No letters today, the postman has just walked past.
I look out of the kitchen window whilst I make a brew and toast for breakfast.
The birds are up and about, they are really going at that fat ball I hung out. Her next door whinges at me, she says I shouldn’t encourage them as they ‘poo’ on her washing.
She doesn’t like gardens, as long as she has a full line of washing out that’s all that matters to her.
I like my garden, I like to see the flowers grow, how they attract different birds and insects.
Sometimes when I open the curtain and see a beautiful coloured flower it brightens up the day for me. The scent given off reminds me of the time when my sinuses were continually blocked and I couldn’t smell them, so now the fragrance seems more intense for me.
The sky is full and grey, nothing new there, it just seems to bear down on me making everything seem hard work. Really need a spell of sunshine to brighten everything up.
I take my tea and toast to the living room, sitting on the couch I put my brew on the chair arm and smile, I always got told off for doing that ‘put it on the table’ she would say. I always do it, put the tea on the chair arm, and it always makes me smile, so I put it on the table.
Although it’s been 6 years now since she passed away it seems like she has only gone next door at times. Things she said and did remain with me on a daily basis, almost showing me how to look after myself. I miss her.
Don’t get me wrong I don’t weep and wail saying why me etc, but I do just miss – her.
The kids come round and look in on me, 2 boys and a girl we had, always very close to their mum not me, I was always out at work. Now when they come I find it hard to talk to them, it’s easier to talk to their kids than them.
She was like a tube of glue, she seemed to hold everything and everybody together. She made sure you remembered anniversaries and birthdays, if anything happened in ‘her’ family she was the one that got everyone rallying round.  

Got to wash up and put a load of washing on before I go out, she has really trained me hasn’t she, it’s right though, get it done, don’t let things pile up.
Nothing much on today, could go down the ‘club’ but I don’t want a drink. Could go down the bookies but they have had enough money out of me. So my old favourite comes back, a walk!
I used to only walk the town streets, but it’s depressing, all them young ones none of whom seem to work slouching about. So I walk in the country, there’s loads of paths, some you have to dig around the bushes to find.
The further you get away from the town the more ‘rustic’ things seem. High technology gadgets in the town yet the farmers still use a bit of old rope to tie up a dilapidated old gate.
Some of the fences are hedges. If you look closely you can see how they used to be ‘laid back’ to make the new growth grow up and then make the overall hedge thicker. Now they are left and a big mechanical cutter comes and ravages the top and sides, it looks awful, if the hedge could talk I wonder what they would say.
I love to sit on a hill and look around, I always marvel at the amount of dry stone walling, that someone had quarried, carried, dug out for foundation and then built mile upon mile of dry stone wall amazes me. That’s another thing, there are a lot of old quarries dotted around you never see, usually surrounded by thickets and notices saying danger do not enter. Looking through though you can see it is a haven for wildlife. I do sneak in sometimes and sit and watch, a bit like a naughty school kid really, but I’m doing no harm as far as I’m concerned.

A quick look round, washing up done, washing in machine, tidied up (well enough for me), all done just to get my coat and dog and then off!
She’s been a good companion to me has my dog, and yes that’s what I call her – dog! She has kept me together during the bad times by just being there like a link from what was to what is. The kids say the house smells of ‘dog’, but I don’t mind, although it is probably worse in winter when you don’t open the windows the same. Our walking speeds match nowadays, she used to almost pull my arm off, now we seem happy enough just going at an ‘amble’ type of pace, certainly see and hear a lot more.
It’s 7am, a strange time of day, just after the early shifts have gone in and just before the normal shifts go on. But it’s quiet, especially in the fields. If I cut along the fields next to the main road there is sometimes one of those mobile cafes just right for a midmorning brew and buttie!
I was always taught as a lad never to walk through the middle of a meadow, walk around it. This field has a path going diagonally right through, I suppose the farmer must have thought it would limit the damage.
These hills seem to get steeper, I’m not the only one though whose ‘puffing’ my old dog is just as bad, so we sit on the top and have a chat to each other. I’ve had some funny looks from others using the path coming from the other side.
Just sitting and looking around it brings many thoughts back to me, I think of all we have done as a family, the holidays and days out, and I think of the money we’ve spent, was it really worth it? And the kids now going through the exact same cycle now, I wonder what they will think as they get older.
I suppose I am saving now more than I ever have done, probably because I’m not really spending anything either, something she was always good at, spending right up to what we could afford.
Ah never came on walks like this with me, and that is something I regret, she used to when we first met, but then well the family took over and she had other things to do whilst I took the kids out, well the ones that would come!
We had a biggish house then with a garden, no pets, we had enough to look after with the kids and their mates without pets as well. Everyone thought it strange when I got a dog, but it seemed to me the only thing to do.
Sitting here I look at the clouds and try to ‘see’ shapes, my dog lays next to me peaceful, when she was younger she would be scampering around whining that we had sat too long.
We do get moving and follow the path next to the wall, the grasses are slightly different next to the wall as they never get cut they get a chance to proliferate so we get many different types. You never appreciate things like that when you are in a factory day after day.
In the distance I can see the mobile café and we head towards it. Me for a brew and buttie and her for a large bowl of water and whatever I am carrying in my bag. Lots of different people stop here, wagons, cars, bikers, they all say hello and ruffle my dog’s head, she must get fed up of that. It gives me chance to talk about different things though for ½ and hour, things we used to talk about when I was working but never get the chance now. We say our good-byes and head overland again to where the river flows through a copse of trees, it’s about a 1-1/2 away in a circular type of walk.
It’s good to get away from the noise of the road again, and hear the birds.
I used to think that this was the boring part of the walk as nothing seemed to happen, nowadays I like it for just that reason. It is a place in the walk where you’re mind can let go and you sort out those little problems that had been niggling for ages, before you know it the copse has risen right in front of you and you wonder where the time has gone.
Through the copse and there is a sheltered glade, this is our lunch stop except there is never any lunch. It’s a place where we have our constitutional 45 winks, fresh air, birds singing a lullaby and the gurgle of the water flowing by, beats sitting in front of the ‘goggle box’ in stale air vegetating away any day.
One of us generally wakes the other after about ½ an hour, and then we sit, stare and listen for another 15 minutes or so, just taking the scene in before we struggle up an set off.
Early afternoon and the light is as good as it gets but is subdued by the greyness of the cloud cover. This particular copse is quiet old, the trees are gnarled and warped with the ravages of long gone storms. There is a lot of vegetation around the base of the trees except where the coniferous trees grow, there undergrowth is nil caused by the needles of the leaves dropping down, it’s better than ordinary garden mulch for stopping grasses growing through.
The ground soil changes as we walk through, from a ‘peaty’ structure to a more natural ‘soily’ structure with a track-way running through the side which seems really full of clay. None of the surroundings seem to have seen the rigours of man for many years and another haven for wildlife is made.

The town we live in follows a shallow valley, so we gain height and follow the valley from the ridge of a long hill. All the way along you see the town, you remember how it used to be and see how it is now with industrial estates and new housing cutting through the playing fields of youth. It makes me think of what my own kids would think as they get older of the changes that occurred in their lifetime.
No matter how many times we do this walk it is the same routine, with the same thinking patterns.
Although I’m starting to get hungry I don’t want to head home. Once there it seems to go downhill as the training my wife has given me over the years comes into play with the vacuuming, hanging washing out, preparing food (not allowed that processed stuff – so I don’t tell her).
I was offered meals on wheels, they said they would come around everyday at set times and it would be all done for you. Every day, set times, didn’t like that one bit so I said no and listened to the kids saying I’m daft, but whilst I still can get out and about that’s exactly what I am going to do.
I was even offered home help, I had this vision of my wife in head going balmy at me at letting someone come into our house to clean when I was perfectly able to do it, so I smile to myself and again said no. One of the kids said it was more about me having to pay than anything else, I must admit that that did play a part in my decision and an element of truth was there.

No matter how old you get there are still only 24 hours in a day, but as you get older everything around you seems to slow down, everything that is except time itself. And the ridge soon slopes back down into the town and onto the edge of the estate we now live. We moved there 2 years before she passed away, so I still feel her presence in every little nook and cranny. It’s council owned and held back for more elderly people, I’m glad we moved when we did the old house would have been far to big and the memories bigger.
Entering the estate is in itself very nice, but plain, the areas are all grassed, they did talk about putting flower beds in but were concerned that the children would come and destroy them. I don’t blame the kids directly, they don’t know any better, so I have a largish tub outside our house to provide the colour I need.

Three cars are parked outside my house, it’s the kids, and they never walk anywhere. I wonder what they want to come over like this en-masse? 
I kick my shoes off at the door and make my dog wipe her paws and we go in, they are all sat there, their kids playing with toys out of a toy box we have always kept.
They all look at me and smile, ‘what’s up with you lot’? ‘happy birthday’ they cry out, well it didn’t sound like that as they all started it at different times. The younger ones ran up and grabbed my legs squeezing tight, what could I say?
It put a little pang in my heart this morning when the postman went past, but I’d always said not to bother with me at birthdays, so there was no-one else to blame. But now they were all here and it felt great. There were a few parcels on the table and ½ a dozen cards, I felt a tear well up in my eye, now that wouldn’t do!
Come on, get changed we are all going out, I dread formally eating out, I much prefer a café. So I went and got changed and came back in, they all looked at me and stared, where do you think you are going? I was a little stunned at first and didn’t know what to say, jeans and tee shirt or something like that my daughter said, ‘oh’, so I went and got changed, again. I don’t particularly like surprises, well I do but I don’t – the only person ever to do it to me was my wife and she knew how to handle me, so this was, well… uncomfortable,
We all got in the cars and I asked the children where we where going, my kids laughed and said they don’t know we haven’t told them, we know what you are like and that you would try and weasel it out of one of them.
We went round to one of the WMC, I’d been in a few times but couldn’t understand why we would be going here, the food was nothing more than a pie and pickled egg followed by a bag of crisps at best.
We all got out, the kids grinning like Cheshire cats, and we went into the bar, I strode up and asked what everyone wanted to drink and I was marshalled off into the function room. As they opened the door and shoved me in everyone stood up and shouted happy birthday, the place seemed full, I knew everyone but didn’t realise I knew so many. A small 4 piece band in the corner cracked up and most got up doing a line dance, I was dragged into the centre and felt emotions that hadn’t stirred for years coming through.
As soon as the dance finished I had a pint shoved in my hand and people kept coming round saying hello old codger and happy birthday, kisses from women, and someone pinched my bum!
I wasn’t allowed anytime for myself all night, I spent it all drinking, eating and reminiscing. There were the obligatory speeches towards the end. And I was too choked to say anything, so my kids and grandchildren did it for me.
When I got home I sat down and opened my last cards and parcels from the kids. The cards I spread around the room, as I had been told to do for too many years. There was one space on the mantle that I kept clear, and I placed a card from seven years ago there from her.
I sat and looked around, and tears rolled down my cheek. My dog came around and sat next to me with her head laid on my leg. I was alone again, but I still had her spirit with me right there with me.