Channelling Christmas Spirits
May 7, 2024 1 CommentMain image by Rob Wicks on Unsplash. Other photos my own. 29 December 2022 Today is my first “me day” in a fat week. I have had eight continuous days, (mostly enjoyable, if also busy), of catering and making, shopping and cooking, organising and preparing, washing and folding, sweeping and wiping, loading and unloading, and […]
Read MoreSlightly Lighter
May 7, 2024 No CommentsImage by Caleb Woods on Unsplash 26 December 2022 I survived another Christmas Day. Woohoo!I survived yet another Christmas Day.I am impressed. And of all of the above words, the word “survived” is the one that least fits. Because, for the first time in 9 Christmases, it didn’t feel like “survival”. It wasn’t exactly singing […]
Read MoreTwo Additional Years
May 7, 2024 1 CommentImage by Kristopher Roller on Unsplash 8 December 2022 Today I have lived two full years longer than Mike lived. He never quite made 20,000 days, and I am now well over that milestone. I have been lucky to have… …as compared with what Mike had. The numbers look ridiculous. Absurd. And as I type, […]
Read MoreDid I hear you say “…my surviving kids…”?
May 7, 2024 2 CommentsPhoto of my surviving kids, 27 July 2020, on what would have been Mike’s 57th birthday 1 December 2022 I was on a call last night for a personal-professional (same-same) development programme. It was the fifth meeting of eight we are having as a learning cohort. The group of participants is not large. All our […]
Read MoreSome emails jump out and punch me
May 7, 2024 3 CommentsPhoto taken by one of Julia’s boarding school friends, and sent to me some days after her death 29 November 2022 I needed to find an email I knew would be in my inbox somewhere, and so typed in two Christian names that I figured would result in what I was looking for. The email […]
Read MoreBeing friends because your friend is dead
May 7, 2024 1 CommentMain image – a shop we chanced upon. Other photos my own these past days. 26 November 2022 I have been having a few lovely days in Paris. It might be best known for being gorgeous in the Spring, and I do like it in the Summer too, but I think it’s lovely in the […]
Read More“Relativiser”
May 7, 2024 1 CommentImage by Dan DeAlmeida on Unsplash 19 November 2022 A long, long time ago, I had a lovely colleague, (let’s call her Jeanne), who had a similar role to me, except she was head of a different office in our consulting firm. She was a bit older than me, and had had all of her […]
Read MoreFor once, the tears weren’t (only) mine
May 7, 2024 No CommentsMain photo by Zac Ong on Unsplash 13 November 2022 Last Sunday I completed a 20 km running event. My first event of that distance (or so) in three years. I wrote about the run’s run-up here. http://www.widowingemptynests.com/2022/11/05/keeping-active-hope-alive-for-cop27/ I have so often been on the verge of tears at various points in long runs – […]
Read MoreKeeping Active Hope Alive for COP 27
May 7, 2024 No Comments5 November 2022 Photos my own – in the local forests I love to run in Tomorrow I am participating in the Geneva 20 km run. The last time I participated in a distance like this – approximating a semi-marathon – was 2019. The year Julia died. I remember that event so clearly. It astounds […]
Read MoreOld habits meshing with new ones – aka from Sergy to Scheveningen overland
May 7, 2024 4 Comments29 October 2022 I am on a Thalys train, sat at Rotterdam Centraal, awaiting the departure to Paris. I have had a very short, end-of-week (as opposed to weekend/week-end), break to see Megan who is studying in The Hague. I am on my way home, and door-to-door, it should take me 11 hours if all […]
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