On sleeplessness and the prospect of being a pink-shelled tortoise...

Right now, I am deliriously 'Alicia in Wonderland', brought on by sleeplessness, lack of sun and my latest bespoke KnitWillo order, a cloche hat for my ex-mother-in-law, Betty to wear when she walks the cat.

I was awake, again, until three thirty this morning, having consumed the last third of my bottle of Benylin non-drowsy cough linctus straight from the bottle which was still inside the box.

In the light of the jar of violaceous fairy mist, a Christmas present from daughter Charlie, I eye the new pink wheeled suitcase bought from the cheap shoe shop with the Christmas money from my parents, wondering whether I'm the only fifty-one year old who's still saving for things I need rather than buying stuff I think I want. Not that I want your pity. It's the way that Life should be for me. I don't want to be harnessed by a love of worldly goods or shod with other people's expectations; they just restrain me from walking barefoot and roaming free.

Not too far away awaits the home I should be renting very soon if Life really is to be Alicia in Wonderland. A very small, but perfect formed place which rests beneath the branches of a large wych elm tree. Wych elms are one of my top ten obsessions. And the roots of the tree gently nudge the decking closer to the back door and it is a ship waiting to be up-anchored and I want to be its figurehead. It will be sailed by Captain Happenstance and we will sail for a year and a day on the Ocean of What Will Be.

I look again at the suitcase, bought not for clothes and holidays but for carrying KnitWillo stock to craft fairs. If I could work out how many crocheted teddies will fit within its pinkness, might the goddess of making deals with myself let me get the little house? I am filled with a sense of homelessness which gives me heartstones. I imagine myself a gypsy tortoise; my carapace a cheap pink suitcase in which thirty-five plump crocheted bears wrap themselves in bargain M and S knickers as they sledge on the photos of my beloved children. Perhaps I might even find myself a ginger cat, like Jackie Morris' Elmo. I wonder whether Elmo can speak Welsh?

I will live in the Chapel of the Charnel, Bury St Edmunds along with the bones of Captain Bartholomew Gosnold whose expeditions carried the first English settlers to North America and who named Martha's Vineyard after his daughter. I will spend my day knitting gravestone cosies for my near neighbours in St Mary's churchyard in neutral stripes of latte, eau de nil and cream. I will trade legwarmers in exchange for eggs from the free-range chickens who peck at the grass on ancient grave stones. They are the great-great-great grandchildren of the second cousins thrice-removed from the chickens which once grew fat on the pork-stuffed, port-soaked meat of the freshly buried menfolk of Bury St Edmunds and their pretty little wives. I will feed the chickens crumbs from the Eccles cake which 'Eck as like' Larkin buys me from the bread and cake stall on the market. Will he still buy me Vera Wang body lotion? I think perhaps the folk of Bury might donate more cat food to my ginger kitten if I smell sweet.

But now the fairy mist is fading so I light the room instead with BBC Radio iPlayer on my laptop. It's 'One Foot in The Grave'; the one where Victor can't sleep and ends up with a dead hedgehog on his foot. I don't think he washes his foot before getting into bed again only I can't quite concentrate because his wife, Margaret is talking now. About their son who died and icecream. Once upon a time I had a son who died. Only before I can remember whether he loved icecream, I am asleep.

I wonder whether I should finish the hat with a ribbon or a button? The hat which my ex-mother-in-law will wear when she walks her cat?

Chasing rainbows, but finding semi-precious stones

I get through Life by prospecting for the treasure at the end of the rainbow. Sometimes, I fail to see the beauty in the earth I dig. I need days like yesterday when a heavy cloud of sadness hides the rainbow of big ideas and ambition; so that I put down my spade and take the time to sift through the soil at my feet to find new pearls of ideas and notions and semi-precious memory stones.

I have snipped away yesterday's mesh of grief around my heart and replaced the leaden stones of hurt with amber and amethyst remembrances while peridot dreams and fresh new plans sing in my pocket. And I am glad to be alive.

Cementing Cracks with Maybes and Might Haves...

Edward-mope creeping into the cracks because dating men can never cement the fissures of his loss.

This morning, I am weighed down by the promise to my dead cold as marble on a July day son that I would keep his memory alive through my writing.

Imperfect mothers should never make promises they can't keep to just-dead sons.

Preparing for my nest to be empty

I think, perhaps, the whole thing has been worthy of a David Attenborough documentary; a sad old bird picking over the few eggs left in her nest; hopelessly trying to keep them warm while she muses over her little chick who fell out of the nest and her beautiful fledgling, now ready to fly.

I am no longer a mummy with a child at school; I am soon to be an empty nester. And while I always knew it wouldn't be easy, I never quite expected it to be this hard.

Dead crows and unforgiven sins

I was raised by a mother I adore and she was raised by a mother who knew that God was omnipotent and omnipresent. I understood from a very early age that he saw everything I did and would, therefore, punish me for at least half of it.

And then, when I was about six, I pretended that I had cut my right temple; put a plaster on it and went running, screaming to my mother. Ripping off the plaster, she reminded me that it was a wicked thing to do and that God had seen me and would punish me.

A few days later, I got knocked unconscious playing 'British Bulldog' in the playground. I still have the scar on my left temple to remind me of my original sin.

Petal Stones

Do you remember? We took you to the hospital for your monthly check up as usual, except it wasn't quite as usual because it had been Bank Holiday on the Monday so we took you on the Tuesday instead, plus we had baby Charlotte with us and it was the first time you were showing off your new baby sister to the doctors and nurses at the hospital and she was wearing that little pink dress with matching frilly knickers. Do you remember? Okay, so it isn't the done thing for boys to remember their sister's matching frilly knickers, so let's just scrub that out and just agree that you were proud to show her off to everyone.

That was the hardest day for me. Trying to smile when I faced you for the first time after finding out that, yes, I had been right all along, it wasn't post-natal depression and you weren't just jealous of your baby sister. Only this time it had spread to your brain as well as the second relapse in your bone marrow and we were passed over to the symptom care team and kept away from the other parents. We didn't see many of those parents again and I suddenly realised what had happened to those other parents who went through the consultant's door never to be seen again.

We came home. Do you remember? Because I don't. I can't remember the journey home at all. Did we stop as usual at the burger van? I'm sure we must've done because we were trying our hardest to pretend that things were normal. Tea from polystyrene and still my bone china smile.

I remember getting home and not wanting to get out of the car. I wanted to drive you away to wellness. And then the breeze blew the trees and the blossom was falling and you said it looked like petal stones. And we got out of the car.

Nasturtium seeds

Mum kept them for ages. The nasturtium seeds. The ones I took to her to ask whether these were what Daddy gave her when they wanted a baby. I know now that babies aren’t made from the seeds of nasturtiums but I can’t shake the notion that Life is as random as the sprinkling of a packet of seeds. I don’t know whether it’s a gardener, the wind or a little bird carrying me in its beak that ensured that I have a warm bed, food to eat and people who care for me, but I am grateful for it and spare a thought for the seeds which fall on stonier ground or those that fail to flourish at all.