Monday, 20 October 2025

The good bits of September 2025

September was a busy month. We started it in Australia with plenty of walking and a trip to Tasmania before we travelled to Dubai and back to the UK. I started a new job. I raised £850 for Bowel Research UK on a charity walk. There was plenty to do in the garden and some lovely fruit and veg to come back to.

Cat 


Two trips to watch Birmingham City play, Peter came to one.



I bought myself a cheer up jumper.

Misty autumnal mornings.

Not sure how many books I've read this month.

Lots of local walks in Malvern.

A visit to the Three Counties Autumn Show.












Week 42 2025. One Daily Positive and Project 365

Starting this week with answering a couple of questions and a thank you.

I slept peacefully through storm Amy. I sleep really well outside and through any continuous noises, plus I had my headphones in with white noise all night. Peter however was disturbed with pine cones dropping on the van throughout the night. 

The grandchildren often ask direct questions when we see them. Our grandson will occasionally say 'Bob is dead, you can share Bailey and Molly' (his dogs) or just ask if we're sad because Bob died. Our granddaughter was the only one who met Aunty Stephanie and she was hesitant around her, not completely comfortable or understanding why she was like she was. We tried to explain, but it was hard. I know with time their relationship would've changed. No little girl wants their hair pulled or to be grabbed out the blue. But often she will ask me 'Granny are you sad Aunty Stephanie died?'

The support I've had from the blogging and online community over the past year has been amazing. Personal messages, blog comments, responses, likes or just familiarity of day to day life and general chit chat.

Sunday
Day 284 I've had the best day. 8 hours sleep, caught up with blogging comments and did my couch to 5k, much easier the 2nd time. Quick change and picked my friend up and we went for coffee(s) home via a food shop and the rest of the day spent sorting the side of the shed and getting things together for the tip. I overloaded the wheelbarrow and it fell over hitting the back of my right ankle, how I never screamed out I don't know, an ice pack and a bandage and back out into the garden to finish off. I decided to cook roast lamb, it wasn't ready till 8.30pm, by that time we'd had a bath and were ready for bed. We watched Monster on Netflix. I'd spent the early evening binge watching Wednesday. Peter spent the day alternating between painting the downstairs loo and doing the ironing.


Monday
Day 285 Up the Malvern Hills and walked 6 miles with an incline of over 1000ft in the first 45 mins. We stopped in town for a coffee and home for lunch, watch some TV and in the afternoon Peter finished the painting in the downstairs loo while I wrote some letters, put the ironing away and had a general tidy room. Evening to be spent reading and blogging and ticking off a few things on my to list. Not the best day for the view.


Tuesday
Day 286 Up and off running on the couch to 5k. We went to Worcester to do a food shop and had the obligatory coffee out and took our books with us to read. I reassembled the downstairs loo, we swopped a bookshelf from the hall to put shoes on and Peter assembled a new radiator shelf for the hall. Coats can't go back in yet as Peter decided another coat of paint was needed. I went back out to collect a prescription and had another coffee. Evening spent making Christmas cards in the loft.


Wednesday
Day 287 Into town to the post office then off for a swim, I'm finding it's my shoulders that are hurting the most when I run, the swim did me good. My friend cut my hair in the salon where she works and we fixed a date for a day out next week. In the late afternoon I followed another friend up to Cradely Heath to bring her home after she dropped her new car off for repairs. They didn't have a courtesy car, despite only buying hers two weeks ago. We'll be back on Friday to collect. I managed to knock the radiator valve and flood the kitchen, thankfully Peter was able to fix it without too much trouble other than moping up. In the evening the neighbour messaged asking if she could borrow a spanner/wrench. I took one of each round, she was changing a tap. Within 10 mins she messaged again with 'Please send Peter round' It took us an hour.
Volume up.



Thursday
Day 288 Week 2 of couch to 5k, from now on I'll just call it 'gone for a run' I decided I wanted to do something, go somewhere, be out the house, so when my friend messaged to say a job had been cancelled and she was free all day, I hoped in the car and headed to the Forest of Dean to see my oldest friend and and her daughter. It was a year today we said our final goodbye to Stephanie with her funeral and I needed to be around people who knew Stephanie, who held our hand in the hospital the night Stephanie died and the day we said our final goodbyes. We had a happy day. It started with our usual gossip, catch ups with the kids and grandkids with a video call from our grandson confused by the fact his daddy was once a baby and these people used to babysit him. Some DIY, bed building, homework, dinner, invite for Christmas, holiday plans for 2027 to South Africa reconfirmed and I got home at 10pm. 


Friday 
Day 289 Exploring the Herefordshire countryside after a lie in and a lazy morning. A spot of lunch at Croft Castle before a walk round the house and grounds. Home to dinner, put the heating on, switch off and watch tv.

Saturday
Day 290 The day started with a run to the retail park where Peter met me for a coffee and a lift home via the supermarket. I had a shower and caught the train to Birmingham to do a bit of birthday shopping then caught the bus to St Andrews to watch the game. We lost 2-3 with an own goal and down to 10 men. Train to Worcester for dinner and drinks with friends and home gone midnight.


Something to make you smile:
I'm conscious of my behaviour as a spectator at the football and have to remain tightlipped even when I agree with the rest of the crowd about the referee and will often stay seated so the TV cameras don't pick me up. This was our first league defeat since April 2024.

Things that made me happy:
Visits from our hedgehog, visiting old friends, going out with friends, exploring old and new places.

On the blog this week:
Post Comment Love - Link up with any post written this week
Word of the week - Words


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Friday, 17 October 2025

Post Comment Love 17th-19th October 2025

Welcome back to #PoCoLo with Stephanie from Bosworth.Life and I.

Post Comment Love #PoCoLo is a friendly weekly linky where you can link up any blog post you've written this week. If you're new or a regular visitor we're sure you'll find something of interest.

We'd also appreciate your help spreading the #PoCoLo word on Twitter, tag us and we'll RT. You can find us on twitter here: Stephanie - @BosworthLife and Suzanne - @ChickenRuby 

I think we picked the wrong day to walk up the Malvern Hills, don't you? We were 1000ft above sea level at this point.


I've had a good week, spent doing things with friends, getting a lot done around the house and in the garden and tomorrow I'm off to Birmingham to the football and the dinner with friends back in Worcester on my way home.

I'll be catching up with reading your posts, sharing and commenting over the next few days. 




Want to find out more about Post Comment Love #PoCoLo? 




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Click here to enter

Thursday, 16 October 2025

Word of the week - Words

It was a year ago today we held Stephanie's funeral. I've never felt such anguish in my entire life. In the days leading up to this I wasn't functioning. I wasn't eating, washing or sleeping and was struggling to even think. There was so much to do including sorting out her finances and dealing with extra pressures that I cannot yet blog about, but it's almost farcical and it'll sound like a badly written dark comedy.

Anyway back to my Word of the week - Words.

Are there words of comfort?

Are there the right words?

Are there the wrong words?

All I can say from experience of grief and loss over the past year are that the only wrong words are the unspoken ones. Not the moments of silence when I speak about Stephanie. Those moments of silence when someone is there with me, or on the end of the phone are appreciated. The moments when the other person doesn't feel the need to fill the gaps.

There have been many words spoken. There have been many blank looks and looks of sheer panic as people just don't know what to say and have randomly talked about losing a beloved pet. Most of all people will want to share with you their experience of losing a parent and the process they went through with their grieving. I don't have a problem with that. Both Peter and I lost our fathers, without notice, without warning, just the same as how Stephanie died. Peter's father was 59, like Stephanie at 36, too young to have died, my father was 77. We know how it feels to have lost a parent, losing a child is very different, it's not the natural order of things, but grief is personal and it's not a competition.

We hear a lot 'time heals' 'they say it takes a year and a day' 'it's early days yet' and I guess these are just gap fillers. Words said to just say something that sounds meaningful. 

But I guess that's better than those who look like a rabbit caught in the headlights, that you see scurry off in the opposite direction, or those who no longer visit or keep in touch. You question it and people say 'oh I guess they're finding it hard to know what to say' and you reply with 'they're finding it hard?'

Try picking up the phone and telling your children their sister died. 

But those missing words, from the missing people, who fail to ask how we are, who fail to keep in touch or check in. Those people who we told at the beginning that Stephanie had died, those people who were part of Stephanie's life who after that initial conversation a year ago haven't mentioned her name since or who have within minutes of us raising her name, gone silent or just changed the subject. Those missing words have hurt, have stung and can't be understood.

I sound angry, irrational, oh woe is me and maybe I am. But it's played a huge part in the grieving process over the past year. Those who have been there who have helped us through in whatever form and those who should've but haven't been there, who maybe didn't think it was their place, or maybe thought we had enough support, or maybe just didn't care enough about Stephanie or us. Who knows? I'm hurt, but I'm done with caring now.

Unfortunately, 'sticks and stones .... but lack of words has hurt me'

Word of the Week linky

Wednesday, 15 October 2025

What I'm reading 2025

I started challenging myself to reading a book a week in 2023 and continued into 2024.

Our daughter died suddenly in October 2024 and my love for reading among so many other things just stopped.

And like so many other things, it's taken a long time to get going ago, to do the things I loved to do when I had 5 minutes to them.

I wasted so much time after Stephanie's death, so much time with 'We could be with Stephanie now, but we can't' and I spent hours in the first few months, doing nothing, staring into space, lying in bed, doing absolutely nothing.

I returned to work, part time initially, then slowly a routine, with elements of our old life starting filling our time again, days out, going places where we took Stephanie became visiting places that we couldn't take Stephanie due to her disability. We didn't find things to do to replace her, we found that we just started living again without her.

I was tutoring English in a secondary school from year 7 up to GCSE, I supported a student with English Literature at A Level from 2022-2023.

I read a few books from October 2024 till March 2025, but in April I started again with a book a week and here we are, the middle of July on book no 30 and raring to go for the rest of the year.

Updated again in October and I had just started reading book no 41 in week 41 of the year, so finally back on track. 

January

February


There has been lots of reading with the grandchildren.


And new books bought

I've taken to buying my books from National Trust properties and after I've circulated them around family and friends they'll be donated back there.


One of the things I enjoy doing is looking for unusual titles in the National Trust properties.


Books read for work - re reads:
Treasure Island - Tutor Read in School
Macbeth
The Tempest
Romeo and Juliet
Lord of the Flies
A Christmas Carol

New Reads:
Julius Caesar - William Shakespeare 

March



April




May

June 

I tweeted the author after finishing this book in the DI Claire Mackay series, I was pleased when she responded.

I started this book the beginning of June. I however left the book on a plane and had to order a replacement which I finished later in the month.






July 
Richard Osman - We Solve Murders.



My current read, turns out, I'd only read half of it last year.

August and September
We travelled to Australia for 3 weeks then spent 4 nights in Dubai. I had space in my case for 7 books and Peter took 3. I met a woman in a local cafe who I gave my books to when I'd finished reading them, she gave me one of hers, I did a book swop in a hotel in Tasmania and I read 1 of Peter's also. Unfortunately I didn't take a photo of all the books I read, so I can only claim these as holiday reads.

I loved these little libraries in Tasmania at the end of people's driveways.


My book swop


Left behind in Tasmania.



My favourite place in the world to drink coffee and read.

I started this on the plane on the way home.


October
If I've really enjoyed a book, which is most of them, I hand them over to my friend. Other books that I know she won't enjoy or I've found hard going I've been dropping into National Trust properties where I've been picking books up from when we've visited. I also pick books up from charity shops and swop books regularly with my mum and have a system in place to ensure we don't keep swopping the same books back and forth.

What are you currently reading?

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