This Friday began with the usual Friday Night Pizza. I’m a creature of habit! This was red onion, pancetta and goats cheese. I cooked the onions right down and used them as a base.
Saturday morning, I met Max and Murphy for coffee and Murphy did Movember!
It was great to catch up and plan Christmas baskets with Max. Then some shopping, the weekly shop and a Ma had sent me off to buy the wine for Christmas.
I’ve been feeling out of sorts for the last couple of days, on Saturday I was listening to the radio and Sean Hughes was on R2 talking among other things about the death of his dad. Dermot O’Leary kept saying ‘passed away’. I got over the top cross about it. I know why people use the phrase and while I don’t like it, I can deal with it but people don’t ‘pass away’, ‘fall asleep’ or even get ‘promoted to glory’, they die. I was really cross about it, which even I thought was odd, then it hit me, it’s November, last month marked 11 years since Kier died, next week is Grandad’s birthday, two weeks later it’s eight years since Stef died, December is both my Dad’s birthday and anniversary. Grief is always a bit more present in the dark days of November.
So I ate some soup, did the washing up and had a lie down and a wallow for about an hour. Then because I’ve been doing this for a while, I got up and went to Grace.
Grace only does one big service a month so although it’s early, we looked at advent. We spent a lot of time thinking about waiting and hope. The line from one of the prayers was ‘unwrap our grief to make room for joy’. It was exactly what I needed and I am glad I got up and went.
Sunday dawned cold and bright and I did not go for a run, I hate to run in my glasses and I managed to loose a contact lens on Saturday night. I can run on a treadmill without glasses but not in the park, I’m blind enough that it’s dangerous. Instead, I roasted vegetables for lunches for next week, made applesauce for smoothies. I had planned to make bread pudding because I can and it’s Grandad’s birthday next week, however there seems to be a shortage of mixed spice in Ealing! There will be bread pudding this week, it’s in my head now and I’ve promised Ma!
The soundtrack to this activity was Sunday Worship, The Archers and the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph.
Remembrance Day has become more of a thing over the last 10 years, the silence at 11am on 11/11 wasn’t much observed when I was growing up and is now kept pretty much everywhere. I think that Britain’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan and the soldiers that are coming home dead or injured and traumatised have made war and soldiers more personal. We maybe understand more clearly what our grandfathers and great-grandfathers experienced in WWI and WWII.
I marched against the war in Iraq, I don’t think disagreeing with war means that you can’t respect the work that the troops do and I really feel that as a society we owe troops, who go where the government sends them and sacrifice a lot to do it, a lot more care than we give them. I wore a poppy this year but I don’t think that the British Legion should be looking after ex-servicemen, I think that it’s the duty of the State. As a society we shouldn’t ask people to sacrifice life and limb and sanity and then shirk the responsibility of looking after the broken people and families left behind.
The rest of Sunday was less somber, I went to Putney to see Jo and Ms T. We ate soup and biscuits and painted!
Home to tidy up and talk to my mother about her weekend, then reading and bed.
Four day week this week, I have Friday off work to hang out with Christelle in the Sanctuary! Yay for massages. I’m seeing Sarah (and possibly Justin) on Wed and Kathy and Adam on Thursday. So it’s gonna be a bit busy!
What did you do at the weekend? Any plans for the week?
Nic Dempsey 