The Downs and Ups and Downs of a busy busy week

So back on 20th September one of my two remaining aunts died.

I wanted to blog about what a shock that was, and how sad, and how I couldn't believe that she had, you know, died when she was supposed to be part of my life for ever, and how somehow in my  mind I had assumed that she would be. But I couldn't, because it hurt too much and I missed her too much and even now several weeks later I still get the shock of remembering that she's gone every morning when I wake up. Maybe one day I will blog about her, and it will be about what an amazing aunt she was and how much I loved her, and why. And maybe I won't, because I can't yet think of a time when it won't be too upsetting to write about.

Anyway funerals take an age to organise in England which is partly why hers wasn't until a week ago, and the other partly was because her eldest son had to arrange to get here from Australia. So it was with a rather heavy heart that I got up at the crack of dawn for the ferry last Thursday morning and drove to Northumberland for her funeral last Friday. That was a hard day, although we got through it. I had been very worried about my uncle but after seeing him I felt a little bit reassured; he seemed to be over the worst of the shock and was making pans for the future, although my heart broke when he said 'I can't have a lot of time left myself, and I just want to make it as easy as possible for the lads for when I'm gone'. 

On Saturday we zoomed back to Orkney and were totally shattered on Sunday which was when my sister arrived for a 5 day visit. I was worried that that would clash with the funeral but luckily it didn't, having said that it was all a bit of a mad rush to get ready for her arrival. The weather was foul when she arrived and stayed that way until Wednesday, by which time I was succumbing to the cold she had brought with her so despite the sunshine we stayed in. We did have a brief walk on the beach in the evening, and we had had a good rootle round town on Tuesday, mostly attempting to scope out Christmas presents, but really, October is not generally a good month to visit Orkney. Her visit was enlivened by Lorenzo bringing in a live bunny and then dropping it in the hall at which point it did an excellent impression of Speedy Gonzalez  , zoomed round the corner and into the guest rom where it took refuge under the bed! The OH corralled the cats in the sunroom and then rescued the bunny, I'm not sure how. We all gave it a bit of a good luck stroke before he returned it to the entrance to its warren. Despite everything it was good to see my sister, we don't get to see one another often enough, but I'd rather have visitors when the sun shines so that we can go out and do things!

In the evening a friend rang with  the news that yet another friend of ours had lost her husband that day, which was a bit of a downer. Today I had a list of Things to Do, one of which involved a quick and needful task to do with some on-line Uni admin stuff. That developed into a frustrating and vexing saga which had me almost reduced to tears, took nearly the whole day to sort out and left me feeling totally frazzled and unable to face doing anything else at all. And still only two thirds done. 

However I am not going to fret about it again until Monday. Tomorrow we're off to an exhibition opening followed by a trip to this place where we would have taken my sister had the owners not been away on holiday while she was here. (Somewhere warm and not windy if they had any sense) Looking forward to both of those things. And Sunday we will relax. Possibly.