Sharon Feinstein

I don’t like Skype.
Of course it’s wonderful to be able to contact your daughter on the other side of the globe and see her on the screen, tattoos and all. She didn’t have them when she left home by the way. But then its followed by the awful inevitable end, the slurp, slap, thud of the over button, and the horrible flat, grey screen where her beautiful face was shining a few seconds before.
I get this sick, sinking feeling when she says, Bye mum, and the screen becomes the grey wall, and she’s simply gone. We’re living such global lives now, Lara in Toronto instead of at home, my mother in Johannesburg, another voice at the end of a machine that shuts off, and me in London writing blogs.
Our children strike out into the distance following dreams and taking their chances and you just have to let them go. Sometimes it takes all ones strength not to think about all the horrible, scary things that could happen, from one day to the next. Lara is trying to establish herself as a singer songwriter all alone in Toronto, a brave talented girl following her music. I interviewed Amy Winehouse when she was just starting out and the same age as La. Now a sad, shambling wreck of a young woman with a shabby, dishevelled dream. Let’s hope Lara fares a lot better, with one small step at a time, and ends up a lot happier.

I’m back. I was taken to North Devon which is a world away from London and a perfect vantage point for another perspective on ones life. We spent the first 3 days following a book of walks, each one more arduous and spectacular than the last. We found ourselves scaling perpendicular cliffs, running up 91 steps, disappearing into deep and ancient oak woods, swimming in the crashing Bristol Channel and celebrating all over the place with another glass of Sauvignon Blanc and slap up meal.
It was utterly exhausting, exhilarating and really quite emotional. One day we walked solidly for 7 hours up and down trails, another we were 820 feet above the ocean looking down and in line with the eagles, and another we descended on the quaint, romantic village of Clovelly, where Charles Kingsley was born, after a long, five mile appraoch. I have to confess there were times when I was edgy, moody and a bit like the low lying clouds. Other times I felt I was really celebrating my birthday and defying age with fitness and determination. And sometimes I was in a quagmire of sadness over things that have happened in the past that I can never make right now.
So the birthday is over for another year and more than anything it’s made me think, take stock and try to have a long hard look at myself and my life. On our last day at Heddon’s Mouth, we met a man who changed his life in a flash, walked away from big earnings, flash car and luxurious home to live  in remote North Devon and appreciate the time we are given, instead of fighting it. Now that made me think! Watch this space!