First day in the UK

Everything about yesterday was totally exhausting. I've made the same trip countless times with Izzy in tow, from baby with pushchair and suitcases, to the last time we came in April with Izzy as a 6 year old, as well as the odd solo trip.

This time each tiny step was difficult; leaving Olivier at the airport I felt so suddenly alone and lost without him. Happy families all around, small boys plaintively crying "Mama" - such a small word, but so powerful, and one I may never hear for me again.

I cried from the departure lounge and through most of the flight. To try to pull myself together as we queued for passport control I whipped out my phone for contact with familiarity, to stabilise myself.

I started yesterday's blog on the airport bus to pick up my car. All easy things but so tiring for me now.

I 'moved in' to my hire car - setting up my Satnav, multi-plug, hands free speaker kit and mobile phone charger and set off for Genevieve's house.

Genevieve is a friend of mine from school and she still lives in the same town we both went to school in, Saffron Walden - a beautiful Tudor style market town. Lots of pargetting (decorated plasterwork on the facades of the buildings), pastel-coloured houses, little window panes, exterior beams etc. It used to be the biggest national producer of saffron, hence its name.

Vieve looked after me all afternoon and evening, chatting non-stop as we always do and cooking me a delicious dinner. And then, I was so tired by the time the evening came, that I was slurring my words with fatigue and eventually bedded myself down with Millennium 2 (my brain-emptier) till I dropped off. I slept somewhat fitfully, waking many times, but the sleeping pills induce enough of a state of relaxation to help to get me back off again.

This morning Vieve has gone off to work, dropping her 8-yr old daughter at a friend's on the way and so, as I had started to think about my William again (as soon as I am alone, thoughts of him are all-pervading and impossible to keep out but I don't want to force them away either - I LIKE thinking about him even though it makes me sad - that's grieving), here I am blogging to keep the tears at bay.

Vanessa, a friend of mine who I knew in Cambridge, but who now lives in St Albans, is going to come over shortly to keep me company, as Vieve will not finish work till 2pm. I think it's a good drive to get here and she has to organise childcare for her two little girls, so it's very thoughtful of her.

All I can think about as I sit here in Vieve's house is how far away I am from Olivier, Izzy and, of course, William. Izzy said to me when I told her how much I'd miss her, and William (I mean of course his things, his bedroom, even, perhaps gruesomely, his body in the cemetery), that William is up in the sky now so he will be flying along next to me in the aeroplane. So sweet and innocent. But I did have a little chat to him out of the plane's window just in case...