One of the things I realise I need to do as a widow is widen my world. When you are a caregiver your world narrows, in my case until the only focus was Ray. Ray's wellbeing, Ray's health issues, Ray's needs all dominated our lives particularly in the last few years of his life. Then when he died, followed by Mum's death two months later the grieving took over and that dominated my life. Then at two and a half years out I suddenly realised that if it was to be it is up to me. So now if someone asks me if I can do something and I have time available I do it.

This morning I spend the morning on the beach, not sunbaking but volunteering at an Ocean Swim meeting. My next door neighbour was the organiser and he was short of volunteers so I went with him. I acted as general rousabout to the girls who did the registrations. With an all age range from 10 years olds to the over 70s there were a lot of people registered and time keeping was strict. I had never done anything like that before but if someone shows me what to do I am fine. And at the end, for being a volunteer I got a free t-shirt.

I had forgotten how cold it can be at 7am and this morning was no exception. But by 10am it was beginning to warm up and by noon it was warm. The view across Terrigal Beach is spectacular and it was wonderful to be there instead of at home doing housework. I was envious of the fitness of some of the people my age as they swam either the one kilometre or two kilometre course and in one case both. Some people do really keep themselves fit.

One thing that astonished me was that as the swimmers came out of the water a lot of them stumbled. One of the women who had been a competitor for many years told me that is because during the swim they hardly use their legs so when they get onto land the blood supply is in their arms. Made sense to me but was something I had never encountered before. Of course the younger men won the overall prizes but there were prizes for age brackets too so many went home with a prize and others with a happy smile because they had done a personal best.

One good thing that happened to me this week was that a good friend came and cleaned out my gutters. During the really heavy rain of the rain event the gutters overflowed and water came in where my computer usually sits. I did have the laptop in the bedroom fortunately. Now it will be in the bedroom permanently as I worked out a way to use an old sewing machine cabinet of Mum's as a computer desk. It will be warmer in the bedroom winter nights too. So a little bit of a change of furniture to suit this new setup this week as well along with a general tidy up.

It hasn't been such a good week in another way as I lost my car keys. It was my only set as Ray lost one on a hospital visit a few years back and I never replaced it so I will have to get the car rekeyed. Ouch!!! that is going to cost a lot of money. I am to blame as for some reason I got distracted and have no recollection of where I put them on Wednesday when I came inside from getting a hat out of the car because it was warm and sunny and I thought I would wear it when I did some gardening. Yes, I know, we all make mistakes.

One thing that has become clear to me once again is that I work best as a member of a team, I am happy to occasionally be out the front leading but more comfortable when I have someone else, or several people working alongside of me. I guess this is one reason I felt so lonely after losing Ray. We were a team, as a couple we often worked side by side as volunteers as well as in the home. So it was Sue and Ray, or Ray and Sue depending where we volunteered. It was not until the last couple of years of his illness when we no longer did the Christmas Stocking ticket selling together that this partnership broke up.

So today was another adventure where I can say "Been there, done that, got the t-shirt to prove it.