A new blog, a new beginning, a new something else.

I have moved backwards a little and am in fact back exactly where I was five years ago. Mind you the last five years while ‘interesting’ have not exactly been ‘kind’. It’s all change from here on in, d’ya here?!

Some of you will already know me from my old blog which I have since shut down. The search that I was on to find that elusive something in my life will never end but I am not spending all my energy on the hunt anymore. I am entering a new phase in my life where instead of wishing and hoping, dreaming and er… other things, I am doing something about it.

I am pretending that I have turned the clock back five years and am starting this bit again. All the nonsense that has happened to me no longer concerns me. Obviously I am taking the good bits – the things I have learned and the people that bring good things to my life – but I am locking the bad stuff in a box and putting it at the back of the garage to gather dust and/or slowly rot.

Okay, on with the post. Today was Remembrance Sunday. A day in which the country falls neatly into two groups – those who care and those who don’t. I am one of those who definitely do. Although I do not currently have any family members in the forces, there are members who have served our country. I very much support our troops in whatever conflict they have been sent into even if I do not agree with the reasons they have been sent there in the first plce -you know what I mean? I hope.

But, regardless of personal involvement and political views I think we can all pretty much get behind the idea that war is a terrible tragedy, but that the brave men and women who go where they are sent should be given our respect and thanks.

At 11 a.m. the two minutes silence was held and as my brother and I watched the Cenotaph in London drop to a whisper my eyes filled with tears. By the time the two minutes were up they were rolling. I have no idea why and wouldn’t have thought anything more of it had it not happened again when I was standing in front of the far more modest Cenotaph in Kirkham this afternoon for the town’s service. I don’t know if it was the day and the fact that I always get a little emotional at these things or the fact that there has been a stirring of ‘Support the Troops’ here recently, or the cold; but my eyes teared up during the silence and then again during the singing of God Save The Queen… mind you that and Jerusalem will always get me going…

The whole family was there. Dad wearing his Veteran’s pin for his time in the RAF, Mum trying not to freeze and me doing the same, while thinking that even though a suit is always a good idea to show respect, that I really should have been wearing a thick fleece or maybe a snowsuit.

My brother was once again carrying the Union Flag (not Union Jack as I was reminded again today) – no mean feat as this involves parading with it and then holding it upright as still as possible for nigh on 2 hours in rapidly dropping temperatures and gusting winds. But he does it year after year with a smile on his face. He really does rule. The Scout group showed up in greater numbers than ever before and did themselves proud.

The screaming children who are old enough to know better and the woman standing nearby who muttered to her friend through the whole thing annoyed me but there will always be people you want to take a two by four to. There are never enough service sheets and they will come out next year again – out of date and wincing-ly naive, but I was happy to see the slightly larger than the usual handful crowd out in the biting winds.