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A year today since G was murdered. I sit looking out at the fading December light, the mist descending on the moors, the rain falling steadily. Behind me a beautiful and huge Christmas tree which we have today decorated, having had to go on an unscheduled mission to Wilko's in Halifax for a new set of lights! It glows and twinkles in the darkening room. Soon I will light a fire, then later cook a good meal. I have a sense of having made it through something, survived a long and difficult stretch of the journey. And here I am. So glad to be here, so grateful for my life. And for the blessing of knowing G. I talk to her more these days, smile at her when life's paradox, synchronicity or irony raise my eyebrows. Which is not infrequently. I have had two therapy referrals, and though unexpected, they seem to go along with a sense of turning tide, the beginning of knowing I have some strength, some capacity to attend to the suffering of others.

Weirdly, we were to have been away this weekend, but a series of events (ice, car, sleep and stomach-related), culminating in the hotel phoning to say they had double booked our room, led to late cancellation. No regrets, not one. And the hotel are offering two nights for the price of one as an apology for the mix-up, which we plan to take up in the spring (and a bottle of prosecco in your room said the repetitively apologetic woman on the phone.) For now, home is best, and the sense of light in the darkness that the season brings is sustaining and comforting.