It’s all starting to feel very real now, in a slightly surreal, still half a year away fashion.
This morning we dropped in at Julie-from-Badgers as she had wanted to check in with me prior to the start of term that I was happy with the programme and knew what it all entailed. I have cast an eye over it and will look at it in more detail nearer the time – we won’t be at Badgers for a whole fortnight yet ;). She threw her arms around me in a rather unexpected and slightly awkward hug with an ‘I can’t believe you’re leaving me!’ and then proceded to tell me how wonderful the whole experience will be for the children and how very ‘us’ it was. I always squirm slightly at being told anything is very ‘me’, I remember a work colleague telling me that jetting off to Las Vegas to get married was ‘very you’ and wondering how that could be when even I was slightly shocked we were doing it! It does entertain me the way that slightly more conventional friends are almost selling me the idea of WWOOFing though in trying to convince themselves it isn’t 100% crazy…
I explained that Davies has decided against Cadets. I told her the reasons (he’d miss the first two sessions of term, only be there for one term anyway etc.) and she then suggested he carry on at Badgers for the term, go into her group doing First Aid which he has done before so won’t get a badge for but can brush up his knowledge (it was quite some time ago he did it), be a Follow Me Badger for the final term and assist Julie with the younger Badgers, not be with Scarlett or I and finish the term at the end of the year with Scarlett and I, get his SuperBadger award etc. and be part of the grand farewell to the Goddards. He loved the idea and it will make life much easier for me not to have to plan a place for him to be while Scarlett and I are off.
We left there and headed to PYO, arriving about 10 minutes early, which with Julie’s usual 10 minutes late meant we were sitting in the car for 20 minutes or so. I’d picked up a load of cds to listen to in the car and they all happened to be fairly melancholy ones which had me all reflective and feeling sad. I don’t know if I mentioned but we found out recently that my Grandfather had died – my Mum’s Dad. She had been estranged from him for many years and out of loyalty to my Mum I had had no contact with him either, although it was no big sacrifice as I hardly knew him and certainly didn’t see him as a Grandfather in any more than the biological sense. Mum has rather gone to pieces over the news though, despite me having numerous conversations with her over the years about how she would feel if she learnt he had died and if she felt she would have any regrets for things not said, done or thrashed out then she should attend to them. Frazer has been very consoling of her, sharing her grief and saying he would have gone to his funeral, whereas Dad and I are both rather at a loss as to what the appropriate response is. I suspect all four of us are rather messed up in our responses with Mum and Frazer going for emotional and Dad and I going for rational when neither is probably entirely appropriate.
This year has seen all sorts of evidence of life dealing hard blows to people I care about. I have witnessed a friend lose a child, a friend lose a sibling, a friend deal with health scares, friends lose parents, parents lose their parents, a child deal with losing pets and just been reminded over and over again of my own and everyone I love being mortal and here for a limited period only. I am finding myself grieving for people I never even met and missing people who were never part of my life. It makes me question what it is all about after all – and hardens my resolve to go off and find the right path for us even more.
Julie, Jack, Maisie and Lorna arrived and we headed into PYO. The four older cousins wanted to be off and about really so we tended to let them while Julie, Lorna and I did fruit picking and chatting. I picked raspberries and sweetcorn – the apples were not up to much. Julie picked lots of plums too. We sat and ate a picnic, all Julie’s as I had not thought to pack anything, but fortunately Julie always over packs and was only too happy to share :). I updated Julie on all our firm bookings for WWOOFing places and we talked about the kids all growing up (J&M will be 8 a couple of weeks after D is 10). I’ll miss Julie a lot while we’re away, I couldn’t wish for a better SIL, it really is like having a sister I chose myself :).
We finally left there at about 3pm ish I think. We came home and I did some laundry processing, Scarlett played with the ducks and then I did some dealing with the fruit on the patio. We had two huge tubs of plums that my Dad had given us but he has been sweeping all of his patio into the tubs and they were filled with fruit flies and pine needles along with a mix of very rotten and okay plums. After a while I concluded it was one of those tasks where the output simply won’t justify the input so I gave up and threw all the plums to the chickens and ducks. I then peeled and chopped the windfall apples we’d collected yesterday, cooked them up and have two jars of chunky apple sauce to do something with at some point.
The kids needed to do some bedroom tidying so they did that and then Davies set up a load of toy soliders in the lounge. I sent Davies round the shop to buy some tinned pasta and he was *ages* prompting Scarlett and I to go after him. It turned out he’d been caught by our neighbour David who was out looking under the bonnet of his car and wanted to show Davies what he was doing and then he couldn’t find the pasta. By the time we’d done all that we were too late to be cooking pasta so they chose some pitta breads and we nipped home for Davies to pack some dinner for them while I got changed before we headed up to the allotment.
We met Ady up there and spent a last hour there digging up the last few potatoes, digging up the apple tree and cutting a load of rosemary. We collected our tools, left the wheelbarrow that someone had donated to us in the area for giving stuff away and said a fond farewell to the plot. We’ll have to pay again for a year in September and knowing we won’t be around to reap the rewards of anything we sow now it seems like the right time to give it up. It felt quite strange as we have loved having the allotment and it is in no small way responsible for our current plans but there is such a long waiting list I want to give someone else the chance to enjoy growing their own. Another goodbye though…
Ady brought the kids home while I nipped to the CoOp for some bits for dinner, I arrived back only to realise I’d forgotten one of the key ingredients so nipped out again to Sainburys. Ady had been held up coming home by a lane closure as a motorbike had crashed and it had obviously been fatal as the whole road was now closed while accident investigation units were on the scene. It took ages to get to the supermarket and on the way home I attempted to dodge the traffic with a long way round diversion which was equally trafficky so I was gone for ages.
Another example of life being so very tenuous.
I cooked dinner, we watched the news and while I still have a bed within a house I am going to go and do sleeping in it.