The weather in Yorkshire this morning suits my mood. Overcast with dark grey clouds dripping water down on us continually. The temperature is up though, it’s 9 degrees Celsius, or 48 degrees Fahrenheit or, for the science and engineering people amongst you, 282 degrees Kelvin. Kelvin sounds a lot warmer to me, perhaps we should all use it as our guide. It’s far cheerier as it is seemingly, hotter. It is easy to convert as you simply add 273 to the Celsius reading. That is, unless it is a reading below 0 degrees C, freezing point. If it’s below freezing, subtract it from 273. Minus 273.15 degrees Kelvin is absolute zero, it can’t get colder than that. This means that if it’s minus 10C on the thermometer, it will still be balmy 263K. Sounds a lot warmer, does it not?

These little things occupy my mind a lot and are totally irrelevant to my life, but the hamster wheel that my mind has become, stops me thinking of other things. It is 15 months now, or 25 months since the terrible news.

The main pleasure now is from a social club I joined. The club is run by the members and they do not receive any outside financial support from any source. In truth, they are generous in their support of many charities. It has been a revelation to me. They are a wonderful group of people who organise meet-ups and publish a forthcoming events list. Two ladies were appointed to look after me at my first introductory meet, and they never left my side all evening. They introduced me to whoever came up to say hello. Both are now very good friends of mine. It was quite a surprise to find that I am not alone in being alone. It happens to every couple eventually.

I don’t want to be the harbinger of miserable truths, but it has been the way for ten thousand years. One of a couple, barring accidents, goes first and the second one will find themselves alone to some degree. Family and friends are brilliant and mine have been, but it is still bad to wake on a morning as the only one in the house. I awake still hoping, against reason, that the person I still love will walk through the door. Eventually, after the loss and the initial attention, people have to get on with their own lives, their own aspirations, and their own career. Not seeing and interacting with anyone you know for a full day is bad. It happens a couple of time a week to me. That’s tough to deal with the next day, when that second day threatens to be a continuum. It leaves a taint on my mood.

I bought a motorbike a few months into this widower state. That, I found, bolstered me up to being content when on it. Riding it took me into a different world altogether, it has an element of excitement and danger, and so it proved to be. Sadly, it is still in the Suzuki dealership being repaired. I will tell all about that in my next post.