Christmas without mum

All my life I have thought of my mum at Christmas, everyone does. Most of my life I have spent Christmas with my mum, or visited her shortly afterwards.

But not this year. She has gone.

My husband and I had a lovely Christmas together and as we raised our glass or champagne we toasted mum: 'She was a lovely lady' he said. 'Yes,' I agreed.

Then we realised we were sitting in the same seats at our dining table that we sat in last Christmas and the one next to us was empty, the one where mum had sat last year.

'A toast to absent friends', I said, 'mum and dad'.

Even when I went Christmas shopping this year I found myself looking at things and thinking 'Mum would like that'. It's going to take a while, but I am coming to terms with life without her and seeing references to her everywhere.

I am doing a lot of sewing at the moment as the snow is forcing us to stay indoors, and I am using her bits and pieces - cutting out scissors, coloured threads, unpicker, spare bits of fabric and stiffeners used to make medieval hats.

She is everywhere.

I got into great difficulty making a medieval jacket a couple of weeks ago, but I couldn't ask her advice, which I always did in the past. I have to stand on my own two feet now, but I realise she was a mine of information. I'll have to try Wikipedia now...