Another world

Today was a dilemma. Would I post a blip of Maggie Thatcher footage from the TV? There was a plethora to choose from.

Thatcher overload won out.

Instead here is a late night blip of one of my fleur de lis from New Orleans. It used to hang from the iron gate of our front door in our rented shotgun apartment in Uptown. Every time I look at these beads and the fleur de lis I sigh a little.

I talked to a dear friend from the US over Skype on Sunday. We hadn't talked in nearly two years and I miss her so. It was lovely to be reminded of a different life that was mine and a different culture that inspired and exasperated me in equal measure.

This is what these beads and this emblematic symbol represent for me. A life that was mine, that I loved and that I need to be reminded was actually real. I have seen so much and been so many places and lived so many different lives that I can often feel like they were all dreams. Living back in Scotland, I burst into tears when I opened the boxes of my Mardi Gras beads. It wasn't because I miss New Orleans (I do!) but more because it seemed like it had all been just a big beautiful dream.

It wasn't! These beads, this fleur de lis prove it DID happen.

Unfortunately all this back to back coverage of the minutiae of Maggie Thatcher and her legacy, also proves that the 80s were more than a bad dream.