Canal Walk

Anglesey Abbey - The Black Album

New beginnings; New ends

My sabbatical draws fast to an end.  And so many exciting, new beginnings!

Our youngest grandson has begun a ketogenic diet in a bid to curb his ongoing epileptic seizures. The success rate is one in two and even if he takes to it he'll be on the diet for a year or two at the least. But as with any journey there is hope in the travelling.

That's not the only new beginning.  On Monday he starts at a special-needs nursery school.  How hard his mother has fought for this and at last he has a place. We accompanied them both to the school yesterday for the Transition Meeting. He sat up in his wheelchair, good as gold, beaming at everyone and studying his reflection in a mirror. What a precious, precious sight!

And one last memory from these past three months. My mother died just before Christmas last year leaving a bundle of confusion and fear, lost years and harsh words buried deep in sharpened darts.  When I was down in London on my photography course I visited St Pancras Old Church. As I ventured inside I came across two elderly members of the congregation polishing up the brass-work and then I smelt it ...

Brasso!  The memories came flooding back, memories of happier times as a very young child before the premature deaths of my sister and my father carried her away to a dark place.  Memories of polishing and freshly-laundered sheets held between mother and me as we folded them together for the linen cupboard.  Memories that are the beginning of an end.

Yours as ever,

electrofried(mr)

Anglesey Abbey