Sadder but wiser!

Busy, busy. I hardly have time to do anything. The two year anniversary has turned me round a corner.

This morning I am just back from gym class. After two days of constant rain the sun has come out, and the air breathes damply while everything in the garden is emerald green. My friend J picks me up for gym Wednesdays and Fridays at 7.15 am and we wind our way through the Country Club traffic to the church hall outside Gate 6, where we have gym.

I get home smug with that feeling of recent and thorough exercise, somewhat trembly; it is good to sit down. I have no further plans for the day but I am going out this evening, to join friends for a light supper and to listen to live music at a nearby restaurant.

This is the key - I have plans and friends. As these people are widows or grass widows and several have lost their husbands six months, five months ago, I realise it has nought to do with time. The fact that I am turning this corner after two years is irrelevant. They are turning with me, somehow. We get along, we have a lot in common, we find solace in numbers and in activity. In fact we have fun.

But I do think. looking back, that the first year of my widowhood I was in shock. That year, as I look back, flew away; I was numb. I could not listen to music for a whole year, I cried in front of my television at the slightest thing; I got used to and pondered this new rented house very slowly, I wandered around like a mute. But time went quickly. It is almost as if I lost a year of my life.

And, of course, I had to handle reality in harsh bursts - like insurance, F';s estate, the selling of cars, the selling of the house. I broke down in tears at, of all places, the electricity board. A gentle Indian man full of consternation assured me that he would turn my electricity back on that very afternoon - I had had it turned off and the swimming pool had gone green. Transfer of the house was supposed to have taken place, it didn't. The estate agent was a huge lady who was completely unhelpful to me; she pointed out none of the pitfalls I fell into, she handled me roughly without sympathy or consideration of the fact that this was a steep learning curve for me; she was downright hostile.

I know why: my financial (F's estate) advisor had insisted that we use his choice of conveyancer and not hers; estate agents, he said, are usually in cahoots with their conveyancers, we will use our own. She was angry at this. Just let it be, I said. And constantly tripped up thereafter.

The pool is your responsibility! she hissed at me. Her hisses were constant, in answer to my every question. Eventually my daughter K, who is a tough little customer unafraid of confrontation, took over, to my bemusement. And gave this lady hell. I never heard from her again. After that the only contact I had was through my perfectly nice and reasonable lawyer/conveyancer when I signed papers, and that was that. I was left thoroughly rattled. But wiser.