Since my Mother died I've been spending more time at her house and have unearthed some treasures belonging to (mainly) my Grandmother - who passed away in 2003. This book - Das Schoene Zuhause - is one of them.

The pictures above are the pictures I've chosen to share, however I think this page below, with the paperclip my "Oma" used to mark it's place, sums up my Grandma perfectly.

I have somewhat mixed feelings about these small pieces of evidence of someone's existence. It's wonderful that my Oma lived, and enjoyed and planned a nice life for herself and her family, but it also makes me contemplate how much I really didn't know about her. As her grand-daughter I wasn't privy to her dreams, aspirations and desires, and now that I'm older and have more in common with her than I did when I was in my 20s and playing in a rock and roll band, I really miss that I can't talk interior design with her, and home making and all those things.

I feel the same about my Mum going. It's newer and more raw, but still very similar. Every second day I start to feel the lack - that I haven't spoken to my Mum for ages and I think - oh, must call Mum... and it hits me all over again. See, we didn't talk daily. We weren't overly involved in each other's lives, but we did share a lot in common, and there's some things you can *only* share with your Mum, and I feel a bit like I've been gagged; like there's things I want to talk to someone about, but the only person who'd 'get it' isn't there any more... and therefore I too am silenced.

As usual I begin my blog post with a weak apology about my absence and an even weaker promise to do better in future.

Firstly, I have changed the look of my site... please enjoy. Fresh content would probably be more valuable but I haven't had a lot of time to concentrate on this.

Secondly, I wonder whether I'll write much at all in future... at least about 'life', as one of my regular readers is no longer watching.

On April 24th my mother passed away unexpectedly after (at least to our knowledge) a short illness. We're yet to find out what exactly it was, but she had a tumour in her heart which may have been cancer. It's very rare, but I'm keen to know what it was.

So here are two tributes to my mum. One that I wrote so that she'd know how cool I reckon she was, and that she read...

And one that I created so everyone else could see how cool she was.

Bye Mum... I'm so sad I can't share anything with you any more.