slings and arrows

Last week was mainly blue.  Apart from the death of Songbird (thank you all for your lovely comments), and the anniversary of losing Starchild something else happened about which I cannot blog.  (Readers who are my friends IRL may see some links to a page from my FB profile which would explain).

Anyway, before all that happened, I had already booked my next 12 for 2012 event, and last weekend Rock Chick, Goth Girl and I took ourselves off to south of the river (gasp! shock!! the horror!!!) to take a lesson in archery. I've wanted to try archery since I fell in love (aged 15) with this chap, on this show. (What?  I never pretended not to be shallow).  The 90 minutes hurtled by, it was such good fun.  It turns out that, unlike the circus skills, I don't suck at archery.  I mean, I'm no Katniss Everdeen, but I was the only one to never miss the target :-)

In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I found a club in north London (phew!) and have signed up for a 12-week course.

losses

Last February a friend of mine, Songbird, had a massive coronary and lapsed into a coma.  She was on the high dependancy unit of a London hospital for months, and I would go and visit her a couple of times a week.  It's tough when you can't converse with someone, but sitting and silently holding her hand doesn't seem to be enough either.  I ended up reading bits of her favourite newspaper out to her, looking for the lighter stories and also segments about London 2012.
Last Saturday, she died.  It's so sad that I'll never see her again but in truth - for me anyway - she died 14 months ago; it was the outside shell of Songbird I was reading to.  The essence of her, her laugh, her melodic voice, her expressive eyes, the sheer force of her personality, was gone.  But it's still sad.
Also, 28th April 2008 - I lost Starchild.

a year in music

A year ago today A and I parted company.  A whole year!

When he first left I was all http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY17nf6kvw4

Then, a few months later I went through a phase of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBR2G-iI3-I

And now http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx2u5uUu3DE&ob=av2n

isn't it ironic

I was aged ten-and-a-half when I got my first period and thereafter had one of those perfect, light, mild discomfort only 28-day cycles you read about until I was 14.
Then it was still a regular 28-day cycle but not so much with the light or mild discomfort.  They were so heavy I became anaemic, and so painful I sometimes had to miss school and spend my days worshipping at the porcelain altar.
Then, aged 16, my periods almost completely stopped.  I would have one every 12-18 months or so, sometimes going as long as 2 years between cycles.  This lasted until I was 38 and started on fertility treatment and a whole different party went on in my innards.
Since A left last year, guess how many times I've been visited by Aunt Flo? Twelve. A regular 28-day cycle, still heavy and painful, but a regular cycle.
Now.  Aged 43, single and no longer TTC.  I am finally ovulating.
And that, Ms Canadian Singer, is irony for you.

holiday

I am back home after a week away here.  It seems at first like a strange choice of destination for a holiday but I have never been to the UAE before (well, apart from a couple of hours to change planes on the way to Australia two years ago), and it is also a 90 minute bus-ride away from here.

We stayed in a beautiful hotel which had sea views and a stretch of private beach from which I plunged into the Persian Gulf for the first time in my life (point of interest - it's freaking freezing in March).

On our first full day we took the bus to Dubai, which looks in places like a film set for a science fiction movie:

We didn't get to see the famous Palm Islands or World Islands that day but as we had tickets for the top of the world's tallest building for a few days later, we thought we'd see them then.

Sadly, we had not allowed for the sandstorm which hit the UAE the next day, and stayed for the remainder of our trip. The temperature dropped (but we're British - it felt like a London summer to us), visibility was reduced dramatically and there was sand and dust everywhere: on surfaces, in hair, in eyes, in ears for crying out loud.  Reading by the pool (again, we're British...) meant sand in the pages of books or, in my case, settling on the screen of my Kindle.  Sand also would have settled in the cocktails we treated ourselves to, had they hung around long enough...

If you can't beat it, join it so we took a trip to the desert.

And did embarrasingly touristy things (yes, that is me driving a quadbike* and wearing traditional dress)

A couple of days before we left, we went back to Dubai to go to the top of Burj Khalifa.  Well, they call it "at the top" but it's only (only!) 124 floors up, which is actually about half-way up the building.  The city below looks like a model, although visibility was still hampered by the sandstorm.

While it might be cheating a little bit, I am counting the quadbike driving as one of my 12 for 2012 as I have never done it before and have wanted to for years (I am a woman of simple dreams, apparently).  And I did it in the Arabian desert, which has to count for something!

fur-baby

Isn't she beautiful, even when looking a bit grumpy?

out of nowhere

So there I was yesterday, immersed fathoms deep in a journal article I am writing with Dr Beardie, when this thought floated, unprompted and so unchecked, across my conciousness:
"I am never going to have a child"
 I lost my breath for a moment.

Infertility: the gift that keeps on giving.