Actually now I'm in a calmer frame of mind or maybe that's just sleep deprivation catching up with me or maybe there are some really good prayers being said for me at the moment....
Anyway after staying in for all of Monday I told child number 2 he was definitely going to school on Tuesday. That's my day for going into the church shop and I wasn't missing it. He went without a murmur and off I went with a smile.
When I returned I felt drained and it wasn't helped by the fact there was a card through the door saying I had missed a parcel delivery while I was out.
Now I know what this parcel is or should I say, these parcels are. One is younger son's birthday present (yes - very bad planning we have 2 children with December birthdays) the other parcel is his Christmas present!
The card said they would deliver tomorrow i.e. today - well that's how I read it.
Now today I had a rearranged doctors appointment from Monday so I rang a friend and asked her to house sit while I was out. Not a problem. Only the parcel didn't come while she was here, or after she left. Or before lunch or even after lunch.
You know where this is going don't you?
Eventually I rang and asked how late it might be delivered.
Well they have been very busy and there were a lot of new parcels in today and oh.... mine wasn't actually sent out today. Would I be in tomorrow or Friday?
I'm getting sick of staying in, I'm getting sick of cancelling things and missing things and rearranging EVERYTHING.
But this is my son's present and as I told the woman with no hesitation I would stay in and wait because Christmas and birthday wouldn't be so great for him this year as he's just lost his dad - oh I laid it on thick and she said she would try to get it delivered before 11 when really, if things went to plan, I should be going out.
I don't have much hope that it will - I don't expect anything good to happen in the near future. I've gone from optimist to pessimist in less than a day.
I got off the phone and shouted some very rude words - unrepeatable here! (I know my older son reads this - he would be shocked!!) Then I texted my friend who had been round in the morning and told her my tale of woe.
Her answer was to jump in a taxi and offer me a shoulder to cry on - angel number one!
After I had dried my eyes the doorbell rang. A man stood carrying a picture. He'd been taking ariel photos in October and had one of our house if we wanted to buy it.
Andrew always wanted an ariel photo of the house and in the summer when he was away another man had been with another photo and I had bought it as a surprise. The morning Andrew died he asked me, yet again, what I'd got him for his birthday.
"It's a secret!" I'd said with glee, knowing I'd found him something he really wanted.
I explained this to the man on my doorstep today. He nodded understandingly.
"There is a person on this photo." he said and I couldn't get a look at it quickly enough.
There was Andrew looking up at me. He was cleaning out the guinea pigs but had stopped to look up and watch the plane fly by. I had to have that picture too.
So now I have two ariel photographs, one from the summer when I was in. My car is on the drive and you can see the washing I'd hung on the line. And this autumn one with Andrew in the garden and just his car on the drive - It was a Tuesday so I would have been at the church shop. Two snapshots of family life. Every day life as it was.
I usually think of angels looking down on us but here I was looking down on Andrew - is that the view he now has of us going about our daily life?
But my day didn't stop there...when I told younger son I'd had no post he disappeared upstairs and came down with an envelope with my name on.
"Where did this come from?" I knew what it was - the annual school Christmas card that each child lovingly makes. I've got a collection and each one is beautiful.
"I brought it home yesterday and got my brother to sign it too. I hid it and was going to give it to you on Christmas Day but you can have it now as you've had no post today."
And here's the poem he wrote inside ....
A Winter Wonderland
A winter wonderland is sparkling
Soft snow covering the ground.
The big bangs of the Christmas crakers expoding all around.
People sliding down big snow mounds.
The clouds are crying as they spit down the snow
on to the hard ground.
Presents are waiting patiently like trees
in the breeze swaying all around.
That's a winter wonderland.
Like I said the angel's keep appearing, maybe that's why I'm feeling clamer, more optimistic, hopeful that my parels will arrive tomorrow before 11...
...well that's not a bad thought to go to bed with.....
night night.....
"Love is all around"
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