Wednesday 25 July 2012

Getting There ….

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA         First of all a huge THANK YOU for all your lovely e-mails over the past two months, they have meant so much to me, you’ll never know. But,  I have to apologise because I may not have replied to all of them and have been slow to answer the ones that I did.  If I let myself,  I could be on the computer all day …. and as is so obvious to me now ……life is too short to do  that!   But trust me every e-mail was carefully read over and over again, most bought a tear to my eye ….. THANK YOU  xxxxx
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA         What I would like to do in the next week or so is to do a post showing you all the lovely handmade cards I received, from so many followers. I think I have only ever made one Sympathy card, undoubtedly the hardest type of card to make, but they were all so beautiful they really need to be shared.garSo what have I been up to?  Well I have been “learning” myself to paint big things,  proper …….. …….
Magnolia Paint…… when The Duke’s marine tank was emptied and taken away the room was too bare and it was so obvious that it had gone….
Linda Barker Where are you….. so I decided that by changing the whole look of the room its absence would not be quite so noticeable.
tankThe tank was beautiful, but far to complicated for me or Lucy to look after, so some wonderful gentleman from the local Marine Aquarist Club came one night and dismantled it for us, they found homes for all the fish, corals, crabs and anemones …..and I just could not/cannot thank them enough for all they did.  Having seen Andy’s Heath Robinson type set ups they said they only wish that they could have had the chance to met him.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA         As I said at the start …. life is too short ……  and Lucy and I are making plans ….. Andy so wanted to go to America and be a cowboy, go to a proper rodeo …. and we always dreamed that one day we would go to Monument Valley …..

…… well I might not get there for a little while yet …. but Lucy had told her Dad that she wanted to “do” Las Vegas for her 30th birthday and I know he would have made that dream come true for her ….. but as he can’t do it …. I am just going to have to do it for him …… next August!!!!
One of our very favourite programmes that we always watched together was Pawn Stars, and we always said if we went to Las Vegas that the Pawn Shop would be the first place we would visit …..
Well, it will be one of the first places Lucy and I will visit and I will take one of The Duke's vintage fishing reels or something like that to see what I can get for it .... and then ..... I will "squander" the proceedings with large cocktails, like we always did on holiday ....and  toast The Duke.

The saddest day for me is coming up soon when we take Andy’s ashes to scatter in Brixham … it was about this time last year we were all excited about going to stay at Cockle Cottage ….
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….and it was such an idyllic holiday … I just never imagined I would be returning a year later to say my final goodbye to The Duke, I cannot think about it at the moment without crying, but I know when the time comes I will be strong. We will also be taking a donation of about £1,000 down for the Torbay RNLI which would chuff the nuts off Andy no end.
This Too Shall Pass... Hand Stamped 1/4-inch Bracelet - customizable
I wanted to find myself something to wear to help me in the knowledge that the emptiness and loneliness I feel at the moment will slowly ebb away … and I found this bracelet on Etsy http://www.etsy.com/listing/97017306/this-too-shall-pass-hand-stamped-14-inch
I also like the story from which the phrase is supposed to come from ….. http://www.wscribe.com/parables/pass.html.
So again thank you all again  …. I am getting there  xxxxx