Karma!

tis the best of times and the worst of times!

Hi blog,

I had a lovely birthday with an unexpected day off work  due to bad weather stopping trains.

It was a real bonus as I was very tired after the weekend,. It was a good thing too, because I relived last year at this time, being with dad and all the emotions that went with that.

I drank a toast to my parents ,had a wee greet, then opened my lovely gifts.

John was great, kept everything going at let me chill, it has been a while since he was able to do that and it was lovely.

Our fab new beds came on the eve of my birthday , they are huge and dominate the little bedroom, but boy are they comfortable. I had a lovely long siesta on my birthday. 

I feel quite overwhelmed by all the calls, emails,  gifts and good wishes that came my way.

I felt a tinge of sadness, wondering how many more birthdays John and I will share, but heyho, no-one knows the answer to those questions.

Carpe Diem and trust that all shall be well.

Live each day as if it was your last,

and plan ,as if you are going to live forever.


Pa I visited you at the five trees, had a wee moment with you and shed a few tears.

It still feels unreal that you are not coming back, I miss you , I miss Kintillo, I even miss mum sometimes:-)

My first birthday as an orphan, I have done well to get to 64 before having to face that. Yet it is still rubbish.

Is anyone ever ready to face  and deal the loss of parents or anyone we love?

Yes! some folk are ;I have know them and counselled them. it depends on so many things.


Tomorrow, John's 81st birthday, we will have a meal with the children tomorrow night to celebrate both birthdays ! Always something to look forward to and enjoy ! I am grateful for my family..very grateful.

Post birthday celebrations and birthday eve

Hi blog

we had a wonderful celebration for Phil's 70th  birthday . JO's was a lovely unusual venue, the service and the food was great.

A&L and John and I rented a serviced apartment in Manchester "Light apartments"

 It was a stunning apartment with stunning views.We arrived early and put in some food ,wine, flowers candles and lovely fairy lights.

The gifts were on a low table with the flowers and lights beside them, the effect was simple and festive.

The views over night time Manchester was fantastic,

A&P&L's gift was the most beautiful oil painting of Lost in France. I do not think I have seen Phil so moved, ( apart for sad things) He loved it, and he loved all the other smaller gifts, from the other folk who were there.

Maggie and Rolly left after the meal , it was so amazing to see them after about 20 years. Maggie was the first woman I came across who drank pints, smoked cigarettes and was a vegeterian.She also had a mane of curly long red hair!

I never could get my head round that combination. I liked her immediately.

It was fantastic to see Richard and Doreen again , still good company and can make me laugh out loud.

Richard as dapper as ever! Doreen  keeping folk on their toes, her normal role.

It was good to reminisce about our young days with them, we have a shared history, and it was good talk about it all.

The evening was filled with warmth love, and a wee bit if nostalgia too.

The boys did their dad proud, and everyone else joined it to make the evening such a success.

The icing on the cake was that Man U beat Liverpool 2-1.


I am a bit worried about Andrew not sleeping ,I think his stress levels are quite high.

I have offered him some advice, that is about all I can do.

.
Dad ,it was good to hear Richard and Doreen talking about you, you certainly made an impression of folk.

Last year at this time I was in Glasgow visiting you in Hospital twice a day.

I met my young neighbour this morning ,she lost her mum at the same time we lost mum. We have a sympathetic relationship.

We had a litte hug and a wee cry together this morning.

I am working in Chester tomorrow. I am quite glad really. I used to like working on my birthday's because people bought cakes and sang happy birthday. Unfortunately I cannot mention my birthday to the folk I work with these days.

64 tomorrow Pa. hard to believe. I sing " will you still be sending me a valentime, birthday greetings, bottle of wine," to myself all the time, can't get it out of my head. I remember when 64 was indeed "many years from now" now it is a few hours away!

I am patiently waiting for our twin beds to arrive, anytime between 7 am and 2 pm.

Really looking forward to them being installed, new beds new mattresses, new pillows.new sheets ,new duvets.

We bought Mimosa last week, a gift to each other for our Silver Wedding at Halloween.

You will be happy to hear pa, I am investing the rest of our  money in a two year investment account. so no more spending for a while :-)

I am planning to spend a lot less on Christmas this year too.

Back to living on the pensions :-)

Love you pa, miss you, Helen XXXX

life and death, mostly death!

What a sad few days Pa.

I have shed a good few tears for you. I have been reliving last year at this time ,when you were still here on earth with us. I was getting ready to come visit you and be with you on my birthday.

I can not stand that I will never see you again, still trying to figure out how I can make it happen, bargain with a god I don't believe in.  My crazy side I know pa.


I am glad that you shared with me your sadness about your "auld man" I know you will understand my disbelief.

John's nephew died the other day, he was only 48 , had been an alcoholic for years,so this is hardly a surprise. Still very sad for all his siblings though.

Between you and I pa, I am fed up with all the other folk dying , it makes me feel your are getting pushed out of my heart, or that I should care more than I do about anonymous nephews and second cousins.

I am all out of compassion right now,I just want to tell everyone to SHUT UP and leave me in peace to think about you. I saw your tree the other day ,there was no one around so I hugged it.I felt I was hugging you dad. If only.

John is off to Sweden with his boy and will be away on your anniversary.

One thing I miss about Ireland is that they have rituals for the first month after a death ,they call it the months mind, and they have a church service on the anniversary every year.

I would like this to happen for your anniversary to be marked.

John will be away,and I thought about going to Glasgow , but H is being an "arse " as Sandra says.
I could go to the others but they are all so far away from Kintillo and our stomping ground.

I thought of going back to Castlenel to have some peace and quite.

I will likely stay here and  have some quality time with myself.

Birthdays coming up and to be truthful pa I can't be bothered,not with my own or anyone else's.

The last day I saw you was 26th September last year. You got out of hospital and you were so happy. I am glad to remember that day pa,rather than the night before on my birthday,that was harrowing.

You knew it was possibly the last time, but I was in denial,how , will never know ,the lounge was filled with oxygen and looked more like a hospital. Still I thought I would see you on October 7th. You looked so good back in your own space.

So many folk have moved on pa,so many other things happening to overshadow your life and death,in the last year. Not for me though. You are in my heart you are in my soul ..................


Looking forward to the light,

for now I feel sad and dark.


A time to be born a time to die,

a time to laugh a time to cry............................

Love and miss you pa x

last day Castlenel

Hi blog,

such a lovely day here in Castalla!

Last day for us till April.

I have put the M&C posters into the framers and they will be collected by Phil in November.

60 euro for both. Good price.

John and I went for a coffee at the Argentina cafe ,best coffee and tostada in town.We bought some treats for the 5 O'clock as it is our last day.

Phil and John have done 90% of the cooking since everyone left, some really nice food being served up :-)

I have had a good rest and now just doing last minute things before we leave.

I have to make sure nothing is left in the fridges,as the Shannon development course on being a holiday letter,gave me some good tips, clean tea towels each year, clean towels, newly painted kitchen and bathrooms/toilets and empty clean fridges.

Don't leave things you think that folk might use,there is nothing worse than other people's left overs,half empty packets of this and that.I agree the first thing we do is chuck other people stuff out when we arrive at a new place.

Not easy to convince everyone of this though!

Back to reality tomorrow, Frank picks us up at 7 50 :-( .

Thursday morning John has an appointment at the hospital with Sam, for his next injection.
Friday he has another X ray.

The time away from all that has been a blessing, we have been in a nice bubble.

Hi pa, I keep thinking of you and missing you, the sunshine makes me feel emotional and the stained glass panel too.

It is so beautiful and will look stunning when it is fitted into a proper window.

I have been reading a book written by a woman who lost her sister to cancer, it is so sad, she goes to mystics of all kinds to try to get in touch with her dead sister, very sad.

Opens up the question again".will I ever see you again."  I know I won't and I hope I will.

Susan says that one day I will just know you are never coming back and I will not meet you again and that  I  will cry for days. Something to look forward to :-)

I could never see me going to try to talk to spirits ! I am too grounded to do that. Talk to you in" the blog " yes.

Talk to you at he "five trees" yes.

I have been looking at pictures of you to-day pa, you, mum, all the aunts and uncles, grandparents that have died now. It is ok, quite comforting, as long as I don't look at the ones of you in the last year or so,that is still too hard.


Ann Mole's son died the other day. Darren, he was very young,somewhere in between Andrew and Philips age I think.

Ann is a cousin that we saw a lot of when Sandra and I were very young.We used to go to Durham to visit Auntie Rose and Uncle Harry and Ann with you and mum.

The last time I saw her was when I was pregnant with Philip, but you and mum always kept in touch with her, met her son and daughter.Mum visited her a lot as her mum ,Auntie Rose, and dad Uncle Harry, died and she had no siblings.
The Hallidays were much more in touch with her.

In the last year I have been in touch with her on facebook.

 I have been in contact with her this week,and her pain is enormous pa,no one can imagie the pain you suffer when you lose your child,no matter how old that child is.Not unless you have been through yourself. Even then each death ,each loss is unique.

She is in my thoughts "blessings on her heart"  If there is an afterlife and Darren is there, give him a hug. pa !

Everything is as it should be,
nothing is as it seems.


All shall be well,
and all shall be well,
and all manner of things shall be well.

And so it is.

normal tiredness today/peace love and lentils.

Slept most of yesterday  only had a plate of cereal all day,then slept all night till 9 am.this morning.

Phil continued with A&L 's laundry which is still drying on the balcony . I just lost all my energy in the middle of doing it yesterday and went back to bed.

John doing a bit more cooking,and Phil doing the shopping. John had a bad night and I worry, because if am not well, who will take care of him.

He feels a bit better today,I think we are all too old for these marathon events. I am the only one admitting it and I am the youngest of the three.



I listened to spem in alium-thomas tallis


So beautiful , I was lying on top of the bed  and the sun was streaming in the windows.

Made me think of Inveraray and inevitablely of you pa! more tears.I miss you so much sometimes it is too painful to even talk about it.

Your Stained Glass Panel is up in the glass door of Sophie's terrace now.


The Matt Collins window is not only  functional, which you would approve of, but it looks great too,still a bit more work to be done around it but 95% is done.

You would hardly recognise Castlenel pa, it has improved so much since your time and is much warmer,or at least you can have it warm if you can pay the bills.

I don't worry about that,it costs what it costs. I am willing to pay my share to be warm or cool,and the older we get the more we need this facility. It is one of the good things about Ullet, we can have it as warm as toast in winter as it is such a small space.

I am missing Sandra , we usually talk daily. I hope we can catch up soon, as the house is quieter, it is just finding a time when John does not need his room, and Sandra and I are free at the same time.

Shall i get an ipad. I promised myself a bike and an ipad with you money pa.

But it seeme to be flying out the window. I paid off debts to Phil , treated the kids to hotels and fares for J&G's wedding, bought expensive birthday presents, bought £3000 beds, and some Art from Lucy which we both love,and we had a holiday in Folkeston and London .I also loaned some money out.
Bought your window and Panel, and a window for Seodin and still have to pay for the rest of the improvements in that room

So what about my bike and my ipad? you may well ask pa.

The beauty of loaning some of the money out is that it helps the other people and it increases our income.

We lost our rent allowance because of the inheritence and we have lost quite a lot of income because my work is declining. Maybe because my work can be seen as luxury ( I still have my pro bono clients )

New paying clients are a bit thin on the ground.

So the income from the loans will be a great help.

I am going to invest  a good chunk of the money  that is left,into an account which I cannot touch for either,one ,two or three years.

Then we will revert back to living on income.

I will feel more in control.

I am thinking already about the cost of Christmas.

John has eleven people now, I still have three, plus John I don't have pa but since all the sister's are closer, we now give gifts.

Then all the litte gifts for clients and students,all add up. Beth.(her new baby plus Ellie is having another) I need to make an assertion about Christmas but I am not sure what it is yet.

Cards only? £20 per person?I have always hated that idea, but the family is expanding and our income decreasing,so what can you do? I think the most expensive gift I had from you pa was a cheque for £30 for John and my birthday. And i was pleased,so there  you go.


The kids don't seem to condider drawing in their horns, they way we did ,they have everything they want , many holidays and weekends away, nights out.
They don't seem to save for emergencies.

I think you taught us well pa. I take after you I am car ful with money mostly, but like mum with the children i can be a bit extravagent.

I only ever borrowed from you once in my life and that was  £1 when I was 16 for a pair of flat shoes ,as I was going out with a boy who was smaller than me. God I worked hard for that pound.from you :-)

Once when my gran-da died and I came over from Ireland from the funeral, you gave me £50 to help with the fares. I was so shocked and so grateful too.

And that was the some total of what you gave me in 63 years,until now pa.

I am grateful you you. I hate wasting money and getting a bit like you.I don't like spending it either. :-) only sometimes though :-)

I need to toughen up because it is easy to say no ,if you don't have money but not so easy to say no if you have.

I have to force myself sometimes to take the small amount of money that some clients can afford to pay ,now ,because I have some money in the bank. But I do because it is their dignity that matters and mine too.

Don't know how I got on to money pa, talking to you I guess. Thinking about what you would do is helping me to make decisions now . I have had a bit of a fling mostly for other people.A lot of folk have benefited from your hard earned money pa. Now it is time to save again and let the money grow a bit.

Thank you for you guidence.

May peace prevail on earth !

at the end of the day, it is the peacemakers on the world stage , in small families ,in workplaces, that have the most courage. it is so easy to get pissed off with people,to fight and kill others,to be exclusive.

To keep communications opened when things get tough,that is courageous and for me,real love.

There is no money in it ,and not much recognition either.

Blessed are the peacemakers !