Howling

Friday 17th December

Day 240

I didn’t plan to, but this morning find myseIf in rubber gloves changing the sooty filter in the cooker hood and cleaning my grease spattered oven. I stop and watch the pussy cat playing on the crunchy white lawn flicking up snow with his paws, hurtling under the umbrellla leaves of the hellibore when it melts on his nose. Later I spot a chaffinch swinging from the wire mesh tube of fat balls in the apple tree. Staying alive in the winter cold.

This new snow, like new grief, changes the familiar landscape. Although my husband’s beloved face is the same as it was yesterday I’m caught out by gusts of sudden howling which fell me at the knees and I wonder what wild animal has snared itself in my throat.