O’Malley’s Irish Fudge

I was in London all day yesterday at the Alzheimer’s Society’s head office at Crutched Friars. I love the way so many street names in London tell the history of this great city. Crutched Friars was probably a monastery/Hospice for elderly monks. There is so much evidence of the monastic life around the Tower of London. Bugger Henry VIIth, getting rid of them all. It was a meeting of the Chair and the two vice chairs (I love being a Vice Chair it sound as if it could be wicked)of the Three Nations Dementia Steering Group, a group of people with a Dementia diagnosis who want to use our voices, our skills and experience to promote good practice, support and initiate needed projects that will enable those living with Dementia to live more positively and to demonstrate that a diagnosis is not the end but can be the beginning of a new but fulfilling life. We were joined by Adele Doherty who is the head of Dementia Voice a department of the AS who works closely with us. It was a hard working business meeting with people we love poking their heads round the door to say hello and helped along by mince pies, chocolate cake and copious amounts of coffee – for me anyway; the coffee not the other things.
I love the Crutched Friars office it is such a friendly busy place with so much commitment but so much fun as well.
My journey was enlivened by two taxi drivers, one woman who was very good on obscure London history and a wonderfully dreadlocked man who told me about his beloved mum and how she came to him in his dreams with important messages.
I had taken a big jar of sweets for the wonderful assistance staff at London Euston and I felt like the Queen of Sheba when I was taken in the buggy down to to train with the other drivers who waved and said thank you. Saying thank you is important and I owe them a lot of thanks,
Everyone I met all day seemed happy and not Christmas stressed at all.
Quiet day yesterday getting over my London day and then this morning I got the best Christmas present of all. In the last six months my family has been through a great trauma. There was nothing we could do about it but wait and let others decide. Today I learned that the outcome we all hoped for has happened.
I once went on a course where the we were asked the question ‘What destroys peace?’ One man’s brilliant answer has stayed with me ever since. It was ‘Not being satisfied with enough destroys peace’ Well today I am satisfied with enough and peace instead of fear lives in my heart.
And just to lighten the mood. Why is this entry called O’Malley’s Irish Fudge? Well because Adele Doherty gave me a box of it yesterday and while meaning only to have one or two pieces on the train journey home I actually ate the whole box. If I had been satisfied with enough I would have had two pieces and wouldn’t have been feeling sick all day.
When will she ever learn, when will she ever learn?