When I was 19 I got engaged and married, I also lost two grandparents. My mum’s dad (who died on my birthday and the day I officially got engaged) and my dad’s mum, both died within a few months of each other, both in their sixties, and they missed the first wedding of a grandchild. At the time I thought they were quite old, but now that I am approaching 65, still feeling like I did when I was young, I realise they were not old at all.

My life continued with my husband and we brought up four children together, watching them grow and developing into fine young people. In 1996, as if history was repeating itself, our children lost two grandparents, first my mother-in-law, while we were in France so I could see my dad who was very ill in hospital, and a few months later he died too. Again they were both in their sixties and taken too soon.

As life moved on we had the joy of watching ten grandchildren join our family, growing oh so quickly and enhancing our lives in so many ways, bringing joy, laughter and happiness.

Then the unimaginable thing happened and my husband got ill, he fought so hard, but we lost him. Husband, father and grandad, taken too soon and in his sixties.

Life has shown me that there are no guarantees and after a time of grief, sadness and loneliness my brother-in-law told me it was about time I started dating.

I had no idea how I was going to meet someone when I rarely went out, except for my walks and birdwatching, and the chances of finding someone who wanted to do that with me seemed a remote possibility. So there was really only one way, a dating app. Turns out that dating Apps are quite horrible, soul destroying you might say. But receiving a lovely message from someone I’d ‘liked’ to say ‘it’s a shame we live so far apart as we have so much in common’, (I googled the town and thought ‘it’s near Bristol, that’s not so far’, only to discover a few days later, after seeing a picture of mountains, that it was in southwest Wales), and not letting that stop us from continuing to message, has led to a deep friendship with a like minded soul. We share a similar past, both suffered a great loss, and our families mean the world to us.

We decided we had to meet and from that day we have never looked back. We enjoy walks, wildlife watching, going to old houses and eating cake. We are taking life by the horns, enjoying every minute, planning how to spend our time and not letting the grass grow around our feet. We will try to wing it occasionally, as I’ve never been a planner, and just let the wind blow us along to the next adventure.

Happy days are now every day, and we definitely plan to live, laugh and love.

Over the last couple of years I have made a list of the birds that I have spotted on my walks. I don’t make big efforts to see new birds, I definitely don’t stand around for hours to catch a glimpse, that’s not the way I bird watch, but I might make a trip to a place where I have heard a sighting has been made, I will try to spot the bird and take some photos, but then I will move on and continue my walk.

January had been a great month for sightings, my list isn’t enormous, but the birds I have seen are wonderful.

I like to confirm my sightings with a photograph, or confirmation from someone else seeing it too.

Being able to identify so many birds (78 so far) is an enormous sense of achievement, since a few years ago I knew so few. I still have lots to learn, but with each new identification I feel a great sense of learning and pride.

Some of my photographs are really bad, but are proof, if proof were needed that I have spotted the bird .

Each year I manage to add a bird to the Year’s list that I’ve never seen before, and this year I have managed to see a new bird too, the Waxwing. Such a beautiful bird.

Can’t wait to see what other birds I will spot this year.

I don’t know how ten years have passed since I suffered my mental health breakdown and having suffered so much loss and heartache in that time, sometimes I am amazed that I have not had another major episode. Instead I mostly seem to be managing to keep going and to be able to keep smiling and laughing with my family and friends.

There have been many happy moments over the last ten years, beginning with the birth of my ten year old granddaughter, and her little brother a couple of years later. There was the birth of my beautiful triplet grandchildren, my daughter and son-in-law’s wedding, and then the birth of their fifth child, another granddaughter. Then we had the addition of my middle daughter’s third son, taking the total of grandchildren to ten. All these occasions were beautiful and full of joy.

But interspersed between the happy events were the major events which affected us all. My mum passed away the day after my birthday after a long illness in a nursing home. I found coping with my mum’s death and funeral preparations made more difficult by a total lack of compassion shown by my managers at work. This led to the start of a decline in my mental well being at work and an all consuming desire to leave.

My husband had a serious accident on a building site, breaking and fracturing many bones. It took many weeks to start to recover from the accident. Not sure how I managed to hold it together, but I did. I also began comfort eating and slowly and surely increasing my weight.

My husband recovered from his accident and changed his job working in a plumbing company supplies unit and driving supplies to sites. He put all his efforts into doing the job well, and on some of his longer journeys up to Newark I would go too to keep him company, my day off permitting. Something I am now really glad I was able to do. I have some nice memories of these trips we took together. At this time I also handed in my notice at work, my husband said ‘just write a letter and leave’, so I did.

My husband started to feel unwell and it wasn’t long before he started to show signs of looking unwell. We received the news together that he had cancer and would require major surgery. I remember walking behind him down the stairs and desperately trying not to cry out loud as the tears filled my eyes.

We booked a family holiday to Portugal to make some nice memories just weeks before the operation was planned. My husband was in a lot of pain, but he so enjoyed spending time with half of our grandchildren, encouraging them to learn to swim.

A few days into our holiday we had the devastating news that my brother had died. Tragic news that left us sat in stunned silence trying to digest it.

My brother had lived in France with his family for many years and French laws say that a funeral must take place in six days, so upon our return to England from our holiday my sister and I had to make another journey, with another sister and brother-in-law, to France for the funeral.

The next day after the funeral, we returned to England and then the journey began for my husband’s cancer treatment.

Covid and lockdown all took a toll while my husband was having his treatment. During chemo his oncology appointments were on the phone, not ideal to not be seen or to be able to really discuss how you felt, or how the treatment was going. A few months after the chemo finished my husband said he wasn’t feeling right and again he needed to be seen and more surgery was prescribed. Bowel surgery was performed and an ileostomy and bag fitted. My husband was really saddened by this and never really felt ok about it. But he wasn’t ok and a couple of months on was experiencing real pain and he knew something was really wrong. It was so hard to get anyone to see or speak to him but with our GP’s help we finally got him into hospital. But it felt like the treatment he was getting wasn’t doing anything to help him and he would be sent home after a couple of days of no food, the only thing they seemed to want to do. He went into hospital three times, but because of covid I couldn’t be with him and they kept moving him from one ward to the next, because the wards were all being filled with covid patients. The last time he was sent home we picked him up without any advice and without it being really explained that it was end of life. Macmillan contacted us and this began the saddest time of our lives. I kept it together for him, but my world was falling apart. Within three weeks he passed away. Because of covid we could only have 30 people at the funeral. That didn’t begin to cover all the family, let alone friends and colleagues. My children were amazing helping me get through it all.

There were so many cards and messages that I decided to make up some memory books for the cards, messages on social media and letters, and an album of his life from beginning to the end. I wrote out everything that people had said to us, all the lovely stories they recited, it kept me going for weeks and showed me all the love that was felt for him.

Months later when covid restrictions were over we had a get together at the house for everyone to be able to say goodbye properly. The house and garden were overflowing. So great to see so many old faces.

I would like to say that I am feeling good now more than two and three quarter years on, but each day is still a struggle. I can work, meet up with friends, laugh out loud at the funny things that happen each day. I can go for great days out and walks through the forest, or on the coast, all the things that are so good for mental wellbeing, but driving home from a great walk I can still feel the joy run from my body and my eyes burn with the tears I’m holding back. Life is not the same, the days are short, but the nights are long, but I will just keep going and look for the joy in being here, surrounded by the family my husband was so proud of, and try harder to live more, laugh more and love more.

Over the last few months I have been seriously wondering how my life will be lived going forward. Although I know I can cope on my own, I have no worries about tackling jobs around the house, dealing with the car and other problems that arise, but now I question whether I want to do it on my own. I’m happy with my own company, but that doesn’t mean I want to always be alone.

This last weekend my brother-in-law said ‘you have been alone long enough, you should start dating’.

But that is easier said than done.

It is 47 years since the last time I started dating someone, August 2nd, 1976. In fact, apart from a few one off dates in my teens, this was the beginning of the only true relationship I ever had. From the beginning we talked about the future and our dreams. I am pretty sure few people had this with their first relationship, but it means I have absolutely no experience to guide me through the next hurdle in my life, dating.

At the weekend I did stumble my way through a conversation with a dear friend who I have had some mixed feelings about for a while, but it did prove one thing to me, that you have to be open and honest about your feelings so that no one gets hurt. It took me right back to being a kid and realising the person you like is interested in your friend, not you.

But now, where do I go from here. It will be hard to find someone to share my life when I don’t really go anywhere.

As I’ve got older I have felt like I’ve become invisible. In my experience men of any age will always talk first to the younger female in a room, which has made me feel even more less significant, not great for self esteem that’s for sure.

I was thinking today about dating apps. How on earth will I entice someone to pick me. ‘Likes birdwatching, walking, binge watching foreign crime dramas, playing really loud music in the car and singing along, laughing at my own burps ( and others) cheap to run, one careful owner.’ Do you take a selfie for your profile picture, or select a photo from many years ago, when you had a cleavage and could still walk in high heels. I really don’t think I could handle the rejection.

I certainly don’t have any idea if I have a type of man I would be looking for, although the list is endless for the personality traits I would be looking for. A very wise man always said to me ‘you can tell a lot about a man by the way he treats his mother and his dog’, though at my age it may be harder to find a man who still has a mother. I know I would like someone who will hold my hand, make me laugh, enjoy a cuddle on the sofa, not mind that I’ve sort of forgotten how to cook, because he can cook anyway, not get cross when I can’t make up my mind, and come up with great ideas of things to do and places to go.

I don’t know much, but I do know I want to be happy.

A few years ago I went on a twilight walk with my brother, and a guided group of birdwatchers, to try and see the nightjars on a local common. We had a lovely evening, hearing and seeing the nightjars and woodcock flying over too.

I have often done the same walk during the day to look for dartford warblers, sometimes successfully.

The last few weeks I have been considering doing the walk as the sun sets, to catch a glimpse of the nightjars as they become active. ‘Sounds like a good plan’ I can hear my inner voice saying, but it’s not that simple. For one thing I have to actually make myself do it, and for another, it’s going to get dark!

Lately I’ve been going to bed quite early, so knowing I have a day off today was a good starting point yesterday to say ‘I’m going to do it, I’m going on a night jar hunt’. So just after eight I headed out to the common. When I got there the small carpark had no cars. A man came up the lane on his bike and entered the gateway to one of the cottages. We said ‘hello’ and I commented on what a lovely place it was to live and he said ‘yes, and so much wildlife’.

I began my walk through the wood noticing that the pathway had improved since the last time I had been there, when the path was full of troughs and holes from heavy vehicles using it. The work that they had been doing was over by the looks of the grown hedgerows all along the path. The landscape was slightly changed, but the pathway was a clear route and would definitely be a benefit when I came back in the dark.

Despite the lack of rain recently the steam at the bottom of the path was running quite high and there was quite a large pond to walk around, and the little bridge was definitely needed.

As you walk back up the hill the wood opens up to a heath. There is a large track running through for walkers and all around there are different types of woodland with the path leading into a wood made up of conifers. There is a triangulation point at this point and I know this is where the guided walk was.

The sun was beginning to set and was a blazing red light shining over the trees. I was wearing a jacket so I wouldn’t get too bitten, but the heat still coming off the sun was incredible.

Lots of birds were still calling across the heath, but they weren’t easy to spot. An occasional flyby, so I just enjoyed the sounds as I walked up and down the path wondering where I might get the best views of any potential nightjars. A deer was crossing the heath and kept stopping and watching me, just checking that I was no danger, and I could see two white rumps of two more on the edge of the wood.

The bees were still active landing on the flowers of the shrubs growing on the edge of the path and just ahead of me a young stonechat appeared on top of a shrub.

As the sun began to disappear behind the trees I listened for any distinctive churring noises from the nightjars. But all was quieter now. A few gulls and corvids were flying over and there was distant bird song. A bird appeared flying over the trees so I followed it with my binoculars as it continued to follow the tree line. To my amazement I realised it was a woodcock, with its distinctive long beak.

As the light began to fade I could hear very faint whirring noises, so faint I thought I must be imagining it. I cupped my hands around my ears and turned my head, and there was no doubting that I was hearing nightjars. I could hear them in all directions from the path so I moved a little further along the path and the calls became a little louder. The sound was like being in a sewing workshop surrounded by electric sewing machines, whilst wearing ear defenders. There were other noises more like a duck quacking, but I’m not sure where they were coming from. I assume it was another call sign. Then there were noises like wings flapping and, to my joy, a couple of nightjar took to flight just ahead of me. They quickly flew out of sight, so I turned and kept a close eye on the ground around where other calls were coming from. Another bird appeared and flew over my head. It landed away off on a bare branch of a shrub where it sat for a few moments before flying off again.

The way the nightjars fly is very distinctive so when two birds flew over with a completely different style I checked them with my binoculars and I could just make out that they were woodcock. So exciting.

I was being spooked a lot by odd noises and the light was fading, so I decided I needed to start making my way back to my car. The churring was getting louder and pairs of birds were flying around making the desire to stay with them overwhelming, but the thought of walking through the dark wood was making my heart pound too. There was enough light to see where I was going, but I had a torch to help me navigate through the wood and around the pond and the little bridge with all the tree roots all around it. As I crossed over the bridge a bat flew over my head and over the pond. I expect it was a good place for food.

I quickened my pace a bit through the last bit of the wood as I could hear some voices, and my torch wasn’t really that great.

After such a lovely evening, I’d never been so glad to see my car!!

The power of music to evoke memories is pretty universal. There can be few people who don’t feel moved when they hear an old favourite tune playing on the radio.

To this day listening to ‘Daydream Believer’ by The Monkees makes me smile and sing along. My sister bought me the single for Christmas back in the 60’s. I watched the tv show every week and was madly in love with Davy Jones.

Listening to the radio with the rest of the family on car journeys, back in the day when you could squeeze a family of nine into a car without breaking any laws. Singing and making up verses to ‘quarter master’s store behind the door’ for all our names was a family favourite. ‘There was Jane, Jane being a pain, in the stores, in the stores’.

As the years went by different songs became important, or brought about strong emotions. Watching the Andy Williams show on the tv with mum and dad was really special, as were Saturday afternoon musicals. To this day hearing Andy Williams sing warms my heart, and I can’t resist a Doris Day film.

A tune can make you jump to your feet to dance, or to sing along, whichever, it brings immense pleasure.

One of my fondest childhood memories was my dad bringing home a tape recorder and me and my sisters singing Sandman and playing it back speeded up. We sounded like chipmunks, and remembering the sound of us laughing at the end always makes me smile. My mum sang a song for my dad, ‘The man I love’ (Ella Fitzgerald) and at the end she said ‘are you listening Batchelor’.

As you get older the lyrics become an important, emotional part of music. Lyrics that change your view of the world, or cause pleasure and pain when you first discover love. For some reason ‘Windmills of your Mind’ sung by Noel Harrison pressed all sorts of buttons in my body and soul when I was young.

So many artists producing albums that you played over and over again, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, and bands like Genesis, The Beach Boys. For me there was no one genre of music, just a vast cross section, but always a tune I had stuck in my head or a lyric that touched me.

When I first met my husband we would listen to music in the evenings, we would sing along and to this day most of those songs are still my favourites and I play them in the car on all my journeys. Jim Croce, Stevie Wonder, James Taylor, Leonard Cohen, Jackie Whittren, Harry Chapin, Joan Armatrading, Ralph McTell. over the years we added a few more albums that we both really enjoyed, Tom Waits, Nancy Griffiths. ‘Our’ song was ‘If you leave me now’ by Chicago. Through our married life I always knew when Dick wanted me to know how he felt about me, if he was sad about what may be happening in our relationship and just reminding me by playing ‘Sweet Sixteen’ by the Fureys (we met when I was sixteen) or ‘She’ by Charles Aznavour, ‘Always on my mind’ by Willie Nelson and ‘The Dance’ by Garth Brooks.

There are so many songs that have meant so much in my life, just a phrase, or a verse, that could express how I felt. ‘I can’t ever get enough of you’ by Darren Hayes, although a song about a couple, the first few verses beautifully summed up how I felt when holding my babies for the first time and touching their hands and skin.

The last couple of years have been a tough learning curve of loss, grief, self preservation and growing to know I can cope on my own. Miley Cyrus sums it up when she says, ‘I can buy myself flowers, write my name in the sand, Talk to myself for hours, say things you don’t understand, I can take myself dancing, and I can hold my own hand, yeah, and I can love me better than you can.’ The point is though that if the past 47 years, and especially the last few months, have taught me is that having had so much love I don’t want to spend my time left alone, or lonely, I would like someone to buy me flowers, write my name, talk to me for hours, take me dancing, hold my hand and of course, to love me better than I can.

It’s now two years since I lost my husband, my children lost their dad and the grandchildren their grandad. The loss is still as profound and no days go by without a memory being recounted, an old joke being retold or a funny story being shared.

Our lives are very busy, we all work hard and the days and weeks keep passing by.

In lots of ways keeping busy is keeping me going. Working hard gives the day purpose and fills the hours. There is a routine, a reason to get out and about, to be sociable and to communicate.

I have some lovely friends who I meet for walks and chats and I am grateful for that. I think, potentially, left to my own devices I would find it hard to do much at all. I happily retreat into my home when the day is done and if I don’t have a reason to leave it I don’t.

My walks have taken a back burner, not because I don’t enjoy them, more because I seem to make excuses not to go out, it’s too late/cold/wet or ‘I’ll go tomorrow’.

I don’t mind my own company, I don’t mind going and doing things on my own, but there is something about returning home and knowing that you are not going to share the day, or the experience with anyone.

I am so lucky that I have all my family so close and that I work with three of my children. We talk more, we share our feelings and I think we will ultimately benefit from this.

So much has happened and so many things that Dick could have helped make better. It is a shame knowing that he would have enjoyed so many of the grandchildren’s achievements and how they are all growing, and to think how much he could have helped or advised on.

Loved, missed, but never forgotten.

It’s not something I ever really gave much thought to, it’s a bit like the ‘how long is a piece of string’ question, but now I wonder about it all the time. How long will I feel like this?

I’m keeping really busy at work, and do a lot of baking which fills more hours of the day, but there are moments when nothing makes sense, I don’t know what to do with myself and, actually, don’t want to do anything.

There are moments of the day when I laugh out loud, at things we say and do at work, funny memories that make us giggle, or at a programme I’m watching.

People who know me well will know that I whistle. I have always found whistling to be a very good measure of my mood. When my mood is low I do not whistle. Well I whistle all the time at work, walking to and from work and generally just out and about. This is a good sign.

But, every now and then, everything just gets too much, a film is just too sad, the silence is just too loud, the walk is just too lonely and the night is just too long.

The one good thing I know is that tomorrow is another day, I will laugh and whistle and maybe even sing.

Lately I’ve not been coping well. I have a slight case of melancholia and am wondering what I can do to pull myself out of it.

I haven’t been for a walk on my own for ages and actually don’t even want to go for a walk.

When my mum moved back to England after my dad died I used to see her most weeks on my day off. I didn’t really think about how sad and lonely she must have been every day. She had no friends around her and in all the years she lived back here she didn’t make any new friends, or go anywhere where she could. We went shopping and had lunch out, but I always went home after. I am so like my mum, something I’ve noticed more and more. She was very friendly and would chat away with people in the local shops, but she would never call on anyone uninvited. In this respect we are very similar, but I do try to keep up regular calls to my friends and meet up with them when I am able.

I know that you can change what you do, but it is easier said than done. I know I could contact old friends to catch up, but I also dwell on the fact some don’t call me. That’s fine, but it does mean I am going to have to reassess where my life if going and what I want to do with it. I really want to visit nature reserves around the country and places I have wanted to see, but knowing how difficult I am finding it to go out locally, I wonder if I ever will.

Of course now booking places to go is much easier, you can just pick up your phone and it’s all done with the press of a button. So maybe that’s the solution. I should just book something, a hotel for the night, or an event, and then I will have to go won’t I.

The last couple of months I have been struggling with who I am now.

After more than 45 years of being a partner, a wife, a mother, sometime career woman and a grandma, I now have a deepening loss of myself.

My husband could make friends easily and could easily negotiate social settings. He could talk to anyone, and often did. By contrast, I was quieter, more reluctant to put myself out there. I can make myself be the chatty, friendly and loud person in a group. I don’t like to see people sitting silently together at a meeting, or on a bus or train and will make a funny remark hoping that people respond. But at a party I often could be found sitting quietly on the sofa just watching everything going on around.

I feel a bit like a lost soul who doesn’t know where to go. I told my son I felt like I had been my husband’s ‘plus one’. That he had been the person everyone wanted to see. Now I have no one to tag along with. I’ve lost the person who held my hand and took me with him. I miss that so much. I miss watching him across a room as he threw back his head in laughter, and him looking across the room at me and smiling. I’ve lost the person who sang with me at karaoke because I needed someone with me, not because he wanted to sing, and who stopped singing with me when he said ‘you can do it on your own now, you don’t need me’. But I do.

I want to do things and I will. I’m not scared to go and do things by myself, but it will take time.