A Weekend Away 11 Sep 07
Last Saturday, one of my friends got married down in County Fermanagh and Sarah & I took the opportunity (read ‘excuse’) to make a weekend of it. Just the two of us. Without Ben. For the first time since he was born.
I’m not sure whether we were more excited or nervous as we dropped him over to his Granny’s for the weekend. It certainly felt strange, driving away, knowing that it would be not one, but two nights until we saw him again.
Needless to say, we shouldn’t have worried. Ben had a great time and barely seemed to notice that we’d been away. Secretly, I was actually a little disappointed about this.
Our own weekend was spent in The Manor House Hotel where the wonderful staff and great food more than made up for the fact that our room could have done with a fresh lick of paint. The hotel overlooks Lough Erne and the surrounding scenery is spectacular. On Friday evening, after a walk around the grounds, we retired to the hotel bar with some of our friends and Sarah enjoyed her first pint of beer in over 18 months.
The wedding itself was lovely, but for us the weekend started to take a downward turn after that. On returning to the hotel, Sarah found out that her Granny (her Father’s Mother) had been taken into hospital. Despite being convinced by her family not to come home and to enjoy the rest of our weekend away, she was left feeling somewhat uneasy. Then, during the reception dinner, I developed a stinking headache that refused to lift and made the loud music at the reception unbearable. Making our excuses, we retired to bed just after 10pm.
Unfortunately, Sunday morning brought the news that Sarah had been dreading. Her Granny had passed away in the early hours of the morning and, mixed in with her grief, Sarah felt so guilty that she hadn’t returned home on Saturday evening. We didn’t feel like hanging around at the hotel until its 12 noon checkout time, but simply packed up, checked out and headed home to pick up Ben and visit Sarah’s family.
It certainly wasn’t the end to our relaxing weekend away that we’d planned nor really one that we’d ever have expected, but now really isn’t the time to dwell on that. We’ve some time off work next week, for our wedding anniversary, and we can look forward to that. For now, however, our focus has to be Sarah’s family.
Posted by Nev in Life with tags ben, family, holiday, life, loss
