Hey John

I feel like I want to bring you up to date about what’s been happening.

Well, obviously I’ve been sad and miserable and grieving over you.

But I just drove past the drive-through McDonalds on the A23 which I thought had closed – do you remember me telling you about it?  Well now I want to tell you that I was wrong, they must have just been refurbishing it, cos it’s still there.  Doesn’t look much different, maybe a few more outdoor tables.  Often went in there to get us a breakfast, or occasionally a burger and chips.  Don’t know if I’ll ever go to a drive-through just for food for myself.  Maybe.

Also – they have finally completely demolished Taberner House where you used to work.  By chance I saw actual bulldozers pulling down the final bit, one time.  You would have enjoyed watching that I think, though maybe you would have been sad because it was an era that was over.  As you can imagine, that’s very much what it meant to me.

There’s also this very tall new building that I hate looking at, because you will never see it being completed.  It has coloured cladding, I suppose it’s residential.  We used to joke about Croydon needing a ‘leaning tower of Pisa’ – something striking to ‘mark the spot’ as it were.  Well now it’s got one – and it was our idea!

Also, in that place where the riots were – where your suit was lost when the Dry Cleaners got burned down – and where you were always annoyed that there was no sign of building or redevelopment for two years, despite all the money the Council had received for regeneration.  Well, at last John, they’re building something on it.  And it’s just another horrible reminder for me, a sore point – something you’ll never see, something that happened after you departed from the planet.  It makes me want to get away from this area and start afresh, because everything here will always remind me of you (not that that’s a bad thing, just, well, too painful).

In other news – the neighbour’s fence blew down in the wind, and as I write this there are workmen in his garden erecting a new one.  The water bottle in the car – for the windscreen – is obviously leaking because although I’ve filled it a couple of times, it keeps being empty.  I’ve booked it in to be replaced.

I’ve had another appointment at the Podiatry clinic because my right foot particularly has been hurting so much – just as I’m struggling with the going back to work decision, I can hardly walk.  Well, I’m glad I went because she reckons I’ve got something called Morton’s Neuroma, a growth on a nerve.  I have to have ultrasound to confirm it, and then there’s the possibility of an operation to remove it.  Unbelievable it’s taken a couple of years for that to be diagnosed, nothing like the story I’ve heard so far.

Still, it’s a small thing compared to what you suffered.  I don’t know if I could bear go into that hospital myself to have anything done – they might kill me too.

The real news is all about the election, I suppose you would have been interested, but I’m totally turned off it all.  No sense that any of them really care, like a bunch of schoolboys shouting at each other in a playground.  Nevertheless I will vote the way I believe you would have, in your honour.

They’ve sent you a voting card, despite the fact that I’ve also been sent a piece of paper showing that I’m now the only voter at this address.

They seem to have missed the real, worst news – that my poor dear husband has passed away.