It's the breathing init? Whoever said "don't sweat the small stuff" was wrong. Get the small stuff right and it all falls into place. And, take it from me, sometimes just keeping on breathing is a start...
That's why I go to yoga.
It stops the voices in my head.

I'm a late convert.  No way am I ever going to be one of the world's bendy people not now, not starting from here. That's me at the back of the class trying not to  snicker during the omms, trying not to fall over during the postures (whee! I'm a tree!) and hoping nobody notices when my sun salutations sink slowly behind everyone elses.  I love my yoga class.
I started off going to reduce my blood pressure and ended up staying for the mediation and peace. At the end of the evening I float out of that class on a karmic cloud that lasts through until the next day.

Except I haven't been for awhile because stuff happened. That was my first mistake.
And I didn't book into this evening's class.  That was my second mistake.
Assuming I could cruise into my yoga class just because I really, really need some inner peace might have been the final mistake.  The receptionist was having none of it.
Nope the class is full
But..I'm a regular
But I really need to go. It's been a terrible couple of weeks. I'm stressed, and wound up and look, it's a Yogic Emergency
The tears in my eyes might have been overkill...but I wasn't going to do it, I wasn't going to play the winning card. I wasn't going to say "my mum's died and nobody needs meditation more than me right now in the whole of the West Lothian area. Bump bendy girl in the pink leotard instead of me".

Hell. I'm not that cheap.  I can breathe at home.

She didn't believe in God. Most definitely not one that would know better than her about anything.
My mother took advice and guidance from no one.

But she did believe in Estee Lauder. She did believe very ardently in the power and efficiency of Ms Lauder's Time Zone day cream. Following her last admission to hospital I was, in fact, sent out to get more supplies since The One Remaining Aunt (Tora) forgot to pack any in the rush to admit her.
Turns out she stock piled it.  I might have doubts as to its ability to "dramatically reduce the signs of ageing", but it looks like I have inherited several jars of this miracle cream, unopened, still in their original packaging.

If I were to believe the blurb on the boxes, my skin should be dramatically transformed. I'll let you know how that goes.

I spent years as a vegetarian, whilst she believed that a every evening meal needed meat or, at least, fish.  Her last shop was on the second of March; turns out I've also inherited a freezer full of cuts of meat; sirloin steak,  pork sirloin, frying steak, pork chops.  Stuff I have no idea how to cook, but I can read the price tags and I simply refuse to throw this away, and who else would want food from dead people?

So I am perusing recipe books; I'll let you all know how gingered pork roast turns out.

And she believed very, very firmly in the superiority of doctors.  My mother would have as soon poked a priest with a stick as question her GP about anything.
And on this last point I very, very definitely disagree with her. Because I'd been wondering for some time about why it took so long for her to get referred through to a specialist. Why it seemed that she only got referred after I phoned her GP directly.  And why it was that everyone in the same ward, getting treatment for the same condition had been referred at a much earlier stage.

On the 6th May I sent her GP a letter, questioning why it had taken so long to diagnose my mother's condition, and why her family were not kept informed of the prognosis despite my phoning the practice repeatedly.
They still haven't replied, so I've taken a deep breath and sent a polite follow up letter.

I'll let you know how that one goes too.

A big thank you to everyone posting condolences and supportive comments on my blog.
You know who y'all are.

It hasn't all been grim though.  It's amazing what you can find when hunting through an elderly lady's cupboards.  Looking through her papers for her birth certificate, I found a brown envelope...with photos... and a covering letter to  explain the photos.

That's me in 1964! That was our house in Glasgow! Nobody ever told me that I'd had a modelling career for the South of Scotland Electricity Board.

The grey dress from Hobbs, is my first choice. But it's a size ten and despite a week long diet of coffee and air...it still doesn't fit. Which is illogical.  Because by the fourth day my jeans were needing a belt to stay up....
How little do you have to eat to get to size ten? How fat was I before?

In my black suit, I'd be mistaken for the funeral director.

My black work dresses are...worn...
This leaves the blue flowery dress or the purple silk.
The purple silk was worn to Wayne's funeral and is, frankly beginning to accumulate too many bad memories.

Sigh

Reflect it makes bugger all difference.

Reflect the Glaswegians won't be expecting much sartorially from anyone from Edinburgh anyway.

Reflect it would matter like hell to my (Glaswegian) mother.

Sob the hell out of the blue dress.
Which sort of decides things for the purple.....

This is the first day in my whole life that my mother hasn't been somewhere on the planet.

It feels lonely







Nan Mckay 16th January 1933 - 4th May 2012

It was delivered last Friday.  Two days after they amputated her right leg above the knee.
Her wheelchair.
It was black, and shiny, and smaller and sportier than I'd imagined it would be.
And it was really light, and easy to handle.  Supposing you could find a sixpence, it would turn on one.

I know this, because when she had no interest in it, when she wouldn't even try it, I got in and started road testing it.
I've dealt with toddlers, I know how this generating interest thing works.

"Yay! Get me! This wee thing's really nifty! Look at me cornering the ward! I'm turning.. I'm turning back again..look at this!  D'ye know the Cherub's gonnae want a go too!  Look I'm away out the ward! Gonnae do a circuit of the ninth floor"

Made her smile.

And it worked, because by Saturday she was in the chair.  And we made it down to the cafe on the ground floor, and we did a tour of the hospital.  By Sunday we were talking about getting the new wheels across the road to the wee tea shop opposite the Kelvinhall.


And I'm not thinking about the old saw about them burning bright in the last week. Because that is as west coast depressing as it gets.

But on Tuesday we had A Setback.
On Wednesday I had to Have A Talk With a Doctor.

The new wheelchair's been put away for now.