Saturday 23rd November

Life is so lonely without the person you love. Such a simple fact, the tears that spring unbidden at any time.  Round this house, Paul's pride in it was wonderful his presence is still captured, will I end up like Miss Havisham from Charles Dickens caught in a time frame forever.  I have left everything as it was, his watch and glasses in the bedroom, old jumper hanging from the chair.  Razor in the bathroom, shoes in the utility room.

I keep the radio on constantly, and switch the television on in the evening, I will do anything not to remember but memories cloud the head with their bitter-sweetness.

I should not write this of course, be brave and I have indeed tackled all the correspondence that flows through the letter box.  Hung on phones listening to interminable music whilst I was handed from one department to another.  Most big companies have a bereavement department is something I have learned.  Most people are kind and gentle is another.  Yesterday was a great relief and I was happy that a credit card was at last paid for and finished with, the man on the phone so good.

And of course all this happens as winter and darkness spreads around.  Waking up in the dark, listening to the radio at 3 o clock, bet you did not know we could have biased algorithms running the country, especially in the social security department.  Think about it, AI running amok with its logic and lacking the warmth of the human heart.

The Quiz night was something I attended, if you were to ask me why, I would point to the calendar which has Paul's notification on the day he predicted for this year, only one day out.  He so loved the village and was interested in things happening.  The quiz was incredibly hard, sweet Harriet found a lasagne for me amongst all the great portions of pie and chips everyone else had.  And I sat with Elaine, Keith and Alison their daughter.  When we first came she washed and cut Lucy and walked dogs but is now a decorator.  Her parents will build an eco-house on the land next to their cottage, and the village seems happy with it.  David in his loud town crier's voice introduced two newcomers to the village, and the raffle prizes were mostly booze.  The pub is a very friendly old-fashioned place, Harriet's friends intermingling with our older generation.

Well having written all that I am happier and it is getting lighter so that I can go out to let the two bantams out and feed the birds.  The owl has drifted away, yesterday apart from a pheasant prancing around on the lawn there were a couple of gallinula (little hens) or moorhens.  At first I thought they were ducks as they strode across the lawn, then their shape appeared, must have wandered down from the river.  Which reminds me that Keith had said that they had introduced beavers into the river/s at Cropton Forest to slow down the water with their dams.  Must look into that.  Which I did.