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THE PATTER OF TINY FEET CAN BE SO SWEET AND FOR ME, I FOUND A TRUE FRIEND! Post No.47 (A 9 minute read)

Having had the hen that laid the golden eggs become inaccessible, a new line of action was required. It is never easy to completely rethink your schemes and particularly if you had not wanted to. I had so very recently met my new born nephew, my sister-son. I could barely remember my own younger sister as a baby and this little new baby boy, well, no one in the family had expected that!

Our Dachshunds had been aware of the new member of the family some weeks prior to his presencial arrival. They would sit close to my heavily pregnant elder sister and lay their heads on her large bump! They would sniff, their ears would twitch and their tails would wave. They knew that one of our pack was about to bring us a new member.

So, when our human Puppy was born, the dogs were waiting for him as expectantly as we the humans. It was precious to see what is UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. You are family, that is that! 

A TWO YEAR OLD PUPPY WITH TWO CHEEKS FULL OF GRAPES!!

Pup and big sister had gone back to Thursday Island in the Torres Straits to be precise, whence came Puppy´s father. I had gone back to Spain for a few months but was now home again somewhat subdued and with some thinking to do!

I managed to find a job in the late summer and actually had fun in that one. They were a mixed crew, they really were and we all got on surprisingly well. It was a very strange situation for me for sure. Once again, I was in my home city and working alongside my fellow countrymen and women. Whilst I had only been away full time for three and a half years, they were a hectic three and a half years.

I had done and learnt so much between leaving school in the summer of 1982 and now here again in summer 1990, I FELT like I had come full circle. What to do now? The first thing of course was money. I was living at home with my family and I think that they were all very happy to have me back. I think that I had been missing for them and I know that they had certainly been missing for me.

So, having found a job which was part-time, well, that seemed ideal to start off with! The supervisor was a modern young woman who had just set up this office and team, part of whom had worked together in a similar business (sales and marketing). So, there were a good number of working women all ten years or so older than me.

There were a good number of university students who were making some holiday money, these were a few years younger than me. Then there was a pair of guys who just like me, had not really got themselves going in their right direction as yet and so, a job is a job! I was table sharing with these two who were both a few years younger than me but yet we all had a shared sense of humour.

Humour, what a wonderful commodity is humour. How the time flies by at work when you have good humoured people around you. There was a really good, positive buzz in this office and I enjoyed my short time there! These two guys and I, continued our time sharing out of the work place and this was quite a surprise for me. But we did have some fun for sure!! (Back to old habits!!)

Travel plans well, something somewhere in me had changed. It was the loneliness I think that had got to me. I missed the FEEL of being a pack member and I had no immediate or long term plans for the first time in a decade. I found another job which paid more, I could have said that I was asked to leave my former employment!! Which I did, graciously!!!!

This was just a temporary contract but is probably one of the jobs that I most enjoyed. I was my own boss for two months. Well, no! If I had known that was how the panorama was, I probably would not even have consider putting myself up for the interview. Dive in the deep end and see what happens!!!

I was pleasantly surprised with myself and was given something of a write-up and a bonus. Keep our number and join the team next year again. No, thank you! The experience was a good one but I will not need to be repeating it, I hope!!

It was that Christmas 1990, that I received a greetings card from a former apartment sharer that I had known in Spain. She had recently changed address and had invited me to come and stay with her in Paris. We had got on so very well together and I had missed her company when she went back to her home in Paris. 

So, once I finished my contract in mid January, I packed a winter wardrobe and headed off to Paris. Well, I spent the next two and a half years living and working in Paris, visiting home with a great frequency and carrying on the young, free and single life style! But all things seem pretty good until you begin to really know them and understand them.

That is when familiarity breeds contempt. I met some fabulous people in Paris but it was impossible to FEEL anything but a complete alien in that vast city. Much that was positive and much that was negative. My elder sister and Puppy had returned from Australia and were back at the family home. They had come to stay with me in Paris, as had my mother and my younger sister.

My sister asked me to go back home and help her set up in London. It was the call home, come and be family. "You will find a job in London!" Yes, I suppose I will. How I coped with London, I do not really know. I know that I liked nothing at all about it. I did not enjoy any one moment of living in London, though I did my best by our Puppy to see that he was being protected from all of this sick city!

Our father passed away. It was a bolt out of the blue. I am not even going to begin here, trying to express the FEELINGS of this time. Life suddenly had no meaning. My elder sister FELT the same. We clung to each other in this hideous city that we were hating more each day as we knew it more. But with a child dependent on you, stability is your prime goal.

A truly miserable year went by and the only positives in my life were my sister and our Puppy. I could not cope, my sister could not cope and so, I ran away. I came back to Spain with Puppy to try and strengthen and that is where I am today.

We never went back home. The doors closed behind us or did we all close ourselves off from each other? I met my partner of today and these three spare parts became an odd-ball family! In chapter forty-five, THE PATTER OF TINY FEET, I introduce my partner and run through those first years of our new life here in Spain.

Puppy had to start school and a settled routine was now shaping up. We started camping around the region and young family, as we were, we were all getting to know each other. We came to the end of the millennia and had the euro introduced into out lives. I turned 35 years old and Puppy turned 10 years old in that year.

And my mother sold our family home and with it, marked a point of no return!! It was now seven years since my father had passed away and as yet, I still had not been able to steel up enough courage to go and face my demons. Seven years without going home, it seemed like such a terrible reality and yet here I am, at the same point again; it is now seven years since I went home and saw my mother!

It will be thirty years this year since my beloved father died and I still cannot believe that I have survived him by three decades. It will be thirteen years this year since I lost my beloved elder sister and I still cannot believe that I am eleven years older than she was when she passed away. She was fundamental in ensuring my survival.

It is how I have now survived these last thirteen years though, that has seen me lost and all at sea. Without my PROTAGONIST and my CONSUL, I have lost all belief in happiness. I do not even expect happiness any more. It is now seven years since I saw my Puppy. Rock and a hard place!! There is no room for happiness when you live there, I can assure you!

Well, in the next chapter I do face my demons and that is the title of chapter forty six, FACING THE DEMONS. Join me again for that and see how I turn a corner that I never wanted to turn and as such, have been headed down the wrong path ever since, even though I have only recently woken up to that fact!

Have you been isolated from your family for long periods of time? Have you cut off from your family before? Has your family cut you off before? Do you know how it is to become estranged from your family?

Thank you ALL for reading. I would love to hear your thoughts so, please FEEL welcome to comment in the space below or get in touch by e-mail, I have a contact box in the right-hand panel and a follow tab if you would like to keep up to date.

Until next time, happy learning! Here are the Amazon links to my book: ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN Paperback and ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN e-book

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