Wednesday 1 March 2017

It's been a while....

I have been away from blogging for such a long time.

The truth is I forgot my password. For some strange reason I changed it after my last post and then I just forgot it!

When I first created a blogger profile and account I used a false phone number (paranoid I would get umpteen scammer calls a day) but of course that meant that the retrieval code to set me back up on my blog was being sent to a made up telephone number! 

They then asked me to identify when I originally set up my account....I'm not sure how I'm supposed to remember the exact date about 7 years ago that I decided to set up a blog!! So that was another dead end.

And then one morning ta-da, it came to me and here I am.

So I've been away in another sense of the word too. Six long glorious week travelling in the UK - in the cold. Absolute bliss.

My cardigans, my girl and I had the best time catching up with wonderful family and friends. I clocked up 3,000 miles in the little hire car and can map out the best and worst coffees up and down the motorways from the Highlands of Scotland to the Devon coastline!

Sadly there was no white Christmas but there were a few white days in January. One white day incorporated a rather scary drive from Leeds to Manchester along the M62 just before midnight. There is a point on this motorway called Windy Hill near Saddleworth Moor and it's the highest point of any motorway in the UK. The swirling snow was quite disorientating and I remember being very pleased to see my destination that night.

It was a truly joyous holiday and I loved being part of everyday life with my family and my friends. I lost count of the cups of tea that I drank accompanied by long connecting conversations. I've said it before and I will continue to repeat it but I feel so incredibly fortunate to have these lovely supportive people in my life. It really doesn't matter where we live in the world.

The holiday was tinged with some sadness too as some friends experienced the grief of lost ones and the cruel kick of illness. Life is a horror sometimes...

So now it's back to soaring temperatures in another hemisphere. Back to work and school and homework and activities and everything that goes with being mother to a fourteen year old with a way better social life than I have!

My routine is changing. My work days have changed and my life feels a little topsy-turvy! That's OK, I'm practicing a little self care along the way.

Beth
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