Its time...

Aw poo,

I've been trying to find something different to write about tonight, a distraction of some kind but there is no getting around this, Suzannes mum died this afternoon, finally gave up trying to hang onto life, stopped the family having to make the impossible decision about when to disconnect the ventillator.

Its been a big thing hanging over all six of her children since easter, shes been ill, then recovered, had three heart attacks and recovered, had all her organs stop working and recovered and even last night the doctors were baffled by how this woman was sitting up in bed talking to everyone when all of the machines were saying that her lungs were not inflated properly but her SATS were still high - its been hard for them all, medical staff included.

But she left them around 3pm this afternoon and I came home and told our kids that their grandma had died, just plain and simple like that no fancy language, "your grandma died this afternoon" and the sad fact that hung over that sentence is that she is the last grandparent that they had, Amanda was matter of fact, we'd been expecting it since easter after all, but I'm not so sure about Jodie, shes a bit too quiet tonight and she doesn't want to ring her mum to speak to her, I need to keep an eye on her I think.

Its supposed to be a great subject for jokes is "the mother in law" but to be honest both of my parents in law have been great to me over the years. I moved up to Newcastle when I was 19 and for the first two years didn't have any kind of a firm base, lived in guest houses and hotels, sometimes didn't speak to anyone on an evening for a whole week which was kiind of hard coming from a huge circle of friends in Leeds.

But then I met Suzanne and the first time she took me to her home I was just taken in, plain and simple, no fuss, just "sit down and heres some of our food to share", thats the way it is inthe northeast, they are very hospitable people and my in-laws treated me as if I were one of their own six offspring rather than the outsider that I was.

So it'll be a trip to the northeast later on this week to collect Suzanne and her stuff and then back again next week for the funeral and then when all is done we have no special reason for going up there on visits again, which is the main reason why I want to buy a mobile home in Northumberland so that we keep in contact with her brother and sister who still live there, apart from which its also one of the most beautiful areas in this whole country and I need to get away from the frikkin office on a weekend.


In the meantime I'm writing tonight, another episode in the story of me, this chapter is about working mens clubs and amulititude of stories of crap club turns and after hours fights, which sort of links me back to the in-laws because some of the funniest nights I've spent were in the WMC over the road from where they used to live, sounds funny saying "used to live" now, but thats the reality now they're both gone.

When I've got a draft of the WMC chapter I'll post a link on the JerryChicken.com web site.