The Bear Minimum

It has been a very long hiatus, has it not?

Ah, what, you may ask, have I been doing in all this time!? In the past three and thirty weeks of drought that I have put you through? Well, it has been a trying time, in all honesty, but one that I am most happy to be past.

My most recent months have been filled with caring for a very sick ageing relative. An old great-aunt that I spent time with when I was growing up. She had a small property by the seaside, a perfect getaway for the intrepid youth looking to fill his Summer vacation with all sorts of activities, from hunting crabs and the like in rock pools to discovering badger dens in the nearby forest, it was a wondrous place! It’s a place that I love to share with my wife, we found time to walk in the snow-laden forest most days we were staying at my aunts cottage.

We were staying with her because, alas, age had taken it’s toll, and this favoured great-aunt had taken very, very ill. In her frailty she had been struck with pneumonia, and I and my wife have spent the better part of the Winter caring for her, and getting her well and truly healthy again. I am very happy to report that my great-aunt is well recovered, and fiercely putting her house to rights after the two of us ‘youngins’ had disordered her neat little cottage. We hadn’t actually made a mess in there, we’d just moved certain things to make it easier for us to stay there and trying to help her when she recovers. She’s an amazing cook and had a stock of huge pickling and jam jars in a top cupboard, and we moved all these sorts of things that we know she uses regularly uses to lower cupboards. She’s all mock irritated with us over it. It’s a fun game.