Warm and dry in La Motte du Caire

 The weather looks good for gliding at La Motte today. Sometimes you can't tell from a photo if it's good gliding weather. The 23rd August 1996 conditions were difficult with small thermals over the mountains, so the turns had to be tight. Tight turns are steep and the flying speed needs to be faster or your glider stalls (i.e. it stops flying and falls) but since you're turning, your glider then spins, which is interesting. 

La Motte du Caire airfield

Some gliders are better in the mountain conditions of Provence than others. Some gliders are more prone to spinning than others, especially if they're near the upper weight limit.

You can get out of a stall or a spin, and it's part of initial training that you learn to do that. And hope that you never stall or spin near the ground, or near another glider beneath you.

Aged auntie died

You know how they talk about the squeezed generation - those people who have aged  relatives getting doddery and still have children to bring up. Well they ought to call it the hugged generation because your children hug you and your aged relatives need you. But I'm no longer the hugged generation because my children are quite grown up and the last of my older relatives has gone. Aunty Eileen died in the middle of this month of March after too many bugs in her increasingly frail body.
Here are some links to when I blogged about her:

• Setting up my power of attorney for her: http://ejh2.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/legalities-and-paperwork.html
• Dealing with council officials: http://ejh2.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/sheltered-housing-and-councils.html
• Bringing her and my parents to our house for Xmas: http://ejh2.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/driving-ocotgenarians.html
• Bureaucratic banks: http://ejh2.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/boo-to-bureaucratic-banks.html
• Confusing conspirations: http://ejh2.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/conspirations-to-confuse.html
• Visiting for Xmas: http://ejh2.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/travelling.html
• Support plans: http://ejh2.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/crumbs-and-buns.html
• Caring people: http://ejh2.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/ageing-aunty.html
• Things and stuff: http://ejh2.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/memories-are-made-of-stuff.html
• Stoic: http://ejh2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/lifes-not-good.html
• Pets, or not: http://ejh2.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/aged-auntys-cat.html

Now I'm drafting an eulogy for her funeral next weekend. What should I write?

Eileen and her big brother, Joe

Visiting Ireland with her parents, 1947

She had a wicked sense of humour

Bridesmaid at Joe & Jean's wedding, 1950

Lost a friend

An email today tells me my friend's husband died yesterday while out on a bike ride with friends from work. He was her best friend.

She's my age. She has children the same age as mine. We did our OU degrees together. We both tutor OU courses. Four years ago our paths split as she took on the role of staff tutor and I started my research studies.

Her husband's died. I remember how she feels.

Grief

My cousin is seriously not well. Some years ago he survived cancer of the kidney, but last week he was in hospital in London for a long operation, then moved to Christie's in Manchester, closer to where he lives. Now the family is asking for prayers for him and for his family, so I fear the worst.

If I hadn't been widowed 11 years ago, perhaps his death would be just a fact to me, and I would feel only sadness, but my experience means that I now care more that his wife-to-be-widow will lose him, and his children, especially his 17 year old son will be unfathered. His wife will become the sole decision maker, independent, lonely with no one to share with, the single carer for their third and youngest child. My husband's wife died when step-daughter #2 was about the same age. She never knew her mother as an adult, a companion and friend. She couldn't show off to her mother all the things that she got to do when she was grown up. I look at my 17 year-old daughter now and know that I must live some more years so that she can live happily, and grow up to what she should grow to be.

Cousin's son should be applying to university next year, perhaps like one of his sisters be considering Oxford. I wonder if he came for the June open days that daughter and I went to. Perhaps the family was too busy dealing with his father's illness. Perhaps he'll delay applying for a year. I don't know if he plans a gap year anyhow. His big sister and I never got to meet in the time that she was at Oxford, but it would be nice to meet him and perhaps offer home comforts if he wants to know. That might add in a more practical way to the prayers.