[West Ender]

I may have told these stories before and, if I have, sorry for repeating them.

The first time was, in fact, the night following the day Colin had died. I was very much in shock and couldn't sleep and I got up at 2 a.m. I kept walking backwards and forwards from the French window to the end of the garden, not really knowing what I was doing. About 3.30 day began to break (it was mid-Summer) and I looked up at the sky towards the East. There were a few clouds around and suddenly one was illuminated by the sun and made a huge, glowing letter C in the sky. It was, strangely, very comforting.

The next time was January 1997 and Colin had died the previous June. We had some awful gales and the lovely red climbing rose he had planted by our front door had blown down and broken. I'd had to prune it back to only 4' high and it was little more than a stem and a few bare, twiggy branches, not a leaf or leaf-bud in sight.

On my birthday, the 18th, I drove home from work on a dark, cold, wet afternoon and pulled up on the drive feeling sad and miserable. I noticed something appeared to be stuck in the bare twigs of the rose tree so I went and had a look. I was gobsmacked to see that the "something" was a perfect red rose just opening at the top of the chopped off stem. Colin had always brought (or sent, if he was away) roses on my birthday and my instinct said, straight away, "He's sent this." Needless to say I went inside and howled for over an hour.