Grief hurts - and life moves on..

Grief fractures your soul.. in so many ways and watching those close to you suffer is heart breaking. Its only natural to want your children to experience everything life throws at them to have adventures and to learn but when those things are of such a tragic magnitude it is hard to watch and feel so unable to lessen that load .. I have watched my daughter and her daughters these last two weeks being quietly brave.. openly heartbroken.. stubbornly stoic.. amazingly funny .. emotionally messy.. all in a sometimes loud sometimes gentle, often forgiving, hardly understanding, surprisingly lost for words, considerably stunned and shocked, and on a good day potentially irreverent way.

The girls and myself are wonderfully supported by many good friends, Dr Fred and my son who somehow knows what to say or maybe when to shut up... I dont know which... but I know he is hurting as well he feels this grief in a different way. The loss of a friend but also the pain of watching his sister and nieces suffer. I am so very proud of both my children and I know they will look after each other and support when needed. Our friends and family have rallied round giving the most amazing support , sending messages and offering practical assistance where ever they can at this most difficult time in our lives. I can only say a massive thank you especially to those who are really looking after my girls in Leeds - as a mum and a nana I really cant thank you enough for all your love and time given freely.

Jays family are also much in my thoughts and I quietly admire their ability to pull together as a family and hold my best girls in a loving supportive way. how comforting for these saddened persons to have this extended family to lean on and help keep alive the memories of a loving partner and fearless daddy.

The fierce protective mama in me is unleashed with nowhere to go .. I feel powerless to make things better .. I would just hug my girls constantly but they find that quite annoying and a bit restricting. I.m feeding them non stop ... well... apart from day two when shock and grief almost made me forget and a little eight year old hastily scribbled her granddad a letter to ask him to ask nana for some lunch!!

I'm naturally a feeder and a rescuer and feel lacking in both at the moment its a terrible feeling not being able to make your most precious loved ones feel happy and safe..
Its not all bad.. yes some days are very bad and will continue to be worse but we still find occasions to dig deep and laugh and remember silly moments which help sustain us. These days of sorrow are hard lessons learnt but we must know nothing is a given in this life so we have to take responsibility for living a full and adventurous life - those we have lost would want nothing else.

It is my intention to leave this sorrow with us as a family and I am unlikely to post further on the subject but Jays life and subsequent sudden death has made a huge impact on our lives and the hole he has left could not pass by without comment and acknowledgement. He will forever be part of our family and his girls will always know how much he loved them.

Alesund

Our final destination stop was Alesund. This is a very pretty town in southern Norway built on a peninsula. All the houses are painted pretty colours and a lot of the architecture is all very Art Nouveau based. This is because the town itself was completely burnt to the ground In 1904 by a fire for which they never found the original cause. The whole town had to be rebuilt and this became a huge National Effort and a lot of prominent and up and coming architects flocked to the town to stick there 20 pence in. Consequently the town is very heavily Art Nouveau which was very fashionable at the time. There is this wonderful Museum just off the harbour which is a very beautiful Art Nouveau house. It has amazing panelling, doors, wallpaper, and it's all furnished with beautiful art Nouveau Furniture. It also house a collection of of enameled Art Nouveau Trinkets,boxes, spoons, jewellery, very very beautiful. There is an interesting collection of old books and paintings a...

Isle of Bute

Another Landmark Trust tick - this time Ascog House on the Isle of Bute - stunning as always... a very comfortable warm accommodation for the usual 8 suspects. This time we had a wee tower house for Dr Fred and myself - a lovely bedroom up the stairs with a big window and a bathroom al to ourselves - having said that all the other bedrooms in the big house were large and serviced by two bathrooms so there was no hardship for any visitors! The grounds of the house were very extensive with ponds and secret passages - hidden paths and we even spotted a deer late afternoon - there were lots of old features - ornate staircases and a lovely hidden door which I did a quick sketch of. Bute provided quite a lot of entertainment as well - the weather was kind and we did a a muddy wander down the south of the Island taking in St Blanes Monastery and Kilcannon Bay. The views were spectacular and it was fabulous to be out in the fresh (and it was fresh on the tops) air and we...

The Blue Dot

Excellent evening spent at the first Blue Dot festival held at Jodrell Bank. Clever use of the radio telescope as back drop for the main stage... there were some major teething issues which hopefully will addressed if this event happens again - mainly access and parking.. it was a nightmare approach to the festival and fortunately as we were only doing one night we decided to ditch the car and chose to walk the last mile and half into the site... what a relief as if we had queued we would most certainly missed Public Service Broadcasting which was one of the reasons we were going.. anyway we caught them and then enjoyed fantastic set by Underworld - danced much of the night away in the rain - my trusty solfest poncho almost kept me dry.. it was a splendid evening and the telescope looked brilliant when lit up when it got dark. There was a rather fab "installation" called a luminarium, lack of site information - another hiccup meant we were really lucky to catch it just ...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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