Welcome 2025

I would like to welcome everyone who reads this blog. I don't know who you are but my stats show me that you are spread across, France, Iran, Singapore, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Russia, the US and the UK.

I would love to hear from you, wherever you are.

As my life progresses so my every day activities change. A lot of my time now is spent looking after my elderly father. He is eighty eight and a half ( this is how he describes his age) and is in reasonable health although his mobility is severely limited. Almost without realising it, I have become his main carer. He can no longer drive, walk any distance and cannot manage stairs very well, his knees are very painful and his bones creak. Yet, he's quite happy. As long as he can have his fire blazing and the television on, is fed and watered with various beverages and is allowed to moan endlessly about the government, then he's content.

One might presume that dad and I have always had a close and loving relationship and my looking after him in his old age is nothing unusual. That's not the case, I left home when I was a teenager as did one of my brothers and we didn't look back. That's a story for another time however. At the moment I feel as if I am being guided by some sort of otherwordly force that is binding me to dad, a sort of duty that I have to fulfill, yet I am finding that I am enjoying this time in my life. My grandma had a phrase that she used when her life was hard and that phrase was, "I'll get my reward in heaven." Although my life isn't hard, I do see this as a kind of duty that I have to carry out and I find I'm doing just that and in a loving way. To be honest, it's a surprise to me.

It's also been a surprise to learn where readers of this blog live. I would so much like to interact with you and learn about your everyday lives, your culture, art, families. 

Politics, unrest and war dominate the news and so it should, but alongside this I yearn to connect on a deeper level, with other women and men who feel a need to share their everyday stories. I love a good story. At the moment I'm reading, 'The Forty Rules of Love' by Elif Shafak, I've recently finished her book, '10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World.'  Having read a short biography of her life it seems Elif grew up around storytelling, especially stories from her grandma, Elif weaves fantastic colour into her enthralling stories, her characters are rich and intriguing and her writing makes you want to find out more, more and more about the subject matter. I love her depictions of the characters in '10 Minutes'  my heart grew bigger with love as the story unfolded.

Along with being a voracious reader, I also like to study, lately I've gained qualifications relating to psychic awareness and psychology. I am a spiritual person, I was sent, for a short time, to a Catholic school and I still bear the scars, mentally anyway. I shy away from religion as I find many more questions than answers as to its value.

I am still taking medication following chemotherapy and radiotherapy but my latest mammogram was clear. The cancer is no longer there. The experience was life changing and it has changed me, on a very deep level.  I no longer 'sweat the small stuff,' I am even more aware of the beauty surrounding me everyday, nature, children and love. My heart aches  deeply at the horror and futility of war.

I am still painting but at the moment my studio is out of bounds as it is too cold.

So, we enter a new year, some things we know are going to happen, Trump for example, it's very strange to voluntarily return to something that wasn't good for you but who am I to judge? In Britain, Brexit is still serving us badly, a huge mistake in my opinion, my country is no longer what it was, we really do seem to be a small island now.

I had better not go down the political rabbit hole , this was supposed to be a welcoming message!

Happy New Year to you all.

cjeturner@hotmail.com