AT the end of today, I am filled with a deep satisfaction and gratitude for being a mother and having a wonderful mother in law to celebrate, as we sit as a family laughing and eating delicious sweet barbecued lamb and drinking fine wines.

 

It didn’t start that way.

 

I woke this morning in a funk.  It has taken sheer determination and disciplined thinking to get to where I am this evening; to see the positives and believe; to get up and get out; to ‘fake’ happiness until it was true.

 

And step by step, I pulled myself out of the molasses and sticky melancholy mood, partly brought on by memories of my Mumbo, concern for my Dad on a long haul flight and perhaps relief that we have got through the first stage of negotiations for our dream house.

 

Step by step; mindfulness in the sunshine, tea and cards in bed, croissants and papers, a ruthless cleanse of 2 cupboards, trips to the tip, washing on the line, a long hard slog of a run in treacle, until the last 50 yards, lunch in the sun, reading my book quietly and alone with the final tipping point as Tom challenged me to play contact rugby and giggling as he tried and failed to knock me over and doing the champion dance as I wiped the floor with Grandpa and the boys at croquet!

 

The icing on the cake just had to be a bit of Dirty Dancing and a bottle of rosé as I laid the table and called everyone inside…

 

Step by step… determination and discipline.  A bit like croquet….