My beloved Great Aunt Nanda in Ferrara has been felled by a stroke. We are all immensely distressed. So many memories, all of them tender. Alex and I were hoping to ship Monkey over for a long visit in a few years, and now it looks as if the two will never meet. In the hurly burly of rearing a young child whilst working, the world slips away. You assume nothing changes, that it all will be there on your return. Instead, people and things vanish – histories lost – making way for our children and their stories. This can be both wonderful (rotten people die) and terrible (good people do, too). John Henshaw, whom I loved as I would have a father. My own father, who was impossible to love. A moment in which time stopped for me: Alex and Monkey the other night, singing, “We love you more than anything!” whilst dancing. This was a song written for me, and involved much ungainly movement, fits of giggling, and the making of heart-shapes with their arms. I was completely overcome.

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