Emily Anne

Most people when compiling a family tree work backward as far as possible. I've only been able to get back as far as great-great-grandparents so I made up for that by going sideways and starting exploring the vast number of cousins, first, second and third. At the beginning of this week, there were 1158 of us. Now there are 1159. Our fourth grandchild came into the world yesterday and she is Emily Anne. There are several Marthas in the family and quite a few named James, three Evies but, so far, only one Emily.

Snowdrops will be Emily's flower.

Emily will be a lucky girl, blessed with a big brother and two loving parents who waited a long while to meet their children.

I am so looking forward to holding this beautiful dark-haired child.

Looking Back

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Miss Hannah from ten years ago, a photograph taken to celebrate a snazzy new haircut.

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I put this one up not so long ago to mark Mother's Day. Matty is on my mind a lot right now as it is coming up to the fourth anniversary of her death. What a lot has happened since then. How delighted she would have been to know that Katy, the child in her embrace, is expecting her first child this summer. It makes me a little sad to think that Matty only got to meet her first great-grandchild, her namesake Martha, who she adored.

This is my blog from four years ago posted on the 21st April, the last one written while she still lived.

I woke just before 7am and decided not to get up. Immediately I fell into dreams. I dreamed that my mother was dying and that I held her in my arms and would not let her go. We lived in a succession of damp, dilapidated and tumbledown sheds and still I would not let her go. She got frailer and smaller and eventually she was as small as a baby. She was my baby, she was also another person called Shirley and still she was my mother. She was dying and I had to get her a coffin. She was small enough to fit in an infant's casket but I knew that because she had been a woman I needed to get her a woman-sized coffin.

These are the dreams I have without opiates. God only knows what Matty dreams. She told my sister, in one of her lucid moments, that it was like 'being in two places at once.'

Today was my Miss Martha day. We went to Matty's then out for a run with Great Aunt Ganching (with whom Miss Martha has become most enamoured). Next home to see Bert, a picnic on the lawn and a very relaxing afternoon with toys and pigs and dogs.

When Martha went home I spent a while watering the vegetables (this will be my role and it is a very important one) and then gathering sticks, a proper outdoor barbecue (no charcoal) and pork chops, spinach and baked potatoes for supper.

Another normal day. Tomorrow I go shopping for funeral clothes.

A Calf Is Born

When Martha and Evie came out this afternoon Bert told them it was highly likely that the cow would have her calf before they went home. They stuck to him like glue for the rest of the afternoon, made him fix them up a den and got him to push them everywhere in a cart. Honestly, you would think the man hadn't any work to do! At one point I saw him race past the window, two excited girls in the cart and five dogs bringing up the rear. Round and round the house four or five times. Bert was exhausted. Eventually he sneaked off for a coffee and Martha took the opportunity to check on the cow. She then raced to the polytunnel to inform her mother that the cow was lying down and it was panting and straining. Zoe let Bert know and they all went out to the shed where the girls saw, for the first time in their lives, an animal give birth. They were absolutely delighted. They are calling the new calf, a little heifer, Polly.

 Evie watches the proceedings

New arrival