HE'S HOME AND HE KNOWS WHAT HE NEEDS TO DO

Thank you all for your wonderful good wishes and thoughts.
You have all worked so hard, that the boy is home!!!
He has had gastritis, and we now know the reasons why.
He knows what he has to do not to have a flare up in the future.
Cause that part is in his hands. But since this is the second attack brought on for the same reasons, I think he'll be thinking hard about things in the future.
He is not so ill on his return home, so he feels well enough for me to continue with my plans to go to Amsterdam for the weekend.....Hurrah!
So now I can stop being soooo stressed. Trix can take a deep breath as my mood returns to normal.
And we've only got to re schedule her visit to the vets next week when Alex is well enough to help me. As taking Trix to the vets is beyond stressful for all three of us.
Have a lovely holiday weekend without me, hope the sun shines on all of us, except those people in Australia wanting rain!
And I'll see you next week.

FINGERS CROSSED FOR ALEX

Alex and me have had a rotten day.
But it started before today. Last Wednesday he started being sick after eating fatty food. By Thursday it was after a meal, but still ok on small snacks. He took himself to the Docs and got some heart burn medication.
Over the weekend the vomiting happened every time he ate something, So no Sunday lunch for us... beef is now waiting in the freezer!
This morning at 6am he got up and started being sick. He wretched for almost four hours. He just couldn't stop, there was nothing to bring up except bright yellow bile. During these four hours we went to the docs and ended up in A&E at a local hospital.
The poor sausage finally got off his trolley and into bed at 8.30 tonight on the ward. He's been attached to two drips all day, one re hydrating him and one trying to stop the puking.
Tonight finally after a day spent sleeping for him and reading for me I've come home.
I did come home earlier to sort out the dog. Sort out the collection of Al's hire car tomorrow. Keys now being held at school across the road for the transport man.
Sorted out telling Kit and my sis. Cancelling clients, friends and shovelling food in my face to get back to the hospital, all in two hours flat.
Now I've called all again and have shoved toast in my face. And I'm writing this to unwind me before I take the dog out and then collapse in bed.
Al in the meantime is in a ward full of old men, he's the only young person there. And he is contemplating whether to agree to a gastroscopy tomorrow, doc and me say yes! Him,surprisingly not keen! But as his mother advised, this is the second bought of this and does he want it again. Or should he put up with 20 minutes of an utterly vile procedure, which may just find out what is wrong with him.
Added to this I'm supposed to be going to Amsterdam at the weekend.....

I'd felt like a day off work, but this wasn't quite what I had in mind when I thought it!!!!!

ME ME ME ME ME AND ON AND ON!

Meme of the Moment has now been given to me by four people. So I guess the universe is telling me something! So thank you (I think) sorrow, exmoorjane, lola and lizzy.

1. What is your current obsession?
Right at this moment don't think I have one,as I'm just getting on with life. But perhaps it's waiting to see what the weather is each day so I can spend as much time as possible outside. So sunshine, blue skies, birdsong, gentle breeze is it.


2.Which item of clothing do you wear often?
Levis, cashmere jumper, and a pair of very ancient crocs

3.What's for dinner?
It's Sunday, so it's Roast beef with all the trimmings for Alex and me, and if his cousin Tom is around he'll come to.

4.What are you listening to?
The radio is tuned into Smooth FM, a mixture of easy music and soul. In my car, current favourites Fleet Foxes and the sound track to Slum Dog Millionaire. And on this laptop, a real mixture of stuff from Frank Sinatra through to some rap music.


5.Say something to the one that tagged you.....
Sorrow I love you to bits, and really hope we can met up this summer again.
Jane, I can't wait for us to be able to meet up again, 'specially if it involves your homemade scones!!
Lola and Lizzy, it is a joy to have met you in the last few months.
And you all make a difference in my life,thank you.

6.Favorite vacation spot?
Portmeirion in Wales, if I have the money.
Philadelphia with one of my best friends
Devon with the others.

7. What I'm reading right now?
Filth by Jane Gardam, in my work bag
One 5th Avenue by Candice Bushall, downstairs
Annie Leibovitz at work, autobiography that accompanied her exhibition, by my bed.

8. Four words to describe myself.
Honest,Compassionate,Loyal,Strong,

9.Guilty pleasure.
Travelling business class if I can afford it, which isn't often.

10. First Spring thing?
Snowdrops in my garden.

11. What do you look forward to?
Alex getting more sorted with his life, and me moving to Devon next year.

Now it's my turn to tag 'some' others to do the same; respond to the questions, rework those you need to rework, replace, add, and tag 'some' others. I think the number is arbitrary so I'm sticking to 'some'

Well since I've had so many people tag me, and I generally don't do these things I think it is only fair to make others suffer!!! Difficulty is picking people who haven't had it yet, so.....

Trousers you're it!
Lady, you have to get it as well
Dark side, no escape for you.
Mei, just cause you're hiding doesn't mean zip with a meme to now do.

GOOD /BAD- RIGHT/WRONG- HAPPY /SAD, IT'S ALL A CONSTANT JOURNEY

Since I'm so lousy at making comments after everyone who comes to my blog, and some interesting stuff has been raised by my last post, thought I'd make a big comment here.

Aside from the current 20 comments I've had emails and text messages about the post. So I've obviously churned up some emotion.

In writing it I wasn't wanting to portray myself as 'poor me', as was suggested in an email.I know I can go to that place, and when I do go there I really don't like myself. Because it strikes me I'm feeling sorry for myself, and when in this particular frame of mind I want someone else to make me better.

I know we all have the capacity for this, we wouldn't be human if we didn't. But it's not a place I ever stay for long. Not because I'm so damned clever, more to do with my belief in taking responsibility for myself. And knowing that, yes it is lovely when someone comes along to help make me better. But they actually can't, the only person who can make me better, is me.

So what I was doing in this post was being honest about feelings that I'm not proud of, jealousy, pettiness, insecurity etc. They are not easy feelings to own, but they happen in everyone from time to time, if not all three, then at least two of them!

How I operate as a person is not to control my feelings, but let them happen as they do inside me. So that sometimes I'm happy, sometimes sad, and all feelings in between.
When the feelings are good ones I try and hold on to them in a ridiculously impossible way for as long as possible, as feelings cannot be held they just occur.

When they are sad or difficult feelings I have to endure them, till they can pass. This is where my training as a therapist comes in, as I know how to do this. So even if I'm as miserable as sin, it won't last, cause I can beat it.

How do I do that, well I own it, by either talking the feelings over with someone, or more usually for me writing them down, as in the instance pre the post. This meant I sent a very long email to a close friend, who not only heard me, but offered wise advice.

But by the time his reply came back to me I'd found a way to cope with what I was feeling, simply cause I'd let it all out to him in the first place.... Thanks PP.

So the next morning the thoughts in my head were about trying to articulate what exactly was going on for me, warts'n'all. Trying to understand what I'd been going through, and why it was so powerful.

I obviously hit a nerve for many people, who actually owned that they had felt similar to me, whether in relation to my standpoint on the blog, or in relation to being socially isolated where they live. So this has made me pleased I've written the words, cause I think it's a good thing to share difficult stuff that affects our lives as well as the ups.

They were some amazingly wise words of support telling me to get a grip... actually no-one said that I'm paraphrasing very badly all the lovely supportive comments. And of them all I think Wake up summed it up wonderfully, when she said, would I rather have a few people who genuinely care about me, or would I rather have just a string of platitudinous comments. And of course there is no contest. I haven't spent the last two years making friends with so many people not to really care about them being in my life.

I hope that those people who were brave enough to own their difficulties will get something from the last post and all the other comments, and hopefully from this one as well.

And that I want you ALL to know how much I value my relationships with you. Whether I know you in person, by email or from the blogging world. As I've said before I wouldn't be where I am without you.

In conclusion I will carry on writing,I'd be lost without it. And I write here so I can get feedback, otherwise I'd just write a private journal. I will for now feel safe in myself and my relationships with you all. And cause it's me, when it gets tough again, I will tell you, just so I can move on further on my journey through life.

A LESSON NEEDING LEARNING

You may notice that all the useful information has disappeared from my side bar.
No more followers list, or blog list, or anything.

I've taken them off as a way for me to keep this blog open. I've been thinking of closing it down because of how I feel about what happens on it.

It's a difficult one to explain, but I'm going to give it a go, as it's important to me to try and elucidate this.

All my life I have had a problem with friendships. I am very, very lucky to have wonderful, kind and generous friends now. But it hasn't always been like this. And it is the way that the past influences the now, that has made blogging tough for me. As the childlike feelings get in the way of logic and rational thought.

Basically I get very jealous when I don't get enough comments (what exactly enough is, remains a mystery!) compared to others. Now I also know that I have a popular blog and some wonderful blog mates who always come by. So my jealous feelings are not to do with that. They are purely a reflection of being frightened that no -one will want to be my friend, going straight back to that lonely child on the playground.

The same has been true of the followers list, I have treasured every single follower that has come along, but have always wanted more. So proving that I'm lovable. And seeing others again with more than me, has been ridiculously tough.

And I do know that compared to some, I'm very successful. Much the same as it's human nature to want more money,toys,food and we compare ourselves to those that have more and envy them. And sometimes it's important to just look at how very fortunate we are compared to those that have nothing.

And I haven't been doing that, I've just been hooked into nobody loves me..... Which I do know is utter nonsense. As in the big picture of blogging I'm someone who has made more genuine friends amongst other bloggers than most.

I am addicted to blogging for a reason. Where I live, for reasons that I won't go into here, not cause they are private, just cause it would take to long, I am not particularly liked. My neighbours on the whole won't bother with me and haven't really since I moved in 11 years ago. Then it was cause I was the only single mum in the neighbourhood of happy families. So I let the area down.

Now the reasons are different but still it remains true that I don't have local friends. Obviously I know people to pass the time of day with but not to share a coffee and an intimacy with.

Please don't think I'm telling this cause I want anyone to feel sorry for me, I seriously don't. I am a very privileged person in how many friends I do have. But they are not around on a day to day basis,and nor do I have a partner to share with, hence that's where blogging has come in.

Blogging has been the place where I have got my shared coffee and intimacy from on a daily basis. The place where, whatever I've said my blog friends have come back and metaphorically held me, whilst I struggle with whatever issue has been around. And like all good friendships sometimes that's been very deep and sometimes wonderfully daft.

So to have hooked into nobody loves me stuff has began to feel really destructive. And one of my options was to just run away (close down) and lick my wounds in a self fulfilling prophecy sort of way.... See I was, right no-one did love me, nah nah nah etc. Which of course would have been totally true cause no one would be able to reach me via my blog. The difficulty of that juvenile behaviour is that lots of people communicate with me via email or facebook, and I can imagine people would be asking where I'd gone. So of course completely proving my childlike hypothesis wrong!!!

Which means that for me to move on from this lonely child as much as possible I need to protect myself.I obviously have my blog roll still, it's now on my favourites bar. I still have the ability to check out my stats ( a really bad habit that one) I don't have a followers list and that is a good thing. I will still follow others. I just won't be comparing myself to others and finding myself inadequate in a way that isn't true based on just a list.

I do hope this makes sense, I'm not asking for any confirmation of how ok I am here, I have all these wonderful friends that do that already, and more than 10 of them courtesy of blogging. I've written this, as it's important to me that I explain myself and understand myself, cause that is the way I learn to move on and to change myself.

I WANT TO......

I'm not sure how I'm going to do this.
The yearning and longing inside to be somewhere else.
I want to start afresh.
I want new places to explore.
A room with a view that is not now
A river to walk by in the morning
The drive to the sea just a jaunt away
The ache inside is overwhelming

But I'm a good mummy, I promised, you see
To stay for longer when I want to be free
I fill my days with things to do to stop feeling
And when I reach that point in the day
The one between afternoon and night
I wander around with my thoughts
Not daring to let out the scream
That curdles my brain.

I don't know how long I can go on
Playing this game
Waiting for my life to change
And then of course that feels scary
Will I cope, will I be lonely
Yes and no I know are the answers
It's getting tougher to be ok
I want to ..... Oh I want to

MEMORIES OF LONG AGO AND LIFE RIGHT NOW.

I was thinking the other day about how much I like perfume and flower scents.I'm really looking forward to the stocks being available, as I shall have a bunch a week for the season. Or getting white or yellow freesias, the purple and red don't smell. Even the humble daffodil has a wonderful delicate scent. I got a new bottle of perfume for my birthday, or rather I got a new bottle of one I've been wearing for a while.

And a bit like music having a soundtrack in my life, perfume has as well. There are smells I have adored and others I wouldn't give house room to, and in terms of flowers the ones I cannot stand are lilies, makes me nauseous.

I've had such fun remembering the various bottles that have had a particular impact on my life. Starting with the first bottle I brought in a duty free shop, when I was 15 and going to Minorca with my parents, it was called Ma Griffe, by Craven. I bought bottles of it over the next three years every time I went away, it held the promise of sun sea and and least the dreams of sex, and definitely holiday romance, with doe eyed Spanish lads.

The next bottle that came my way was brought for me, and I was much to young to enjoy it, it was Channel No 5, given to me by my first love. I wore it because he gave it to me, but I can't say liked it till I was much older. But I loved him very deeply, and this always made me feel close to him when we were apart. Which probably explains why I was a bit like Marilyn Monroe, as I too wore it in bed!!

The smell I associate with my Mother was Joy by Jean Patou, a smell I stole from her and she would then replenish my supply at Christmas. It reminds me of her dressing table with it's drawer of old lipsticks and messy powder compacts

There is the year that I drove to Calais to met my husband, he couldn't come back in to the country for three weeks for tax purposes, after six months away at sea. So we met up and drove slowly down to Venice. He had got me a bottle of Arperge by Lanvin, a perfume I came to to adore, and still love to this day.

By the time my eldest son came along and I was in my mid 30s, the perfume had got very heavy, Opium by YSL or Cinnibar by Estee Lauder, smells that if I encountered today would make me gag with their sickly cloying smells.

The next perfume I was bought by a man, was L'Eau D'Issey by Issey Mikake, by the man who would become by second husband when he went to Japan for work,and when we still liked each other. We stopped liking each other the day we got married, which probably goes someway to explain why we were only together for five weeks!!!

The smells of the last few years have been heavily influenced by Jo Malone, who makes perfume of one or two notes, and my favourite of these, and one I'm into my fourth bottle of is, Honeysuckle and Jasmine. Which to me smells like summer, with an ever so gentle reminder of suntan lotion of long ago time in my life.

There are others that stand out because they take me back to where I smelt them, I cannot smell Clinique Elixier without in my imagination being with my friend in Philadelphia as it has always been her signature scent.

Or the few years I spent going to stay in France in the summer with my friends, who now live in Devon. Those holidays passed by in clouds of Helmut Lang. Or once on a trip out to Grasse and a visit to the Fragonard Perfume factory some of their perfume was purchased. I still have the last remaining drops of the wonderful precious scent obtained there. One smell of the bottle and I'm back sitting in the Veranda drinking local Rose and having long lunches of bread and cheese in the shade of the midday sun overlooking the Luberon.

Right now the two bottles I have on the go are the Jo Malone and L'instant Magic by Guerlain. This second one is the one I had for my birthday from my sons. The first bottle I got in December, and wore all round New York. So evocative memories of a wonderful holiday. I love the headieness of it, it's reminiscent of another of Guerlain's perfumes I used to wear, Shalimar, that I've now outgrown but have fond memories of from a lifetime ago.

And I have handed on this enjoyment of smells to my youngest son who has the finest collection of aftershaves known to man. And each represent a memory, usually of a girl to him....

So do you have a scentrack of your life?

BLOWN AWAY BY A STORY

My birthday season has now come to an end! No more exciting times out, booked for a couple of weeks. So a nice quiet weekend ahead of me and depending on the weather will depend on how much I get from it.

Today though I'm still thoroughly enjoying one of my presents. Kit knows how much I love being brought books, even though are tastes are very different.... him really intelligent hard core books, by authors with unspellable Russian names. Whilst his mother just loves a ripping yarn she can escape into. I also love getting CDs of his choosing as we do like similar music. But this birthday he surpassed himself as he got me three audio books for me to listen to in the car, on some of the many miles I travel weekly.

The first one I have listened to has blown me away. I first heard about this man a few years ago, long before he became as world famous as he is now. I have followed his career with an interest almost bordering on passion, even though he comes from America I have been enthused with him and his politics long before most people in Britain had even registered that a black man was running for President.

So to have Barack Obama reading out loud- Dreams of my Father, in my car is just inspirational. The man is such a natural orator. His words have a wonderful normality about them. Now I, as a white English woman, cannot even begin to understand what it must mean to be a black American, but hearing his book as he struggles to come to terms with who he is over time, is just humbling. The man hides nothing, he swears, he admits to smoking reefers, he even sings. I have never enjoyed listening to a story as much as this.

I have laughed, cried, being moved beyond words, felt warmth, compassion, anger, goosebumps and most of all love towards a man who in this book is an almost touchable human being. There are a couple of times when knowing how history has unfolded that his words stopped me in my tracks to the point that I had to switch off and just stay with the thought of the magnitude of what has happened to this mere mortal since he wrote his words initially.

There are six discs and I'm on the fifth one at the moment, and I already feel a sense of forthcoming loss for when I have listened to them all. I have a habit of not holding on to my books. I give them away, I leave them lying around, I always believe that someone else may enjoy them. And there is no need for me to hang on to them possessively when I will never read them again. But I'm really torn about this CD. If I give it away, will I regret it as I might want to listen to it again (unlikely) Do I keep it, and deny someone else this profound pleasure. And what if they didn't like it, or didn't engage with what Barack says, that would feel awful.

So this is what I think I should do, rather than just hand it over to any old friend, if you want it let me know, and I will give it to you. But I want to know why you want it. And just cause it might be a good read is not the right answer.

I gave a book I was given at Christmas a while back to someone who I really thought needed to read the words it contained, she has said she has someone in mind to pass it on to. This I think is wonderful.

I guess what I'm doing then is almost like a competition, and I shall decide should anyone play along, whose answer I like the most. So either write a comment or email me and I'll get back to you as soon as I've finished listening. And you may be the person who gets to share Barack's words with me.

I WANT TO BE ASLEEP NOT TYPING THIS RUBBISH

The days biggest pleasure for me, is that moment when I get into bed at night. My bed is incredibly comfortable, a firm mattress, a goose down duvet, goose down pillow. And when I first get in two other pillows positioned just right for me to sit up against.

I slide between white sheets, that are so old they feel like silk, and at their best have been freshly laundered and hang out on the line to dry and so have that smell of the breeze in them.

I stretch my body down the bed, wriggling my toes to enjoy the feel of my body lying straight and I relish the coolness of the sheets. I particularly like it if my body is cold as well, as I know I'll warm up quickly.

I always read before sleep, and usually I'm so tired that it will only be for about 20 minutes before I know I need to throw the sitting up cushions on the floor, switch off the light and snuggle down.

Snuggling down is greatly improved if the weather is foul outside. I love the noise of the rain pattering down on the window, or the wind howling.

I start off on my left side, getting sleepier, and when the moment is just right I turn over onto my right side to drift off into sleep.

And that's when it all goes bloody wrong. My body responds night after night to this highly enjoyable procedure by giving me a sodding hot flush just as I want to drift. So off goes the duvet to cool my body down, and I'm wide awake again.

I've tried not turning over, I've tried lying on my back, whatever I do nothing stops the pre sleep hot flush. These hot flushes aren't treatable either, cause although they are related to the menopause, they are more related to the cancer busting drugs I take and are a side effect.

So I don't mind that I have them, the choice is a no brainer, medication or not, oestrogen inhibitors or not, life or death, there is no other way.

But it does frustrate me, but eventually I do go to sleep and then the fun really starts......

I wake up around 1.30 for a pee, that's fine I usually go back to sleep after another hot flush.

Then we get to the wondrous time between 3 and 4am, when I awake again. And like today I'm wide abloody awake. I don't want to be. I want to be asleep. But I'm not. Some nights this means going downstairs to make a piece of toast and a hot drink. Others it means being on the computer. Or reading for a while. But most often it involves lying with my eyes shut, tossing and turning around the bed trying to find that elusive thing called sleep.

I will go back to sleep eventually usually as it's getting towards 5am. This didn't used to be too bad, cause I'd have another two hours till the alarm went off. But now I have the hound of the Baskervilles to contend with, and around 6am she wakes up and starts mithering to go for a walk. Fortunately she now does understand that I'll fumble downstairs open the back door and fumble back to bed till I can cope with getting up or the alarm makes me.

I get very bored with clients telling me they don't sleep and expecting me to do something to help them sort it out. If I could, I would have started with me! What I do know is I can cope on very little sleep and some nights of very disturbed sleep and if I can do it, so can they. So the sympathetic counselling approach is definitely not present when sleep disorders are being presented!!!

I know that the lack of sleep tonight was inevitable as I went out for dinner with friends and eating late and having coffee doesn't suit me. But I'm not going to stop my social life for the sake of a nights sleep. Cause there is always tonight to look forward to, and that might provide me with one of the rare nights when I sleep all night..... LOL. That happens hardly ever, unless drug induced and I still get up for a pee.

So I'm sorry I've bored you with this sad saga of my being awake, but I've managed to get to 4.24 and it might be that I can now turn off the light and hopefully go back to sleep for a while. The birds have started singing and dawn isn't so far away.

And I need to have a little more sleep as later I have the very last of my birthday celebrations as I'm meeting Wake up in Wilmslow for lunch. We're meeting in the shoe dept of Hoopers, which is a very posh dept store with attitude and great shoes, so purses have to be kept locked till we are able to leave the store and go for food!!!

The photograph was taken on Saturday night when I was out with Queen Vixen and Trousers having a wonderful happy evening with them celebrating my 55th and Trousers 39th birthday, and raising a glass to Lady's birthday the day after.

DAYS

There are just some days.
The days that stay with us good and bad.
The ones where the memory is so precious we would do anything to go back and have the day again.
And others so bad that however hard we try we can never get rid of them from inside ourselves.
The day that a romance starts, the sparkling sun kissed world that surrounds
The day it ends, when the pain in our heart can only make us scream.
The day of the wedding, that makes us glow with love.
The day that he walked, deserting his wife and kids.
The day that the final exam was passed, and letters came after the name
The day the redundancy tore us apart.
The day the driving test gave us new found freedom.
The day the smash fractured our dreams.
The day the precious baby is born.
The day he leaves home to live his own life.
The day that cancer is told
The day when given the all clear.
These days come and they go
Birth,love,death in a circle of life.
The trick then, to let someone know when there is joy
And when there is pain.
To let someone know, someone who cares, that celebrates joy and holds the pain.
Someone who listens and loves and you know is your friend.
And then, whatever the day the feelings are shared and life can go on.

SEASIDE AND SUNSHINE

As you can see from my new photographs on my header and side bar I've been taking pics again.
All the photographs here are either, from the beach at Carbis Bay, near St Ives in Cornwall taken last Sunday afternoon. The weather was wonderful and my friends put on their wetsuits and went in the sea. I just dipped my toes in, it was very cold water about 4 degrees!
On this beach there are, in the cliff faces, the exits from some ancient tin mines, that start way up the hills above St Ives, near Knills Monument. The men tunneled down to the beach about two miles away. On the rocks are evidence of the copper residue where the rocks are a deep turquoise in colour.
The other photographs are on a walk on Tuesday to Godrevy Lighthouse and the view beyond. Walking along this headland we came upon a small beach way below us, on which were basking about 100 seals. It was wonderful to watch them coming out of the sea and lolloping along the beach to a spot to warm themselves.
There is also a picture of Devils Mouth, apparently a good suicide haunt, which whilst I stood on the edge of the cliff with the sheer drop below me felt very threatening, with the sea smashing on the rocks below.
On Monday the weather was appalling so we went to the Eden Project, the most amazing space like place, built in an old kaolin quarry. It contains what are called biohomes, that house a Mediterranean garden and a rain forest joined to together by the cafes. But outside it is covered with grass and you have no idea that your are underground when you go to get lunch of coffee. There are many pics of this as well and no doubt they will appear in due course.
I have had a seriously lovely time with my three lots of friends.And I'm trying hard not to feel trapped now I'm back. It certainly helps that I have all the excitment of the next couple of days to look forward to, as to take my mind off being in the wrong place.
I got home at lunch time, since when I have been cleaning the house up frantically as Kit will be here later and I've had to try and get rid of some of the dog hair, as he is allergic to it, and the dog is moulting more than I thought possible!

BIRTHDAY EVE, BIRTHDAY ,BIRTHDAY BOXING DAY BEFORE AND BEYOND!!!

My friend in Phillys porch I won't be sitting on till later this year, as a change from pics of the seaside, which no doubt will come later!

I'm sitting in the garden writing this enjoying the wonderful spring sunshine. My legs are seeing daylight for the first time for months, in that I've got a skirt on and not jeans.

I've got the birdsong around me, and the sound of the water flowing out of the water feature as it hits the stones below. The garden has loads of wonderful daffodils fluttering in the breeze. It has to be said those first few lines of the Wordsworth poem, Ode to a Daffodil always makes me smile.

And in the absence of the sea this is a good place to be....... However tomorrow.... I'm going to the seaside.

It is the start of my two week Birthday celebrations. You may think that a little excessive, but I like having a Birthday, and it seems that if it's only celebrated on one day, it's gone to quick.

So lunch time tomorrow I drive to Exeter for the night to stay with Max for the night. Which no doubt will involve lovely conversation, good food and cause I'm not driving a glass or two (or even three!!!)

After breakfast on Sunday I get back in the car to drive for another couple of hours, all the way down to St Ives, in Cornwall, to stay with my mate Liz, who I've known for 24 years, who has just moved there. She's been waiting till her children were old enough, and then like I want to, she has left home!! She is living in the moors above the town, with views of the sea. No doubt I will be very envious, and it will make me very restless as a result. So more drinking required here!

Then starting on the return journey on Tuesday and getting as far as Bovey Tracy, the place I want to live, to stay with Jenny and her husband for a couple of days. And this of course means more drinking, just as well I've got three bottles of fizz to take with me..

Leaving for the homeward trek on Thursday via London, which is a hundred miles or so out of the way, but I get to pick up Kit, to bring him back home in time for my Birthday on Good Friday. Lunch is booked in a restaurant and cause I took advantage of a special offer they were running, I get a free bottle of champagne to drink with our meal.

Saturday there are three social events going on, I get a facial first thing in the morning, followed by lunch with my sister and niece,the alcohol level may be reduced here to one spritzer!!! As I have to save myself for the night when I get to go for a curry with the wonderful Queen Vixen and the delightful Trousers. And they are coming to me, so I can have yet another drink!!!

Then I think I have a couple of days off, with Sunday lunch thrown in first, before my next lunch date on the Wednesday, and then dinner with other mates in the evening. Then if I'm very lucky I'll get to have lunch on Thursday with Wakeup. So taking me to the 17th, and I finally will have time in this one mad social whirl to go and do the weeks shop, and get back to what passes for normal round here.

So that's my two week birthday, which I recommend to anyone who thinks they deserve to celebrate and celebrate and celebrate with as many people as they can give a hug to!

I know all this lot makes me sound like a complete alcoholic, but this is going to be just such a lovely long celebration being with friends and family that a couple of glasses a night for a while isn't going to hurt me. Specially as I haven't had any booze for a week, and probably won't have any after all my birthday celebrations for a sometime!!!

But what I will have had, is time with people I love very much, the only person missing from this equation is my long term friend in Philly, but I get to talk to her tonight, and we are planning my jaunt to hers in the summer. So although that isn't enough, as I miss her, it will do, as I know it won't be long til I'm sitting on her porch.

And it has to be said I've never been 55 before, and somehow getting to my decade and a half seems symbolic somehow.

On a different subject...... fundraising. The school now has the information to inform the young people as to why they are having a non uniform day and I've got to go and do a school assembly to explain why I want the money for the Raise the Roof Fund. Also my friend and I are organising a swishing party, that is a clothes shop evening. And I'm going to read Tarot cards for money for the first time ever to raise some more funds. I've never charged anyone before, so this may have a different feel to it. But I have done the cards for most of the people who are coming to the party. So they know what to expect and the standard of the reading.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend and week without me and I'll be back soon.
xx