Somebody asked me the other day, ‘does time really help make it easier to stop feeling the pain of not being able to have a child’? Someone else asked something similar, ‘what can I do to stop the grief’? A third person wanted to know, ‘how long were they likely to feel this way’? These are questions I get asked so often, by so many and I truly wish I had a magic answer (or even better, a magic wand) to help ease the suffering. Part of the remedy is ‘in the suffering itself’.

For me, this year it’s been a nectarine! A couple of weeks ago I took a bite of a nectarine and a wave washed over me, bathing me in memories of past summers that came rolling in. Nothing too specific or vivid, merely a powerful remembrance of happy days that included memories of sunshine, the beach and no school. I’ve never had this before, i.e from a nectarine of all things and am I’m not sure why this year it’s been this fruit that’s triggered such memories and awoken the