Family

Anna (whose picture I posted earlier this week) originally comes from Sweden. She was my uncle's partner for 10 years and when they split up I was 18 and just about to start University. I came to stay with her for a couple of weeks and we became firm friends and she is now one of my closest and dearest friends!

Her mum and sister-in-law have come over to spend Easter with her. Her mum is in her 80s and none of us (her included) expect her to be around for much longer - so she wanted to come and visit Anna this last time.

I went round to see them last night and she (Anna's mum) was so excited to see me. Her English is, according to her, not very good - but compared to my Swedish (non-existent) it is BRILLIANT! She was telling me she remembers meeting me in Lincoln when I was about 9 or 10 and asking if I remembered her -yes I do! I also remember that at that time Anna had a distinct orange tinge to her skin from eating too many carrots - I kid you not!!

It was such a lovely day and reminded me just how much I love being around people I love! I have become somewhat of a recluse recently - because I am usually so exhausted I just want to be left alone. I also find spending time with lots of people I don't know very well far too tiring! But even though I had never met Anna's sister-in-law before and her mum could only speak little bits of English I had a great time. I felt like a part of the family and a part of me sighed with the pleasant feeling of being "home".

We sat in the garden for a bit, in the glorious sunshine, and then we sat around the table eating salad and just chatting away (in English and Swedish). I loved just sitting there and listening to them speak Swedish - it is such a fascinating language! And most of the time I would pick up one of two words which sounded like the English or German equivalents of the Swedish words so I knew what they were talking about - even if I didn't understand the whole thing! That's what spending 4 years studying languages at uni does - you train your ears to pick out the one or two words you recognise and make the rest up LOL

We ended the day by going next door (Anna and I) to put "the girls" away. The girls are the neighbours' chickens Louise and Henrietta. Their friends Hetty, Betty and Chico are also staying over this weekend so we had fun trying to get 5 chickens into the coop all at once. I stood in the coop trying not to let the 4 we'd already got in out again whilst Anna ran round the garden with a towel trying to get Hetty (or maybe Betty - we couldn't remember) into it! It was hilarious!!