Hi blog readers!
I’ve had a few messages, in response to the last couple of blog entries, asking how Lizzie is doing. Obviously, it’s because the tone of these entries (particularly the last-but-one: ‘Statistics’) is pretty bleak!
Thank you – message-senders – for your supportive words to Lizzie, it’s really kind of you!
Just a quick reminder here that these blog posts are actually being posted a year (and a couple of months) after the events they describe. And things have very much picked up again in our lives for the better during that time (as you’ll find out if you continue reading the blog).
I think we’ve pushed the depressing cancer-survival-stats (referred to in ‘Statistics’) out of our minds, to be honest, as Lizzie’s happy and healthy at the moment – and is busy doing what she loves: painting away (she’s down in Devon right now doing exactly that – proof of which can be seen in the photo below, if proof is needed. Here’s her Instagram page too if you fancy a look).
Anyway, thanks to all of you who’ve followed our story so far. And now… let’s get on with the next entry! As I’ve said before, we’re a couple of months out of whack with our ‘one year later’ narrative approach… so we pick up our story again at the very end of winter 2022 (despite the fact that this entry is called ‘Summertime’. You’ll see why in a moment).
Enjoy! (I’m still not sure if that’s the right word to use, given the subject matter, but there it is…)
P.D.
It’s evening and we’re walking back up Bunton Hill with Cedric in tow, surrounded by late winter darkness.
I’ve heard these weeks described as being amongst the most depressing of the year. But, actually, the last twenty-four hours have been relatively uneventful and… well… fine.
This is the second time I’ve walked the dog today. I also took him out over the fields at lunchtime – the walk on which Lizzie usually accompanies me. This lunchtime, however, she decided to stay at home to paint mice.
So, here we both are on Cedric’s (and my) second walk of the day… getting closer to the house in the pitch black.
Lizzie hadn’t realised I already took the dog out earlier and when she does, she asks ‘did you miss me, on the walk?’
‘Yes,’ I reply, truthfully. I have actually been enjoying our daily walks together and our conversations. There have probably been plenty of times in the last fifteen years I would like to have walked the dog alone (if we’d had one, that whole time). I can’t deny it… I don’t always want to be chatting away to someone else, when I go out on leisurely strolls. I’m the kind of person who likes their own company. Usually, anyway.
But I mean what I just said to Lizzie. ‘I did miss you,’ I emphasise. ‘I’ve been enjoying our chats.’
‘Hmmm,’ says Lizzie, ‘I can’t see if you’re pulling a face.’
I keep the torch pointing in front of us and smile.
As we amble towards our rickety old home, I see the lights are on in the similarly rickety village hall opposite.
Jazzy music is coming from the hall – played by a brash brass band with a female vocalist singing along. I recognise the song. For a moment, I think it’s Summertime… but then I realise it’s Stormy Weather. It’s one of my favourite old songs, from when I had much broader tastes in music in my younger days. Billie Holiday, Etta James, take your pick of the wonderful versions. Even the one by Jeff Lynne (of ELO) is pretty good.
Despite the fact the words to the song are so forlorn, I find it glorious. ‘We should have a party in the summer,’ I say to Lizzie, ‘and get that band to play in the garden.’
Lizzie nods like that’s a good idea.
My brain is filled with the idea of a summer party, on our bizarre hill of a garden, filled with good friends chatting along to woozy old jazz classics. A party, a celebration, a full stop to one of the weirdest years of our lives.
Will it actually happen? I don’t actually know, as I write this.
But I hope so.
P. D. Clifton 
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