The Other Woman

The words don't come any more. They don't flow, help me paint the pictures in my head, rummage through the corners of my mind.

There are so many versions of my son's wedding day, so many ways to record and remember it and although it was a happy day and I am so pleased for him that it all went so well and he has found the woman he loves and who will share his life, still it was a difficult day for me. 

She was there too, you see.  The other woman in my marriage, my nemesis, the alternative version of me, of my family and for the very first time in all the years since it happened, the break-up of my family, I had to confront this. I couldn't just look away. She will always be there.

Of course, we have all moved on. My children have found some sort of balance in their lives and I too have a new life, a new family, people I care deeply about and yet the heartbreak is always there, just beneath the surface, waiting to trip me up. The challenge is, has always been, making the best of what is, try and find the best version of myself, of my life.  

But I'm struggling now.

May - Morning Walk

Bluebell wood

Beautiful blond labrador, looking for trouble

Contrasts

Shady country lane

Moody Suffolk skies

Dog tired and very muddy

                                 

Wedding Bells

It was a very special day and despite still feeling drained by the wretched flu which is still pulling me down, I put on my best smile and dug deep. Wild horses would not have kept me away from my son's wedding. Of course there was a hat involved! Someone had to do it, and who better than the Mother of the Groom, smart for once in black and ivory.

The Winter Garden at the smart London hotel was the perfect venue for afternoon tea with the bride's parents, the first opportunity we had had to meet them, before the beautiful, simple ceremony at the nearby Registry Office. The Groom was suitably nervous and elated and the Bride, when she finally appeared, was beautiful and radiant as only a bride can be on her wedding day.

Afterwards the newlyweds, family and friends piled onto the specially commissioned red London 
bus, to be greeted with glasses of champagne as the party began and we set off across central London laughing and chatting as the tension was released, children waving to us as we stopped at traffic lights - for once part of the sights of London!

The Thames-side pub/restaurant with its stunning view of the river was warm and welcoming after the short walk from the bus in the still freezing-cold late March wind. The food was delicious, the atmosphere relaxed and informal and the party took off. Meeting so many of my son's friends and having all three of my children, as well as my new daughter-in-law, together in the same room was a special joy, and it was a great pleasure also to welcome three of my step-children who joined us after the dinner and speeches, the first time they had met my son's new wife; we are a combined family that is still evolving and growing.

As the evening progressed, fancy dress clothes and wigs were produced from somewhere, adding to the fun. Of course, there were cupcakes and very delicious they looked too, I thought, choosing one and putting it down on the table for a few minutes while chatting to someone, only to find, when I came to look for it, that my ex-husband was sitting in my place scoffing it. It was My Cup Cake!

Letting go

“To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go”

Mary Oliver

March birthday

Flu has invaded my life and confined me to my home, my room, sometimes (too often) just my bed. The good things are plenty of time to read, all the time in the world, and to sleep, and losing lots of weight before my son's imminent wedding .

The downside is worrying that I will not be well in time, this has gone of for so long now. I must be well, I must. I shall!

In the meantime, I just wanted to share my birthday flowers. Tulips are one of the best things about March birthdays, I think.

The Family Script

My maternal grandmother was a redoubtable woman.  An Edwardian nursery governess, she spent her 20's and early 30's living in exclusive hotels in the North of England, where she ruled her nursery with a rod of iron. She didn't marry until she was 33, but nevertheless she and my grandfather (having by now emigrated to Canada where he had a farm) produced a large brood of their own; my mother and her four brothers. Needless to say, they were all brought up in accordance with her strict views on child rearing.  Her voice can still be heard echoing down the generations.

Granny didn't believe in celebrating Mother's Day, seeing it (wrongly as it happens - Mothering Sunday has a long and venerable tradition) as a recent and purely commercial innovation. My own mother, being strongly influenced by her upbringing, was also not inclined to make an occasion of it and I, in my turn, although delighted with the handmade offerings of my sons when they were very young, paid scant attention to the occasion.

It wasn't until my marriage broke down and I realised too late that Mother's Day fell on a Sunday which the boys were to spend with their father. I didn't see the need to change this arrangement and fight my corner, the family script being so deeply ingrained, and spent the day alone, feeling lost and displaced, missing my sons on a day which focuses so strongly on the mother/child relationship. It was during that long, painful day that I began to think again about Mother's Day and to accept that it did matter to me, that I did want my children to think of me on this special day and from then on I have carefully nurtured it in my own family.

Yesterday, it was a special joy to spend the day with my youngest son, down from University especially to be with me on Mother's Day, and to speak to my two older sons who couldn't join us this year but made special efforts to phone (they so rarely do - is this a boy thing?).  In  this family now, every Mother's Day will always be a special day.

I am rewriting the family script.

Putney Bridge

Liverpool Street Station teeming with people, scurrying about their business as I plunge into the Underground, crowded escalators carrying me into the bowels of the earth, then jammed onto a Central line train packed with strangers, fellow travellers. Unknown, unknowable lives. The District line is quieter, room to sit down, closer to the surface and, finally, three hours after leaving my sleepy Suffolk village, I arrive at Putney Bridge Station surfacing, blinking, into the bright February sunshine and take a deep breath of fresher air.

I set out across Putney Bridge, red London buses, cars, taxis, bicycles, pedestrians, all suspended over the fast-flowing Thames, creating its own spaces, microclimate and ancient rhythms, indifferent to the world that has evolved around it. Then I saw him walking towards me, the tall, dark, handsome young man with his Grandmother's vivid blue eyes and a warm bear hug for me. My first-born son!  We walk together, chatting and laughing, exchanging news, so pleased to see each other, into a bustling Saturday Putney High Street, then take a turning into a quieter residential road, following it through towards the Common and a quiet pub for lunch.

The next time I see him will be his Wedding Day.

Winter's Icy Grip

Disappointingly, February has failed to live up to her early promise and is busy reminding us that Winter is not yet ready to release its icy grip.

Tramping through the snow-bound fields with our yellow Labrador, the iron-grey sky sealing us into the monochrome landscape, it was a real pleasure to see a few brave yellow daffodils pushing through the crust of snow.

A promise that the English winter must end soon, the sun will shine again and the Spring flowers in this Suffolk meadow will return once more.

Things that make me Happy

I don't want to wish time away, but I'm glad to be saying goodbye to January, always a difficult month in the aftermath of Christmas, with its short gloomy days and long freezing nights, the worst of the weather and the horrible bugs. February at least promises brighter, longer days, the return of birdsong and new growth pushing through in the garden, bringing hope.

I have just visited the Three Beautiful Things blog for inspiration, and it set me thinking about what three things have made me feel happy today.

Putting on a pretty, warm, knitted dress, smart woollen jacket, winter white scarf and black leather knee boots today to go into the beautiful Suffolk riverside town of Woodbridge and do some shopping, instead of my usual jeans, jumper and fleece.

Buying two new books at the Browser's Bookshop, an independent shop with interesting and thoughtful stock beautifully laid out, where I could spend far too much money. Today I bought Tea Obreht's "The Tiger's Wife" which struck me as both unusual and well-written, and Helen Castor's "She-Wolves" about influential Medieval Queens, a subject which has fascinated me ever since I picked up an Alison Weir book detailing the life of Katherine Swynford, a commoner, the Mistress, then later third wife of the 14th century Prince John of Gaunt and the ancestress of our royal family. Medieval history has become something of a passion and I am absolutely riveted to the Richard III saga.

Stroking the silky-soft velvety fur of our Labrador's ears.  I love to stroke her ears and she can happily put up with it for hours! Soothing for both of us.

"What will you do now?"

"What will you do now with the gift of your left life?"

Such a lovely evocative line from a Carol Ann Duffy poem. She has such a spare way with words and chooses and places them so beautifully.

And reading this made me think about my own left life, the children having grown and flown the nest, busy with their own lives, and my mother having recently died.  This has been a time of great change for me and a chance to reflect, reassess where I am, where I want to be, what I will do now.  What really matters.

I have loved being a mother.  For me, it has been the best thing in my life and, now that I find myself only a small part of my children's lives, it is hard to find something meaningful to fill the huge space they have left behind in mine. I could spend hours listing the things I miss about having my sons living at home with me. Not that I would want them at home all the time now that they are young adults - they need to have their own lives and I need to have mine. Nor has it always been easy; far from it! Yet somehow the only time I really feel whole again, and at peace, is when they are here with me, chatting and laughing in the kitchen while I cook at meal for us all, bake a cake I know they like, feel the warmth of that unique relationship we only have with our own children.

Let it Snow!

Snow and icy conditions certainly make cocooning the most inviting option and tomorrow I am planning a satisfying session of marmalade making and bread baking, having spent most of today tramping cross country to the lovely foodie pub in the next village for a bowl of hot, spicy soup whilst thawing out by the fire and reading the newspapers.

With schools closed across the country, I was thinking of the heavy snowfall in South Yorkshire where I grew up, during the severe winter of 1963.  At least a foot of snow fell overnight but, nevertheless, we got up before first light as usual, dressed in our freezing cold bedrooms, breakfasted and went out into the thick snow well wrapped up against the biting cold and waited patiently at the bus stop for the first of the two buses I took every day across the city to reach my Catholic convent school; a journey of over 6 miles. Amazingly the bus arrived eventually. Those were tougher times and people just carried on regardless and, anyway, this was Yorkshire! We didn't get far however as the bus got completely stuck on the first of the many hills we had to negotiate on the journey and, delighted, we returned home for a day of snowballing and snowman-making followed by mugs of hot chocolate by the coal fire.

The reckoning came the next day by which time, amazingly, the roads had been cleared and transport was back to normal, despite the heavy snow still lying in drifts all around. The nuns kept us under a strict regime of humiliation and tongue lashings and we lived in daily dread of being singled out, annihilated by an icy look, seared by a harsh word, made to stand isolated in front of the class for a sharp character assassination.  The survival strategy was simply to keep our heads down, not to be noticed. So, each girl who did not make it into school the day before, and there were many as we came from miles around, had to stand up and explain to the class exactly the circumstances that prevented her from making the epic journey. The feeling was that we should have walked to school, even if it took us all day. I still remember how, a very shy child, I was quaking in my shoes, waiting for my turn to justify my awful transgression!

"It's coming near Christmas..."

"It's coming near Christmas, they're cuttin' down trees

They're puttin' up reindeer and singing songs of joy and peace".

Joni Mitchell

There's always magic in the air at Christmas.  I love to think of people through the ages celebrating the Winter Solstice in one way or another, from the ancient pagan tradition to our more recent Christian era. Despite the commercialisation, it is a wonderful occasion to have a family get-together, share a feast, the warmth of our homes and the giving and receiving of gifts. I cannot think of a better way to distract us all from what can be a rather depressing and miserable time of year, the short days and often dank weather.  I love the sense of anticipation and goodwill, the lights going up on trees in houses and gardens, the bustle of Christmas markets and the smells of the Christmas cooking wafting through the house. 

And yet, increasingly as time passes, there is such a complex layer of emotions simmering away beneath the surface and I think this is particularly the case where marriages have broken down and families have been fractured and reconstituted.  More than anything, I miss my small sons and their joy and excitement at this time of year, the carol concerts and nativity plays that used to fill my days, whilst at the same time I look forward to seeing the grown-up versions of my sons and spending some time with them. My partner, too, misses the family Christmases he shared with his own children when they were an intact family and from which he is now excluded, even as we prepare for them to come and visit on Christmas Eve, knowing that they will be leaving early on Christmas morning to spend the rest of the holiday with their Mother and her new husband.  

And, of course, this is the first Christmas without my Mother. Bittersweet.

Life is full of challenges and changes, adjustments and adaptations, the weft and the warp. Christmas puts our lives under a microscope and exposes the flaws as well as the beauty of what we create.  It is a time of joy as well as sadness, but this Christmas I hope, mostly joy.

River

 

Hoar Frost

We are living in the deep freeze in East Anglia at the moment, the weather from Siberia hitting the East Coast hard. The cold is intense and relentless and makes our daily dog walk a chilly but exhilarating experience as every blade of glass, every fallen leaf, every holly bush is etched with a thick coating of hoar frost, the shivering bare branches of the trees silhouetted against the bright blue sky.

Coming home is a real pleasure too and I have never appreciated more our lovely warm, welcoming house and the joys of the woodburning stove.

 

Requiescat in Pace

We were out on the river when it happened, battling strong winds and wayward tides, trying to negotiate the sandbanks at the mouth of the river so we could sail the boat back to our home port. Daunted by the size of the waves and the hostile conditions as we headed out to sea, we turned back, making for the charming riverside town two hours upriver where we planned to spend another night, try again tomorrow.

There were three missed calls on my mobile when I went down below to change out of my foul weather gear and fear gripped my heart. Something was wrong. My sister broke the sad news that she was gone, her heart had failed and she was lost to us.  My lovely mother.

I cannot yet even begin to comprehend my loss or work out how to live in a world where she is not. She has been part of my story all my life, her life entwined with mine and somehow in all the busyness of life, all the additional responsibilities of the last year since her health deteriorated so rapidly, I never really thought about this. I was too busy living to think about dying.

She had a beautiful Requiem Mass early one morning at the little church on the green beside the river in the market town nearby. She would have loved the service, the music, the flowers, having so many members of her family come to bid her farewell, as well as the love and laughter that flowed afterwards as we all sat down for lunch before heading back to our various lives.  

And yet, in some small corner of my mind, I still think that if I got into the car, drove the 10 miles cross-country to the Nursing Home where she spent her final contented months, greeted the staff, climbed the stairs, opened the door to her room, she would still be there to welcome me with a delighted smile, a big hug and a kiss, that I would coax her out into the garden to sit in the dappled shade of the old magnolia tree and share a cup of tea with her again.

 It was, in truth, as she would have wanted it; a quick, sudden ending.  She was spared more slow deterioration, the deepening of her dementia, the continuing failure of her body.  She was a good woman and very dear to us.  She will be much missed.  

"Few have maps and fewer still know which bright star might carry them home"

Summer Garden

The roses under my bedroom window are so beautiful this year.  They, at least, are loving the wet, cool weather we have been having this summer.

I dream of having the time to just sit in the garden on a warm afternoon and not constantly to leap up to pull up a weed, or grab a trowel or spade to attack whatever is discordant.

And this is where we do sit on the rare warm evenings we have had this summer, with a glass of cool sauvignon blanc when the day's work is done.

It was so good to have Mum to visit the other day and see her enjoying a bit of late afternoon sunshine in our garden.

Musings on My Mother

She's actually very happy, my mother. Happier than anyone else I know. She lives entirely in the moment and is indeed experiencing a second childhood. The cast of characters in her mind consists mainly of her mother and father and her three brothers, whom she adored and who looked up to their big sister. Only one is still alive now.  She's looking forward to the Queen's Jubilee celebrations, the Queen having been there all her life practically and part of the long-lost childhood where she spends her time. She still knows who I am, which is a real pleasure.

Born on a Prairie Farm in the wilds of Saskatchewan, her father having narrowly missed the catastrophe of the Titanic - a telegram from the farm manager calling him back early made him cancel his booking and take an earlier boat across the Atlantic - she will probably end her days under the wide skies of Suffolk, a place with which she has no real connection at all, just part of the random pattern of her life; of all our lives.

Dealing with all this has made me step back and reflect on my own life.  To try and come to some sort of terms with the things that have happened and where I am now, the pattern of 'birth, death and the whole damn thing' as Elizabeth Luard so succinctly put it!

My mother

I lost my mother sometime last year.  A series of transient ischaemic attacks have destroyed part of her brain and taken away most of who she was, leaving a large, guileless child/woman in her place. Someone who has lost the ability to care for herself and needs help with even the most basic tasks.

I mourn my mother, the lovely, warm, kind woman who was always there for me, who always understood my point of view and supported me in everything I did, all the choices I made, no matter how questionable. I miss calling her to talk about my dilemmas, to tell her about her grandchildren and hear about her day, make plans to see her again soon. I still see her, more than ever now I have moved her to a lovely nursing home nearby where I can keep a close eye on her, but the mother I had all my life has gone.

She was always there for me when I needed her, and now I need to be there for her now she really needs me.

Perfect

A walk in a rain-drenched bluebell wood 

The last cool rays of the evening sun 

A wicker chair, a woolly jumper 

And a glass of white wine   

Practising for summer!

Birthday lunch

It was 21 years ago when I first came face to face with my youngest son.  The time just flies by from baby to toddler, small child to large child, teenager to young adult.  

We met for lunch in a bustling London bar, all Farrow & Ball and mismatched tables and chairs; red buses swishing by on the busy, wet, Saturday streets, people scurrying under umbrellas in the relentless icy rain, but we were warm and cosy inside.

I miss my boys and the homes we made together, the lives we shared, but how lovely to meet up like this and share a birthday lunch.

Postcard from Holland

Delicious ice-cold, fruity, blond beer, steaming pots of fresh mussels cooked in white wine with onions and celery, perfectly fried chips dipped in garlicky mayonnaise, and pancakes (pannenkoek) met slagroom (cream) yes, really!

The entire nation on its bicycle; mothers and fathers, boyfriends and girlfriends, grandparents with grandchildren perched in front, clutching tiny pretend handlebars and looking terribly serious. Or walking dogs; big dogs, small dogs, every possible variety of dog.  I think every Dutch family must own at least one - they even take them out on their boats.

A huge bowl of sky in gorgeous shades of palest duck egg blue and grey.  And water.  Water everywhere. Canals leading off inland seas, taking us right into the heart of lovely ancient towns where we could step off the boat straight into the nearest cafe or bar, wander through the streets, shopping for fresh bread, coffee, cheese and fruit, or just admiring the pretty Dutch houses and wondering how on earth they get their windows so very clean, before heading back to the boat to sit in the cockpit watching the world go by with a glass of wine and a bowl of pasta, cooked on the little swinging stove.

From Goes we sailed across the Oosterschelde to Zierikzee for the Mussel Festival, joined friends from England, stayed a day longer than planned because of severe weather then, setting off for Willemstad, were forced back to Goes, probably my favourite place in Holland, by an unpredicted Force 7 in the Oosterschelde, which is like standing fully dressed in the wind and rain, with someone chucking buckets of freezing water over you every few seconds. Not my idea of fun at all! Lovely fish soup and a glass of warming Calvados helped to ease my recovery from the difficult conditions at sea that day.

A long day's sail up the Volkerak finally brought us to Willemstad, another pretty Dutch town, to stay for a couple of days before taking the boat up the Haringvliet to Middel Harnis for pannenkoek, then on to Hellevoetsluis where we fell in with a crowd of Dutch boaties who all have the same make of boat we have - an instant connection there. We spent a couple of days with them and joined them in a race (my first) where we were totally outclassed, but great fun anyway, then a barbecue in their clubhouse in the evening, watching the sun go down over the water and chatting with the English speakers, swapping sailing stories and practising Dutch pronunciation to their great amusement.

                         

Time now to retrace our steps, back to Willemstad, then back across the Oosterschelde again, this time into the Veerse Meer and the pretty town of Veere for the night, then on to Middelburg in the pouring rain, then the train and the ferry home across the wide, cold Noordzee. Now where did I leave my waistline?

Getting There... maybe

I'm sitting here alone in my house tonight with a glass of Kentish white wine and a frittata, made with vegetables from a neighbour's garden.  I bartered the vegetables for a pot of the marmalade I make every January, a popular present. Yesterday afternoon was spent sitting in the garden with another neighbour in the village, together with the latest additions to the next generation.  Tomorrow my next door neighbour and I are planning a blackberrying expedition in the country lanes that surround the village.

It's been just over a year now since my partner and I made the move from Kent to Suffolk and it's been a challenging and sometimes fraught time.  I have often been horribly homesick for my old life and familiar people and places, but having decided to leave my comfort zone, I am slowly beginning to reap the rewards. Friendships take time to grow, but there are some promising beginnings.

Today was spent sorting out the garden, a new challenge for me after years of living in rented houses.  It is a continual puzzle to me, what should go, what to keep, what will thrive and where.  There have been some successes and some ignominious failures. I am currently trying to work out what to grow beside my pink climbing rose, now planted in the courtyard outside the kitchen - should it be Nepeta, Lavender or a deep blue Hebe?  And what will do best in the very dry corner of the bed by the front door when the Cosmos has finished?  I'm tempted by a deep red Lavatera framing the herbs - the silver thyme I planted there is spreading itself very nicely indeed. There is so much more to do, so many plans to make, but it's been a good first year and I'm enjoying myself, rootling around deep in the Suffolk soil.  It certainly keeps me grounded.

My peaceful time will end tomorrow, as it should.  I really wouldn't enjoy it so much if I had too much of it.  My youngest son, home from university for the summer, will be returning from his visit to his father in London, soon to be joined by my oldest son and his girlfriend, staying for a couple of days rest and relaxation - them, not me!  Then it's off to Holland on the ferry to join my partner, who took the boat over yesterday, for a week or two of cruising the Dutch canals and inland seas before it's back to earth with a bump and perhaps an end of summer Pimm's party for all our new friends and neighbours.

Diversion

We hadn't planned a visit to Orford yesterday. The idea was to take the boat upriver and spend the night moored up close to a nearby town and explore, but the strong winds that are sweeping through East Anglia at the moment made us rethink our plans. Just getting the dinghy up to the boat and back was an act of faith and involved a great deal of splashing and bumping on the choppy river water.  Luckily the dinghy stayed the right way up and it was a huge relief to have solid ground under our feet again. 


Thwarted of our goal, we decided to drive to Orford instead and visit The Jolly Sailor, a lovely traditional English seaside pub, for fish and chips by a nice wood burning stove with the Sunday Times. A couple of hours later, replete and satisfied that we had made the best of a disappointing day, we started our journey home. 


The diversion sign on the road home was a red rag to a bull. Of course my partner had to investigate in the firm belief there would be a way through, so when we hit a solid lake of muddy water, with another car firmly embedded in it, he carried on regardless. We made it to the far side and stopped to see if there was anything we could do. Eventually, after much toing and froing, we managed to attach a tow hook and pulled the car and its stranded occupants clear of the water. The two adorable dogs trapped inside with their owners were particularly relieved! The engine was, however, completely dead. We ended up towing the lifeless car for several miles, at one point through a deserted airfield in the fading daylight - a surreal experience. 


Home turned out to be in the town we had originally planned to visit on the boat, so despite our diversions and changes of plan, we arrived at our destination, although not quite in the way we had intended. Even more surreal, it turned out that our new friends live in a churchyard, the path to their front door marked by ancient gravestones. We enjoyed a convivial thank you drink in their lovely home and finally headed back to our own house around midnight, well satisfied with the way the day had turned out, and possibly with some new friends.

A Rose for a rose

I call them my shadow children, the ones I lost over 30 years ago; the embryonic lives that were never lived. Their spirits stay with me, on the periphery of my consciousness, the what ifs... the might have beens...

Of course I grieved for them deeply at the time, even though I never held them in my arms, never kissed them and changed their nappies, never left them at the school gates, chivvied them to do their homework, saw them launched onto lives of their own; lives in which I would have only a small part to play. I never knew the colour of their eyes, the texture of their hair, the smell of their skin, their personalities. I planted a rose in memory of my lost little ones and it has moved with me from one house to another over the years. It helps to embody them somehow, gives me a quiet focus for my private thoughts.

I was lucky. Despite the early difficulties, I now have three handsome, hulking, grown up sons who have filled the empty spaces in my life and given me little time to dwell on what was lost. But I have been thinking of them recently, following the sudden, unexpected death of an old friend's 16 year old daughter, a lovely young woman, full of bright promise; she had shared her life and filled her thoughts and dreams. She should be eagerly awaiting her GCSE results - she would have excelled - gone into the sixth form, fallen in and out of love, spread her wings, gone on to university, had a career, married perhaps... children of her own. All wiped away, never to be.

What solace can anyone possibly give to a grieving mother? What can ever even begin to help her to heal? She wakes up every morning to experience her loss afresh, as though for the first time.

I shall give her a rose to plant in memory of her daughter. It's not much, but apart from being there for her if she will let me, it's the best I can do.

Temptation

Oh my god, it's stunning!  Who is that woman in the mirror? The one with the great legs and the fabulous figure which goes in and out in all the right places?  How can a dress do that?  It was the perfect summer shift dress, the one I've had half an eye out for all summer and here it was in the sale in the local posh frock shop.  It just sort of slipped itself on and fitted like a dream. 

I had come into the nearby small market town for a quick trip to the dentist to fix my loose crown before the wedding in Kent. I didn't really need a new dress at all, but then who ever does?  There are plenty of previous years' lapses in the wardrobe which would more than cover the occasion, but there's something about a new dress teamed with three inch heels and a pashmina...

So, just a quick trip next door to make an appointment with the spray tan lady - those white legs could certainly do with some help - then back home to do unexpected things to myself, like depilate, exfoliate and moisturise all over, most of which I have managed to get through life quite happily without until now, but apparently crucial to giving the tan a chance to take.  You certainly need time and money in bucket loads to be beautiful, or even in with a chance, I realised.

My partner did a double-take when I walked into the room, looking for once like the woman I would like to be. Sadly this will not happen very often, as the credit card bill will soon land on the doorstep and the consequences will have to be faced. 

Still, I enjoyed pulling out all the stops for once... and I thoroughly enjoyed my friend's wedding Sometimes you just have to go for it!

Just Beam me up

The boat surfed the threshing waves bouncing like a cork then slid into a trough as I glanced behind to see the large, heavy wooden dinghy we were towing poised on the wave's crest and crashing down towards us.  I clung on for dear life and said my prayers as the boat heeled over, seawater rinsing the decks, blinding me with spray.
 
I could think of a million things I would rather be doing right now; planting out my oxeye daisies, painting my nails bright blue, drinking ink ...


We finally made it into the river entrance and sailed more sedately to join the other boats taking part in the Rally, anchored deep in the river mud.  Later that evening we joined them for a barbecue on the beach in a remote spot, inaccessible other than by water, chatting, laughing, exchanging stories.  Someone started playing music by the firelight as we watched a glorious sunset and the light gradually faded from the sky. Then we waded through the mud to the dinghy to join another boat for a nightcap, before making our way back up the quiet moonlit river to our own boat to snuggle in for the night.

"That's the difference between you and me," I said to my partner. "I can quite happily go to a party and enjoy myself without having to half kill myself first."

"It makes the beer taste better," he replied succinctly.

East Coast Mud

We turned off the busy road and headed into the empty countryside under wide Suffolk skies. After a few miles we took another turning, down a dusty, single-track lane, deeper into the remote countryside.  A few minutes later, the river glinted at us through the trees and we reached our destination.

We had moved the boat up to its new mooring late last week and are being initiated into the joys of inflatable dinghies and East coast mud.  Having unloaded and parked the car, it took rather a long time in the hot midday sun to pump up the dinghy, attach the outboard and load it with supplies for an overnight stay.  As I gingerly stepped onto the treacherous thing, it floated away from the jetty slightly, pulled by the tide, leaving me straddled, one foot in the dinghy, the other slipping off the jetty into the thick gooey mud.  Not my most dignified moment, but a baptism of fire into the reality of a river mooring, after the luxury of marinas and pontoons. 

We finally managed to get ourselves onto the dinghy, started the outboard and set off  a quarter of a mile upriver to our boat, sitting rather closer to the water than is entirely comfortable for a landlubber.  We tied up and somehow managed to haul ourselves precariously on board.  At last we got the sails up and drifted along the meandering river on a light breeze, then moored up by a riverside pub, lowered ourselves into the dinghy again and rowed ashore for a well-earned drink.

There are now two things I have added to my wish list that I would never have dreamed of in my other life.  One is a nice firm fibreglass dinghy, the other is a boarding ladder!

Stardust

Nobody said it was easy.

Sometimes there's a glimmer of hope and I start to think that I really can do this, I really can make a life here, but the truth is I'm like a plant without a tap root, frantically trying to push out a network of fine fragile new roots into the somewhat reluctant East Anglian soil to compensate for what is lost, and I feel discouraged.

I know I've been here before, more than once, in a new place, building a new life and I also know that it takes time and that, sometimes, it never takes at all and you just have to go back to where you were and begin again from that place, and maybe that's going to be the answer in the end.  We no longer have children to help establish us in a strange place and I am struggling to find meaningful work and ways of passing the time.  People are very kind, but I have no deep connection with them and I'm not sure I have the will to keep trying.

There are wonderful things about life here.  The house is as lovely and welcoming as we had hoped, the village is idyllic though very sleepy and set in it's ways, the surrounding countryside is stunningly beautiful and we are enjoying exploring our new terrain.  We plan to carry on getting to know this part of the world, to enjoy what is available to us, to sail all over the coastline this summer exploring the inlets and rivers and try not to worry too much about the uncertain future. 

But I miss the life I had, with all its mess and difficulties.