Gail’s out of her green box at last and now resides in a nice silver wood motif, glass candle holder. After months of searching for something suitable to store her ashes in the retainer came, rather surprisingly, from the Range store. It’s not fully the answer perhaps – though it may be, we’ll see – but it’s a better option while I continue to search and it’s certainly much better than that box.

While transferring over, I was alarmed to find Gail’s half of her gold heart (She bought the split-heart for our first Christmas and I’ve worn the other half round my neck ever since) that I had dropped on the top of her ashes had gone ‘missing’. Every part of my brain screamed ‘it must be in there’ but logic goes out of the window at times like this, and I found myself this afternoon in plastic gloves, apologising profusely to her, as I gently moved her ashes round to find the chain. Of course, it was there – though it took over ten minutes to find it – so it’s now sellotaped to the bag itself to avoid further panic.

While searching I found part of a wood nail, I figured this was a symbol of the one that’s in my heart; I quite liked that so left it in there.

Only worry now, is I found Buzz had his nose in her ashes this afternoon. Buzz was ‘Mummy’s boy’. He seems to be able to smell her and sits on her clothes for hours. Gail would have probably found him in her ashes hilarious but I’d rather not find bits of my wife on my cat’s nose, so I’ve sealed the bag up properly.

Who’d have thought at the beginning of 2018 my life would have come to this?