There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief - Aeschylus

To say that we have had a bad few weeks would be an understatement, I wrote before about the horror of receiving a bill for close on £17,000 dating back fourteen years and finding it practically impossible to provide evidence from that long ago to prove what Robbie was doing then and that he was not liable for the bill. The worry about the alleged debt has been crushing and the work involved to challenge it has not only been exhausting it has taken over our lives. However other shattering events have made us realise that our troubles pale into insignificance compared to the sorrow that others have to face. A young girl known to one of my children killed herself a week ago. I can only begin to imagine the total desolation that her parents must feel; it is such a terrible waste of a young and talented life, it is so totally pointless that words fail me.

It seems wrong to write about the death of a pet in the same post as the tragic loss of a young woman on the brink of adulthood. I mean no disrespect, but to us the loss of Megan was extremely painful. A week ago I came home from work to find that she was unsteady on her feet, she could walk, but not very well and she seemed to be having difficulty eating – a sure sign that something was wrong. Meg and Robbie were great friends and like Robbie Meg not only cleared her own plate in record time, she would clear everyone else’s scraps! Meg was about nine months old when we adopted her from a rehoming centre; she was a failed sheepdog - because she was afraid of sheep! She was afraid of all sorts of things, but she was a very good natured dog with a passion for ball games - she could handle a football far better than most of the England team! She was about fifteen and very much part of our family, we knew that she would not last forever, but we were not ready to lose her. That evening it became clear that she had suffered a stroke and the only kind option was to have her put to sleep rather than allow her to suffer. We miss her very much, even the cats miss her, but she had a good life and she brought a lot of happiness to our lives. 

'Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole'.

Superman 05.02.07

Robbie's habit of wandering around the house in his pants causes a number of problems, there is the obvious horror factor of course, but there are less obvious difficulties too. It gives him the idea that he is Superman - we don't have many mirrors in our house!! He always thinks that he can take on the world, that's fine most of the time, but he is rubbish at taking care of his own health. He forces himself to keep going when his legs or his back hurt and then he ends up hardly able to move and all he can do is lie on the floor. There is no point nagging because it doesn't make a scrap of difference, but I do worry about him, he was so bad today that he couldn't manage to get to work. I hate it when this happens because far from being Superman he is more like an incapacitated troll! Unlike most of us he absolutely loves his work and he is impossible if he has to miss a day.