Shore thing

Isn't it funny how some names or addresses or numbers stay in your head for years and years. Like Ernie Harbourne...There was a thing on someone's Facebook status about cricket commentaries and it came into my head that my mother's first husband was something to do with cricket. His full name was rarely spoken when I was growing up and my older half siblings, his children, had long since changed their surname to my father's by the time I was born. It's many years since I have spoken to them, and many more since he died, so I was wary of my remembering until I idly googled what I thought it might be... and of course,  he's all over the internet. There's even a Wikipedia biography of him with surprisingly detailed information on his wives and children. What a strange thing for an estranged sister/daughter to come across over her morning cup of tea!

What can I find to be grateful for in this? Well, the fact that family relationships can survive family break up, they can even be enriched. I know my sister and brother loved and respected my father but they also had one of their own they were proud of and maintained a bond with. I'm also slightly embarrassed that my blog seems to be littered with vague connections to celebrity but that's my life I'm afraid...only very vaguely connected full stop!

And...isn't it funny how dreams disappear from your head? I'd had a good one and forgot it when all of the above happened. Something will remind me, I thought, and when I looked at Facebook again someone was talking about Glastonbury and I remembered that was what the dream was about...they'd moved the perimeter fence and I didn't have to go to the festival as I was on the site already! I give great thanks for the subconscious where it all makes so much more sense sometimes...and for this quote which sums it up so neatly 'the subtle mechanism of knowing the truth does not originate in the brain'. I like it best of all because it was a quantum physicist who said it not a spiritual leader.

Today, I had more pain than energy and wanted to just lie in bed and read my book but I also truly madly deeply wanted to go to the beach...so I dosed myself up with all manner of medications and remedies and packed a trolley with paraphernalia determined to drag it and myself down the hill somehow. I can't remember the last time I've been to a crowded beach on my own, and I'd forgotten that unless you have screaming kids and barking dogs of your own it's best to have some good companion to make a bubble with. Never mind, I give thanks for a lesson learned. For sun and sea and sand and samosas and strawberry ice cream... and for all the fun everyone else was having.