I’m finding the idea of an afterlife quite comforting at the moment. I haven’t believed in it for a very long time – certainly since primary school – and haven’t felt the need for it. When Dad died and lots of people said “he’s in a better place now” or […]
Grief
I wish I could go back in time 5 years. There are so many things that I wish I could have a second chance with. So many things I could’ve done better or prevented. Helping Dad more while he was ill. Spending more time with him. Making sure things were […]
5 years

Me, Dad (d. 4 Dec 2012), and Catrin (d. 19 Feb 2012) I started writing this post almost 3 years ago, and for reasons now unknown to me, I never finished writing it. On 20 February (2012) I received a text from one of my best friends telling me that […]
Catrin Pickles: 26 May 1991-19 February 2012
I’m getting a bit teed off with people pointing out what a lot of work I’ve got to do with the land. I realise they think they’re being helpful, but what they don’t realise is that they’re one of many people telling me the same thing. And pointing it out […]
Pointing out the obvious

It was Dad’s birthday a couple of weeks ago. I spent the day at a mounted games competition with the riders he trained previously. He would’ve been very proud of them all and it’s a real shame he can’t be there to see them this year. I took the following […]
Happy Birthday Dad
On Friday morning I decided to finally phone round utility companies and suchlike to tell them Dad had died and that’s why direct debits had been cancelled, to please cancel his account, etc. I expected this to be a fairly easy task. I was quite surprised when I started crying […]
Necessary phone calls
I’m feeling trapped, and it’s stressing me out and causing even more sleep problems. And worst of all, it’s making me angry with Dad, and I really don’t want to feel like that.He’s left me with a situation which, had we planned properly, would have had specific instructions about how […]
Things we should’ve talked about
I’m upset about all the work we still had left to doI’m upset about all that was left to achieve, that can now never be achievedI’m upset about all the things I don’t know about, that he would’ve told me if we knew that time was upI’m angry that we […]
Well if I must talk about it…
Emma Griffin’s birthday has appeared on my Facebook news feed today. 25 years old today. Except she died last week. Took her own life. We weren’t close: I’d only met her a couple of times. More a friend of a friend than anything else. We were chalk and cheese really, […]