5th Letter. Few and far between.

27 June 2020

Dear Florence

It's been 16 weeks since my last confession. Much has happened in this time! For starters, the world collapsed from a corona virus pandemic. People had to stay home, isolate, the economy crashed and a lot of people got ill and many thousands died. It bought the absolute worst out in people and also the best. I am already fairly recluse, so I adapted to the lock down reasonably well. I researched natural remedies in the event that medicines became scarce and I boosted my immune system with lots of good stuff. I also started a food diary and had 5 targets a day to stick too and it's been 75 days now of doing that.. so quite impressive for me. I've lost weight and not had a drink for 75 days, a lot of others are  now bigger and got proper drinking problems. I wanted to make use of the time and improve myself. Did I succeed? Hmm, that's a tough question. I'm definitely more hydrated lol. 

As time went on, I started to feel less positive about my future. Will I always be on my own? Why haven't I found that 'one' yet? Will I die in isolation having not discovered my true potential... alone? I thought about you. A lot! How would you have handled this.. you were already isolated, other than work and family. I've certainly had a lot of dead time, to think about many things. I've watched videos on how to process these feelings and understand them, I think I have started to deal with it better. I do have bad days but these are few and far between.

I'm on spotify listening to your namesake... bliss, her voice is beautiful and full of pain. It's why we both loved her so much. It's impossible not to throw your arms wide and sing along.. such joy. It made me realise that I'd not written to you for a long time. I had thought about doing so but I didn't 'need' too, so didn't. I haven't stopped missing you. I think about what you'd be doing now, if you were still here. I was singing your songs in the shower earlier but didn't realise I was.. I'm sure you're around me at the moment, I'd really love to see a medium and hear what you want to say. Feels like I should be giving you a call.. then I remember that I can't. The regret kicks in... self doubt, guilt, loss.

Right now, I'm doing okay. Grief is a little bit lighter. Every now and then it drops on me like Zorcovia. No superheroes on standby though, just me, myself and I. I had been really angry at the lack of loyalty from some friends, how easily I was discarded by others, how those involved were absolved of what they did to me but I'm still the bad guy. I heard the other day that it had been suggested that I wasn't even really your friend. That's really stooping low. I explained to someone that I didn't just lose you when you died but also L, K and S. My support group vanished. I was left to deal with all that shit on my own with added shit for stuff I'd not done. I get that people were grieving but why wasn't I allowed to? Why did they think they could do that to me? Instead of grieving together, I was excluded from that too.  I kept trying to extend the olive branch and it's not accepted... which leads me to the realisation that I was more their friend, then they were mine. That hurts as much, to be honest. Really cuts to the quick. People ask why I'm angry... I think I'm allowed to be angry. It's a valid emotion, more so because it's raw. 

I wish people could read these letters. I think they are too much for most people to understand or want to engage. I wish I was brave enough to tell the world how I felt about all this shit. I have been more brave lately... fear is a bitch though. It's all very well having self esteem issues, it's another when you know they are only echoes of what people have actually said/done to you. Maybe I'll share them publicly... but then I'm afraid of what people will think of me. I'm more afraid of their silence. I need to LET GO.. in so many ways.. why is it so damned hard?

My dearest Florence, I miss your everything. Please help me.

x Niamh x

4th letter - Groovy kinda love

Dearerst Florence

I went to a gig last Saturday and I fairly sure you were with me... going on the daftness, I'm certain of it! I had intended to go on Friday but by the time I'd got in, it was gone 7pm and I was pooped. So I left early on Saturday in time to get there for the first band. I wore my usual getup but did a lil video for a competition I'd entered. I was in minx mode hahahaha.

I get there and it's hugs galore and warm hellos. I crack open the rum and proceed to mingle. I danced to the Fisherman's blues and Rose tattoo covers and didn't cry. I had a great time. Even when K turned up and sat near me, she didn't exist in my bubble and I didn't let it bother me. I had a good chat about you to those who'd been close to you and to whom I'd not been able to talk to this last year because I'd not been out. I felt supported and loved. Had a great time. I drank a lot of pirate juice, I lost my skirt. True story, couldn't find it. Granted I'd had 7 pints at this point but I didn't even feel tipsy. I spent a good ten minutes in the toilet, trying to find the skirt, convinced it couldn't have just fallen off (it was a tube one under a floaty dress). Lifted my dress up, nope, no skirt. Pulled down tights, nope, not there. Where the fuck is my fucking skirt???!!! So I thought, I'd have a look on the dancefloor for it, still utterly convinced it couldn't have slipped off without me falling over it. People asked me what I was doing, so I told them.. because it was funny. I was chatting to S and re-enacted the search and what do you think happened? That's correct, I found the skirt! It was rolled up under the band of my tights ffs! So embarrassing but so funny. It was totally something you'd do.

Talking of S, he was telling me about how you two used to message each other all the time. He was sad that he'd lost those messages because your FB was deactivated. I showed him how he could find them and he was showing me the messages and laughing, had tears in his eyes though. He misses you. We all do Florence. M was in tears, seeing a man cry always gets me in the feels.

It was an honest outing. I only talked about you to a couple of people, those who wanted to talk, like P, she's still devastated. I didn't realise how close you two were, until I put that memorial video together. I said that to her, she was your friend before you and I even met. You meant so much, to so many people.

I've been sharing my writing with a select few people. It's very difficult to expose my vulnerability but as Brene Brown says, 'dare to be brave'. Writing to you, is my grief diary, it's how I process my feelings and how I grow stronger. I'm reminded (by you in my head) that you were a pants friend too. You rarely answered the phone, your house phone was unplugged and the answer machine full up. You were hard to get hold of because you threw yourself into work and seeing family... which is fair enough. I'm beating myself up for not being there but you weren't either. I suppose this is the next stage of grief. As I told a friend on Saturday, grief is a form of depression... I was right about him too. I'd messaged him because I was worried about him and I was right, he was on the verge of doing something fatal. We had a chat about it. I hope he turns the corner on this. Please watch over him, I think you already are, I think you're the one who alerted me to it.. to a lot of things lately.  I'm hoping to see a clairvoyant in the next few months, a proper one. I have heard that you've come through for another friend......... I really want to hear from you via another's lips. I need closure on this. I need to forgive myself but not sure I can fully til I hear it said by you via another. We'll see.

I'm going out for afternoon tea next week. A lady from choir has arranged it for my birthday. I've no other plans but you know, my birthday plans always sucked anyway lol. The card you made me, still sits on my fireplace...

Much love as always

Niamh the rum drenched pirate

Third letter - One year on

Dear Florence

You have been dead for one year. I created a remembrance event on the womble group for us to share stories etc. The day went well. I was wired before bed and wrote a song, the tune has vanished from my head now but I think it will pop back another day. People messaged me to see if I was okay and I was strangely okay. Someone put a recording of B doing that song you loved. I cried then.. it was so wonderful, you'd have loved it. I ended up using it for a picture slideshow.. which ended up with other songs on and lasted over 13 minutes long. Of course Rose Tattoo and This Garden were on it!

I've been writing this letter to you in my head, all week. I was going to write one last week but I slept on it, as you'd always tell me. It is still weird that I can't just message you or call you. I miss your pocket calls lol. I haven't deleted your number off my phone. I can't.

There was a gig for you today. I wouldn't have gone but then again, it was made painfully clear that I wasn't invited. I'm sure it was a great success, I wouldn't wish it to be anything but. However, after nearly a year of being frozen out, I finally admitted to myself that some friends, hadn't been friends for a long time. So I've deleted L now. Memories on FB were of me and her four years ago, calling me wifey and bestie... what happened to that? It can't be because I told 6 people you'd died... I remember the good times and I recall all that I did to help her through the dark days. I don't begrudge those times, it is what it is. I'm sure my ears are burning for something lol. I tried to reach out to another this week. Had a very honest chat in messenger about last year and I'm hoping that we can move forwards with being friends again.

Oh Florence! Last week I wanted the ground to swallow me up, I was mortified. I wrote something on my wall instead of the private group... and I didn't realise for twelve hours! Proper Home Alone moment. That was the beauty of the group, you could have a rarrrrr without upsetting people. I really hope I haven't upset anyone. I was angry and still being called a liar and not being able to even discuss the accusations made against me. Why is it everyone phones me when they've been drinking? L and K did it consistently. In fact the night you died, I was on my way back from Steely Dan and K rang me. She was on the phone for nearly two hours and cannot remember one thing about it. They all forget that, me being the one who answered their calls at 2am, them falling to pieces, drunk and needing a friend to talk too. Anyway, I posted lots of memes on my wall and asked my long term friends to vouch for my integrity and character. I was blown away by their honesty. I did it to show those who said I lied about telling people you'd died, that I am an honest person and if that's what I said happened, then that's damn well what happened. I hope people took screenshots and showed those two, I really do. That's where I posted comments, instead of the group. One of which was about this blog... you can't lie to the dead, they know if you're full of shit. And that's what this is, it's a brutally honest, raw outpouring of feelings. My feelings as I try to process this grief. MY grief, which has been ignored by some and hijacked by others. It's mine, I don't impose it on anyone. Well I hope I don't! Fuck, I really hope I don't. The memorial group isn't about me, it's about you. If it was about me, I'd have removed those pernicious bitches... but they are grieving too. I loved them once, I don't wish them any ills.. although I am prone to having a good bitch about it. I don't want to do that anymore, I don't want to be that person... it was too easy to get caught up with their spite and I'm embarrassed that I did for so long. I gotta move forwards. I wonder what you'd say to all this.. I think you'd be really cross, it wouldn't be the first time. Why did I listen to them!?

I decided to read our old messages yesterday. Four years of silly nonsense, made me laugh and then cry. I took some screenshots, because Facebook will archive them at some point and I didn't want to lose them. It reminded me that we were like two peas in a pod. I hadn't imagined it all. It also made me utterly sad that I had been such a shit friend at the end of your life. The guilt is still awful. Making the tribute video for you, made me happy seeing all those people dancing with you and smiling, full of smiles at just being with you. I miss you so much. I'm sorry I was so crap at the end. I regret that more than I can bare. You'd tell me not to be silly, that you wouldn't think that at all. But I do, Florence, I do. I let them sway my opinion. I was so angry that you'd tried to kill yourself, we all were.. and I let that get in the way of not being your friend. I don't think I will ever forgive myself. I will regret that for all my days.

I gotta go to bed, it's gone 2am. Come and visit me in my dreams Florence. Come and tell me it's alright, that you're alright, that I am forgiven and there's nothing to forgive. I already know all of that but I won't allow or accept that at this time.

I must end on a happy note! My clairvoyance is really kicking in this last year, I'm picking up signals off friends in distress who need healing. I shelved it when I was in my 20's and I think I'm now ready to accept those gifts. I keep seeing Ozzy, destroys me.  I'm also become very musical lately! I picked up the penny whistle that I bought in 2006 and finally played it. Then picked up the recorder I've had since I was 5, and played it well. I've remembered how to read music. I've even gone on ebay and bought a treble and tenor recorders. I'm thinking that the breath control will help with my voice.. which is sounding really good lately! These last 3 years have been about finding my Voice and as I'm working on the 'letting go' lesson, I hope I can really let go and let rip with my voice.. cos it's range is more than when we were singing Madonna in your front room that time. I have so many happy memories of our time together... I must remember those and not your death. I have to practice what I preach... and you know that, we talked about it at great length, many times. Remember how they lived, not how they died... I don't know how you died though Florence. A head injury and 'we think it was suicide' isn't answers... but that's by the by, you're gone. No more pocket calls. No more silly messages. No more manic posting. No charity shop mooching. No more Florence, my partner in crime, my kindred spirit, my friend.

All my love

Niamh

Glass Goodbyes

Glass Goodbyes

A suicide bought us together

Oh how we all raised The Glass

We sang and danced at the front

Until you too did pass

It was a rainy Thursday they said

Some time in early spring

When you decided to leave us

Only no one knew a thing!

You're not here anymore

You're not at the front of the show

You're not dancing around, arms raised

You left and we didn't know

How could you leave us like that?

How can you just end?

It's not sunk in, that you're really gone

It feels like it's all pretend

It was a Thursday, that's what they said

How can you just end?!

Now we remember the way you left

And forget the way you lived

A year has gone by but it feels like yesterday

Since you upped and went away

And maybe one day, I'll let it go

But it won't be today

Niamh 21/2/20

When words rattle around your head and won't let you rest, you have to write them down. The first two verses were written a week earlier, the rest wrote themselves as a song. I was cleaning my teeth and getting ready for bed and they took 10 minute and there was music behind the words as I wrote them out. Maybe it will be a song... it seems that's where my writing is taking me.

Forever tsunamis

The ripples of your absence, create tsunamis

Waves of guilt swallow us whole

Drowning us in sadness and despair

We peer over the abyss of our faulty selves

Falling headlong into avoidance

Too full to eat humble pie, too empty to fill up

Out of sorts, a missing piece of the puzzle

Not understanding why you're gone

So so so so very gone!

I'm sorry. I was wrong.

I should have been more kind

Shit haunted you, 'til it consumed you at the end

I'm black and blue from missing you

Did you dive off the top board of your loneliness?

We're all in that splash zone now

Feeling the tsunami take us upon it's torrent of detritus

Bystanders in a sea of grief

22nd January 2020

Written by Niamh

Second letter to Florence

22nd January 2020


Dear Florence

I am not doing okay. I had to go to court today about a parking ticket, robbing fuckers. They wanted to know why I didn't appeal it last year. I told them lots of bad things had happened and I didn't want pity but it was all terrible and I couldn't deal with anything. I had taken your funeral service booklet with me, for validation but I couldn't do it, I couldn't sit there and say it out loud. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, the law is the law. You'd know that, what with you having a degree in it. So you sat in the notes, as my legal support but I couldn't look at you and I had to hold back tears when I skirted the reason I'd avoided so much last year.

I'm just not doing very well. I can't believe you're really gone.. how did that happen, why did it happen, why aren't you here with us, being silly and wonderful and daft? You're gone, so so so gone. I miss you so much. Everything reminds me of you. I'm always thinking of you. I feel very guilty about not being a better friend. I could have done better. I'm sorry. 

I started learning about cptsd, which is what they should have been treating you for! You'd still be with us, if they had diagnosed you properly. Probably. I kept saying to you that you had ptsd from all the shit with your daughter's father. Time goes by but that shit stays with you, haunts you and it took you in the end. I hope she gets grief counselling, I did have a good chat with her at the memorial about that, I don't think it had hit her at that point. Are you watching over her and the kids? Do you move about from place to place, bringing sunbeams and warmth? I'd like to think so. 

I started college and left college and then went back to college. Tutor was bullying me... and because I've not been doing well, he was able to completely undo me. I wanted to hurt myself but only did so with the anxiety and self loathing of feeling unworthy, irrelevant and boring. Then the penny dropped and I fought back... he got suspended in the end. Cunt. I know if you were here, you'd be going mad if I told you want he'd done. You'd be going nuts about how I'd low I was. But you weren't here and I wasn't doing well. I'm doing better now. Well, as good as I can be, all things considered. 

Ere! I made some new friends! The old ones aren't around, toxic cunt really made them believe I'd done wrong. Maybe they know they were duped and are too embarrassed to eat humble pie? Maybe they struggling like me, knowing you're gone and we failed you? Maybe they weren't the friends I thought they were... maybe, I was more their friend, than they were mine. I miss them too, we had some good times together. You were the dysfunctional glue that held us together. The ripples of you leaving like that, ended up as tsunamis. Ooo, that's good.. I'll have to write that in my new poem/song book. Ooops, just wrote a poem. Might make it into a song. Be my muse Florence... automatic nob writing hahahaha! *Deep sigh*

One day I'll publish these letters in a blog.. one day. *

My love always

Your shit friend who didn't catch you when you dived off the top board of loneliness.. we were all in the splash zone. Ripples turn into tsunamis... yeah, that encapsulates it perfectly. 

Soz, been one of those lifetimes.

________________________________________

* a few hours later, I created this blog. So there you go, 'some day' happened today.

First letter to Florence

31st August 2019

Dearest Florence

You left before we could talk properly. I can't help but think you died thinking me indifferent to our friendship. I am sorry I didn't say these words to you when you were alive. This guilt has eaten the little happiness I had and these many months on, I still feel burdened by it.

I was so mad with you! You tried to leave this world again and again. You seemed to be happier and then a drinking session crushed you to try and kill yourself. That last attempt, left me furious with you, mainly because within two days, you were back to normal and acting like nothing had happened, whilst we were all still reeling from the reality that you were very close to dying that time. I had to have space to process how I felt, I punished you by not taking you to the Levellers gig that week – well it was 3 days after you'd nearly died, I wasn't ready to deal with that. We were all fried to fuck, we didn't know what to do or how to do it. So instead of talking to you about it, which I'd always been able to do, I just stepped back. Remember that message you sent me? 'How can you complain about your friends abandoning you?!' You just didn't get it and I didn't want to say anything that I'd regret, so I said nothing of substance. Suicide is the ultimate abandonment. You had tried to abandon me, your world that loved you and I was fucking mad! Mad that such a wonderful person could think so badly of herself that she would do this over and over again. Months went by, you were driving within a few miles of my house fetching slabs and other junk, on your little adventures but didn't pop in. I was working and exhausted from it. I don't know how that much time went by but it did. You were always working, we only saw each other briefly. Yet you seemed to be on top of it, loads happier in yourself, more resolved to a future. Plans were made, plans didn't happen.

I'd started doing craft fairs and was manic getting things made and set up. The last message you sent me, I was at a craft fair and the signal was bad and then customers turned up and I forgot to reply straight away. 'Love you xxx' it said. You deactivated your facebook (normal) so I couldn't reply, so I whatsapp'd you a message a couple of days later 'are you still alive?'. You weren't. You'd gone. You'd left us. Only we didn't know, we weren't to know for two weeks. You never went silent for more than a week, we wondered where you'd gone. You'd gone. Then the world around me fell apart. You were the glue that held our dysfunctional group together. It just exploded. You were gone. Instead of being able to grieve over you dying, I had to defend myself from accusations, lies and suddenly having no support group anymore – it had exploded and I was the bad guy.

I nearly didn't go to your funeral. I was so full of anxiety at seeing the fragments of our friend group, I nearly puked in the car on the way there. It was as bad as I thought it would be, I was practically blanked, I was excluded and if I hadn't spotted they were leaving and waved, I wouldn't have even got a goodbye. So much for friends. Now I'm mad again. The service was excellent though, your family laughed warmly at the memories shared of you. The eulogy said things that I had said weeks before and been shot down for, so I felt vindicated that my perception of you, was the same as your family's. I held it together at the funeral, seemed chipper but I was destroyed. They went off without me and I just cried my eyes out in the car and rang S. On the way to her house, I found myself at yours. All your things were just heaped up in the garden, the little wooden art doll I used to position into funny poses, was laying there. So I took it, my treasure and reminder of the times I spent at yours. Molly came mewing over, she never came near me before but there she was, wanting a fuss and cuddles. My heart just broke seeing Florence Towers and no Florence in it. All you had built had gone. I found myself in Market W, so popped in to see B. No one knew you'd died you see, I wanted to tell him, to talk to him about that thing that happened. He didn't know and he was upset. We talked over a cuppa and I told him about the messages and that you'd never thought anything untoward had happened. He never thought you had, so you had worried over nothing. And that was the thing wasn't it. People had filled your head with gossip and uncertainty about the people around you. Then you got pissed and manic and over thought it all... that's when random messages and posts happened. Followed by mass deletion and deactivation. You were such a brilliant mess. I miss you so much. I miss not being able to pop in or phone you up or read your random shit on facebook. I miss everything you were and was. I feel like you died thinking we didn't care for you anymore, that we didn't want to be friends. I was still mad, I couldn't process how I felt, I wanted it to be not real, I wanted to avoid difficult conversations, I wanted to pretend it had never happened... and I wanted to protect myself from when it inevitably did happen again.

It was a Thursday, that's what H (daughter) said when I asked her when you'd died. It was a Thursday. What was I doing? I was at a Steely Dan gig, it was pants, you'd probably have liked it lol. 'Head injury... think it was suicide'. I don't know how you died, I don't want to but I do. I don't want to focus on how your beautiful life ended and imagining it, will consume me. But I am consumed now, by guilt of not being a better friend to you at the end. I was mad. Now I'm empty with grief.

Your send off at the festival was lovely, albeit awkward because they still believed I'd done wrong. I had a lovely chat with your daughter and family and I told her everything. She said I hadn't done anything wrong and that she hadn't said anything of the sort to me or K. I also found out all the lovely lies K had been spreading about me, so much for her declaration of me being 'one of her best friends'. So H vindicated me, those who had supported me, were told and I felt happier. I blocked K from my life when I got home and the others have had very little interaction with me since you died. S was always there and C is the only one who rings me for chats.

You have been gone six months now. Only in this last month have I started to grieve for you. I'm still mad but at myself now for succumbing to my bastard anxiety.

I love you Florence, I miss you so much. I am sorry I was not a better friend at the end. I doubt it would have stopped you leaving but that doesn't stop me thinking it. I feel you around me a lot, when I go in the charity shops and the gelato place. All I have is memories and photographs of our brief time as kindred friends.

I will write again. I should have before. Avoidance... gotta let it go ;)

All my love always

Introducing Florence

Dear dead friend

I've written a couple of letters to you since you left and I've decided to share them with the world. I doubt that anyone will really find this blog and read them but maybe letting it go, is letting it go into the world? I think I'm ready to share how I feel... it's time. I miss you every day.

p.s I've decided to call you Florence. She's awesome, I know you'd love that!
________________________________________________

Dear Readers

Some of you are strangers. Some of you know who I am and whom I write to. These letters aren't for you, they are for me, to unload and communicate. You don't get a say in what I write or how I feel. You are a bystander in my sea of grief. (I've been doing that a lot today, coming up with stonking lines like that!) I've removed the names and left an initial, it's all true (from my perspective) and if you have any issues with what I've written, tough - it's not about you, get over yourself.

The letters may trigger you. Is that really such a bad thing? Face it, deal with those emotional responses and find out the why and do the work and unfuck yourself. It's not easy. It burns like the sun... but you know that already, dontcha? Go ahead and have a good cry! Don't hold on to that shit, it will kill you, ask Florence. I've been exploring ways to deal with trauma and the dents it leaves behind, I will be sharing resources in this blog that I think may be able to help you. I'm no life coach or anyone with qualifications in psychology but I've found some that have helped me.

In a time of people saying they give a fuck about mental health, the reality is that it's drama to most people. They don't know what to say, how to act, what to do... so they avoid your posts about feeling sad etc. They care insofar as it's convenient. When you have no one to really talk to, writing your feelings down is as raw and honest as you can be with yourself. Writing a letter to the person it's about, is tough, especially if they're dead. When it's about grief, well now, you won't see most people for dust - they really don't know how to handle that shit. What is grief? A myriad of emotions, invoked when somebody we love, dies. It takes time to process this loss. There's no rush, at your own pace. If people don't get that, find new people. It's as simple as that. 

It's time to introduce you to my good friend Florence. What can I say about this wonderfully, complicated woman? Highly intelligent; creative; into everything interesting; loved writing stories; loved looking after those who needed looking after, then she'd write about her adventures about those 'vintage' people; lover of critters of the feathered variety - ducks, geese, chickens, they gave her a lot of joy and us mirth with how they were considered family; owner of a delinquent spaniel and two house panthers; a womble of gargantuan proportions - the freebies and thrift (aka shit) she'd gather up, with the intentions of 'doing something' creative with it.. and then it just gathered dust (a sad, small mountain of this shit was pilled in her garden after she died). She was bonkers. She'd have crazy ideas about nailing carpet to the ceiling or her most famous one, dressing up in a full mascot outfit in a July heatwave at a music festival and then dance her pants off. Pints of pimms. Music. Smiling. Friendly. Reassuringly huggable. Mooching around charity shops. Wildness of the countryside. Bousin and crusty bread. Cider. Terrible wine. Getting lost and losing stuff, namely her keys! Does this paint a picture yet? Also Florence: functioning alcoholic. Misdiagnosed with BPD and taking meds that didn't help. Lonely. Suicidal. Manic. Traumatised. Misunderstood. Judged... by her friends. Saved and then ultimately failed by her friends. Me. I failed her. She'd disagree but here I am, writing letters to a dead friend. What is grief? Guilt.. it's mostly guilt and anger.

_______________________________________________

Time by Pink Floyd

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day

Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.

Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town

Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.

You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.

And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.

No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking

Racing around to come up behind you again.

The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,

Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.

Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.

Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines

Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way

The time is gone, the song is over,

Thought I'd something more to say.

Home

Home again

I like to be here

When I can

When I come home

Cold and tired

It's good to warm my bones

Beside the fire

Far away

Across the field

Tolling on the iron bell

Calls the faithful to their knees

To hear the softly spoken magic spell