I’m slightly mad. I’m sitting in the kitchen by the French windows, the new French windows. I’ve got the door open. I wanted to write in the garden this morning but it’s raining. The rain is decorating the kale with silver balls, so that’s compensation. The rain has also filled the new water tank, so that’s good too. We were so desperate for rain in the summer, and here it is, so that is good too. Ten or fifteen ducks fly past. They like the rain. I like the rain. My only beef this morning is I wanted to go out and write in the garden. But I’m writing here, by the new French windows, near the new water tank.

I’ll make a bit of a list of what I can see and hear. The hiss of the road in the distance, a crow calling. It’s a strange day today, an anniversary. Fifty years today since Tim and Bry died. Such a long time. The crow again, and two ducks this time, flying low over the rooftops. Jackdaws over there pecking at the moss. What use have I made of the fifty years that I have had that they never got?

That’s the thought, not a very useful thought, but there it is.

My list: kale, comfrey, liquorice, marigold, mullein (of course), teasle, boysenberry, rose hips, sage, Siberian pea, Jacob’s ladder, blackcurrants, Szechuan pepper, sunflowers, a squirrel, medlar – I’m leaning now – so much here, and I planted it all. That’s something.

Lily and family are arriving in a moment, and on Sunday my brothers will be here and we can remember together. Pete visited the graves this morning and put flowers there. Mum and Dad have both joined Tim and Bry now.

I’m very fragile today. I’ve made flapjacks and they’re fragile too, though they taste very nice.

I think I want to end with a letter I wrote to Mum just after she died, nearly ten years ago. I walked up onto the hill above her house and a skylark was singing.

Dear Mum

I saw a skylark this morning. I think it was an angel here to collect you. It sang for me with blissful abandon before disappearing to find where you were and take you by the hand and lead you out of that tired old body into a better place, another place.

Some people do not believe in souls, but I do – well I believe you are here about the place, in the sunlight, in the wind. I believe you are with me all the ways of my life, guiding me, misleading me sometimes, but with me.

I feel surprisingly alone when I realise that you will never occupy that chair anymore, never answer one of my questions about a book or a poem. You had a clarity that surprised me sometimes, a depth of understanding that you kept very quiet. I shall miss that.

I wonder if your spirit is entwined with Tim and Bry now, dancing some eternal dance. I hope so. It seems fitting.

Did you laugh and remember when the moment of freedom, of release, when the moment that ended the struggle came? I read somewhere, that lovely, lovely thought that at the moment of death, or the moment after, there is a sudden understanding, and joyous amused laughter – “Oh, yes, now I remember!”

Was it like that? I hope so.

with love from Mike