Bad news & Good news day

Starting with the bad news.  Unfortunately we had to have our cat Willow put down last night.  We're not sure what caused it but she suffered a spinal trauma which left her unable to stand on her back legs or use her tail.  It could have been a tumour or a blood clot but it happened very suddenly.  She was fine at lunchtime but she spent the afternoon just laying out in the garden.  When it got late I went to see where she was and discovered she couldn't get up.

We took her straight to the vets but it was clear that there was nothing to do be done, she had already lived longer than we expected given that this time last year she developed kidney problems and we thought we might lose her.  But she rallied and with medication had been ok.  But this was not something to be coped with so we made the only decision we could.  But it was very sad.  We'd had her for almost 15 years.  She was a rescued kitten.

I didn't sleep well last night as you can imagine but this morning I received some wonderful news that did cheer me up.

My eldest son rang to say that he is now engaged!  I'm so pleased about that.  He and his girlfried have been together the longest out of my children and their respective partners and I was aware that he needed to get his act together before her patience ran out.  I'd even dropped a few very unsubtle hints.  I shouldn't have doubted him.  He organised a romantic break for them in the Peak District and organised a ring and from the sounds of things did a bit of a treasure hunt.  His partner hadn't expected the proposal was coming because he'd kept his nerves under control but she was delighted so it's all good!

Hopefully if the wedding is next year sometime I will have three weddings in three years and be very happy to see all my children settled.

A - Z Challenge - R is for Relationships

My theme for this challenge is family and relations.

Relationships “the state of being related or a close friendship/love affair

Of course we all have lots of different types of relationships as we go through life, some of which I’ve written about in this challenge.  Many relationships shape the future decisions we make about relationships/love affairs.  We will hopefully take note of the positive things and look to replicate those and also to avoid the negative things.  As parents we often use our knowledge to try and protect our children from upsets or even danger.  Although in the role of teenager/young adult we often don’t want to listen to our parents, thinking we know better than them.

I’ve been happily married for a long time now but when I look back on my earlier relationships I shudder at how naïve I was.  The three main relationships I had before my husband all ended in tears, mainly because, certainly in the first two instances I definitely picked the wrong people.

The third long term relationship I really thought was going somewhere but I should have listened to my instincts on the first breach of trust and ended it but I didn’t.  At the time I preferred to be with someone that I couldn’t entirely trust rather than be on my own.  With hindsight I’d never recommend that course of action to anyone.

It’s interesting to look at other types of relationships.  There are school friends – I don’t keep in touch with anyone I was at school with.  We went off in different directions and gradually lost touch but my kids still have lots of contact with friends they were at school with and I’m glad for them.  They also keep in touch with friends from uni as does my husband but I never had that experience.

One of my closest friendships began when I had my first child.  We had another young couple living opposite to us who we had only really passed the time of day with.  After I had my daughter, Kim asked if she could see the baby one day.  She was about 6 months pregnant at the time.  We’ve been friends from then on.  We each have 3 children all around the same ages and during those first years when we had playgroup, nursery and then school runs to do we were a great support to one another.  It helped that the kids got on really well with one another even though she has 3 girls and I added 2 boys to the mix.  We have some great memories of the girls dressing up my youngest.

We don’t see so much of each other now but we speak regularly and when we do meet there’s no awkwardness between us and after family she’s the first person I would call if there was an emergency and I needed help as I know she’d be there for me as I would be there for her.