“There are no happy endings. Every story ends in the same place.” Last year was a very bad one for me. I was involved in an automobile accident which injured the other driver. My English friend Pauline was lost to us. She survived the bombing of Canterbury but she could not beat Alzheimer’s. And my friend Terry joined his beloved Cora after a ten year fight with cancer. https://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/cora/2287654/?p It seemed that everyone in show business died last year starting with Prince and ending with David Bowie. And just as we thought we were done with 2016 Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher left us. And who can forget the American election? But 2017 would prove much worse. Over the years I have come to hate winter. Almost everyone I have ever cared for has died during winter. On the last day of 2016 my stepmother went into the hospital. And then she came out. And then she went back in. And then she was placed into hospice care and came home to die. They set up a hospital bed in the living room so she could see her garden and watch the hummingbirds at their feeder. On February 1 she went to sleep and died a week later. https://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/shirley/2535081/?p In the midst of helping settle her estate I got word my little sister was in the hospital with congestive heart failure. The doctors cleaned her out but as a parting gift they told her she had diabetes and her kidneys were working at 20%. Given the rate of deterioration, she has from two to five years left. And finally my younger brother, who had been suffering from Rheumatoid arthritis for 25 years, passed away. So, yeah, I hate winter. I just thought I should explain my absence from the galleries for anyone who cares. I do comment everyday just to keep a lid on things. And I am well aware that I have left all of you stranded in Cuba. I will finish that trip, hopefully, very soon.