And so it goes. I seem to have drawn to a halt. It’s winter. Hibernation is obvious.

Christmas was incredibly loving in the arms of my Somerset family. They filled me with the good stuff. I’m grateful for them. I love them so much. Me and Margaret cooked up a storm, everything was delicious. We talked and walked and opened presents. We put on glad rags and toasted our fortune and love for one another. I missed J&B but there it is.

I stayed at The Chapel which was luxury and white cotton, silently closing doors and carols on Christmas Eve. From a corner table the perfect view to little theatre plays of families gathering, seasonal jumpers on, granny with her friend in tow, brothers and a neat, nail polish girlfriend nervously eyes front wishing he’d speak to her and not his mother, so well turned out, so intimidating. A rowdy group at the back held pints aloft, a young lad couldn’t finish his. A pair of stuff & nonsense friends beside me attacked steaks and chinked large glasses, a daddy with small squirming child tried to set her attention on the balcony while his mother in law yet again failed to be interesting and sat back with a thump and refuge in a cocktail. I have sat alone and sober in many crowded public rooms this Christmas. It’s a practice of looking and resisting the self-conscious threat of embarrassment. No one will remember the woman watching.

And so it passed in immense care and tradition, the sun set on Boxing Day and I drove home. This was a shock. The empty farmhouse. Me and the cats. The last days of 2025 shed of so many relationships. I never saw it coming, that I’d be heading into 2026 like this. I feel unencumbered and silent. Took J for lunch, picked him up from his dad’s, talked of his possible paths and dropped him off again; now he’s gone to Wales. B is still in Stoke. Yesterday I cried all morning (thank you M for calling). Today I don’t want to get up but I will because this one blessed life holds what I can’t see.

And so it goes.

Eleanor

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