Closing Doors; Drawing Lines

My dad, bless ‘im, was masterful at coming up with a plethora of old-fashioned, wise sayings.  What most of them meant I sort-of learned in time!  This last week, two old sayings have kept cropping up ……..

• when one door closes, another opens ………………

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• draw a line under it  ……………..

Sorry, but it’s all a bit maudlin.  Maudlin?  Where does that come from and what does it mean exactly?  I looked it up.  I just love the definition :-  “soupily sentimental”!!  Brilliant!  So, here comes a bit of sentimental minestrone!!

1.  Yet again we have been back ‘home’ to Staines sorting things out.  It is now fairly certain that I have quite literally closed a door – the front door of the house that has been central to me all my life.  My parents moved in there in 1939 and my brother …………… well, he didn’t leave for long!  It’s a house full of a life-time of memories – mostly happy memories – and it’s hard to make sense of just how sad those happy memories are making me feel!!  I suppose it’s all about what the house represents.  Some wise old guru somewhere said, 

“Don’t be sad because it’s over, just smile because it happened.”

Something to work towards ……………………….

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2.  Maisie has gone back to her mum.  Today is the first day we have been on our boat without a dog…. us, …. dogless!!  We fostered Maisie for much longer than originally intended but we always knew that one day we would have to give her back.  She is such a little character, was great mates with Maggie and became a really good crew member.  Now her life will be full of other things.  If you saw how she is with Megan you, like us, would have no doubts …….

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3.  My brother’s ashes now lie alongside those of my parents.  Just me.  Only me – but, in truth, that’s how I wanted it to be.  A sombre event – sitting there alone next to the resting place of the other three members of my original family.  Fortunately, the lovely groundsman left me in peace “to do what you need to do,love” he said.  He must have guessed that some dreadful singing and lots of blubbering would feature somewhere along the line!  He’s seen it all before!  As I sat there gazing at the headstone which I have had engraved three times, the words of Annie Lennox came to mind -

“These are the years that we have spent and this is what they represent.  Do you know how I feel?”

All over the world and every day people are losing those they love and sometimes in the most dreadful circumstances.  Time to move on …

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Tomorrow we are going away for the weekend.  We are going to see our good friends Glyn and Don who live near Spalding.  So, twitching, walking, beach-coming, card playing, bacon butties +++++++++  Fab-u-lous! 

 

And then ………………… on the way home …………….. another door will open wide as a certain little lady is collected ………

G-u-l-p!!

xxoo