22nd October, 2023

It’s been two years since I moved into my cottage. We moved into our family home when the children were six and five and stayed there for twenty-five years. So this move was huge in so many ways.

I was worried that our family home was filled with so many memories that I wouldn’t be able to take them all with me. What I didn’t realise is that memories are like water. They ebb and flow, trickle and settle into the nooks and crannies of my heart. Sometimes they freeze and my heart throbs with the pain, but then they thaw and once again I’m able to smile.

There are things I miss about our old family home. My daughter popping in, my son staying the night in his old room. The laughter around the dining table. The sunlight and warmth. It was such a sunny, warm house thanks to all the work we’d had done over the years. We’d made it our home.

Now I live in a four-hundred-year-old cottage and share my space with spiders and woodlice (which is a constant worry for me as I love them both but they don’t get along too well), the odd few death watch beetles and some strange sort of black bees that appear in the spring. It’s cold and draughty, and quite dark because of its beautiful but small windows. But I love it here. It is my home.

I’ve only been here two years and although I was at first welcomed into the community I now feel as if I am part of it. I belong to a book club, volunteer at a local museum and in the park, I’m invited for coffee, lunch, supper. I chat with friends and neighbours on dog walks across the fields. The shopkeepers know me and a plan to pop to the post office can take more than an hour as I stop to chat to people I know.

So much has happened in two years. Of course I still miss Tim and the life I had. And it was tempting to stay in our old home, clinging to the past and wishing things were different. Here, I’ve been able to accept that life has changed. I’ve changed; life’s events have changed me.

I still wake in the night, sometimes wondering if it was all a bad dream. And as I reach across the bed seeking comfort, if I’m lucky, I’ll hear the church bells chime and Tim whispering to me that I’m doing fine, and that everything will be alright.