Another Monday and we are still here, hopeful that this will be the week he gets his operation.  The ward is busy today, new people post operation are needing care, the staff are rushing about and we sit in the middle wondering what will happen next.

The doctor arrives mid afternoon, with the results of this morning’s scan.  The good news is there is nothing seriously wrong, the bad news is there is an underlying infection.  This will mean a whole week of medicine before they will consider surgery again.  The news sinks in, we are looking at at least another three weeks in hospital, maybe more.  It feels a bit daunting.  The doctor answers our many questions and then takes his leave. It is hard to think is going to be a long time til we get him home, we are both a bit quiet.

We decide to escape the ward and head down to the cafe, the one run by volunteers, profits helping where ever they can.  Tucked into his wheelchair, with carrot cake and tea we chat, it feels almost normal.  We decide to make this a regular daily treat, a little bit of the usual amid the unusual.  We shall look forward to this.

I have been thinking how this life has become so natural, it is surprising how at home I feel in this place. Familiar faces everywhere, from the nursing staff and doctors to the other visitors, all of us making the best of tricky situations.

I will be back later today, and am planning another excursion.  There is a beautiful atrium in the hospital and we shall go and sit under the rainy skies and enjoy a change in environment for a while.  Making the best of this is the best I can do.  We are making memories, even if some won’t be remembered with affection.  No day should be wasted, because in truth each day is all we have.

Day 14 – two weeks in and I am really wishing I had been writing each day during this crazy period, but the truth is I have been far too exhausted and emotional to even switch the laptop on.

So, let’s recap, it was two weeks ago today, a warm and sunny Sunday in North Wales.  I spent the day in the garden, digging out the old plants, tidying the borders, good therapeutic work, after weeks of uncertainty about hubby’s health.  Delayed admission to hospital to begin to mend his broken heart, he has become more and more poorly, these are worrying times.  This Sunday I persuaded him to join me in the sunshine and he sat on the bench, chatting and watching me dig and toil.  It began to feel almost normal.  My phone, for weeks glued to my body awaiting the most important call of all, was on the table indoors.  We heard it ring and I dashed, just too late, I had missed it.  Luckily, I had the hospital numbers on speed dial and within minutes we learned that at last there was a bed!!!  We were on our way to the rainy city where people could operate and fix his heart.

The drive there was tricky, sat nav got us most of the way and good luck did the rest. Unfamiliar roads then, have quickly become second nature.  Soon he was allocated the precious bed, I wanted to take a photo of it, such a rare thing.  Then, I left him, in the good care of people who understood, I felt emotional and a bit shaken but I was optimistic that soon he would be healthy again.  I would get my strong and capable husband back. The person I can rely on for everything, from carrying shopping to driving distances, my friend, my partner, I have missed him.

When we heard later that night that the operation could be done the next day we were both thrilled, we hoped that this will be sorted soon. Alas it was not to be, not this time nor the next time or the one after that.  Each operation cancelled at the last minute, it seems hubby is not well enough for surgery.  I cannot explain the feeling of hopes dashed time after time, the worry and concern.  We had thought admission to hospital would be the beginning of becoming well, it seemed at times that he was actually getting worse not better.  Problems with other organs are detected, they need more doctors, more tests, on and on and on it goes.

During this last two weeks I have visited daily, sat beside his bed time spent talking and sometimes watching him sleeping, he is exhausted by breathing and lying in bed.  I have spoken with nurses, with doctors, they all agree, he is not a well man.  This is very tricky.  I am eighty miles from home in a once strange city that is now becoming very familiar.  I have been wrapped up with the love of friends and family who have offered their homes, their support and their time to take care of me, and yet it is all difficult.  I have driven miles and miles between beds, toting my wardrobe in a suitcase, most of my life is in my car.  Nothing feels right.

Visiting times are long and yet the time passed quickly it is almost restful.  Sometimes I just sit, holding his hand, other times we can chat and laugh. Once, last week I managed to take him off the ward in a wheelchair for an hour of normality in the café downstairs. We were hopeful things were improving, but a week on we are no further forwards.

I know they can fix him, I understand more about hearts and surgery than I ever wanted to, I understand the importance and the irony of him having to be 100% well to have an operation to make him well.  None of it matters, we will do this.

I think the most difficult thing is the isolation, that despite the love and care people are offering to me, I still feel completely alone.  I am responsible for getting myself to and from the city, for talking to the doctors and trying hard to understand what is really going on.  They say the operation may happen this week, I am trying not to hope, instead consoling myself with the facts.  He is in the right place, people are caring for him and we are no longer trying to manage on the hill.

I no longer lie awake at night listening to him coughing, checking his breathing, for this I am grateful.I am grateful for other things.  For the kindness of strangers, the man at the reception desk late one night in a hotel across from the hospital.  I couldn’t face driving another mile, he found me a room,  with kindness and a smile, he did the best he could to get me a good deal.  As I type this I have just checked out of that room, I kept it for an extra night, the luxury of walking across the road to the hospital to visit has been fabulous.  I came into the bar area to sit and wait until visiting time, and the same kind man offered me a coffee.  I set up my laptop, writing has always been a great way for me to pass time, and within minutes another member of the staff team brings me a coffee to the table.  Little things, they mean a lot.

As with every experience I look for the lessons.  I know that this is nowhere near over, that at best I have another two weeks or more to spend in this city, maybe a lot longer, and yet already I  have been reminded of the good in the world.  People who go just a bit further, the nurses, there have been more than one, who have hugged me out of sight of the ward, who don’t pretend it is all ok, they know it is not.  This is day to day stuff for them and yet they make me feel special.  I wonder if they know what a difference they make?  Then the doctors, again, there have been many, who sit beside us, and sometimes just with me, they explain over and again the issues, answering question and helping us to understand what is happening.  The young registrar who coped well with my tears, moving me to a private room and spending time to reassure me, they have this covered.

Back on the ward I watch other wives, mothers, daughters and partners sitting beside beds, all hoping for the best.  The Mum that is two years in to her son’s admission, who visits daily and does everything she can to keep him calm.  The wife who sits for hours reading aloud to her husband, he cannot talk to her, or move for himself, but I am sure he can hear her.  All of us share smiles, and stories, in the day room and across the beds.  Part of a club that no one wants belong to, we keep on keeping on.  Another lesson for life.

I tell hubby often that this is but a moment in time.  We shall get through this, and life will go on.  We will walk again along the Welsh coastline, in warm sunshine and laugh as we always do.  Grateful for this life we have, we will watch our family grow and prosper, and we shall grow old together.  One thing I know is that I shall never, ever again take life for granted.

So, back to the beginning, it is Day 14 of this adventure.  I shall walk across the road shortly and visit, hopefully we will chat and he will be on good form.  Today he is getting a visit from our precious Granddaughter, which I hope will lift his spirits, her Mum and Dad are driving up from the countryside to spend time with her Pops.  This means the world to me.

I have no clue what next week will bring, we may well be in exactly the same position as we are today, and this is tricky for someone who loves a plan.  I am learning what is actually means to take one day at a time, to have no control over events and to have to go with the flow.  It is all I can do.

I cannot write all this without talking about the NHS.  The treatment offered free of charge at the point of need is simply the most valuable asset we have.  We need to hold it close and fight fearlessly against those who want to change things.  The people I have witnessed this last two weeks are hard working and skilled, of course they are, but more than that, they are part of a team, a culture that could never be built again.  The different uniforms, from the suits of surgeons, to the scrubs of theatre nurses, the greens, whites, blues of the nurse’s shirts, each showing the part of the team to which they belong.  Every one of them using their skills to make the machine that is the NHS work.  The sum of their parts is greater that each individual, another lesson for life.

I will not be part of the generation that wastes this, that casts it aside in the name of profit.  I will stand and fight every inch of the way against the media barons, the politicians and the business people who are circling above like vultures, waiting to pick the carcass clean.  A young doctor told me yesterday that the NHS is the best thing about this country, a country he has chosen to move to, to work in, and somewhere he can see the value of.

I think of my Dad’s family, of his sister who died in childbirth, along with her baby, because the family could not afford a doctor, and his eldest sister who lost a leg for the same reason.  I think of my Mum’s Dad, the Granddad I never knew, who died of a heart attack as a young man.  His son became the first man in the family to live beyond fifty, thanks to heart surgery and the NHS.  These are real people who lived within living memory, and I know that without a fight, this world will come again. So, it is time for us to stand up and to say, enough, we will not allow you to take this away from us.  My Granddaughter is just three years old, I want her Grandchildren to have health care, free at the point of need, forever.

I have a temporary job here in Wales, just down the road from the hill, it is office based, full of smiley people who do their level best everyday to help those in need.

We work with people that most people would pass by, with those who would be judged and who are not sure how to help themselves.  It is a tough job, done with great good heart by people who give a damn.  It is my privilege to be part of this team albeit briefly.

If anyone was watching us at work I think we would look like worker bees, constantly moving between the offices and the community, grabbing a quick coffee on the way.  Mostly people are smiling, they certainly support each other, never a problem someone can’t offer an idea about.  Yet amid all the activity are real people with real lives and sometimes it is worth looking at the helpers.

It makes me think about all the other places I have worked in a team to offering to support and help where it is needed.  From youth work to refugee aid, I have seen people coming together to try and make things better for others.  Within these teams there are people who have struggled with life themselves.  Some have been poor, or poorly, have worried about family and loved ones, and yet despite all of this they come to work with a smile and get on with things.

These people are my heroes.  Looking above the smile and into the eyes is sometimes a giveaway, things are not as good as they could be. Others are dealing with people who remind them of times gone by, bringing up unwelcome thoughts of problems in the past.  Yet, everyday there are such people turning up for work in all sorts of places and quietly getting on with trying to help, people who are making things better for others.

Wherever you are, whatever you do, there is always scope for helping.  A friendly smile, a light touch to the arm, eye contact and kind words, cost very little, but can mean so much.  Spare a thought for all the helping people, think about how they put themselves and their own worries and problems into a box while they reach out to others. Think as I do, how best we can help them.  Helping the helpers, it has be worth it.

today is Easter Sunday, a day that holds little significance for me, an active none believer, but a day that evokes memories of Easter’s past, of small children and egg hunts, of family dinners and lots of chocolate..  It is also the first of April and as such a day for pranks and jokes, who doesn’t love some foolery?

For me the beginning of a new month is giving me the motivation to start writing here again.  It has been a while.  Things have been tricky for some time and the last month particularly so.  I shan’t go into lots of details but life has not been kind to us recently.

We are staying positive, something that has taken every little bit of energy I have left.  At times recently it has been as if we are in the middle of a storm, with no umbrella and no shelter.  We are standing in the rain without a coat between us and all around the sun is shining on others.  It is not a good feeling at all and yet we are holding tight and we are still here, we might be in the rain but we still have each other.

Hubby is poorly, we know he can be fixed, the surgeons have told us so, and we believe them.  The operation has been delayed, and the stress levels are high.  On one hand we understand the pressures facing our NHS and we totally support what they are doing under such difficult pressures.  None of this is easy. On the other, more selfish hand, we are feeling the agony of waiting for phone calls to be admitted to hospital, phone calls that either don’t come or come late into the night, bringing bad news, no bed can be found.

The consequences of all of this are many.  The balance of our lives has shifted.  From being my ‘go to’ person, who helped with everything, from carrying shopping to DIY, now hubby is mostly resting.  From eating everything I can ever cook and a bit more, his appetite needs nurturing.  I am learning to do it all myself, just as I did before we met and find myself second guessing his movements and his breathing on a daily basis.  It is not comfortable to be ever watchful of someone you love, hoping and hoping that today will be a better day.

So, life is difficult, here on the hill, we have given up our house we had for the winter,  there just too many stairs made life even more difficult.  Here our one level living makes things easier.  We are thankful we have our home on the hill and our gorgeous garden, even if it is in need of some serious work. I shall get out there eventually to at least cut the grass. Our neighbours come and go, as we once did, it is nice to have them around us.  We are finding new ways to relax.  Reading, chatting, I have been baking and we have welcomed friends and family calling in to say hello.

This living in limbo, waiting for phone calls has little merit. I hope that the operation will come quickly now, then we can begin to get hubby well and our lives back on an even keel. There is little doubt this experience has changed both of us, I think things will be different from now on.

When everything you take for granted is lost to you, when you find yourselves in the midst of seemingly unsolvable problems, in fear of ill heath and without a lot of your possessions, or your support team,  well, it gives you time to evaluate life.  What is really important to us?  Where do we actually want to be?

Until now, mostly life has happened to me  I have gone with changes, made the best of things, sometimes made massive mistakes.  Yes, I have had control of my destiny, but within parameters, always making decisions based on other people, on jobs and on geography.  This last year, none of that has been possible.  We simply lost our way of life along with our home.  We have bounced between our place on the hill, the house in the town and a house share, and along the way there have been happy times alongside the worry and a constant feeling which I can describe as being the loneliness of distance.  We are still here, shaken, stirred and a bit bruised, but still here.

Today, he is feeling brighter, we go for a drive, we head away from the coast, making our way inland and soon the mountains rise up in front of us.  Hubby is loving it, he is seldom a passenger, in the last ten years he has been at the wheel of all our days out and holidays, he has driven through lovely places, with his eyes on the road.  It is my pleasure to be the driver now and to see him enjoying the views of the snow capped peaks and the green of valley below.  As we drive we chat about other journeys, about times with friends, and how lucky we are to have so many wonderful memories to look back on.  We wend our way back home, the radio, a constant companion in the car, is playing and the DJ is having some April Fool fun.  We are laughing, spirits raised as we head back to our sanctuary on the hill.

I can’t help but be grateful for the life we have made together, and even now, in the middle of the worst of times, I know there will be many more pockets of wonder to be stored in our memory banks.  Today, driving through mountains in the sunshine, laughing at the radio is such a simple thing, yet it is already a precious memory. We are thinking of the summer, when back to health, we can resume our walking, and we are already planning places to visit.

So, in the middle of tough times, there are still good times, we just have to be open to them.  Looking around me I have much to be grateful for.  Life goes on, things change, but the future is there, just around the corner, I can almost touch it.

firstly a huge apology to all my readers, I simply haven’t had the energy to blog for some weeks.  We are still in the middle of chaos, hubby’s broken heart has been looked at by more medics and a fix is going to be happening.  My new job is taking a lot of energy and balancing health concerns with exhaustion does not make a good mix.  Add to this a heavy cold, with shivers and aches and pains, life felt a bit tricky this week.

Things are coming to a head.  The operation date is fixed, and in the next week we shall finally get all our belongings out of storage and settle into this sweet little house, we need to make home.  It will never be perfect while so many people we love are so far away, but I am learning to live with that.

Anyway, earlier today I was driving to work as usual.  The road is busy but I have the sea for company, this morning it was still and pale and cold looking, the hills in the distance still topped in their snowy overcoat, it felt that winter was hanging on.  So as normal driving time is thinking time, and today I am thinking very negative thoughts.  I am trying to understand how it came to this.  How one day all was normal, living in our home town, with health and happiness all around, to the late Summer catastrophe that turned into an Autumn of uncertainty.  I was thinking how I had expected to be settled at this time of my life, providing the base for the family to return to, with teenage bedrooms eventually turning into Grandbabies rooms.  Knowing this will never be is making me sad.

I drive towards the coast, through fields that are now familiar, I notice new horses have arrived on one side of the road, and the last of the snow is still piled against the hedges.  I suppose I am feeling a bit lost, a bit adrift with the unexpected changes daring to defeat me.  It all seemed hopeless.

The man on the radio is a cheery one, especially on this morning drive, and I am listening without paying attention to the banter.  Then the chords of a song I have always held close comes through the speakers.  At the exact time I am feeling so lost, so sad, so hopeless.  I cannot believe my ears.  Still driving, I feel my cheeks dampen, then tears are slowly falling.  There is little traffic, but at the lights I find myself singing along, and cannot help but believe that this song, coming on the radio right at the moment of hopelessness, well it wasn’t an accident.

So, yes readers I am going to take notice of such a sign and take comfort in the overwhelming feeling that the universe has a plan for us, and that plan is here.  We shall indeed Let It Be, and learn to embrace our new life.

The day I started school I made a friend.  We bonded in the playhouse, when some rough and tumble boys tried to knock our kitchen down.  Back in the 1960’s gender lines were carefully drawn, the boys had no place in the playhouse at all.  Anyway the friendship was born, and together we gently nurtured it for many years.

We left primary school for middle school, a place for girls with inspirational teachers and a wonderful sense of community.  We grew here, supported and encouraged at every step.  We even were taught environmental studies, something that our parents had never heard of, it opened our eyes to a bigger world.  It was a wonderful time, and in school and out we were best of friends.

Later, after leaving school, our friendship became tighter.  Together we had our first experiences of alcohol, of disco’s and dancing, of pubs and clubs, and eventually of romance and settling down.  Well, I settled down, my friend went off to have adventures.  Living in communes, traveling to places I had only dreamt of her life was exciting.  The last time I saw her was over thirty years ago.  She was back home between travels and she came to meet my new babies.  When she left she said they were planning to be gone for a couple of months.  That was in 1986.  We had no idea that it was to be 32 years til I saw her again.

Time went by, my life changed, we moved to new place, started a new life. My children were growing, my jobs changing, life carried on.  Always at the back of my mind I wondered where she might be.  Over the years I would ask friends, no one seemed to know, I heard she was in India, then maybe in Australia, no one was ever sure.

Social media began, and with it I started to look, typing her name into search engines, no luck at all.  Oh,well, I thought some friendships are made to last for just a while, where ever she was I hoped she was happy, that life was good.  I all but gave up hope of finding her.

Then, inspired by a TV programme, I searched for someone else,  a colleague in my first job, and to my delight I found him.  I fired off an email and waited to see if he would reply.  He did, and not only was he still living in the same place, impossibly he was in touch with my missing friend.

It seemed she had returned from her travels in China, India and New Zealand, about a year after I had moved away, the sliding doors of life and we had missed the opening.  She had also looked for me, wondered where I had gone, with no luck.  I was delighted to hear she was in the country and all was well in her world.

Weeks went by, and I almost forgot about it all.  Then last weekend an email arrived.  Within minutes we were talking on the telephone, and it was as if we had met yesterday. Half our lives we have been apart, how could that have happened?

Quickly we made plans and within the week we were sitting in a bar, in the home town of our youth, a place we had both left behind over twenty years before.  There was so much to say, it has taken me days process it all.  Our lives are so very different, we have faced challenges and found happy times but in very different ways.  Impossibly it felt fine, more than fine, it was almost like meeting a second self, here was someone who knew me at a time when I had no clue who I would be.

The hours flashed by, sadness at loss, happiness at good fortune,  we had so much to share.   Mostly I think I had a feeling of completeness.  A feeling of the circle being drawn and the world back on its axis.  We laughed at our teenage selves, at the ways in which we believed we were grown up, in the childish games of our youth, and the forever memories we had both held of each other and our families.

I am sure my drive to have a big family came from spending time in her house, which was always filled with her siblings, her Mum coming down the hall calling to us all.  I remember listening to her big brothers records,  and the feeling of beginning to grow up.  She remembers my birthday parties and the games my Mum would organise. She said that our house was always warm, and cosy, while I remember the excitement of her tall house with attics and cellars.

Our early days really do form our adult selves, of that I am sure.  The people we learned the lessons of life with are forever special in our hearts.  There is no hiding from those who knew you as a child.  There is so much that doesn’t need saying, and it is so hard to describe to others how it feels.

Sitting in that bar, endlessly laughing and remembering, we were also planning the blueprint for our future friendship.  I am in no doubt that we will meet again, and often, that we will grow older with the knowledge that we will not lose each other again.  My friend is back home now, with her husband who I don’t yet know.  I have tried explaining it to my husband and to my friends, I am not sure the words are working well.  We have messaged and texted almost daily, it won’t be long until we are together again.  Actually we already are.

A month ago today we had just moved into our new little house by the sea.  Tired from carrying boxes and sorting our possessions we awoke late and were potting around the kitchen when the telephone call came.

It was one of those moments when time stands still.  It has happened to me before, this heart stopping, bad news, even as you are hearing it, you know nothing will ever be the same again.  And it won’t.

Losing people we love is never easy, of course it isn’t, but the natural progression of life means it is something no one will ever fully avoid.  They say the price of love is the pain of loss, and I cannot disagree with that.  Mostly the people I have lost have been from a different generation, parents, aunts and uncles, all loved, all missed.  A few good friends have also gone, and the pain they leave behind is different, for them we feel a sadness in a life left unfinished, the days we spend from then on are tinged with their loss, especially at family times, Christmas and birthdays, anniversaries, all have a new meaning when someone is missing.

This time it is like no other, this time it was as if a part of me, my very being, has gone.   How can I live in a world when she is not here?  How can it be, this link to my whole life long, forever broken.  It seems incredible.  I am lost and bewildered, and in a moment I find my mind full of memories, full of our lifetimes and the realisation that today is the day it changed.

We were children together, I do not remember a day of my life she wasn’t part of it.  There were three of us, I was not a sister, but in truth I was, and I still am.  My own sister arrived some years later, and although we loved her, it was the three of us against the world.  Memories of childhood, bathing together after mucky play days, of all sleeping together, sharing beds and telling stories.  We grew older and teenage years were soon upon us, these roads we travelled together, holding tight in the tough times and laughing and dancing in the long hot summers, of holidays and happy times.

Later we grew up, our worlds were changing, marriage, children, geography all got in the way, and yet we spoke often, it was as if an invisible string held us all together.  We have all had our struggles, we learned that life is not as easy in adulthood as it appeared in childhood.  We learned how to get on with what was thrown our way, and there were times when life did interrupt us.  There were times when we might go a week without talking, but seldom ever any more than that.  My whole life, sixty years, and we spoke every week.

So, today, it is a month gone by, when the three of us are now just two.  We talk often, very often, together trying to make some sense out of how we, and my little sister, are the only ones left.  Grandparents, parents and now our sister, gone.  How on earth did that happen?

As ever we are focusing on those who need us, there are children, albeit adults now, who are left without a Mum, and we shall do our best to gather them up and make sure the road ahead is smooth for them.  I am thinking of my own family and my sister, who as we all grew up, also became close and is also feeling the loss.  I have no clue what will happen next.  I don’t know how to stop this feeling of ridiculousness, how can I be living, laughing and finding new adventures, when she is not around.  Yet this is exactly what I am going to do.

You see I know that the very best way to remember people is to talk about them often, to allow yourself to feel the sadness, anger and grief and then to stand up straight, look the world in the eye, and live.  For I have the chance to do just that, to live, and I will never forget that.

I will be forever grateful for the memories I have of the happy times, when strong and wilful women reared us, when we were loved enough to be taught right from wrong, and to be forgiven when we got it wrong.  I am grateful I can remember the laughter of our Mothers, colluding together to change the world they lived in. Learning to drive, gaining independence and showing us girls that anything is possible, if you want it enough.  Lessons that have lasted a lifetime. It is because of them that we know how to get on with things, they were a living example to us girls, from them we learned to be brave.  We are brave today.

So, today, a month on, and eleven days into a new year, here we are, getting used to this new life, and I know that in time we will find peace. The future is here, right now and I will do my best to do it justice.  This circle of life is a strange one, I am already older than my Mum ever was, and the next generation are already making their way in the world.  I am hoping to show them the right way, by giving them a map to manage along life’s paths, and they will have learned the strength from all the women that have gone before them.

Tomorrow is Friday, the last day of the working week, and the weekend will be upon us, I am spending it with best friends and will savour every second, for time with those we love is a privilege not to be wasted.  The days will pass, weeks will turn into months and old memories will sit alongside new ones yet to be made.  The world will keep on keeping on, all will be well.

The house is clean, the washing is washed, the shopping is pretty much shopped all is well.  It is 10.30am and it feels like a long day ahead here in Wales.  No longer do I have neighbours who may pop in for a chat, nor children, albeit grown, who want to talk.  I think about going out to walk, but there is a storm raging and although the rain has stopped the skies are grey.

I decide to take the car up to the caravan on the hill and return the dining chairs we used over the holiday, I can check out the wind damage at the same time, then pop into the cafe to give New Year wishes to the lovely people there.

It takes time to put the seats down in the car, to clear out the debris biding its time in the boot, waiting for me to sort and clear it.  I get the chairs, there are three in total and it is a bit of a juggle to fit them all into, eventually I am all set for the off.  Except that I am going nowhere, the car, which hasn’t been driven this year is not starting.  Oh well.

I decide to walk into town, and am soon being blown along the street by the stormy gale.  Over the road a wheelie bin, full of holiday rubbish is blown over and there is a swirl of paper, card and other things flying everywhere, this is not a good place to be walking.  I carry on and see coming towards me two smartly dressed young men.  As we get close they are smiling, and we start to chat.

I had recognised them as members of the Latter Day Saints, before I heard their accents.  We shook hands and swapped thoughts on Wales, on how it feels to be an Elder, spending two years abroad for your beliefs.  We even talked about global politics including the President of the USA, they were both keen to point out they were in the UK at election time, nothing to do with them they said.   They were kind and respectful, I was honest in my opinion of organised religion, but there was much we had in common. I really enjoyed talking to them.  On a windy street in a Welsh seaside town, it was surprising, to find commonality between these boys, each a peer of my own children, and yet in a way seeming so much older.

The shop I was planning to visit was closed so I made my way back towards our house with a heavy heart.  I really didn’t want to be indoors, and yet walking in the wind was tricky.  Then I remembered about buses!!  What fun, I could still go to the cafe, but on public transport.  It was easier than I thought.

So,  I managed to do all the things I wanted but in a different way than I planned.  It struck me that my life seems to be always like this.  I am getting on with living, but nothing is as it was.  I guess that doesn’t mean things are worse than they were, just different, and I can live with different.

Back home tonight I was reflecting on the day.  Had the car started I wouldn’t have met the Elders and had such a good chat.  I enjoyed my walk from the bus stop to the cafe, and also found the freedom of not having a car to park quite a joy.  As a bonus, hubby has fixed the car, the battery needed charging, so tomorrow I can use it if I want, I am not sure, a bit of me is thinking that I may still get the bus.

So, here I am, embracing change, adapting to situations and finding treasure along the way.  I think I am doing ok at last.

so we brought in the New Year by dancing to disco, watching fireworks, both on the tv from hubby’s home town and from our front garden, where we learned there are advantages of living on a hill, all in all it was a most jolly time.

The messages arrived all evening from friends far and wide, wishing us good fortune for the year ahead.  My daughter stopped serving pints long enough to send a text, and my 30 something son also let me know he was home safe and sound and wishing us well.

In the midst of the excitement there was a moment, when dancing with my hubby, I understood how much he means to me.  We know this year will be challenging health wise, and we have no clue what is in store, but while he is still tall and strong and dancing all is well.  We remembered how we used to love to dance in the kitchen and remarked that we hadn’t done this for a while.  Then we laughed as we remembered that we hadn’t actually had a kitchen big enough to dance in for some time.

This year is already bringing exciting changes, one son will start the job of his dreams this week. I am so proud of him, he has taken himself from work he loathed, through hard study and commitment to learning, balancing family life and social life, and is about to start a whole new adventure.  My daughter has finally stopped dithering about her future and will move at the end of this week to a city she has called home for at least ten years.  She has found a place to live and a job, and the best news of all is that she is staying in the UK.  Well at least for now she is, who knows where she will be at the end of the year.

So the blank page is open, we can begin to write our stories fresh and new.  Tomorrow I will gain control of my body again, start regular walking and stop eating quite so much, the weight gained in anxious days on the hill needs to be gone.  Taking control of that is the least I can do.

Where ever you are and who ever you are with I hope the year has started well, let us try together to make this January one that we will remember.  I am going to be choosing to be happy, and working towards being fitter.  If they are resolutions then so be it.  See you tomorrow and I will tell you how I am getting along.