Busy life.

Hi there,

it’s been a while since my last post and if anyone thought I’d dropped off the face of the Earth I’m here to dispel those rumours.

It’s been more than a little hectic at work recently, so much that I’ve got up at 4am to get to work for 6am and then working through until 4.30pm. Living where I do, I don’t get home until after 5.30 at the earliest, couple that with the stress of the job and having to work for a manager who has openly admitted to me that he resents me for living where he holidays, plus the stress of moving home and you can imagine that I am more than a little tired when I eventually reach home.

That is not, by any means an excuse for not blogging on a regular basis, but it does give you some idea of the time restraints I place upon myself. I have attempted to finish off Discovery, the third installment in the Col Sec series and have reached a block in the road. Whether this is because of all the turmoil in my personal life I’m not sure, so I decided to leave it alone for now and try something else. In that respect I have started another project which is coming along nicely. On another note my partner has had a story bouncing around in her head for as long as she could remember, well she finally got around to start writing it. It has been great collaborating with her on certain points in her story as she does with mine and now she is hooked too. I write action/adventure stories set in a recognisable future but she writes fantasy and although it’s a genre I have lost touch with I must admit to admiring what she has done so far. She has a flair for painting with words in a way that brings her ideas to vivid life.

In a few short days I must return to work where I can see no let up in the near future as we are really quite busy, which is a good thing really especially in an economic climate where people are losing their jobs and having to live the best they can so I am not complaining. I am merely readying myself for what lies ahead. Soon we will be in a position to move house, Discovery will be completed as will my new project along with my partners work too. On another note my daughter will be getting married soon and preparations are going ahead for that event too. Can there be a more prouder moment in a father’s life, or sadder, than when he gives her hand over to the man she will spend the rest of her life with, I doubt it. It is proud because he is saying to the world, ‘this is my daughter, look at her she is wonderful’ and sad because he is handing over the protection of that woman to another. A father’s job is to love and protect his children and I have done that to the best of my ability with both my son and my daughter, to have to hand over part of that to another man is almost like being made redundant from the best job in the world. I will never stop loving my children they both know that but it is so hard to watch them grow up. We, as parents teach our children to find their own way in the world, to become independent and when they do we feel sad that we have done such a good job.

Anyway that’s enough for now, I’ve enough to be getting on with in the near future and I hope to see you all again soon.

Best regards,

See you soon,

Jan.

How well do we know our friends and family?

Hi there,

it’s rapidly approaching the time for an event that I am not looking forward to, the funeral of my nephew, for the obvious reasons. I know my sister has planned it well, it will not be a mournful occasion, there will be tears of that I’m sure but it will be more of a celebration of the young man‘s life and not a sad farewell. Having said that, the reason I am not looking forward to it, and forgive me for labouring what to some may be the obvious, but I am not looking forward to saying goodbye. I will never see that young man again, never share time with him, laugh with him or discuss topics of interest we both share. I am still struggling with the basic fact that he has been ripped from our lives by some callous act of chance, so saying goodbye is out of the question.

During the funeral service I will listen to comments, anecdotes and revelations about him from various friends and family members and it brings back memories of three funerals I attended in the last few years which brings me to the point of this post.

At each funeral I learned things about the departed that I never knew, in some cases things that I’d forgotten about and reminded about others that we all had laughed about at family gatherings. At my Brother in law’s funeral around two years ago I learned what others knew about the guy and it opened my eyes. They were talking about a wonderful person, full of humour, warmth and generosity. My opinion of Paul was coloured, I’m ashamed to say, by my first impression of him. The first time I ever met him was, and I remember it as if it was yesterday, a cliché I know but none the less true, the night Stef, my sister brought him home to meet him. This is not quite how it sounds because they had dated a few times and I remember my parents talking about it and Paul in general and that they knew very little about him other than what my sis had told them, which was not a lot. Well you can imagine that, that wasn’t going to go on for long. Previous dates had ended with them arriving home, Paul would say goodnight at our gate then disappear into the night and Stef would come in. The night in question we all waited for her return, it was a saturday night and my father kept going out to the gate to catch their arrival.When they got home Dad was waiting at the gate, Paul had no avenue of escape and when invited in he had to say yes.

In they came, Stef introduced him to Mum and myself, I was still at school and although my sis and I fought like most siblings, I looked up to her and when I saw Paul my first thought was “What the hell is she doing with him?” I expected her to come home with a hunk, tall, muscular with model good looks, in other words in my young mind someone worthy. Now Paul was the same as the rest of us who don’t quite fit my parameters for my sis’ ideal partner, in other words normal and quite frankly not up to her standard and therefore not good enough for my big sis. I’m ashamed to say that it coloured my perception of the guy and it changed our relationship. I never got to meet the real Paul, I only knew the Paul I met on that first day.

How many of us have done that I wonder?

I know I’m going to learn things about Matt, my nephew that I never knew, I’m going to see things that others saw and I hope I’ll be richer for the knowledge. It makes me want to immerse myself in the family I have left totally, to really get to know them and them me, to learn every facet of their lives so that  when the time does come to say goodbye they, and I can say that ‘Yes’ I knew them.

In closing I urge everyone to cherish your friends, family and loved ones. Spend time with them, talk to them about your day, listen about theirs and above all never be afraid to tell them you love them. I know from experience that chance, fate or whatever you want to call it can take them from you at any moment so cherish what time you have left.

See you soon,

Jan.