On 1 September 2021 I wrote
Next element to be embroidered on the Smock of Love is a cape logo. I’ll get started on it this evening.
Your bonus is a close up of the label on a suitcase that went back and forth to South Africa a few times.
As I wrote this, a new colleague had joined our team at work, in the role that I had applied for and failed to get.
I was still angry about how it had all been handled so very badly, and also, I guess, angry with myself for not having been “good enough” to be offered the job. My friend, J, reassured me that I was collateral damage in a shit situation, and I see that more clearly now. I also now adore my colleague who had joined us a week before, so all has turned out ok I guess.
The contents of that suitcase are still un-read, though I have dipped into it with my brother just to see what it contains – mostly letters to my Gran, from a variety of people, but mostly from her brother, Walter. I love how she had the closest of relationships with her brother, and as an echo down the generations I have a similarly close relationship now with my elder brother.
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Mostly on this blog I write about trying to care for Mum as she developed dementia, which nearly broke me on a number of occasions. Gentle meditative stitching her old Fisherman’s Smock probably saved me, giving me a focus and forcing me to carve out time when I could let everything go and just concentrate on those tiny stitches.
If you want to read more about my relationship with Mum and her dementia, then you could start here at Taking smock of the Situation. Or just dip in. After all, if I’ve learned anything this last few years it’s that chronology and time are less important than we might believe.
I would really appreciate it if you could make a donation towards Alzheimer Scotland. They’re doing stuff that makes living with this more bearable for so many people. Thank you, thank you, a thousand thank yous.
Shewolfinthevalley 
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