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...

Autumnal Garden Days

I love these (rare) warm sunny late summer days and there is all sorts of lovely things going on in my garden... I counted 12 red admiral butterflies whizzing around the over grown ivy which I had been about to hack down but then left until the flutterbies have finished with it... The late blooms add a dash of colour and the daisy strewn lawn is littered with autumnal leaves, debris from my brief half an hour of slash and burn and the stone wall is covered in glorious soft moss all shiny and tactile with a few late nasturtiums loitering. I've hacked out the brambles for this year, sadly I missed the fruit as we were away, ditto the strawberries, we never seem to get the fruit before the birds so I've made space and moved the plants that were getting swamped and so not performing to their potential - hopefully next year they will literally blossom now they have light and room to flourish.

Goodbye Dissertation!!!

The dissertation is finished... it took me ages to do all the detail stuff Harvard referencing ect... the simplest tasks were starting to drive me mad!! I cant believe how long it took me to work out how to number pages excluding the first two pages aagghhhh... I suppose I should be grateful that its not like the olden days where you had to get it typed and bound before hand in - this essay has been a hard slog, a subject which I felt was interesting - how the digital explosion is ruining traditional creative methods turned into a fairly unexciting - pretty boring unexceptional topic! there will never be a next time but my advice is think of something funky - does Danny Boyle like garden Gnomes - Racoon meets Lady Gaga - anything that might surprise you but not too grown up!! I have worked hard and will be rewarded with a mid grade because there is no passion in this essay - the hard slog is evident as is the lack of enthusiasm - C'est la vie you cant win them all....

Planet Ruby Starrs

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