‘I don’t think so,’ I said, ‘but a lift would be great. I’m pretty certain I’m not going to be able to drive today and there’s something I would like to do.’

Later that day, Ned dropped me at the church gate, having made sure I could hobble unaided. The sprain thankfully wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it might have been and I slowly made my way to roughly where I remembered Dad had been buried. It all looked rather different because of the additional graves and I felt ashamed that I hadn’t visited sooner. I felt another emotion when I spotted Dad’s plot too. It hit me right in the stomach and took my breath away.

‘My goodness,’ I gasped, as I looked at the many festive trinkets and decorations which fittingly embellished his final resting place.

I knew some churchyards didn’t allow for any kind of adornment because it made it difficult for the person responsible for cutting the grass, but that clearly wasn’t the case in the churchyard in Wynmouth.

Unable to sit on the ground, I carefully lowered myself on to the bench closest. I noticed it had a brass plaque dedicated to Dad screwed on the back. I ran my fingers over the engraving. It had been made from a tree which had fallen in the reserve during a winter storm a couple of years ago and commissioned by the local community as a thank you for saving the land. The memory of Dad amongst the local community was bound up with so much more than just the twelve days of Christmas I realised. He might have been long gone, but his unique and lasting legacies were not forgotten.

Mum had instilled in me her love of nature and the changing seasons and I wondered if that was some of the reason behind why Dad had fought so hard to save the reserve site. I had accused him many, many times of leaving Mum behind when he moved us south, but this bench brought home to me that I was wrong. Just like he was now, Mum too was gone, but she hadn’t been forgotten.

‘So…’ I said, my breath catching as the chill breeze whipped around me.

On the journey into the village, I had thought about what I was going to say but now the words wouldn’t come. It was freezing cold and I knew Ned would soon be waiting so, rather than say the words out loud, I ran through them in my head.