Making sense of it all...

Time marches on.  Amazingly, we’ve now been in our house for 6 months and it does definitely feel like home.  We feel very grateful !

We have our ground floor extension planning permission through, and have appointed a builder to do the extension work…. starting late in July.  It’s a long story, but the evidence of God going before us in this process is very clear to us, and as we have 3 children sitting major exams right now (1 doing A levels, 2 doing GCSEs), the timing makes a lot of sense, despite all my hopes and plans to start earlier!

Here’s a few before-and-after photos of the garden – it’s a work in progress but is getting there slowly but surely.  Most notably, digging up ~8 tonnes of concrete path, lots of heavy digging/clearing and laying 90m² of turf…this has made a big difference to the overall appearance.  I am currently building a garden patio/seating area in my usual slightly obsessional way! 

Horace the nutter puppy has settled in well….aside from his irritating desire to dig up our newly laid turf, that is !  Grrrrrr!

The fallout of Ellie and my grief journeys continues….it’s difficult to explain but I know that I am so very different now to how I used to be….most notable is my emotional capacity which is close to “running on fumes” most of the time.   This rears its ugly head in a variety of ways, but particularly in things like conflict avoidance, lack of ability to handle stress of any magnitude, and little energy for conversation.  Most of the time I try not to think too hard about the past but the impact on my children’s lives is one which frankly rips my heart to shreds….which is something I can’t really avoid thinking about despite how much I try to look forward.

What does amaze me is how well the children seem to be doing.  To the outside world we are a “normal” (and large!) family…and I guess we are just that!  I know that I feel very blessed by all that I’ve been given with my beautiful bride and quiver-full of children!

Before...

...After

Before...

...After

I think the only way to make sense of it all is to keep looking up….God knows the pain, He knows the angst, He knows the past and He knows the future too….one day it will all make sense I think but I guess that won’t be until we meet up!  In the meantime we will get on with the garden...