Happy New Year from Middle England!

Happy New Year from my home to yours! 

I have been trying to post a few photos but I cannot navigate my way around the new Flickr way so I may have to start a new blog somewhere, get my own website or something. 

Whatever. 

Challenges and I are well acquainted.

It has been a long time. I know. Stuff happens, energy runs out, sometimes things have to be set aside for a while. But it is a new year and I have to try to resurrect a place where I can write and share the myriad things churning about in my mind. 2016 promises to be full of exciting things in my world - in fact, there is so much happening in the first half of the year it already looks crazy. But it is good stuff, and I will be sharing as we go. 

Mum has age-related macular degeneration which means she has to attend the eye clinic every 4 weeks which makes for a complicated schedule here, because visits to my sister are difficult. She cannot fly for 2 weeks after the injections, and so help me, I cannot do 2 weekly trips either. So that has to be dealt with and we are still trying to find ways that work for us. Otherwise, she turned 90 and is in sparkling form. Usually. We had a little blip over the Christmas weekend, when she woke with a face hugely swollen from some tooth abscess, and we had to spend time in A&E waiting for X-rays, antibiotics etc. They are working, though, and she is recovering. 

I aged rapidly. 

Christmas was quiet for us this year - Andrew and his family were with Ann's parents this year, and Diana, of course, was enjoying her Christmas in the sun with friends in NZ. Last year we had a house full! Missy will be 7 in February - it never ceases to amaze me how fast the time flies by. They popped up for a few days before Christmas, which was lovely. Andrew has taken up running in a big way - it started with the global park run phenomenon, and has grow into longer distances and more frequent runs. He has also signed up for the Luzern Half Marathon later in the year. 

David continues to work at the hospital locally, and seems settled for now, although he does still talk of returning to Kent at some stage. Who knows - they all make their way in different directions, somehow, don't they. 

I have so much to say and I have no idea how or where to start. So, you know what, I am not going to try. Chronological catching up is not going to work. I will just pick up the flow and talk as I go, and try to explain things as and when they become necessary. But please know this - you have never been forgotten.  I think of you so often, and talk of you to people I am close to - like Kelli Bach. We have many lovely chats, remembering the wonderful time we had discovering the joys of blogging and the lovely friends we made a decade ago. 

So much time has flown by. 

But so much still awaits us. 

New pages, new experiences, new adventures.......