Gearing up today for the bank holiday weekend. Mayday is always the time of our local annual village fete, the Cuckoo Fair. It is billed as this twee country affair, yet in reality is somewhat larger and less personal. Lots of traders who will spend the summer months going from fete to fete, lots of fast-food stalls which leave you wishing you hadn’t bothered…. When we first came to the village, it was an occasion we marked in our diaries, but this has waned over the years. even before the stroke, to the point where these days I actively avoid it. Our sleepy village of 5,000 inhabitants, swells to 25,000 for the day, they close the main road and parking is generally a nightmare!

I’m not sure if my wife feels the same as I do, but certainly this year has made other plans. She is away for the weekend in the lovely Lyme Regis, some craft course or other.

My daughter, however, still likes such occasions, and has said that she will visit for the weekend. I suppose it is also an opportunity for her to see  the mates she left behind when she went into care, although we don’t need particularly good memories to remember all the times, before she left, when she would complain that she had no friends. So as you can tell, there is still contact between me and my daughter, although in reality most of her contact is with my wife – I guess a mother’s love really is unconditional!

But on these occasions when she does visit, they are invariably non-confrontational, mainly because we are both quite reserved with each other, and avoid contentious subjects. But all a far cry from when she claimed to be fearful of being in the same house as me. My wife is only away Saturday and Sunday, so we may even all go out for a coffee on the bank holiday!