Yesterday morning, two years after the death of our father, my sister and I carry a pot of three emerging hyacinth bulbs and a small fragrant rosemary bush, up the hill to the grave where he and my mother are buried. I cut the grass round the concrete plinth with kitchen scissors and she waters the pots and dead-heads the primulas. The sky is a soft dense pearly white.
Afterwards, continuing the tradition, we go to the Boston Tea Party Cafe opposite the Abbeyfield Home where my father lived at the end of his life. We sink into a deep squashy sofa, drink peppermint leaf tea. And spill our memories.....of being in this place with our big sister, our niece and our brother the day after his death, after choosing flowers for his coffin and toasting him in ginger beer - his favourite tipple.
Late afternoon my husband and I drive through sheeting rain to Plymouth to meet our new great-neice who's just over a week old. I hold the tiny weight of her - 7 pounds - in my arms and marvel at her miniature perfection. Her mother says that her stomach is the size of a grape. Her little bottom would cup easily into the palm of my father's hand. How he would have loved to greet her.
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