Friday, 6th December. What There Is.

Friday, 6th December. What There Is.

Dec 06, 2024


I had this great thing about giving you a lovely little glimpse through the window of the Advent Calendar, or the feeling of putting in your finger and pulling out a plum - all very Christmassy. And today I got a bit behind and I did all my work and did the horses and went to make my brother-in-law an early supper and thought I’d be back by nine, but we talked so long and so merrily that it was after eleven by the time I got home.

The funny thing was that I was still determined to find that plum.

I got a brilliant first sentence. It’s from the introduction to the latest Penguin Modern Classics version of Gatsby.

The sentence goes:

‘It was not always to be called The Great Gatsby.’

If it was not half-past eleven, and if the brother-in-law had not got out the good burgundy, I should spend at least seven paragraphs explaining why that is such a majestic first sentence. You can thank your lucky stars that I shall not do that.

I think: I can just give them fragments. It doesn’t have to be elegant and structured and perfect.

Today, there was so much sweetness down in the magic field and I felt ridiculously lucky that I have the companionship with my horses that makes my heart sing. (And if it was not almost midnight, I should write you twenty paragraphs about that. So thank your lucky stars again.)

And - right at the other end of the scale - there was a swoop of the heart and a falling melancholy and a deep ache, because it was on this day five years ago that my old and dear and stalwart friend Simon decided that he could not do living any more. He made sure that this would be a definitive decision and he died by suicide. 

I remember thinking, furiously, ‘I can’t ask him to come back, or to have stayed, just so I would not be sad.’ 

I’m not sure if any thinking makes sense after such a thing, and all I know now is that I feel lucky that he could stay with us as long as he did, and I feel lucky that he was my friend, and I feel sad that he had to go.

But there, next door, is the brother-in-law, who came into our family quite by chance, and who is a gentleman of great honour and splendour and grace, and who eats a tremendous steak pie with me and talks about all the subjects under the sun.

It was a day, I suppose, with all the elements in it. And even though I miss my Simon and and I wish that things had been different and all of those of us who loved him have been sending little messages back and forth all day, with memories and fondness, I think: yes, in the end, it was a good day.

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