MY BLOGGING LIFE HAS COME FULL CIRCLE

I started off my blogging career by reading the excellent  Judith O'Reiley's blog www.wifeinthenorth.com. She hooked me into a fascinating way of life and a great circle of friends.  Judith is the author of two books (Wife in the North and A Year of Doing Good) and was the first blog I "followed".  Now she is "following" me.  Welcome to my humble abode Judith. 

Hopefully my writing "mojo" will return because I have, of late, been very remiss with my postings.  Don't you just hate it when that happens?  How can you describe the guilt you feel?

But why did I stop writing? That's quite difficult to anaylise.  My nearest and dearest seem to think that I lost my general joie de vivre when my daughter and son-in-law took two of my grandchildren to live abroad without leaving a forwarding address. This is not something that I care to elaborate on right now, but suffice to say I miss my grandchildren very much. Family has always been my first priority in life.

I don't necessarily agree with this hypothesis.  I believe that the simple explanation is that I'm just too goddamn lazy and most days can't be arsed to do much. 

So...my life over the last 2 months?  I guess one of the most significant things to happen is that one of my beloved grandsons went off to Sheffield University to study History and French. He seems to have settled in very well and says his course work is not giving him too many sleepless nights, he gets on well with his flatmates and now has a new circle of NBF's to add to his already long list of BF's!  He is a very sociable and amiable boy and I love him dearly. Good luck Ali, you deserve the best.

Continuing on the educational theme, my greatgranddaughter Elise and grandson Taylor have both started Senior School.  This is a huge change for both of them, having moved from from a small village school they are now swimming with sharks!  They are coping OK, but I'm terrified.  Such big changes in their young hormonal lives.  Are they able to deal with these new challenges?  Luckily they both have amazing parents who give them understanding, love and support.  Good luck to you both, you also deserve the best.

Vinnie, another of my beloveds, came over from Austrralia for a few weeks and we manage to get a few hours together.  We even meet up with his elusive brother Frazer at a family get together to celebrate Davy's birthday.  Davy hated going out to eat.  He always said "why drink wine when you can have champagne at home?"  He said that about other (nameless) things too! BUT he did like family celebrations and, apart from home, his favourite place to eat was The George at Stamford. After he died it became something of a ritual to meet up there every year on his birthday. 

My big news is that friends I made on the South Pacific cruise invited me to their Australian beach house for the post-christmas period.  Was I tempted or what?  You bet I was!!!  My mind went into overdrive.  If I'm going all that way it would be a pity not to see Western Australia. Travel up to Darwin via Perth and Ayres Rock arriving back in Sydney by 25th February in time to catch the 61 day cruise back to Southampton via the Panama Canal. 

Wooohhhh! Hold on to your horses Ann.  What about the Oz-Bus reunion at my house in January? What about the house build that seems close to being resolved with the Planning Department? Stop!  I calmed down, arranged to take a rain check until next year and booked myself onto a 12 day cruise to Madeira instead.  A good compomise solution!

Anything else?  Apart putting in an Official Complaint against the wretched Planning Office?  Oh yes, last night I went to see Andy Fairweather Low in concert.  That's a blast from the past!  My two young reluctant companions (who had never heard of him) actually enjoyed themselves.  Maybe it gave them an added dimension into how life used to be, proving that there was life before binge drinking and facebook.  Only kidding girls.