Widowing Empty Nests

Compassion Without Borders / Dhembshuri Pa Kufi

November 2, 2024 No Comments

Photos my own, taken in Berat on 2nd and 3rd August in Berat, Albania. 4th August 2024 Following our Peaks of the Balkans hike (a 10+ day walk around the high mountain borders of Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro), Medjool and I are now enjoying being “conventional tourists” – visiting and delighting in the historic, cultural […]

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Interference

November 2, 2024 1 Comment

Main image by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash 15 July 2024 Today, 15th July, is huge. One of those mega dates, loaded with meaning. Forever huge. For ever. 15th July 2017 we had Mike’s Celebration of Life. Three months after his death, still in shock (such vital protection) I was very numb. I remember where it […]

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Reasons Not To, & Reasons To

November 2, 2024 1 Comment

Main photo by Joshua Fuller on Unsplash. Other photo my own. 7 July 2024 I am sitting in bed in a hotel in Verbier, Switzerland, when “normalement” I “should” be “walking swiftly” up a great big mountain as part of a mountain trail run. But literally an hour ago, I decided I would not start. […]

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It’s Not An Easy Story To Hear

November 2, 2024 3 Comments

23 June 2024 Photos our own – from 2008 when Julia was four. I was in my kitchen at home, and a young man was stood on a chair, reaching up above the cupboards, presumably to fix something. One of the lightbulbs is forever blowing – it’s true. I didn’t know the young man, but […]

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Tears in Montpellier Railway Station

November 2, 2024 2 Comments

16 June 2024 Photo by Andrik Langfield on Unsplash I am in Montpellier St Roch railway station. As in many French train stations, there’s a piano for travellers to while away their wait, and play on a while. I never know whether it’s the pianist or listeners who most benefit. I love it. I’ve never […]

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Moving home – and knowing it’s your last time

November 2, 2024 1 Comment

Main image by Mantas Hesthaven on Unsplash 1 June 2024 I just said goodbye – or at least “au revoir” – to my neighbour. Let’s call her Marie. She is 82, and starting to decline cognitively, and to a lesser degree, physically. Her three daughters, who all live fairly close by, have been very hands-on […]

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Oh darling – where are you?

November 2, 2024 1 Comment

Photo by me – A red rose – Julia’s favourite flower. 19 May 2024 Many years ago – perhaps 20 or even more years ago – my dad talked about how he “checked that his brain was still functioning properly, every morning, on waking”. His check-in practice was to run his mind through each of […]

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My Non-Deep Time of Mothering

November 2, 2024 No Comments

Main image by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash 2nd May 2024 Twenty-five years ago today, 2nd May 1999, I became a mother for the first time. It was a Sunday. Our son Ben was born at 14h10 CEST, in Annemasse, France, barely an hour after Mike and I arrived at the hospital. It had been snowing […]

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More Than Human Losses

November 2, 2024 3 Comments

Photos my own – main photo with Ben, Megan and Julia, the day Black arrived – 22 April 2011 23 April 2024 A long, long time ago, back in the last millennium when many more species (if not exactly dinosaurs) still roamed the earth, I read “My Family and Other Animals” by Gerald Durrell. Even […]

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Loved Top To Bottom and Head to Toe

November 2, 2024 1 Comment

Image generated by AI – a woman rooted in love, loved from above and below 😉 17 April 2024 Today my elder daughter, Megan, turned 23. She was born at 1h25 a.m. A potentially inconvenient time, other than I’d been in hospital already for quite a few weeks (four? I honestly forget) on a permanent […]

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