A brief History of time, 2012 to the present day.

I doubt it will be brief. It may well take a few posts to catch up.

Scratch that. I started but there's too much. Suffice to say all three offspring achieved fantastically well in their studies - a First, two Masters and a best in subject award. All of them settled, working, two married, one local, one down South and one on the other side of the world. Guess which one? They've not all had easy journeys to get here but such is life. There has been travel to far flung places, study abroad, each have had multiple house moves, new jobs, dogs, and recently lost dogs. We've also had semi retirement, unemployment, self employment.

We've had losses too, my mother in law and my dad. I miss my dad.

2018 deserves a special mention. It started badly, my dad died suddenly on the morning of the 3rd January. He was the King of Dads; a quiet, unassuming man, he would have been shocked at how many people loved and admired him. The messages to my mum were full of lovely words. He taught me a certain independence, gave me knowledge and life skills, love. He is irreplaceable in my life.

One of my dad's life lessons was the value of a 'sod it' fund. A small pot of cash that mean't you were free to act if things weren't going to plan. Thanks dad.

When he died I was working in a lovely school for a head that was, lets say, difficult. She was, is, a bully and a narcissist. Up to that point I wasn't on her radar and was fairly adept at grey-rocking any attention; don't feed it, don't engage. I loved my work so it was a compromise. But it changed after my dad. I couldn't ignore the bullying of a hardworking colleague, the lies, the gas-lighting. My emotional strength was on the wane, I was angry with everything, so I raised my head above the parapet and got shot at. I'm not going into detail. It wasn't pretty and to be honest unless you've worked for a person like that, secondhand explanations of the abuse, because that's what it is, just don't do it justice.

So I took my sod it fund, put it to good use and walked away, along with other colleagues, two of which remain firmly in my life and are the best, strongest women I'll probably ever meet.

For every negative, there is a positive.

Another strand to 2018 was a worry about the youngest. A routine echo combined with some dodgy blood results brought back some long buried concerns. Months passed before we got to the bottom of it and my initial fears were unsubstantiated but it was another reminder of the fragility of her health and added a further stress to my emotional and mental health.

I was glad to see the back of that year.

2019 brought the two aforementioned weddings, Eldest and The Prince  (seems I missed a trick here - this post should be entitled A Funeral and Two Weddings) Both were fabulous days, so memorable, so different to each other. Youngest, not to be outdone, had her own way of marking 2019 - by moving to the other side of the world! She's currently residing in Melbourne with her boyfriend who has a sponsored post until 2021. Covid-19 put a halt on our plans to visit and is continuing to keep us apart. I miss her so much; I'm reminded of one of my first ever blog posts about her when she was in hospital and the physical ache when you can't hold your sick child. It feels akin to that at the moment.

Bastard pandemic.

The 4th of July

This weekend marked the 4th of July. American Independence under normal circumstances - normal? will there ever be a 'normal'? There's been an attempt at it - this 4th of July was designated #SuperSaturday by our esteemed Prime Minister. The day the pubs reopened. Typical Brit mentality; you can't get a face-to-face appointment with a hospital consultant to discuss your chronic or even acute health condition but you can go sup a pint at your local. Priorities people!

Whether you think opening the pubs was a good idea or the equivalent of throwing typhoid Mary into the crowd at a Take That concert I can't help but baulk at the method. Why open on a Saturday, why not a wet Tuesday afternoon? Big on announcements, shy with the detail is the order of the day again. Schools will open in September, risk assessment to follow. And today, blaming care homes for the many, many deaths because they didn't follow the correct procedure; the one that was hastily written on the back of a beer mat by the health secretary two weeks after dispatching Covid positive patients home from hospital. Oh, those 'correct procedures'.

You don't have to look far to find other countries doing better; locked down sooner, harder, good supported the less well off, for business, for the arts, lifted restrictions more thoughtfully. 15 weeks and still we're lurching from impending doom to full on Armageddon.