Coming to an end....

Last day in Portugal Friday 31st March. Robin's birthday.

I pick bouganvillia  flowers and daisies and sweet peas growing wild at the edges of the cliff path and find my way

down to this beach, where once we played a game of frisbee. The tide is out this time too,

and I wade out as far as I can beyond the rock pools and throw my bunch of wild flowers into the sea. 

A wave sweeps them up and they are gone in an instant.....as quick as his last breath. 

Sea anemone waving in the rock pool just near where I threw the flowers.

It was so hot the day before I had to buy a wide brimmed hat.

A pebble I picked up to take back to his grave.

 The last time we were here. He would have been 64.

It was also the day I began a new letting go.... saying goodbye to hurting myself with regrets and recriminations .....unchaining myself from guilt....letting myself remember all the sweetness of Robin and not only the hard and horrible times.

Today I have been clearing out the kitchen. Taking down the framed pictures and the photos on the fridge, putting away the bottles of oil and the knife block and the stacks of bowls on the counter tops.

And painting sample squares of Dulux colour on the walls. In the end I choose one full of light called Dutch Gold - although I'm still not sure it will go with the tiles. But I have run out of time. On Monday the decorators are coming in to clean the walls where the candles made a mess....Robin encouraging me to let go..... and to paint the rest of the kitchen. As the decorator said of the Dutch Gold - it's not a safe colour but good if you want to make a change.  Which I do.

I'm going away for a week tomorrow.  So I won't be blogging.

 And I know this blog is coming to an end soon. It was my sweet niece who encouraged me to start it. I wrote the first one on 20th April 2010. Seven years ago next week.  It was 6 months before I knew about Robin's illness then and it'll be about 6 months now since he died.

 It feels like a natural ending.