So WordPress tells me this week I have been blogging for five years.

Boy, a lot can happen in five years.

Back in September, 2011 I was working part-time, we were still very much in the building phase of the house-that-will-never-be-finished.

The children were 14 and 11. Good god we still had a child in primary school!

The house was chaotic, there were two dogs running around, an ever-suffering husband trying to deal with daughters (a teen and a tween no hormones there) and a helicopter mum who didn’t think she would ever get any time for herself EVER.

 

 

Fast forward … September 2016. There’s been tragedy and tears. There’s been laughter and despair. There’s been amazing friendships (both real life and virtual).

Today, I work full-time, the house is still unfinished … but we have a pool now!

The husband went fishing one Sunday morning  in 2014 and never came home.

The dogs reached the end of their lifespan too.

The girls are now 19 and 16.

One is living away at university learning to be a natural history illustrator, perhaps all those David Attenborough shows she watched with her Dad did have an impact.

They are driving cars.

And thinking about the future.

 

 

Hippie Child

 

 

 

All of it documented in the blog. The personal journal that made people laugh and cry.

It’s slipped away a bit during the grief struggles.

It’s identity is now slightly confused, it’s purpose a little more uncertain.

But I still hope I can return it to a daily part of my life.

Slowly, ideas are coming back to my muddled mind.

Tinges of excitement about possibilities are seeping back but it’s at a snail’s pace, so unlike the before, when I had a million ideas.

The future seems distant. The energy to get there overwhelming.

But despite our reluctance the future does arrive.

It may be different to what we imagined.

Maybe it will be better than what we pictured.

After all a lot can happen in five years.

Thank you to every one of you who have read the blog over the past five years. The silent ones who appeared as a stat in my page visits column, the ones who left comments, those who gave a like on social media, those who signed up to get reminders of posts being published. I can’t begin to tell you how important you were to getting me through when times got tough.