A Winter's Kiss

I love the smell of pine forests and snow.

- DELLA GALTON

As I walk further down the track I see a lacework of frost on every branch, sparkling like some delicate silver filigree. Beneath the trees the covering is thinner, like a light dusting of icing sugar.

I've loved this forest at the back of my grandparents' house since I was a child, but today, cloaked in the full majesty of winter white, it is heartbreakingly beautiful. I swallow an ache of sadness.

I'm feeling a little emotional - an understatement. So much has happened over this last year. This was our first Christmas without Gramps. It was always going to be sad.

We lost Gramps last July. He was eighty-six and he died peacefully in his sleep, but it was still a shock. We've always been a very close-knit family. Me, my parents and Gran and Gramps.

It didn't matter how many clichés we came out with like, 'he had a good innings' and 'it was a great way to go'. The fact was, we didn't want him to go. None of us were ready.

My gran has this saying, There's never a right time to get pregnant and there's never a right time to die. Such massive events are always a shock.