a lovely lunch; Bluebell Photoshoot; one year

Hello dear friends!  It's been very, very busy.

On Saturday I went to London to have lunch with some wonderful friends in Blackheath.   P and C always entertain so elegantly, and their garden is amazing.  Since it was warm and beautiful we sat outside...it was so sunny that I had to put a hat and dark glasses on at one point!   The other guests were lovely...my friends always seem to bring together such interesting and articulate people, so the conversation was truly fantastic.  Quality time squared.

I then got back to BiFFO, but on the way had a text from Crissie & family suggesting that we meet at the Middle House in Mayfiel for supper. So we did.  After that,  we came home, and the following morning was the annual bluebell photoshoot .  Here are my two little flowers (granny-burbling warning now in effect)

This is the fourth annual bluebell shot, and it is so very lovely to watch the girls growing up ever more intelligent and bonny.  Here they are with their parents:

And here's one of me with my girls, in a pic photobombed by Dan the Cat:

At noon, we decamped to my favourite pub, the Star Inn in Old Heathfield.  Two pub meals in one weekend may seem a bit much, but we don't often get weather like this.  Here are my beautiful girls.

Then on Monday I was off to London to be interviewed for a programme called The New Orleans Strut, for Resonance FM.  Here's a link which I hope will work:

https://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/the-new-orleans-strut-23rd-april-2018/

This was great fun.  L'il Koko, the DJ,  is charming and well-spoken, and we talked about the Southern Gothic and commented on some wonderful New Orleans tracks.

Today, however, has not been an easy day.  My sister died exactly one year ago.  On Sunday, Mariana came over to me and said, 'Where's Sallye?'  I said she was in Heaven.  Mariana, who's a very thoughtful little girl, said, 'I miss her and I love her.'  I replied, with a huge lump in my throat,'So do I, sweetheart.'  How lucky we were to have had those precious days together when she came over for Cristina and Liam's wedding...they were incredibly special.  And how wonderful that she and the girls were able to get to know one another and play together out in the tepee in the garden.  What a mystery it all is...how I would love to believe that consciousness survives in some form after death.  And how I hope she knows just how much we all loved her.

So there I shall leave you, dear friends.  I hope you have am excellent week.

love, Susan x

The most special of Easters. Ravens and rebirth.

Good morning dear friends.

In my last post, I alluded to the fact that this was going to be a very special Easter. That may have been the understatement of the century for me.

I've spoken here about my long-lost cousin...long ago, my Mississippi cousin Ruthie was forced by the family to give up her baby for adoption.  Back then, there was such a stigma attached to children conceived Out of Wedlock...I so hate the cruelty of that phrase.  The day after I came home from my sister's funeral last year, I was contacted by someone who, like me, had had his DNA tested, and there was a link.  This was later confirmed by a link with another first cousin.  The place where he was born, and the date, coincided.  I was blown away by it...when I was going through the avalanche of emails when I returned from the funeral, it would have been so easy for me to delete the one from him by mistake.  But I didn't, and thank god for that.

Here's a link to my post from early June 2017:

http://thesalamanderandtheraven.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/amazing-news.html

Since then, we've corresponded a lot.  I'd been haunted for decades with worry about where Ruthie's child might have ended up, whether he'd been adopted by people who were kind to him, or not.  It was a huge relief to hear that he'd been brought up in a loving family by good people, and had made a wonderful life for himself.  So when I heard that he and his family would be visiting London, and when he invited me to have lunch with them in Knightsbridge (which is where they were staying), I was thrilled to bits.

We arranged to meet up by the Tube stop...He has such an extraordinary resemblance to my cousin that I knew that meeting him would be very, very emotional, so thought it would be best for us to meet first and then proceed to the restaurant to meet the rest of the family.  When he walked up, I threw my arms open wide and so did he, and we hugged each other hard...I'd promised him not to blub and not to emote, but I'm afraid my eyes were overflowing with tears.  What an extraordinarily magical and special moment it was.  Ruthie would be very proud of the man her son has become.  We then went on to the restaurant.  His family is amazing.  His wife is lovely...intelligent, charming and kind.  And his daughters are spectacular:  lovely, well-brought up girls with good manners and lively intelligent minds, and so much fun.  We talked about the vile weather, about London and the many things they're planning to do, about politics--one daughter had an anti-Trump badge, which I loved.  In the beginning, I was more than a bit nervous about how it would all go, but they received me with such warmth and kindness.  It was a remarkably special day.

I then headed home (Southeastern Trains, in its infinite wisdom, had scheduled engineering works over the Easter weekend, so there were replacement buses for part of the journey) and collapsed in a heap.  Since then, I've been trying to process it all...some beloved old ghosts, and some haunting sad old stories  are floating in my mind and heart just now.  I've spoken here before about survivor's guilt, which is an old friend of mine.  For years, I was guilt-tripped by different family members  about a) being alive and b) for having a living father who loved me.  And then I felt guilty about the anger that provoked in me, and I've had to work on forgiving, not just them, but myself.   But yesterday, for whatever reason, that guilt and anger has begun to dissolve and slip away, and that is such an extraordinary blessing. 

I wish with all my heart that my cousin, had been there yesterday.  No one can ever replace her, and it would be profoundly wrong for me to ever attempt to do so.  If I did, Ruthie would haunt me, and not in a good way!  But what I can do is try to convey to her son that he was very much loved by both his mother and his grandmother,  and to answer any questions he may have if I'm able to do so.  So we're meeting up later this week, one on one, for lunch.  I did feel such an extraordinary connection from the moment we met.  He and his loved ones will always be part of my family and my tribe, to the extent that they wish to be.  And what a huge blessing that is, and what a gift from the Universe.

Something that is seemingly unrelated, but isn't:  when I was waiting on the platform at Stonegate, I looked up into the trees and saw two nesting ravens:

As regular readers of this blog will know, I love my ravens.  For me they symbolise metamorphosis and the ability to shift between realms, to acknowledge the dark and live there occasionally, and still be able to re-emerge and embrace the light.  Nesting is all about home, and about creating a safe space for a family to grow and thrive.  So when I saw these two and their nest, it had a very special significance for me.

I am now going to chill and read novels with no redeeming literary value whatsoever.  I'd hoped to write some poems, but my heart is overflowing just now, and I fear (borrowing from Wordsworth) that they'd be awash in emotion but lacking in tranquillity.   But I will in time.

Take care, dear friends, and have a great week.The Universe really is full of messages and of magic,  if we let ourselves be open to them, and have eyes to see and ears to hear.

love, Susan xxx