the problem with trying to do a catch up is......where do you start.
I suppose the logical answer would be......where you left off. So thats it then.
Remember you did ask!
October.......saw our 43rd wedding anniversary. 43 years! who would have thought it?
I remember the day like it was yesterday.
I remember feeling apprehensive, excited and exhilarated all at once.
I can remember standing in the Haslingden Register office.......a dreary room back then....it felt like a school classroom.
I can remember making these statements and thinking to myself 'This is really serious, I hope I am doing the right thing'.
I wondered if other brides(though getting married in an oatmeal wool suit from C&A made me feel less like a bride) had the same kind of thought running through their heads at this point in the proceedings.
I can also remember thinking that this was a very grown up thing to do....and yet I didn't feel like a grown up.
Well, 43 years on, and I have to say that it must have been the right decision......though I am not saying there have not been days where I would have traded himself in for an empty pop bottle.......and felt that that was a good deal.
I consider myself to be lucky to still have my life partner.
Did we celebrate? No, we just had a normal day, and our usual Saturday ride out to Manchester.
Just after our Wedding anniversary, Ma took a tumble.
She blacked her eye, her knuckles were bruised and scraped and she had a lovely bruise on her jaw.....these were just the visible signs of her tumble......her ribs were bruised and her pride was the worst injured.
Ma is an incredibly independent old bird(and I mean that in the most respectful way) and she irritates the proverbial out of me sometimes.......and this was one of those times.
She fell on a Thursday afternoon. I spoke to her at teatime of the same day, and thought she sounded a bit 'fragile'......but put it down to the fact that she has been troubled with the arthritis in her hands and arms, and I just thought that she had had a bad day with that....because she never mentioned the fact that she had fallen onto her wheelchair which was folded up in her lobby.....and that she had lain there in the cold fearing to move in case she had broken anything.
Ma has a panic call button thing.......do you think she was wearing it? No, she bl**dy well wasn't.
I only found out about all this when I tripped along all unconcerned the following day with a bag full of shopping for her.
As I walked into the living room she turned the bruised side of her face away from me, with the comment 'Don't look at my face'........well, as soon as anyone says don't look.......what do you do?
You look.
I was horrified to see the bruising on her jaw, her neck and her purple eye.....I was also as mad as hell.
I asked why she had not told me about her fall........her response....'I didn't want to worry you.......I knew you would have rushed over'
Too damn right I would. I told her that I was annoyed and upset, that I could have brought her some things which would alleviate the shock and minimise the bruising.
I asked her where her emergency call button was when she tumbled....'On the fireplace' was her reply.
'Well, it's no bleeding good there, you daft old bird. You could have put your eye out, broke bones, got hypothermia....but you didn't want to worry me.....well let me tell you, far from not worrying me....I'm more worried about your daftness'...that was my rant, Ma was looking sparkly eyed and biting her lip.
Maybe I had been a bit harsh?
I checked the carpet in the lobby to make sure there were no ridges in it, no threadbare bits, I checked the lights......nothing to account for the stumble.......Ma said her leg just wouldn't go, and she could see the fall in slow motion as it happened.
I told Ma that on no account must she open the back gate for me each week......there are seven stone steps for her to go down to get to the gate.......goodness if she fell down those it would be curtains.....Goodnight Vienna........and I would be left trying to sort out all the stuff she has in that rambling house....the thought of it made me shudder.
Ma was more concerned that she should be fully recovered for a break she had booked in Llandudno....which was just three weeks away.
I took her some Arnica gel, some arnica pills and some aconite for the shock to her system......and vowed to myself that I would be dropping in un-announced more often....just to keep tabs on her.
to be continued.
I suppose the logical answer would be......where you left off. So thats it then.
Remember you did ask!
October.......saw our 43rd wedding anniversary. 43 years! who would have thought it?
I remember the day like it was yesterday.
I remember feeling apprehensive, excited and exhilarated all at once.
I can remember standing in the Haslingden Register office.......a dreary room back then....it felt like a school classroom.
I can remember making these statements and thinking to myself 'This is really serious, I hope I am doing the right thing'.
I wondered if other brides(though getting married in an oatmeal wool suit from C&A made me feel less like a bride) had the same kind of thought running through their heads at this point in the proceedings.
I can also remember thinking that this was a very grown up thing to do....and yet I didn't feel like a grown up.
Well, 43 years on, and I have to say that it must have been the right decision......though I am not saying there have not been days where I would have traded himself in for an empty pop bottle.......and felt that that was a good deal.
I consider myself to be lucky to still have my life partner.
Did we celebrate? No, we just had a normal day, and our usual Saturday ride out to Manchester.
Just after our Wedding anniversary, Ma took a tumble.
She blacked her eye, her knuckles were bruised and scraped and she had a lovely bruise on her jaw.....these were just the visible signs of her tumble......her ribs were bruised and her pride was the worst injured.
Ma is an incredibly independent old bird(and I mean that in the most respectful way) and she irritates the proverbial out of me sometimes.......and this was one of those times.
She fell on a Thursday afternoon. I spoke to her at teatime of the same day, and thought she sounded a bit 'fragile'......but put it down to the fact that she has been troubled with the arthritis in her hands and arms, and I just thought that she had had a bad day with that....because she never mentioned the fact that she had fallen onto her wheelchair which was folded up in her lobby.....and that she had lain there in the cold fearing to move in case she had broken anything.
Ma has a panic call button thing.......do you think she was wearing it? No, she bl**dy well wasn't.
I only found out about all this when I tripped along all unconcerned the following day with a bag full of shopping for her.
As I walked into the living room she turned the bruised side of her face away from me, with the comment 'Don't look at my face'........well, as soon as anyone says don't look.......what do you do?
You look.
I was horrified to see the bruising on her jaw, her neck and her purple eye.....I was also as mad as hell.
I asked why she had not told me about her fall........her response....'I didn't want to worry you.......I knew you would have rushed over'
Too damn right I would. I told her that I was annoyed and upset, that I could have brought her some things which would alleviate the shock and minimise the bruising.
I asked her where her emergency call button was when she tumbled....'On the fireplace' was her reply.
'Well, it's no bleeding good there, you daft old bird. You could have put your eye out, broke bones, got hypothermia....but you didn't want to worry me.....well let me tell you, far from not worrying me....I'm more worried about your daftness'...that was my rant, Ma was looking sparkly eyed and biting her lip.
Maybe I had been a bit harsh?
I checked the carpet in the lobby to make sure there were no ridges in it, no threadbare bits, I checked the lights......nothing to account for the stumble.......Ma said her leg just wouldn't go, and she could see the fall in slow motion as it happened.
I told Ma that on no account must she open the back gate for me each week......there are seven stone steps for her to go down to get to the gate.......goodness if she fell down those it would be curtains.....Goodnight Vienna........and I would be left trying to sort out all the stuff she has in that rambling house....the thought of it made me shudder.
Ma was more concerned that she should be fully recovered for a break she had booked in Llandudno....which was just three weeks away.
I took her some Arnica gel, some arnica pills and some aconite for the shock to her system......and vowed to myself that I would be dropping in un-announced more often....just to keep tabs on her.
to be continued.