Woodland burial

We had such an awful night last night. We’re now in the very last stages of the move. In fact, by 2pm today, we ought to have everything closed up at Archway Road ready for whatever our landlords there have decided to do with our old home. When they evicted us, they told us they weren’t able to tell us why they wanted us to leave so suddenly and after fifteen years. Someone told us that his daughter was getting married, so maybe he wants to bequeath the flat to her. Who knows? Who cares?

Anyway, part of yesterday’s task was to close up the loft, and that meant bringing down the last vestiges of “us” from up there, including the toys of Nathan’s which had been so badly destroyed by moths.

My heart broke for Nathan as he said goodbye to a stack of his childhood friends. It’s been a week of ghosts, and we decided to seal quite a few up there in the loft including the first ever computer I bought and our old rat cage. The loft has tended to be the place where we put the things which went wrong or didn’t quite work out the way we wanted them to. I once had lots and lots of copies of Sing a Song of Yorkshire printed out so that I could sell them, but, for whatever reason it wasn’t to be, so they went up in the loft, with a little bit more of my joi de vivre!

We didn’t want to seal Nathan’s toys in the loft, so decided to take them to Queens Wood, just at the spot where three of our pet rats are buried. It was one of the most upsetting experiences of my life. It sounds so pathetic really, but I suppose we both got so sad because it was a ritual which signified the end of an era. Leaving your old toys in the middle of a wood is challenging. It’s like saying goodbye to your childhood. Reconciling the fact that you’ll never be that protected and optimistic about the world again. Recognising you’re now closer to death than you are to birth. All of those things swirl around in your head.

And so, at about 10pm, we sat Belinda, Janet, Tigger, Tommy Beaver Toodlums, The Koalas and Blu under a tree, wrapped them all very carefully in a little crocheted blanket and walked away to our future.