Today is the first time in five years that I haven’t been in the United States for American Thanksgiving. It wasn’t a celebration that I’d paid any attention to until I met DorkyDad, but it is one that I have to come to love dearly. I’ve been feeling a bit nostalgic, so I’ve had a wee look back through some of my photos from the last five years and picked out some favourites.
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Tag Archives: friendship
Live In The Now: July
Okay, I promise this will be my last holiday-related post. After this I’ll get my head together and start focusing on life in not-so-sunny Scotland again. But our ten days away were too full of good moments not to share at least some of them. This also serves as my ‘Live In the Now’ post for July, because it captures so many details that I don’t want to forget.
The Travel!
Well, the travel itself wasn’t exactly awesome. In fact, I dedicated an entire post to how much I dislike flying. But what I loved was discovering what an amazingly good traveller DorkySon is; five planes, three taxis, three buses, two cars, one train… and not a single toddler meltdown. I would love to say that it was our thorough preparation that led to the smooth journey, but in fact we’re just incredibly lucky to have a mellow two year old, who barely seemed to notice the delays and queues. He slept on almost every aeroplane, attacked the inflight meals with gusto, and beamed at the cabin crew every time they passed our seat. He was thrilled by the taxi rides, excited by the bus journeys between terminals, and is still talking about his ‘special seat’ in the hire car. Whereas DorkyDad and I usually ended up crumpled, tired and crabby, DorkySon emerged from every journey with a smile on his face and ready for the next adventure. I don’t know how he did it, but he’s a champ. Continue reading
The Book I’d Like to Write: 373 Friends
At the last count, I had 373 Facebook friends.
There is more than sixty years difference between my youngest and oldest friends. A dozen of them are related to me. There are seven Sarahs, and three Tims, but only one Wendy.
Some of them are people I went to school or university with, and some of them are former colleagues. There are a lot of fellow mums, journalists, and poets. Three of them are people with whom I shared a tent on the Arctic ice sheet. A small handful of them are people I know through online communities – parenting and photography – who I’ve never actually met.
My friends include several MSPs, one MP, and a former US Congressman. One of my friends made news around the world for disrupting Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at the Jewish Federation General Assembly, while another once superglued themselves to a British Prime Minister. One of my friends has featured in a Blackberry advert, and one of them turned down the opportunity to go on Oprah. Continue reading
Raise a glass to those we’ve loved and lost
A group of my old school friends ran the Edinburgh marathon today, in memory of a friend of ours – Peter – who lost his life in a car accident just over a year ago.
They were raising money for Riding for the Disabled, an excellent cause, and if you can spare a couple of quid I know they would be thrilled with any additional donations.
I still haven’t quite found the right words to talk about how much I miss my friend. He was one of those rare people who you could go months without speaking to, and then pick up right where you left off, without a hint of awkwardness. He was a sweet and gentle person, with a wonderful laugh and a wicked sense of humour. He sent lovely chatty, handwritten letters. He would regularly leave me rambling, drunken, voicemails at 3am after he’d been out on a Friday night. He was probably the kindest person I’ve known in my life. I think of his family every day, and can’t imagine how hard the last year must have been for them.
Peter was a guest at our wedding – and gave us a gift of the two beautiful wine glasses in the picture above. We don’t use them often, but every so often it feels right to take them out and drink a toast to him. I imagine that tonight will be one of those nights.
I know I won’t be the only one who has lost a friend far too early in life. There is no way to make sense of these things, not much we can do but find our own ways to remember and honour. I could never have run the marathon, but I am so proud of those that did, especially his brother. I hope tonight that they are sitting and chatting about all the wonderful times they had with Peter, and that they will join me in raising a glass to his memory.
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