Hello blogland!

Hello everyone !  You can pick yourselves up off the floor now, yes it's me lol.

Gosh, it's been so long, waay too long! I'm sorry I have been awol, I have continued to read and comment though. Some of you have been asking and gently prodding me to post...Thank you :) I suppose some might say I should be spanked for neglecting the blog. Sadly, there is little chance of that happening.

I don't have much excuse except life taking over and the fact that writing posts on a tablet is just painful. That, coupled with not knowing what to say given the lack of ttwd here, which has been the case for some time now.

Where to start? I  can't believe how quickly this year is flying by! As some of you know, the year began with Rick recovering from major heart surgery then as soon as he recovered I ended up very ill from a viral infection which took almost two months to recover.

We can't believe it is almost a year since Rick's surgery. Wow! He is doing fantastic and although he has basically recovered the body is continuing to heal and he still has some discomfort. Did I mention his impressive scars? Oh and he occasionally sets off shop metal detectors. Fun!

There have been changes for both of us on the work front too with more to come. With everything that's gone on this year we are both more than happy at the moment to just 'be' and enjoy each other. There have been the odd "do you want it back?", "I don't know, do you?" conversations though. We have continued to have some light spanky action for fun on occasion. I could definitely do with more of that! But, you know, I'm really not sure about the rest, I'm conflicted. Part of me thinks I want it back and part of me doesn't. Perhaps because it has been so long.

In other news, long time readers may recall that Rick is a huge Bruce Springsteen fan and that we were able to see him here in gud ole NZ a couple of years ago. It was something we never thought would happen and a dream come true. The fantastic news is that he and the band are coming back our way next February. Woohoo! The only thing is, there will be two concerts in two different cities and neither of them our city. One of them happens to be Rick's home city though which is cool. We are going to go to both and have our tickets because, wrll, did I mention Rick is a huge fan? lol. It's going to be manic traveling to two different cities within a few days of each other but well worth it.

On the family front Mum and Dad are continuing to cope extremely well with Mum's dementia. I honestly don't know sometimes how Dad does it day in day out. It can be hard and draining some times just visiting. It's funny, each visit is different. Good days and not so good days. Mum had her birthday fairly recently and it wasn't a good day for her. Dad commented as such and she replied it's the shock of turning 76 lol. Maybe it wasn't such a bad day after all!

We are now in spring here. Well supposedly. The weather is quite fickle with overall mild temperatures but showrrs and rain off and on and awful winds.

We wait with baited breath for the outcome of the US Presidential election this week which will be Wednesday here.

I see Love our Lurkers day is coming up. I guess you could say anyone who has visited here over the last few months is a lurker, since there hasn't been anything to comment on. I always enjoy this event. Not sure yet if I will post, but will definitely enjoy visiting everyone.

• For more information visit Hermione here  hermionesheart.blogspot.com

Hope you are all doing well.