We've had a beautiful week weather-wise - nothing but sun since 11am Monday! It's given us the chance to bike & walk to school, to get out in the garden, even to eat a meal tonight on the patio (yay, my dream! Easily pleased, me!)! Sophie has just started really babbling - it's like she's stepped up a gear since Wednesday. She has been communicating fine for months, with her "uhoh", "oh no", and various miming (today she was wandering round the garden making loud sniffs every time she saw a flower - lots of sniffing on the lawn for all those daisies LOL)! But now her babbling is really conversational, sort of arranged into sentences. So I guess there'll be no stopping her now! I dont really mind how mine communicate as long as I can understand them, and signing is fine, but there's an edge of excitement as she's moving on to another level! Add to this that she is almost "sleeping through" - ie 5 hours! She's been summoning me upstairs around midnight (usually I am up there an hour earlier, so she disturbs me just as Im drifting off - aargh!) and for at least 3 nights Im sure the next disturbance is after 5am! Brill, I can live with this for a while!

But then there's the other side to life. Dad wrote me this week and mentioned that mum spends large parts of each day asleep on the armchair now, and is usually in bed by 7pm. At least she sleeps well and isnt given to night wandering. I guess that'll come one day, when she no longer differentiates day from night. Then there's my friend MAD (wonderful initials!) who's mum died last week - they buried her today. She's taking it hard, which is sad to watch, but also a little unnerving for me as we have discussed our mums in the past and even discussed their impending deaths, and as we both have difficult relationships with our mums due to depression on their parts, I wonder if this is what is waiting for me? Then I was in the front garden today when our neighbour from no.9 came across to chat. He doesnt chat much but I did get invited in for a cuppa with him and his wife when we first moved here. He told me that her funeral was today. I was shocked - I had no idea she had cancer. And when I parked at Aldis I was surprised to see my next door neighbours in the disabled space - he is also battling cancer, so I guess he cant walk far at the moment. Then I drove through town and the parish church railings were strewn with bunches of flowers plus some football shirts and cuddly toys. There was a triple stabbing there at the weekend of two brothers and their uncle. The youngest brother, just 20, died. Really sad.This town isnt the quietest, and I for one wouldnt want to be up the town late at night, but it's not a really rough place, not somewhere you would expect this to happen. Then I've cruised around Minti, and there's Winnie with her dad nearing the end, and Em having lost her baby. Dare I look further?

But I guess this is the old circle of life. We dont all have a bad time at the same time (unless I suppose, you live in Burma at the moment...), so there is always someone able to lift up  the someone who has fallen down. We were trying to explain the extent to the disaster in Burma to Em a few nights ago, with a view to one of us praying for them during bedtime prayers. We explained that a storm had washed away lots of houses, and everything in them, that people who had not died would be starving and have nothing safe to drink. Emma said that they would have to buy some more food. We pointed out that all their money had probably washed away too. So she commented, unprompted, that we should send some of ours. It's nice to see her logical approach, or is it that we have managed to communicate some of our values? I hope so! Brings a lump to my throat anyway. I dont want her to take for granted the advantages she has, being born in a nice safe Western country, with free education, etc etc.