Planning to draw a tin of treacle.  But I couldn’t find one.  Then I thought I’d draw a tin of golden syrup instead.  There didn’t seem to be one of those either.  Then I realised I was too tired anyway and just decided to go back to bed in my new pyjamas.  Then there was a knock at the door and I found a policeman on the doorstep.  Me in my pyjamas trying to work out who had died and deciding probably just about everyone I love, him looking a little nervous and asking me what number my house was.

It took him a while to get to his point, leaving me plenty of time to mentally bury everyone close to me.  It turned out he was here to see K to tell her her sister had died.  I pulled on some clothes and went round with him to talk to her.

He again took a long time getting to his point.  She mentally buried all three of her daughters and two grandsons.  In the end it was a sort of relief when he told her it was her sister.  We sat and drunk tea, spoke to a funeral director and then went out into the sun and chopped wood.

After all that I needed something comforting to eat.  G had thought we were going to be snowed in again so had stocked up on tinned food.  I found some macaroni cheese.  I would usually make my own (3oz of macaroni boiled until just soft and a pint of very strong cheese sauced baked in the oven with more grated cheese on top), but this tasted good.

It’s twenty five years ago to the day that another policeman arrived on another doorstep and told my mother that my father had collapsed and died at work.

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