Mersea Island

Yes, rub your eyes and blink!

This is England.

In February.

OK, so we needed our coats and hats but it was just so uplifting in what can be an interminable and grey month to see the sun so bright and the sky over Mersea so blue.

We collected some shells and stones and made a turtle and a peacock in the sand.

After a good hour of collecting and making and running around we retired to the camper van and made ourselves cosy with coffee(Severine and me) herbal tea (Frank) and oat biscuits (all of us).

Life is good.

On the way home we called in at The Company Shed for fresh prawns and salmon pate for lunch and some smoked mackerel for a big salad the next day.

Life really is good.

Frank's blood sugar is beginning to come under some form of control these past few days. We are seeing progress. My hair is greyer and I don't rest easy at night. I remain scared he has died in the night when he sleeps through and hasn't padded into our room in the early hours.

But we are getting there and focusing on the good and the bright is keeping me going. I am slipping the horrified part of my brain (because it is still there and it is still horrified) into a drawer and looking at my boy as he runs around roaring like a dinosaur and playing hide and seek ("I'm somewhere behind this curtain, Mummy").

Our fab Diabetes nurse, Shelagh, often tells us to take diabetes out of the equation and just look at Frank.

She's right.

P.S. If you are wondering about Mersea Island, check this out http://www.west-mersea.co.uk/.