Well, what a year 2014 proved to be, more to the point, where did it go? It’s so weird, some things seem like they were only yesterday, and then others seem like a million years away!
The one thing that blighted 2014, until July, was the announcement of redundancies at work, it was awful. I found the whole process unbearable and so withdrew, taking no part in applying for any of the new positions created, until almost the very last week of term, when after many weeks of being
gently persuaded constantly badgered and nagged by my best friend Sarah that she couldn’t do her “new job” without me, I finally applied for the one part time Admin post that hadn’t been filled, still admittedly with reservations. Then in September I began working my new hours, 8.30 – 1.30. It took a lot of getting used to, not only the shorter hours but the drastic cut in wages,
but I had a job.
However by mid October I had adjusted and discovered that by leaving work at 1.30 it gave me almost another day to play with (if that makes sense?)…….no more rushing home to get the tea on and then crashing on the settee but more time to be creative, blog and as you have seen, finally bond with my garden!!!! Work wise I am not sure what 2015 will bring, as more big changes seem to be a foot …… and whether I decide to fit in again is another story.
But onto much happier events and memories …..
In June I became Nanny Nell to a very, very beautiful little Iris. The first baby to be born to all our families for at least 18 years, and we are all totally and absolutely besotted.
And then …… later in the summer Marc came to stay play with me, something neither of us ever thought would happen, even as I waited for Marc’s train to pull in I still expected to get a text saying he wasn’t coming!!
We had such a special time …. and in those ten days, no, we never, ever stopped talking or laughing, especially when he filled my bathroom with bubbles, when he put a few too many drops of luxury product in my jaccizi bath!!
And I am sure the charity shops of Shrewsbury and Wolverhampton still remember our animated visits.
There were also all my return frequent visits to London to stay with Marc and Ian….. where we saw the Poppies at the Tower together ……..
…….. took part in unusual quiz nights …..
…… and who can forget the Live Theatre Window Event at WE Interiors in November or my need to cut those calories!!!!!!
Lucy and I went on our Greek Odyssey to Kefalonia, accompanied by three equally enthusiastic monkeys who embraced all things Greek, a time away in foreign climes that ticked
all our boxes for the perfect holiday ……….
…….. accept that seven days was just not enough!
At Easter I went Iceland ….. this was the third time I had arranged the trip for the Geography Department and this time it just had to be my time to go with them.
It was the most beautiful, magical and at times “spooky” country I had ever been too and where I finally managed to tick off swimming in the Blue Lagoon from my bucket list.
I know there’s been an awful lot more to my year, but these were for me the most memorable. Tonight I plan to go for a meal with some of my family to the local Indian restaurant up the road, and then toddling home early to see 2015 in very quietly ………remembering the year, good and bad and indifferent and the people who helped make the memories, then looking towards a New Year …… not with dreamily misty, whimsical eyes, but just hoping that it will be a good one.
There’s a lot of history to this very simple box. It was originally Andy’s fishing tackle box which he made for himself for when he went fishing, the children were little and we didn’t have a lot of money. 
And when we had a little more money Andy was able to buy a “proper” tackle box …… and then, his old box was painted different colours as it became a toy box, and later a dressing up box, until finally it was put up in the attic, abandoned as the children had grown up.
Then Lu said a couple of months ago, that we should get it down and “do it up” for Iris for her dressing up box………. as dressing up was always very much part of Tom and Lucy’s childhood with many many happy memories associated with it …… when they used to go to the village jumble sale on a Wednesday night with a bag of pennies, using their imaginations to buy “dressing up clothes”.
So, one Sunday night, just before Christmas, I finally got my act together and cut out all the squares and flowers from my My Mind’s Eye, Stella and Rose, 12” x 12” designer paper pad (that book now owes me nothing, as I have used it on so many projects) and got gluing ….. followed by coat after coat of clear, quick drying varnish while perched upside down on the table, in the kitchen utility!
But, I left the inside red, left untouched just as Andy had painted it.
Iris may never know her Granddad Andy, but I know he will always, always be with her. I am hoping that this box will follow her through her life, in different guises as she grows up ……. I would like to think that when the time comes for her to go to university it will be used as one of her trunks to transport all her gear ……. and if it ever needs a little tender loving attention, someone will always be on hand to repair it ….. and make it better, if not me.
