Best and Worst and … everything you want to talk about

Racing in for a late Best and Worst.

Worst: Last Saturday all the insecurity and fear of my husband living on the other side of the world came bubbling up from deep inside of me. It wasn't pretty but it was probably inevitable.

Best: There are lots of bests as the last week was spent travelling through Belgium and Amsterdam, but I'm just going to focus on one. A couple of years ago I found an old book. It had an inscription in the front from a mother to a son (I'll call him T) on his 10th birthday. The next inscription was that the son died in Belgium during World War 1. With the help of a TV show I was able to give the book the soldier's nephew, now in his 80's who was named after his 2 uncle's who died on the Western Front. At the time I thought that was the end of the story, but chance or fate or whatever you want to call it took me to Belgium.

Last Tuesday I had the honour of placing a rose and a memorial cross on T's grave. I still have no words for what this meant to me, or why I felt compelled to search for the family. The war was awful. Mud, disease, death, fear, men cut down in their prime. But where he is buried is just beautiful. It's in the middle of a farmer's green field, red roses bloomed, butterflies fluttered, and if you stopped talking the silence was complete save for the occasional mooing of a cow.

I also found T's brother's name on the Menin Gate, and placed a poppy and a cross for his memory. The Menin Gate is a memorial to the soldiers whose bodies were never found. There are more than 56000 names inscribed on it. Heartbreaking. T's mother lost 2 of her 3 sons in the space of 8 weeks.

When I gave the book to T's nephew I was asked whether I thought it was destined for me to find that book. I've thought about it a lot and I still don't know. The chances of someone finding the book were slim. The chances of somebody finding the book and going to the trouble of having the family traced are slimmer. The chances of the person who found the book then finding themselves in Belgium are even slimmer still.

I still don't know if it is fate, or just chance, but I'm awfully glad this happened to me.

Worst - my best friend moved to the other side of the country last year to be with her boyfriend, they bought a house together over there, her parents went guarantor becos he has some big debts so they werent approved for a mortgage.. shes hoping for the engagement and wedding etc.... i worry so much for her cos he seems to just do whatever he wants and she just cant or wont stand up to him - she always seems to find these guys that treat her like crap and spends years with them. she rang me 4 days ago bawling her eyes out cos she found msgs on his phone between him and another girl and he was saying some very explicit things to this mystery girl..i urged her to confront him and she did, he deleted the msgs then outright denied that they ever existed, twisting it around on her and making out that she was a paranoid crazy bitch and was annoying him - and the worst bit - she just took his crap and let it go, now shes avoiding my calls ands msgs - always a bad sign that shes backed down and hes got away with it...i feel like flying over there and cracking him one across the face. i feel so useless, and it scares me cos im pretty sure she glosses over the worst parts from us, being on the other side of the country its so hard to know. sigh.

best: just enjoying feeling our baby boy bouncing around, his kicks are getting stronger and more frequent, i love it! gets me through the long stressful work days feeling this little bundle squirm around inside my belly!
best #2 - found out today my sis in law is pregnant with their 3rd bub..our new additions will only be about 4months apart in age, so exciting!