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09.00 65F A late walk. Cloudy, with distant mist and so humid it felt like a sauna outside. Non-existent traffic. No birdsong except for distant, raucous crows.
It is four months, 17 weeks or 119 days, today, since my wife died. So much has changed. And yet so little. I still call out "Only me!" As I come indoors. To a home my wife might now struggle to recognise. Quite a few items of secondhand furniture are absent. She would not be able to find many of her possessions. Which would make her very cross! There is much more light and far greater freedom of movement. Both indoors and out. Even though I am still moving boxes around. To be able to work on certain projects.
Three months is not remotely long enough to accept she is no longer here. Far too short a time to not immediately associate her every possession with a memory.
I am now able to freely cross the front hall with both doors wide open. Which often leads to having to make a choice of route from the kitchen. To go upstairs or to go outside. Or even to reach the bathroom. The place is still a mess. Though slowly responding to my endless tidying and resorting. There is far too much repetition. Just to make sure I am not discarding important papers.
She kept everything. Going back to the 1960s and even reports from her schooldays. Her attendances at the post natal clinic. Wage slips from work. Receipts for literally everything. All neatly packed into envelopes into neatly packed boxes. She was a genius at packing and storing. Even when moving between different homes.
My blog is inevitably "all about me." Bragging about all the things I have done since my wife left. A stranger in a white, chipboard box in a black hearse, And even before that. The mad rush to clear all her packaging material from the house, the greenhouse and the sheds. All carefully stored for the house move which never, could never happen.
Responding to my desperate desire. To finally clear the unkempt hedges and huge trees she would never let me touch. Which prevented the car from leaving with its outside mirrors still extended. Made moving between sections of the garden a free shower after dew or rain. Causing her countless hours of wasted labour bagging fallen leaves.
I stopped crying every single day only after two months. The involuntary triggers were then reserved. For those occasional face to face discussions of my dear wife. There were far too few opportunities for this due to my complete rural isolation. So I continued to work on the house and garden. Just as I have done since she left.
I still have moments when I can hear her voice. In that twilight between my all too frequent dozes. I am often too tired to keep my eyes open at the computer. Or while watching YouTube videos on the TV. Should I keep talking to her when I am alone? It becomes more difficult and much less often now. Mostly when I am unsure about something. Which is all too often.
She was always there to advise. The steady voice of reason against my lifelong impulsiveness and idiocy. I relied on her completely for over half a century in maintaining the sensible path. She had to be responsible when I was often anything but. The burden must have been intolerable at times. My declarations of respect and love so seldom. As to be damned by faint praise.
Am I responsible enough now? Can I really manage on my own? It is a very steep learning curve! Maturity often beckoned but was ignored. Until it was [far] too late. Now I am the wrong side of 75 and everything is an uphill struggle. She cared for me too much. Leaving great gaps in my knowledge.
At first I was angry at her going. Then desperately sad. Constantly racked with guilt. I felt I needed to prove to her and myself. That I really could manage all the unfinished jobs. The countless things which jarred the eye as I ripped back the concealing layers. The veil of her obscuring curtains. Shedding the semi-darkness. Exposing a lifetime collection of perfectly packed boxes.
To finally expose the hideous reality of the cheap dump we bought in haste and desperation. Then filled to the brim with cheaply bought "treasure." For all of those 26 long years. After her mother completely lost the plot and rejected me. Ejected us both and inevitably, lost her only child.
Her mother had invited us over to live with her in her vast and dilapidated, old farmhouse. Which she could no longer afford to live in. Nor even heat. Leading to her poverty, separation and complete isolation from the child she claimed to love. After decades of clear and overt dislike of her chosen partner. I still have no idea why she invited us over. My wife would go over for short holidays with her.
It could all have been so very different. With perfect hindsight it would probably have ruined us to have stayed. Quickly depleting what little reserves we had left from the sale of the detached rural, Welsh cottage. Which we had rebuilt [literally] with our own hands from a pile of stones. Half buried in a sheep farmer's field. So that there were sheep up on the roof. As went for the official viewing.
Even working alone, the cost of repairs to her mother's old farmhouse would have been astronomical. Every antique window was single glazed, in very poor condition and always unsealed. There were large gaps under every, antique door. The cavernous roof was full of woodworm. The place ran with rats and mice.
Mice would sit and watch me as I had breakfast in the empty kitchen. Which she had ripped out and had never replaced. Including the sink! So that the washing up had to be done while kneeling in front of the bath. Not a good omen for a stable relationship!
She would insist on taking her huge Newfoundland and Alsatian on every trip in the car. So that every window steamed up and it was impossible to see out. She started stealing our post and ringing anybody and everybody. Those who were professionally involved in our buying our Danish hovel. Or our dealings with Danish officialdom. Not a good start in a new country!
Her mother even sent large cards through the post. Written in large capitals, in Danish. Saying that I was living off the Danish taxpayer. Which was complete nonsense. Because I was not entitled to a single kroner. We survived entirely on the proceeds of our house sale until I found work. We were the only Western Europeans at the Danish language school 25 miles away.
Meanwhile I was rebuilding the hideous mess which was our new home. Or going out bargain hunting in the car. Visiting charity shops and flea markets at weekends. Desperate to escape the neighbours from hell. Who constantly chainsawed firewood for their extended family. Right on the other side of the shared hedge. Or left the tractor running outside our windows. While they watched football on TV.
Or left multiple dogs to bark 24x14. While they went on holiday. Another neighbour would go over and feed them. The neighbours from hell got through a lot of barking dogs over the years. Probably because they were left in a narrow, overgrown slot. Between the house and the raised field. So that they never saw the sun. Nor ever enjoyed any exercise.
My greatest regret is that my wife will not enjoy all the "improvements" I have made to the house. It could never have happened in her lifetime. She hated change and my making a mess. I was never allowed to touch her storage boxes. They were private. So that things gradually became old and tired and dirty. Or riddled with woodworm and strewn with cobwebs.
I would give anything to have her back. To be be able to undo all the wrongs, the failures, the disappointments and omissions. To really share my feelings for her. I tried to do that in her last week. As she lay dying. Doped up with morphine in the hospital bed in the middle of the living room.
We had so much to discuss but it was just a monologue. My voice droning on. As she lay with her mouth wide open. Increasingly unrecognisable as the cancer took its final toll. They say that people can understand voices while under the effects of morphine. I just hope she heard me say how much I loved her. Over and over and over again.
12.00 74F bright overcast. Three more wood-cement boards are up on the north side of the balcony room. What a struggle! Too hot!
I should move everything across to that side now. So I put up the next three on the south side. Which will leave only the short section to the floor. It is impossible to photograph the sloping ceilings until I can crouch down on the far side. I need more distance. Even with wide angle on the TZ7. Now I definitely need a rest!
13.40 74F/23C Lunch over. Getting back to fixing the next row of boards on the other side. I have all the windows open to get a through draught in the balcony room.
14.15 76F/ 24C. The last row of three full boards are up. 18 boards so far. A long strip is missing nearest the inner wall. Plus the two, small rectangles where the boards had to be cut. To fit around the timber crosspiece.
Now I'll have to think about the lowest section. Short vertical walls? Or following the slope? It is certainly much lighter out there. After so many years of bare, ugly rockwool covered in disintegrating polythene. The floor stacked high with our inaccessible junk. It was almost always hidden behind concealing curtains on the tall, glazed, double doors. More darkness.
19.00 65F/13C. It has started raining and it is time to think seriously about making some dinner. The mushroom are off. Slimy, spotty and smelly. Whoops! 😱
What about fish fingers, tinned tomatoes and beans. Again? That was only last Tuesday. I haven't mentioned that I bought some baking paper for the oven tray. Well, now I have. It works.
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