The beginning of the end of an era

I picked up Martin from Glasgow Aiport last night after he spent a day with his new flatmate searching for a flat in London!  Both of them have been asked to intern with ESPN for a year and are having to scramble to get settled and ready to enjoy this new chapter in their lives.

It is a very exciting time for Martin and I am really, really proud of him for being offered this position.  But, like my husband said, it happened so fast!  After almost 24 years of Martin living with us, it is going to be a huge wrench to our hearts when he begins his "real" life!  No matter what the warning, it would always have happened too fast.

Martin and Nick flew down for just one day and were lucky to find something they liked and could afford.  They still do not know if they have it though.  I guess English law is different than Scottish law when it comes to agreeing a new let, so I will keep my fingers crossed for Martin's email to be successful today.

The plan is for him to go to London to settle in on 16 June, then come back here to leave for his vacation in LA.  All very unsettling for him and a bit confusing.  My heart goes out to Martin, it should be an exciting time to start a new career, and an exciting time to look forward to being in LA, but the issues of being an adult are crowding out the pleasure in both just now.

I know as parents, this is what we do - raise our young and encourage them to become independent.  And I am very proud that Martin is so independent and will certainly do well.  But that does not make the hurt any less....It has always been nice to have him in the house.  Who would have guessed that last September would be his last birthday at our house, or even Christmas?  Especially being involved with sport editing, he will not be coming home for Christmas! 

It is not healthy to wallow in self pity because my happiness is not the important thing, Martin's new career and new life are the ones to be excited about and I will do my best not to allow myself to go crazy like I did when Corbyn and Whitney moved out.

Looks like I need to start being more positive quickly, I have been in a really bad mood all day.  Maybe it is the fact that I stayed up late to get Martin at the airport and then allowed myself to stay up later to cook him something and talk about the new flat.  I have earned the grumpiness today and this will not last!


Next day - of course they were successful! But reality has set in on how much money they are going to have to shell out for rent....plus Martin and Lynsey are planning to go to Los Angeles for 3 weeks, before he starts!  As the penny dropped, Martin has now started trying to change his plans a bit. 

A father is a banker provided by nature.
      French Proverb

Preparing to say goodbye and hello simultaneously!

Alan and I arrived home from Carcassone on Sunday morning, which is fantastic timing.  Not only did we not have jet lag, but we still had a bit of a weekend.  This was essential since we were expecting a friend of mine I had not seen since high school graduation (1972) to arrive on Monday!

Normal people can simply have people come over to their house, but this has never been a normal house.  When we got in from the airport, the guest room had no carpets, new plaster walls and very little furniture in it!  Alan had a plan in his head and waited years to act on it.  Once Whitney moved out, Alan took minutes to take action on this plan!  So he emptied the room got a plasterer to close up the closet - this will ultimately end up in a larger closet on our side of the wall, ordered a carpet and began to paint the walls.  Then he had to repaint due to my selection of a pretty blue paint that looked awful!  How he never complains about my choices is beyond me, but this did set him back  a day.

The new carpet arrived Monday morning, the furniture was re-assembled and poor Martin had to give up his mattress since the new one had not yet arrived.  (thank goodness that Alan's parents live close by so he had somewhere to sleep).  The room was finished with minutes to spare!

Just a few hours before Michael arrived, my son Martin texted me with results of his interview with ESPN. He had been successful and was offered a 12 month internship at their location in London!  It does not get much better than that and I was literally doing a jig in my office!  Martin has worked really hard assembling a portfolio of his talent and it really paid off, he will be a production intern, mainly doing editing, which is his forte.  Bad news?  yes, he will be leaving in a month or less :-( 

Plus, with our visitor arriving, we were unable to celebrate "properly" however that would have panned out - champagne, dinner out?  Whatever Martin wanted. This could not happen though.
So many times in my life I am conflicted with extremely different responsibilities that cancel each other out.  I find this very frustrating - especially in a situation like this.  I would have much preferred to concentrate on Martin's success rather than entertain a virtual stranger.....

We had attempted to meet Michael when we were in the Los Angelos area last summer, but this did not work out so we had agreed to one day visit Iona together.  In my mind, this was pie in the sky and would never happen, but here we were - leaving at 4 am Tuesday morning for a very long journey to the birthplace of Christianity for Scotland!

We arrived at Oban with minutes to spare to catch the ferry to Mull!  We then realized none of us had any cash  so I went into the Spar shop and asked if they did cash back with purchase. The man said they did but I had to have an English bank.  What????? An English bank on a Scottish island? What was that about!  Anyway, once he realized I actually had a Scottish bank and was not a tourist, regardless of the accent, he let me have cash back with no purchase through the post office.

First view of Iona from the ferry

We wandered to the nunnery, with almost everyone passing the sign saying "Get thee to a nunnery". 

my high school friend, Mike Schneblin

Then off to the abbey.  It is very small, but has one really old Celtic cross that has been standing since it was first erected - about 800 AD! 

 St Martin's Cross

I must admit, the visit was a huge and expensive disapointment!  I had hoped to see some of the wild life that is supposed to live on and around the island. But the weather was atrocious and we lingered far too long at the abbey.  It was a long drive for not much return.....

On the way home, we stopped at The Real Food Cafe, Tyndrum     I knew Mike would like it because it is very green and healthy.  Of course,he had to speak to them about GM food and the health risks posed by them.  But that is his thing and gives him a purpose!  (at least I hope he gets some enjoyment out of it!)

I enjoy stopping here because the food is good and they appear to sincerely care about renewable sources and the environment. I may not be as vocal as someone like Mike, but I do care.

Poor Mike just came at a bad time but I dont' think he noticed!  First I was distracted by Martin's news then, on Wednesday, it was Whitney's birthday!  He had been invited to join us for dinner, but he was eager to get down to his hosts in England.  So I said goodbye to him as I left for work!

I got home early and immediately noticed suitcases still in the hall - and there was Mike!  It did not look like he was even considering leaving, yet, when asked, he did say he intended to hit the road and not join us for dinner.  It became very uncomfortable because we really needed to leave and he really looked like he was not leaving. What to do?  He finally noticed and left, on good terms, not like he was thrown out.  Looking back, I probably failed to tell him we had a very  limited window of babysitting before we had to be back for Corbyn!  That would have made sense to let him know why we were in such a hurry.  Oh well!

Every road has two directions.

      Russian Proverb