On being grateful

I have had a spring in my step this week, when your week starts with a gathering of your favourite people and my wedding anniversary how could I not?

I feel so blessed to have spent nineteen years married to the most wonderful man.  I won't pretend that it has always been easy, but life isn't all the time is it.  It has its ups and downs but they are so much easier to navigate when we are surrounded by those that we love.  We have stayed friends, a piece of advice given to me by my father, on my wedding day, which I didn't appreciate the importance of until those difficult times.

We are slowly finding our groove again as the meet ups we go to that only happen in term time start up once more.  Finding myself in a room full of excited people all talking at once was, for once, really nourishing.  I struggle to hear and follow a conversation in that kind of environment these days, my age showing, but it didn't matter as I just absorbed all the loveliness of the people in the room and their happiness at being together again.

The past few months have been unsettling at times, lots of changes many of them completely unexpected and totally out of our control.   When you get told something is going to change it can be so disappointing, but I know that life has to move on, and shift, as needs change.  But when you are only told half the story which leaves you feeling excluded and then blaming the wrong person it hurts.  Why?  Why would anyone do that?  The time I took to pause and breathe in to work out where to go next was long, but necessary, we have moved on and worked out where we fit in.

I live in a beautiful place, a peaceful country - well mostly I am trying hard not to worry about what is going on within my county politically.  Sometime it feels like that really scary bit of a film that you really want to watch, but hiding behind the sofa is where you really want to be.  Somehow I don't think hiding behind the sofa will resolve the problem.  We have put our trust in these people and they are behaving like a group of toddlers who all want to play with the same toy. So to the beauty, we have been enjoying a morning walk to get our day started, we had been doing this for some months before the summer and then inexplicably in the warmest times we stopped. I am studiously ignoring the fact that the temperatures outside have dropped to the point that wearing sandals makes my toes feel like they are about to drop off, instead we don our hats, coats and shoes and drink up some of the wonderful surroundings that we are blessed to call home.

I made a new friend last week, a lovely lady that has come into my life with perfect timing.  A dear friend moved away to Ireland last month and another is going off travelling soon for a year on a journey to find a new place to lay their heads and call home, both of these lovely people have daughters so life has changed for Alice too.  The timing is perfect, had she come into my life six months ago I know I wouldn't be feeling the same, our lives were too busy and full to let anyone else in.  I know that I would have missed out on an opportunity to connect with a like minded soul who has come into our lives at the right time for us, when we were wondering how to fill the big aching, gaping hole left by friends going off for exciting adventures.  We are feeling very blessed and the future feels different now.

Alice and I are going off for a micro adventure of our own next week.  Three days away, just me and her.  We are leaving Cameron at home.  It feels like a big step, but the right one for everyone.  He will be on his own during two of those days, Dad will be out at work coming home for the evenings.  We have a lovely neighbour, retired, who is in all the time, he is on call if Cameron needs someone.  He has been our neighbour since before we became parents, the children love spending time with him.  I know that Cameron is in safe hands with him next door.  So a new door in our lives is opening, who knows what is through that door?  More adventures I hope.

I will be offline whilst I am away so I look forward to catching up with you all when I return and to fill you in with what we have been up to.

Bye for now.