Today we got back from Llandudno. Late Saturday night, I booked us two nights at the Grand Hotel in Llandudno as a last minute break away.
We dropped the children off in Rhyl on Sunday afternoon and drove an extra 30 mins over to Llandudno. We paid extra for a premier room with a sea view. I do like a nice view. The room wasn't exactly "premier". Woodchip wallpaper, shower that squirted water everywhere, refrigerator didn't work. I think it's fair to say that Llandudno is frequented by those of advanced years. All those pensioners proper let their grey hair down at night. They had a pensioner karaoke and my god they can belt out a tune. I know this because our room was right above the bar where they were singing. Not happy. Who'd have thought that me, the 35 year old would be lay in bed, all pissed off at the noise the pensioners were making!?
On our full day there, we went for an explore in the town. Found a smashing bookshop run by two children. From there, we decided to take a trip up "The Great Orme". Very impressive sounding it is too. We found the tram station that takes you on the first half of the journey up the side of the mountain, paid - and got on. It is another testament to Victorian engineering that that thing still moves. There is a wire between the tracks and the electric motors on the tram grab it, and pull the tram up. The gradient is mental and it really should not be able to move. It's only gone wrong once in over 100 years. 13 people died, but lessons were learned.
We got to the top and the cloud was... low. We couldn't see much but we still managed to spend a couple of hours up there. Luke and Deb enjoyed themselves, too - which is the main thing.
That evening, we ate out at a Wetherspoons that my (not normally) eagle eyed wife spotted during our initial mission of discovery. It was an incredible place. It is called the Palladium and (as you might have guessed) it used to be a theatre. We ate in the stalls!
After we checked out this morning, we drove home via the Welsh Mountain Zoo, which overlooks Colwyn Bay. Very nice it was too. At 10am, I think we were the first visitors to arrive, which was splendid! We had the zoo to ourselves. Luke was very impressed with all the animals and birds - especially the monkeys. He decided to call the monkeys Michael. All of them. After watching a display featuring some birds of prey, followed by some marching penguins, we set off home. "Back to Luke's house Daddy" was the call from the back of the car.
Called in at Costco on the way home and picked up some bits for our evening meal. "Days" by The Kinks came on the radio as we left Costco. I turned it off. I adore the song (albeit the Kirsty McColl version), but I knew the effect it would have on my lovely wife. As well as being played at my mums funeral, it was played at her Dad's.
Grief is a funny old thing. It's one of those emotions that you hope you never have to have any contact with - but we all do. More than any other, it manifests itself in so many different ways. Some people carry on as normal, bottling it up. Others have a huge release and then move on. Others simply can't accept that such a thing has happened to someone so special in their lives.
Why? Why is the one word question asked more than any other. And whilst it is only one word - there is no answer. Nobody knows why. It is one of those things in life that has no logic. It is not a cause and effect thing. It doesn't happen because someone has been bad or done wrong. It just happens. And it hurts so much.
I have spoken before about how I bottled up my grief surrounding my mum's death when I was 13. That wasn't right - and it wasn't wrong. It was my way of coping. I sometimes regard myself as feeling numb when it comes to grief, but I'm not. I certainly accept that I don't know what to say to help people deal with it. My lack of communication is open to misinterpretation, but all I have to draw on are my own experiences of "proper" grief and I'm not sure that what I did is the way other people "should" deal with it.
So yeah - you do what you have to do. You exhibit whatever emotions you have to. You will never get "over" it, but you will eventually get "used" to it. It's shit - but that's life.
