My poem about William's fight with Destiny

I read Bassie my poem this morning and she seems to think that it's ok to reproduce in these pages. So I will type it up below. Please note that it is long, powerful, detailed and graphic, so if you are of a sensitive nature, do not read on. However it is written from the heart and it conveys my still very raw emotions, and now is the time to get those down. It will all help later on.

The poem is about William's fight with Destiny and documents the three major battles we had with this abstract force. You might note that I change tenses towards the end as I jump from the past to the present; this is done on purpose - anything goes in poetry!


Destiny

You arrived seven weeks early
Impatient already to explore your new world
Little did we know
But the battle had only just begun
Destiny had one arm, we had the other.

But you were no pawn
You fought
Jaundice attacked and lost
Breathing problems battled and overcome
Three long weeks later
You were finally home.

Destiny pulled. Destiny tugged.
Over the next year and a half
Various ailments and injuries
Were encountered and vanquished.
Then Destiny tightened its grip.

You were 18 months old
Just after bedtime
I found you
Rasping, gasping for breath
Stiff body, fists in balls, mouth foaming
As the convulsions took hold.

House left unlocked
Frantic dash to casualty
Looking on horrified as the doctors
Fought for your life
Fought that devil Destiny's diabolical force.

Ha! Destiny lost again!
Ninety minutes on the battlefield;
The fitting was under control
Several long days later
You were finally home.

Destiny pulled. Destiny tugged.
Falls, scrapes, bumps, black eyes, ear-aches, tiny scars...
You had no sense of danger
Endless curiosity
The world was a marvel as you
Sought to explore all around you.

Still Destiny pulled. Destiny tugged.
One year later
Walking but not talking
Destiny invisibly wrapped around that one arm
Ready for the final battle.

A summer's day
Nap over
I carried you downstairs,
Put you down to run around
While I had two minutes at my desk.

You trotted outside. It's safe outside.
But then 'Hmm. Can't hear William.'
I run outside
No William
I turn
Pool gate OPEN!!!!
I look further
William. Face down. Floating.

I run, I grab you,
I run back to the kitchen.
Panic. I start pumping.
Speakerphone my husband
Hands free to keep pumping.

Lips blue, pupils dilated.
No!!! NO!!!!!! Destiny cannot win!!!!

Medics arrive. Doctors arrive.
Finally they break my bated breath.
'We have a heartbeat'.
Relief. Release. I finally cry.
Destiny's lost again!

Still Destiny pulls. Destiny tugs.
Your body slowly recovers
Another battle won.
Then hope is dashed.
Our world is crushed.

Your body is there, but you are not.
The war is over.
Destiny has won.
F*** Destiny.
William's never coming home.

Here are some of our very first photos of our darling William.

A little miracle

To be honest, they warned us this would happen. The lovely TCF staff this weekend had said that we will probably suffer from some sort of emotional 'come down' after the event.

And I've been on a knife edge since yesterday. Teetering constantly on the brink of tears. I think my tear/endorphin stock was back up to overflow level as, although I had a few little cries at the weekend, there were certainly no agonising weeping sessions. Yes, in retrospect I was definitely, if subliminally, preparing for total lachrymal let-loose.

I stayed at my wonderful friend Vanessa's house the night either side of the event and she was her usual kind, warm and generous self, with she and her husband Jon providing not just comforting words, but stimulating, and even fun, everyday conversation.

I can actually say, hand on heart, that I adore interacting with her two little girls (nearly three and nearly four). But I think I took it too far when I asked if I could come in to Emily's (her elder daughter) nursery when we went to pick her up. Wobble. Neatly caught and held back.

Add in to this mix my husband ignoring my loving texts of how much I was looking forward to seeing him and giving him a big cuddle (I'm really trying here) followed by me eventually (after I'd sent a back-up text asking if he received the first) receiving a text telling me he 'was busy' and things were going from bad to worse. (I'm only noting this because of my promise that this would be an honest account of my current life trials and I will say that I hope against hope that Olivier and I come through this ok, and I understand and account for the fact that there will be fluctuations in our relationship and our grieving patterns.)

Anyway, from nursery we set off in both our cars to visit a friend, Kirsty's, tea shop in Hitchin for lunch. Alone in my car I slipped into see-saw crying (see how I now categorise and have names for my tears?) - cry, stop, cry, stop. I think I knew if I let loose it'd be a bawling cryfest. Couldn't let that happen a) in case Vanessa spotted me in her rear view mirror or b) because I was driving (not that it's stopped me before, but then I cared less about what happened to me before. You see? Stronger!)

We eventually arrived and had a fabulous lunch at Halsey's Tea Shop - highly recommended! After lunch I said sad goodbyes to Vanessa and the girls and set off for the airport. Still teetering. I was a literal melting pot of tears just waiting to boil over.

I only had my cabin bag so headed straight for the departure lounge. On passing through, I showed my plastic bag of liquids to an airport official and asked if it was ok. He replied that indeed it was. (I was worried as it had a white strip across it.)

Upon finally (long queues, hate queues, hate waiting) arriving at the x-ray machines the airport guy there stopped me and told me my plastic bag was TOO BLOODY BIG! Ok so now I did burst into tears. He made me go and buy one of those little balls of two plastic bags for a quid and separate everything into two bags. This was the straw that broke the camel's back and, although not in the land of histrionics, I was certainly into non-stop sobbing.

So this is where my little miracle happened. A very kind lady asked if I was ok and if I wanted to go and sit and have a coffee with her. I didn't want to bother her with my horrible, sad burden, and tried to decline, but there was something about her insistence that was so genuine, that I found myself being led by her through to the departure lounge and sitting down to have a chat.

It transpired that this gently-spoken Irish lady, Kathleen was her name, was a counsellor! And a bereavement counsellor at that! We spoke and she managed to calm me down and reassure me. And soon it was time to make my way to my gate to leave, but not before giving this wonderful stranger a huge hug. (For someone who was never really a 'hugger', I am quickly achieving professional status - and I like it.)

Another thing I am not is, how can I put this? Airy fairy? Superstitious? You get what I mean. I am Mrs Pragmatic. But when you have lost someone you loved so so much and you know you'll never see them again, you do start to see little signs where once you'd be blind to these tiny coincidences.

How the heck did that experience happen to me? To meet a bereavement counsellor at that particular moment? Did William have a hand in it? I feel silly even typing that to he honest. But then I do have this belief in destiny. So maybe I can rationalise this meeting by simply saying it was meant to happen.

Thank you Kathleen.

The Compassionate Friends Annual Bereaved Parents Weekend

This weekend has evoked so many emotions. Over the course of these few days, I've spoken about things and heard so many stories that I never dreamed I would ever encounter.

It's been a rollercoaster but a well-managed one. Let me start by scene-setting for you. Sedgebrook Hall, just north of Northampton, was built 150 years ago and is a beautiful character building (with modern extensions in keeping with the style of the main house) set in manicured grounds, with old walls and interesting features in them. The grounds, combined with a weekend of perfect sunny weather, have proved perfect if you needed time-out for a calming walk.

The rooms are wonderfully conceived, both decoratively and functionally. It's a long time since I've taken such pleasure in staying in a hotel room.

The staff have been discreet, kind, polite and helpful. Can we import some of these good manners to the ladies who work on the tills in our French supermarkets?

So that's a big thumbs up for the venue. Which brings me onto the team that chose it! The society The Compassionate Friends have put many years' experience into organising this annual national gathering. And they should be congratulated for a superb job, excellently executed. The schedule has been seamlessly rolled out, with everything being optional so no pressure to do anything you don't want to. I'll tell you more about what we did later.

I want to mention here that upon my arrival mid-afternoon on Friday, I was a nervous wreck, despite telling myself to buck up on numerous occasions in the car on the way here. Start to cry, 'buck up', start to cry 'pull yourself together', start to cry 'stay strong'. I was so worried about dissolving in a flood of tears when I arrived. Well, there was no point in doing all that worrying, because that's exactly what I did! How could I not have done?!

I lovely lady called Margaret took me immediately under her wing and escorted me to my room, made me a cup of tea and gave me a huge hug. Such kindness and compassion. And that just about sums up ALL of the volunteers and staff who organise and help out at these gatherings. The 'less newly bereaved', it seems to me, help out the 'more newly bereaved'.

So back to the schedule. Early evening Friday there was a meeting for the first timers. There were about 20-25 of us I guess. Incidentally, I asked how many people were here this weekend in all, and there were just over a hundred. And, thoughtfully, we had the venue exclusively for our use (apparently after some negative experiences of shared venues).

In the book Beyond Tears - How to Live After Losing a Child, that I recently read, the nine couples documented met through The Compassionate Friends. I remember one mother saying that at their first meeting it felt like a weight had lifted from her shoulders; it was a turning point for her and her husband.

I'm not sure I feel like that. But I can say, I have felt myself among people who understand, when so many people in my everyday life don't or can't. How can they? And I wouldn't want them to - you don't wish this upon anyone. You're a member of the saddest club in the world and you just don't want to be.

Anyway, after the welcome meeting, we had drinks and dinner, followed by an inspirational speech by a young lady who lost her sister in a road traffic accident. This young lady and her parents have campaigned and fundraised endlessly in order to raise enough money to buy an old pub in Deptford, London, which is now almost renovated and ready to become TCF's new offices. Well done the Mathers!

The next morning there was another keynote speech, this time by a young lad, Adam Fouracre, whose brother had been kicked to death in the street by drunken, mindless thugs. This chap has gone on to become a nurse by profession, and a tireless campaigner against violence in his spare time, touring schools to talk to kids about his brother's death and try and somehow educate kids against violence. Another inspirational young person.

Over the course of Saturday I had enrolled on two discussion groups and one workshop. The first discussion group was about what we can do with our child's possessions - my psychiatrist had told me fairly early on not to keep William's room as it is for too long as I would never stop grieving and move on. Well both other families in this group have their child's room just as it always was - one for seven years now and one for eight. The general consensus in this point, as well as most things, is do it your way. Whatever suits you best. There really is no right or wrong way or any set template. So that has relieved me of any pressure to change William's room or pack his things away - I'm so far from ready to do that.

The second discussion group I did was one on how to do good in my child's name. I feel like at some point in the future I'd like to do something to put something good back into the world in William's name. I heard about a lot of different and totally amazing things people had done - sports trophies, running marathons, all sorts of fundraising for charities, and then personal memorials such as benches, gardens etc were also discussed.

The good thing is - you can talk completely frankly about your child here, and you have carte blanche to ask the person you happen to be talking to what their story is. There is no embarrassment as we are all in the same situation.

However, over the course of a weekend, it does become emotionally draining. So many sad stories. So many children lost. Some parents have lost their only child, some have lost both or two of their children.

One thing it has made me feel so grateful for is that I was there holding William in my arms as he left us. So many parents did not have this final goodbye. It's something I hold onto and consider so precious.

After lunch I did a creative writing workshop. I ended up writing a five page poem! You know me - once I start, I can't stop! I have yet to decide whether I'll reproduce it here or not as it is quite graphic, recounting William's lifetime fight with Destiny. We'll see.

After dinner, we had a lighter moment as they drew for the raffle. I won a butterfly bookmark (the butterfly is TCF's symbol). Very poignant as books have been both my escape and my crutch. After the raffle they lit our candles in the paper lanterns outside on the lawns and we all had sparklers to light our way to find 'our' lantern in the rows. Beautiful. Very moving too.

Onto Sunday and the candle-lighting ceremony. This was, if you like, a non-denominational service with music and poems, followed by us all going to the front and one-by-one lighting a candle in the name of our lost child.

The whole service was enormously emotional. Almost everyone was in tears. We took a candle as our children's names were shown three by three on an overhead projector on the wall, with a dandelion clock background. William's name appeared at exactly the same time it was my turn to choose a candle. Perfect.

I remember one lady sitting behind me gasping out her son's name as it appeared on the wall. Such raw, raw emotions. But fine. This was the time and the place to cry and it was expected of us. There were boxes of tissues (as well as butterflies) everywhere around the venue all weekend. The ceremony closed with a moving and beautifully sung song from the TCF choir.

After a group walk around the gardens, we were back for the closing ceremony. There were the usual thank you's etc, but the nicest thing of all was that we were shown a special way to blow our candle out - a hard thing to do when you have lit a candle in memory of someone you have lost.

Do you want to know how to do it? You cup your hand behind the candle and 'catch' the flame as you blow it out. Then you bring your closed hand to your lips for a kiss, then to your heart, before turning your hand to face upwards and gently opening it. Something to remember.

I met so many kind, compassionate (yes, that word again!) and otherwise 'normal' people this weekend. There are definitely some I will stay in touch with (especially Tracy and Richard - see you in France I hope!).

I need to finish up now as my phone is nearly out of battery! So I'll post this, but may add to it later.

I am emotionally exhausted but very, very glad I came.

 

Random Stream of Consciousness Thoughts

I have just checked the stats for my blog and it has had nearly 6,300 page views since I started it just over a month ago. That is amazing!  I hope my thoughts and words have helped my friends and family understand what we are going through as well as helping any readers with their own experiences of grief. From some of the messages I have received, this latter has been the case, so this brings be some comfort and strength. This blog is definitely a good medium for me to detail and expunge my grief.

So here's a positive, in the first few weeks following William's death, the house went untidied, uncleaned, un-cared for. Eventually we found a cleaner who did a huge once-over and then came for a couple of hours every two weeks, just to keep on top of things like the floors and bathrooms etc. She rang this week and asked if we still needed her and I realised that actually, no, we didn't; I've been cleaning again. Uses up a bit of time.

Since we moved here, we have allowed ourselves (or I have allowed myself) the luxury of an ironing lady. I hate ironing with a passion. It's too hot half the time and I find it mind-numbingly boring. So every time the basket is full, we call our lovely lady Cathy who comes and picks it up and then delivers it back a couple of days later - all for 20€! But get this, today I needed to iron some bits for my trip so I stood and did an hour's ironing, Olivier's work shirts and all, and to keep my brain occupied I finally had the courage to watch my Sky +ed recording of 'Soham - A Parent's Tale - 10 Years On'. So I ironed and sobbed through that. I felt such a resonance with their journey, but it was so positive too to see them ten years on - and that's what I wanted to get out of watching this programme. To see how things could be later on. Holly's parent's are such strong people. And get this, both couples are still together - against all the statistics - BOTH couples have managed to stay on the 10% side (it is well-documented that nine out of ten couples separate after the death of a child). That is fantastic and gives rise to more hope. It was also good to see Holly's parents at a bereavement group, making candles, as I think we'll be doing that this weekend. All mental preparation for me.

I am off to the bereavement weekend alone due to linguistic and cultural barriers as well as gender grieving norms. I am wondering what the dynamics will be there - how many singletons will there be? Will there be more women than men as women seek help more readily then men? Will there be more single people because relationships have floundered in the short or long term after the death of a child? Or do the couples that seek help through bereavement organisations have a higher chance of staying together because they have done just that? We shall see...

Something else I finally brought myself to do this morning was enter the pool area and unplug and squeeze all the air out of the blow-up boats, rings, floating armchairs etc. I've hated seeing these as I hang my washing outside (we moved our outside eating table out of view of the pool into William's Garden behind the house and then never ate outside, but we had to take my washing line down to create William's Garden so now I have to hang my bloody washing to dry on an airer next to the pool) but could not bring myself to deflate them either. So that job is done. I also had a small garden tidy and weeded William's flower bed, around the agapanthus we planted. (If Annabel is reading this - thank you for your lovely card with the agapanthus on it that we received this week - perfect timing to give us a boost and such a coincidence as these are the flowers in William's Garden.)

We also have several packets of Sweet William seeds and Forget-Me-Not seeds which we will sow in spring-time to fill up the bed. I think we may need to do some grown-up gardening like propagating so I might have to look that up! Anyway, let's hope all that works and that the garden matures and grows as our constant reminder of our beautiful boy. 

All we need to do now is continue our fight with the company from whom we bought William's bench (Roimage) and the delivery firm - it arrived so completely broken and irreperable (at least so it would still look nice). I don't know whether it was the delivery guy dropping it when he saw Pepsi and started running around screaming 'Get your dog in! Get your dog in!' (is it just me or is this guy in the wrong job if he is that terrified of dogs?) or whether it happened en route. Anyway, he freaked me out so much that I had a panic attack and refused to sign the delivery slip, but Olivier arrived just then and signed it and the guy drove off. It was only on un-packing the bench that we realised just how broken it was. So now of course, they won't even hear of a reclaim as we signed the delivery slip. It's so unjust - this is the bench paid for my my lovely Girls' Night group and bought especially for William's Garden. So we're sending photos and a registered post letter and going to wait and see if that changes anything.

I'll blog from the hotel over the weekend. Time now to go and make those huge decisions about what clothes to take in my 10kg bag regarding the weather in the UK for the next few days. This time I'll put socks in for sure.

Two steps forward and one step back is still one step forward

I'm blogging on my iPhone in bed again. I feel like writing tonight. I have hardly stopped crying all night. I think this is because of a couple of reasons: firstly, the last few days have been a huge emotional challenge revolving around another hurdle in our 'new' lives - back to school.

As I wrote yesterday, William should have been there. I concentrated as hard as I could on being excited for Izzy's first day at proper school (she feels way too old to be saying that - she'll be seven in January!). And then I concentrated as hard as I could on anything but thinking about how William should have been starting nursery too by keeping as busy as possible all day. So I didn't have a moment to stop and muse yesterday.

But then today, whilst shopping for some 'new term' clothes with Izzy, William's absence was tangible - I so rarely went anywhere with Izzy and not William. And it was so hard to just browse and buy for Izzy when I'd got so used to buying for them both. I have to become accustomed to girls' trips out I guess. I'm sure I could even come to like them, but it's another one of those concepts I fight against because I don't want to be in this position in the first place. I want girls' trips out which are organised around leaving William at home...

And why is it that I suddenly seemed so approachable to the numerous toddler boys in the shopping centre? It's like cats LOVE me because I'm allergic and apparently because I don't approach them, they find me unthreatening. Trying to smile at these curious little boys through gritted teeth and tears and not run a bloody mile is so hard.

Here is another new and alien concept to document today - not being in a hurry to get home (I always seemed to be under time constraints for some reason or another before).

The Doom List continues here with the fact that Izzy is so demanding of my attention that even after booking a year's worth of tennis lessons, shopping, lunch and a bouncy castle, upon returning home mid-afternoon, there was no way she was going to leave me in peace to organise school insurance, a doctor's appointment for a medical certificate for her tennis etc etc. Trouble was brewing.

I spent quite a lot of the rest of the afternoon shouting. I just can't bear it when Izzy says 'it's not fair' and, let's face it, this is my honesty board and I'm not going to pretend, I found myself shouting back at her 'You know what's not fair? That William's dead! That's what's not fair! So it's no big deal that we're not making cupcakes after all really is it?'

I know it's not fair of me to say that, but the pressure to be as good a mum as I can be, only to have it all ignored (as I appreciate all kids do) just hurts.

Finally here's the second thing. I am crying much less frequently, REALLY crying I mean. (The waves are definitely calming.) I have the odd teary moment daily, but tonight I think I'd stocked up the tears again and I have been crying all evening, clutching one of William's teddies to me on the sofa. A sorry mess.

I think it's the release of the stress of the last few days. Maybe also some anxiety about the weekend to come, including the journeying. But also that we have moved into a new phase of our lives without our darling boy and I just can't block out indefinitely the depth to which I constantly feel his absence.

Ps I only took the anti-depressants for a week. Quite simply, I don't want to get hooked and then have to wean myself off them later on if there is even a 0.01% chance I could ever get pregnant and they are so so bad to take in the first trimester. Weaning off sleeping tablets too. So hope is my anti-depressant and while I still have that, I can be assured that my body is a temple. Let's just hope that a) my specialist gyney works out that I have some good egg time left and b) that Olivier is complicit in this at some point. I've stopped talking about it now. Grain planted. Needs to be his idea now.

The Rentrée (Back-to-School)

I just wanted to write a quick post about Izzy's first day at proper school, after three long years of nursery. Everything is on the same site, so the only thing that has changed for her is her classroom and her teacher. But also this year, no more toys in the classroom - just books! Oh, and a green chalkboard - I didn't even know what it was! We didn't even have chalkboards when I was at school all those years ago; we had whiteboards and overhead projectors!

I was very nervous about the first day of school as it would be my first encounter with all the school mummies. Fortunately, Izzy, along with five of her colleagues, has been put in a class with children three years older than her and right at the end of the line of classrooms, so in fact I was only confronted with a couple of mummies that I knew, and everything passed 'normally'.

As we all hung around outside Izzy's new classroom waiting for the bell to ring, my eyes kept wandering across the playground, to the nursery classroom, where I should have been with William, getting him settled into his new school environment. I am convinced I would have been able to leave him without him crying for me, like Izzy did for her first few days at nursery. He was so sociable and found absolute joy in everything around him; people, objects, even sunlight streaming through the leaves of trees mesmerised him... I look up sometimes at the sun's rays filtering through the trees' leaves and think of him. There's an ethereal edge to this, I feel, with almost religious connotations, like he felt drawn towards the 'skies' or the 'light'.

After I'd left Izzy at school, my deliberately busy first day on my own started. First Soumaya came for coffee and we looked through some photos of William as well as the birthing videos of both children. Lovely.

After Soumaya left, I did some quick admin, then my old Uni friend Ali called from Germany and we had a lovely long chat. Before I knew it, I had to leave to go to Pézenas where I spent a bit of time in a photographic shop printing out photos to take with me on the bereavement weekend, as well as some lovely family ones. I got a big print done of the photo below for a lovely mix of frames that I have on the wall in the hall.

Then I took myself off to the old centre of Pézenas to treat my friend Bassie to lunch - lovely gambas and smoked salmon salad at the Vieux Coq on Place Gambetta. Lovely company too! So far so occupied! Thanks for looking after KiddieKitRentals while I was gone last time Bassie!

Next I managed a quick top-up supermarket shop, followed by a nip to another shop to buy a small photo album for my photos. By the time I got home and unloaded the shopping, it was time to go and pick Izzy up from school! Hooray!  A whole day filled up. Just the rest of my life to go.

Izzy loved her first day at school and was disappointed that there was no school today! (No school on Wednesdays in France.)

Today we are off to enrol her in tennis lessons, then to the psychiatrist's (today I am going to take her with me and she can draw in the waiting room), then shoppping for new clothes for school, home, lunch and then we are baking cupcakes this afternoon. Hopefully we can fill today and that will be one more day done...

Two months today

After so much progress over the weekend, I've had a horrible day and an even more horrible evening. We inch ever closer to entering into the wrong side of the frightening statistic that nine out of every ten couples who lose a child break up.

William should be starting nursery tomorrow. It should have been a new start for both William and myself, with new projects planned by me too. Now I have all the time in the world but absolutely no desire to do anything with it.

I had a meeting with the schoolteachers today to discuss how to handle the kids' questions. Everyone knew William even though he was not yet at the school, as we were there together all the time for Izzy.

The meeting started off quite emotional for me, but I pulled myself together and we decided that they are all going to have a chat to their respective classes to explain what happened and then say that any questions should be directed at them, not Izzy. Hope Izzy is ok.

Izzy was bouncing off the walls today and so hard to handle. I'm so tired of her ignoring me and it taking so many times of asking for her to do anything, when I am trying my hardest to keep everything under control, ticking over as normally as possible. Mundane everyday things are a huge struggle. I am under constant stress. I need the support of Olivier and look forward to when he comes home at the end of the day. Not him not bothering to come home to eat the bloody meal it took a gargantuan effort to make.

He's throwing himself into starting his business and it feels like he is ignoring me. He's planning work trips to Paris while I'm giving it my all just to keep the family ticking over and I am already, even before school starts, BORED OFF MY HEAD!!!

But I need a moment to get my head around this enforced freedom. I have options, of course; sport, training courses such as the on-line TEFL I was originally going to do while William did his mornings at school. But I have no confidence or dynamism for learning.

So I continue the hardest job in the world. Today a client came to pick up some kiddiekit. Amongst it was a really funky multi-way, rocking baby bouncer. I said without thinking'Yes, this is great. It was my son's - he loved it!' And my client asked how old my son was. I paused for what seemed like an eternity but obviously wasn't. WHAT has she asked me? What should I say?

This was my first encounter with this type of question (others to follow: do you have children? How many children do you have? Etc). I hesitated and then just said, 'He died' 'Two months ago today. He drowned in our pool.' She asked with clear shock how old he was and when I told her she was visibly shaken. Her arriving grandson is the same age. I felt uncomfortable that my thoughtless comment had led us here.

But this is a whole new territory and at home we talk about William all the time, and pretty much everyone around me knows what's happened, so I just didn't have the correctly-adjusted social conversation in place for this situation. Won't be doing that again.

My thanks today go to Henny for coming for coffee this morning and being a shoulder. Also to Soumaya for organising my school meeting, looking after Izzy and for being such a loyal, genuine, kind and caring friend.

Tomorrow I am hoping to print some good photos out of William and the family to take with me to the bereavement weekend, then taking Bassie out for lunch to thank her for looking after the business while I was away last time.

I leave Thursday evening, back Monday evening. Then I will need projects for sure. Might have to start with ordering a skip! Seriously, I think Emmaüs is in for a stock-up...

Now that blogging has calmed me down, time to try to sleep. Big day for my little poppet tomorrow - first day of proper school (even though she's nearly 7 - weird)!

Just before I go I wanted to mention the weirdest feelings I have been having today - like I am just on the point of wondering where William is, before I remember. This has happened several times today. Like I've forgotten him somewhere. I think it must be because I feel a really strong connection from having gone through the entire two and a half years of his life in photos over the last couple of days, that he feels so real again.

Signing off....