Just had a couple of sad days, an old friend died, I didn't get invited to a 50th birthday party while some of my friends did,life is not happening in the way I want it to. Nothing major, just the usual small stuff. The sorting out and throwing away is also getting to me. It is so relentless. I hate to see things Ray valued just thrown away but it all has to go eventually, I know that. So much bad news lately, it seems as if the world is less stable than usual.News of illnesses suffered by old friends, cancer etc also destabalizes my world.

I guess it is partly the change of the seasons, my body telling my head that there are worst days to come. I hate the thought of winter but will have to plan some brief get-aways if I can. Maybe four days down at Shirley's place will cheer me up? It is sunny and clear outside, cooler than a week ago so definitely autumn rather than summer. I am loving th warm days and cool nights. Wish it would last. I have a lot of outside work to do and some work still under the house. The "scrappies" are still around a few hours a week. They have taken a lot of metal but that is okay. I know some people would argue that I could have sorted it and sold it myself but I am really not that organised. It is better that it just goes.

The roofer has now started the cabin roof but we had an incident last Saturday. He turned back the canvas and looked under and out popped a possum with a baby. I know in some countries possums are considered vermin but here our marsupial possums are considered valued wildlife so I rang the various animal rescue organisations in the hope they could be relocated. One organisation finally told me that if we caught them they would mind them for a few days until the new roof was on and the place possum-proofed.

The roofer who is a man of a great range of talents, he turned possum hunter, took a lunge at Momma and off she went. My grandson Oliver thought it all a great joke, he located Momma under the eaves of the cabin, cute face peering down at him but she had abandoned baby so the roofer put the canvas back on and that was that for the weekend. The roofer didn't come Monday as he had an emergency at home due to one of his horses getting out but came back yesterday and did some more work, hopefully today will be the end of it, but the way things are going I won't bet on it.

I had my grandchildren here last weekend. I only had them 10 hours Saturday till midnight and the same Sunday. Sunday was my preaching day and a baptism at Messy Church so it was full on for the weekend and Monday I was tired. It takes a lot out of me looking after the three of them. Oh how I wish Ray was the Grandpa he had hoped to be. I will never stop regretting that he was not able to fully participate in their young lives. Oh what a difference that would have made. I am sad they are growing up without their father, grandfather, uncles etc. We all seemed once so close, now we are all scattered.

It is one of the curses of the modern age that everyone moves away, there is no village full of people you knew and grew up with. There are not the family gatherings with Granny's house as a meeting place, no extended family to support you. As a widow I feel the pain of that too. No supportive sister and brothers, no contact with a lot of people who grew up with your husband and can share those precious memories. I hate that feeling of being cut off from the family now they all live at some distance away. Phone calls are not the same. I miss the noise and chat of Lucas's visits, I miss watching Alice grow week by week. I miss the relationship I once had with my other son, and of course I miss my daughter and her family. (Okay, vent over)

One sad thing we found was a cut out doll's house, all ready for those future grand daughter's he knew he would have. Made me think that everyone has those "ideals for the future" and how we , through our circumstances, fail to grasp them.

Am I getting better at the single life? No I don't think so. Like the caregiver's life it is more a kind of resignation, what ever will be will be, rather than a joyful acceptance.