Few more photographs from Sherwood Forest, and the shopping area before you enter the park, filled with eateries and craft stores...

Heard the word 'Paxes' the other day in a TV show, I hadn't heard the word in decades, in fact probably hadn't used it since school days .. 

It's a good word, maybe we should use it more, instead of talking around in circles, just agree to paxes, and move on! In British school slang, it's a call for a truce or an end to fighting.

Tattoo! Monday morning had an appointment in Nottingham with Gerry Carnelly, 

Only had two last year! One in January in Bewdley and the second one in Fuengirola.. 

I had been thinking of a scarab beetle, another Egyptian tattoo... Another link to my mom's father.. 

It is beautiful! He did an amazing piece of art work on my body, very very pleased...

I am slowing down now with the tattoos, I want one more large one, then maybe a few more smaller ones, then, I guess, I'll have to call it a day on my tats! Maybe eh!?!

Snow ice cold.. but only a few flakes of snow, some ice hung around on the ground for a few days, but after last night's rain that's all gone now... Or so it seems... I was so scared walking on Monday, after falling over in November it'ls made me so nervous! I got the train into town, and a guy was gritting the steps and platform, he told me he has to take photographs of the grit on the platform, because some staff say they're gritting and don't?? What the hell? Why wouldn't you do this it job? I don't understand at all!

I had such a beautiful dream earlier, just taking a siesta, was watching something on tv, and feeling incredibly tired .. (must sort out this problem!)

In my dream I was in my old childhood home of my stepdads, I knew he and my mom were somewhere nearby, I was in the living room, talking with someone, and a piece of music started playing, Maña, Vivir Sin Aire..  And then we were dancing, close and happy, and all and everything was right with my world.

M.

Sometimes the best memories are the most painful

Isn't this the truth... They really are..

When I fished my Blog, just now .. I finished my coffee also, and looking down into my cup, a feather .. signs eh! Last night, I was watching the New Snow White film .. it's lovely... Maybe not for everyone... But my inner child loves these movies .. fairytales, hopes and dreams .. 

Anyways!! So I was watching above movie on my Kindle, and stopped... Thinking back to when Franco and Barry and I were here, and we were out front one evening late, enjoying the warm evening and running around like crazies trying to catch fireflies... 

So I got out of bed, it was around 11:30pm maybe.. crouched down and looked out of my bedroom window into the dark outside.. and there! Immediately! A firefly! Just for me, down where we chased them before, and just the one. Courtesy of Franco, I felt.

I waited about ten minutes, but no more .. I always look out of window, but hadn't seen one for years...

And like the feather in my coffee grounds above.. just small gifts, just for me.

Now I am getting around to what happend the Sunday before last.

I knew we were going to visit where I grew up, I was looking forward to walking around where I was used to walk.. 

I thought, I'm going to see what's for sale around there, so I Googled properties for sale! And I clicked on a house down our street, they were all laid out pretty much the same when I was there, two up, two down! We had a mangle house out the back, two story! 

I clicked on street view to see which house it is.. I hadn't zoomed in on the front door, it was, after all, just one of the houses in our street ..

Not sure if you're ahead of me by now? I'm sure some of you are ..

It isn't just one of the houses down our street, it is our house!

WoW! 

Our house, my house! My grandmother, my great grandmother.. it's our family home.

And now I am digging myself a big pit of despair and disappointment as all I want is to be back in there again, wrapped up in warm memories and familiar places...

The chances of my house being for sale? Right when I go to look on property for sale there? 

It's meant to be right?? I am laughing in my head! 

I can dream, and I do love to dream, to plan, to imagine..  

But I am well aware I'll be upset when it sells, if not to me... 

And the big, big thing about being there, later, parking up near my house, walking around the small parade of stores, walking up our street.. I actually, since coming back in October, I actually felt like I was home.

You know how I have happy days and those sad days, I spill them here regularly don't I..

Today I woke up sad, maybe the firefly from last night? Now the feather in my coffee cup, the tale of Snow White has it's ups and downs, as fairy tales do...

It's my birthday tomorrow! That's it! Retirement! It's a big stepping stone in life isn't it? I hadn't really thought about it, only in a joking way, as my countdown app on my phone told me the years ticking off, I put the app on about four years ago! Now it's down to hours .. 

Less time, as I screenshot and place here, than I realized! Also confused about the actual countdown time!?! Should be more than that, a few hours more!?! 

As for me here it's 10:55am here, as I write.. 13 hours to go until my birthday! And if I'm being exact... Plus 3hrs more for being born in Cali!

Not posting until later, when I'm sure my birthday will have arrived in the UK before I do! 

And now, need to re-set my mind! 

Look where I am and with whom. Only as my eyes well up... I guess, it's really what's missing is what hurts isn't it. 

M.

But know this - despite the distance and time put behind me, whenever I glance at the rearview mirror

I still hope to see you.

J. Raymond 

A part of a poem from The Kindred Project

Talking to a friend this morning about dreams..

"My dreams are always very vivid very real to me at the time.. I never have lucid dreams Where I can control anything..

But sometimes like last night it was in a house I visit now only in my dreams.. it's weird.. like I have another life there!!"

It's true, I have visited this house in my dreams for more than twenty years in my dreams..

It is more or less the same house, in the same street.

Except there is a massive sun room at the front and a long, very long corridor upstairs.

In last night's dream there was a huge crack in the upstairs wall, and I was showing it to people who were there... The house slightly rocked and the crack opened more..

Some water was coming down from the ceiling above the crack.

*Walls represent keeping people out of your heart. This is usually due to some early childhood conditioning. In regression I have noticed that this wall is usually fully built by the age three. As a child we cannot reason and live through expressing our feelings as we experience them. We are also highly tuned into the feelings of those charged with our care. Being in a position where you feel you are in the way or unloved starts this process off. The first two years are spent in emotional confusion and then the wall building starts.*

Can't seem to find info on cracked walls..

*Crack. To dream of a crack represents a flaw or imperfection in some area of your life. Once stable beliefs or relationships are beginning reveal problems. Cracks may also reflect situations that were perceived to be safe or balanced and are now unable to maintain composure or “keep it together.*

But putting these together..

I suppose is most definitely me.. I know walls in dreams tell me of the walls I build around myself..

But the crack wasn't a good sign..

Actually on reflection most of the dreams in that house usually are me trying to rebuild my walls.. or hiding from people..

I'm glad I remember my dreams, I just have to grab the memory of them quickly when I wake up or they fade away like wisps of mist.. sometimes something triggers them during the day.. and it comes back.

TTFN
Marian

and finally...

My dream last night...

I had a weird dream last night, or rather just before I woke up this morning, and luckily it stayed in my mind as I got up out of bed..

I was trapped on the side of a mountain, bare rock, mountain above me and mountain below me. There were others with me after a few minutes, but no interaction.  Then I found a bit near someones terrace, a lady started talking to me over the wall, and after a while I, jumped over and the lady gave me a hug, but then I went straight back to the mountain side.  Trapped once more.

Then I woke up, and I laughed to myself as I remembered and went over the dream.. I wasn't trapped when the lady had called me over, onto her terrace... Yet I had chosen to go back to the mountain and be trapped.

Then I kind of realized freeing myself is up to me.. If I am trapped, it is of my own making.

What a revelation! What an amazing dream! Incredible.

And I know I guess, I am trapping myself, not here in Spain, I know I don't ever want to leave here, this is truly my home, but I mean trapping myself with the past...

Thursday I accepted a placement for work, it starts next week, Tuesday. It is in Neath, somewhere I know so well... It will be great having so many friends nearby.  Bittersweet maybe in other ways. But I know the area so well, and will meet up with people... It will be great, it will be good for me. Its just three weeks, perfect amount of time.

And my next Blog will be from there... Who'd have guessed it eh!

TTFN
Marian

The open road.... It really is isn't it?

Yes, its been a while! I hadn't realised, been busy editing a book and just being....

I am going to begin with a dream I had last night, very symbolic... I was on land, and I had to cross a large expanse of water... I could see no land to my left or right... The water was frozen in parts, I knew I had to cross it, someone was with  me, a man I couldn't see, but I felt his strength.  I walked over the lake, even the parts with no ice, and I reached the land on the other side.

And it felt right... Telling me to brave the divide and take the risk...

Purloined this photo, changed the position of the jetty, added string of light's and Pinned it! This is now the jetty at my cabin, by the lake... Hey, dreams they do come true, I know this for sure...

Wishing very much this is where I am today...

It's my mom's birthday, I think this cabin of mine first took shape when I sat daily with my mom during her last week's, days... moment's... I tried to take my mom to places she had been, talking about Paris from her 'bucket list, our trips to Italy, back home in the states, and Spain...

I talked of strange dreams she had had and told me off; one such dream of a handsome man who she met on the fire escape outside her apartment window in New York, consistently over the years, and as the years passed both her and he aged... I like to think they are both young again now...

I also spoke of this cabin, I drew a mental picture of a home, my home, for mom, describing as if real... I took us there... down a quiet road, a turn, a gate, a drive through woods, there the cabin, the lake, a single level white painted cabin, up a small wide stairway, a complete wraparound porch, I told her there were two beautiful old rocking chairs near the front door, I asked her to sit in one and wait for me...

I imagined it for no reason at all in New England, Maine... lol, I know strange!?!  But last year going through things of moms I hadn't seen, I came across letters photos, books other memorabilia... my mom had vacationed with her parents at another families home in... Bar Harbor, Maine!  Her last trip would have been when she was eight, or even seven, her father died when she was nearly nine, and by nine taken to England 'to be schooled'...  So maybe she doesn't, didn't even really remember much of where she had been, she never spoke of holidays with this family they knew...

I learnt recently that the Incas belief of past, present and future was very different from ours, that all times are now, that memories of those gone and to come are with us, at all times... Bit 'out there' I realise, but is this why we know things, feel things about places we have never been to, a connection?

TTFN
Marian