I'm planning to go to Belfast with a school friend for 2 nights at the beginning of November.
We are two 'ladies of a certain age' who have been friends since school, and both have a November birthday...so instead of meeting for a meal and drink as usual we thought we would take a flying visit to somewhere we haven't been to before...to walk and be touristy and have a drink.
Having never been before we don't know the areas.....does anyone have a Hotel they can
recommend?
Last weekend I was lucky enough to go to Bilbao with my beautiful daughter. I had always wanted to go and see the Guggenheim and as I haven't quite got the 'travel alone' gene that Rachel is lucky enough to possess, my daughter and I went together from Thursday to Sunday. It was perfect. The weather was kind and we had a fabulous time. I am blessed to have a good relationship with my kids and grandchildren, and (without dwelling) getting through the past 5 years would not have been possible without them. We walked and talked and ate and drank and laughed and cried and hugged and ....sensibly..this time we did not share a room. Previously we have shared and as I snore like a ...well I'm not sure what....it has been a bit challenging for her in other years ...Paris and Budapest and Venice......the extra cost was well worth it and now that I am divorced and single I have sufficient funds. I did love the Guggenheim. I know it isn't everyone's cup of tea but what is? We saw so much that we loved. I did not like all that was there but fell in love with a HUGE painting by Anselm Kiefer
As you can see from the top picture the painting was enormous, and I was transfixed. The second picture is me just being delighted to be at the Museum.....and the last one is a dreadful picture but made us laugh, as I had asked for bread. ham and tomato....the bread and ham were very tasty but the tomato came as a little 'jus' in that squeezy bottle....which of course is probably very normal to so many of you but I am quite provincial and it was so funny to me! Normally I wouldn't post pictures of myself, but I am entering into a new chapter of my life and feeling...for the first time in Oh So Many years...dare I say it?
Happy.
Moaning Minnie is leaving the building....time to have words with myself, get over myself, and move on....with fingers crossed, with optimism and hope....wish me luck and watch this space x
A week ago today, I became unwell.
I had a terrible headache/sore throat/earache.
I was freezing cold and just wanted to curl up and go to sleep.
I threw up and was shaking uncontrollably.
I 'lateral flow tested' every day......negative.
I was preparing for and organising the Funeral for my sister, and thought that perhaps I was just feeling 'low'.
I was so very cold and felt so exhausted that I went to bed and only got up on Tuesday morning to be driven by my son (and 'readied') by my daughter, to attend the small Graveside service funeral of my sister.
Cousins came from Liverpool, Stratford and Kent. I avoided kisses and left after a cup of tea locally. My daughter had 'Lateral flow' tested me then and since Tuesday I have done two more tests..both negative...and yet I literally have an exhausting cough and have never experienced a 'cold' or 'flu' like this. I have been back in bed since Tuesday and ....
The result today was ......positive......I knew at the back of my mind that this was Covid ....in all of my 67 years, 'flu' or a 'cold' has never made me feel this way.....and in fact, I wondered if my mind was preparing me for some sort of mental wind down as the last part of a 'things have been truly terrible, you need to just give in now' warning ........and without saying this to elicit sympathy...........truly....just to state facts.....in the last couple of years I have moved house, divorced a husband of nearly 40 years, lost my father, sat and watched my mother die in hospital, watched my sister die in hospital, and lived alone through a pandemic that has been a living nightmare.... a constant 'one step forward twenty seven steps back' existence.
The Covid/NHS app has been completed and I will continue to self isolate for the next week.......but God ....grant me strength..please.
Although I chose her clothes, and had trusted that the Funeral Directors had dressed her in them, yesterday, at the funeral, as we stood by the graveside, I couldn't help but wonder if she was warm enough down there deep in the earth.
On Tuesday of this week, the 14th, my older sister died.
In the same hospital where earlier this year, on the 14th of a different month, our mother died.
The same experience of death.
It crossed my mind as I drove home, distraught and sobbing, that in certain situations, for instance War, people possibly saw death almost too frequently to even take it in...that it became something they just acknowledged, or didn't......that it was too commonplace and inevitable to notice.
Let alone to cry over.
And I also wondered about how I could possibly and truly believe in two separate and different things at the same time......absolutely ........that there is no God and once you die you are just an empty skin and bone mass to be disposed of,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,and yet at the same time believed that there is some sort of 'other place' and existence to go to.
I only know that as I stroked her face and kissed her, I whispered to her 'can you see mom? shes's there waiting for you...go to her darling....go to her'
And she did.
Ma died this morning.
She had a fall nearly 3 weeks ago and was in Hospital, where I have been for most of the time......she had a bleed on the brain and was too old and frail for brain surgery.
Letting 'nature take it's course' for the last week she has had no hydration, food, water or medication of any kind.
Watching someone die ...... It isn't quick and clean and quiet and peaceful...it is painful and noisy and smelly and frightening and sad and feels inhumane.
Time stretches and slows down and speeds up and hovers and becomes air that you can feel.
In the brief period of her rallying last weekend she told me how much she loved me.
A turbulent fractured relationship.....but through holding her hand and kisses on her soft familiar face I knew I loved her too.
