18th July

I’m beginning to feel really weary. It’s as though this thing called grief has taken a hold of me and is wringing me dry as ineffectively as after hand-washing a big thick towel… it’s almost as wet after wringing as before you started. I woke this morning being careful not to pull the covers off Jane… and she wasn’t there. I went shopping and returning to my car saw her outline waiting in the passenger seat… and it was just the headrest. I gave my grand-children fish-fingers and home-made chips for their tea and thought that’ll impress Jane… but it doesn’t, not that I can know about anyway. I can’t carry on living like this as it’s far too exhausting and my headaches are growing stronger, and it was mid-afternoon before the pain eased at all. I suppose it’s more like a migraine really.

I made myself buy salad in my weekly shop this morning and re-balance my diet, so now I have the simple goal of using it before it goes off which will be a bit of a challenge. I try and buy organic and I’m vegetarian eating quite a lot of fruit so I don’t think I’m eating unhealthily really so it’s more to do with learning to cook for one and avoid waste by not buying too much. Although I share some meals with my son we do have rather different eating habits so at least half the time I just cook for myself. I only learned how to cook a couple of years ago when Jane went through chemotherapy and this whole game is rather strange to say the least. But I suppose it’s just one more area of my life that is now totally transformed. Jane was, sorry I should say is a superb cook - there will be food in heaven surely – and I miss her inspirational high standards quite a bit. I can remember saying at just about every meal she ever prepared that it was the best food I’d ever had and she certainly lived up to that compliment every single time.

Last year was the most enjoyable summer of my life. Jane and I child-minded our two oldest grand-children through the long school holiday a couple of days each week. We had all sorts of adventures building secret-dens in the woods, National Trust activity days and mass producing friendship bracelets amongst other things. This year I have to look after them for 3 days a week and that will keep me nicely occupied until September I suppose. I don’t have Jane’s child-friendly creative genes available so the whole thing will be a bit random this time, but at least my adult son is around and he is a most superb uncle quite naturally behaving at primary school level!

Psalm 128:6 ‘May you live to enjoy your grandchildren.’ (NLT)