Into my book room - library I guess

Its a most beautiful day here today. I have to admit this is the best introduction to summer I have experienced in my whole life. Apart from the odd hot day here we are in late November and its only 18 degrees and a gentle sunny day. So much different to what I have been used to till I moved to Melbourne - I know its windy but I think based on this last year that the weather really suits me. I took a few photos of around my house - I am pretty settled in finally not much to change now apart from de cat hairing the place almost daily - where do they get all that fur from I have to wonder... 

Ahem! I don't have wallpaper I have photos and many hang at angles even though I blutack the backs of them...its a mystery to me and I remember it used to annoy Don no end - He always had a good eye for "straight" and "level" which missed me. 

Down the Hall

I still don't have my car back yet - never have I had such a run on broken down cars. It broke down on the 3rd nov and here it is Nov 18th and no word on its return. The warranty runs out on 20th and its getting mighty odd how long they are taking to fix it. The kids suggested I email the car dealer to ensure my warranty as they have had the car since 5th and they were I hope suspicious that it was being dragged out for warranty reasons but as its a major car dealer they wouldn't want to try because I will make a noise  - and go public - I always suggest that to anyone who is treated unfairly and cannot get resolution - but am hoping they are being honest and will have my car back tomorrow at no charge. Will be two weeks on Wednesday. As i have been driving about in their loan car all this time they can't really claim they didn't have the car. I hadn't even thought about this until the kids put the idea in my head - I don't think it is the case as i quite liked the salesperson not because he was smarmy charming - he wasn't - he just seemed decent- so will see. I would like to believe and so will until...proven wrong

Part of the main room

FoxyMoron got it right in the last comment re last post's temporary melancholia about missing Don when she wrote "I can sometimes "hear" in your writing that you still just can't believe that he is gone." Even going for a Sunday drive with music on is likely to have me sobbing unable to drive...God knows what's normal...is there a normal? Most of the time I am okay, I seldom cry and am out there talking and being with people but at the back of it all is a dreadful hollow that hurts with a physical pain. After time people switch off as they must as as no doubt I have done - although I hope not with my Mum...I do remember liking it when she talked about Dad because I got to know him better through her doing that but now I understand her pain - a pain I know she felt as intensely as I do and without the resources I have to deal with it...she had no sisters nor brothers, no parents and just us kids who were too young to really understand. Like me she was "self sufficient" in that we were used to being alone and able with our family never needing swarms of gatherings with friends etc... I have spoken with two of my sisters and the girls about this not needing friends apart from when outside the house - and we are all like this - In my case and with Mum apart from one good friend maybe our husband and kids were/are our friends.

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Kitchen

The older I get the more I have compassion and love for my mother, when maybe when i was younger I just didn't see the whole - maybe this is the growing up we need to do as I slide to the age she was when she died - I understand her so much more. The funny thing is about grief that when you first experience it you have people near you generally and they are happy to talk with you, but thats when you can't talk about it and it takes ages sometimes to be able to say the words. When the words come and spurts without reason most times you just say them to yourself because society's "rules" seem to be that there is a certain progression of "grief" From my understanding this only happens with those who have not really loved deeply...from my talking with others such as myself even ten years and more you can be doing something and a smell or sound will sit inside you and you are rocked right back to an intensity of grief that hurts physically. In saying this it is so unlike depression, as some assume because like most I am most of the time fine...then it hits. 

Dining room - its lovely 

My place

No one has ever held me with as much love as Don did. I know I was lucky listening to others - I thought everyone had what we did. I never knew what to expect and life was like constantly going around bends not knowing what might be around the corner...but it wasn't scary because he was there and as far as I was concerned he could do everything. He could fix everything  

a huge rose twice the size of those in Port Macquarie

A mother who has lost a child (as Foxy knows sadly) a sibling loss, husband or wife, very close friend - its not how you think it will be. Years down you can still smell their special smell. You can see the very pores on their skin and are close to the light in their eyes and its there no matter what others assume you should be feeling. I guess this is just my experience I thought I would never recover from Dad's death, then when Mum died I was knocked flat even though I functioned amazingly on auto for ages...as with Don I was on auto for so long, too long and now there is time to really grieve.

More roses

I haven't posted here that much of late because its just not there. But in saying that if someone said to me I had to go back to Craggy Island to live tomorrow I would be really upset. I love it here. I have made it a home. I have completed another term at Tafe - another certificate and have applied for a position. I am employable although not young and I believe i will make a go of anything I do because I like being amongst people outside - I have joined two writing groups and go to them monthly. Our local port Macquarie Group is about to have our anthology published and I will go back there for that and am in two minds about how I will handle this. I made the book marks for the books and did a great job as well.I joined a social club which features retro music (60's and 70's) and am looking forward to this. I go to Pilates weekly with Ali, and see her often. I speak with Melissa many times a week and two of my four sister. So I am not wasting the life I have been given which Don did not have...that would be wrong. I am involved in some areas to do with things that I believe in and most importantly i plan on leaving this Earth a better place for my passing through - which is what I am doing - just passing through. So no a touch of melancholia never hurt anyone actually as long as it doesn't hang about it can cause you to reconsider things you would not normally think about. It like Rosacea is considered the curse of the Celts! But then the Celts have written some incredible books and music so who knows...maybe its better that being satisfied with Bread and Circuses.
There are some amazingly beautiful roses here which I am happy about and am nurturing. I planted the flowers down low a few months ago and they are doing well. Right now I am sitting here typing, listening to Humble Pie"s "Thirty Days In the Hole" which we used to blast out on an amp which would lift the roof of any flat...the afternoon sun is streaming in the windows and it really is a beautiful Sunday afternoon.