Sorry, I blogged off for quite some time!
It’s been ages since my last blog but I kind of have an
excuse. To state that my feet have
barely touched ground in the last ten months would be somewhat of an
understatement. I’ve hardly had time to
sit down at the computer, let alone put finger tips to keyboard and produce a blog. I did have something ready to publish after
Christmas but then my laptop was stolen in a house robbery so that put pay to
that. The robbery is only part of the
story. So much else has happened to me and those closest around me that it
would need a voluminous work to explain.
I’ll just try and summarise to bring you up to speed. In short, I survived Christmas, came home, fell
in love, turned 50, got engaged and put wedding plans in motion, suffered more sad
family losses, came close to death after being kicked in the head by a horse, marked
the first anniversary of Brian’s passing, submitted my first tax return like
the grown up I’ve become, have moved to a new house and have become a ‘lady of
leisure’ (at least for the next year!)
The passing of the Festive Season was a breeze. My family made it their mission to see me
through my first Christmas without Brian and they did it well. I awoke and whispered my Seasons Greetings to
him and then prepared to spend the day with my family. In the ten days I was there, the family home
played host to handfuls of friends who came to visit. It was a very special
time for me indeed.
My time away from my sunny Andalucian home came at a stage
when a new relationship was about to blossom.
Of course, so soon after losing Brian I wasn’t looking to become
involved with anyone else; however, the love that came along felt undeniably
natural. He’d been my (and Brian’s) best friend for nearly ten years and I’d
adored him as such for all that time so I knew the transition to loving him as
my partner would be easy. When it
happened, our announcement came as no surprise to family and friends closest to
us, in truth they’d either guessed or said they saw us ending up together. One
or two of these lovely friends had even played their part in getting us
together in the first place! If you don’t
know already, his name is Scott. I could extol his many virtues and qualities
but that would only embarrass him, so I’ll spare him that (for now at least!)
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| My new man and me on holiday in Portugal this July |
By some cruel twist of fate, earlier this year my sister
lost her husband following a long illness and not long after that, another
brother-in-law finally lost his battle with cancer. Elsewhere, others I know have also lost their
loved ones and perhaps most tragic and senseless of these was when our
neighbours’ 17-year-old son tragically died in April. All of us are showing our
bravery and all of us are proving that strength and resolve is what we are made
of. I've come to recognise this as the norm now. We are all amazing!
So, within weeks of finding out that my best friend was in
love with me (maybe in future I’ll dissect how on earth I didn’t see it coming!)
and within a very short time of me discovering the same about him, he announced
he wanted to marry me and we were engaged by March. The sorting and clearing out of unwanted
stuff in my own home suddenly became urgent as it was clear that his place would
be where I would very soon end up. For a
while, we managed to commute between our two houses but that was hardly going
to be practical in the long term.
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| Our engagement |
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| Crates out of storage and ready to pack |
No sooner than moving up a gear to prepare for my new life
with the new man in it, I went and got myself kicked in the head by a
horse which put me in hospital for three days on a drip in Intensive Care.
Scott had me labelled as a goner. Indeed, had the kick been a centimetre or two
in either direction about my head, I most probably would have been. Months later my eyes still get a bit out of
focus and tired in low light but they will continue to improve and I’m
thankfully generally mended. The experience has ended my involvement with
horses; there’s simply no way I am prepared to put Scott through that again.
My recovery on track, so then also was the move from my
house into Finca Tres Hermanos which has been Scott’s home for the past 16
years. To make ready for the move, a new
kitchen and living room extension was commissioned through a very capable
Spanish friend and once this was finished, my move progressed in stages and has
only recently been completed. I still
own Finca del Olivar which has been spruced up and prepared for renting out to
a friend and he’ll be moving in soon and has promised to look after the place
as if it were his own; no less than the place deserves for having been such a
happy home to me for the past ten years. I’m pretty sure Brian would approve.
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| Packing up the kitchen |
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| Drafting in some help with the furniture |
Humbug and Fudge coped with the move out of the only home
they’ve ever known but are still getting used to the three dogs they now share
a living space with. The dogs are quite
used to cats but my two aren’t yet fully aware of that and still prefer to keep
their distance, saving their excursions out of the cat flap until the cover of
night! That said, they haven’t hesitated
to lay claim to the house and utter a suitable ‘hiss’ when the dogs come a
little too close for comfort.
Finca del Olivar gets a spruce up!
I shall save telling you about my job as a teacher as I’ve
taken the decision not to return this academic year. There are a few reasons for this, not least
of which is that I am simply too busy running two homes, getting straight and
planning our wedding for June next year.
Things are beginning to quieten down on the house management front but an
element of sorting out remains to be done and one or two areas of redecorating
still need to be finished. When things
have quietened down a bit, maybe I’ll consider a small amount of private tutoring
should it venture my way.
So, that’s brought you up to speed but I’ll take the time to
break some of the more notable events of the last few months down to more
detail in future blogs. As I look back, I can’t quite believe sometimes just
how much my life has changed. An old chapter of my life has ended and that book
has been closed. A new book is being
written and I couldn’t be happier or more excited about it. I can safely say I’ve survived grief and my
Andalucian Adventure can now continue and follow an altered theme. I get the
distinct feeling that Brian is sending his blessing down from the stars, happy
in the knowledge that his best friend has my best interests at heart. I have no
doubt also that he would have entrusted me to no one other.
My advice for anyone wary or reluctant to find
love again would be to grab the chance to let someone else show how much they
love them. It doesn’t dishonour the life
you shared before, however much they think it might. I have surprised myself at how deeply I am
able to love again and it’s a wonderful feeling. I’m surrounded by others showing great
courage as they move on with their own lives after losing those they’ve loved
and it’s a wonderfully uplifting sight to see how well they are doing it.
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| Turning 50 didn't hurt .. much! |
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| A bucket list item ticked this summer! |
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| A family wedding in the UK in July |
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| Having a guy best friend is the greatest, until you fall in love with him |
