Life Lessons - Learned and Still to Learn

Back in 2008. after my father died, my mother requested that we move back to Virginia to be near her. My now-estranged sister had also been asked but, despite her having no children and being self-employed in a job that could be done from anywhere, she declined, saying that moving from Los Angeles to Virginia would make her crazy. So, the job fell to us. I let Chris make the decision. He was excited about living in another country and so we made plans. I was fearful, and later proved right, that after a certain amount of time, one cannot, as they say, go home again, but we did it. We went through months of bureaucratic red tape and finally were given the elusive green card the day before we were due to fly out. We spent 23 months in the States before we came back to Scotland. The time we were there had its ups and downs, but there are two memories that stand out and warm my heart, especially now after Chris' death. Our first home was a town house in Fishersville. This location had ...

I've been thinking a lot about Chris' photography. He was so good and I hate to think of his images just languishing in the digital files on my computer. I am trying to think of ways to keep his work out there in the public eye. It certainly deserves to be seen. To that end, I am contemplating making his images available for download from some sort of online shop. For that, I am sure I will have to purchase some photo software to make sure the images will download with sharp enough resolution for the buyer to be able to choose how to print it. And I need to be sure I have Chris' watermark and copyright stamp on the images as well.  As I was going through his work, I came across some beauties that remind me of our road trips. This first one is a gorgeous shot he got of Loch Tay. We always enjoyed driving along the loch. Such amazingly beautiful countryside. I also found this stunning sepia shot of the Kylesku bridge. Whenever we traveled way up north, we would take the road ...

Today is the Fourth of July. For my friends and family back in the States, it means Independence Day. But for me, this day is far more special, more meaningful. Thirteen years ago today, Chris and I got married. We had been together for nearly two years, had been engaged for well over a year, had planned several weddings we then cancelled because of my father's health. (I just couldn't imagine getting married knowing he was so unwell.) I imagine we could have gone on forever without actually getting married, but Chris' health problems (at this point some cardiac issues were showing up) and the fact that my mother wanted us to come to States after Dad died in March 2008, the decision to finally get married made sense.  It was a beautiful day in Moffat, Scotland. Our appointment at the registry office was set for early afternoon. We assembled there with our two witnesses and did the deed. Funny, my first marriage had been the whole wedding thing - the dress, the flowers, the ...

This past weekend I decided to spend much of a very dreary Saturday watching my favourite movies. Amongst those I chose to rewatch was "Shirley Valentine." I love Pauline Collins. I remember her from "No, Honestly" back in the day. And since then I have enjoyed seeing her in other offerings, most recently in the wonderful Dustin Hoffman directed film, "Quartet". There she shared the screen with two of my other favourite people - Dame Maggie Smith and Sir Billy Connolly. What a treasure.  I was struck by how differently I reacted to the film this time. Last time I watched it, the character of Shirley was 42; I was about that age, too. It is still poignant and sweet and lovely and speaks so much truth about what so many women feel as they reach the midpoint of their lives. But the first time I saw it, I bawled my eyes out when Shirley uttered these words: "I have allowed myself to lead this little life, when inside me there was so much more. And it'...

I have spent most of my life in the company of cats. My parents had a female Siamese called Ophelia when I was born (and she hated me until the day she died at the ripe old age of 16). I got my first very own cat when I was 8 and many, many cats followed. My cats had full run of the outdoors until we moved when I was 17. After one of the cats had a fatal run-in with a car, we decided to have only house cats and I continued that tradition for most of my life. We took the dog plunge first in the late 60s with the purchase of a Cairn terrier puppy we named Sgt. Pepper. Unfortunately, he had a fatal run-in with a car and it wasn't until 1974 that another dog entered our lives. Wadleigh (as my father and I named him one evening after a few cocktails) lived for a good long time and we all loved him. But we always had cats in residence.  As an adult, I always had cats. As you may know from my former blog, my last cat in residence was Gracie - a beautiful British shorthair who had the unfo...

I had a blog for just over 10 years. It began as a blog to showcase my late husband's glorious landscape photography of Scotland. It was meant to chronicle our lives in the north of Scotland and our travels along the roads - both great and small - of this stunning country. But around year three of the blog, life started to become a bit challenging. Both Chris and I experienced losses of those close to us. A dear friend of mine, my mother and Chris' father (within four days of each other), a dear family friend to Chris and his parents, Chris' aunt, my uncle. And to add insult to injury, along that same time, Chris was diagnosed with bowel cancer. He fought it bravely and there was a period when we thought we had beaten it. But it returned, stronger and more invasive and, in the end, Chris did not survive. I had to say farewell to my darling husband on September 30, 2018. I was sitting beside him, holding his hand and telling him how much I loved him when he took his last bre...