Long'un

I've been absent from cyberspace for weeks. Alot has happened...

First I left my job.

Three days later my grandfather was taken ill and the whole family maintained a weekend-long vigil at his deathbed. He died on the Sunday afternoon after a year-long illness.

The next day was the snowday. Beautiful but less so when you've got to drive in it to collect belongings from hospital, register a death, go to the funeral parlour etc. all of which was miles away from each other.

The following week passed in a blur but not being at work meant that I was around to support my mother without worrying about taking time out of the office. Unfortunately I was also on tenterhooks because the announcement about my departure had not gone out and I had work that needed to be handed over but couldn't as I wasn't allowed to talk about having left until the formal anouncement was made...blah, blah, blah.

Monday - funeral of my great auntie at a crem down in Surrey on the most filthy wet day of the year. Peculiar at the end of the day when, instead of saying "goodbye" to relatives, you find yourself saying, "see you on Wednesday" with a wry smile.

Wednesday - grandfather's funeral on a beautiful crisp winter's day. The sun was shining and the priest was lovely if not the campest man of the cloth that I've ever come across. The cemetery was like a bog after the rain two days earlier. The same day the announcement about me finally went out to my colleagues which was a huge relief to be able to be open about not coming back and to start handing work over remotely.

I've been without internet connection hence the radio silence but am now in possession of my very first dongle a name which provokes giggles every time I say it for some childish reason. Frustratingly, it had a bloody child lock on it so I could comment on my own blog but not log on to it or most of the other novel racers' blogs until today.

I've spent the past two weeks getting used to not being at work and also trying to relax before getting my head ready to focus on jobhunting. Some good things have happened:

1. I've become a lady wot lunches. This is only possible if you have pals to lunch with and it happens that between career changes, babies and redundancy there's a little gang of 4 to play with. I've also been meeting up with former colleagues for lunch/drinks. All this activity must stop as it costs a fortune and I'm unemployed now!

2. I've met the most lovely man on Gumtree. Hang on, he's not that kind of man. Sadly. We have totally hit it off but he's gay. He's from Spain and is new to London and wants to improve his English, I want to brush up on my Spanish and we have much in common and have been spending hours together.

3. I've been playing auntie alot more and have been picking up Niece Junior from nursery and making pancakes and such things with her before going back to collect her big brother and sister for more entertainment with statements like: "you know, Auntie CC, this is a cream for bums [sudocream which gets applied to Niece Junior's sore bottom as required] that's why it's call bum cream."

4. I'm off to Hong Kong tomorrow night on a fabulous last minute package. Transpires that it's cheaper to do than a Europe deal because business people aren't travelling for meetings as much as before the credit crunch. My mum who's in dire need of a holiday after all the antics of the past months and I are off to HK for some buzzy city life mixed with the gentler pace of the islands. We may go up to China or pop over to Macau. Am very excited!

5. Best of all, I've been writing!

Will report back in a couple of weeks.