The Longest Month of the Year

December and Christmas are a busy time at Out and About, the house is bursting at the seams with people. Food is being prepared and served left right and centre, turkey everywhere and there is just a lovely shiny sparkly glow to everything,

The New Year arrives and the house is suddenly quiet! The barns are silent, the house empties and the children go back to school. That first morning of getting back to normality is bliss, I sit and drink a hot coffee in peace, do a little work and catch up with the housework.

Then January drags on, the longest month of the year with its cold and its grey skies and writers block well and truly sets in! Not this year however, not this January!

Now there are two ways to ignite my writing spark, ply me with alcohol or make me angry. I’ve been dry for two weeks now so its the other that has got the keyboard fired up this time.

So what has fired me up on this dark January evening, what has made my blood boil to the point that I felt compelled to pick up my laptop at 11:15pm at night! The revelation that your estranged family had moved your Grandmother into a Nursing home five days previously with not so much as a courtesy message to keep you in the picture.

My Nanny has always been a huge and much loved part of my life. I have so many beautiful memories of sitting next to her whilst she patiently taught me to knit and sew. I am a lefty (left handed) so there was some serious patience on her part! The days spent blackberry picking so we could make pies, terrible pies all be it. Afternoons in her garden weeding, she loved a good bit of child labour! She came to so many of my horse shows, violin concerts and what ever other hobby I was up to at the time. She and Grandad even took myself, my sister and my cousin on holiday, twice, she nearly lost us and nearly downed us but we don’t talk about that!

So putting aside all the anger and the hurt, today was another step, a step on a path towards the end, a step towards when we will one day have to say goodbye and I am so not ready. Today came like a sharp slap, that this is happening and nothing is going to stop it.

Today has taken me a few years back to where I met a Monk, he was not your average monk, and I strongly believe fate took a hand in making our paths cross. He came in to see me for a business matter and once we conclude our business he turned to me and said; “Jade, hate makes people ugly, don’t be ugly Jade.” He then left the room. The next time we met I asked him about his comment and he told me that he sensed something was not well in my life and that he could see the hate in me. He told me to stop hating, to stop the ugliness that comes with it.

Every day I remember this comment and today of all days I try to live by these words. I will let the hate leave, I will not be made ugly by this as we have a long road ahead and I will not come down to their level.

For tonight I will focus on the good times, the memories that were made and the skills my Nanny taught me that I love passing on to my little Herberts now and allow myself to shed a tear or two for just how crap life can be and what a vile illness Dementia is.

Literally Broken

Jade x