Pre breakfast blip.

Another autumnal morning.
The sunset last night was spectacular, but I’ve no more extras!
Photos of the grandchildren arrived yesterday morning by WhatsApp.
Each of them in their school uniform.
Toby, 4, looking so much more grown up. Always makes me emotional.
They looked so happy and cheerful!
Two of our Matt’s old friends contacted us this week, independently out of the blue. One he used to share a house with at Uni and one from Australia. Matt had made friends with an Australian, Ken, one summer when he was in Morocco working alongside a Christian organisation, and one from California called Bill.
Over the years they have both stayed here with us and we have been to Australia and California. Matt went to California just after leaving Uni in 1998, and he and Bill travelled the Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco to LA. Before he was married he went out to Brisbane and had a holiday with Ken. He went once more taking loads of photos on that trip. I now have the albums from both his visits to San Francisco and Australia.
They still keep in touch. And we have visited Bill and his wife and family, now living in Dubai. The first time we went Bill met us at the airport wearing an England football shirt that Matt had given to him.
Ken’s wife has a brother called Johnny. He came over to England to have a gap year working at a boarding school in Scotland. Being younger than our Matt, when he came to stay with us, he got on with Alan, really well.
They did a cycling tour in Scotland as a result before he went back to Oz.
Johnny sent us a long catch up message out of the blue with lots of photos of himself and his wife and young son.
Also included was a photo of Matt, (with a personal mention of him) and some of the cycling trip in Scotland. He lives in Melbourne which is still under strict lockdown, and had been looking through old photos. I guess we’ve all been clearing stuff out during our own stricter lockdown earlier on.
The other person who wrote was Matt’s friend from Uni, John, who had also been sorting old photos.
He wrote a long email recounting some of the things they did together during University days and subsequently. There were some great photos of a group of them out for a meal, a trip to London with a photo of Matt on the open top bus tour, and various others.
Writing how he still thought of him and other personal recollections.
It is 14 years since Matt died next week. So they were both aware of it.
Precious memories of a life remembered.
And still after all these years, September arriving brings to the surface the loss with which we live buried deep within, as if it was yesterday.