A Brand New Bright Tomorrow?

Sometimes words fail me. I dry up. Sentences wither in my head.

The lead up to Christmas was second to none. This is the first Christmas we have spent at this house in this village in Hadrian's Wall Country.

We put up our Christmas tree taken in from the garden and the children helped to decorate it. Tinsel was draped on nearly every picture frame. Christmas cards galore festooned the sitting room and the multi-coloured lights twinkled merrily on our two trees and around our street facing windows.

Our daughter was one of the angels in the school nativity play. We attended Christingle at the local Church where the school children sang very sweetly.


Christmas parties. Many.


Christmas lights. Multitudinous.


Christmas carols. Plentiful.


Christmas sweets and presents. In abundance.

December 22nd. A telephone call from Surrey. Husband's father was in hospital in a diabetes-induced coma.

December 25th. Out of the blue. After Christmas lunch. Another telephone call. Husband's mother had been rushed to hospital. She died later that day.

I had been wondering, these last ten days, whether to blog about all of this or not. Nevertheless here I am.

The shock of it all is beginning to recede a little. She had not been well for some time now. She would have preferred to have gone in this way. Suddenly. No dragged out death.

I was going to honour her memory with a moving Catullus poem but, on reflection, it would have meant nothing to her.

She loved her animals...especially her dogs (all retrievers), her garden, her house and antiques. She was also a good cook. She loved it when her children invited their friends and their friends back to her home. She cooked for all and sundry. She adored that. She has given these gifts and much more to my husband. (Although he steadfastly disagrees that he has green fingers.)


Sometimes, especially towards the end, she was not an easy person. Her heart was definitely in the right place though. She was a very loving, giving and emotional person.

She brought two very special people into the world (my husband and his sister). Her husband thinks the world of her. And still does. Fingers crossed that he pulls through all of this.



So I have posted some photos of flowers here for her. (The above photo is of her cooking some mince pies in December 2005.)






She was a home maker par excellence. She never fully appreciated her talents and she definitely had these. For they were many, multitudinous, plentiful and in abundance.

She will be much missed.

May she rest in peace.