I’m home and so are Tim’s tv, hi fi stuff and a fair bit of his music collection. It’ll all gather dust in the dining room for a few weeks while I decide where it’s going to go. Then I’ll have to call on son-in-law Phil to set it all up – I’ve sticky-taped notes of what goes where and taken photos of the backs of everything before we took any wires out, but it’s way beyond me. I need to fetch the stand from Tim’s house before it can all go on it, but there wasn’t room in the car this trip. I’ve done the essentials here – mostly feeding animals and lighting the fire and that’s going to be nearly it for the day. Wink has asked me through for dinner.

‘Nearly’ it because my new phone arrived while I was away and it needs to be set up. I’ve backed up my old one to the computer and I’m charging up the new one. As I remember from last time, I simply introduced the two phones to each other, having changed over the sim card, and it just magically happened. I really hope it’ll be that simple again. But I’ll have the backup anyway.

*gulp* Here goes…

I’m alone and taking care of myself. That seems to have involved wine and cake, the latter being pretty unusual and the former not common in the middle of the day, but it seemed right at the time, even though I feel slightly overfull now.

I’ll do a bit of paperwork, but not much and I’ll find something mindless to watch on television later. Nothing very loud. Wink is going to help me get going on Tim’s paperwork over the next couple of days – well, Friday and/or Saturday and then she’ll be away for a week. I have plans for some major turning out at home next Sunday and Monday, before a busy few days. On Tuesday, I have my booster Covid vaccination and school Safeguarding training – it’s online, which is good. All school-related meetings will be online again for the time being, which suits me very well. It’s a good thing to have face to face meetings sometimes, but travelling for an hour each way when it is just as effective on Teams is something to avoid if possible, especially when I’d drive home in the dark.

I wrote that a couple of hours ago and then went to sleep for a while. I’ve been doing just what I said, apart from the paperwork, which hasn’t happened.

Nearly 18 years ago, Weeza and I went to the wedding in Chennai of her friend Kavitha, who returned to India with her fiancé to get married at her family home. It was less than a year after the death of my mother and I was by no means over it – not just the death but the years of being unwell and the six months of (in apparent rude good health at that time) actually being on the point of death. The wedding was fabulous and great fun but gruelling, not least because the Auntie who was host was teetotal and so everyone else had to be.

The second week, Weeza and I went to Kerala, which was wonderful and relaxing. I realised that I had never in my life lounged by a pool on holiday before. I’d never had a holiday when I did almost nothing except read, voraciously, relax, eat and drink. I know it’s what a lot of people do on holiday, but not me. Weeza and I hadn’t spent a lot of time together for years and it was lovely and, for me, it started the healing process.

This afternoon isn’t like that, but it is, at least, a respite.

He’s home for now and then I’ll take him home to Earsham. It’s been a day when I’ve had to keep a rein on emotions.

We have done a lot of sorting out. I’m going to take a carful home and deal with it all there. Tim’s brother and sister-in-law have got some things too, but much fewer, thy’ve downsized and haven’t the room. They’ll help me load the car in the morning and then leave for Devon. Tim and I will have some time to ourselves and I’ll talk to him and he won’t reply because … well, rein in the emotionalism.

One of his friends – the son of his dearest friends, in fact – asked if he might have Tim’s copy of Lord of the Rings as a memento. I’ve been looking for it and drawn a blank. But Tim’s brother found a photo today, of a book that’s been read so many times that it’s fallen apart. Tim lit a candle next to it and took a picture and kept it. I’ll send that photo to Reuben, the book is no more.

So much stuff with memories and stories within them. I have Tim’s ashes, his last remains, but I still don’t believe he’s gone. I’m sorting out his possessions but it feels an intrusion and I am compelled to treat everything sensitively, though also acknowledge that sentiment can only go so far. It’s awfully difficult.

I woke in the night and reached out for Eloise cat, it took a minute or two to remember that she’s at home in Norfolk and I’m not. I feel unsettled.

I’m in Reading now, with Tim’s brother and sister-in-law. Tomorrow, we’ll look at his records, books, photos and so on. It won’t be easy for any of us. I will also pick up Tim’s ashes from the funeral directors, and those words were not easy to type.

I have thought about what I’ll do with them. For the moment, nothing. Later, I will take some to Pembrokeshire, because that’s the place he loved most. I’ll leave a handful on Tim’s Rock. That it’s Tim’s rock doesn’t mean it’s not exclusive to him. It’s AnyMan’s Rock (no significance in Man, which is inclusive of all ages and every gender of anyone’s choice or birth). The rest, in its wooden box, will probably be buried in the churchyard next to Russell. There was no rivalry between Tim and Russell, who met and were friendly. I’ll be buried in the same churchyard, I’d like to be with both of them.

Enough of that. I’m not the macabre sort.

My satnav has taken to telling me of all the possible sitings for speed cameras on the M25. There certainly are plenty of them, though not quite as many as the satnav worries about. It’s a clever move though, traffic was noticeably more within the speed limit than it usually is (I’ve a feeling that isn’t very good English, but it’s 11pm and I’m tired). Mostly, driving is pretty good, though one Porsche was being driven at a high speed, weaving illegally between lanes to overtake and undertake, really quite dangerously. A Peugeot came along soon after, being driven with similar recklessness and less power. I moved over, with no interest in being involved.

My neighbour here visited a dying friend today. She has power of attorney and may soon be asked to make a decision about further treatment. The horse still scratches its innocent behind on the same patient tree. We are tiny, minuscule scraps in this world, but each of us still matters to ourselves and to those who care for us.

Nearly everyone who came to our wedding was at one or other of the services, as well as others of course, because we had a wedding that, long before Covid, had 30 attendees. I won’t say 30 guests because that included Tim and me. Alex lives in Jersey now and Rose couldn’t make it, otherwise everyone (apart from Dave, of course, whose cancer took him far too young).

Lynn and Adrian weren’t sure if they’d be able to come until the last day, but they were there. In the header photo, she’s the happy woman with sunglasses next to me. We’ve been friends since we were six years old.

It all went as planned, which was very well. I ran around busily all morning, though I had lots of help too and let go of a lot of the final food preparation, so that I could light fires and get things ready to be finished. Even as I scurried, I wondered why getting things just so was so important to me. I can’t answer that, it’s just part of who I am. I made lists, finally – I’d winged it without a shopping list but made one of the food and then a to-do list so that people could do a job and then tick it off (although I think I did the actual ticking).

I may get my invitation to book a booster vaccination in the coming week, so I’ve asked Wink to open any letters from the NHS and let me know. I’m also expecting my new iPhone to turn up, but I’ll get an email about that. So, however one feels and whatever events take place, the ordinary or extra-ordinary still carries on happening.

About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

I read Auden’s poem first when I was about 14 and, when I was in Brussels with Weeza and Ronan, some 23 years ago, I wanted to see the painting. They were quite happy to go to the Musée des Beaux Arts with me, until it took several hours to track it down. Their bemusement lightened when we found the Surrealists, because who doesn’t enjoy a spot of Magritte or Dali? But I was determined and finally found the picture. I was thrilled and quoted the entire thing to them.

“Um, is that it? Is that all?”

It might have been suggested that I never ask them to accompany me to another art gallery or museum ever again, but I think they’ve forgotten about that, because we have done so in the years since. But it makes me dismal to think about how ordinarily I behave most of the time, because there’s nothing else to do. One just has to keep on going.

With the shortages at supermarkets because of a lack of lorry drivers, it seems to have been decided that priority will be given to deliveries of staple foods. That’s fair enough unless you want pre-prepared party-ish food. Waitrose in Norwich didn’t have any. Luckily, Tesco did, to an extent, so I’ve been able to take a few shortcuts. I’ll still be doing quite a lot of cooking in the morning as well as putting together the blini and so on.

Apart from last minute stuff, we’re ready. Champagne is in the fridge and I’ve done all the forward food preparation that I can. I’ve done a flower arrangement in the church and delivered the service sheets there. Wink made a fish pie for the three of us (including Daphne) for dinner and I’ve pleaded tiredness and a need to write a few emails etc, before going to bed. I’ll have a bath and hope to sleep, though i’m not that confident. I’m keeping as busy as I can, but in between times I’m sad and lonely, which is stating the obvious. My courage has mostly drained away and I’m using my reserve tank. Like when I’m playing the clarinet and my lips get tired, I lose my embouchure and I’m just puffing and getting by for a last few minutes, or when I’m no longer lifting with my core strength and will damage my back any minute through too much heavy lifting.

Enough with the similes. I just need to get through tomorrow and then I’ve booked Sunday lunch out, with Wink and me, Daphne, Zoe and Mike. Unfortunately, Rose is away this weekend. On Monday, I’m back down to Reading with Tim’s brother and sister-in-law to start the dismal job of sorting out the house. Once I’m back here again, the next priority is paperwork. Wink will be away for a week and, if I do all I want to, we can have a day out together once she’s back again.

There were things that I hadn’t quite bargained on being responsible for, but that was my mistake. It’s down to me to do it or delegate it. Little things like typing out all the words of hymns, for instance. Still, done now.

I’m too self-absorbed for my liking. Though I don’t see what else I can be, for now.

Tomorrow, Wink and I are buying food. I’m taking some shortcuts, which don’t extend to buying blini, to put smoked salmon on, as I did for Tim’s funeral do. I made them. I also made bread yesterday, when buying it would really have made sense. I don’t understand myself. I think it’s anxiety making me need to be busy doing things that don’t make me anxious in themselves. Or else I’m just an idiot.

Anyway, I rang Daphne yesterday, to confirm arrangements. She wondered if she might sleep at Wink’s, to save herself from having to go upstairs. She’s just had a stairlift put in at her own house. Poor Daphne has had a replacement hip but her knees are bad. So that’s fine – it saves me from having to make wardrobe space in my dressing room, so it suits me rather well. Daphne herself will be much more comfortable and she gets on very well with Wink (so does everyone).

My cleaners came today as an extra, they worked very hard all morning, bless them. Cleaning this whole house is a lot of hard work and they didn’t even make it upstairs this time. They kindly laid the fires, ready for me to light and brought in lots of logs.

A friend in Cornwall says that chickens are going to have to be kept in because of bird flu. That hasn’t reached here yet, but it’s bound to. That isn’t really a problem for my gang, though they’d rather go outside – i can’t do anything about Pillock and Plank. I can’t catch them. They roost on the greenhouse, too high up to be caught and they’re too wary for me to grab or trap them. They’re semi-feral and that’s that.