Gijon......

....and it is amazing .... to be here .... to be part of this family - I'm with Alex, Lara and Rob.... we no longer have a family home ... and only two of us live in Liverpool - when we are there - so it seems very right and natural to be as a family in Spain - though what is also amazing is that I have been here - in family - four other times in last two weeks in Croatia, Slovenia, Liverpool and at my parents in Cheshire.

The feeling of connectivity is so strong and so special ... and growing .... we are part of the family of the future.....

Christmas 2010

Am sat in my parents front room whilst my three boys do a crossword with my Mother and my Father dozes. A wonderful family Christmas with my Mother glowing with happiness as her big grandsons joke and tease around her. My Father absolutely on top of everything including the cricket scores, whilst my Mother remembers and forgets in equal measure..... My Father's frailty more obvious, but his attention to detail wonderful, making us grapefruit at 4.30 in the morning as he didn't do it earlier!

There are a flock of long tailed tits in the garden and my Mother has come and sat next to me to watch them. Time to go........

Wonderful evening....

... and it was - just that - a truly wonderful evening - magic.

I had arranged to meet Gilly tonight with Jim and Alex, as we go to my parents tomorrow and I only came back on Monday...... anyway it ended up - unexpectedly - as Gilly, Vanessa, Jimmy, Alex, Aziz, Jamal and Perri and I having a really great night out - we went to Chili Banana - and the boys were just so funny, all of them just playing off against each other, laughing, joyful, teasing, beautifully witty at each other's expense ... just being themselves, knowing each other so well, being open and honest and just so funny....wonderful young people... and when we weren't laughing we were all talking........ honest and heartfelt.

A real sense of family, touching base with Chris and Heff, recognising and appreciating shared history ... being us.. and enjoying every second of it.. way to live... wonderful!!!!

Varazdin, Velenje and now home....

.... and wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am still so utterly amazed at the connectivity of it all - I saw, and watched a webcam in 1999.... http://cip.foi.hr/index.php/foi-web-cam before we went on our first holiday to Croatia .... and now I am officially part of the FOI, I have been given only their second Charter as Friend of FOI - when I spoke on receiving this - I said - 11 years ago I saw a web cam and now you honour me like this ... and my life is so intrinsically wrapped up in Varazdin with work etc ..... but also my son now lives here!!!! Wow wow wow.. extraordinary!

Then I go onto to Velenje - to my Slovenian sister - we discussed this - how did this happen?? But our lives, our children's lives - Jimmy came with me, Jan was there... they already know each other so well etc etc .... we just know and connect so much with each other - so Varazdin and Velenje are about an hour and half drive away from each other, in two countries (though with a shared history - not always easy) yet I know both of these from different routes - how absolutely amazing is this... no it was just meant to be....

... bufffff - so didn't get back in time for the dancing party ... but I had such a beautiul dance in Varazdin..... just glowing with love and life.... I know ... but I just have to write it - how blessed am I?..........................

So much seems to be happening...............

............on so many levels but particularly in my spiritual journey. It has been a roller coaster of a week and I have had huge highs and lows. It feels like I am veering between poles, oscillating between extremes of .... emotion... not quite emotion - I wrote in an email to a friend last week - 'I veer between a beautiful certainty and a huge void of not knowing anything' and I have been thinking about this, at the back of my mind all week, and I suppose it is exactly where I am.

The 'huge certainty' is growing, it is becoming clearer and much more defined, it is becoming real. The huge void of 'not knowing anything' is the trough between the waves, and as the waves build up increasing in momentum....... the crests are becoming higher, wilder, fiercer and even more bedecked with white horses, whilst the troughs continue in between...... plateaus of stillness, of taking breath.... they are also actually really beautiful ... and maybe need to be just that - points of stillness before the next wave, rather than voids of not knowing.

... and so I think this is where I am - after a very reflective peaceful day, I have meditated a lot today and given myself the time to be and to read etc as a consequence I sit here now in a state of huge and wonderfully beautiful certainty! Maybe I should just spend my life meditating - it just fills me with joy..... but I live in the real world... and I suppose I'm back to waves again.... only this time the trough is the 'beautiful certainty' and the real world the 'white horse bedecked wave' - wow - could be right!!!

post script..

.. and of course Chris as a consequence had no fear of death.. what a wonderful teacher!

Catching up with myself................

.... a quiet weekend, a combination of not going to the EI, having nothing planned and the weather. But it is amazing, I was talking to Margaret this morning - for 2 hours - I do have beautiful long phone calls with so many people - that I have hardly gone out of the house all weekend - yet since Friday afternoon I have communicated with so many people, email, phone, Facebook, What app, Skype.... in over 20 countries!!!! How staggering is that.. the technology is truly amazing.... One click away from... some quite passive - an email - some deep - long telephone conversations - I love my phone package - some short and funny touch base technology like texts - just a few words - wow it is really extraordinary - and now such a way of life... our children are growing up with this......Wow wow wow.....

So weather cold, just love my new flat - one switch away from warmth - small and cozy. Well I only keep one room warm - but it's just lovely, sitting at my window after a beautiful sunny day - it's now foggy and cold - weather to be indoors!

Have been invited to Croatia the week after next, which I am going to go to with Jimmy - and we will see Rob in his new land - and several dear friends.... so an unexpected journey - and lovely as they are giving me some form of recognition - how extraordinary is that - it just makes me laugh so much with joy.

I know that I have more connections than many people, but I also know that the connections are coming - young people increasingly connect globally. I have been thinking about this today, it is only 4 years but the connections are so much stronger than when Chris was here. I also thought about how Chris loved two countries especially - Spain - particularly Northern Spain and Croatia..... and my life is now so intertwined with both of them - Alex and Lara and Asturias and Rob living in Varazadin! Planning to visit both of them in the next month - to meet people who are so in my life - extraordinary.

In one email I wrote this weekend I said I was fearless and I am - I have no idea about where my future will take me, or that of my children, or my team at work - but even as I feel this uncertainty, I have no fear..... that's amazing. Fear is such a huge negative nonsense, it does nothing but 'petrify' ..... builds up bogies.. I learnt that from my lovely man ... Chris lived without fear - he had been run over by a train and lost both of his legs above the knees, lived in pain, yet lived a wonderful, happy and fulfilled life - WITHOUT FEAR - way to go!!!!!!