Midsummer madness…

In which the countdown begins

WITH James - poor unaware James - due to go into residential care in just a few days’ time, it has been a week of ‘lasts’…

I have been cooking his favourite meals, and wondering if or when he will be able to enjoy them again. And we have started one or two new serials on TV of which I realise guiltily James will almost certainly not see a second episode.

He won’t remember of course,  but I know,  with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, that when they roll round again in a week’s time I will be here watching them alone.

And each night as I tuck him into bed I count down how many sleeps there are, not to Christmas, but to the end of our 53 years living together…

A few weeks ago I ruthlessly culled James wardrobe for a second time, throwing out the many items which would now overwhelm his shrunken frame…

When we fell in love at an RAF ball I was 17. James, my lovely James, was handsome in his starched wing-collared dress shirt, and blue-and-gold uniform bum freezer, and I was in my first-ever long dress.

But there will be no more black tie events for James now and so his civilian dinner jacket, evening shoes, bow ties and cummerbunds were added to the charity bag.

In the pocket of his favourite blazer - so heavy he would now sink beneath the sheer weight of it - I found the order of service for our grandson’s baptism nine years ago, which I laid sentimentally aside before putting that too in with the items no longer needed on Life’s Voyage.

Over-large trousers, beach wear, formal shirts - all of them redundant and replaced with clothes that are soft, easy to wear, easy to launder, and which actually fit him.

Hiking boots and flip flops out, extra pairs of slippers in…

James was quite oblivious to these changes, and he is equally unaware that this week I have been squirrelling things away in a spare room where the open maw of a large suitcase is swallowing up his freshly washed dressing gown, his new underwear and a toilet bag filled with shampoo, body wash, toothpaste and a new electric tooth brush.

Sixty-five years ago he and his brother were similarly accoutred for boarding school - but this journey to a new home is one he will have to face alone.

And as I prepare the weekend shopping order the finality of our new lives hits home.

I strike off the beer, and James’ favourite ice creams and snacks, and generally halve the quantity of other regular items.

But who knows exactly how much milk a widow-with-a-husband will get through in a week?

Time, I guess, will tell…