Winter Solstice

Beyond the pain, life continues to be sweet. The basics are still there. Beauty, food and friendship, reservoirs of love and understanding. Later, possibly not yet, you are going to need others who will encourage you to make new beginnings. Welcome them. They will help you move on, to cherish happy memories and confront the painful ones with more than bitterness and anger.

And the wicked thing is, that when we're really upset, we always take it out on the people who are closest and whom we love the most.

Life is so extraordinary. Wonderful surprises are just around the most unexpected corners.

Not his real name, darling, but my own name for him. I never thought it could be like this. I never thought one could be so close, and yet so different to a single human being. He is everything I've never been, and yet I love him more than any person or anything I've ever known.

It was better not to get too close to another person. The closer you got, the more likely you were to get hurt.

Oscar and I are very close, and yet I know that part of him is still withdrawn, even from me. As though part of him was still in another place. Another country. Journeying, perhaps. Or in exile. Across the sea. And I can't be with him, because I haven't got the right sort of passport.

She had been impulsive all her life, made decisions without thought for the future, and regretted none of them, however dotty. Looking back, all she regretted were the opportunities missed, either because they had come along at the wrong time or because she had been too timid to grasp them.

She was totally without artifice. If she had nothing to say, she said nothing. If she spoke, or aired an opinion, it was deliberate, considered, intelligent. She did not seem to know the meaning of small talk, and while others chatted, over meals or an evening drink, she was always attentive, but often silent. Her relationships, however, were deeply affectionate and caring.

Life, for both of us, can never be the same as it was, but it can be different; and you have proved to me that it can be good.

- Elfrida, are you about to cry? - I might be. - Why? - Relief. ♥

He thought back over the extraordinarily coincidental chain of events that had brought him here, at this particular time, and then left him marooned, so that he had no choice but to stay. With hindsight, it seemed as though it had all been carefully mapped out by fate.

One just had to be content with what had happened so far.

As for God, I frankly admit that I find it easier to live with the ageold questions about suffering than with many of the easy or pious explanations offered from time to time. Some of which seem to verge on blasphemy.

The only way to make disasters bearable is to laugh about them.

She had never allowed herself to be bullied, and was not about to start.

I know we didn’t have very long together, but what we did have was special. Not many people achieve such happiness, even for a year or two.

Carrie could not remember how long it was since some other person had cherished her. Had said, 'You look tired.' And, 'How about a little rest?' She had spent too many years being strong, looking after others and their problems...The day progressed, and through her window Carrie watched the weather and was glad she did not have to be out in it. Snow showers came and went; the sky was grey. From time to time she heard the faint keening of wind, whining around the old house. It was all rather cosy. She remembered as a child being ill, and in bed, and the awareness of others getting on with the business of day-to-day life without herself having to participate in any sort of way. Telephones rang, and someone else hurried to answer the call. Footsteps came and went; from behind the closed door, voices called and answered. Doors opened and shut. Towards noon, there came smells of cooking. Onions frying, or perhaps a pot of soup on the boil. The luxuries of self-indulgence, idleness, and total irresponsibility were all things that Carrie had long forgotten.

Before Elfrida Phipps left London for good and moved to the country, she made a trip to Battersea Dogs' Home, and returned with a canine companion. It took a good, and heart-rending, half hour of searching, but as soon as she saw him, sitting very close to the bars of his kennel and gazing up at her with dark and melting eyes, she knew he was the one. She did not want a large animal, nor did she relish the idea of a yapping lap dog. This one was exactly the right size. Dog size.

Oh.” Elfrida made much effort not to appear too astonished. She had never seen any person in her life less likely to be a minister’s wife.

What’s this? Bacon and tangerines. We are going to have an orgy.

I feel old and finished. I’m nearly thirty now.

All the estate houses were the same design. Two up and two down. Originally. Little kitchens and bathrooms were added on after the war.

cuckold. I am a cuckold. I have been cuckolded.

Elfrida’s vision of an old folks’ home was a little fuzzy, on account of her never having been in one.

I’ll probably just stay in Inverness until the orgies of hogmanay

It's all so sweet. Needing each other and finding each other.