every day. They don't come so often now, or maybe they just visit when I'm not looking out of the window. The Greater Spotted Woodpecker also visits, but not so often, and occasionally feeds from the feeders.

Where I live

In 1999 I was lucky enough to find this bungalow to rent and I've been here ever since. It was built in the middle of a field and is called 'Green Pastures'. It's in a very small village and I can't think of a better place to live, although our children probably wish we were not quite so much in the 'back of beyond'.

The bungalow itself is a bit run down and need of quite a lot of tlc, but our limited diy skills are enough to keep the inside looking fairly nice, although they don't extend to dealing with the rotten woodwork or structural problems on the outside. We just hope it'll stay standing and weatherproof long enough for us to stay here - preferably for ever!

Our 'garden', if you can call it that, is definitely a wildlife garden. I learned the first year I was here that it's almost impossible to grown anything as something will soon come along and eat it. The only thing that rabbits are guaranteed not to eat is daffodils. They eat almost everything else - flowers, herbs, shrubs, vegetables, grass, even prickly berberis - and they dig, oh yes, how they dig. It's a wonder no one's broken their ankle yet!

As well as rabbits, there are hedgehogs, squirrels and deer that come to visit our garden. The squirrels are the second worst pest after the rabbits as they dig everything up, whether they want to eat it or not, and plants things in my tubs, disturbing the plants and bulbs I've put in there. They used to eat all the food I put out for the birds, or chew through the feeders and let everything fall to the ground, but I've managed to defeat them with baffles which fit on the feeder poles.

We have lots of different birds here and more come to visit the feeders now that we've stopped the squirrels destroying them and now that our cat is too old to bother about them. There are blue tits, great tits, long tailed tits, chaffinches, gold finches, robins, blackbirds, thrushes and starlings and we also see pheasants, partridges and the occasional duck or chicken.

When I first moved here there were two beautiful cockerels in residence. They'd been here for years and were very friendly. Sadly, the neighbours didn't share my enthusiasm and weren't very keen on being woken by them crowing in the early hours of the morning and they very mysteriously vanished while we were away on holiday one summer. We thought a fox had got them, as there were some feathers left behind. It was only recently, when we had someone round to get rid of a wasp's nest for us, that he said he remembered coming here before to get rid of some cockerels who were disturbing the neighbours. I wish I knew which neighbours it was!

Along with the cockerels there were several groups of chickens who lived in the garden from time to time. We live near 'chicken roundabout' which has been on the news several times. No one knows how the chickens came to be there. One theory is that a lorry overturned and some chickens escaped, another is that some gypsies let some loose. No one knows - but there are lots of them and opinion is very much divided between those who like them and/or feed them and those who think they're a danger to the traffic or an germ spreading menace. I say 'live and let live' but then I love nature. Back to the resident chickens, we named some of the more long term lodgers and they became quite tame, waiting by the door for us to feed them seed and scraps.

The two most memorable chickens were Hopalong and Muncher. Hopalong must have broken his foot at some time as it was turned over making it very difficult for him to walk, let alone run. My daughters adopted him as their pet and we let him sleep in the front porch and took a lot of care of him while the break healed and he learned to walk again. If we went out anywhere he would rush out to meet us on our return until, sadly, the dog next door leapt over the fence and grabbed him, breaking his neck, as we drove up the drive one afternoon. The girls were horrified!

Muncher was another tame chicken, or cockerel and he lived here after Paul and the boys had moved in. He was more Paul's pet than ours and he would come when he was called. He stayed for some time, but then moved on - maybe he found somewhere with more food or better scraps, or maybe he was just lured away by a pretty chicken!

The deer that come into the garden from time to time are Muntjac deer. We don't see them very often as they're so shy but, occasionally, we've seen them standing still and - guess what - eating the plants that the rabbits are too short to nibble! They seem to eat almost anything too, and also damage the trees by stripping the bark off.

Although I'd love to have a small, enclosed garden where I could grow things and make it look orderly and pretty, I can manage without that as the reward of seeing all our garden visitors more than makes up for it.

Today is Mother's Day and it's a beautiful one. I celebrated yesterday with my daughters and spent the day with them. We had a meal here and they gave me some presents: tulips, a silver heart charm and some smellies. Julia helped with the meal: pasta bake and Cathy made me a belated birthday chocolate cake with the most amazing chocolate icing. In the afternoon Cathy drove us to Great Yarmouth and we looked around Matalan, Tesco and Next before she dropped Julia at her boyfriend's house and I met his parents for the first time. Cathy then brought me home, before going to her boyfriend's house to get ready for their evening out.

Today I've been thinking about my Mum. I can't believe it's 10 years since she died, the time has passed so quickly. I was sorting out some information which my step-mother gave me recently and reading about things connected to Mum still brings tears to my eyes. I suppose it always will!

My Mum was a wonderful woman, although it took me a while to realise it. When I became a mother we had something in common and found it much easier to get on, before that I hadn't always had a good relationship with her, or my Dad.

Mum first had cancer when she was 17. She went to the Doctor's and he told her to go away and get on with her life instead of worrying about things like cancer. He said there was nothing wrong with her and she was imagining things. By the time she was diagnosed with cancer it had grown and she had to have a tumour in her groin removed and the lymph gland removed in her leg. She was then told not to have children.

Mum met Dad, they fell in love and got married. Then, luckily for me, they had a baby. When I was born by Caesarian section, the doctors discovered that the cancer had returned. She was not expected to live more than a few months and was given massive doses of radiation therapy, which caused her major problems for the rest of her life.

After I was born, Mum set herself goals. She decided she would live long enough to wean me onto a bottle. Next she decided she would live long enough to get me onto solid foods. Then she decided she would live long enough to see me walk. Although walking was very difficult for her, she was able to watch me walk down the road on my first day at school. Somehow her positive outlook enabled her to have more than 40 years which the Doctors had never expected her to have, although she had several more encounters with cancer over the years and, in the end it was cancer which killed her in 1999, at the age of 64.

Instead of giving in to her ill health and disabilities, Mum kept herself active and busy. She had to give up her job as a Nursery School Teacher before I was born, but for the rest of her life she worked from home as a dressmaker and tailoress. She was always sewing, knitting, making something or recovering something and it must have been frustrating to her that I was useless at all these things! As a teenager I designed my clothes and she made them, a great improvement on the matching things we wore when I was younger and she made me a dress from the left over material after she'd made herself one. Later she made me curtains and cushion covers and, later still, an advent calendar, toys, rag dolls and clothes for her grandchildren.

I never knew her to complain about the pain she was in for much of her life. If I phoned her and asked how she was, the answer was always the same: "very well thank you." Sometimes, when I thought about it, I felt guilty for moaning about a headache or a stomach ache, when I realised that she was in pain every single day.

Mum managed to stay mobile for most of the time. Although the Doctors couldn't understand how she was able to walk as the damage to her spine was so severe and there had been complications with her 'bad' leg, on which she'd had several operations over the years. Every time they wanted her to have it amputated she would reply "that's my leg you're talking about" and turn them down. She managed to ride a bike, learn to drive and had a specially adapted car with some hand controls. Every day she tried to walk somewhere, however hard it was and however painful it felt. Her house was always spotless, the garden was always immaculate, her sewing jobs always finished on time and she still found time to write a book, write letters to her friends and relatives and spend time with her grandchildren as well as supporting Dad in his work, his writing and his marathon running.

Her last cancer went undetected until it was inoperable. Again, she went to see the Doctor and again she was told that there was nothing to worry about. She was diagnosed as having IBS. By the time they found out it was bowel cancer the operation and treatment that she had were not enough to get rid of it completely. Although Mum and Dad didn't tell us that she was terminally ill, I mentioned her to my own Doctor who asked if I realised that it was palliative care that she was receiving.

I planned a wonderful Christmas Day for what I thought was to be her last Christmas but, in fact, she celebrated another 5 with her family. Again, she never complained and seemed so well and happy that we almost forgot about it at times and it was a shock when she died. Looking back, I think she'd just had enough of fighting it every day and wondering which part of her was going to be the next to stop working. There's no doubt that the last 6 years of her life, although possibly the happiest, were also the most painful and difficult for her.

I'm so glad that Dad had retired and that he and Mum were able to do all the things she wanted to do. They went on a wonderful trip around the USA and saw, among other things, The Grand Canyon, Disneyworld and Las Vegas. They visited all their relatives and friends. They did lots of research on the family tree and travelled all over England looking at memorials in churchyards and records in libraries. Mum was busy doing things right up to the end of her life.

Now, ten years on, I still miss her and so do the rest of her family. We miss her smile, her optimism, her courage and her determination. I miss phoning her to tell her about birds I've seen in the garden or flowers that have appeared. I miss the sound of her voice and sometimes I can't quite remember how it sounded. When I'm trying to mend things or a button comes off something, I miss her sewing skills!

I might miss her, but I'll never forget her. Happy Mother's Day Mum, wherever you are.

Friday 20th February 2009

After a few damp, dull, dismal days it was wonderful to wake up to bright sunshine this morning. I was even more enthusiastic about leaving my warm, cosy, comfy bed.

Outside the daffodils are spiking among the fallen autumn leaves and the snowdrops are beginning to show their white flowers. We're lucky enough to have wild rabbits in the garden, although there is always the danger of wringing your ankle if you don't avoid the places where they've been digging. They seem to have their set routes and you can see worn paths on the grass where they move from one part of the garden to another. Among the wild rabbits is a lovely black one, presumably the result of a pet bunny escaping or being set free and mating with it's wild cousin. There used to be 2 blck bunnies, but Poy Poy caught one when they were babies and proudly brought it in to show me it's still warm, but not moving, body before he ate most of it. Nature can be so cruel!

There have been more birds about this week too: our resident blackbird with a white circle above his eye, the territorial robin who tries to scare the other birds off 'his' suet cake on the bird feeder, the little flock of goldfinches who visit every day for the niger seeds I put out especially for them, the chaffinch, great tits, blue tits, starlings and pigeons. We've seen not only one, but a pair of green woodpeckers digging for worms in the grass this week and last week noticed the less often seen greater spotted woodpecker banging his beak on the bark of a tree at the bottom of the garden.

The squirrels are still scampering around the garden, running up and down the trees and digging in my plant pots, presumably for the chestnuts they hid there in the autumn. Every spring when I remove the dead leaves from my plants I find lots of nuts in the tubs, some with shoots, some mouldy and I have to remove them and replant the things I actually want in them.

We're so lucky to live here! I've been renting this place for 10 years now and I'm so attached to it that I'll hate to leave whenever the time comes. Even the fact that the bungalow is very delapidated and needs a lot of tlc doesn't lessen the affection I feel for my lovely rural home. I can look out of the window at any time and there are so many wonderful things to see, I could take photos constantly.

Now, for example, from where I sit at the computer I can see the sun in a beautiful blue sky, with fluffy clouds moving slowly with the wind and white lines from aeroplanes flying to somewhere warmer. I can see flowers beginning to appear, birds looking for food, rabbits digging or eating grass and leaves moving gently in the light breeze. I can hear only the sounds of nature and they are so peaceful and calming.

It's a wonderful life!

St Valentine's Day - Our Wedding Anniversary

So, yesterday was our 6th Wedding Anniversary and what a lovely day it was! The sun was shining and it was warmer than it had been - no cold nose or icy toes for me.

Some time ago, when we were in Norwich, we saw some lovely glasses and decided to get them for each other and not buy anything else this year. They were champagne flutes with gold patterns on and were reduced in the January sales. Then I found two crystal wine glasses, also in the sales, which I knew Paul would like and I bought them too. I also decided to get him a little wooden heart as an extra present.


Paul was really naughty and he'd 'forgotten' that we'd decided not to buy presents this year and had bought me some more lovely things. As well as the flowers he brought home the other day, there was a cloth bag with 'I Love You' embroidered on it, a heart shaped chocolate lolly, a tiny musical box in a bag with red roses on, a red hanging heart, some perfume and lots of little heart shaped buttons. He's also found a heart shaped stone, painted it red and put our names on it - which I thought was very romantic.



In our living room we have a glass topped coffee table which has compartments so you can display things in it. This is where we keep our collection of hearts which we've bought for each other over the past eight and a half years that we've known each other, and that's where I've put the buttons and the painted stone.






As well as presents there was the food! And drink! For breakfast Paul made us bacon and tomato sarnies. For lunch I served grilled goat's cheese with cranberry sauce on heart shaped toast with salad. But the star of the day was definitely the evening meal. We started with seared scallops on salad leaves, accompanied by 'real' champagne. The bottle was one which came from Dad's after he died, so we raised a glass to him and I tearily remembered him as we celebrated our first anniversary without him.

Our main course was rump steak with chips, baby veg and my first attempt at Bearnaise sauce - a little runny, but very tasty! I was still drinking champagne at this point, but Paul had moved on to red wine. We were watching Harry Hill's TV Burp while we ate and the alcohol made it seem even funnier than usual and we were laughing so much that we both had tears in our eyes again.

For dessert I'd made white chocolate pannacotta and served it with dark chocolate sauce. I made this once before and it turned out really well, but I couldn't find the recipe so I tried another one and it wasn't quite as good. It tasted wonderful (as does all chocolate) but didn't look very good. This was accompanied by the most amazing pudding wine, which tasted almost like a very good sweet sherry. I'm so glad I looked round the January sales as this was another bargain - from Boots, surprisingly!

The continuing story

Now, where was I? Oh yes, sitting in The White Hart with Paul during our first (blind) date!

Paul confessed to me that he had to go into Boots and look at the hair colour counter to find out what auburn looked like.

As soon as we met and started talking we felt at ease in each other's company. I felt as though I never wanted to go home again, which sounds like something out of a film, but which was certainly true for me that day. I suppose we had some sort of connection, maybe we really were soulmates, I don't know. When my friend phoned, as arranged, I said that everything was fine and I was safe. By that time Paul and I were deciding to have a meal together and carry on talking.

So, that's how we met!

Now it's eight and a half years later and it seems as though we've always been together. I look back on that first day and feel so glad that we met. One strange thing is that Paul's advert was supposed to be in a different newspaper, but they put it in my local one by mistake. The other is that I never used to buy papers and had picked one up in someone else's house after they suggested I had a look after I moaned that I had no one to go out with. It looks as though someone was making sure we got together!

For some time we spent a fortune on petrol so we could drive backwards and forwards between my home and Paul's, which were about 40 miles apart. Paul had three jobs at the time, one of which was working nights, and he also looked after his two sons before and after school. How he managed to fit me in too I'll never know. I lived on my own, but I went back to my former marital home to look after my daughters when their Dad left for work, got them up, made them breakfast and took them to school. I then collected them after school, took them home and made tea, which was ready for them to eat with their Dad, while I came back home - alone and miserable - for my solitary tea. Paul and I managed to see each other in between all these things and spent a great deal of time on our phones talking to each other and leaving messages on each other's answering machines.

I still have some of Paul's messages which I recorded from my answering machine onto a dictaphone - not very good quality, but good enough for me to feel how I felt back then when I heard them for the first time. There was no doubt in my mind that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him and, fortunately, he eventually realised he felt the same way too.

A New Blog - Day One

Today four things arrived: three anniversary cards and snow! The snow's all gone now, but the cards are displayed in the living room, along with a bunch of mixed flowers for our aniversary and a bunch of red roses for St Valentine's Day - both from Paul.

It's hard to believe that we've been married for almost six years now and known each other for eight and a half.

So, how did we meet? I decided to look in the 'lonely heart' adverts in the local newspaper and I ringed three that looked promising. I had to phone a number, listen to a message and then I had the chance to leave my own. I listened to the messages. Number one sounded as though he wanted to get married so he could stay in the country, number two sounded as though he was just trying to meet as many different women as possible and number three had a pleasant voice and sounded fairly normal! I decided to leave a message, but what should I say? He was five years younger than me, divorced and had two sons. I was divorced and had two daughters, so that was no problem, but should I be honest about my age?

I can't remember exactly what I said, but I gave my name, a rough idea of where I lived, mentioned my daughters and gave my interests: reading, music and computer games. I also left my phone number. I don't think I expected to hear anything back, but sometime later the phone rang and it was Paul. Surprisingly it was easy to talk to him and before we realised it, quite a long time had passed. We arranged to meet at The White Hart, roughly half way between us, for a drink and, maybe, something to eat. I described myself as having auburn hair. It was tempting to say I'd be holding a newspaper or wearing a red rose on my lapel, but that would have been too corny! Paul told me he had dark hair and would be driving a silver VW Jetta.

When the day arrived, I told a friend where I was going and arranged for them to phone me after half an hour, in case I needed an excuse to get out of an awkward situation and also in case Paul turned out to be an axe murderer. I was wearing a long black skirt with tiny embroidered flowers around the hem, a silvery grey shirt and black sandals. My hair was long and loose and I'd tried to do my make-up so it looked as though I wasn't wearing any - if you know what I mean! The attractive look was completed by two bandaged big toes - you don't want to know!

I arrived early at The White Hart and sat where I could look out of the window and see the entrance to the car park, but not be looking directly towards the door where Paul would walk in. I tried to look relaxed and natural, while trying to arrange and pose myself in the most flattering way possible. Difficult when you have two heavily banadaged toes; oh how much fun it would have been to turn them into bumble bees or something for a laugh, but no - not a good idea and not the right impression to give.

Almost exactly at the agreed time, I saw a silver car drive into the car park. I didn't know if it was a Jetta - well, I'm a woman aren't I? I could see that the driver had dark hair, so I thought it might well be 'him'. After he'd parked his car, he walked in through the door and, after a quick look around, walked over to me. I had time to see what he looked like - not tall, slim, short dark hair, blue eyes, dark trousers, navy jacket with brown collar. For some inexplicable reason, as he walked towards me I thought "This is the one I want, but he won't be interested in me!"

To be continued.....