It's with a heavy heart that I write this post. We lost my mother-in-law, the head of the Pick family, this week.
We saw her over Easter and she wasn't well, then she was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer. Luckily, we visited her one last time when she was feeling well; this was before Mister Pick went down on his own to see her a final time.
Obviously, I won't dwell on her illness or the details of the effect it's had on the family because, unfortunately, most people can imagine from first-hand knowledge, what a tragedy it all is.
But when we were down to The Wirral together the last time, we had a good visit, and Daisy was the star of the show, as always. She had her cousin dog, Tilly, to run about with, and then found some friends at Queen's Park. This was the first time we took her off the lead, and she didn't disappoint us. (That dog loved to play with other dogs and is crazy about getting attention from other doggy parents.)
This photo was taken at Red Rocks right after Daisy rolled around in the sand before heading back to the hotel. She got to sleep in the bed with us and made sure that everyone who came and went through the hallways all evening knew of her presence.
Unfortunately, when we go back for the service, Daisy will be staying the night somewhere as we have siblings to help out and a wake to cater for. The Pick Kids were told to "expect a big turn out," for their mother's wake because she was a well-liked woman in her town. I expect nothing less.
Other than that, our drive down was filled with rain, as it does in England (why is it all the time?!) but it's been glorious on the way back home. Here's hoping that we get to embrace the summer, finally, and can get outside again.
While all of this family business was unfolding, I was still at work, finishing up my first unit for the management apprenticeship I'm doing. It was confusing at first to get the grasp of what evidence I needed to produce in my folder because we only go to workshops once every couple of months. However, the tutor was really good and helped us out, but she's left the company so now we have a new tutor to meet with next month.
In the meantime, I'm working on an epub book for a story contest at the library. This is something I haven't looked into for ages because, let's be honest, I'm severely lacking in my self-publishing productivity anymore. So, it's good practice for me and gets me thinking about writing, editing, formatting, and publishing again.
Finally, I'm sure I've said this before, but I'm hoping to rekindle my blog posting updates more regularly, just to keep myself involved in something I enjoy doing. The 9-5ness and the school work sort of takes over most of my brain and I miss doing to me things that I enjoy. (And I'm so out of practice! Gah!)
And, unfortunately, I had to start my blog posts for the summer off on a sad note, but Mum Pick would want us to "get your head down and get on with it," as she'd say, so that's what we do.
Happy first week of summer to you all. I hope you take some time to enjoy it.
