On April 19th 2023, I moved from the home that I had shared with Gail.

It was a move I’d wanted to make much earlier but, by the time it occurred, it was something I desperately needed to do, as well. I felt confined in our old home: trapped by what it was and beaten down by what I couldn’t do to change it. It wasn’t as if I’d left the house exactly as it had been when Gail lived in it, but the changes I had made seemed inconsequential and trifling, while the alterations I wanted to make seemed big and frightening. The result was the place appeared tired and exhausted, depressed and lifeless. So did I.

The move caused a few well-meaning friends to ask if I was sure I was doing the right thing, but I knew. As so often happens, the reality was very different to what people saw.

As a couple, Gail and I never understood the concept of a ‘forever home’. We believed you shouldn’t stay anywhere longer than 8-10 years and we’d already long overstayed our welcome in Colchester even before the events of 2018.

The Easter before Gail died we’d been to look at a new house 40 miles away from where we lived in Colchester. We loved this place and – though I can’t say with certainty we could have afforded it with the financial situation we had then – I long-imagined after July 2018 that we would have lived there and things would have been better. Gail had been so poorly on the day we visited the house she could barely get up the stairs to see the bedrooms above, but even that decided her that we needed to cut down the extra flight of stairs imposed by living in the town house we already occupied.

I was told by one of Gail’s friends later that Gail had expressed some concern at moving at that time and, with her illness, that was understandable, but nobody was more aware of that than me, and her comments to her friend must have been clouded by her thoughts after, rather than our optimistic conversations we’d had on that lovely Spring day we’d made that journey. The move was never spoken about after Easter anyway as we both knew a fight was on, but I felt that concern was expressed as a criticism of me, that I was insensitive and I’d not taken her health into consideration. However, the fact is it was Gail who’d desperately wanted the move and been behind the decision to go and look that Bank Holiday. She was the instigator and, in fact, had she had her way, we probably would have moved eight years earlier.

Grieving gives you plenty of scope for beating yourself up and failure to move in 2010 looms large in that. Gail had wanted to go back to the seaside town where we’d had our first flat; the place where we’d initially moved in together in 1994. We stayed there for 18 months then but during that time we’d discovered that, not only did the local hospital have an excellent Lupus unit, but the sea air was also really good for my asthma. We liked the town too. I often wonder if things would have panned out as they did had we returned to there. I’m convinced she would have had better care.

As it was, I can’t even remember why the move fell through now; I know I felt pressure to increase a mortgage I was having no trouble in paying, it seemed pointless and a sideways step, and it was true that I’d got comfortable in the town house in Colchester even if I hadn’t initially wanted to move there in 2003. Workwise it was convenient and, being self-employed, it meant it opened up opportunities in nearby counties, places that it would have been difficult to get to had we moved back to where we started. Even so, we should have done it and I deeply regret not being more enthusiastic now.

I said the reality was different to what people saw and this was because what Gail projected and what she thought and said were often entirely different. She never wanted to offend or upset anyone – something she just saw as ‘rude’ rather than ‘honest’ – but, in private, her vehemence often surprised me. She actively said she hated where we were living and was desperate to move. Had 2018 not panned out as I did, I doubt we’d have been there in 2019.

Whatever happened in the past didn’t help or hinder me now though, it was just that trying to find a new place on my own put pressures on me I’d never experienced previously. I’d always moved with someone before, had the opportunity to discuss and dismiss things before eventually arriving at a decision. On my own, I just couldn’t make my mind up on what I wanted; there was no-one to bounce ideas off of. After aborting one purchase due to a chance remark that someone made that convinced me I’d made a mistake, I just found I was in a turmoil, finding fault in everything I looked at, to the extent I didn’t think what I wanted even existed. Everything seemed small compared to the town house and, though I knew I needed to lose some space, I wanted room for myself and everything I already had, and all the houses I looked at just felt ‘wrong’ somehow.

Of course, when I found something that suited me I realised instantly because my first thought was ‘If Gail was here then she’d have loved this’. The house, the layout, the size, area, the easy access to London – everything just seemed right and it made the decision easier. There were a lot of headaches – with a move when isn’t there? – but I was happy I’d done the right thing.

It’s still some way from being exactly as I want it but I’m gradually getting everything in place and I can picture what it will eventually become.

This is my new house. If Gail were to haunt me here then she’d see much she recognised, but it represents my own blank canvas (It’s new build I’ve never bought a place that someone has lived in before and don’t ever intend to) and I feel excited by the prospect. Our artwork, a lot of furniture, the things I use everyday in the kitchen have all travelled with me; Gail is undoubtably in the house but it is demonstrably also new and different. The house also represents something else though; it has effectively been purchased with money left by the passing of my parents and without that I wouldn’t be here, so I feel as if they have helped me for, perhaps, the last time and they would be pleased with that.

Just to confirm though, I’ve not run away from anything. I’ve taken the past and it now sits with a comfortable but uneasy present and an uncertain future.

What more could you ask for?