I'm back!

It was Arnie that said that right? I'm not sure - but anyways, I'm back! I realized during my self-imposed exile how much I kinda needed to put my thoughts down on paper in order to keep my brain free of mental "static". I never considered myself particularly political but when I think about all the things that get my blood boiling maybe I am. Anyhoo, I went offline because someone I trusted to respect my blogging privacy did just the opposite and flapped their jaws. More fool me for trusting that person! I wanted my blog to remain anonymous "over here" and that trust was betrayed but in the end, who cares if their need to gossip was greater than their respect for my privacy! But man was I furious! I knew I had to give it some time for me to cool down and I have because damn, if I'd written what I really thought at the beginning it would have been blue! But you know what, it doesn't matter! I considered making my blog permanently private, but ultimately I didn't want to do that. I also considering moving my blog (I have another blog) but sod it, I wanted my blog all in one place because damn it, I like occasionally reading back through it. After all, that was the reason I started my blog - well that and hopefully having someone further down the line happy to read what grandma/great grandma wrote. Maybe that will never happen - who knows - but I know I would have loved having access to my grandma or, even better, my great grandma's thoughts. So here I am, back again. I've pulled a couple of posts (thank you Marksgran for telling me how to do that) and I'm up and raring to go because, dammit, I have so much I want to get out of my head and down on paper!

So what's happening here? Not an awful lot in reality, but the weather is glorious - just my kind of weather actually. It was funny because my neighbour came out of her house in a huge jacket and scarf wrapped three times round her neck and I'm out in shorts and T-shirt! Give me the cool weather any time! I had been talking to my sweet Honduran colleague about us getting together to go out walking and we finally managed it this weekend. Oh we didn't manage much walking because she has a little two-year old and we fit in our activities around what the babe wanted to do - but you know what, it was lovely. We drove down to the lake at Passy and the babe had a wonderful time playing on the swings and making sandcastles. She and I hit it off immediately because I did all the stupid "oh what smelly feet you have" - and I loved it - and we have plans to expand our outings to a much bigger mom and baby group (even though my "baby" is 29 and a daddy himself)! I don't know, I just feel I live in such a beautiful area that I need to let others in on the secret!

A couple of weeks ago I went to the funeral of my dear colleague C and it was so sad. I knew where this crematorium was because I'd had the misfortune to go there before when my friend V lost her son at the young age of 21. But, what I hadn't realized was that due to all the roadworks around there my GPS sent me all over the place and I ended up making it just as the ceremony was starting! Damn! And it really was one of the saddest funerals I have ever attended. I would say the room was only about 2/3 full and the weather, being grey and miserable, certainly added to the sadness. But C's children gave her a loving send off, all the while most of us were thinking why? I guess we will never know, but somehow I feel she just might have been another victim of this pandemic. Maybe, just maybe, if people had been in work, working in their offices someone might have seen that things weren't going too well for her! Who knows!

And finally (for now), Jordan and Jen invited us all over for dinner the other week. Jen, Jen's mom and I have birthdays all within a short period of time so we all got together and did a pot luck (repas canadien?) and it was really lovely. Charlie hadn't got enough sleep so while I can't say he was cranky, he definitely wasn't going to go down without a fight so I (happily) walked around with him in my arms singing to him to try to get him to settle. Well my lullabys might not have worked on the Munchkin but damn, when I turned round Jen's mom's boyfriend had fallen asleep and this is how we found Leni, the horrible cat! Ah bless!