Dolphin Tears

For those of you who also follow Richards blog (www.richardhowle.co.uk) you'll know from his last blog as to why we like to get away on frequent holidays.

this week saw our autumn break. Both of us worked on Monday morning, but were scheduled to met back at home ready to head for the airport and an early evening flight to Valencia in South Eastern Spain.

The trouble began as I stepped out of my training session at McDonald's in East Finchley to head home for our rendezvous.

I rang my Mum.

Recently Mum as you probably know has suffered bouts of sciatica and she had now it seemed succumbed to the illness she had nearly three years ago, namely and overwhelming feeling of tiredness and fatigue. She is 89 in a months time and this might be understandable,but not if you've met my Mum. A little dynamo limited only by arthritis and a stick, she finds these attacks of tiredness very depressing.

She sounded awful. I rang her again when I got home. She was no better. I began to call into question the whole wisdom of leaving the country and sat in our study wondering what on earth to do. I only need to hear her voice as she lies in bed at home and I am wracked with guilt.

I can't live my life in Yorkshire, but it is never any the less painful knowing that. I spoke to her friend Linda who had called in. She is an angel but was also worried.

My angel is called Richard. When he arrived home, in his normal calm fashion he took a deep breath and then suggested I try and arrange some more care for her while we were away. This would ensure that even on the days that she felt she could not get up, someone would be in each morning and afternoon to do meals etc.

Crossroads, who are her care agency which I pay for, were superb as always. Within an hour, and before we had reached the airport they had arranged Mum to have a visit each day at 5pm for an hour.

Mum by now was up and as soon as she is up she resumes her normal cheerfulness. She was thrilled at the prospect of Crossroads being there and all seemed well.

A delayed and nearly cancelled flight could not dim our enthusiasm for getting away.

The week was perfect and to read more of it visit Richards blog. Suffice to say that my mobile bill will be high. It wasn't easy, and there were tears at both ends of the phone at various times of the week. But Mum is doing fine, and it looks like the problem has been diagnosed to anemia. I am going up there for the day tomorrow to do some stocking up of health foods, care and general chat, and we are getting there.

In the long term problems still remain which I have to now start addressing, but in the short term we are slowly moving forward. thanks to all those people who supported both me and Mum through what has not been the easiest of weeks.

Loving at a distance is hard at the best of times.

Just a final word to the dolphins of Valencia. I can't go into the rights and wrongs of dolphins doing shows in big aquariums.

We visited the Oceanagraphique which is the largest aquarium in Europe and there was a dolphin show. I have often heard of the remarkable emotional power of these animals and of course one of my ambitions is some day to swim with them

Given that that was not an option here, we sat near the front to watch the show.

The ten dolphins leapt out of the water. The innocence, the simplicity of form and the sheer beauty of them reduced me to floods of tears. I tried to hide the outburst under my mercifully large Prada sunglasses, but they touched my heart.

In some small way, it helped.