I am back......

This is a photo from the Luzerner Zeitung of the clean up operation on the road. Peter managed to get home because cars (and trikes) were led round the debris in police convoys, a few at a time. He says the queues are formidable, and no coaches can get through, so they are trying to move tourists in cars. It is a mess. But the Swiss are highly organised, so I am sure it will all be fixed soon.

The day has been a little doscombobulated and Roger lost, so I am still in a funk about that. During aquarobics this afternoon, we were all trying to watch the TV on the restaurant wall while bouncing up and down in the water, and the score was passed along the line as frequently as possible. The old body is creaking mightily at the moment, despite the spa after class. It needs oiling. A glass of Pimms would be good, if I even owned any. Sigh. Coffee it is then.......

A little about the quilt - each of my friends did one square representing something which linked them to me, so we have tennis courts, schools, churches, houses, ships, smocking, falling leaves (the name of a friend's home), school hats and shuttlecocks, amongst many other things. They all spent the last few weeks I was there making it in great big quilting parties, and so they were NEVER around to do things with me, and I was getting really worried that they didn't want to spend time with me, until I walked in on one of the parties. Well, it was just so special, and I was so, so thrilled. One of my friends bought a sewing machine and learned how to so especially so she could be included. How special is that. They didn't have time to finish quilting it, so I did that when I got here. There were times when I felt unbearably lonely in those first few months, because Geoff was in the Far East on the ship when I arrived with the children, and I used to wrap myself in it and surround myself with the love that went into it.

Leaving one life and heading to another in a different hemisphere is not simple. Going from a family home in a city I had lived in most of my life to a house I had never seen and not chosen, in a village in the middle of England, with a container held up at customs, and a 13 year old, a 9 year old and a one year old... I must have been crackers. If I hadn't had the Harpers here, I may well have disintegrated. They were (and have been ever since) life savers.

It was a challenge.

But here we are 21 years later. Still in the same little house which has changed radically over the years, and is about to change again when I finally finish the study. And create the breakfast nook. And re-organise the kitchen. And......

Hmmm. I think I will go and inspect the garden again. It is soothing.