What a difference a year makes....

Happy Easter!  I am hanging out for the forbidden V drink this afternoon, hell, I have earned it.  Well this time last year I was a very different girl and the difference is there for all to see.

 
Last year I was ill, suffering with endometriosis, awaiting a surgery date, nursing a shattered heart and generally just miserable.  I was still living with him that shattered the heart and life was really a bit of a struggle.  I managed to find an Easter Sunday mass, on the internet, which told me the wrong time and we were late.  But we were in time for the blessing and to sing a few hymns.  It was a lovely service.

Then we headed to our local pub where we were acquaintances with the landlords.  After a yummy lunch where we read the papers and generally chilled out, they invited us to dinner.  Unlike today, the weather was a bit shite so we spent the afternoon on the couch with DVDs before ambling back there.  Dinner was with about 20 other strays and we had a ball.  I had a tambourine and the sing a long was great.

FF a year and wow – I am pretty healthy and am very contented with my single lifestyle.  Easter Sunday has dawned bright and sunny – a bit of a breeze in which my washing is flapping.  I am worshiping at the oven making some yummy treats for the kind people who invited me to dinner a year ago.  Guess what?  They are now my best mates, I very rarely go more than a couple of days without seeing them and we refer to each other as family!  I don’t know where I would be without them.

I have spent the morning on the phone to my family who were having Easter dinner.  I miss them right now, but Mum and Dad will be here very soon and I will see everyone else for the second most important wedding of the year in December.

When asking my boy flatmate if it was ok for my parents to stay for two weeks, he just smiled and said that they must be pretty cool and laidback if they have bought me up to be the way that I am.  We have a mutual love affair with each other – I think that he is the bees knees and we have joint custody of a few tomato plants.   But it got me thinking about the way I was bought up and yes it was pretty cool and at the time I didn’t realise just how laid back it was, granted that my parents have chilled out a bit now that the hard part is over and they don’t have to tell us what to do anymore. 

A prime example of this is my Grandma.  Very sadly she passed away in the first August that I was here.  She was not ill for long, but she had discussed what she wanted for a send off with my Grandad before this time.  There was to be no depressing service, and no sandwiches and hushed voices after wards.  Hell No!  There was a to be a party to celebrate this woman who had 5 kids and what sometimes feels like a million grandkids and one great grandchild.  Eulogies were to be given at the house and then there was to be dancing.

 
I called from a London phone box as there was no phone at our tiny flat and was crying as I spoke to my Dad.  And boy did he give me a telling off.  That was not what she wanted.  Everyone else had been partying despite the tears, dancing even if it was with a heavy heart.  So stop crying and get celebrating her life.  I did that – I drank a bottle of wine and had a nice dinner with friends that night.  I later saw a DVD where my sister tearfully read out the eulogy that I had written and then some footage of the party where my family followed her instructions to the letter.  She was there in spirit and she would have loved the hooley that was had.

As I dance around the kitchen to a mix of Paloma Faith, Lady Gaga, Gin and Cake, I am thinking of her.  She who loved to hear her grandchildren sing and laugh and to see them happy.  I hope that both she and my Nana are up there having a cuppa and a huge easter egg, grinning at this crazy, happy, blonde nutter that they had a hand in raising.

Happy Easter peeps!  Love ya all xx