It's been an utterly horrible week.  I don't think I can put it any other way.  Most of it seems to have passed in a sea of foggy grief.  

A couple of things have exacerbated it.  Firstly, this seems to be the latest in a long string of deaths - starting in 2012 with Paula, then being followed by Dad, uncle Peter, Margaret, aunty Janet, aunty Floss and now Jonathan.  Jonathan's funeral on Friday will be the fourth one I've attended in six months.  The last two years have taken a very heavy emotional toll, and one of the odd things about grief is that each successive bereavement seems to make the pain of the previous ones worse rather than easier to bear.  

In the meantime, of course, normal life has to simply continue, and for the business that has meant maintaining our presence on Facebook.  That's been awful this week since this stupid craze has been doing the rounds of people doing no make up selfies for "cancer awareness".  Quite frankly, I just about feel ready to punch anyone who suggests I need my awareness raising, and that's before I get on the issue of not wearing make up. 

There is nothing brave about not wearing make up.  OK, I'll happily accept that  there are a tiny number of women who wear make up to conceal scarring, birth marks etc - for them, yes, different issues. But for most women, I can't see anything brave at all, and in comparing this even tangentially to the bravery of cancer patients seems wrong and narcissistic.  

I spend most of the time completely make up free and will wear it occasionally for nights out or special occasions but don't feel I need it.  I am not conventionally pretty, I am pushing 50, my skin is average, I have wrinkles and spots and scars and dark circles under my eyes - that's who I am.  Make up is like wearing a special evening dress - it's a nice treat but I'm under no illusion about it's magic powers of transformation.     It strkes me as a sad indictment of how far women have to go if we applaud their courage in not wearing make up - because that would be suggesting that our appearance is still our most important feature, not our character or our achievements, but our adherence to some artificial standard of beauty.  

Thinking about it, most of my female friends also don't wear make up or like me wear it infrequently - clearly we are all bottom of the class for being good, decorative little women.  

What has helped this week?  A couple of things.  Listening to Wagner. The dogs.  Going on a course yesterday at Busy Bees that I'd booked last year and really enjoyed.  Thinking about it, most of the women on the course weren't wearing make up, and quite a few of us were wearing sensible shoes. 

This week has been one of those times for feeling completely out of step with a wider culture - I'm sensible enough to know this feeling will pass and a lot of it is fuelled by grief which is making me particularly raw at the moment.   Fundamentally I'm happy and comfortable in my own skin - both literally and metaphorically.  

 

I found this article about Jonathan when searching for funeral details.  It's a lovely picture of him and the article says a bit more about his work with Macmillan - something I hope will be a lasting legacy of his.  

This is one of the bitterest posts to write.  Dear Jonathan is dead.  He died yesterday at his home in Manchester. I always thought and referred to him as "cousin Jonathan" although technically he was my dad's cousin, but because he was so much closer to me in age that just seemed to work better.  Regular readers will know that I've had a link to his blog on my sidebar practically since I started my own blog.  

How do I begin?  Well, by telling you if you haven't already to read his blog.  The odd thing is that I would look forward to reading his blog usually because of his wonderful humour even though it was mainly about having cancer, surviving cancer and then having an unrelated terminal cancer - not usually cheery subjects.  Because we had both had cancer, this formed an odd bond and shared experience.  One of Jonathan's many admirable qualities was that he put things back.  Right up to his death he was working with Macmillan to improve the design of cancer treatments for patients.  His blog was a magnificent description of cancer - I hope so much it will have helped educate and inform people, not just about the illness but about being terminally ill.  

He was honest (often painfully so) but like all of us, he was so much more than just being about the illness that killed him.  He was intelligent (fiercely so), curious, well-informed, had a killer dress sense, a fantastic sense of the ridicolous, and the very rare ability to have a well argued debate and hold differing opinions without that getting personal, something I greatly admired.  He also had a deep well of compassion and a strong sense of voluntary service - he helped on the Lesbian and Gay Helpline in Manchester for many years, and I've already mentioned his work with Macmillan.   

He was a loving family member.  His immediate family has been hit by repeated tragedy.  Sally, Jonathan's sister died at a young age and aunty Janet, Jonathan's mum also had cancer and died late last year.  All of us are thinking of uncle Bill at this time.  

We saw Jonathan at Christmas and typically we ended up having a really interesting debate about drugs in cycling as well as hearing all about his plans for a midsummer party which I'd put in my diary.  I won't put a line through it - I will make sure we have a celebration that night and raise our glasses to a very special and wonderful person, who was deeply loved and will be missed more than I can say.  

As planned, we went down to Weston Super Mare on Friday afternoon to collect the new car.  It's lovely.  It had been valeted within an inch of its life so was gleaming and spotless.  Andrew drove it home while I drove home in our old car.   We got stuck in the usual Friday afternoon bottleneck between the Bridge and the Brynglas tunnels.  The Welsh Government has dicked around for ten years (or more, possibly) trying to get this notorious bottleneck sorted.  It's the main transport artery into the big population centres of South Wales and it took us over an hour to get through around 20 miles of motorway.  While Welsh politicians keep bleating about having more powers, I'd rather they did a good job with the ones they have and sort this out.  With this and the bridge toll, it's the sort of thing that is a disincentive to a business deciding where to set up.  I think it's no coincidence that the Bristol side of the bridge is heavily populated with things like distribution centres etc.  No sane business is going to locate where transport links are expensive and difficult.  To be honest, if we had perfect freedom of movement, I'd locate on that side of the bridge now, as we do so much travelling with Milgi, both to shows, to see our machinists and to go to fabric wholesalers etc.  None of this will help the Welsh economy, which is already flatlining and pretty much entirely dependent on public sector jobs.  

Anyway, we got home, and Andrew spent most of Friday night reading the manual, and then sitting in the car getting the phones tethered into the Bluetooth system.  There's a whole spaceship's worth of buttons and controls and digital displays.

On Saturday morning, we headed over to see our friend Rachel.  Rachel volunteers for EGLR, and is one of the main organisers of their show in May, and I'd been busy making stuff for the event.  I'd done a box of 46 tuggy toys.  These are made from spare bits of fleece, plaited into short strips, and knotted at both ends.  There were also some applique tote bags, a big batch of tissue holders and some nail file holders each with their own emery board.  Hopefully these can be sold on the stall and raise some much needed funds for the rescue.  I was very glad to take these yesterday, as it was a big item ticked off my To Do list and we probably wouldn't have had room for all of it on the day of the show as well as all our own stuff.  

Nail file holders

Callie with the tissue holders

One of the applique bags 

Birds were cut using a Sizzix die

We set off in the car, with the girls in the boot.  Andrew spent most of the journey asking me if I wanted the temperature altered by 0.5C but I was very impressed by the smooth, quiet ride.  It seems difficult to believe it's a diesel, as it's so quiet.  Safely arrived at Rachel's, unloaded our goodies, and the girls were delighted to meet up with their old friends Carrie and Erin, and foster dog Max.  After a nice catch up, we all piled into Rachel's car, a squash with five dogs and three people! Headed into Chipping Sodbury to our regular haunt, the Royal Oak.  This is a lovely pub on the main street of the town, and the dogs are always welcome there.  We had a relaxed lunch, with Andrew feeding Max chips under the table and it was great to have a natter and hear all about Rachel's recent holiday.  

Then back to Rachel's house for cake and coffee while the dogs played and did zoomies in the garden.  Reluctantly, we left mid afternoon, and had another smooth, comfortable ride home.  Had a quiet rest of the day, just catching up with some reading, the papers,and a bit of TV.  

Today, we're off to Halfords to get a boot liner and some mats for the new car, and I've got a dental appointment.  

I don't often talk about cars on my blog.  But they are one of those things that make life much easier and in my case, I really enjoy driving.  Our current car is a Mondeo estate and we are both very fond of it.  It's a real workhorse, diesel engine with a vast, capacious boot and a straightforward, reliable drive, which is surprisingly quick on motorways and long journeys.  It can cope with us going to a show or event laden with four greyhounds and all our show stuff - no mean feat.  If we didn't have the dogs, I'd have something smaller and sportier, but we do, and when ferrying them around, I've developed a stately driving style that allows them to enjoy the view and not be flung around on corners.  

We'd realised that our current car only got through its last MOT with a wing and a prayer, and the garage had warned us of a few looming problems.  It's started making some ominous clanking noises and the next MOT is due in about six weeks, so we decided to start the search for the next Milgi mobile.  

This is where the internet comes in.  There are now masses of search facilities that let you look for cars by price, model and location.  We decided that we would go for another Mondeo estate and began browsing.  On Saturday we made a foray over to some of the big car showrooms in Newport to have a little browse and checked out our local Ford dealer too where our current car came from. Nothing suitable there, but it was useful to have a look at the newer models, and get a feel for the updated cars.  

Yesterday, Andrew found several on the net that were with a chain of garages around Weston-Super-Mare, an easy journey away.  It was a glorious afternoon, with blazing sunshine, and we headed over.  I like travelling in the car with Andrew - it's a great place for talking, and we can often catch up and have relaxed discussions about things.     

The first garage we went to was a bit disappointing then we headed into WSM itself.  Lots of people out enjoying the sunshine.  Found the garage, found a very helpful guy who pointed out the cars to us in a sea of them, and we found exactly what we wanted, a lovely 2010 Mondeo estate. It's silver, like our current one, is a 2.0 diesel and looks great.  

One of the things that really makes me feel quite old sometimes is to reflect on the wonderful improvements in cars since I learned to drive.  When I first got behind the wheel, power steering and A/C were unheard of luxuries and cars were far less reliable. I think that power steering in particular has really transformed driving, especially for women.  I can remember how physically hard it was to haul a big, heavy car round when parking - no fun.  A big estate like the Mondeo is now beautifully simple and easy to park.  Modern cars are much more reliable, safer, have power steering and aircon as standard and of course have a great deal more electronic wizardry built in.  The new car will have Bluetooth connectivity which will be great and very useful. 

Anyway, we are popping back at the end of the week to collect the new car, and I'm really looking forward to driving it.