Today, as I sit at my keyboard and stare out at a dismal, wet day, I am struck by the thought that my life has changed more in the past year that I could have ever have imagined. Last New Year's Eve I sat and smoked a cigar for Charlie, just as I had done every year since his death. To me it was a symbolic gesture in remembrance of a man who gave up smoking on the day we met, but who always longed to smoke just one cigar, after a good dinner with friends on the eve of the new millennium.

Charlie never got to smoke his cigar, and so I smoked it for him - but not this year. Something has changed. It's not that I have forgotten about Charlie, or that he is any less important to me, but that he seems farther away somehow. I know we will always be connected, but now I feel as if he has taken a few steps back into the shadows and is allowing me to walk free and unfettered into the future. My thoughts on New Year's Eve were not of the past, but of what the next year might hold. My girls were safely tucked up in bed, I was happily watching Jools Holland and completely forgot about the Monte Cristo. It's hard to feel sad when Basement Jaxx are pumping our 'Red Alert', and it's hard to wish for what once was, when you are so excited about what might be. And so I went to bed without having that cigar, and I went straight to sleep; and my dreams were dreams of infinite possibility, like the dreams you have as a child, of running away from something bad, and flying up into the sky and watching all your troubles disappear into the distance. My dreams are flying dreams and my heart is light, and I know that the benevolent presence that is with me now, will be with me always, but that the weight of sorrow that dogged my every waking thought has been left far behind, lost in a patchwork of sadness far down below me, like the fields I flew over in my childhood dreams. The patchwork is getting smaller as each year passes, and will soon melt into the vivid tapestry of my experiences like invisible stitches; like the faint, bumpy scars that hide a long forgotten wound.

It's amazing to think how a broken family can emerge from grief and become a happy, secure unit. And when I think of how I struggled to retain some small grasp on my sanity in the early days after Charlie's death, and of how difficult it was to bring up two little girls single handed, I now understand that the struggle and the hardship have resulted in a tight, happy family, a resolute and joyous threesome. And I'm excited about the New Year and I relish the challenges that we will face together, and I don't wish for what has past, because time has given me distance from my pain, and wishing for it back would only serve to wound me further.

So much has happened in the last year and so much is promised for the next. Is it chance that the publisher of my new book has chosen to bring the release date forward to April 7th, the day before the anniversary of Charlie's death? It seems like a strange coincidence to me, but Easter is all about re-birth and renewal, and I truly believe that the publication of my next book will herald a new phase in my life. Tomorrow I travel up to London to talk to Simon Mayo, and I have no idea what he's going to say to me, but what I do know is that he's read a proof copy of the new book and he'll be the first person to review it. That in itself is a pretty daunting prospect, but having spoken to him in the past, I know he is a kind and thoughtful man, with a good sense of humour, and so even if he does give me a grilling, at least it will be a gentle grilling. I can't prepare for the interview, so all I can do today is try to remain calm, get the ironing done and finish my diary entry.

I have no word from the dating agency, so I can only assume that I'm proving to be rather more of a challenge than they originally anticipated. I thought it would be easy to find a man with the good looks and interpersonal skills of John McCririck, the largesse of Gordon Brown and morals of Darren Day, but clearly there's been a run on such men and there aren't any left for me. I remain positive, despite the dismal weather and hope that 2005 will prove to be a good year for all of us.


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