FARTHER-FLUNG FAMILY & FRIENDS...

Today I finally sent off the first coming-out letters to my further-flung Friends and Relations, including the Germans. It was really hard to write to a couple of them, which shows how much closer I feel to them than to many other people who are in theory more closely related. Blood is in fact thinner than water, some of the time.

My eldest sister continues to gnaw at our separation, and is slowly driving us mad with her e-mails. But she does mean well, and is trying to understand. All of which is a good thing. It just doesn't make it any easier for me to hear how upset SHE is that we are breaking up. And around here I then get accused of not making things clear enough to her. There are things that each of us chooses to overlook in the mess I have made of our lives: I hear that the children are suffering, but neither of them will talk to me about it, or indeed about much of anything, though they are both perfectly pleasant.

They are all off this week to go camping [no tragedy there] and to visit some of the wonderful relatives I acquired by marriage and have now lost by ending my marriage. That really does sting. It has been made quite clear that I am not the one to tell them anything, but perhaps I will go so far as to say how much I will miss not making this trip, and trips in the future, anyway.