When Frank died, I made one of those over-hasty decisions that people often make when in a state of bereavement.
If I might offer a piece of advice, wait until at least a year after the death of a loved one before you make any drastic moves.
Frank and I had always planned to sell our suburban house and move permanently into our beach house when he retired. Six months after his death I did just that β sold the suburban house and went to live in the beach house. It was a mistake.
In leaving the suburbs, I also left old friends and relatives. Of course, we said those things that people do say as they part β "We shall see each other." "I'll be coming up to town quite often." "We'll keep in touch," and things like that. But when you are three hundred and fifty kilometres apart, it is not as easy as you think its going to be.
Frank was sixty when he died and I was fifty-four. I was, and am, in excellent health, and went for a run and swim everyday. That side of living in the beach house is fine, but it is people you miss.
The house is on the edge of a very small community and isolated behind a swathe of bushland. There is a track leading from the house to the road about two hundred metres away, and another track that goes down to the beach about one hundred and fifty metres long.
There are only a few local people living permanently in the area, the rest coming and going at holiday times to their "beach shacks." The "Locals" are mainly line or lobster fishermen, and outside the community are some scattered wheat farmers and sheep pastoralists. The people are friendly enough, but I did long for my old friends and relatives.
I suppose I could have returned to the city suburbs, but having made the "Big move," I was disinclined to make another. I suppose I was too lethargic, too apathetic after Frank's death to once more pull up stakes and move.
Right up until a year before he died, Frank had been one of those men full of energy. Perhaps "ebullient" best describes him. We were very libidinous and therefore an extremely sexually active couple. I must confess that both of us had affairs during our marriage, but somehow always came back to each other.
During the year of his illness Frank's potency diminished and ceased. I think it is sad how often this happens in a woman's life. Just at the time she no longer has to be concerned about an unwanted pregnancy, and the annoying use of contraception is no longer necessary, her man goes cold for one reason or the other. Small wonder well off older women buy themselves a young gigolo.
Another response to the deprivation is to shut up the sexual shop, go into granny mode, and purse the lips and look severe at the mere mention of sex. I suppose it is a sort of defence mechanism. If "Their man" does not want them, then nobody else will, they think, so they will not take the risk of rejection.
Do think again, ladies.
I mentioned "granny mode," and this is really the beginning of my tale. I was about to enter granny mode myself. I had in fact been a granny for around eighteen years, but I don't think I had entered the "mode."
The beach house, is in fact two houses. In the early days of our marriage, we built to accommodate three or four people. As time went on, and children arrived (two), then grandchildren (five), and throw in visiting friends for good measure, we found the house too small. As result, we doubled its size. The two halves were joined together by a communicating door, but for all essential purposes, the two parts were completely self-contained.
My daughter, Jean, had been in the habit of spending a fortnight at the house every year during the summer, bringing her twin boys, Travers and Ward. This year I had got a message from Jean to the effect that she couldn't get away because of work commitments, but would I mind if the boys came for a couple of weeks?
I happily agreed to this, especially knowing that it would probably be the last time I would have both the boys together. They had just finished school and were going on to university. In the coming years they would probably be off leading their lives apart from the family, that is, until they started bringing the great grandchildren to the house.