When life has other plans

Ooookay people…given my very low boredom threshold you could be forgiven for thinking that my silence here of late, might indicate that this website malarkey had become the latest casualty of my errant concentration, and my tendency to spend inordinate periods of time in shoe shops. In fact I was handed an unexpected five week sabbatical, when my intended (above) was signed off work due to ill health, and I had to park my sparkly heels in favour of the flatter more functional footwear more closely associated with that of a nurse, 24 hour head cook and bottle washer.

Thankfully my future husband is, I am glad to say fully restored in terms of his health, and I am free to revive my fledgling efforts to bring my muses to the masses, or at least all seventeen of you at the last count!

So what, if anything did I learn during the time I was holed up 24/7 with the man I am about to marry five years after I became a widow. Well we have both discovered a penchant for TV binge watching, but think more Four In A Bed than Game Of Thrones, and Sky News has provided confirmation absolute, that our politicians, whose recent behaviours concerning brexit, proves they are not fit to lace the boots of the generation who fought and died to preserve the freedoms they seek to manipulate in their own self interests all these years later.

I have also learned that when I am happy I eat, and given that I have been laughing a lot over the last few weeks, this equates to the consumption of a serious amount of calories, which when squared to the power of whatever, results in a waistline that is threatening to extend beyond the largest of my emergency wedding dress selection. Add to this the fact that they are all currently in China, which according to the reviews I have been reading may well still be the case until after the wedding, is causing me some concern as the date of our September nuptials lurches ever nearer towards us.

I think that I might have gleaned a better insight as to what the phrase ‘living in the moment’ means now though. When we learned that Kenny’s diagnosis was terminal, I was often told to do this, but could not grasp the concept of appreciating each moment on its merits, because I was so consumed by a fear of the future.

As those of you who know me will attest, I can’t even follow a recipe without significant adaptations, and if I could ski, which for the record I can’t, would most likely be found off piste than on it…maybe that last one needs a rethink, and it’s not really normal to fly to Florida from the UK via Texas really is it? All of that said I am a big fan of some ‘shape’ even if it’s a bit fluid, but my writing schedule became nothing more than an unrecognisable blob over the last few weeks, which I found frustrating more than anything else.

Thankfully this time the health issues which had brought about our brief respite from real life were not serious. and I began to embrace the freedom that living outside the demands of the clock can bring. We talked for hours and hours on end, well at least when we weren’t binge watching Four In A Bed, and engaged in conversations which may never had happened during the course of our more regular routines, but now that they were, offered us both new insights into the hopes, thoughts and aspirations of the other.

I know now for instance, that I am not the only serial shopper in the family, and having looked down the barrel of bankruptcy, was able to refer us both to the services of the CIA, which is something that those of you who are members of GOWNS @ gownsgroup.co.uk will all know stands for cash incontinent’s anonymous. I think we will be fine.

Today I am back in my office trying to re-learn all that I have forgotten during my break from the vagaries of technology, and my language is once again peppered by more Anglo Saxon than is normal for a middle aged grandmother of two, but I gained so much more than I lost over the last five weeks. I may well be destined to be a fat bride, unless I wrap myself in clingfilm and go to live in our local sauna until September, but frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn! If I can’t be svelte, bingo wing free and looking ten years younger on my wedding day, then I’ll just have to be satisfied with being loved, in love and happier then I dared to think possible, what’s not to like eh?