melancholy

Just thinking thinking thinking this evening. I've been far too tired recently. And although I have a ton of work to do, I decided to have break and just listen to some music, play some games and generally have a skive this evening. Glass of wine, Sennheisers, fags – jammies. Lovely!

Listening to the White Album…it's always going to be, and always has been, so evocative of Dad's reel to reel tape of the Beatles -

…memories of David as a baby, trundling about in a pair of terry towelling pants and a suntan cutting his teeth on empty beer cans [perfect childhood!], this photo will shock and horrify most modern mums…so funny! And so harmless..

Remembering walking to school in HOT rain in Papua New Guinea with Pete. Pete was always such a stick insect :) Pete on the left.

Mum under our house on stilts, buying fruit or carvings from the locals, who were mostly naked. And happily for us, we found this perfectly acceptable. This chap not so – he wears the sarong that normal people wore before David Beckham made it such a bore.

Mud that dried to look like broken Easter eggs – it always fascinated me as a child. Still does.

Blissful days at the beach, where the sea was warm and only about a foot deep for ages, then suddenly VERY deep and cold…floating about in massive inner tubes from the huge Mac trucks used on the mines. The sand was soft – this is one of my favourite photos of all time…

And Mum always made iced coffee – that's a surprise memory. Just recalled it. Odd how there are things in the mind hiding away. Then they suddenly surface when you don't expect it. Picnic. Iced coffee. Sun. Sand. Happiness. The hot car.

Losing our flip flops when we had to cross the river to go to school, as the mud was so gluey. Worrying about hook worm?! Mum and I had matching dresses – made by Mum's best friend Kay. I remember the colour. Blue. My favourite. I felt so important to look just like Mum. HUGE steaks cooked by Kay's husband, our adorable 'uncle' Ralph…which apparently 'fell off the back of a truck'. Heh heh. The 'Bloody Red Baron' tape. My 'best' friend Tamara. Her surname escapes me for the moment.

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No-one else can ever know what is going on in your mind. They can never understand how you feel unless they ask – or you tell them. Therefore it's easy to assume that nothing is happening in there that's too serious. This lays one open for accusation.

Sadness is hard to share.

When someone asks you how you are, you don't TELL them do you? Well, unless you really are ok all the time? And if you do tell them, as in: "how are you?" - "oh, terrible, I feel ghastly / sad/ ill etc" – the face!! Like, ''what? You are seriously NOT going to really tell me how you are are you?'' Society dictates NOT…

So I am walking around with this big big heartbreak inside me. And when people ask how I am, of course I tell them I am fine, thank you. Or risk a strait jacket for my pains.

I am still so sad about my Dad. My heart breaks for my mum. Yesterday would have been their 50th wedding anniversary. I hope to see my twentieth. And thirtieth – we saw our tenth last year…to see our 50th I'd be 88. Well, bring it on! I shall hopefully have a blue rinse, the FH a grade 2.

Happy anniversary for yesterday Mum and Dad. I am so sorry you aren't together for this one.