London at dawn: City at sunrise

About this time last year, I went on an early-morning tour of London with Gemma Seltzer from Write & Shine and Saira Niazi from Living London (both pictured above). Saira led us around places I'd been to before, such as The Vaults (graffiti-covered tunnels where I saw Alice's Adventures Underground), Cross Bones Garden (where people, many believed to be prostitutes, are buried and surrounded by ribbon-covered railings and kind messages), Borough Market, Gabriel's Wharf and the bridges along the River Thames.

We went past places that hold happy memories for me (Konditor and Cook, where I would be going for a cake lock-in later that day; Tate Modern; Shakespeare's Globe) and places that hold sadder or bittersweet memories for me (the new Cancer Centre at Guy's Hospital, where I went with Vicky when she had radiotherapy; Blackfriars Station, where I met Helen the last time we went out in London).

Saira also led us around places I'd never seen, including a small, hidden garden with a tiny library. As well as being a lovely guide, she was so informative and knowledgeable. It's nice to learn new things about your city, especially when you've been living here all your life. Gemma gave us writing exercises every so often, and there was just enough time to take a few photos before we moved on to the next sight. Those of us with cameras lagged behind everyone else, but it was a great opportunity to take photos of places you wouldn't usually photograph. It made you see the beauty in the ordinary and look out for the unexpected. It was a truly wonderful morning and at the end we sat down near Tower Bridge, had a breakfast picnic and chatted.

There will be another early-morning tour with Living London and Write & Shine this Thursday. This time it will be set around Chelsea and Battersea. It's from 6.30am to 9am, so you might be able to fit it in before work, if you can make yourself get early trains or buses to Sloane Square! Details here.

Living London runs other walks around London. Write & Shine also runs writing workshops a little bit later in the morning (7.15am or 9am starts) and I have been going  these regularly this year. It's been a lovely way to get back into writing, and I even got a tiny piece of flash fiction published in an anthology which you can buy here from Arachne Press. For me, it's about writing for writing's sake, enjoying it, and (if you want to) having the courage to put your writing out there. It's scary, but I'm glad I've become braver about my writing this year. Seeing my friends and family in the audience when I read my story out at the book launch in June was one of the most surreal and proud moments of my life. It's taken a long to get here, but I'm here.

Here are some photos from the dawn tour last year. I often get overwhelmed by the number of photos I take (this is the problem with digital cameras) and rather than edit and share a few, I hide them away and don't do anything with them...which is silly!

The ending of The Snowman

Last year I wrote a little piece on Christmas Eve, inspired by Ian McMillan's beautiful article about his memories of Christmas with his father. When I read it last year, I was aware that it would be my last Christmas Eve with my friend Helen who I met most years for a pre-Christmas drink.

This morning I woke up early, and felt a gentle sadness that this is our first Christmas without her. I've written about her illness and my memories of her. The knowing but not quite believing she's gone is something that has marked the months since her death. I made a heart-shaped, mossy wreath and took it to her grave this morning, and I'm meeting her mum later in the cafe where Helen and I used to meet (moss symbolises maternal love in the language of flowers). I haven't been there since she died, and I think a part of me will be expecting her to walk through the door.

I'm sad I won't see her smile, her pretty writing on my Christmas card, the sparkle in her blue eyes when she decided to have a kir royale or a mimosa instead of a coffee or tea. I'm sad we won't wait for the bus together at the same bus stop where we used to wait when we worked together as teenagers. I'm sad that instead of wrapping up a present for Helen yesterday, I was wrapping presents for her sweet nieces who've never had a Christmas without her.

Last year I watched The Snowman like I do every year, but the ending had me in tears like it never had before. It's funny - we did a play of The Snowman at primary school and I played the boy, but that was back when I didn't really understand the ending.

There's comfort in crying about people you've loved and lost, and I've already cried a few times over the last week when I've talked about Helen. I was lucky to have had her as a friend for so long. I felt her love a few months ago when I had a big birthday, and I am sure I will feel her love this Christmas. I am lucky that I am still close to her family, and I can share the love with them. And I am lucky to have other friends and family who have made me feel so loved over the last few months.

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas, full of joy and love.

Autumn blues (and pinks)

It's officially autumn. I was wearing two layers at the weekend, it was dark when I got home from long days at work at the start of the month, and I'm pretty sure I saw frost on the grass earlier this week.

But as it warmed up this week, I could enjoy the late roses and pink sedum. And butterflies have come out dancing again.

I know some people love autumn - the friends I visited last weekend were happy it's autumn now, and last week when I went to a Write and Shine workshop, a lot of the writers seemed excited or happy or at least gently optimistic about the autumn equinox. When we went round the table, each saying one word that came to our mind when we thought of autumn, I said "sad".

I feel blue when the days get shorter and colder and darker. I feel sad when I see the summer flowers shutting up shop for the year. And my heart sinks a little when I see the Halloween and Christmas things in the shops before the summer is over.

The photos above were taken at Selfridges on a beautiful warm day in August. Christmas comes very early to Oxford Street each year, but it's still strange to see. The David Bowie bauble is pretty cool if you have money to burn. I am sentimental though, so my favourite Christmas decorations are the oldest ones with the fondest memories attached to them.

Today is the big Macmillan coffee morning. This time last year I went to Helen's parents' house where Helen and her mother ran a coffee morning as they had done on previous years. But last year's was poignant - the beautiful young woman in the green Macmillan t-shirt serving us tea, coffee and cake had been diagnosed with terminal cancer six months earlier, and would leave us seven months later. The last few weeks, several of her photos and videos have suddenly brought me to tears. My grief is cyclical and I feel like I'm back at disbelief and deep sadness.

The last few Septembers, Helen's mother and I met at the local allotments and bought dahlias. I love the bundle of dahlias wrapped in newspaper - it reminds me of a passage from the late Jane Packer's book, where she remembers her grandfather bringing allotment dahlias for her grandmother. Last September, I gave flowers for Helen - Darcey David Austin roses (named after her fellow dancer Darcey Bussell) and sunflowers with British lisianthus - and a smaller posy for her mother. I love the deep pink-reds and yellows of the season. The colours almost banish the blues of the shorter days. This year her mother and I meant to go to the allotment open day, but life got in the way.

Tomorrow I'm going on the first Twilight Walk organised by both St Christopher's Hospice and Greenwich and Bexley Hospice, walking around Greenwich and Blackheath. St Christopher's looked after Vicky as an outpatient for a few years and as an inpatient for the last five weeks of her life. Vicky's fundraising page is here. St Christopher's also looked after Helen as an outpatient and at home. Helen's fundraising page is here. And Greenwich and Bexley Hospice is where I've received bereavement counselling for the past year (as I'd worked as a bereavement counsellor at St Christopher's for three years, I couldn't have counselling there because too many people knew me). My sessions are about to come to end, and I'm utterly grateful to the hospice, the bereavement service, and my incredible counsellor for the support they've given me during this wretched year. You can donate to Greenwich and Bexley here.

I hope you have lovely weekends and the sun shines for you.

Hearts and dreams

I haven't posted much lately, although I do have some flowery photos to share.

This morning I had a lovely dream about Helen. She still had cancer but she was so joyful and I talked to her after she'd been cycling in one of the royal parks in London (not something Helen did in real life). I have been thinking about her more than usual this week, so this dream was an incredible comfort to me.

I didn't share this photo here before, but I will now - it's the one Dawn Selway took as I delivered Helen's bridal flowers two and half years ago. Dawn is one quick photographer...but as I managed to hide my face in time, I guess my reflexes are pretty sharp, too!

I made a floral heart for Helen's church back in June. It was all homegrown British flowers, before the heatwave scorched half of them. There were scented roses and sweet peas, strawflowers, honeysuckle, and flowering hebe, Even though I'm not religious, I appreciate the fact that Helen was, and that her faith was personal but strong. Taking my heart to her church felt like a way to connect to her.

Today I visited Clayton at Varley and Varley's beautiful new premises in Beckenham, and I took a delivery of flowers. Scented roses with the fantastic name 'Lady Killer', red snapdragons, fluffy grasses, and some British flowers and foliage: yellow dill, pittosporum, and dark physocarpus. It wasn't intentional, but now I can see it was the sort of arrangement I would have done for Vicky - those reds and those textures.

It was nice to see the place where families and friends can come to talk to their funeral director, at a particularly difficult time of their lives. We talked for a while about our work and the people important to us. He asked me about Helen, and we remembered Vicky (it would have been her 35th birthday today). I still find it astonishing and bitterly unfair that I met Vicky on the night of the US election in 2016 and met Helen the morning after, but both of them are gone now.