"Needles and Pins..."

So this week I want to talk about friends and family (or F & F in text speak!). Firstly family and the good news, is that my mother has finally come out of hospital after three weeks following a pretty bad fall. She has officially been diagnosed with dementia now but that was not really a major newsflash to anyone who has been around her for longer than five minutes. She can remember the ages of her sisters but not which ones are still alive and she will tell you repeatedly how happy she is that you have come to visit her but she can't remember the way to the toilet without directions. Her personality changed a lot after having her first stroke (as expected) but she is a battler, at 84 she still has more fight in her that Lennox Lewis and only the stupidest person would ever count her out. She has become a lot more loving, never having been a very touchy feely type of woman in the past. It is nice that she is sharing more of herself with me now than she ever has before and I feel a lot closer to her than at any other time in my life. I look into her eyes and I can se how much she loves me, I only hope she can see it coming back to her too.
On the friends front I have to give a big shout out to FaceBook. Over the years I have been in touch on and off with lots of people. I spent twenty three years in the Royal Air Force and as you can imagine, you get to meet an awful lot of people during that kind of time frame. One of the people I always regretted losing touch with was a young man called Neil who became one of the best friends I have ever had. When I arrived at my first proper unit after Trade Training he took me under his wing and showed me all the best bars in town. We were kind of inseperable for a few years but the military is very good at moving people around and you just lose contact. Things were exacerbated by the fact that I knew he had gone to Australia to live and I kind of gave up hope of ever making contact with him again; until this week that is, when I received a friend request on FB. You could have knocked me down with a feather. I gave Neil my contact details and honestly thought that we would just maybe write via email but last night I got a call at 22:30 and he was on the other end of the line, speaking from tomorrow! How awesome is that? Not only do I get to talk to one of the best friends I have ever had for the first time in 26 years but he was talking to me from the future too! He didn't sound any different (apart from the upper inflection in his voice and the odd use of the word 'mate' now and again - just like Alf in 'Home & Away') and seeing his picture on FB, he didn't look any different either, time sure has been better to him than to me!. We chatted for over an hour, before his wife had to go to work but there was a strong promise to stay in touch and I believe we will now, friends mean more to me the older I get and it was just so nice to hear from him, I don't think I could bare to lose contact again.
So, on to this weeks card and I must apologise for being so late in posting. I always post on a wednesday but (and I am being 100% honest with you here) I just couldn't be bothered to turn on my main PC to transfer the pictures of the card onto my memory stick so I could do my blog from bed on my laptop! So now you know just how lazy I am! The challenge over at I ♥ ProMarkers this week is Hat Pins and Charms and as you can see, I have used three pins on my card. When I first noticed them on cards in magazines, you couldn't get them anywhere but now they are (excuse the pun here) quite old hat but I still think they give a card a classy look. The image is another Saturated Canary and the papers are from Magnolia's 6x6 range. The sentiment is made up from Papermania's glitter letters and the small ticket is from Whimsy Stamps, anything else is from my stash.
So I hope you like it and I also hope you are as lucky as I am to have some really great family and some even greater friends, who you know love and support you, no matter what. Hope to see you on wednesday next week! Take Care.
Hugs 'n Stuff,
Andy
x
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