SPECIAL MEMORIES TODAY

 

Today would have been Rosi's 62nd birthday.

She died 11 years ago from breast cancer and every year on this day I spend some time thinking about her and what a wonderful sister she was.  I went through my albums yesterday looking for a new one to copy and found this one taken on my 40th birthday.  In the picture she's holding up her young son's teeshirt that he'd just been sick over as well as her own clothes.  I had given her one of my dresses to wear and it suited her much better than me so she decided to keep it!

 

 

We are usually away on holiday at this time of year so I started to make sketches on this day wherever we were.  In 2004 we were on the boat in Trebeurden and as I sat there thinking of her I could see her name written in the clouds.

 

 

She loved to wear outlandish glasses, these are tortoiseshell and the ones in the top picture are bright green.  She also had her hair permed in this wild afro curly style, being the only one on the family with straight hair and when she went grey didn't bother to dye it, just lived with her stripes!

 

 

 

Another year we were in L'Aberwrac'h and I can still remember sitting in the shade of this pretty tree with my memories.  I later made copies of this sketch as postcards with her name hidden in the branches. I wonder if anyone still has theirs (Juliet? Jo? Chris?)

 

 

 

Rosi always had a colourful way of dressing, she loved African prints particularly, having visited the country when she was an architecture student.  In the 70's when she lived in a trendy part of London she wore all sorts of crazy jewellery and bright sparkly clothes. You would hardly have imagined she had a very serious job as an architect, later becoming the first woman to be admitted to the Royal Institute of British Architects.

 

 

Another of my memory sketches drawn at Tregastel with her name spelt out in rocks and a seagull dotting the i.