Welcome to my perfumed garden

Our new Aga arrives. Can't be connected and fired up till the builder returns from the Algarve but it will be placed on its wee plinth and...

Ah. It should be a thing of excitement and joy but instead I'm feeling sad and sentimental for the poor old rusting, failing stove that the Aga-boys will be taking away with them for butchery. Poor old stove. It's been in our kitchen since 1987. I feel like I'm having the old dog put down.

In other news, it would have been my Mum's 80th birthday today. I planted the massive Madonna lilies I bought for her 78th in our garden. They opened their buds today, blooming away and pumping out the perfume.

A day of sad nostalgia indeed.

Please to be keeping your fingers crossed that it all goes well tomorrow, so much could go wrong and lawks a lawdy my loves, the £££! O:

ETA: Re: Byron. Good heavens above, Rupert, darling, not everything is about teh gay. Calm down dear! It really doesn't take much to get the dear boy going, does it?

And omg it's enemas now!  And that Versace woman. What's up with her face?! O:!!!  She's had 'work' done hasn't she? She looks like a Lady Penelope doll that's spent time in a slow oven.

Nice arse but what are they doing to his poor dick? It sounds very painful. Clearly a man dedicated to his art. ::nods::

And we end on Byrons perfectly preserved, massive pickled erection. Most enjoyable.

It's a year today since we lost my Mum.

( We miss her more than ever )

I don't have many pictures on my computer, but here are a few I found.

who posted such kind thoughts and good wishes regarding my Mum and Dad and the whole darn horrible thing.

I started to reply to everyone's comments, but it seemed daft, since I seemed to be repeating myself  over and over. I hope no one feels I take their kindness lightly because I haven't responded to each of you individually but I was running out of things to say. I'd just like you all to know your comments touched me and made me smile at a very bad time and I hope that this post serves as a communal, yet deeply heart-felt Thank You to each and every one of you.

You rule. I'm so glad that you're my friends.

Ah, poor woman. Tonight she was wandering the corridors in floods of tears, when I asked if she was OK, she told me she'd just heard her mother had died, she didn't know what she was going to do because her brother didn't care and she had 'all these little children to care for'.

She told me she was leaving - I had to call for a nurse in case she actually tried to (she's diabetic and on warfarin). The nurse plied her with ovantine and got her back to bed.

She caught up to me later, as I was waiting in the corridor for mum to come out of the bathroom, told me again about her mother, then lifted her nightie and pulled down her knickers, revealing what Moss would call her 'lady parts', took out a well-used incontinence pad and thrust it under my nose. "Look at that," she commented, casually. "That was clean on this morning."

::is unsure whether to laugh or cry::