Pimms O'Clock, 1 Year on

Been thinking a lot today, never a good sign! One year ago today, my cousin died and I posted this blip of the can of Pimms I hadn't sent her.

It has been sitting on my computer desk ever since, a little reminder to make me smile on a good day and have a little blub on a bad one. Today is a bad one - I can't believe it has been a year. So I've decided to open the can and drink it, raising my glass to the bravest girl, who knew for a couple of years that she wasn't going to see her two children grow up and who couldn't fight any harder than she did. And to think about how much cancer sucks.

The photo is of another cousin's wedding, I'm there somewhere but not in this pic - Claire is the little girl in the white hat throwing confetti and another cousin is to the right of her in a dark blue dress with a white collar. The four of us (including the bride) are the Nasty Nieces. As none of us have sisters, we've been quite close - and brought closer by facebook strangely enough. I got them to join so we could keep in touch and share photos as we don't live anywhere near each other - and started 'Scanner Wars' by scanning in this photo and quite a few others from our childhoods by raiding my mum's box of photos. We had such a laugh finding old photos and posting them on our fb walls.

We used fb private messages between the four of us to keep up to date with Claire's diagnosis and treatment, gradually the news getting worse and worse although she kept a lot of it from us. After she died, one of her friends set up a memory page which all of us use from time to time - it's been lovely to see everyone else's photos of her and read the tributes and memories. So I'm a big fan of Facebook - it has kept us all going.

Have to tell you though, the Pimms in a can isn't a patch on the real thing but it was something I could post to Claire which I knew would make her smile.

Normal service to resume tomorrow blip wise, I don't normally 'do' emotional stuff.