I have been over to her house a few times. Even the first time I went I wasn't as upset as I thought I might be, because I couldn't smell her. Sounds awful when you say it, but it isn't: she had her own particular scent - what my ever-blunt son calls an "old lady" smell. I'm sure she hung around for a day or so after she died because here, in my own home, I am sure I caught a drift of this - right on the edge of perception. Two times were when I was speaking to people she was particularly fond of on the phone. The first was when I woke the morning after she died and started making lists of "to do's". I last sensed it on Sunday morning, much fainter, but not since. It was after then that I first went to her house. She has definitely gone somewhere else. Quite poignant that she died on Good Friday and moved on somewhere else on Easter Sunday. Was she trying to tell me something?

At least it has made my husband at last clear all the accumulated dross and bits of wood out of the garage, so that we can store things that my kids want to have in the near future when they set up in their own places. I wouldn't have dared touch them otherwise!

I just hope now that the authorities do their job right and get the paperwork through on time so that we can at last have her funeral on Tuesday. (We had wanted it today). It has gone on for a very long time because of a public holiday folowed by a post mortem, and I am feeling very tired.

Andrea