On missing the lint of life. And curry.

Kate's birthday today. She'd have been 49. Just shy from the middle of a century. One year from half way to a letter from the queen.

Going out with the kids tonight - they wanted to celebrate mum's birthday. Meeting up with some old friends who would have come round anyway, and going for a curry.

And it's not the special occasions I miss - it's all the ordinary mundane things that were just there in our life together. Winter time, in front of the fire, washing drying. Cuddled up on the sofa, or rubbing cream into her feet because of what the chemo did.

All the celebration of Christmas, birthdays, or any other excuse for a party I can cope with. Sure, we're missing one. And a significant one at that.

But falling asleep together in front of our favourite films, shopping on a Saturday and coming home with a sticky bun for lunch, fetching down a saucepan from the rack I put up and she couldn't reach,


or just sitting reading a magazine. Just the ordinary bits of fluffy lint; pointless, forgotten, mundane stuff that turn two people into a couple. Silly things you never knew you had until they've gone.

Yup. Missing the mundane.