September 30th: Two months since Gail left me and a month since the funeral, so time the cards came down. Thank you for every one of them and the heartfelt messages inside. I had a good bawl this morning reading them. I will, of course, be keeping them all.

One of the (only) amusing aspects of the past 60 odd days is well-meaning friends, family and acquaintances telling me ‘Gail would have loved this’ with scant idea of what she actually liked. I’m afraid you’d be pretty surprised by what Gail did, where she went and who she went with just to be polite, be supportive or not want to offend. Similarly, at home ‘Gail would have loved these cards’. Oh no, she wouldn’t! She hated cards apart from those we sent to each other, and all Christmas / birthday cards had to go in my office if I wanted them up. (Sorry if this offends anyone, but it’s a fact).

So as I take them all down and polish the table, I can hear a voice from the great beyond: “Thank fuck for that. Now I get my table back, do I?”