The business end out of the way first. Yesterday I cleaned. Seriously cleaned, things involving degreaser and a toothbrush. Now my hands hurt like hell so I will postpone garden work until it's a bit warmer. We supposedly has frost last night and I feel for all those people with tomato seedlings a fortnight ago in Bunnings (warehouse hardware store). My lawnmower was returned in pristine condition, but the self-propelled front wheel mechanism has died yet again. This is a 20 year old Sears mower and that plastic drive cog has failed twice and is a bit hard to source here. As if my hands weren't sore enough already I managed to catch the tips of 2 fingers in the gate when closing it. Ouch does not begin...

I found by diving into the stash another hank of the merino I am knitting the baby sweater out of and have confidence I have enough for the fronts.

Now I want to share something that some might find too private, too personal, but I need to tell the world about my wonderful Bear and why I miss him so specially much. Yes, most widows miss their husbands but he was my soul mate and we knew it almost from the start. I was delving into the closet in the den, just trying to organize and clean out, and I found one of the volumes of our email messages which he had printed out in their entirety. After 4 months of emailing we had sent 250 messages. This one was on top. Oct.2, 1990. From him. "I've fallen in love with abstract ideas before or I would have being in what I did [i.e. physics] but this is the first time I've ever fallen love with, so to speak, an abstract person. Yes, I know you are real, and cherish the reality, but it was the person burning brightly through your words those few months ago that brought me to hope I could show my own self to you. ... In my own way I can be pretty intense also.... I do have these moments when I challenge assumptions--you know that already. I hope we can keep doing that in the years we have together, darling. Keep being my burning and tantalising lady. As well as my loving and soothing wife. I love you." We didn't meet for 4 more months. We had 16 of those wonderful years that seem to have gone by in the blink of an eye, and now my heart is still torn and aching for him. When I found these letters, I cried. I have tears dribbling down my cheeks as I type, but I know how much we loved each other and holding these letters and looking at things we wrote about, brings our life back into sharp focus and makes it more real.