A mammoth undertaking

I wrote in several of my Christmas cards that I had survived another year. One of my friends (hello Lucy!) called me up on that, saying that it looks from this blog as though I’ve more than survived. Well, perhaps she’s right. It’s difficult when one is concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other to see just how far one’s come. But looking back I would say that I’m certainly in a better place now that I was a year ago, and overall I think I’m pleased with the progress I’ve made – though I’m still finding things still far from easy.

My resolutions/plans for the coming year, in no particular order, include

• Fixing the leak in the porch roof, which drips every time it rains
• Getting the kitchen decorated
• Starting to plant some interesting climbers on the terraces in the garden
• Increasing my hours at work – but in a sustainable way, so that I avoid an exhaustion-triggered collapse
• Scattering some more of Christopher’s ashes somewhere interesting
• Keeping on blogging

On that last point. Christopher and I originally started this blog as an account of living with (and subsequently dying from) cancer. I then kept it up as a diary of coming to terms with being widowed, and putting my life back together again. My sister tells me that it now reads like a blog about maintaining and renovating an old house, and there is certainly that aspect to it too – though I think that’s partly a coping mechanism / displacement activity on my part. I can’t bring Chris back, but I can make this house more comfortable.

I find blogging helps me – as indeed it helped Chris. And I keep going with it, even though it’s sometimes an effort, because I can see from the stats that people read it, and some of you comment. That makes it all worthwhile. So please do keep on reading and commenting – it is really helpful to me even if it doesn’t seem so to you!