Tuesday 13th November 2018

Tuesday.

Market day in Kings Lynn.

Still.

Death has been busy along our street this year, it has taken Bob over the road, the American gentleman in the house nearest the fields, and has cast a shadow over another as he battles terminal cancer. He was given three months to live, six months ago. But last week, Barbara over the rad was taken.

We have lived here for nine years nine months, and Barbara had spoken to us just the once, the week we moved here, demanding we sign her petition to stop houses being built at the end of the road. We had never spoken to her husband, who we now know is called Walter, until last week.

To say that Barbara and Walter liked to keep themselves to themselves would be an understatement: their garden is surrounded on all sides by either a high fence or hedge, and Barbara usually said what she wanted and no one else got a look in. We have friends both sides, and they had no love lost with Barbara.

But we knew she was ill. A nurse was a regular visitor, and Walter took her out in a wheelchair or carefully looking on as she struggled with a zimmer frame as she tried to keep mobile while walking up and down the street.

We met Walter last week as we went out, and I thought whether to speak or not, as they had pretty much ignored our existence for the last near decade. But Walter spoke, said hello. And we said that back too, and wished that Barbara was well.

Sadly, she has died, he told us, slipped away at a hospice. He smiled in the way that that someone who has lost his love can.

Barbara may have been a dragon, or worse, to us and our neighbours, but to Walter she was his love, and now she was gone.

I mention this now as we thought that Tuesday was her funeral. More of that later.

So, a Tuesday, one with just 6 working hours, meant that I had to squeeze a full day's work into two hours less.

I like a challenge.

But I get it done, all completed by two in the afternoon and ready for when Jools comes home. I pack the office away amd am waiting, just about to walk in the garden when she arrives.

We bot go up to change, neither of us looking very comfortable in our sombre clothes.

On the way out I take the flyer which was the invite, kinda, for the funeral.

Odd, I say reading, the wake in on Wednesday I say.

So is the funeral.

What, the 14th, not the 13th?

Yes.

On.

So, no funeral.

Instead we go for a walk, and just as we begin to walk over the fields, I think I see a badger in the field. As we get close we see it is a highland terrier, happily snuffling around. We ponder what to do, but in the end go over to have a look and find the wee chap is almost blind, by happy enough to meet us, but he's off again sniffing the ground. So we leave him, but decide of he's there once we have walked to the dip and back, we would take him to the vet.

Not much else to report, most leaves are off the trees now, so our walk is golden carpeted, but already getting dark and cool. So we scuttle back home but can so no sign of the wee doggie, so assume his owner came to find him.

We have early dinner of insalata, and later, after Jools had been shopping, Magnum with our evening brews, because, because we like em.

We listen to the radio, lots of music to hear and enjoy, before tiredness takes us to our beds at nine.