TOMORROW, JUST YOU WAIT AND SEE!

The bay is dressed in satin ripples and a small boat crests the horizon in the silvery light. Swallows skim the warm air and link my skies to yours, the memories we hold and the futures in which we hope.

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It will not last.

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Soon the bells that chime our endings and beginnings will open the shops and start the motors, brew the strong dark coffee and feed the village cats. Cool and calm will be swept from the doorsteps and the alleys and chased from the fields. The day will break in with all its work and worries.

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This week will have brought different news to us all.

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Our politicians have gone home leaving work to be done on the Building Safety Act’s secondary legislation. And APS will be working on the association’s response to the consultation that was sneaked out in the dog days of this parliamentary session.

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The fight for our next Prime Minister will dominate our summer screens and airwaves after the results of the run-off for the final candidates brought hope for the two left standing and, perhaps, disappointment and a return to public obscurity for the others. We will hear about proposals for taxation and public services, of migration and military prowess on the world stage.

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Some of us are heading off for long-awaited holidays. And time enjoyed with friends and family spent by the pool and in the tavernas or even, although I hope not, in queues for planes or ferries. At home the sun has shone while trains have stopped and roads, runways and ice-creams melted in record-breaking temperatures. ?

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I am sitting waiting to hear if work on my house will finish as promised. ?I am light-hearted with hope my home will be ready to furnish and for me to move back in. It will be good to sleep in my own bed and spend time adding those tints and touches that will dust off the building site and reclaim the space as mine. And I am bubbling with joy looking forward to seeing my family who will be visiting. They, in turn, have had a successful week with their own renovations going well, if not entirely smoothly.

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When I think about it, my life is good. Normally, we all jog on - day in, day out and finding time to stop and stare is hard to find in the clamour of the ordinary and routine. It takes effort - or a major jolt - to stop the clocks. And the latter is never usually good news. Today, I have friends and colleagues for whom the hours will be heavy and cold.

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It is natural to avoid the things that hurt. We hide behind words and platitudes that shield us from the truth because it is easier to duck down behind the sofa than face our monsters head on. I fear our busy, noisy, modern lives have distanced us just a little too much from the realities we all share, leaving us ill-prepared to cope or to comfort.

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Few adults will have been unvisited by death. It may have been someone we loved. It may have come slowly or like thunder. It could have been in tragic circumstances. It is never – in my experience, no matter what they say – a relief. Some of you will have met it at work. I have APS friends who have had to break the news to families and others who have turned away from counselling in a mistaken belief that silence will make the nightmares stop. We may all have been tempted, at some time, to find stillness at the bottom of an empty glass or pill bottle.

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I have known the four-thirty jolt that finds you drinking cold tea and listening to the World Service. There will be regrets it is too late to say the words we wanted. And too soon to believe the sun will rise or the air will not hurt as it weighs you down. I have also known, in common with most of us, the shame of the careless, carefree moment before the realities with which we are dealing gasps the breath from our throats. Or the sudden laughter that feels like betrayal.

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But time moves on in its twisty, sneaky way. Grief and guilt - the twin hounds of bereavement – will always run at our heels, ready to trip us up and snap us in their jaws. But there will be days - maybe long skeins of time - when we will outrun them both.

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For now, be gentle. For those of us basking in the sun today, let us learn to listen in those moments when our own embarrassment and fear makes us inclined to close our ears to people who need to talk. And - until your sun comes out, and in those other damaged days - be kind to yourself. It is for the rest of us, the lucky ones who can feel the warmth, to learn to walk by your side - until it is your turn to walk by ours.