grab and run

What would you snatch up if you had to run out of your home because it was on fire?  Last night A grabbed his laptop and back-up hard drive, I seized my darling little cat and stuffed her into her travel box in one smooth movement and grabbed my beloved childhood toy Threadbare Tedbear.  At first, as we all stood outside shivering and watched as four fire engines' worth of firefighters struggle to conquer the blaze, I thought that I could not possibly lose my home and recover.  Not after everything else that has happened the past 3 years.

Then, as the fire showed signs of spreading and a chunk of the roof caved in I realised that A was standing next to me, cradling our darling little cat's box in his arms and knew that everything I needed was right there and, if necessary, everything else could be replaced or let go.

By 1.30 this morning, the blaze was out.  The fire didn't spread to our end of the building and we were allowed back in.  We, and everything around us, smells of smoke but we are safe and our home is safe.  One staircase over, though, is a very different story.  The flat where the fire started is gutted and the five below and across are soaked.  I went over this morning to help a neighbour who had returned to try and salvage some items from her drenched flat, and standing in the stairwell I could see sky.

All of us here in this community have experienced loss and we are, every one of us, all too acutely aware that life is fragile.  Watching flames lick their way across to my home, my safe and constant place, made me realise this as if for the first time.

new-ish name, new-ish look

Thank you all for the suggestions and thank you Sass for the one that made me think "but of course!"

the naming of blogs

How did you all come up with the name for your blog?  I ask because I want to change mine but for the life of my can't think of what to call it.  All I know is that I want to make a few changes to this space, the blog name being one of them.

Currently it is a line from "Hamlet", spoken by Claudius:

"My words fly up, my thoughts remain below

Words without thoughts never to heaven go"

Any suggestions for a new blog name?!

not as bad

Last week's 2-year anniversary passed less sadly than I was anticipating (as these things often do).  A and I met some friends in London's Chinatown for Chinese New Year: crowds, firecrackers, dragons, food, sake (we cheated a little) and (because Chinatown is handily close) book shopping here.  It was just what was needed.

(And what is not to love about the strict instructions on the back of the firecracker box):

a day like any other

Every day I think about my babies.
Tomorrow will be the same.
Every day I miss my babies.
Tomorrow will be the same.
Every day I wonder what Starchild and Bean and Little Stars would look like now.
Tomorrow will be the same.
Every day the hole in my heart is almost tangible.
Tomorrow will be the same.
Every day there is something missing.
Tomorrow will be the same.
Every day something, some thought, some sight, will make me catch my breath at the pain of loss.
Tomorrow will be the same.

Tomorrow is just another day like any other; I will mourn my babies no more or less than today.  But tomorrow is 6th February and two years to the day that we lost our precious daughter Bean and it hurts so much that I feel like I am going to shatter into shards.

the good stuff

Someone left an anonymous comment on my last post (not you, BFG, the other one) suggesting that I don't seem to get much positive out of my relationship, and perhaps it is time to be out of it.  I admit that comment upset me; not because it was made but because I have allowed it to be made.

I guess I have been writing about the sadness and the strife and the hurt between A and me.  Perhaps because I can't express my misery and loss at home, I use this as a receptacle for all such outpourings.  Anyway, I want to redress the balance at least a little bit.

A and I have been through a lot, and we have been and are still struggling to come to terms with the hand life has dealt us, that's undeniable.  But somewhere underneath the unhappy us lie the "real" us.  The man who rubs my back each night when we are reading in bed.  The woman who gets off the bus 7 stops early once a week, rain or shine, to go to the only shop in the vicinity which stocks her partner's favourite nut bars.  The man who, when my darling little cat was ill just a couple of months into our relationship, stayed up with me all night tending to her even though he had to deliver an early morning lecture the following day. The woman who suppresses her natural hoarding instincts and promised that for every new book that comes into the house an old one will leave it.  The couple who danced on the glass floor of the Sky T0wer, regardless of who was watching, because they were so full of joy with each other.  The couple who still love each other.

The silence has been broken, too.  There I was, fully intending to take your, and particularly Jem's, advice, when the situation righted itself.  A spent the whole of Friday evening in the same room as me.  We had dinner, watched a DVD, reminisced about our recent holiday, played with my darling little cat, shared the washing up.  The weekend was more of the same.  I know that I should still talk to him, but while the good stuff is going on, I don't want to.

the sound of silence

It is very quiet chez Illanare.  Recently it has been almost totally silent.
We come home.
I prepare supper and we eat it, usually in front of BB.C New.s 24.
A then retires to the bedroom with his laptop and / or Kindl£.
I do the washing up, plus or minus some laundry then spend some time on the interwebs.
Then I go to bed and A relocates to the living room until he comes to bed, usually a couple of hours later.

Seems like he can't stand to be in the same room as me.  And I don't know what I did wrong or how to fix it.