Reflecting

A moment of peace and tranquility in an otherwise hectic day.

We took a call from Dad on Thursday who announced that he was going to be marrying his lady friend in 4 weeks time.  His friend has been on the scene for about a year now, so this has caused a bit of a shock amongst the family to put it mildly.  Mum died nearly 9 years ago now, and its been very obvious that this relationship has given him a new lease of life, so the fact that he has found a new romantic friend is not in itself the issue.

Emotionally its been a bit hard for my brother, sister and I to handle, I am sure we will get there eventually, its just all very sudden.  We really want Dad to be happy more than anything else.  But we also worry that an 85 year old man with Parkinson's whose had a stroke is perhaps an odd choice for a lady not yet in her 70s who is fit and healthy.  Much as I try not to think of it, it reminds me of the famous question that Mrs Mills asked Debbie McGee about what it was that first attracted her to Paul Daniels.

It has not been made easier by my being asked to be Dad's best man.

I have spent the best part of 5 hours wrapped up in this family crisis one way or another today.  I managed to get out on the Duchess for a couple of hours or so around the middle of the day.  After the chilly start the day was beautiful, sunny and warm (for early October) with very little breeze.  The big Ducati was a delight and I returned home refreshed with a big smile on my face.  

There was one moment of disappointment on my ride.  I stopped off in Bradford-on Avon where I intended to take my blip.  When I pulled out the little Sony you can imagine my chagrin when it told me that the battery was exhausted - doh!  So this shot was taken with the iPhone instead.  Ideally I would have used a landscape format, but the phone camera was not wide enough to enable me to do that, so portrait it is.  Hopefully (!) a lesson learned about checking the battery in future...

With everything thats been going on I am finding it a little difficult to keep up with Blip.  It is not because I am not interested in your journals, far from it, I am just struggling to fit everything into the day at present.