Ho Ho Ho!!! It’s that time of year again! It’s come around oh so quickly this year. That one time of the year when I don’t mind being woken up on a Sunday morning at the crack of dawn by a commotion and racket underneath my bedroom window on a dull, windy and stormy day………….
Isn’t that lovely………..that’s our very own village brass band going around the streets in the village ‘very’ early on a Sunday morning, serenading the start of the festive period. It’s an annual tradition that happens every year and is the start of Christmas for me. My diary blog has been a little bit light recently, I know, because it’s been a little busy.
I’ve been doing all my usual Christmas things, wreath making, cake decorating, lots of baking…………and of course working hard as I don’t break up from work until 22nd December. And, most important of all…………………..I’ve got my boys back home for three weeks. More on them and their antics in a minute. Oh, and I’ve taken my lovely Mum out for our annual girls Christmas lunch. Either she’s shrinking, or plates are getting bigger, but I actually managed to find somewhere with a plate as big as her. Don’t be fooled by the smile, she’s now learnt the full extent of my running exploits of recent weeks and of my impending marathon, so I am now even more irresponsible than she thought I was before apparently!
It’s really strange though this year, Christmas feels different. I’ve been on a real roller coaster these last couple of weeks and it all just feels a bit surreal. I’m also acutely aware that for some people Christmas is like that every year. I get that. I love Christmas, but I hate New Year.
I’m feeling really restless, so much so that I nearly ended up on a New Year flight to Lanzarote! My finger was so close to the ‘book’ button but I thought “No, you already have more air miles than a British Airways pilot this year, behave yourself!” So I’ve resisted the temptation because I have some things to do at home and I need a rest. When I say restless, I’m absolutely fine, I hope I always will be OK because I’m just like that, I just get on with it, always moving forwards. But I’ve been in one of those really reflective moods, one of those where you suddenly realise life is so short, and you start making all these plans, which is good I guess. There’s a reason for it, I’ll explain in a moment.
It all started with my period of ‘nesting’. This still makes me laugh but I’m still doing that thing when I learn the boys are coming home when I start going through the house like something crazed getting ready for the impending arrival. One of them has had new bedding, there are new towels, and then I suddenly decided the week before Christmas that I needed to clear the hallway cupboard because once I start I can’t stop. It’s that cupboard that everyone has, full of shoes, iron, ironing board, hoover……….everything!! It’s like a black hole.
It was filthy, and I mean really dirty, because everyone has just thrown their muddy shoes directly onto the shelves and I can’t cope with dirt. So I decided it was going to have an IKEA makeover and some organisation, which is very me. That was mistake number one……..the trip to IKEA. I have a love hate relationship with IKEA. So Saturday was spent scrubbing the cupboard and buying storage boxes in IKEA, and a little sort of basket thing on wheels with pull out drawers. The visit to IKEA went well. However, the evening went not so well. Have you ever tried building an IKEA storage unit using those ridiculous diagrammatical instructions without writing, late at night when you’ve had a couple of glasses of wine. Oh my days! It’s a good job there was no recording as I don’t often swear but this really did bring out the worst in me.
Anyway, I was very pleased with the ‘after’. My new shiny cupboard, all scrubbed clean and organised, just how I like it.
Anyway, it did not stop there, I then proceeded to tidy out my wardrobes which I haven’t done for years and they are another black hole. It got me reminiscing and feeling all emotional for a number of reasons. I’d had a bit of bad news earlier in the week last week that I’ve not really shared with anyone. I have a friend who has been battling Motor Neurone disease for a few years now and unfortunately I learnt this week that she also now has terminal breast cancer which has spread to her lungs. And it got me thinking that sometimes life can be so cruel, but that I personally have such a lot to be thankful for, as I desperately tried to think of the positives through floods of tears. As I was clearing out my wardrobe I came across my wedding album, it’s been stuffed at the back of there since 1999! So I thought I’d have a quick look through and I came across the photograph below.
One of my favourite photos of the girls!! My wingmen, partners in crime and party animals of the 1980’s and 1990’s. Well, we can still have a damned good time now actually when we get let loose! Now, normally this photo makes me smile but this week it made me feel so sad and I cried and cried. Because, the one lovely friend I mention above is on there, and so is another lovely friend who is sadly no longer with us. And the ironic thing is that a couple of hours after I had been looking at this photograph I got a notification of a Facebook post from her husband on the 10th Anniversary of her death, she died of cancer on 18th December 2013, with some absolutely beautiful words that he had written to remember her.
Anyway, it got me thinking about how short life is and I gave myself a good talking to and now I’m fine! Life is hard sometimes, and sometimes it will try to break you, but what does not kill you makes you stronger they say don’t they. I guess we have to take the positives from every situation. I am so fortunate and lucky to have and have had these wonderful people in my life, and goodness gracious we have had some absolutely amazing times. It’s important to remember those at Christmas, and every day, and be thankful for them. My friend who I lost 10 years ago is the reason for me running. I guess we are all different but I’m one of those people that whenever anything distressing or upsetting happens to me, I have to busy myself or find a focus to cope. Running was my focus after I lost Karen and I raised quite a bit of money for Cancer Research and Macmillan after her death as it just gave me a focus and some purpose, the alternative would have been to fall apart, which I will do for a short while in private, that’s important to do too, to let it all out.
So, up until now Christmas has felt a bit strange because of this. A bit of bad news, feeling a bit restless, so keeping myself busy by nesting and implementing a DIY makeover! Oh and of course Marathon training. I’m at the eat, sleep, run, work, repeat stage. I have time for nothing else, hence the absence of posts. We are now less than 4 months to the big day and I’m up to 16 miles! I’ll do a separate post nearer the time on all things marathon as it is taking every tiny bit of my mental strength to get through this which might have something to do with my Christmas feeling a bit odd. I’ve realised that running a marathon is so much more about mental strength than physical. Advice for anyone doing a marathon is not to do one in April like me, do one at the end of the year and train through the summer. I’ve had more tantrums and tears than a 2 year old in training! There’s nothing worse that coming home from work, midweek, it’s cold, it’s dark, it’s wet, I’m tired, I’m hungry and I’ve got to run 10 miles through the countryside with my headtorch before I have my tea. I go alone because I am best avoided! But me being me I absolutely know I’ll be on that finishing line on 7th April, I’ll be devastated if I’m not. Only injury will stop me. I won’t be fast and it won’t look pretty but I will be there, hair all over the place, in tears, thinking of my lovely friends above and no doubt plotting the quickest and most direct route from the finishing line to the nearest boulangerie! Not even the fact that I was beaten in a training race last weekend by a human dressed in a full sized carrot outfit will dampen my spirits! It’s just one step at a time, one foot in front of the other for 26 miles……simple!
Anyway, three days to Christmas (well it is as I’m writing this bit) and they are back! My pride and joy and my greatest achievement in life………my boys! I actually saw them a couple of weeks ago, as I hadn’t seen them for almost three months, so I went to them for the weekend as I just could not wait until Christmas. They are home for 3 weeks so there will not be a dull moment in our house! I have piles of student washing to get though before Christmas, and they have already had plenty of mileage out of the above mentioned carrot incident! I am rising above it though and being the better person, they will be laughing on the other side of their faces when I come streaking down the Champs Elysée’s like a bolt of lightening! I got my own back though by showing them their Christening gown, which I also found hidden at the back of my wardrobe. I did tell you there was everything in there, it really was a black hole, I was pulling things out for hours! It’s a lovely silk organza dress I had made for them, with matching jacket and hat, with their names embroidered in silk thread around the hem. More reminiscing and reflecting! They are horrified that I would dress them in such a garment and I have warned them that photographic evidence of them wearing it exists, is close to hand, and can be made public if there is any further word of the carrot incident in the aforementioned race!
It got me thinking though how two children, of the same parentage, can be so different. I absolutely adore them both equally and without measure but one is so independent, confident, worldly wise, organised etc. He’d no sooner walked through the door and grabbed a beer from the fridge (before saying hello I might add) when he started to tell me all about his plans to spend next summer in Nepal or Brazil. That was of course after he’d completely ignored the instructions to put his shoes in his allocated newly organised IKEA box and left his shoes in the middle of the floor, not even on the mat, like he always does!
He was followed by the other one a couple of hours later desperate to share the news of his tattoo. Now I’m quite a liberal parent. There’s no point trying to stop them doing something as they’ll just resent you and do it anyway. He has been wanting a tattoo for ages so I’ve been quite positive about it. He was going to have it done anyway so I thought that way I might be at least able to offer a bit of guidance as to where to have it (or more where not to have it), and a bit of input as to the subject. Well too late, it’s done. However, this is the one who gives me sleepless nights. He’s well and truly a home bird, but despite my trying, he is not taking the hints that I keep giving him about the fact that he is now an adult and no longer my responsibility. He’s my Peter Pan, very sensitive, emotional, forever getting into some scrape or other and forever running out of money! He’s like a boomerang………no sooner do you set him up and launch him off in one direction and breathe a sigh of relief, than he comes rebounding back. The only problem now is that even if he gets amnesia he’s still going to come bounding back, or someone will return him, because he’s only gone and had a compass and the coordinates for ‘home’ tattooed in large type all down his forearm.
At least he’s had it somewhere he can cover it up I thought. However, my heart sunk as I thought by ‘home’ he meant the house coordinates, and my plan in the short term is retirement and a base somewhere other than the UK. However, fear not, ‘home’ is apparently our favourite bench in the village where we’ve gone on walks to watch the sun set ever since he was little, the bench where we revised for exams during home study and the pandemic, the bench where he has hung around with his mates and a few beers as he’s got older, the bench where he asked his first girlfriend out on a date. Apparently, that bench, wherever he is in the world, and wherever I am in the world, will always represent ‘home’. Aaaaww how sweet I thought, whilst breathing a sign of relief that I’ve not made life so comfortable that he’s planning on living with me for ever!
So that’s it really, I’m just looking forward to having a really big rest and relax over Christmas, some good food, fresh air, walking and lots of lovely time with my friends, family and my boys. I have a pile of National Geographic Traveller magazines to flick through for inspiration, some books to read, I’m half way through an excellent one that I’ll tell you about and recommend in the New Year because I’ve not finished it yet. I have watched an excellent film though that I can definitely recommend……….it’s a box of tissues needed one. It’s Italian and I watched it in Italian but I’m sure you will be able to get it with subtitles if you don’t understand Italian. I probably watch more films in Italian that I do English and I’ve even started to dream in Italian which is a bit odd, I’m not sure what that means. It’s a lovely film, but sad, with a really important message. It’s called ‘Va dove ti porta il cuore’ which basically translates as ‘Go where your heart takes you’. Without giving you too much detail and spoiling it it is based on a diary a dying grandmother writes for her granddaughter to read after she has gone, to give her the important message to always follow her heart rather than her head to find true happiness. The grandma basically reveals the details of a hidden secret and reflects on a time when she followed her heart. It’s a lovely love story but very sad and thought provoking. It really did make me cry in a week when I had received the above news and yes, I have no problems being in touch with my emotional side and following my heart. I would always say be thankful, be brave, follow your heart and don’t take the obvious path. It’s lots of fun and leads to the most amazing adventures, incredible high’s, some huge lows too, but ultimately you won’t get to the end of your time and think “Should have”, “Could have”, “What if?” Because this week has reaffirmed for me that life is just too short, and that’s basically what the film is about too.
So have a very Merry Christmas. Drink, eat mince pies, be merry, misbehave, follow your heart and I’ll see you on the other side in 2024!
