Linda was recovering well, but always knew that she was very vulnerable to infection, with no resources to fight bugs that most of us would not even notice. Something over a week ago, she acquired a gastric illness, which made her feel rather bad, but it should have been treatable. Then she got a lung infection, which was harder. On Friday, things became more critical and they transferred her to the nearby General Hospital [where she had been treated in the past]. They carefully addressed the infections and the symptoms, stopping short of admitting her to ITU, as they felt that was not in her best interest. I was with her until late Friday night, going home only when she settled for the night. Early yesterday morning [Saturday] she died peacefully.

I am truly sorry that, for some people, this will be first time they have heard this news and this is a rather impersonal medium. I have endeavoured to contact directly as many people as possible, but I'm afraid that some will have been missed.

Linda was always delighted by the feedback she received on this Web site. She knew that it proved useful to many people and a source of pleasure to many more. In keeping with her wishes, although I will not be updating the site, it will remain live and available as a resource for the indefinite future.

If you wish to contact me or find out what is happening with our family, you are welcome to take a look at my blog, which will be revived shortly.

Message from Linda:

Last night, moths invaded my room - not through the window, but from the main corridor in Deerhurst Ward, Delancey Hospital, Cheltenham. One was a Brimstone Moth. Outside, there's a mature pear tree and I've watched a blue butterfly, large whites and a speckled wood on shrubs below it.

There are quite a lot of dandelions in the garden at the moment, as it's run a little wild while we await the arrival of a guy to do some work on it next week. These seem to be attracting butterflies. The Orange Tip I saw the other day was feeding on one [I've seen more of those round and about]. This morning a Peacock was flying from one dandelion to the next.

Since Linda is still in hospital and unable to observe butterflies for the time being [and also has limited computer access], she suggested that I record anything that I see in our garden and around. I'm not the expert, but I'll do what I can ...

This week there were a couple of sunny days and I observed a Brimstone [seen a few of those around in the last couple of weeks] and an Orange Tip [clearly a male, otherwise I wouldn't have recognized it on the move]. These two seemed to be chasing one another at one point. The Orange Tip eluded my attempt at photography ...

Well, there's a dusting of snow today so I feel sorry for any butterfly that came out of hibernation....

I was reading an article by Alan Titchmarsh recently about better borders. There were two points that he made that really struck home with me. First, that the hard landscaping paints the picture and then the beds and borders are the real work of art. Second, "don't be soft-hearted about plants, if any of them aren't cutting the mustard, they're simply not worth having".