5/3/2026 chilling and conversations

Despite being knackered, it was a pretty shit night sleep for Mrs Leonard,  just for the fact my brain is going places i dont want it going. I always start my day looking at photos of Simon, I look through my favourites and the favourite videos just so I can hear his voice again. I'm so scared I’m going to forget an important detail about him, it doesn't matter if it's big or small. I want to make sure I remember every single thing about him, I want to talk about him everyday and I talk to him everyday. Sometimes I hear a reply, sometimes it feels like I’m talking to myself and that’s the shitty bit, because of course I am, and that’s when it hits hardest.  Even when I was chatting utter bubbles to him he never made me feel what I was saying wasn’t valid. Granted there were times when he failed completely to keep a straight face with some of the absolute corkers that came out of my mouth,  but he always made me feel like I was the most important person on the planet. In reality very often we’d sit in a comfortable silence, reading or just sat looking out the window at our view, or each other. Yes I know  that’s vomit  inducing but that’s what it was like in our house (with a smidge of chaos added in from me). He was such an amazing person and I am truly blessed to have been his wife and have had him for the time I did I just wanted him for longer.  I'm really glad for the thousands of photos and in particular the videos of him . No matter how hard they are to look at and watch sometimes, it keeps him alive for me and sometimes I can even manage to convince myself he's just gone away for a while and he’ll be back soon.  That's an easier concept to accept than the fact he’s never coming back and that this is now my sad, shitty valueless and actually quite empty little life. Despite everything I’ve accomplished and achieved since he died, and I’m realistic and not quite so detached from reality to accept and acknowledge that I have managed to do a lot, none of it matters in the slightest because he’s not here to share it, see it and be part of it.  He’s missed out on so much in just this last year, some of it I’m glad he’s not here to see, a lot of  the behaviours would have completely devastated him. Now to top it all off he’s gone radio silent on me and he’s not replying when I talk to him... Twatspangle. I wasn't prepared  this morning when one of those “on this day” photo memories of Si, Daf lying in his pink fluffy bed and the truck parked outside in the background from a few years ago popped up. It hit me that every single thing that is in that photo has been taken away from me. That was like being trampled by a herd of elephants and then one of them taking a massive dump on my head on an already shit day.

I heard next door  up and about early and as soon as the coast was clear I went and had a shower before going down for my breakfast. By the time I’d showered Shareen had been in Scott's room, stripped the bed, remade it and was cleaning it like a whirling dervish. Her home is absolutely spotless and after some of the places I’ve been in over the last few months it’s so luxurious, yet really homely, I think what makes it is Shareen herself and the lovely energy that surrounds her and fills her beautiful home.  If I was inclined I could probably take some tips from her because she is nothing less than efficient. However, I'm not inclined and can't be bothered with getting cleaning and efficiency tips.  So instead I went downstairs and had some breakfast.

Sat at the table was  a lovely lady called Sabina, who I discovered is on a three month solo trip from Switzerland after retiring from work last week. She's come out to see her daughter who lives here so we ate our breakfast together, which was really nice.  What did I discover at the breakfast table? Well, the words ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’are used frequently in Switzerland, and also need no translation which was delightful as it meant i too could share my bilingual skills of speaking English and profanity. . It amused me immensely hearing this delightful lady throw in a “fuck” during the course of our conversation. 

Sabina wanted to know if I knew where the nearest swimming pool was so I told her about the one in Newmarket. It's not that far, and the bus up the road will get her there, I’m just not sure if she’d have to change buses and where, although it is on the Auckland Transport app.  I recommended she try the ocean. The Kohimarama bay is so calm and as long as she stays within the marker buoys she'll be fine and safe enough from any passing boats or jetski. Like me, she's not a fan of putting her feet down onto the floor where she can't see what she's treading on and whilst its sandy, in St Heliers particularly there is quite a bit of sludgy green stuff and there is no way I'd swim in it without my shoes on, accidentally stepping in that would freak me right out. Swimming in shoes only for this bird and also the lovely Sabina it seems. As she's heading into Auckland today, I told her where to go to get some as she's also hoping to visit Fiji, and in my experience she’ll need them for sure there. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed her conversation given I'm not feeling particularly sociable. Again, I think it’s because she’s such a lovely and very interesting lady, though eventually we had to stir our stumps and get on with our respective days. We washed up our breakfast things and went our separate ways. 

Despite a crap sleep I decided it would be a good idea to go to the beach and then up to St Heliers. It took me an awful lot longer than usual , the extra distance that the bed and breakfast is away from the main road makes a huge difference. I don't think it’s helping that my crutches are wreaking havoc with my hands, which is a problem that always arises when I use them, but I know it’s  the hand grips on them that  are the problem.. I stopped frequently, but as it was a beautiful sunny day I'm not complaining. Today  I could see the coast clear as day, which was a real treat.

I also made time to admire the houses along the ocean front. I really looked today and some of them are just breathtaking. One of my favorites is right on a corner, and looks out over St Heliers bay and was bathed in the sunshine, just too pretty for words.

Another is tucked away into the cliff, and whilst I like it it's perpetually in the shade, which wouldn't work for me at all. It still has beautiful views across the bay, but the house itself is fully shaded. These are all multi million dollar houses because of the location. Shareen was saying this morning that she changes the beds in the rooms regularly, replacing the mattresses and bases, but because it's a wealthy area, she never has any problem getting rid of anything. Even if she's giving stuff away on the pavement it's never around long. Uber drivers permanently circle the location and as soon as they see something outside they're all over it. It was good to know that Uber is around and quick to get here. I will utilize it on monday when i check out as I’m going to go to the mall for a few hours to pick up some essentials. I could take the bus as it’s pretty straight forward and there’s only one change, but I think an Uber will be better given my current mobility and anxiety levels.

Since I've been here and am really pushing myself physically or as Si would say, killing myself or what Morg would call it, self sabotaging, I'm seeing the same people going about their daily routines. This morning an elderly man patted me on the shoulder as he power walked by me and told me to keep going as I was nearly there. He said he thought I needed a bit of encouragement today as I was going much slower than normal. It was probably the weight of my emotion and feelings weighing me down! He was  right and I felt like I was wading through thick heavy molasses and the effort required to keep putting one foot in front of the other was  colossal , although having a man who looked to be about a hundred years old overtake me was somewhat humiliating and more than a little embarrassing . Another lady with her dogs in a pram I've seen every morning, only had one sausage dog on board this morning. I asked her where the other one was, and it's “off colour”. It was just an excuse to stop for a rest on my part to be honest, although it amuses me greatly she takes the dogs for  walk every day without fail, probably twice a day but the dogs aren't walking they're just sat in a pushchair and she's power walking down the ocean front, at a speed that cause the dogs ears to  fly out behind them, hilarious.

I finally got to St Helier and decided to go and try on the dress I saw yesterday in the shop as it was two shops down from the coffee shop. My size wasn't on the rail, so I picked up the bigger one. When I went into the shop I asked the girl if it was ok to try it on, and had a look around to see if there was something else I fancied trying on as well. As I was doing so there was a huge crash followed by a string of swear words that I was actually proud of her for producing. I think she'd had a bad day, because there followed a rant interspersed with profanities that gave me joy. I offered to give her a hand putting it all back up but she said she was ok, so I carried on into the changing room to try the frock on having failed to find anything else that appealed to me. As I tried the frock on I could hear her muttering away under her breath and the sound of plastic coat hangers being slammed back onto the rails. It made me giggle, and I did feel a teeny weeny  bit bad about it! Karma came for me though when I looked in the mirror. The dress looked awful, I loved the colours (pinks and oranges) , but it was too big and even the shirred elastic waist didn't hold the skirt up enough to stop me tripping over it. I looked like a sack of spuds, and it was quite demoralising, the only upside to it was the fact that I needed a smaller size which they didnt have.. So back to the hanger it went and I returned it to the rack. I thanked the girl and left. 

When I got to the coffee shop, Josh was just shutting up for the day. They stop serving coffee at 1530, although they will serve cakes till 1600. Disappointed, I went back down the street to the other cafe that does take outs and got an iced coffee from them. I decided on impulse to pick up two and one of Morg's favourite lemon tarts. Once I'd paid, and the lady had put them in a cardboard carry tray for me, I took a coffee and the lemon tart up to the poor girl in the frock shop. Cake makes all things ok, even collapsing clothing rails. I hope she enjoyed it, she seemed a bit surprised, but she was smiling when i left so that's all good. I went and sat outside the library in the sunshine, and I'd only been there 2 minutes when Morg rang to see where i was, i told him and he came down straight from work, and joined me on the bench while i finished my coffee, i offered him one and he declined saying he'd go in the shop in a minute and get some snacks. As we sat watching the world go by, he asked if I fancied eating out tonight, so clearly I wasn't going to say no so we went down to la Vista, where the Ukraine charity fundraiser was held last week for some dinner. It was empty, probably because it was so early, but within 10 minutes, Morg had a steak in front of him and I was smashing a Moroccan chicken salad into me. A very good shout. I took photos to send to Liz so she could see the food in there, as we'd missed out last week, and how it looked empty! Well I took photos of my food to send to her but because Morg was so hungry I don’t think his steak touched the sides, and all that was left of his steak was a bit of juice on the empty plate and half a bowl of chips.

Once we finished our meal Morg asked if I fancied going for a pint in Moretons. Well I wasn't going to refuse that was I?? . It was only two doors down and just sitting outside In the sunshine drinking a pint of cider with my Morgi was bloody lush. The cider looked like lemonade. It was clear, and the strangest cider I've ever drunk, to be honest I was almost embarrassed by the colour of it and felt pity that it didn’t know what it was like to be a real cider, like the home brew Terri and Mick make or Henry Weston’s! But it was cider so I wasnt about to complain too much.

We were talking about the drink driving thing and again and I asked him to take a photo of the device Mitch has got in his car for me so i can see it. He has to blow into the bag before the car will even start, but I didn't realize it has to be blown into every half hour that he's driving or the car just stops dead. He's only got another month or so left on it and he can get rid of it. He said it's been enough of a deterrent and he'll never drink and drive again. It cost him a fortune in maintaining the device every month too. I wasn't sure if it would affect the insurance premiums after he got rid of the device but Morgan said car insurance isn't a thing here, he can literally drive any vehicle. It confused me a bit, because I know Si and I took out insurance when we were last out here. I need to get clarification on that one. It is a puzzle to me. What also surprised me was that very few prison sentences are handed out, mostly suspended sentences. Mind. blown. 

We discussed our plan for Si’s birthday dinner. I think we're going to the Porch as Morg has only ever drunk there and never eaten. The place is just Si’s cup of tea, lots of sharing plates to choose from which he loved, so it's the right place I think. I need to book an outside table tomorrow for us as it's promising to be a lovely evening and when I went there with Liz and John I found  the inside to be quite noisy. .

Morg had come down straight from work and hadn't showered or changed before we went to dinner  (he washed his hands at the restaurant before he sat down) so he dropped me back to the bed and breakfast and went home to crash for the evening. He's got a concrete pour on tomorrow so is hoping for an early finish which will be nice, so I'll book the table for dinner early . 

Due to the pain and mobility issues I'm currently experiencing, my hands are even more knackered and painful than usual. While Si was alive, we managed to get it under some sort of control as he wouldn't let me use the crutches unless it was absolutely necessary to avoid making the nerve pain worse. He just pushed me in Mildred. Circumstances being what they are, I'm back on the crutches permanently for now, (good old self sabotage), so I've ordered a pair of ergonomic crutches. I used to have a pair that were really good thanks to my social worker who set me up with some very useful pieces of kit. They were lent out and got returned to the rugby club when Si and I were away and I was left with their pair of cheap shitty ones, much to my disgust. I’ve tried

various types over the years, some better than others, but due to Si being around to look after me I’ve not had to depend on them like I am now. Anyway, mobility aids are considerably cheaper here, probably because the exchange rate is so good for me, so they're half the price they are at home. They're being delivered in the next few days so hopefully it will help ease some of the issues  in the hands and wrists and I can get about a bit better. The ones I bought with me aren’t made for taking my (considerable) full body weight so I don’t entirely trust them to hold me, they're probably better for occasional use and support rather than permanent use and full weight bearing.  

Another day over and I’m another 24 hours closer to joining Si. The  time is really galloping by now, I’m having to start thinking about returning home and getting back to the new reality, which is causing me some anxiety. Hard as it’s been, it's been good to get away from all the shite at home, particularly the rain! I am missing my ‘tribe’ you know who you are, but I truly hope you’ve enjoyed the reprieve from the burden of my neediness and snot bubbles

Much Love

Mrs Leonard

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