Painting was the easy bit – sorting out before was not easy. The kitchen is the heart of our house and somewhere very much of Chris. The parties, the cooking, the conversations…. where Chris was Chris at his best. So painting it was a brave decision – I’m not certain why I chose now – it wasn’t really pre-planned – it just seemed the right thing to do last week.
Anyway Jim and I did it together – we had to make hard choices - like a colour that wasn't yellow - and then it did seem to involve a lot of work - having a tall boy around made painting ceiling easy though! I struggled a bit with the cookery books – then had the brainwave of taking a pile into work where they were snapped up like hot cakes which made me feel they had all gone to good homes.
When I first met Chris he had never even boiled an egg but over the years he had come to love cooking and he loved his cookery books. The sorting process wasn't straight forward as it involved me in getting rid of all his bookmarks and annotated recipes - they are hard things because they are so personal.
So tonight Jim and I feel very pleased with ourselves – job well done. Earlier today I did worry that we had possibly made too radical a change – and the empty feeling last night of a big empty, echoing room was a bit grim but tonight when we put things back – it felt great – I thought it was going to be very new when it suddenly felt normal again – but different. Which is the story of my life at the moment.
Anyway of to Rome tomorrow with Gilly for a few days - normal but different!
