Life had been difficult since TPR died of cancer, but I resolved to lead as ‘normal’ a life as possible, and went to work as usual.

I needed to tell the powers that be that the arrangement for collecting deliveries on campus was not working. When I popped down to the hall to find a late Christmas package, I could tell that someone had already interfered with it. I sorted through the remains, and put aside a ‘Merry Christmas’ banner and three bottles of wine. Not long afterwards, when I returned to carry the goods that I had saved back to my room, nothing was left in the bag.

I took a long walk across Edinburgh to ponder on all my woes (although principally my dead husband and my stolen Christmas parcel). I cheered up a little to admire the sunshine through the trees in Corstorphine, and the red brick waterworks in Dalry.

Then I remembered that I was due on campus for a meeting at 2pm, so I caught a bus back into town. It was only then that I remembered that I’d been in bed with TPR the previous afternoon, and that I’d witnessed him speaking on Skype with his mother the same evening. Perhaps he hadn’t died after all?