holiday epiphany

Seven years ago last month, me and Mrs. D got married in Venice - not to be flash or anything, it was just where we went on our first holiday together as a couple, and I think we were even talking about it back then (which was about two months after we started seeing each other).

if we look sickeningly happy, that's because we were!

Even though we got married a year after my diagnosis, we still decided to do it in the middle of the day at the hottest time of the year. And as you can tell from the picture above (aside from the fact that I'd clearly EATEN ALL THE PIES), there was a fair bit of walking involved, around a city which - although amazingly beautiful - is perhaps not the most accessible.

Could we do it now? I don't know - it would certainly take a lot more planning.

Some friends have asked us recently if we'd recommend Venice as a place for them to take their young (under 1 yr old) son. And our initial response was to say no way, but then we realised that we have an additional issue to contend with.

Are we creating problems unnecessarily? It's hard to say, and all pwMS probably do this.

But does it stop us being brave? And should it?

Last week we were on holiday with my family and my brother and his kids - which we did at the same time last year after my relapse, when the idea of holidaying solo seemed ridiculous.

We went on holiday with my in-laws earlier this year which was great. And it's really useful for us to have an extra pair of hands around, but I don't want to think that we'll never go on holiday on our own again.

So the last week we had a really cool time in a lovely part of Wales, Aberporth. The weather was great, and it was really mellow (even with three family members under the age of 8).

Highlights:

• El Salsa - As we arrived in Aberporth we saw a sign advertising Mexican take away so we did a little bit of digging around and discovered that it was a little pop-up eating cart, on Tuesdays only and was dirt cheap. So one Tuesday, me and Mrs D ended up eating delicious freshly-made Mexican food whilst sat on a bench overlooking the Welsh coast. It was gloriously surreal.
  
  
• Epiphany on the shore. This isn't rocket science by any stretch of the imagination, and is probably something you have noticed many years before. But I was standing with my feet in the sea (after letting my feet get acclimatised to the change in temperature, obviously) and I was really aware that the sand was being sucked out from under me. Obviously this is THE WAY THAT IT GOES - it's not some brilliant insight that no-one's ever had before - but it was really obvious to me last week. That the seas move the sand out to sea and back to the land in a constant motion. The earth was being moved out from under my feet by powerful waves.
  
  If I had been more depressed, this would have been a reminder of my diagnosis and of my increased unsteadiness. But now it was a cosmic reminder of the inter-connectedness of everything and an awareness of the fact that I was standing with my wife - who I love very much and who puts up with A LOT - and we were both holding hands with our daughter.

All things considered, life is pretty good and it might not always be so.

We should all enjoy it while we can - and take it from an official miserable bastard, we can all be as happy as we possibly can be in our present circumstances if we let ourselves.

Stevedomino would like to make it clear that he was not partaking in any controlled substances when he came up with his blindingly-obvious hippy-dippy bullshit non-insights. Just so you sarcastic buggers know!