uksue

Hello ladies, it is Saturday night and I am planning to keep busy tomorrow and going to my Mums for dinner. I hope you are all OK and have a good Sunday. It is a whole new ball game learing to live on our own but I am sure we will get the hang of it soon. Just wanted you all to know I am thinking of you all.
Goodnight and Godbless.
Sue x

Hi All,
I think Ray must have been reading all our messages, he must have thought “if everyone else is having boiler problems, I shouoldn’t leave Sue out” because all afternoon my boiler has been blowing out!!! I think it must be something about the cold frosts we are having at the moment here Pauline, because it has been behaving itself for several weeks before now.
Darla, Thanks for you kind thoughts, I am feeling much better now, but unfortunately my Mum has the dreaded cold now so I am returning the compliment and looking after her now.
Joyce, yes Poppy is much better now thank you and is acting like a two year old again, especially as the vet said to give her all her favorite foods in small frequent meals, so she has been living like a king on chicken, rice, and even fillet steak once at my Mums! She is a Cavalier King Charles, black and tan with big seal eyes and an ever wagging tail, and she is great company for me. I am so relieved she has improved.
Darla, the only experience I had of smells was the week after Ray died. He was well known for his roast beef dinners and one day I woke up to the smell of roast beef, I dont know if it was only a dream but I could almost taste it it was so real.
When I have been out walking I sometime think I can hear him calling my name, but it is probably just birds calling. But I do feel he is around and at peace.
I am not looking forward to tomorrow, I will have to call all my customers up to explain about the currency problem, I know most of them will be expecting it but I know a couple will give me a hard time.
Pauline, I will take your advice, I think I need to start looking for a different job, your projects sound really interesting, I wish I knew what I wanted to do!
I think your idea of part time work seems a good one, Joyce, if I could find something part-time initially it will give me a taste of what is out there. My friend suggested agoing to a temp agency, just to do office work for a while until I decide what I really want to do, that way I could chose when and how much I wanted to work. I am sure your tiredness is not only due to work, emotionally we must all be drained after the past years and I dont suppose that will be quickly fixed. You also sound pretty isolated where you live so it must be a real effort to try to get out and about. I think we will all start feeling a bit better when the evenings start getting lighter, I have noticed a difference already even if it is only 20 minutes extra light.
I will never complain about S.A.D. again after this year!
Take care and try to keep warm everyone.
Sue x

Dear Lainy,
It is lovely to know you are thinking of us at this time, your poem made me cry it was so beautiful. When we are dealing with the hard practicalities of life without our loved ones it is easy to forget that they are watching over us.
All my love to you and Teddy – Darla said it all – we are all wishing you the very best in this new year.

Joyce, It is amazing how these electrical problems continue to haunt us!
Our fridge freezer packed up today, in the past Ray had dismantelled it and used a hairdrier to get rid of the ice around the working parts so I got a screwdriver and stripped it down to the heat exchanger and tried to copy what he used to do. And it worked! I felt as if he was patting me on the back! only a small thing in view of what needs to be done, but nevertheless it gave me a bit of a boost.
I shall continue doing things bit by bit – as my best friend said the way to eat an elephant is a little bit at a time!
I am taking the Christmas decorations down now and will try to be positive for this coming year – after all Ray was always a “cup half full” man and I was the opposite so I am going to try to be more like he was.
I agree with you, Joyce, in hoping that the new year will give us all the strength we need to continue.
All my love,
Sue x

Dear Darla, Pauline & Joyce,
I would like to wish you all the best in this New Year. It cant possibly be as bad as 2008 was for all of us. I hope that we will all get stronger as the year grows older.
Thanks for your good wishes Darla, I agree that knowing you all are going through the same as me is a lifeline.
This difficult period is over for us all now, Christmas and Boxing day were a bit hard but I managed by keeping busy like you did, Joyce.
We kept the memorial candle from when my dad died, and the last three christmasses we have lit his candle and said a toast to him, this year there were two candles to light which was a very sad moment.
All the girls and their families came over on Boxing day and I had got them all some special presents which they could keep to remember their Dad by, again we had some tears but all in all the day was not too bad, however on Boxing day night my little dog was really ill and we thought we were going to loose her, she was so sick she couldnt even keep water dawn, so I took her to the vets who said it was either gastroenteritis or Heart failure, so we just had to wait and see if she recovered, Luckily she is almost back to normal now, it is the thirteenth birthday today, and my daughter doesnt know how her heart is still managing to work it is so irregular – I am just very grateful she is still here I dont think I could cope without her at the moment.
Pauline, like you I was really ill after Christmas, for three days I felt absolutely terrible with the flu, luckily my Mum was staying and I dont know how she managed it but she looked after me and Poppy until we started to feel better.
The 30th December would have been our 23rd Anniversary, and I wasnt looking forward to it, but my daughter had arranged for one of my oldest friends (who is also Sams Godmother) to come over and spend the night, we watched Mamma mia, had a few tears but also laughed a lot so it was good therapy.
I fully intened to go down to our local Pub last night, but half way through getting ready I just started crying, and thought to myself that I couldnt do it, so I stayed in with my dog and watched movies and tried to forget what day it was. When the fireworks went off at midnight I toasted Ray and said happy birthday to the dog and had a good sleep. I dont know if it is just me or if it is the same with you all, but my overwhelming feeling at the moment is of extreme exhaustion, and lack of motivation. I know I will have to do something in the new year to give my life some structure.
My business will not now bring in enough money for me to live on (I import speciality chemicals from Belgium and the drop in the value of the pound, especially just before Christmas means most of my customers have stopped buying), I think I will give myself a few months then try to get another job.
Joyce, did it help you to get back to work, I know you found it was very hard at first, but you seem to be coping better with it now?
My main problem is that if I continue to work and live at home alone I will get like a recluse, and I think I need to spread my wings a bit wider.
I dont know if you all feel as I do , but now Christmas and New Year is over, I am thinking “What now?”.
Love to all,
Sue x

Hi all,
Just sat here watching the trees blow in the wind and trying to look at the stars. Ray was a great one for watching the stars, I remember once we took our touring caravan to the vendee and stayed in a campsite in the middle of a farm growing sunflowers, there was no light pollution and at night we could see so many stars, we laid on rug in the middle of the night and just looked out at the trillions of stars we could see. And when we went to see Rays sister in Spain last year he noticed that she could see the same star group from her kitchen window as we could from ours in the Uk and he told her that she should look at the stars and remember him, and he would know when she did. So Darla and Joyce, just remeber you will see the same stars as Pauline and I , Just in a different allignment, and at a different time, so in the same ways our husbands will see the same things, just from a different place, and they will be thinking of us too.
Joyce, we havent heard from you for a while, are you OK?
Talk to you all again soon,
Love Sue

Hi Joyce,
Its good to know we feel the same. I am going to try to talk to all the girls and grandchildren over the holidays so they can talk things through. I will make a point of telling them that I am there for them too and they dont have to be brave for me.
It is a horrible rainy night tonight, some friends invited me to go down to sing carols round the Christmas tree with mince pies and mulled wine but I texted them to say I was not up for going out in this weather, but I think I might have made a mistake and should have gone but it is hard to motivate myself sometimes, and also I was a bit scraed that the singing might make me cry.
Anyway Joyce, enjoy the pretty view of the snow outside your window. Hopefully you do not have to go out too much over the weekend, so can stay nice and warm. I think you should make up that fire and make yourself the hot chocolate and remember the good times you had with Butch, try to remember the happy ones before he got ill. We are lucky in having had those moments aren’t we. many poeple never have them.
I am thinking of you and all our frineds tonight as Christmas approaches.
All my love,
Sue

Dear Charlene,
Just to let you know we are all here for you.
People often try to involve us too soon, and dont understand that we need time to come to terms with our loss, but accept it for what it it, friends and family trying to do their best for you even if it is too soon it is well intentioned and where would we be without family and friends.
It must be so hard for you loosing your soulmate just before Christmas, I know nothing anyone says will make it easier for you, but you will not be alone this Christmas, everyone here in a similar situation will be together.
Love Sue x

Hello everyone, How kind of you to think of me while I was on holiday. The week went well, and we were lucky that we had some good weather, nearly every afternoon we were able to sit on our balcony in the sunshine which was a real bonus. It also gave me and Mum opportunity to talk things through – I think it did her as much good as me as she has been feeling helpless and frustrated, wanting to make things better for me, so spending these days together helped.
I am back home now and trying to think of the best way to get through Christmas. It is the little things that are difficult, one of our supermarkets, ASDA have an advert for Christmas with the tune “Its getting to look a lot like Christmas” and I remembered that Ray used to sing along with it every time it came on last year, the first time I heard it I cried, but now I am trying to think of it as a gift that helps me think Ray is still with us in spirit.
I have decided to go all out and decorate the house for Christmas with all the decorations I have accumulated over the years, I want it to look festive for the grandchildren, and try to make it as good a time as possible. Christmas eve and Christmas day will be sad, but we always had a big party with all the family on Boxing day and I am still going ahead with that.
I have found that talking to Ray really helps as you all said, but I havent been able to do it until quite recently.
I really cant quite believe that it has only been two months since Ray died as it seems much longer.
Pauline, I think that your pland for a new job sounds very exciting, I am sure that it will give you a new challenge and do you good. I think come spring I will look for a part time job to take me out of the house, and also to help top up my income.

Today is cold but nice and sunny so I am going to take the dig for a walk to the church – I have bought some bunches of berries and greenery which hopefully wont die in the cold.

It is good to catch up with what everyone is doing – I hope you are all getting by OK this week.

Lots of love,
Sue x