Feeling a bit Droopy of late... I don't know what's wrong with me of late but I feel really tired and off colour - first I thought I was just down but then on came the nausea and racing heart - and it comes and goes in waves. I was at a meeting yesterday listening to a retired journo talk and he was really entertaining and funny, but I almost fell off the chair a few times as I kept drifting off - yet have had good sleep. Then when everyone else appeared quite comfortable I just broke out in waves of heat - (thought menopause was over some time ago) . I am just feeling physically exhausted - most likely some sort of bug which will ease soon hopefully...not depressed because I am interested in things , whats going on around me - 

Its funny, when I think of the old place at craggy island - its as if there are two me's. The one here and the other one and although I share her memories its as if I have disassociated myself from her feelings - I like it here okay, but I miss the wildness and the skies and the green. We only lived there 5 years - but I guess it was the last place I was with my husband and he died there.

In 2004 we moved from our old place where we had lived 18 years and I sort of did the same to that life - Before they moved the house Don and I went back inside and made a video about our life there and some of the things that happened - this time when I left I did video some of the scenery and all of that but there was no telling happy stories... I am glad to be closer to family, but I wish in a way I had been able to afford to keep the old place - it was just financially unsustainable...

 Can't really go into it in detail as its private stuff  - a few family issues (not with the kids and their husbands thankfully)- and nothing in here is private as many of us have learned to our costs - there are those who don't understand the ethic of allowing privacy - if they can access they will and see nothing wrong with their actions - its low class as far as I am concerned and not the way we were raised. Mum and Dad always allowed us as much privacy as one can have in a house full of kids and a mum and Dad... letters were private and never ever opened. They didn't try to worm their way into your head too much and as long as you didn't do anything too outrageous your inner thoughts wee your own. And as kids and young teens we didn't do anything much to worry them - even if i did runaway from boarding school - I was actually running back to home.

If of course you are afraid your kids are into heavy stuff that could harm them or others then as a parent you have not only a right but a duty to invade the privacy - that's different.

Sometimes in here amongst those I have posted with for quite some years I read others with the same issues - For me in the years after Don was killed - being able to post in here sure beat taking sleeping pills or something else because I just could not sleep for any length of time - And I got a lot of advice, help and support in here - at times much more than from others...

Its a funny thing about "low class" - you can own the world and be "low class" and you can be poor as a church mouse and have real class. I remember many years ago an elderly neighbour who had just met my Mother commented that she was "a real lady" - and I knew what she meant. She was very poor and didn't have good clothes really... the widow's pension which she tried to live on after Dad was killed wasn't adequate and in those days there were almost no jobs for older women nor help in minding the kids still at home. But Mum never acted poor. She never let her dignity go and she was always soft and compassionate - and interested... She had the big house but it was unpainted for years and the roof had begun to rust before she moved over to be near Don and I. From out of this old house would come the sounds of her playing Beethoven on the old piano, and then the old record player would offer Elvis - there were books and comfort - but no waste - I wrote this about my Mother's house back in 1988 before she moved

"My Mother’s House.

An old ginger cat, called Samboy, who dribbles

and soaks in the heat and patting.

A larrikin dog, called Ben, with a strong lust

for life, female dogs, and things that stink a lot -

An old, old house ...

with no paint left on it - but flakes of war time yellow -

Sagging at the seams...

Inside - Colour! Colour! Colour!

The whole spectrum thrown with abandon

amongst the clutter of every item ever made and collectible...

Seemingly chaotic...

but she can put her hand on everything you need,

“Just give me five minutes”.

This then is my Mother’s house now.

No neat prissy brick and tile, with every care taken,

and smelling of a life wasted in endless order and empty heart -

Sometimes here she is happy.

Light shines and laughter warms in girlish giggles from her.

Sometimes she is very unhappy.

She closes from the light and lives inside a cardboard world,

enduring it till it passes...

People with their heads and hearts on backwards

Would never see the charm, warmth and purity

of my Mother’s house."

***********
 and its "charm, warmth and purity" that can't be bought. 

Mum with Ben the mad dog who chewed on exhaust pipes of cars while they were idling!

Mum was about 20 here

Mum was about 43 here - just after Dad was killed - and just noticed she is holding her arms in exactly the same position in both photos - never noticed that before

I think I need to get out of the house right now -