Last Tuesday I went to the cemetery.
Unusually, I was on my own.

I didn't remember some of the houses I walked past. Maybe they built more in the old style while I was away. I thought streets should be shorter than they are in your childhood memory.This one was longer than I remembered it.

The village is small and everyone who passed me in the street greeted me.
I wonder what life would have been like if I hadn't left?

The canals were frozen and the ducks were vying for the little spaces hacked in the ice.
A horse in a paddock lay down and rolled over on its back as I passed.
Joy the vivre or just a numptie?
I could barely feel my fingers and toes, and began to wish I had a warmer coat.

The cemetery was deserted.
Only one person had been there before me but their footprints had been half filled with new snow.
I turned left at the gate to go towards Ma's grave.
It seemed irreverent to spoil the silent paths with new footprints. But I walked on, my pointy toes and round heels digging deep into the crisp snow.
The footprints pointing to the graves I stopped to look at.

Beside Ma's grave, the grave of her neighbours in life, now passed on. Their last resting place adorned with garden ornaments just as their front lawn had been.
So many names familiar, so many faces clearly before me.

My headmaster, conflicting emotions there. Maybe I should forgive him, after all this time.
Parents of friends, neighbours. Kids I knew.

So many different markers, concluding lives in two lines. 'Here rests' and ' safe in the arms of Jesus'.

Granite, smooth and rough, Dark and light stone, marble and glass.

I made footprint patterns as I slowly moved through all the lanes. Round the outside first. Then through the middle. Right, then left. Pointy toes, round heels, dancing through the graveyard.

The sun was beginning to set when I left. H had cooked. L came round for drinks to celebrate her recent wedding.
'Did you do anything nice today?', L asked.
'Just dancing in the snow', I replied.
'you visited Ma', L smiled.
'No regrets?'.
'Very few.'
It's good to have friends who know you.