Damaged families

It has been a little while again, and in someways a lot has happened and changed, while in other ways my life is no different than it was a few weeks ago.

I quess the best place to start is with our family holiday, we decided to go to Centerparcs in Sherwood Forest (i did enjoy a few Robin Hood related giggles), which for those of you who don't know, is a holiday village focused around enjoying the forest surroundings and its beautiful lake, and lots of physical activities. (yes that is right i actually did some exercise)

It was amazing, and on the whole the weather was ideal, it was really hot and sunny on the first day but we weren't doing much, so it was nice, and the was generally dry and warm the rest of the week which was brilliant. We played badminton, squash, we learnt to Scuba dive which i had done before, but was still the highlight of the week, cycled a lot, and spent an evening in the amazing spa where you can walk around all the different rooms such as steam baths, and saunas, and fragranced showers, and japansees gardens and water beds....i could go on...

The week sadly ended on a bit of a low point, when my mother recieved a phone call informing us that her brother (my uncle), had died. He lived in australia, and none of us had seen him for about 13 years which made the whole thing much more difficult to get our heads around. My brothers were so young when he went to australia that they literally had no memories of him, where as me and all my family older than me, miss him dearly.

We got on with the activities we had planned that day, including about 4 hours of badminton and squash, as well as swimming, and a lovely meal at an Italian restaurant. later in the day however my mother phoned her mother again, just to talk more, and we found out that my uncle had actually hung himself. This was of course devestating to hear, and to this day i can't really comprehend it.

On getting home we were able to talk to my grandparents and get a clearer picture of what had happened, and what they needed to help deal with the loss of their youngest son. It was quickly obvious that my mother would have to go to australia with them in less that a weeks time, to help sort everything out, and to be at the funeral with them, my other uncle and my mothers other brother, Mich, also decided to join them.

Mich had a little girl who is 1 and a half, who i am besotted with; and having gone to see my grandparents as soon as they heard what happened, they visited us on their way back home, and so in the middle of all this sadness, for one evening, i got to spend it playing with the happiest, funniest little girl in my life, which was just so brilliant. Hopefully i will get to go stay with my cousin and her mother up in london sometime this week, but i left it up to them, so we will see.

They left on Wednesday, and have actually been out there for a few days now, we have spoken to them a few times on skype, but it is clearly difficult to talk about, and as much as we all want to know what is going on it seems we will not get a clear picture until they return at the end of the week.

We had more family come stay yesterday infact, my mothers cousin, and her husband and 3 children, which was lovely, i am so fond of them all; when i was only 7 years old i was a bridesmaid at their wedding, and we have all always got along so well, and again having family around, as specially the children, some how makes everything feel okay again.