Family

Hello to all of you lovely people out there and, as various guests on Chris Evans' Radio 2 show say, welcome to another day here on planet Earth!

I woke up in a strange bed this morning. Now that is not as scandalous as it may sound. While doing my work as a carer, I am occasionally asked to sleepover and last night was one of those nights. While I would obviously be happiest in my own bed, to sleep in a lovely bed with clean sheets and a snuggly duvet on my own was actually quite a treat. I was even woken with a steaming hot cup of tea which was luxury indeed.
When I finally opened the curtains, I saw that the sun was shining and the sky was blue but there was a sharp frost . The frost made everything look magical, like someone had gone around in the night and sprinkled fairy dust on the cars, the houses and the ground. Now the frost has gone we are in for a glorious day I think. Long may that continue.

My day has already included putting on two loads of washing, hanging one load out on the line, cleaning the downstairs bathroom and a trip to the vets with the dog for his booster and it's only 11.20 am. I'll be going back to work again this afternoon too so I need to be organised.

Yet again, last night when I was in bed, my mind was full of ideas and topics that I could talk about in this blog. I am very aware that the blog is not about anything apart from me and my life and that that may put people off reading it but I'm quite prepared to plod on for now and see where this takes me.

As this blog is about my life I suppose I should start at the very beginning, a very good place to start (in my head I am singing that like Maria in The Sound of Music!).

I was the eldest of three children initially, having a younger brother and sister. I say initially because I became the second eldest when my parents fostered a boy who was a year older than me. I was probably about 5 or 6 at the time that he came to us. He fitted into our family unit very well and ended up staying with us. He became our brother very quickly. Some confusion arose because he had the same christian name as my other brother and we couldn't have two boys in the family with the same name so we all called him by his middle name which made things easier. However, I have often thought that it must have been very difficult for him to have been called one name for 6 years and then by another name from then on. The muddle for him must have been even worse because Mum and Dad never adopted him so all of his legal papers and so on remained in his birth name. So at school he continued to be referred to by his birth name and at home he was called another. To this day, people use either name for him. He is known to most people by his birth name but to us he is, and always will be, our brother, whatever name is used.

In the early 70's our parents divorced and there were the usual emotional issues to contend with. Both Mum and Dad tried their best to keep things calm and steady for us children but it didn't always work. I was at boarding school when things were really difficult so I wasn't witness to any nastiness. I don't think my siblings were quite so fortunate. However, with me being away from home I felt isolated and alone. I had no idea really about what was going on but I have a very vivid memory of being collected from school by a family friend unexpectedly and being driven home. I can remember walking in through the back door of the house and knowing immediately that something was wrong. The house was eerily quiet. Even the dog didn't come to greet me like he normally did. I went into the sitting room and found my Dad sitting hunched over the gas fire. I asked him where everyone was and he just looked at me and said 'Your Mum's gone'. What a shocker.

I knew that he didn't mean she was dead. I knew that she had left him. In that instant my heart went out to my Dad and I wanted to look after him. He didn't need me to I'm sure but I felt that that was what I should do.  Mum had left which was unusual in those days. It was much more common for the man to leave the wife. I know now that there were many reasons why the marriage didn't work but at the time I felt sorry for Dad. He looked pathetic really, like he couldn't believe what had happened but it takes two to tango as they say. My 13 year old sensitive head told me to knuckle down and get on with things so I think that's what I did. Unfortunately, my memory for things has never been great. My sister has a much better aptitude for that than me!

The upshot of the divorce was that both my parents went on to remarry and have more children so my siblings grew in number. Mum had two more children and Dad became step-dad to two children and then had another child of his own. In a relatively short time I had gone from being the eldest of three to being one of ten!

This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as my family is concerned but I hope that this gives you a little bit of an insight into why family is so important to me. There is much more to come but I am aware that I need to be very careful about how I word things and how much information that I give. The views that I express here are purely mine and I know that we don't all see things the same way.

On that note I will sign off for now. I wish you all a happy day. may the sun shine on you and make you smile.

xxxxx