Well, we’ve moved and slowly adjusting to many experiences of difference. Simple things like remembering where light switches are and which ways cupboard doors open. Oh, and where do we keep the biscuits now? Slowly the brain’s hard-wiring of 17 years will fade and be replaced by new wiring over the months to come. I hope so or I’ll never find the Tim Tams!

Unpacking has been interesting as I’ve also used it as an opportunity to sort out a few containers found lurking at the back of cupboards and shelves. They say you should do that before you move but I ran out of time. So I’ve been making my way through stuff that I had just put into a tub ‘temporarily’. Everything lying there like layers of sediment built up over many years. At the bottom of one tub I found a small card sent by a friend who is no longer with us. I hadn’t forgotten her; I just hadn’t thought about her for a while. But as I read her short note again, everything about her and our friendship came flooding back.

Of course I felt the sadness again, but the remembering was good. Her sharp wit. Her politics. Her passion for justice. And then I remembered her illness. How strong and frail she was. How much she just loved life and the people in her world.

She said once that love is the only thing that gives life meaning.

It was good to find that card again.

David Pargeter