I went for a lovely walk the other day. The sun was shining and the birds were singing and I added two birds to my 2022 bird list.

The point of my walks is not the exercise, but the things I see when I am out. Watching a bird singing in a tree, or a deer in a distant field will always bring a smile to my face.

When out and about I like to share what I am seeing with anyone who will listen. Most times the person I talk to is just as interested as I am and the conversation flows freely, but occasionally I talk to a person, or a family, trying to let them see the joy it has brought me, hoping that they may take something from me and enjoy it too.

On my walk I was hoping to catch sight of a Dartford warbler and I was not disappointed. As I turned a corner on the sea wall at Pennington Marshes I glimpsed a bird darting into the gorse in front of me. I stood and watched for a while until I excitedly spotted the Dartford warbler perched right in front of me on the gorse. It moved from shrub to shrub until it finally stopped on the branch of a tree and sang for me. I was so excited, only to be compounded when it’s mate turned up. I watched for a few more minutes before continuing my walk.

Just beyond the dartford warbler there was a heron and a man walking past me said that it had just caught an eel. I watched as it struggled for quite a few minutes to get the eel to stop moving by closing its beak tightly around it, but eventually the heron managed to swallow it.

A bit further along the sea wall some little terns were flying over the water, hovering and diving into the water to catch fish. I watched them for a while and tried to take a photo of them with little success. So tricky to catch birds moving.

I had a lovely walk, catching some lovely sights, but as I turned to start the walk back to the car my mood just dipped. A lot of my days now I feel good, often very happy and can laugh out loud, but every so often and for no perceivable reason my mood just dips. I think it may be the expectation of going home to an empty house. I have always been ok in my own company, but that’s not really the same as being alone. I am lucky that I have a large family and can always rely on either seeing, or talking to one of the children, or a sister.

My walk had slowed to a stroll and I wondered how much more I could do to keep myself happy. I couldn’t really have asked for a nicer walk, but for this moment it just hadn’t been enough

As I neared the car my daughter phoned me to see how I was. We chatted about how we were feeling and what we could do to stay happy. I am so grateful for days like this.

After work yesterday I went to my old college friend’s house and we sat in the garden for a few hours chatting and watching all the birds in her lovely little garden. A female blackbird even had two baths in the bird bath right next to me. It was a lovely afternoon catching up and enjoying the warm sheltered garden.

This morning was my day off and when I got up the cat and I went out into the garden. It was quite early, before 07:00, but there were no birds about and no bird song. I looked around at the surrounding gardens and despaired by the lack of trees, compared to when we first moved to the house over thirty years ago when most gardens had trees and shrubs. But new builds (including a new house in our own garden) have meant that a lot of mature gardens were ripped out and in some gardens just not replaced.

I have worked hard on my garden to create a wildlife friendly garden with young trees, shrubs and flowers hoping to attract insects and birds. Last year we had lots of bees and other insects including at least four stag beetles, but the decline in birds has got worse.

I could not believe how low my mood swing was, from the joy of the previous afternoon.

I pottered around the house doing washing, putting the washing out on the line, eating breakfast and eating some of the little chocolate eggs in a basket on the coffee table which I bought for the grandchildren. My mood just getting lower and lower.

This wasn’t how I wanted to spend my day off, so I grabbed my camera and binoculars and got in the car. A bit of nature was what the doctor ordered.

I decided to go to Martin Down near Salisbury. Knowing there was traffic disruption going into Ringwood, I set off up the back roads hoping that I would know where to go when I saw the signs en route.

I was completely overwhelmed as I drove off and was holding back tears. I put on my Spotify playlist made by a friend from the songs I put on Facebook after my husband, Dick, died. I was going on the route he took me on to find Martin Down (so that I could drive there on my own) and it occurred to me that I was wearing his golf jacket too. On the way I passed Crane Valley Golf Club where Dick occasionally used to play in charity golf days.

After negotiating a few more junctions and roundabouts, all of which I recognised luckily, I finally arrived at the car park just as ‘If you leave me now’ by Chicago came up on the playlist. This became our song when it entered the charts in 1976.

I listened to the song for a while, smiling to myself, before getting out of the car to the sound of skylarks singing overhead.

I walked through the fields immersed in the sound of the skylarks as they soared up into the air, and scanning the trees for other birds, hoping to spot some previously unseen birds to add to my 2022 bird list. I’ve not made a list before, but it is helping me to go out for more walks, as each walk is an opportunity to see just one more.

I could feel my mood improving with each bird I saw and with each step I took.

So the first year has passed since I lost my husband and my children and grandchildren lost their dad and grandad.

We have all been coping with our loss the best way we can, getting on with life and keeping on smiling.

Life isn’t the same though. Little things that punctuated the week don’t happen anymore.

I sweep the floor the same as I always did, but the little pile of dust that I leave in the corner of the kitchen waiting for Dick to say ‘I suppose you want me to sweep this up’, now just sits there until I feel like picking it up.

The Tuesday ritual of ‘what’s for dinner’, ‘spaghetti bolognaise’, ‘oh no it’s Holby night’ doesn’t happen anymore and I randomly pick another night to have it for my tea.

My car broke down on my way home from my sister’s three weeks ago. It’s still being mended because of a catalogue of reasons, unfortunately caused by me inadvertently putting diesel in my petrol powered engine. This has prevented me visiting Hinton Park every afternoon to eat my lunch and walk round to say hello to Dick. I suppose this is a good thing, and mostly I would say it was, but other days it overwhelms me that I haven’t been. On a positive note I get picked up each morning by my son on our way to his shop and we spend time together preparing for the day ahead, and my sister sometimes picks me up to go for a walk, or just somewhere to eat cake. For this I am grateful.

This last year has been a long year, but it still feels like yesterday in so many ways. Some mornings I don’t want to get out of bed, some nights I don’t want to go to bed. Most days all I think about is what I can eat next and others I make a meal and don’t even want to eat it.

I’m waiting for the spring, the sun to shine, the garden to bloom and the evenings to be light. We all feel better when the sun shines.

I was with my husband a long time. In all those 45 years we learned a lot from each other. We were always kind to each other, never tried to be hurtful or rude. We rarely argued and never swore at each other.

My husband said he knew I was the one when he became ill, when we were going out, and he was covered all over his face and neck with a skin complaint, I didn’t care and came to see him every day.

Our life together was not perfect, we had some very tough times and Dick worked very long hours to provide for our growing family. I knew I was very fortunate that I could stay at home to look after the children. We didn’t have lots of spare money, but neither of us were materialistic and as long as we had a comfortable home we were happy.

After suffering a heart attack at only 46, my husband always said he ‘wouldn’t see old bones’, I think it played on his mind and over the coming years he encouraged me to take on a management role in my retail job, which took over my life more and more. It did afford us an easier life for a while financially and gave Dick a chance to pursue a change of job and to get fitter after a few years of being miserable in his work as an engineer. It also gave him the opportunity to learn to cook and bake, which he enjoyed and some delicious offerings were made. But when it no longer seemed good for me he encouraged me to leave.

The last few years were tough with different health issues, but Dick didn’t lose his sense of humour, or his care and thoughts for other people. He would spend hours talking to friends on the phone, checking they were ok, telling funny stories and laughing a lot. We were different in that respect and I was quieter and preferred messaging friends. But I have been trying to be a better friend, and trying to check on people as I have found it a comfort when friends have reached out to me.

We all have to find our own way, but I am struggling to push myself to go out and about. My walking has taken a back seat over the last year, but I am trying hard to go out and have started a 2022 bird list of my sightings, and this will only get longer if I go out to find new birds.

I’m accepting invitations to meet up with friends and my family and sisters have been great at getting me out. My brother takes me out bird watching too. I’m still finding it hard to make decisions about what to do with my time, and can sit for hours watching tv rather than try to make a decision. I haven’t been out in the evening except for a trip to the cinema with my daughters and an afternoon walk that finished with dinner in a pub because we were talking so much the time ran away, so we stayed to have dinner too.

I will need to start some new activities or join some clubs to give me a reason to go out. It will be a challenge.

We can never know how we will respond to the things that life throws at us, or how we will come through them, I just hope I’m doing the right things for me and that friends and family know I am doing my best. My heart is still broken and it’s going to be a long journey.

About this time in 1978 my boyfriend headed out to Israel to work on a kibbutz in Elat. He was going for six weeks with his friend and work colleague, Phil.

We had been going out for just over two years and I think my husband wanted to go and do something different, a once in a lifetime type of trip.

We wrote to each other most days and occasionally spoke on the phone. There were no mobile phones back then and it wasn’t as easy to keep in touch as now.

We spoke a few days before Christmas and I said that I was going out with friends on Christmas Eve and would be going to have tea at his sister’s on Boxing day .

At about 15:00 on Boxing Day afternoon there was a knock at the door at Jen’s house. I went to the door and there, stood on the doorstep, was Dick, tanned but tired looking, having travelled all over Christmas Day back from Elat. We stood on the doorstep talking and cuddling, and then it happened. Dick proposed to me. I, of course, said yes, and we went inside to join his family. I’m not sure that we told anyone at that point, so nothing was official,

A couple of weeks later, on my birthday, we went out for a meal and Dick made the engagement official with a beautiful sapphire and diamond ring. (He did comment ‘are you sure you like the ring as my other choice was an orange stoned ring which I thought was nice’, but I assured him the sapphire was just right, not sure I could have said the same about an orange coloured ring). It was a little bit too big, so we folded a piece of card from a cigarette packet and wrapped it round the back of the ring. (It was a few weeks before I realised that Dick had sold his car to buy my ring.)

The excitement was dampened a little as my Grandad had died that morning and we discussed for ages whether we should tell my mum, or not. Dick’s mum and dad thought it would be ok, but when we got back to my house I wasn’t so sure, as my mum looked so sad. She spotted the ring before we had spoken and congratulated us, but I felt very guilty.

Straight away Dick and I started making plans for our future. First thing Dick did was start a new job in engineering, in a factory part run by his brother, where he had to train himself to be a Turner, making small components. He threw himself into his new career, learning new things everyday. This new job was much better paid than the work he used to do on the Nursery, where he worked with his mum and dad , and would enable us to buy our own home. A few months later we signed a contract on a flat in Christchurch, just up the road from where we have lived for the last 35 years.

We decided we wanted to get married so we had dinner with my parents in the Walkford Hotel to decide when and where.

I had always wanted to get married and have children, but the wedding part was something I had never really thought about. I definitely didn’t have plans in my head of the dress I wanted, or how the wedding would be. In fact we were so laid back about it we even said we had considered a registry office, but my mum wanted it to be a ‘proper’ wedding as she had not had a wedding dress or church wedding. So it was decided, a church wedding in November, in a few months. This was after I assured my mum it was for no other reason than we didn’t want to wait any longer than that!

Our wedding was the first wedding I had ever been to and we booked St Mark’s church in Highcliffe and an afternoon reception at the Heathlands Hotel in Bournemouth. During the afternoon one of the hotel receptionists asked me where we were having our evening do as it wasn’t at this hotel. I said ‘what is an evening do?’ When she stopped giggling she set about finding a venue for us to go to in the evening that could accommodate a large group and it was arranged that we would go to the basement bar at the Highcliffe Hotel, where a live band were playing.

The day was lovely with lots of family and friends and in the evening about 30 of us continued the party into the night.

24th November 1979 – tomorrow would have been our 42nd Wedding Anniversary

XX💙💔💕

So forty years ago in the early hours the pains started and we phoned the hospital to see if I should go in. ‘Is your wife having contractions’
‘I think so’, passing the phone to me ‘I think so’ I say while simultaneously holding my breath ‘well it sounds like you are. Can you make your way to the hospital in a while when the contractions get more regular’.

‘Have a bath, wash and dry your hair and put on some makeup’ my sisters in law told me. The bath got to an inch deep and I couldn’t wait another second because of the contractions, I couldn’t actually get in to the water as I couldn’t bend, so I got straight out again. I got dressed and scared to death we drove from our little house in New Milton to Thr Princess Anne unit in Southampton. To lighten the mood my husband started to make the car shudder, pretending to run out of petrol. I won’t repeat the words I used, or the ones I used when he stopped for fags, but he didn’t want to run out during the long labour.
We arrived at 06:00, but our darling baby had no intention of hanging around she wanted to meet us, to the sound of a midwife calling me Elizabeth, a nurse and Dick calling me Jane and another nurse calling me honeybun, Hannah Jane came into the world 57 minutes later.

Dick was so excited he went and bought her a little pink dress and a Polaroid camera to take photos to show everybody our beautiful baby who just so happened to look just like him.
And just to complete the picture 32 years later our Hannah had our first granddaughter, Tilly.
Two beautiful girls. So proud of you both xx💜💜
HAPPY BIRTHDAY HANNAH AND TILLY

The last few weeks have been very up and down for me. I seem to have gone backwards and my emotions are running amok.

When my husband was dying he knew that a big funeral was going to be out of the question because of COVID, but little did we know for how long. He said that we should arrange a party in the sun so that all his friends could come and celebrate his life.

Dick loved the sun and sitting in a chair in the garden soaking it up. Talking to the grandchildren over the garden fence was a highlight when they were playing in the garden. ‘How’s your day been grandad’.

This year has run away with us and a few weeks ago I decided I had to organise a ‘do’ for him before the good weather completely disappears. Invitations have gone out to old workmates, friends and all our family and the plan is to have a tea party in the garden, raise a glass and hopefully remember all the fantastic things that happened over his life and our time together.

Trouble is I’m now full of anxiety and my emotions are up and down all the time. My trips to Hinton Burial Park are really important to me and I will continue to go regularly until I feel the time is right to try to do other things.

Going out on walks isn’t so important at the moment. You don’t need to go far to observe birds and wildlife and I’m certainly enjoying some of the sights I have seen even during my trips to Hinton. The Park is a wonderful setting to see birds of all sorts including woodpeckers, kestrels and buzzards. I’ve watched two buzzards flying low between the trees on the edges of a recently mowed field and a buzzard even flew through the wood as I walked down one of the paths the other day.

I occasional go out for a walk to the Marsh, but I really have to push myself to go, and I made a flying visit to see the peregrines too.

I have developed a new obsession with litter picking which is providing me with exercise, a feeling of well-being and a way of filling some time. It even provides a little entertainment, as I was accompanied by a running, squealing pig in the forest at the weekend. It’s the time of year where pigs are let loose on the forest to eat the acorns and this pig had seemingly got separated from his family and was desperately running about trying to find them. I waved my arms around to alert the traffic that there was a dangerous situation and the cars stopped to allow the pig to run across the road. A few minutes later it ran back from a wood and crossed the road again, eventually meeting up with another pig back where it started.

It’s nice to know I can still find enjoyment in life and that I can laugh, especially at a squealing pig.

It’s been six months now since my, and my family’s, life changed so dramatically. The days and weeks go by, but the pain remains.

We are all busy working, living, laughing and loving and coping in our own ways.

I have been working hard and filling my free time with visits to the Woodland Burial Park to eat my lunch by the lake, with a walk around the grounds to check on my husband, mum and husband’s mum and dad, replacing their flowers and saying ‘hi’.

I had been taking long drives which were comforting, but I have tried to knock that on the head, firstly because it costs a lot in petrol and the impact on the environment, but also because I need to get myself walking again.

My sister and I went on a holiday to Wales a few weeks ago and we had a lovely time taking in the beautiful views and visiting some castles. We have gone on trips together before, so it didn’t feel strange going away, but I did feel a little anxious about going back home at the end of the holiday.

Another milestone was my brother’s wedding last week. I was so nervous and anxious about going, but once we were on our way and the ceremony began I became probably over excited and really enjoyed the day.

I’m not sure why my walks have taken such a back seat when they have been the one thing that really helped me through some really tough times.

I still get a buzz if I see a kestrel as I’m driving to work, or a buzzard flying overhead, but the effort of going for a walk still feels beyond me. I cannot commit to things, or make a big decision, and don’t expect me to arrange anything. I need to be asked or told, then I can come along, have a nice time, smile and laugh a lot and then go home knowing that my life if still going on and that there is joy to be had and that we will all get through this.

So this morning I woke up late for me, about eight, and sat for a while wondering if I should go out for a walk. I checked my phone weather app and it said the morning should be free from showers, so I had no excuse.

I opened the front door and looking straight at the parked car I remembered that my son-in-law had told me my headlight was out, so I thought I would look to see if I could get to the bulbs to replace it. I fiddled with it for a while but couldn’t see how to pull the cover off, so I thought I’d call in at Halfords after my walk and get them to do it. I shut the front door and jumped in the car and headed off to Kingfisher Barn Nature Reserve. I arrived and parked up, but as I turned to pick up my bag I realised I had left it in the hall by the front door. Not phased I pulled back out of the car park and drove straight back home to get my bag with my camera and other stuff packed in it, from where I had left it next to the front door.

As I drove to the top of the road I decided as I was opposite Halfords that perhaps I should pick up a bulb now. I went in and straight to the little iPad to check to see which bulb I needed. I had my driving glasses on so I couldn’t read it very well. I talked to it saying ‘so which bulb do I need then?’. With that I heard ‘hi Jane, you alright!’. An old friend from work was behind me and he kindly helped me to pick the right bulb. We had a little chat about tonight’s England football match and I left to pay for the bulb.

Second time lucky I arrived back at the nature reserve. I headed off down the river bank, but by this time it was very busy with families, joggers and cyclists. The river looked very pretty, but there wasn’t much bird activity.

I hadn’t got that far along the river before I had to start standing aside for cyclists, who appeared to have no intention of stopping for anyone. A young family passing thanked me for moving.

Round the next bend a bike was heading toward me so I moved over trying to avoid the mud and stinging nettles, but as I began to walk again I must have been standing on an overhanging plant and I caught my shoe under the stem and fell somewhat ungracefully with a loud ‘FUCK’. The cyclist continued oblivious, but a couple walking ahead of me turned back to check on the heap on the floor. After being helped up we continued our walk chatting, me covered in mud, but otherwise relatively unscathed. We agreed that we had probably picked a bad time to come out to watch nature, being as the world and his wife were out too. It was by now after 10:30 and under normal circumstances I would be on my journey home by this time. We parted company, but not before realising that I had met the woman before when I went on my emotional trip along the Stour at the golf course a few weeks before, when trying to see the shrike. Small world.

I walked for a while by myself, but having only seen a family of swans and a fly past by the Red Arrows, I decided this walk wasn’t really worth continuing and headed back to the car through the arboretum.

In the arboretum I could hear many more birds but it was really hard to spot them. I scanned with my binoculars but all I could see was a strange white shape inside the branches of a tree. I stepped around a bit to get a better view and could see a magpie that appeared to be wearing a white fluffy tutu. A good end to the walk.

Back in 1976 when I started going out with my husband he was a market gardner, working on a nursery in Pennington, working with his mum and dad. They grew tomatoes, courgettes and chrysanthemums.

He was young and fit, worked hard and used his nurseryman wages, which weren’t very high, to buy nice clothes which he took great pride in. He wore clothes unlike anyone else. He went to London with his friend and they bought amongst other things, pin-tuck flannel trousers and baseball shirts and cardigans. They stuck out as well dressed and totally different from the other lads.

Our first summer together was the hottest summer for years and because of his very early starts at work, to avoid the hot afternoons, he was able to go to Highcliffe Castle beach with me some afternoons. I used to make some of my clothes and I had made some floral skirts with matching bikini tops, and we used to walk up the road to the beach, seems so long ago and we were so young.

At the weekend I would work at the local Newsagents and earned a couple of quid for a few hours work on a Sunday morning. Most of this money went straight back to the shop, as I bought loads of sweets and would eat some of them on the bus I caught from Highcliffe to Pennington to go and see Dick. The bus took ages as it drove through all the back routes. I would get off at Fox Pond shops in Pennington and then walk down Fox Pond Lane to get to the Nursery.

Today I drove to Pennington and parked in a road just before the parade of shops. I strolled down the road and turned into Fox Pond Lane. As I walked down the Lane and looked at the cottages and houses it brought back many memories of those bus trips many years ago. It wasn’t always warm, sometimes it was very cold and after an hour on a bus my feet would be very cold. Dick used to wear big white ‘fisherman’s’ socks with his work boots and he would give me a pair to put on to warm my feet.

Sundays were often a family day with his brother and sister coming over for afternoon tea with their partners and young babies. Family was very important to Dick and he would never suggest that we not be there. It was a sign of the life we would share together, with Sunday dinners being so important with our own family.

In the evenings we would sit in the dining room together, when everyone had left, and listen to records. Dick introduced me to Leonard Cohen, Jim Croce, Harry Chapin, Bob Dylan and Jackie Whittren. We would also listen to Genesis and Stevie Wonder. Most of the songs we liked are still firm favourites and our children were all brought up with them playing in the background.

Today I walked down the drive around the back of the bungalow, which would have taken you past the fields of courgettes, to the greenhouses and packing shed. Near the packing shed Dick had a bee hive. The bees would have helped pollinate the crops I expect. Unfortunately one day the bees just upped and left the hive. This happens, but no one knew why.

You can still see greenhouses there, but it looks like building is likely to start soon on houses in one of the fields. A lot of trees have been cleared and it doesn’t look like anything has been grown in the fields for years.

I remember helping on a couple of occasions to pick tomatoes and I remember a machine with rotating tubes that graded the tomatoes into different sizes as they passed down the angled tubes. The tomatoes were loaded into boxes and put in the back of the Ford Cortina Estate ready to be taken to the Market in Southampton early the next morning.

Occasionally, when I was at Brockenhurst College I would miss my Wednesday afternoon games lesson and take the train to Lymington and walk to the nursery. I would talk to Dick’s mum while she prepared dinner, waiting for Dick to finish work.

This little walk has brought back so many wonderful memories and I’m so lucky that the land has remained , so far, much the same as it was then. The main house where the owners lived is now the Coates Centre with Oakhaven Hospice Trust in the grounds as well. Seems sad to me that my mother and father in law and my husband all had Cancer. Perhaps my next plans should be trying to raise funds for this trust.