seven tits

Thanks Joyce for tagging me.

Admittedly, my first reaction (after laughing so much through your post, right up to that last line) was "poo".
But once I came round to the idea I've appreciated being kick-started into this next post after the previous. So, really thanks.


This did start in my head as seven tits.
Honest.

And they are here at the end of this post. But it then evolved into a seven days post, and seven things about the seven days.

1. Seven days away from home, seven days which felt like seven weeks in a very strange timeless land.
My mum had returned home (where she wanted to be) after 2 weeks in the hospice but after only 2 days, she was rushed back in again, haemorrhaging; the hospice team* - with their expertise, wisdom, intuition - had kept her room ready for her. After a long bedside vigil, she died and after 7 days we buried her.
(* who were overwhelmingly wonderful)

2. Dr. Karg crispbread thingies are exceedingly noisy - both the packaging and the chomping of their extreme crunchiness. On day 2 (I think, its all a bit blurry) my BIL and I went on a snack-finding trip to the local supermarket. It was a cause of some amusement on our return that almost all the things we'd bought were exceedingly noisy and there was much rustling, crackling, crunching, attempts to muffle noise and laughter which didn't seem quite seemly.

3. Laughter was actually quite a feature of those bedside days, with sometimes all 13 of us (me + 2 siblings with spouses, 6 grandchildren, dad) camping out in mum's room, in and out of the corridors, taking over various lounges, chatting, reading newspapers, mucking about.... Hospices are so mercifully unlike hospitals. Mum's eyes didn't open again after the 2nd morning, but she knew we were all there and I know she loved that we could laugh together as well as crying together.

4. Oast houses. Mum was in the Hospice in the Weald - the Weald being South East England, Kent and Sussex. Hop-farming and hop-picking used to be key industries and activities in Kent and the countryside is full of oast houses like these, traditionally used for drying the hops. This was mum's last view.





5. Mosaic puzzles helped keep some of us occupied and distracted during the long hours. "hanjie" and other similar types. Essentially they are (japanese) pictoral logic puzzles - a bit like sudoku but much less boring (imo). My sister and I were already inclined to be a bit addicted to these, but a niece and nephew picked some up and started colluding, with a surprising amount of hilarity.

6. Snooker - the World Championship Final. I grew up with snooker - we had a table in our house so my teenage hanging-out days included larking about with balls and queues. The high ceiling in our victorian house was pockmarked with little round blue holes. And we used to watch Pot Black - Hurrican Higgins and all that. So we watched, on and off... into the night, in mums room, in the lounges ... the clickings of balls and silences and understated commentary providing punctuation and background.

7. Tits. 2 actually observed, not 7 - though we don't know how many babies they are feeding in the little nesting box on the end of dad's shed. So could be 7. Apparently they can hatch up to 14 eggs. 14! blimus, in that little box?
In the days between mum's death and her funeral, we watched the 2 flying in and out constantly, incessantly, backwards and forwards - box to tree for insects, to shed roof for look-out, into the box, back out to the bird feeders.... I got a bit addicted, too, trying to capture their tireless mothering with my little camera. So here as promised are 7 tits.


















I'm not tagging anyone but if you feel like it, take "Seven" as your theme.

(or tits, of course....)