Would you like to look around?

 I open the gate and

 walk up the path of my old house

where we lived for 15 years

and ring the doorbell.

I have been invited for coffee.

A smiley young woman opens the door.

I last saw her 14 months ago when she rang the doorbell

and I invited her in.

She came to measure and count the kitchen cupboards

for the number of child locks she would need 

for when she and her family moved in.

She says

Would you like to look around? 

and she takes me on a tour of all the rooms which look exactly the same - 

the curtains and carpets, bamboo blinds

and kitchen stools we bought 

over the years.

But now there are children's toys in the sitting room, a sofa in the dining room,

a desk under the window in my study,

a bed in Robin's office,

boxes of tiles and a shower tray in the guest room.

She tells me their plans to re-model the bathroom. 

We sit at a glass topped table on clear perspex chairs in the kitchen. 

We drink de-caff tea

and eat her crumbly homemade round shortbread biscuits off 

old fashioned china plates.

And all the time I'm talking and smiling, 

 telling her the history of the fireplaces,

 and expecting to feel tearful or triggered,

I only feel pleased for her

that she loves the house

and is making it their home. 

And relieved that I

may be looking at the curtains I chose,

at the shrubs I planted in the garden, 

but there is nothing left of my life

here

 that I need to hold onto.

What matters is safe in my memory.

What matters is that I don't live in that life anymore but in this one...

in this present not that past.

And that is good.