Up until now, I’ve kept the old outgoing message on our answerphone, which was Chris saying “I’m afraid we can’t come to the phone at the moment…..” etc etc. I rather liked being able to listen to his voice whenever I wanted to. Also, since I’m dealing with a load of workmen at the moment […]
I was trying to explain to a colleague at work today whom it was that I had arranged to have lunch with today. I decided that the technical term for my relationship with my late husband’s step-father surely had to be my “ex-stepfather-in-law”. Anyway, whatever the technicalities, Peter was on his way home from a […]
I’d arranged to meet an ex-colleague of Christopher’s today for lunch – in fact he was one of the friends who spoke at the funeral. I’d chosen a pleasant little restaurant in Malvern which was one of Christopher’s favourites – it does good Mediterranean-style food at a reasonable price. My work laptop broke this morning, […]
Chris not only used to do all the cooking, but he was in charge of just about everything in the kitchen, including the knives. He was very fussy about keeping them sharp, saying that a blunt knife does more damage than a sharp one. He had a steel, which he used regularly (at least weekly, […]
I’ve blogged about the solutions that Chris and I had considered for the garden and rejected. That made me explicitly consider what I needed from a potential solution: Affordable Less ugly than the current concrete blocks Low (or preferably zero) maintenance Taking up as little additional space as possible I put these constraints to the […]
I’m not sure whether to describe last night’s trip to Malvern Theatres as a visit to the theatre or the cinema. The ticket was twice the price of their cinema tickets, but only half the price of a theatre ticket. And the venue was neither the cinema nor the theatre, but the third, flexible performing […]
Herefordshire Council does free “planning surgeries” in Ledbury, where you can turn up without an appointment and ask for an informal opinion from a planning officer. I took along pictures of my garden, explained the problem, and asked whether I would need planning permission to sort it out. Obviously, I’d much prefer not, as it’s […]
It took three workmen two and a half days to mend my roof, finishing yesterday (Saturday). Apparently, times are so bad out there that they have to work a six-day week and Bank Holidays to keep the business going. They replaced about a metre’s worth of rotten rafters all the way up the pitch of […]
It was my birthday this week, and I found it very difficult indeed. I missed Christopher so much. It was a huge struggle to get out of bed that morning – I really wanted to just turn over and pull the duvet over my head. Perhaps fortunately I had some meetings arranged at work that […]
I mentioned the other day that I want to sort out my garden. I thought I’d blog here about the ideas that Chris and I thought about and rejected. I’ll leave the current candidate solution for another time. As David A. pointed out in the comments to the previous post, the slope is intrinsically unstable […]
