Well it has been almost 3 ½ months now since Mum passed away. In a way it seems longer as every day seems endless but then again there are still loads of times when I still expect to hear her voice when I phone or get a text message through telling me what she has been up to that day. I guess it will be like that for a long while yet. Dad has been keeping fairly well all things considered but am sure it’s difficult for him at their home in Hedge End constantly feeling that gap from when he wakes to when he sleeps at night by being constantly surrounded by her presence. At least the for the rest of us we can escape the heartache for a while by throwing ourselves into our everyday tasks and being able to block those emotions or thoughts to a time that suits us to be able to reflect and think of Mum. We’re all keeping him busy with weekly visits or phone calls from Angela in America, trips to my home in Oxford & Pauline’s in London, Susan & Spot the dog have visited him & Maria & baby Sam came over from Portugal for a week & stayed with him plus Forrest(Philip) & Erika & their two girls Celia & Holly were over for 3 weeks in the Summer. He’s currently on holiday with Pauline & her family in Scotland & planning a trip later in the year to Sweden to visit Forrest & his family. I did the Oxford 3 mile breast cancer run in June with my friend Janette in memory of Mum & have just signed up to do the Great South Run in October this year again in Mum’s memory but also raising money for Macmillan Nurses, who were so good to us all in the last few weeks before we lost Mum in giving us help, advice & support. Not quite sure how I’m going to manage running 10 miles! I hate running but I hate Cancer more, so I’ll manage somehow. I’ve yet to start my training yet but have tasked my husband Mike to be my trainer so we’ll see how that goes!? Can see us having our first domestic if he pushes me to hard! I’ll be tapping you all for sponsorship nearer the time as I’m hoping to raise over £500.00, so I hope you can support me again if you can afford to. Pauline & I have been sorting through papers and stuff of Mum’s for the various things one has to do in such circumstances. But some of the fascinating info we have found were all the lists Mum kept. She had lists for absolutely everything! Pets she had, The Family Cats names, mountain ranges of the world, contestants in Big Brother (over all 9 years!), Wimbledon finalists, places to visit in Hampshire, flowers of the seasons, the lists go on & on! But they do make interesting reading & you can’t help but smile when you see her neat handwriting & carefully written information sometimes of importance, sometimes complete trivia, but none the less just what Mum did! In amongst all this was a list of all the courses Mum did and my goodness what a list! 1960's: Geography '0' Level, First Aid, Nursery Nursing, Mothercraft, Hygiene & Public Health, Child Welfare, Home Nursing, English Literature '0' Level, French '0' Level.1970's: Classical guitar, Art Course, Back to Work, Speed Reading, Youth Club Leadership, Swimming course, Cookery course. 1980's: Counselling course, woodcarving, OU Summer School, TEFL , OU Social Science Foundation course, OU Summer school (Stirling), Adult Literacy & Numeracy Instructor's course, OU Introduction to Psychology, OU Summer School (Warwick), OU Language Development, World Religions & Religious Education (LSU), BA Education, Advanced Playgroup Tutors course (LSU), City & Guilds Further Education Cert (SIHE), Playgroup Foundation Course, Counselling Course, CAB Training, City & Guilds Flower Arranging Part 1 & 2, Achievement in Maths Cert Accreditation, Word processor course. 2009/9 Basic Computer skills, email, word docs, Surfing the Internet! It just shows that Mum was constantly seeking to stimulate her mind and wanting to learn new things. She was ready to try her hand at anything! Nothing seemed to faze her! I don’t know how she managed to juggle being a full-time housewife, running the family home, bringing up six children and still find time for her. A lesson to us all. The frenzy of course taking & night school classes seems to stop in the late 80’s but by that time she had qualified as a teacher & started teaching Maths at the Argyle Centre in Southampton (1986-93) & was a volunteer councillor at CAB in Bishops Waltham from 1988. So at this time her hunger for stimulus must have been quenched by these working roles. But years on around 2008-9 she enrolled herself into IT classes to learn basic computer skills, so that she could communicate on email with us all. After I bought her laptop & got her broadband access she was flying! Learning how to use Skype so she could talk & see Maria, Joel & Sam, Angela & her family who were living abroad, she loved finding information on all sorts by using the Internet and was able to track her grandson William’s world travels during his gap year, so pretty good for an older lady! Pauline & I have been fascinated reading all this & have loads of questions that I’m sure we will find answers to when we continue our research of Mum’s Lists, diaries & scribbles in notebooks! Finally one last thing to add to this entry is to remark on what fantastic friends Mum has. I have been lucky enough to be on contact with a few directly who have kindly been helping me sort through Mum’s craft stuff to find good homes for it. (My thanks to Serena, Margaret & Yvonne Blatchford). These lovely ladies have been a godsend with helping us decipher sometimes what certain things, tools, cards, papers, paints, ribbons, bobbins and so on…. are for what craft & where they would be best used. Yvonne B organised a table top sale at the SillShare group in Millbrook & raised another £20.00 for HASAG, THANK YOU. And Serena is very kindly holding a sale at her home in August amongst Mum’s Lace friends and turning it into a sale of Mum’s crafty things with tea & cakes to raise more money for HASAG & to find worthy new homes for her treasured crafty possessions. THANK YOU, SERENA. Once again I have been astounded by the generosity of Mum’s friends of their time, money & sincerity. But really, I shouldn’t be surprised that she has so many lovely ladies as friends as she herself was truly the lovliest lady of them all.