So yesterday was/would have been our 58th wedding anniversary and was most definitively a day to which I was not looking forward whatsoever but just wanted to get through. I had tried to make plans to go out for the day but these have fallen through so I will rely upon the usual routines associated with a Tuesday which are to meet some of my friends for a coffee in Wetherspoons followed by my weekly Pilates session. I did indulge myself a little the night before by looking at some of the websites available on Prime on coping with the grieving process but leaving aside the American psychobabble, of which there is quite a lot, I hardly learnt anything at all. Practically off of their recommendations I am already doing but one UK British psychotherapist informed me that that wedding anniversaries, as they were devoted to you and your married partner focused solely on each other rather than on a birthday, were in his experience the hardest of all anniversaries to cope with. The psyschotherapist had experienced the death of his wife eight years previously and I suppose I should applaud his honesty but it was really not what I wanted to hear. He spoke about living in the ‘Now’ rather than I the past which I am rather struggling to understand – after all, it is not possible to wake up alongside one’s spouse for an estimated 21,000 plus times and not miss them is it? But instead of wallowing in self-indulgence (which I am sure my son would say to me) I did locate a source of some 22 well-chosen quotes to help you come to terms with the end of a relationship and these I have put in a link and forwarded to my own email so that I can print them off and will read them to myself over breakfast.
One good thing to lighten my mood before I went to bed last night was a revelation from some of the Epstein files handed over to a Congressional Committee in the USA. Files from a ‘birthday book’ compiled for the sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein appear to include a glowing contribution from the current UK ambassador to Washington, Peter Mandelson. The pages are contained in files from the estate of the deceased billionaire paedophile, handed over to a Congressional committee. The collection of birthday tributes includes a hand-drawing of a woman’s body, signed ‘Donald’. This drawing is handed over and is now published for all of the world to see. What is fascinating is that this drawing Donald Trump has variously proclaimed ‘not to exist’ (but now that we know that it does) or to be a fake which is the Trump response to anything he does not like. Donald Trump is suing Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal for publishing the information about the letter but now it is all in the public domain and does not look good for Trump as his previous denials are exposed as a complete lie. So, Trump can either drop his law suit (unlikely) or can go ahead and have to defend himself in a court where the evidence against him is pretty damning. The comments overall from the liberal media are that none of this looks at all good for Trump and his usual tactic of a threatening a huge law suit to silence critics may well backfire.
In the morning, I spent quite a lot of time with our domestic help talking over family matters (both hers and my own) here I always welcome her advice. Then I walked down the hill and made my way to Wetherspoons where I made contact with one of my regular coffee mates. The kitchens in Wetherspoons are being renovated for the next fortnight so all of the regulars will have to do without their daily supply of food and this probably explains why the pub was so quiet today. After chatting with one friend, I spent a few minutes with the other and struck for home, knowing that I had my Pilates session later on in the day. I changed into shorts (as I had promised my fellow classmates) and then went down for the session by car not in the best of spirits or moods as I could not stop reflecting on the first wedding anniversary on my own since Meg’s passing. But I think that one hour of exercise probably helped to lift my mood a little, although I always knew that today was one to be endured rather than enjoyed. Out of interest, I did consult this blog for a year ago and noted that Meg was still quite ‘compus mentis’ on our last anniversary, We had been to ‘The Lemon Tree Cafe‘ on the morning of the anniversary and then some friends called round in the afternoon and we shared a bottle of Prosecco. The following day, we had gone down the hill and shared a chocolate cake (donated by Waitrose) and I believe that Meg had enjoyed all of this but her decline was to accelerate, particularly after the chest infection just after Christmas and she had died with eight months of our last anniversary. As soon as I arrived home after my Pilates session, I treated myself to a mackerel risotto which I made according to my tried and trusted recipe but I tried not to make it too large. At the end of this, I received a telephone call from the Honda garage which used to supply us with a Motability vehicle and our contact was probably trying to arrange a servicing which is due about this time. When I informed him that Meg had died, he seemed shocked and absolutely lost for words although this cannot be such an extraordinary event for Motability customers. Even later, I got an automated text from our doctor’s surgery to arrange a COVID booster jab in about a months’ time. Fortunately, I could do all of this via the automated system and I replied immediately to the text to ensure that I was well and truly in the system for my booster. Last year, Meg and I received the booster directly from a District Nurse but evidently this year, I shall attend the surgery in about a month’s time.