It’s not apparent from the previous posts, but I’d endeavoured – as I have since – to force myself to do things that I wanted to do but may not have done had Gail been here.

I did have some tickets for Gail and myself for the O2 to see Robert Plant and Van Morrison – a good friend had offered to be Gail for the evening at that one (I think she may have regretted it when I wrung her hand off during ‘Have I told You Lately That I Love You’) – but I’d also used the opportunity to see other bands I’d wanted to catch but wouldn’t have been able to do had Gail still been here (Unappetising fact: being solo saves a lot of money and makes things feasible that may have been difficult before).

Hardest though was I had return tickets – Gail and I had gone the previous Christmas – to see the Globe Theatre production of ‘A Christmas Carol’ with my parents. I thought about asking someone else to go with us but the empty chair, although heartrendingly poignant, also seemed somehow right. I summed it up quite well as we arrived for the performance.

Taking my parents to see ‘A Christmas Carol’. Like the Cratchitt’s though, there’s an empty chair.

A few days later I found the previous year’s Christmas candles ‘saved for next year’

Is there anything sadder than finding those things put away to ‘use next year’ when next year doesn’t come?