Broken Shells

So, six weeks of injecting hormones and thousands of pounds later (keep breathing Lunar; just breathe and mention your shop), my good friend and neighbour drove me to the clinic to welcome one of my snow babies home. 

Sitting in the waiting room, my phone started to sing. Two missed messages, both from the embryologist asking me to phone her. I had a cold couple of minutes to wait before she led us into her office. No snow babies. No transfer today. Both protective shells had broken in the freeze and the thaw and those precious cells inside now had no hope of life.

As she spoke, my own shell cracked open and a chill draught touched my heart. You might not have known, though. I calmly listened to her explanation, asked sensible questions, insisted on the earliest possible date for the next step and left with smiles and thanks for the staff, because I didn't want them to feel bad. I'm very good at taking bad news. (I actually cut short the commiserations of the nurse who rang to say Thomas had died because I needed to be with Pickle while she had breakfast.) Life just goes on. Except for when it doesn't.

Halfway down the corridor some tears found the exit and I stopped for a hug. We talked in the car about what I could do next, but my brain wasn't really engaged. At home, I sat on my bed and just stared out the window for half an hour, no thoughts or emotions, just a subtle adjustment to the new world order. Then I had a nap and made Pickle's tea. It was the next day, glancing up at myself while brushing my teeth, that I really cried.

I will try again, but first my body needs a month to let this batch of hormones go and be ready for more. And I need this time to be ready for more too. No-one said it was easy and they were all right.

But it is a lot easier for having my girl with me. We are leaving love notes for each other to find,

spontaneously charging each other for hugs

and enjoying the sun when it shines.

Pickle has made progress in her career as a paleontologist, excavating fossils including a chick in its shell and in the process learning why paleontologists traditionally work outside:

There is always hope.

Air and Water

'A tail of Air and Water' is now available to the world and not just flying in our staircase.

 

Many of Thomas's drawings were illustrations for stories he had written or half-written or dreamed of writing. One day I will collate his written work too and see if somehing can be made of it.

Meanwhile Pickle and I have been adventuring in the sunshine. We visited our friends' home and were wowed by the massive stone which stands over their land and the rhodedendron flowers bigger than Pickle' head which smelled of a heady mix of bubblegum and sex. We climbed inside the branches but the scent was overpowering. We scrambled back out, only seconds away from being transported to another realm.

 

With Pickle's Gappy we explored (and much coveted) outbuildings

 

and in buildings

then ran and ran across green fields of tiny wildflowers and found rare plants and stoat poo and a lightning-struck tree and the upper limits of how much bog mud one dog can wear.

We've had more fun at Forest School

and talked with the ponies and their foals at the end of our road.

We've been out in the warm evenings, listening to our friends make music round fires and on Saturday I dared (just) take us to the art auction for Proper Job. I cannot tell you how scared I was that no-one would bid for my work. It seemed all I heard that week was people saying they couldn't come, or they could but they wouldn't be bidding as they didn't have any money and similar must have reached the organiser's ears because she was making contingency plans for anything which didn't sell. This is some of the work in the preview during the day:

So, we milled about and all hoped to win the original Alan Lee drawing in the raffle and then it was time for the actual auction and guess who was up first? With dignity and an air of confidence in myself and my work, I hid my burning face in Pickle's neck and rocked a little while three wonderful people bid. It was only a very modest ping-pong-ping, but for the first piece of the night it did fine and it has found a very loving home. The woman who made the winning bid kindly contacted me to send this:

and a picture of Tulip Field which she had bought before the auction:

Half-term is coming and I am glad. Pickle and I really need some time to just be together. No adventures planned; no late nights for a bit; just me and my girl bimbling around our garden like the happy, heavy bees.

Sole Trader

I've been officially self-employed for less than forty eight hours and I'm already earning :o). There's no actual money involved yet, but I do have twelve bottles of fine wine on their way to me, and all for writing a letter to a free magazine! Fantastic. Feels like the start of something good. 

And on the subject of fresh beginnings, I am loving my new hair. My lovely friend Rima (Check out her inspiring and heartening blog.) spent seven hours twining, backcombing and felting my hair into dreadlocks a week ago. I now look closer to how I feel - and I don't mean tangled! Initially they were amazingly fluffy; I looked like a tarantula, but they're literally coming together, despite the best efforts of my persistently silky hair.

Seriously spider-headed!

As I wax and weave my new locks, I'm creating a repository of creative energy and self-belief to carry me into the heart of this adventure. I know there could be rapids ahead, but for now I'm enjoying this float in the sunshine, admiring the trees in the breeze...