There and Back Again.

So here I am.

I didn't fall off the edge of the world after all. It seems this past week has been a wondrous thing, of snow and ice, of flying away, of quiet and a strange sort of marvelous space in my head, of things foreign and fascinating, of being cut of from the world.

And oh! But just imagine what that space was filled with!

In the end it was just perfect that the children were snowed in in my parents. Because as you can see our beach~side garden doesn't hold snow very well, and they got more than they could ever have dreamed of with their grandparents.

As we waved goodbye, we almost began to feel the elements were against us. Would we make it? Would the plane fly?
But it did, and we did, and so began our child~free adventure...

And though the sun did shine, it was cold, as we knew it would be. But a crisp, dry, blue~sky cold, so unlike a damp Irish winter. And we walked and walked the streets of Madrid, so glad to have our dear friends Marta and Sam to guide and translate for us!

Jay got his fix of art in the Prado, while myself and Marta went shopping, and the pair of us talked our way around Madrid! It was so good to have time together to talk and just hang out.

On Sunday we all went to the Sofia Reina and saw among other things, Guernica. (No photos allowed!). It was fascinating to see it, but even more so, for me, I found myself looking at the faces of the people who were viewing at it. Most of them were just in awe. Absolute awe. And none more than Jay. And although I was curious at my own seeming lack of interest in the painting itself, to the point of not really looking at it, when I entered a nearby room that was filled with studies for the bereaved mother's face, I could not contain my emotion. It was too much and I had to leave.

And I realised that being there in that room with something so powerful was just too much for me to take in. It was like being in the presence of pain, and horror, and great evil. Not the painting itself, of course, but what it represented. And following on from this, an exhibition of war~time photos...even now as I write I have a pain in my chest.

But our time in Madrid, like this, together, was something special for so many reasons. The photo above is so nostalgic for me. I have many, many images like this of other galleries we have wandered in all over the world in the last (almost) twenty years. And that pose is so very familiar it kind of breaks my heart.

And so we talked and talked,

And walked and walked, like I haven't in years,

Marta's Beautiful Bump!

And ate, and ate, if the truth be told!

And the snow followed us there, creating a magical, beautiful, wonderful long weekend, which would not have been possible without our fantastic dear, old friends, and also, without my dear old parents! I hope you've all recovered!

And so, eventually we wound our way home, back through the ice and snow to the beginnings of the Thaw.

And the little, and not~so~little, clamoring voices I welcomed with open arms. I do need a little chaos in my life after all!