Tag Archives: family

The sea is our home

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Sailing voyages are completely different to anything else… perhaps with the exception of space travel.

We see the world from a new perspective. Surrounded by blue, I’m enjoying the wide open seas and broad horizons. When land emerges, the coast isn’t a beach or a sea front or even a harbour. It’s a line on the horizon. As we come closer we bob past tiny houses in a variety of colours clustering round a hilltop, the trees and bushes appearing like a miniature railway set.

Then eventually we step ashore and everything comes into perspective again. The houses zoom into focus and begin to assume normal proportions, the roads and streets emerge and we breathe in the smell of land.

Yesterday we braved the heat to call in on some of the family holidaying nearby. Following instructions we trudged up a narrow track from the harbour. I inhaled the scent of pine needles and enjoyed the sweet aroma of jasmine as we passed a garden.

Looking for a padlocked gate, we wound our way up an increasingly steep path, eventually coming to a dead end at a gate into a large house. We must have gone wrong… of course there was no phone signal to call and check. We were sure we were close and started to call out, before retracing our steps. Getting lost has been a favourite pastime of mine, but this time it wasn’t long before I heard a shout from lower down the track.

“You’ve gone too far!”

With a guide to follow we began a steep climb up the hillside, through the “unlocked” gate, plodding up a line of steps reaching as far as we could see.

“There’s a pool at the top,” our son encouraged us, as drops of sweat raced down my cheeks like rain.

“It’s not much further… honestly!”

I paused on one of the many terraces lined with olive trees – it was beautiful. Behind us I glimpsed the shimmering blue of the sea twinkling between the trees.

At the top the view was spectacular and there was iced coffee to enjoy. Through the gaps in the trees we looked down on a lone Pura Vida, bobbing happily in the bay. Perhaps she was enjoying the space from her passengers!

The climb up was worth its weight in gold, as we enjoyed a refreshing swim and great company in the setting of an authentic Italian villa, complete with a long table on the terrace overlooking the sea. It was strange to be on land for so long, but before we had time to get used to it, we were back on board ready for the next leg of the journey.

Departure was slightly delayed by a little engine trouble. A few hours was spent rolling in the bay, while oil was pumped out and then replaced… I’ll spare the technical details!

So, late afternoon we waved goodbye to familiar faces and the hillside villa to move around the next headline in search of a quiet bay, where we hoped for a peaceful night.

For now our world is on the sea again. Land, towns and villages seem like alien places. The sea and the waves are our windows and our garden. The wind is our road taking us on to the next destination and it’s our comfortable place.

Not exactly what we’d planned

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How do you deal with disappointments? I’ve been asking myself that question over the past few days. Sometimes things just don’t work out how we’d planned or hoped and it can be a hard pill to swallow…

I’d been looking forward to this Christmas for some months. The whole family was excited to be coming together to celebrate this special time in our own home, where we had just moved to a couple of months earlier. It had felt a long time coming, after Christmas family gatherings ruined by Covid and subsequently re arranging the following year. I was so happy to be welcoming our growing family of children, partners and grandchildren It would be the first time for these little ones to have Christmas at our house and their 95-year-old great grandmother was also joining us.

A few days before the arrivals were due, we’d bought the tree, decorated the house and hosted a pre-Christmas meal for some new local friends. We were in the seasonal mood and looking forward to the week ahead.

The first sign of trouble came in the form of a simple text from our neighbours asking if we had water, as they had lost theirs. Within 24 hours we had no running water and a stack of water bottles had been delivered by South West Water. That day as I stood in the kitchen attempting to wash my hands and clean the sink with a bottle of water, I began to wonder how this was going to work … Christmas dinner for nine adults and three children…was it even possible with no running water?

After lots of phone calls and the failure of the water company to fix all the leaks and reconnect us to the mains, a mini tank of water was eventually delivered to our drive – toilets could now be flushed and showers used sparingly. Christmas wasn’t cancelled, although it wasn’t going to be quite as relaxed as we’d hoped.

As the family arrived in stages and Christmas Eve approached the next seasonal “missile” hit us, when one of the family went down with a bug, followed by another and another… From Christmas Eve to beyond Boxing Day, there was always someone absent, struck down and not eating, while others were in recovery!

However, Christmas 2022 did happen in our house. Santa paid a visit and stockings were opened amid sighs and squeals of delight. Everyone was together, most of the time. We served up delicious meals, for some. At least one or two games were played and a few Christmas films watched beside the fire.

As the first branch of the family attempted to depart, they discovered their car steering had given up. And so the final straw this Christmas came in the form of a breakdown relay truck that transported our son, daughter-in-law and their 15 month old son back to London. Thankfully the youngest member was thrilled about a ride in a truck, even if his parents were less sure!

We all know things don’t always work out how we’d hoped and the danger of looking forward to something so much, is that we can be left feeling disappointed when things don’t live up to our expectations. So, do we look for someone to blame? Do we try to find a positive and be thankful for what we have in comparison to so many others? Maybe easier said than done!

One of the family muttered the essence of this verse during the unfolding daily dramas.. “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope..”

As I swallow down my disappointment and the visible sadness of the rest of the family, I’m trying to remain hopeful for happier family gatherings in the future, because I’ve certainly been enduring something!

On the positive side, there were no arguments or fall outs – we were too busy fighting sickness and refilling water tanks!

The beginning of the end?

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“Season of damp grey mistiness
Close bosom friend of the hidden sun. 
Conspiring with him how not to bless, 
the miserable people who round the pavements run.
Desperate for warmth and blue sky…”

I may not be Keats, but if he’d written about January instead of Autumn, it might have gone like that… a bit!

January has to be one of the most depressing months of the year. Christmas is over and I haven’t even seen a snowdrop yet. However, I am one of the chosen few to have a birthday this month. It’s not the best time of year to celebrate, but as this was a significant round number I decided to give it a try, with a lot of help from family and friends.

Ever since the first lockdown I have been spoiling for a party. As the youngest of five, I evolved into a bit of a rule-breaker. It’s just a modus operandi which I slip into as soon as someone lays down a rule. It must have started young, because I remember being told not to climb the high brick wall around our garden and walk along it. But there it was, a rule to be broken, and the result was a nasty fall into the bushes with scrapes that wound right round my torso. My mother said, “I told you not to climb on the wall!” It’s hard to explain why that sounded like an invitation to the seven-year-old me.

It was even worse at secondary school where there were dress codes laid down rigorously about not rolling up shirt sleeves and doing up your top shirt button under the tie. But if you were wearing a tie, who would know if the top button was undone? The headteacher apparently, who had eagle eyes and caught me offending on all counts, repeatedly. Somehow, I managed to escape expulsion – just!

So fast forward a few years and Covid strikes with its rules and lockdowns. I have honestly done my best to keep the rules, mostly. I understand why they are there and have attempted to comply with the important stuff. But the lack of freedom, isolation and list of what wasn’t allowed over the past two years has made me crave company and fun and yes, a party.

So, when my family asked what I wanted for my birthday, I said, “A party!”

The planning began and invitations were sent – the future was looking bright – not orange. Then Omicron landed and I felt that cold trickle of disappointment slide down my back again – yet another fun event cancelled. Covid strikes again!

But there is a God. He made January after all and gave us the resources to develop vaccines and so after a few wobbly weeks, the party was back on.

There was shopping to be done, table plans to be drawn up, cake makers to be chivvied. We hit a few speed bumps along the way. There was one memorable moment in a supermarket, when the card machines had gone loopy, just as we were trying to pay for two huge trollies piled with food and drink. One of them had to be wheeled into the cooler, while I trekked to a cashpoint, meanwhile the car had run over time in the carpark. “You couldn’t make it up,” said a voice beside me.

One of the funniest cards I received on the day summed it all up!

But it wasn’t all problems. The venue was pretty perfect. All the family remembered shoes – even if some were the wrong colour. Guest arrived on time from almost every corner of the UK, including Ireland and Wales. We didn’t need to call on Jesus to turn the water into wine because there was loads and we even toasted Her Majesty with glasses of port.

At the end of the evening, I felt like my party shaped vacuum had been well and truly filled to the brim. I had hugged (because we’d all done lateral flow tests!) laughed, listened, gossiped, giggled, and sometimes just watched my nearest and dearest in animated conversations or tirelessly moving between kitchen and table with delicious food and drink to keep the party going.

So misty, miserable January has turned out OK this year. The party actually felt a bit like the end of a long diet, having been starved of all the things I love, I have finally been able to sit down to a truly delicious meal of friendship, family and just being alongside people without masks. I am really hoping this is the beginning of the end of covid rules and lockdowns for the foreseeable future. Whatever happens next it has been a good way to begin 2022.

The three ‘wise’ women?

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Who’d have thought three women in saris would have caused such a stir on Christmas Eve….

As if there wasn’t enough excitement this year with all the family together in our new Devon home, some special Indian gifts were handed out on Christmas Eve. Our daughter, who had just returned from four months volunteering in Northern India, was hopping from one foot to the other keen to hand out her long planned presents.
“Let’s do the Indian presents now, before we eat?” She suggested.
Her brothers frowned… “It’s not Christmas yet…”
But she wouldn’t be put off and there was dressing up involved.

A few minutes later three ornately embroidered saris were laid out beneath the Christmas tree,  gold thread glistening under the fairy lights, amidst ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ and ‘thank you – how beautiful’. The next step was for three of us to dress up in them, which involved a lot of careful folding and draping and fixing a few well placed safety pins. Some time later we paraded down the stairs in our finery and enjoyed a delicious meal together.

We usually attend midnight mass on Christmas Eve and this year we were planning to join the little parish church in the village. However, due to clergy staffing problems, the 11.30pm service had become a 9pm event and suddenly we were in a rush.
“We can’t go in saris!” Someone exclaimed as others pulled on coats and boots and set down half full glasses of wine.
“Why not?” said the driver – who does a lot of dressing up in uniforms for his day job.

And that was how it happened. Scooping up our colourful skirts, we piled into the minibus still slightly unsure about the wisdom of our attire on a dark December night in deepest Devon. On arrival outside the church we managed to negotiate the stone steps towards the lantern lit pathway to the church. Another family all wearing bobble hats arrived at the entrance at the same time and looked slightly surprised to see us in our finery.
“We’re Indians!” I said in explanation, which confused people even more and made everyone giggle (or was it just the wine?).

As we traipsed into the candlelit church and filed into pews, there were plenty of smiles and whispers of admiration.
“I didn’t know it was fancy dress…” Someone behind us mumbled.
Even the vicar announced she was looking forward to finding out about the mysterious costumes after the service and then spent the rest of the time dropping her books, announcing the wrong carols and searching for her sermon notes in a very thick bookmarked folder.

At the end of the service there just wasn’t time to explain to everyone why we’d worn saris, although our in-house chaplain had already announced we were ‘the Three Wise Women from the East’, which left people even more confused.

By Christmas morning the saris had long been folded away and we headed down to the beach clasping bottles of fiz and smoked salmon sandwiches to join in the traditional ‘Christmas at the Beach’ celebrations with the locals. As we met more of our neighbours in a huddle beside a ruined tower, sheltering from the wind, one lady said how much she had enjoyed the Christmas Eve service.
“But what was very strange,” she said, confidentially, “some people came dressed in saris. They looked lovely, but I don’t know what it was all about.”
It certainly was a mystery. And a much-discussed event for the village.
I chuckled into my glass, as someone sidled up and said, “It was you in the saris wasn’t it?”

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Some garbled explanation was begun, but minutes later another kind of costume became the focus of attention as some of our children and their friends stripped down to bikinis and boardies and ran into the freezing grey water. There were shouts and cheers from the Champaign swigging onlookers. There’s nothing like a Christmas Day dip in the sea!

Now, the big question for 2018 is, what shall we wear to church on Christmas Eve?

 

A taste of travel

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Are you a traveller at heart? Do your feet itch to take off on adventures? Do you follow the path of planes as they disappear into the blue, wishing you were flying off somewhere? Sometimes that’s me.. Almost two weeks … Continue reading →

Who’d marry a soldier?

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Guess who?
… Makes friends easily, adaptable, well travelled, independent, decorator, gardener, mechanic (when necessary), single mum (frequently), tough, fiercely loyal, wry sense of humour, expert gin & tonic maker, resilient, always hopeful – a lover of life.

My dictionary definition of an army wife, in case you hadn’t guessed.
I’m proud to be one of this diminishing breed, whose other characteristic is being a ‘pack animal’. Army wives are there for one another. When the going gets tough they stand alongside each other’s families supporting one another, sometimes emotionally but also practically.

Some of my best friends are either army wives or ex-army wives. The experiences we went through together as we waited anxiously for news from war zones or coped with being a lone parent far from our families, drew us close. Those bonds aren’t easily broken. That’s why writing a book with one particular army wife was the natural thing to do.

I first met Brenda Hale when she was a Sergeant’s wife while we were posted in Germany and our husbands were on an operational tour in Northern Ireland. Our children were born within a few months of each other. Brenda put me to shame in exercising back to fitness after giving birth and supported me in trying to run chaotic Sunday school sessions at the church on the barracks. In those years, although we worried for our husbands on operations in Belfast and Bosnia, I could never imagine what lay ahead.

One sunny August morning in 2009 I found my husband hunched at the foot of the stairs, shocked by the sudden death of a great man and a good friend. Neither of us could believe that this giant of a man had been taken away and his family left devastated. The harrowing news stories on the death of more soldiers in Afghanistan had become more personal than ever.

Some days later sitting at a table in an airport I still couldn’t take in the fact that the woman beside me had lost the love of her life, the father of her children and her best friend. How could this have happened?

It’s been a privilege to retrace the journey which the Hale girls have been on, through writing I married a soldier with Brenda. As she says, we’ve shared both tears and laughter as she has recalled wonderful moments, along with the most painful times.

If you’re looking for an inspirational read that gives you a real picture of life for army families, you’ll enjoy I married a soldier published by Lion Hudson. It tells the true story of how one very special army wife found a way through an event that threatened to crush her. This is a story of hope and faith beyond grief.

Blackberries and a beach

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What makes you smile, even when things go wrong? For me, this weekend, it was unending hedgerows of blackberries and a beautiful beach.

Moving house and moving countries was always going to have its moments. We’d anticipated some of the problems including parting with the wrong stuff for 6 weeks going by container ship, collecting the cat from Heathrow, buying a new car and sorting out phones and internet. It turns out there was more…

No sooner had we set off on the journey south, in a packed car to our new island home, when the phone call we all dread came saying our daughter had been in A&E after miraculously surviving being hit by a bus. Still, it was an emotional call as everyone was in shock and suddenly life felt very fragile and the worries of removal vans and packing boxes seemed less significant. What you need most in those situations is just to be able to give someone a hug – distance and circumstances have meant the hugs will have to wait till this weekend. Just before we left for our flight back to the UK we also heard the sad news that a friend who had been ill had died quite suddenly. It made me realise our lives are in God’s hands and each day is precious – none of us know what’s around the corner or what the next day will hold.

And just as we were settling in, amassing our list of ‘army quarter’ deficiencies – from a faulty cooker to windows that don’t close – the next little hiccup occurred. The cat, who has already survived being abandoned as a kitten, being hit by a car and now flying 5 hours from Cyprus to Heathrow with other orphaned pets, worked out how to unlock the newly installed cat-flap. Our plan to keep him in at night had failed and he was on the prowl in the dark in a strange new country. We thought he had worked out how to find his way back to the house after his first night escapade on Thursday, but the next day he didn’t appear or the next. A weekend that should have involved relaxing and exploring with the family became a search and rescue mission. Search parties were dispatched from dawn to dusk, armed with cat treats and torches. ‘Missing’ posters were printed and distributed door to door. On Sunday afternoon we were beginning to feel as if something bad had happened and we might have to adjust to life without our strange sandy cat. So we headed for the beach around the corner on paths lined with blackberry bushes and I thought about baking a crumble on a happier day and basked in the sun in the shelter of the sand dunes.

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A little while later there was an urgent call that a sandy cat had been spotted near the road by a wood. We raced to the spot and tramped through undergrowth spotting a pair of wary eyes and a sandy tail hidden in the long grass. Was it Simba? We couldn’t be sure. The cat didn’t respond to our calls and moved further away. We couldn’t get close enough to be absolutely sure it wasn’t him and wondered what had made him so frightened. We tried to approach from the other side of the wood and as I crunched through deep undergrowth and trampled down waist high nettles, I thought about snakes and what might be underfoot. But this is England now – not Cyprus! The abandoned cat eventually disappeared deep into the undergrowth and we had to abandon the quest. We decided to leave food and water and a box… just in case and return the next day. At dusk we made a final sortie along the beachside path, through the boatyard and back by some large houses at the edge of the airfield. Our voices were growing hoarse with calling out and listening in case he was trapped somewhere. Just as we were about to cross the road back to our house we heard a faint cry. A fluffy bundle appeared from the bushes and the cat that was lost was now found.

We’re not sure what has happened to the cat in the woods, but people say he lives in a nearby barn. So we’ve retrieved our food bowls and box and left him to it. I’m hoping our dramas are over for a few days. Our cat is sleeping safely on a chair by the window and apart from nursing some giant mosquito bites we’re all in one piece. This weekend the whole family arrive, our ‘walking miracle/accident victim’ included. We’re looking forward to blackberry picking and I’ve even found an old apple tree nearby so blackberry and apple crumble is on the menu. That’s something to make me smile.

Home sweet home

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Gazumped! It’s an ugly word and being gazumped feels ugly too. But that was last week. Now it’s time to think again about where we will be moving and what it means to have a ‘home’.

I knew buying a house in the UK was fraught with ups and downs but we’d never had it this bad before. After taking months to decide what we wanted and where to buy, we thought the hard part was over. But there was worse to come – pitching bids, countering higher bids and finally that sickening feeling of being gazumped at the last minute. It was at times like this that I wished SNP MPs had more power and could bring in the same rules about purchasing houses as they have in Scotland. No fear of gazumping there as once your offer is accepted it’s legally binding.

After a dreary few days of mourning the loss of our prospective new home in the UK and watching the dreams and ideas we had been building sink to the bottom of the pool, we are picking ourselves up. There are consolations. We have an army quarter to move to. It’s got a roof and heating. I can’t vouch for the colour of the carpets or the state of the kitchen or even the age of the cooker….but it is on an island off the south coast and within a minute’s walk of the sea. It’s not right next to a main road either. In fact it’s part of an illustrious ‘gated community’ and you’d need photo ID to get there!

So, we will have a place to call ‘home’ again in the UK, even if it’s a temporary one.

So what makes a ‘home’? The perfect kitchen, open plan living, a fireplace, the tranquil garden and that climbing rose over the doorway? Trawling through estate agent house images on screen I find myself asking, what would this house be like with us living there… our pictures on the walls and our African carvings in the corner? In some places it’s hard to imagine, while others seem to fit. One of our children has told us “There’s no perfect house – there’ll always be something wrong.” And it seems very true, because with looking at so many different properties for sale the problems almost immediately jump out. I know ‘home’ is a million things more than bricks and mortar, or even stone and wood. It’s what we make it. It’s the welcome when you arrive. It’s the enticing smells from the kitchen, the familiar objects that have been with us for years and the permission just to relax and be yourself. The home I grew up in smelt predominantly of washing powder, because my mum often had clothes airing on a dryer high up above the Aga in the kitchen. That smell welcomed me into our rambling, often untidy home, whether I was returning from school or later back from university. It didn’t matter about perfection, what mattered was that my mum and dad were there and ‘Phew!’ I was back home – I could relax and I was safe.

Whichever house we end up buying in the future and wherever we settle, I want to make it feel like ‘home’ for all the family and friends that we welcome in. Time to put the coffee on and the bread in the oven – I feel in need of some ‘home cooking’ smells! And at least our Cyprus sign will still make sense in the next house for now…

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even more important than a Sunday roast…

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Apparently Sunday roast dinners for the family are dying out in the UK (Mail 3rd Dec). As upsetting as this is, it also signals something even more disturbing, if it’s true. It could also mean the end of ‘eggy tea’ as we know it!

This has been a long tradition in our household, passed down now to our children, who even since leaving home, send messages to say they are just having ‘eggy tea’ with lots of smilies. ‘Eggy tea’ in case you hadn’t guessed involves soft boiled eggs – that is dippy eggs – and piles of toast. This event is usually enjoyed around the table or on special occasions in the lounge in front of the fire, when the toast tastes even better cooked over the fire with a fork. A pot of tea is also an essential and marmite and honey or jam for extra slices of toast.

Somehow this mini custom helped ease our family more gently into the semi-gloom of Sunday evening – when Monday morning loomed and homework needed to be finished, school bags packed, those forgotten ingredients found for DS lessons, gym kit unearthed from the dirty washing and general prep for the working week.

Sitting down to a Sunday roast meant that ‘eggy tea’ was on the cards and there were long faces if the main meal was put off until the evening, as there were cries of, “what about ‘eggy tea’?”. It didn’t really matter if it was a roast or a casserole just as long as it had vegetables and could be classed as ‘dinner’, to ensure ‘eggy tea’ with toast could follow on – sooner than later.

Even here in Cyprus, I have had that cheery feeling as I prepared Sunday lunch, realising there was an option for ‘eggy tea’ later. Last Sunday I left for church with the roast pork sizzling in the oven, and as I drove back home an hour or so later, I found myself looking forward to ‘eggy tea’ by the fire – a highlight of the weekend.

Unfortunately, last Sunday didn’t go quite as planned as a break in a pipe (I discovered later) left us with no mains water for more than 24 hours.

It may seem no big deal, but having no water in the taps very quickly becomes a nuisance. Buckets had to be filled from the swimming pool to flush the toilets and jugs of water left by the sinks to rinse hands. You never realise how many times you run a tap, until it doesn’t work. Washing up became a nightmare of filling kettles and pouring in the right amount of cool water from the huge container on the table. Every drop was suddenly precious, as there was a limited supply to last us. When the water eventually started flowing – a shower felt like a luxury and filling the washing up bowl with hot water from the tap was also a treat!

Domestic problems always seem to arrive as soon as one particular person disappears on a course or a deployment. Apart from the water being cut off, the next day one of the toilets stopped working properly and immediately after our friendly elf-like plumber left having fixed it…the other toilet broke. I decided it couldn’t be very hard, as Billy the plumber had made light work of the problem in just 10 minutes….an hour or so later, bubbles, rubber pipes and little bits of plastic shaped like butterflies had all been tampered with, but it still wouldn’t flush properly. So I thought I’d look for an answer on google – surely google has all the answers?

It turns out there are too many different types of toilet cisterns to be practically helpful, and a lot of the paraphernalia was under water or upside down, so Billy will have to be summoned again! In the meantime, I’ll leave the lid off the cistern and pour in buckets of water to flush the toilet… why do I feel like I’ve been here before?

Despite all this hassle, I am consoling myself that it will be the weekend soon and in this household Sunday roast and ‘eggy tea’ are staying on the menu.

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