Quarterly Newsletter!

Well! I am being sarcastic but it HAS been nearly 3 months since my last post. I am ashamed of myself!

So much has been happening and it's nice to be busy, but it has been a bit mental too!

Very, very sadly my dear uncle Michael passed away a couple of weeks ago, suddenly and unexpectedly. He had been in fine health and had just returned from a trip to Florence (at the age of 84, he was always globe trotting, camping rough in parts of Africa etc, signing up to all sorts of trips abroad). So it was a sudden and terrible shock when this happened and we are still trying to move on from the loss now. Michael's funeral was last Friday, the day of my birthday. Of course I bypassed all birthday thoughts because of the circumstances. It was terribly sad at the crematorium as Michael had requested 2 specific pieces of music to be played. One was a military march and the other was Moon River. Oh how I cried. I have played that song several times since and just weep!!! But Michael would say "oh for goodness sake!" at the thought of a weepy niece, so I'll move on. My cousins were just wonderful in looking after us all and for showing such courage and compassion, amidst their own grief. My cousins's wife was just fantastic cooking for us all and making us feel so at home when they must have so much on their plates.

I was really honoured to be asked to read something at the funeral. I found a lovely poem called 'The Journey Of My Life' and read some words on my mum's behalf too. You can read the poem here as I added it to Davo's blog to mark the one year anniversary since he passed on.
Floyd and I went off on hols to the USA in April and had an amazing time. Probably the best holiday we've ever had! We flew with my mum to LA and stayed with my sister Tamzin and her husband Tom up in their Hollywood hills home. I really did not expect to like LA so much but the Hollywood hills and canyons are spectacular (which if course WOULD make everything seem so nice!). It was like being in Tuscany! Hummingbirds, coyotes, all sorts of other birds etc etc all around, little quiet winding lanes, beautiful wild flowers and trees and of course the view over LA for miles and miles. Floyd and I hired a really cool convertible car and we took mum off up the Malibu coast one day and had a great time. Just miles of deserted white sands and sparkling blue sea! We met friends for lunches, shopping and drinks too. A great 5 days!!

We then drove to Las Vegas and saw the same friends there too for 2 nights partying! We saw the Cirque De Soleil show 'Love' which was set to the soundtrack of The Beatles. It was AMAZING. I cannot express how gobsmacked we were! The show was incredible from start to finish! Our friend had managed to get some of the best seats and we were really lucky. Such a great evening!!! The next night was the Def Leppard show at the Palms hotel which was brilliant....of course.

We drove on to Lake Powell after Vegas because I wanted to photograph a famous slot canyon called Antelope Canyon there. It was right up on the Utah/Arizona border and was a very long drive. Spectacular scenery though. We had to join a tour group to see the canyon though and that was a bit annoying. They are the only people authorised to drive tourists off to the canyon as it's across desert and inside a rock cluster. The other people didn't behave so well so that was frustrating but I got some great pics.

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After that, we drove down to Sedona and stayed a rather plush hotel for the rest of the week. We had a lovely little log cabin by a creek with a nice cracking fire each night, a fantastic award winning restaurant on the hotel grounds, great service etc etc. Lovely. We did a trip to the Grand Canyon by a small Cesna plane from Sedona, a helicopter ride to the bottom of the canyon, a boat ride on the Colorado River, helicopter back up, back in the plane and back to Sedona. Another day we hired a Harley and drove around. And I actually got Floyd to do a 3 hour trail ride on horses! Amazing!!

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I have just realised that I activated a setting on my Blog so that comments need to be authorised by me before being published (as have had some weird spammy ones, which I just delete anyway). So when I logged on today, I had some comments waiting to be published. Ooops. So sorry for those of you who left them!! I shall keep and eye on things more often.

Here is the latest addition to the Denny family, meet Ptolomy (pronounced 'Tolomy' - Tolly for short!!). He is a sweet, gorgeous little working cocker spaniel puppy!! We have been waiting a while now for him to come home and we were finally able to pick him on Sunday. He was so happy from the moment we picked him up and spent the rest of the galloping around the garden pouncing on golf balls, shaking dad's slipper like mad and washing us all several times over! So sweet! Mum said he was running around the garden with a flowerpot over his head yesterday! Here is Tolly:

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And my sister Tamzin has 2 new puppies in LA! One had just arrived when we were visiting! This is Cinnamon:

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Something really exciting and cool has happened, someone saw some of my photos at a friends house and is very interested in getting them 'out there'. I have been asked to put together a portfolio!!! Ooooooooooooooo!!! But am now in denial that any of the pics cut the cloth and can't get my act together in choosing the right pics for the portfolio. I have until the end of next week. I am working hard on it...but I am also my own worst critic. Will have to keep you all posted.

Floyd had his usual set of blood screening tests at the hospital yesterday and all is well! They dont want to see us for 8 months now! Yippeeee!!!!

On May 27th, it was one year since my dear friend Davo passed on. I think about him every single day and especially so at this time of year. I have little conversations with him in my head which I am sure he enjoys and he had promised to sit on the sofa with us when we watched the new series of Lost! Well, we just got to the end of the current series last night! Wonder what Davo makes of it all!!! Hmmm....!

Floyd bought himself a second hand Harley Davidson and now spends all his time either outside drooling on it and wiping away imaginary dust or on eBay buying second hand bits and bobs to customise it. Sigh.

S'all for now.

Love Soph xxxx

Mid-week blues

Is it really only Wednesday today? After 2 four-day weeks I think I am struggling! It is so grey and wet outside and I seem to notice all the police sirens in London more when it is like this. I scurry along the crowded, rain slicked pavements in the drizzle desperate to get to my final destination, even if it does mean sitting in the office for 10 hours!

I had a business dinner last night at a smart, top notch restaurant in Soho called Arbutus. I had been quite looking forward to the meal but my stomach was doing backflips and cartwheels when I saw the menu.

One starter was 'braised pigs head with potato puree and caramelised onions' and the main dishes included bit of a rabbit I would never consider eating or lamb's tripe with trotters. I used to play at my friend's house aged 8 years old and we would help her mum by feeding their greyhound dogs. We had to feed them tripe and it was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen.

WHY? Can someone tell me why this food makes it to the menu of a top London eatery? I thought tripe and trotters were a delicacy which only a handful of people would ever consider eating! Most of the menu was like this. I managed to get them to rustle me up some asparagus for a starter and I had a nice vegetable risotto for a main. Phew! Off the hook!

There was a balls up with my taxi home. I ordered one on my corporate account but the driver actually kicked me out about 400 yards up the street because he thought he was going to SW18 and not SE18 where I live. His employers gave him the wrong postcode but it didn't stop him throwing me out on the street. I refused to get out of his cab until a new one had been ordered for me. It meant I had to stand on the street for 35 minutes. I was pretty peeved to say the least as I had promised Davo I would get back by 9.30pm to be online with him!!

As it happens, Floyd did a marvellous job of entertaining Davo! I think it was a 'boy's night in' :-) Well done Floyd!! The banjo playing was great!!!!

Weekend

We had an exhausting but wonderful weekend.

It was my aunt Jean’s 80^th birthday and there was a huge family get together in Hereford where she lives with my uncle.

I am so blessed to have a very large, fun-loving, warm friendly family! Floyd and I were sucked in to the sea of cousins, aunts and uncles and distant relatives we haven’t seen for years. There simply wasn’t enough time to chat to everyone. Everybody loved Floyd and he seemed to have a wonderful time. There was a big lunch in a church hall and then back to Uncle John & Aunt Jean’s to continue! We had tea and sat around in their beautiful garden (all 61 of us!). Floyd was playing croquet with some of my cousins. All I could hear was “we gotta knock Floyd out” or “right, let’s get him this time”!!!

On Saturday night we stayed in a gorgeous converted barn B&B near the Welsh border with some of my cousins. Even though we’d been up since 5.30am that morning, we were still totally up for meeting up with everyone else that evening. We went to another farm cottage where the rest were staying and sat up eating and drinking until late. Lovely. Just what I needed!

What I haven’t mentioned yet is Floyd and I should have driven to the B&B to join everyone on Friday night, as was the plan, but we wanted to spend time with Davo, my dear friend who is terminally ill with leukaemia. Davo keeps being given weeks and then days to live. This past week has seen him get weaker and weaker and his blood counts, heart rate and blood pressure are all faltering. I spend all day, every day on MSN Messenger with Davo and have done since October. Even though he has been in so much pain recently and struggling with his breathing, it hasn’t stopped our daily marathon chats.

I promised him on Friday that I would just go home and carry on messaging him from home. We would not go to Hereford until Saturday. That’s exactly what happened. We recorded some hilarious home movies on Friday and emailed them to Davo as each one was recorded. We were all laughing our arses off!! Floyd gave a ‘guide to the Scottish language’ which was great!

I had helped Davo arrange a special mother’s day present for him to give to his mum on Sunday. It was a top secret, military style operation which required sleuth like detective work from both my end and in Davo’s house. Even from Hereford, we were emailing on Saturday with ‘has the FedEx man been yet?’ ….. ‘the doorbell just rang! I think it’s him!’ etc. But it all worked out for the best possible result on Sunday!!

We rushed home yesterday and got in late afternoon. We had given a lift to my wonderful, amazing ancient relative Jock who is 92 years old. He usually drives himself everywhere but a his hip is playing up at the moment, he needed a lift home. But we still had time to hang out with Davo.

I was crushed to get news of Davo’s condition from his mum this morning. It’s not good and his breathing is much worse and he was unable to communicate this morning.

I cannot describe the anguish I feel at the thought of losing one of my best friends. But I refuse to give leukaemia any kind of victory. It tried to take Floyd from me and now it’s tugging away at Davo. It will never win because as Davo told me, it will die with him when he goes. So true. It will.

The plans we made just mock and make me sad. But the happiness, laughter, fun and love that we created always wins and that is something leukaemia will never get it’s hands on.

I love my friend dearly and send you arms of flowers and hugs Davo.

Meh.

xx