Shiloh

My trip to Shiloh started the previous evening when I finished packing and repacking. You know, those things you think you OUGHT to have - just in case! LOL! I didn’t actually SLEEP that night as I had a taxi to get at 4.30am, I maybe catnapped for about an hour.

Got up about 3.30am, got dressed, got everything together, put the rubbish out in the bins (!), switched everything off, remembered crutches (thank GOD!), and went outside and waited. 4.30am came – no taxi! Our plane was at 6.40am, check in an hour earlier, and I said I’d meet Tracey, Lucy and Annette at 5.30. I rang them, they said they’d allocated me to someone but he might’ve fallen asleep – they’d ring him. Gave them five minutes and rang back. He HAD fallen asleep – they’d send someone else. Few minutes later this car came whizzing around the corner and I piled in! Well, guess what, I had another Hey Mr Taxi time – what is it about taxi drivers and me?! He drove like a loony tune. At least two birds (a pigeon and a blackbird) got it, I think, on the first road. We drove at LEAST 70mph towards Leeds, and then went via the back roads (and the speed cameras) mostly in North Yorkshire, only entering West Yorkshire (and speed camera country) at the last minute as we entered the airport! Five minutes to spare!

Leeds Bradford taxi dropping off point is WAY over the other side from the terminal, so Mr Taxi lugged my suitcase for me over to the building, where I met the gang. A very friendly gentleman made sure I was booked in for assistance (oh dearie me!) and then I checked in and Annette and I chatted for a bit, until Tracey and family came back. Went through customs with the minimum of fuss for a change and then waited a bit for boarding.

As for Ireland (which you’ll notice has not been blogged as it still makes me cry), I had to be carried on to the plane, but the guys doing it were extremely competent and I was soon on, and in my seat, buckled up and ready to go. I hate taking off so that was a bit of a chore, but I like looking through the clouds – go figure! We had just under an hour in the air, but managed to have a cheese and scrambled egg Panini – which sounds odd, but actually tasted quite nice – and a coffee. The plane was quite full – it only took about 40 people so…. LOL! I managed a little snooze, which was nice. Landed in Brussels – decent weather. Waited until everyone had got off, then I was taken off – again, with minimum of fuss – oh how I wish this had been the case later on – more of that later – MUCH later!

Anyway, we went through customs and got our luggage. Tracey had arranged with Jenny about our transportation to the hotel, and he was supposed to be waiting, with a card in his hand with Tracey’s surname on it. Could we find him? Could we heck as like! We spent a good 30 minutes surreptitiously going up to strange men with cards in their hands (OK, I did!), and casually pretending not to read what they said. Eventually, Tracey managed to ring Jenny to ask her what this guy looked like – there was then a three way conversation in two languages to find out where he was – having coffee, not too far away from where we were standing. We were late, so I can kind of understand it, but you’d have thought he’d come out a bit! And, he didn’t have a card with Tracey’s name in his hand, he had a card with his company’s name on – really helpful! LOL!Anyway, we then followed him to the van – and I nearly died. It was a 4 x 4 mini-van, and so I had to climb in! Got me into good practice for the weekend – little did I know – ha! Anyway, my second Mr Taxi of the day was as much help as a chocolate teapot, thank goodness I was with the others, otherwise I think he would’ve just tied a rope to my wheelchair and towed me – LOL!

The journey time to the hotel was about an hour (me ‘Are we there yet?’ when I first saw my first sign of Genk – others ‘NO!’) and when we were leaving Brussels Airport, I saw an airplane with ‘United States of America’ on it, are there more than one Air Force One’s? Anyway, that was the only bit of excitement, other than the anticipation of getting there. When we WERE nearly there, the driver took a wrong turning and WE had to tell him the right way (not bad, hey!!). Eventually, we came to this long drive up to the hotel, past the golf club (which we’d vaguely heard one or two stories about!) and arrived at the entrance to the hotel. It looked really nice from the outside, a little steepish ramp to get inside into a large, bright reception area, with a door off to the bar and restaurant and another to the rooms. Checked in, found out where our room was – downstairs. Went to lift – and was confronted with the tiniest hotel lift known to man, woman and child! …..). Couldn’t get wheelchair in it. Went BACK to reception –, receptionist came to lift tried just in case I was a bad driver (hmmm…..) - are there any rooms on THIS (ground) floor – no (wouldn’t have done any good anyway – read on! LOL!). Soooooo – I got out of my chair, got on my crutches, walked into lift, Annette and I folded the chair, I think our cases came up the slow way with the receptionist, and we got to our room. We had a junior suite – which is designated as a bedroom with a separate living area, but no door between the two. This was a double room, with another room off it, which Annette used as her room – there was a door. And there was a bathroom – which I couldn’t get into! Anyway, we unpacked a bit, and had a bit of a wash and then went downstairs again. I’m not mentioning it again, but you can imagine that it was a heck of a faff having to rely on people to help me get in and out all the time – one time I accidently (I PROMISE!) shoved the wheelchair out and it went out with a little more speed than I intended and nearly knocked a member of staff flying! I apologised profusely, and, to be fair, they were very, very helpful as well as everyone else.

Anyway, went downstairs, found an accessible loo which I claimed for my own for the weekend, and went down to wash in it a couple of times in the morning.

Anyway, eventually we went back up to the foyer, only to discover that we had to go even further upstairs to register. This hotel was bigger than it looked! LOL!

Anyway, we hung around for a bit, and then went in to get our stuff, a lovely folder FULL of stuff on the programme for the weekend, the food available, the treatments available, the rules of the weekend, and we were also given extra sheets on a chance to record with Merrill on his new CD – more later! And a chance to have a Reiki session – again, more later. I helped with giving the info out, just putting the two extra sheets together, so that Lucy didn’t have to waste time doing it herself – she did a great job. There were two wheelchair users at the weekend, and after a while we were escorted to where the next part of the weekend was, and ho hum, it was up two flights of stairs. Well, as there were several dozen people boiling in a room waiting to go to the same room, I felt I had no choice but to start walking. I walked slowly up the first flight, with help from a lovely person, who was a trained nurse so knew what she was doing – thank goodness! And then the second flight, I went on my bum! Eventually got to the top, to see Heather and Kade sitting at a table, watching rather incredulously as we came in. They did offer to help, but a) she’s a little bitty thing and b) she’s pregnant, except I didn’t know that at the time – LOL! I sat on a seat until my wheelchair came upstairs and then we went to our seats at the front, and waited (and rested for my part) for things to start. First of all Jay came in and joked around a bit, shook hands, was really lovely – more loveliness in a mo! Then Merrill came in – with his neck collar on – then he took it off! Heather told us of her and Kade’s horrendous plane ride – they had actually only arrived three hours before due to various delays with technical problems with planes – well, if you will fly Delta! HA!

Merrill spoke about the weekend – if you want it to be a fan gathering, that’s OK. He joked about Jay needing a lot of therapy (he got it). Not about Merrill, about us. What you put in, you will get out of it. It is his life’s dream coming true, and he wanted it to be a time that we would remember for a long, long time. Wanted to be free to be with us. Don’t fear failure, take up the opportunity to take issues away.

He then explained why we had M&Ms in our packages – all goes back to when he was little and wanted to be a doctor, and his parents used to give him packets of M&Ms to use as pills!

He explained about the stones – as opportunities to grow, decisions made about our lives. A Native American introduced Merrill to the idea. Don’t over analyse what happens to each of you, give each other space to be emotional, and he talked about his patriarchal blessing involving the gift of healing.

And, yes, I wrote notes (the only time).

Thanks were given to Jenny and Jay, to Heather and Kade, and we were introduced to Grietje, who talked a bit more about the weekend.

Then, everyone left, and we decided we’d wait until everyone had gone, so that we didn’t hold anyone up as we went down those stairs.

We're sitting there, trying to work out how we're going to go down (there is another girl in a wheelchair as well), and this very familiar voice says, 'Yes, how ARE we going to get you down?!' Well, bless him, he asked me what HE could do and I asked him to stand in front of me and basically walk down the stairs backwards (if he'd tripped, I would never have forgiven myself!). I joked that if I did I'd have a soft landing - LOL! He proceeded to walk slowly down, making sure that my crutch landed on the step safely on the first flight, and because I swapped round on the second, he held MY HAND in place on the railing to make sure it didn't slip - it makes my eyes water just thinking about it, he is a darling and I totally understand why you Jaygals love him so much - he's almost equal to Merrill now - and that's saying something – bless him, it wasn’t the first time he was so lovely to me over the weekend.