Loneliness

I would venture to say that loneliness is the bane of anyone's existence. Your mind wanders and thoughts are inundated with themes of "what once was". It is like having a blank sheet of paper without a pencil to write with.

When my wife Kay returns home in 8 days from her family visit in Malaysia, it will have been 10 weeks that I have been on my own. I don't know very many people here so it is hard for me to visit or have visitors. I don't drive and walking is an agonising chore for me. The only time I go out is to do some shopping and its a 15 to 20 minutes walk to the shops, downhill, and half an hour back, with the last part uphill. I almost have a spring in my step on the way down to the shops in anticiapation of an interesting, if somewhat short, conversation and the slog back home is forever on my mind. I must make a sight with my walking stick in one hand and the two-wheeled "pensioner shopping trolley" in the other.

I look forward, in a way, to my fortnightly trips to the shops, especially the tobacco shop where I buy my smokes. The people there are very friendly and I usually spend a while just talking about nothing in particular. They know that I am on my own for the time being and my visit there is the highlight of my shopping spree.

I had one of Kay's friends call in a few times to get some vegetables, which was great as I can only use up so many veges and I don't like them going to waste. I have frozen a fair bit for later use. So, I still potter around in the garden, weather permitting, hoping that the vegetables will not go past their use by date before Kay gets home.
I have had some very interesting and intelligent conversations, mainly with myself!!! But I am starting to get a little worried as I am now starting to answer myself back!!! Maybe my little grey cells (as Hercule Poirot would put it) are preparing themselves for more conversations in the very near future, which I am looking forward to with great anticipation and I am still trying not to count the days.