Weather-wise I think we can forget the past week but at least the wind has finally dropped. The Marin is not a gentle breeze to put it mildly; miraculously the serre stayed put – my neighbours’ blew away the last time it came through. Still, there’s a plus side to staying indoors – I’ve been lucky enough to have Callum to myself and had time to focus on what Denis calls ‘my micro enterprise‘. It’s a new career path but you’re never too old to change direction. The downstairs bedroom that kept Mumo comfortable has become my storage unit because there’s a leak in the garage roof and it’s too wet for Cal to get up there and fix it. Mind you, we did have a dry day yesterday which allowed me to clear the potager so we can start planting the summer salad stuff – I’ve put my foot down about spring onions though, we had so many last year the freezer still has bags of them in its depths.

Not a day goes by when I don’t miss Mumo, especially to talk to but I have my son who apart from being brutally honest at times, is an amazing listener. One such conversation last weekend brought up the subject of my drinking. Too much he told me; he remembered I’d done the same thing after his dad died and it left him traumatised. I know, a 59 year old woman taking advice from a 26 year old but then he has Tony’s sensible calm genes – albeit in our son’s words he has his mother’s crazy ones too. So apart from a humdinger of a night with friends Bruce and Suzy up the road yesterday, I’ve stuck to sobriety and feel much better for it. That is except for the broken sleep due to the amount of water consumed. My counsellor is off to London tomorrow although just for the day – a health certificate is needed for his visa back to Oz. I don’t think tuberculosis is running rife down here but hey. As much as I love him, he needs to go back to his familiar and I know he misses his friends.

Getting back to normality hasn’t been all that difficult although I have added a few other changes to my repertoire so to speak. I went over to the library in St-Hilaire on Friday before stopping by for tea with one of Mumo’s good friends. I’ve only ever visited Didier’s little book nook once but I promised him after the funeral that I would pop in. His library by the way is one of the two that will receive the donations many of you very generously made on behalf of our mum. Anyway, I came away with a couple of tomes all about French history, in French, which are now glaring at me over the kitchen island. I can’t remember the last time I was given a library card but I didn’t want to leave empty-handed and Didier waved the 5 euro subscription charge. Driving back home that afternoon, I stopped to take a photo of the Pyrenees – I must have taken a hundred snaps of the impressive mountain range over the years but the familiarity of the view was somehow settling.

And I am beginning to feel more settled. Since Mumo’s cancer diagnosis last Autumn, life has been anything but, yet experience teaches us about how we choose to deal with the afterwards. Put the bottle away for starters. I’m lucky enough to live on this beautiful property in South-West France surrounded by nature, have the chance to try my hand at something new and for now, my son next door. April is just around the corner and what the wind didn’t get, is covering the trees in colour. It’s still peeing down out there so the woofers are slouched inelegantly across sofas, considering their former residence was in London they are awfully picky about the weather and I’m writing this here blog. Familiarity is a great therapist…

“Familiarity breeds content” (Stephen Sondheim)