Well amigos, you've travelled with me far and wide across the lands and seas, and to the depths of my sadness at losing my mom and later having to move from the country which holds my heart... You've also stayed with me during the hights of my happiness... With wonderful memories...

You've maybe laughed with me? Cried with me? Been exasperated with me... or at me!!

Now another long journey is ahead of me, one we, Franco and I, should not be traveling, not for twenty or thirty years... Yet here we are, and again I will have to vent here, write while I cry, write while my heart bleeds tears and my very being is smashed and torn ripped and I will be left, if there is anything left... Empty and small and... What? I don't know...

As you must have gleaned from previous posts, Franco has been living with the demon cancer... Pancreatic, yes, the one that they still cannot fathom, the little weird shaped blighter hides purposely behind the stomach where it pretty much gets on and does its thing and bides its time...

... until it's too late, apparently...
CT MRI colonoscopy and endoscopy tests later, the dark truth is told and our lives changed forever...

Franco is being so strong, very calm and talking like it's a done deal and things need sorting, and what can't be, won't be something he has to worry about any more...

I can't imagine what he is really thinking, feeling, he's starting to write it down, hopefully it will help him, it's good to talk/write, therapeutic...  He tells me to be strong, to be less emotional, less worried, less everything I am, I can't, I'm in pieces... I can't even imagine things not being like they are, it would be different if we didn't talk day and night, or had our own separate interests, or didn't go and do everything together...

Today I had an appointment with Cudeca, the cancer hospice down at Arroyo de Miel, we drove through the not so new tunnel from De la Torre to Torremolinos, been open a couple of years now I think... So we been through it from both directions!

We're also off to UK, leaving a friend to house sit at short notice! We're seeing my boys and families.... Then down to Wales seeing friends and work friends... Then home.

My appointment, I went off track didn't I... Wasn't easy, wasn't nice or real... I so seem to be most, no scratch that, some of the time I am living a reality that just isn't real anymore, I'm living a reality that I would have been living for many many years to come... Then it's slap bang punch to the guts this isn't real anymore, nothing will ever be the same...

I found myself apologising to a good friend the other day, I didn't realise, I never understood how she felt when she lost her husband, I just had no idea... She said, no one can know, you have to live it, to know it...

I don't want to live it, I don't want to know it...

I've never felt so small...

Feel sure I should be writing something on here... Just not sure what, or even a why now...

Franco has come home from hospital, a week ago last Friday... I don't think I can write on here at the moment about stuff, so keeping it photographs and whatever...

Francos sister and son have been over, we have been out and about, below La Trocha set up for chess...

And on the top of Miramar at Las Lagunas its Christmas time already!  Lots of family entertainment for young and old!

I asked Father Christmas and his elf to pose for me for a moment!

Sun snow sky and sea.... part of a shed and a Christmas tree!

We went to the car boot sale at the Hipódromo at La Cala de Mijas yesterday, it was okay, or even quite good, especially after the same 'ol same 'ol up at La Trocha on a Sunday.  We had had a spot of rain earlier on and wind was whipping up but it stayed away while we were up there almost at the top of the mountain!

The rain came down later though, by the bucketful, and it rained most of the night and still this morning on and off... Took Pipster out and it started to spit and spot on our way home!

TTFN
Marian

Angels without wings

First these photographs... We've been 'steam punked'... Well, sort of, we have the coolest pipework in the house now, to keep us warm... Above photograph I took yesterday on the terrace zooming into the floor level in the lounge below...

and from the living room looking up into the blue beyond... Then the test fire! Smoke signals away!

and.... how it looks in the lounge! I'll take a shot of the wood burner tomorrow!  The pipe is lovely and warm, radiating heat up through the house, so very cool! in a wonderfully hot way!

Now to more 'real' things... I am back home as you can see, I shouldn't be of course! Due to leave work as I was on Friday this week and home on the Saturday, but it was an emergency, for Franco... He needed to stay in hospital for some tests, and of course couldn't with the Pipster here!  So I flew home the following day, and Franco was able to get in first thing Friday morning.

I must say if it wasn't for some very real angels without wings I would have had a journey of hell to get back as quick as I did, not just physically but mentally!... My manager of course first, in finding the lady I support cover as quickly as she did, which enabled me to book the flight quickly... and to that support angels mom who got her on the car insurance to speed up her arrival at placement as quickly as she did!

A word from a sister to call a near sister... miles of driving in her car instead of buses and trains and late arrival into an unknown hotel in the middle of the night or early hours! But a comfortable ride and a listening ear, a bed in her family home and ride in the morning to Bristol airport... The flight was cheap thank goodness, although whatever price would have been good to go!

Then on home soil a friends mom came for me, waiting at arrivals by her car for me when I got there, only my hand luggage that I now carry I was landed and out in about ten minutes, even the flight booking gave me a 5th row isle seat for free!

Twenty seven hours after Francos call I was with him in hospital!
Málaga University hospital is the best, fantastic staff, 24 hour visiting hours, five meals a day, for Franco that is!  The rooms are all two bed, and the other guy he shares with is nice, they get on great and similar problems.  The rooms are cleaned over three times a day! A bit noisy, but then most hospitals are noisy! and with no quantity of visitors restrictions that the UK has, some people have quite a few visitors at any one time and voices carry...

Franco didn't want to cancel the wood burner installation, but they too were great!  Arrived earlier than the time they said, so before 8am, short breakfast and lunch breaks and they were all done by 4pm.... and then I was off to Málaga, and when offered a tenner more, to round it up, he said 'no'... the price is the price, and nada mas!

Okay amigos, don't worry, leave me to do that, because I can assure you I am!
No answers on here by-the-by, so its either email or one of the other many forms of getting me!

TTFN
Marian

One of my creations...