Above, my newest tattoo... I added this beautiful piece of ink on my break, the day Pippa left this world of ours.. At Woody's in Exhall...

I stayed the night in the Novotel at Birmingham airport.. Was a strange slightly unreal experience.. Masks, distancing.. Everyone looking weary, very surreal.

I was absolutely exhausted, slept, ate, slept...

The hotel Ibis I normally stay in, it was shut, and looking at it in the morning remembering photographs I have taken in reverse..

But me now home and I am happy here again at last, I didn't think I ever would be, or could be.. But I am.

I made a marshmallow pie, very sweet! Bit too much!!!

Bit like dinner this evening, I was planning on making chicken supreme, when that was underway I checked the minced beef I bought yesterday and it looked a bit iffy, so opened it.. Color was weird, but then I thought, I hadn't seen minced beef since ... I think maybe over a year ago!?! But not wishing to risk it or waste it, I made a Bolognese at the same time.

I ate some chicken, wrapped up two more portions of that, and have made up two of the Bolognese.. Three meals in the freezer one in the refrigerator!

And a visit to the garden centre on Monday! Good to be home.. I bought a hardy looking little shrub, the name of which I don't remember, and a Vicks vapour plant!! Who'd have known that! Smells lovely! Both seem like they should manage drought.. We'll see I guess. I can't believe the plants I have, have survived so well, over four months!! Although there has been intermittent rain, and the overnight moisture we get.. It's been enough.

This week, AC ordered for my bedroom.. And a new bed, an ottoman bed, really need the storage this will facilitate. New Spanish SIM card, new special padron ordered.. Ant traps and mosquito pots all in place!

Okay, caught up? Been to the bar for coffee with friends in the mornings, I've been down to La Cala market, and the Coín car boot sale!

I've met with friends for coffee and seen so many people I haven't seen for far too long..

Now I'm caught up?

TTFM
Marian

July 20, 2020

Such a beautiful morning this morning, when I walked down to the store to collect the newspaper, a beautiful breeze.

It felt like the kind of day one should be going on an adventure...

All of above written a couple of days ago..

And now my world has changed yet again..

Ever changing.. I am at my limit now of change, of loss, of grief.. I can't take much more..

My Pippa, our Pippa..
She didn't wake up this morning..

And I can't bear it..

I know I had to say goodbye nearly two years ago.. Without even looking I know it was August 6th 2018.

Now today I have to say goodbye again..
When she had a stroke nearly two weeks ago, and I prayed for Franco to bring her home..

Maybe he has.. maybe it's just her time..

I had a song stuck in my head all yesterday afternoon until this morning.. round and round it's been going even through my dreams..

The song Welcome Home.. I'll get it here now..

It's a different version to the Peter's and Lee.. and one I prefer.. please don't judge!

Pippa is home now.

One more night.. at work.
I want to be home too.

Oh I added to a collection today, maybe tomorrow I'll explain.

TTFN
Marian


Be strong enough to let go and patient enough to wait for what you deserve

Unknown

Read something like this this morning..

A champion is afraid of losing, everyone
else is afraid of winning..

I wonder if I am afraid of being happy again.. I mean.. what if?

Just a thought, I self destruct things in my life, I put barriers where there should be none, I go out of my way to find fault; I don't feel sometimes that I have a right to be happy, not now.

Still lost as to who I am now, that's the thing, so many things to everyone else, as we all are, but who am I to me.

Below a photograph from this morning.. again, still my birthday.

Mmm think I'll save this post for tomorrow.. I might brighten up later!

What do you make of it? This photograph, very strange; answers on a postcard please. Zoom in, it looks weirder still!

By the by.. I'll tell you tomorrow, if I don't forget.


Song

Now it's July 18th.. I had a good day, really, two cards, one from the family here, and one from the lady who came in to give me my two hours break, so sweet of her.

I saw my boys and their families.. albeit videocall.. but it was absolutely wonderful.

And now it's another day, and a few days left and I can go home.


TTFN
Marian

Caught, photographically speaking, this bee yesterday morning.. on the buddleia.. it's just coming into bloom, and later the cardinal butterfly was all over it.. the buddleia, not the bee! That would just be weird!!

Lols having trouble typing this morning, have been far too headachy recently.. felt very odd yesterday evening.. just very tired now, six weeks yesterday at this placement, long days.. and not sleeping well at all now..

You know, I'm glad we can't see the future.. the wonderful that happens unexpectedly.. is wonderful, but bad things would break us...

Just saying...

It's my birthday today.. I love my birthdays, always have, and I guess always will now.. I'm like a kid, I get so excited the days, (weeks), before, then can sometimes, usually, fall with a bang when .. when I don't know what.. Still waiting for my dad to turn up probably.. which would totally freak me out, him having died 50 years ago now.

So I'm just left waiting..

And on this note, sounds like I've fallen already, which is bad for not even nine in the morning..

It's a beautiful day; it is.

Wish you all could join me today, massive street party! How cool that would be, how diverse how many languages, how many amazing people.. thank you for travelling with me, very very much.. all part of each others stories..

TTFN
Marian

Mmm began this post a few days ago, prepped the song and a bit about a bike.. and the poem..

Today I am post migraine, the migraines of nowadays luckily not like they were, strange visual effects though just the same..

And today writing is proving difficult..
July 12th..

Okay, been out driving in the fairly nice weather.. last evening a drive to one of the centres of England! Meriden a village in the borough of Solihull! Who knew I was so near to Solihull!

Seems the town is only one of many with claims to be the centre of these green and pleasant lands.. but the name Meriden, so like Meridian.. must be for a very good reason!?!

Even Aylesbury when living there seems to want in on that action!

A bike the other morning on the path.. mm so this was days ago.. a man came flying along the path nearly taking me out in the process.. what's wrong with the wide road next to him? Who knows? Maybe a shout of warning would have been nice!

And this Android 10 has completely broken my phone now.. and I am going to get cross!! Lols! Very cross, very soon!

The evening before was a nature evening, beginning with a female pheasant with six babies!! So cute! First time in my life I have seen baby pheasants!

Followed closely by a small rabbit and a weasel! Lols.. No! Obviously not litteraly followed by! That would just be weird and very.. Riverbank stories world!

I mean over the next five minutes of driving though!

And finishing up with a green field.. nothing plowed or just seeded..

Standing by their hundreds, black birds.. standing all facing the one direction, very very spooky!

Very Hitchcock!

Enough now, phone driving me bananas!

Lauv and  Ellie Goulding Slow Grenade

TTFN
Marian


Those of you who travel with me, and have done for many years now, know maybe? That I republish a poem here, every so many years.. I guess when it pops into my head, just checked back and found I last did this December 2018.. so not long ago.. Heart of Stone.. it's called..

Not sure why I think of it as I do..

I have two of my albums flicking through on the TV in here..

I look now and again and see wonderful memories from New York two years ago and Naples last November..

Now and again I see a photograph I took of a random banana under a random shrub somewhere.. in the New York album..

It always makes me smile, remembering the banana incident, back in Westbury Sub Mendip! A couple of years ago now...

I guess if you put banana in the search up there, top left-hand corner you might find said incident! Making you work today eh!!

Tesco has delivered today already, thank you very much!

And I await a collection of a box to wing it's way to me back home; it'll be there ahead of me of course.. but only by ten days or so! It'll take about four or five days to get there.

Out driving the last couple of evenings, really seeing a difference now in traffic volume, lots more cars, pub carparks full, people spilling out into beer gardens..

Would put another James Blunt song here, but...

TTFN
Marian


I understand now that I’m not a mess but a deeply feeling person in a messy world. I explain that now, when someone asks me why I cry so often, I say, ‘For the same reason I laugh so often-because I’m paying attention. “‘ – Glennon Doyle Melton

Got out today, lols I mean for a walk and a wander.. lovely weather and took a walk!

It was nice to be walking, lovely being out in the countryside, bees buzzing, flowers moving in the breeze.. a track to walk beside a small river..

(Not going to say where it isn't, ya'all know where I mean by now?)

James Blunt Monsters

There's a great many things hard to fathom in darkness that set themselves straight in the light of day.
Quote from 'Once upon a river' by Diane Setterfield

I know I'm not, by far, the only person who lives in the past sometimes..

Not all day or all night, not even every day but sometimes, just snippets, when I'm doing something or even reading or watching the TV.. and it's like a flicker book.. I'm back somewhere, and I can see and feel it all.. like it was yesterday.

The thoughts that pop up in this manner are wonderful memories, happy days when the world was the right way up.. and then the ache in the heart comes.. it feels like a real pain.. and my chest tightens and I breathe so shallow.. as I realize once more it's not then.. it's now.. and a memory just surfaced was maybe five or ten years past.. and I'm shattered and my heart is bleeding, again.

I wonder if this happens more and more, not less and less.. I mean I do have more time behind me than I can ever have in front..

Time to make the very best of what's ahead so when I look back at this time.. there'll be good flicker pictures now too.. I'm trying, sometimes it doesn't work.


This post came today courtesy of Resolven market.

As I sat here with my first coffee of the day, reading my book, and I was transported to the Saturday market at Resolven.. thrown back into time, without leaving my seat!

TTFN
Marian

Change can be beautiful when we are brave enough to evolve with it, and change can be brutal when we fearfully resist.
Bryant McGill

Posted and editing for a song which just came up on my phone..

Thank you James Blunt perfect song for today..

Just about to start a new book.. Finished the last yesterday.. it was so good and I needed a bit of a gap before a new one.. to clear it through.. lol defrag! Lols old term now already.. where did old tech go..

Anyways! It's called Once Upon a River, by Diane Setterfield; I read about it, liked what I read and bought it.

Only on the bit at the beginning.. not reached part 1 yet.. but these opening lines sound wonderful!

Along the borders of this world lie others.

There are places you can cross.

This is one such place.

Doesn't it! 

And so I begin..

Okay! Later then..

Today, after my usual four hours sleep!! Something woke me with a jolt I actually woke scared!

Took ages to get back to sleep and everything was keeping me from doing so.

It's another gray day, walked to the shop in a light drizzle without my coat on.. it's not cold at all.

And well, that's it! No thoughts for today! They're all asleep still, being so busy during the night!

Let me drag a photograph here though, I'll see what grabs me ... Bare with amigos!

My Pippa.. two days ago.. She's 14 now, and now I'll post this and get the hell out of my blog.