And I have numbered things below which I shall call blessings,because that's what they felt like, small things but the sum of their parts added up to making me feel a bit less fragile.
We went for a walk on Saturday & I took deep draughts of Vitamin D. It felt good. Warm sun on the face, muscles unclenched, bones thawed. Wonderful.
Our P.E teacher friend, who has made our place his second home, asked us to supper on Friday. I was touched. We have people for meals a lot, to make friends, be hospitable. We rarely get asked back.
Then on Saturday the children came into our bed for stories. They started doing this a few wks ago, but before that they hadn't done it for months & months. We thought that little 'season' had passed too. My husband has been reading 'Wind in the Willows' to our daughter & our (now 9 yr old) son comes along because he can never resist a story, whatever it is. We read from an edition illustrated by Inga Moore. My husband's granny's cousin (does that make it his great cousin??) was Ernest Shephard who illustrated the original "Wind in the Willows", so we felt rather guilty betraying the family connection, but Moore's illustrations are just gorgeous.
So there we all were four in bed, husband reading in his soothing narrator voice, stopping every so often to explain what was going on, as the language is complex & the sentences long; passing over to me to explain the longer words, (not his forte & you'd be surprised at the words in the text), our son saying 'come on read the next bit' & our daughter busy playing with my hair & stroking my cheek. For her, stories are about cuddles, she usually tunes out, especially with the difficult language in it. She tries, but she hasn't got the world's greatets attention span.
When we finally finished Dad says, "So what did you think of that 5 y-o?"
She said "It made my brain go all twirly." Oh well, that great classic confined to family posterity as the book that makes children's brains go 'twirly'.
Sunday was "Summer Day" in Albania - a really big holiday & the sunniest day of the year so far. A friend who has lived here over 10 yrs said it is ALWAYS sunny on Summer Day. The 1st day of summer (in theory).
It was also Mother's Day in England. I am always so thankful that 10 yrs on I now AM a mother twice over & can celebrate the fact. My daughter made me a huge cardboard banner saying "I 'heart' u mummy" & my son made me a cross stitch book mark which said "I 'heart u, M". He didn't have time to write more, he said.
His class do cross stitch whilst listening to their class reader which seems quite a soothing idea & gives them something to do. Of course I had to feign amnesia (let's face it, not a trick I find difficult) as only the day before I had had to iron, for my daughter, a random selection of Hamma bead letters an "I", a heart, a 2 "Us" 3 "Ms" , & a "Y" , whilst under strict instructions not to look at what I was doing.
My husband took us all out to lunch. Always a treat.
My sister booked her ticket to come out & visit in May- the 1st member of my family in 4 yrs abroad to come & visit. I realise I don't live in very appealing places so I don't blame them.
My tennis friend phoned & asked if I wd like to play tennis this morning before she goes back to Italy on Wed for more test following her surgery a month ago. It is also good I have time on my hands as it meant I could go out for coffee with her afew wks ago - for 3 hours, after her surgery to talk to her. That to me is a good use of time. She needed a listening ear, I had the time to spend with her.
