I’m trying desperately to catch up with my diary entries, but I just don’t seem to have had any time lately. Coupled with that I seem to have been travelling on the weird bus lately and I’m still waiting for it to stop and let me off.

You may recall that I have just earned my first aid certificate. I never thought I’d have to use it, but last week I had to attend to a young man at work who had collapsed at his desk. That in itself wasn’t too unnerving, but what was rather strange is that I’ve pictured myself kneeling over somebody at work for some time now. I don’t know what a premonition is supposed to feel like, but I do sometimes see things in my head that later happen in real life. Now I’m sounding like a fruitcake and I really don’t mean to, so I’ll stop talking about odd things and get back to the realities of my life.

This weekend Alice celebrates her 8th birthday. She has the most arresting pair of green eyes, a beautiful face and an open and loving demeanour. I’m not giving her a traditional party this year as she’s thankfully grown out of bouncy castles and bowls of Cheesy Wotsits. She’s opted for a sleepover party, followed by a trip to see Shrek 2 at the cinema. It’ll be a breeze for me and I’m almost weak with gratitude that I don’t have to suffer the intolerable torture of the birthday tea. It’s not that I begrudge giving my girls a birthday party, but I do find them very hard work. My friend Deb came over to help me with Rosie’s party the year after Charlie died, and I think she’s still trying to recover from the shock. I did try to warn her, but she just wasn’t prepared for the havoc that ten small children, pumped up on tartrazine and Jammy Dodgers, can wreak. She eventually left my house with the same kind of glazed expression that results from a session of electro-shock therapy, and had to have several stiff gin and tonics administered orally before she was able to regain the power of speech.

I should be getting the house ready for the impending arrival of the tiny terrors, but I have to finish this entry, and I’m not sure that it’s worth erecting the tent in the garden now, as it’s been raining relentlessly all afternoon. It’s fair day in our village today. Such a shame that it’s pouring with rain, but I’m not too concerned because I like to stay at home on fair day - it’s traditional.

One of the best pictures I have is taken on fair day. Rosie is up on my shoulders, looking down at the fair, Charlie is looking up at her and smiling and I’m looking adoringly at him. O.k., I know it sounds unbearably sickly, but it is an image of joy, from a time when joy and laughter filled my life. I think of fair day as a time when the family can be together, to stroll around stalls selling plants and homemade jam, and meet up with other village families. When Charlie was taken from me, fair day became the day I had to walk around and see what I no longer had, so I resolved to stay away. I did try hard to make the effort when the girls were younger, but now they are old enough to go down to the square on their own. They invariably come home stuffed full of hot dogs and panda pops, with painted faces and braids in their hair. Later in the afternoon they change into scruffy clothes and return to the square to take on the rest of the village children in the traditional end of fair water fight.

My reasons for avoiding the square are not solely to do with being antisocial; I also have to avoid the donkey man. He raises money for charity by taking a pack-donkey for long walks around the local lanes. This charitable exercise was nearly ended last year when I narrowly missed colliding with the donkey on a tight bend on the way into the village. In a car versus donkey accident, the car usually comes off better, and I think I would have been hounded out of the area by an angry mob if I’d caused the donkey any permanent disfigurement. Perhaps my later husband had a hand in it. He had a real hatred of donkeys, and any mention of the ‘d’ word in our house prompted the standard repost, ‘Fucking donkeys. You can’t eat them; you can’t ride them; they are a total waste of space.’ He did have a point, and I have to confess to be somewhat perplexed that by far the biggest charity in the area is the local donkey sanctuary. The sanctuary lies in an area of outstanding numbers of old people, and it seems that many of them like to leave some, if not all of their money to donkeys. Well, it’s understandable, isn’t it? If you leave the sanctuary some money they’ll put your name on a large plaque on the side of their barn, or on a metal plate in the flower bed, and then everyone will know that your kind bequest has provided a few elderly quadrupeds with five star accommodation and all the hay they can eat.

I’ve been taken to the donkey sanctuary, and I have to say that I didn’t enjoy the experience one bit. I only counted about twenty donkeys whilst we were there. We walked around empty fields, past flowerbeds lined with memorials and my girls kept asking where all the animals were. The strange thing is that you can’t do anything except look at the donkeys. You can’t pat them, or ride the; they don’t pull carts - all they do is stand there looking rich. I think Charlie had a point.

And before I get mail from enraged animal lovers, telling me I’m being unfair, let me say that I’m not advocating letting animals suffer. But I do feel very strongly that there are better ways to use charitable donations. Devon is one of the largest counties in England, but it only has one childrens’ hospice. A hospice isn’t as cuddly as a donkey, but it does provide the means to ease the suffering of dying children, and give their parents some respite care.

If I’m ever lucky enough to win the lottery, my winnings will go towards providing another children’s hospice for the county. I think the donkeys of Devon have quite enough to be going on with…


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