I am trying to learn not to keep using collective nouns. It’s only words – and don’t get me wrong, I understand the power of words as much as anyone -but it’s habit, like a reflex, a knee jerk. I’m not even thinking about him particularly. But it’s those things that were part of us both, were together stuff, that I’m finding the hardest to rename. ‘Ours’ has not become ‘mine’ yet.

So far, mostly, this isn’t painful. It’s just a thing to remember – another thing. But, of all the things we had to separate I didn’t think language was one them.

And it’s these details, all the little bits of life that add up. They become a mesh. A web that a life together spins around you. It’s not until you are trying to do something else that you realise how strongly tied you are by all those many little threads.

That’s why the healing is so slow. It’s not the big cut, but the hundreds of tiny ones which make you flinch and take your breath each time you feel that little sting.

So gradually I will remember that it’s ‘me’ not ‘we’. There’ll come a stage when won’t bother me when I get it wrong. I just wonder how long it will take to get used to getting it right.