Sad

Yes, it has been a long time, hasn't it? There are very good reasons for that.

In May last year, we were all waiting for a birth as my grandchild dithered as to whether he could be bothered to be born. Eventually the decision was taken out of his little hands because he was a Caesarean baby.

This year, we were waiting for a death. My ninety-three year old mother was slipping gently away, and I wanted to be there at the end. There is too much and not enough to say about a woman who as well as daughter, sister, wife, mother and great-grandmother was nursery nurse, carer, nurturer, homemaker, indefatigable cook, needlewoman, encourager, grafter, and a friend and confidant to so many. She could be funny, she could be terrifying. Above all, I think, she was a welcomer and thrived on offering hospitality.

We were prepared for that. We weren't prepared for what happened next day, when my sister was in a road accident so severe that we didn't know whether she'd see the next morning, or whether she'd ever be the same person again. A lot of prayer happened. To cut a long story short, she is now recovering from multiple injuries but they are mostly broken bones and will mend. Her brain is as sharp as ever. The care she is receiving is world class, and yet again I treasure the NHS. I will be grateful all my life to the off duty doctor and nurse who helped at the scene, the paramedics, and the air ambulance team.

At The House of Stories, we are all so thankful. The Sunshines, Hobbits and Cahooties have been so wonderful that I want to cry just thinking about it. I love this family. And I am so glad that my sister and I are daughters of a tough wee woman.

Hope the Hedgehog

Hope may be a small hedgehog, but he's a big favourite with readers of The Mistmantle Chronicles. I was telling him about my sister, who looks after five rescue hedgehogs, and he was very interested in that. He also wanted to know about May Day, and I told him it was a bit like Spring Festival but with different dances. Then I had to explain.

Morris dancing, I said, is usually done by men in white shirts, dark trousers, long socks, and big noisy clogs on their feet. They wear bells, too, so they have music wherever they go. And hats with flowers on. And they wave white hankies, or, in some cases, swords.

"Isn't that dangerous?" asked Hope.

"It depends on the Morris Men," I said. "Mostly the ones with swords are the rapper bands. The rappers are sort of bendy swords and they weave them together to make a star."

"Then do they all go to hospital?" asked Hope.

"Not usually," I said, and, seeing that Hope was getting a bit worried about this, I moved on. I told him all about Maypole dancing, which, if you've never seen it done, features a tall pole with coloured ribbons attached and the dancers weave in and out so that the ribbons wrap very prettily around the Maypole. Then I had to explain it all again, because he was very interested. Next, he asked if I could very kindly lend him a bit of bamboo cane and some ribbons, and where exactly does my sister live?

So Hope is off to my sister's garden to teach Maypole dancing. If you live in Northumberland and find a bunch of hedgehogs rolling about trying to pull the ribbons off each other's prickles, please stop and help them. Carefully. At least it's safer than clogs and rappers.