Sarah and Hagar: Cheers!

Oh wow! I've won a prize! Can't remember when I last did that. I think it was when one of our kids was a wee tot, and he and I worked together on some collage and won first prize at Mrs Vincent's Playgroup in Yeovil, which was brilliant. He still paints, with his lovely fiancee Soph. Keep at it, m'boy! I'm too gobsmacked to write anything sensible or the required self-effacing stuff, and can I even spell self-efacing correctly? I don't care whether is is prize 1, 2 or 3, I'm just delighted to have been selected. But I had a wistful moment or three when I looked round the house and thought - it's a mucky mess - my kids are neglected - my grandkids and mum are neglected - and I wondered whether this moment made it all worthwhile? I've done some work that, OK, has integrity, I've put most of myself into it, and instead I could have been the nurturing mum/gran/daughter that I wish I were and can't seem to manage to be when I'm working really hard on My Life's Work. It takes up so much of my time, my work is the equivalent of the Slow Food movement, it requires a lot of time spent at the poring-over-texts stage, and the next stage of how-shall-I-do-it? and then the doing, and the going back to the texts constantly, and I ask myself, is it worth it? But for now.....

Cheers!