This song – The Sun Also Rises, by Johnny Flynn and Robert Macfarlane has been swirling round my head these last few days.

My world has shrunk to these four walls, this view. I’m sitting with mum around the clock, her dying is progressing, yet the tempo changes often. It’s challenging, it’s disorientating, it’s isolating. It’s also full of love and tiny shining moments. Mum’s smiles are so treasured, each time I squirrel the memory away, consciously.

In this dying space, it feels like we are separate from the world. I hear the rumble of tractors, snatches of neighbour’s conversations, the clopping of a horse along the lane. Life continuing as normal.

Each day, Phyl and I keep one of our daily rituals, even through this time. We sit in bed, drinking coffee, listening for the first robin. The clatter of jackdaws, then rooks and raven as they set off for a day’s foraging. The sun breaks through this line of poplars, buzzard circles overhead. It’s a moment of peace, of normality, amongst the chaos.

This song reminds me that these cycles of death and birth, moon and sun, rock and river are what life is about. This has been, been again and again, and will be. We are just minute fragments in a magical, wonderful whole. It’s a huge comfort and I’m grateful to Alexandra Derwen for introducing me to this album, so perfect for this time.