I was typing an email to a friend today and reflecting. It made me think I want to try to put into words how much Kev lived, despite his limitations.

I know I said I'd talk about the holidays - I promise I will, but that's going to take some processing and hunting through hundreds if not thousands of images. So I'll list them here with a pledge to write more later.
In short:
Tunisia
Morocco
Paris for a group meet up for "the end of the world"
Fuerteventura 3 times
Lanzarote
Honeymoon cruise to Shetland, Iceland and Norway (was supposed to include Orkney but the weather was awful and we couldn't land)
(We were planning to go to Madeira this year)
Birmingham
Basingstoke for London and the south
The New Forest
Scotland
Cardiff
Torquay for a mini break
North Devon/Somerset
Minehead
Coventry for the NEC Star Trek Experience
Several trips to Plymouth and Southampton for hospital appointments that included doing other things.
And of course Hull and East Yorkshire.

What I said in my email to my friend was this:

"When I met Kev I had long given up on finding anyone I could stand to live with because of my mental health issues. Kev had concluded he shouldn't get into a relationship because he'd hold someone back from doing things, intermittently need nursing and had a limited life expectancy. So I knew what I was getting into and did so willingly, and so did he. I had 4 and a half years of marriage, over 6 of total relationship, I would not have had, and of a quality many people never achieve. Of course I wanted more, but I was also very blessed to have had what I did.

Those last couple of days were absolute hell for him. If surviving would have meant living like that I'd choose to let him go, and I know it's what he'd want. Kev lived every inch of life he had, seldom complaining that he only had life inches where others had miles. I'm not going to grumble I didn't get more cake when I'd previously lived on bread and water. My problem is going to be adjusting to living without that again.

Our home life was as full as our holidays. There were lots of things he couldn't do, but with a bus pass and timing things so I could pick him up he saw most of the films he wanted to, and he and I together saw any I wanted to. I saw more films in the last 5 years than the whole of the rest of my life.

We went to a number of shows. While in London we saw Spamalot. Kev was a little cautious about suggesting it - we'd only been dating about 10 months. It was a brilliant show, and we both loved it. He introduced me to stand up comedy: we saw several,  and although not many make the long drive to Cornwall I got to the point of suggesting them if they were comedians I liked. Our most recent one was Bill Bailey. I took him to music, dragging him to "Jesus Christ Superstar " but he entered into the spirit and enjoyed it.

We walked on beaches and visited places of beauty. If I could get away from work on time I'd pick him up and we'd go for a drive. He might be up to a walk, and we knew which beaches were most accessible, or we might pile the scoot in the boot, or sometimes just drive and look at the scenery and then head home. Often we'd stop for an ice cream. Kev loved ice cream and so do I, and Cornwall is a pretty good place to live for that. On free days we'd go somewhere for scenery, a walk/scoot and a pub lunch.

Often he'd just suggest a walk. Up to the top of the road for a mcflurry, was there anything we wanted from the pound store, How about a scoot around the Heartlands park behind us... he liked to get out every day he could. Often I'd come home from work to find he'd been somewhere and bought stuff we didn't need just because he wanted to go out. He tried to keep his walking up, even if it meant scooting to somewhere flat enough to walk.

Kev loved eating out, and he loved getting a bargain for it. We had a 'taste' card which gave us 2  for 1 in many places, loyalty on many of the local restaurant chains and a little packet of collected vouchers. You'd often see us in a restaurant poring over how to get the best bargain, but the effect was that we could eat out somewhere most weekends, or get a takeaway. If I had some reason to eat my lunch in work, he'd scoot to Dominos in search of a lunchtime bargain.

Not that we didn't cook. It was a joke from the beginning that he married me for my onion gravy and I married him for his bacon sandwiches. As a rule of thumb I did 80% of the cooking and anything that required peeling and chopping (with his hands and clumsiness I didn't like him using sharp knives, especially if I wasn't there). Kev did occasional meals involving frozen pizza, frying sausages or oven chips. A friend gave us an air dryer and we loved it. Some meals were shared effort - given my height mashing potatoes is a struggle, so he was masher in chief. I tried not to let him near the bread knife. He would put jacket potatoes in for me coming home, and a couple of times I came in to a stew made of whatever he'd found in the kitchen.

We did unlikely things like a spa day - yes, Kev liked hot tubs. Though he managed to bruise his arse on one in Fuerteventura, slipping as he got in. He enjoyed the thalassotherapy centre in one hotel we stayed in, sploshing about in water of different temperatures.

In short, Kev lived every minute he could get. He hated when he was unable to go out, hated even more if he had to rest in a chair, and abhorred being confined to bed. On those days I'd stay as much as I could and keep him company, though he also had the fastest internet we could get for Netflix, Amazon video, and all those games, not to mention internet communities and twitter. He was never unoccupied, even when he was really poorly. It was a sign how unwell he was that last day that he handed over his phone. He did ask me to make sure if I lost him that I'd let all his online friends know. He genuinely cared about them all.

Kev loved music and his tastes were very wide - though he had a special love for anything involving Paul Heaton. He got very into Amazon playlist music in the last year, and it became a joke that every single playlist had at least one Ed Sheeran song, and Hotel California. Always Hotel California. He'd put music on for me to do the housework to, and then forget it was running via bluetooth from his phone  and wander out the kitchen to make a hot chocolate  leaving me with fuzzy, breaking up music. Hot choc was one of his favourite things, especially mint flavoured. He loved mint of any kind, and anything salt and vinegar.

Recently I bought  a bird table, and like everything else Kev threw himself into it. If I'd known how much joy it would give him I'd have done it ages ago. He went out almost every day to top it up. He wasn't one of those choosy feeders who only want certain types of bird. He was as happy to be sorting a crow from a jackdaw or a wood pigeon from a collar dove as a bluetit from a coaltit. The little robin who came to our garden was referred to a Kevin's little friend. He turned up as soon as I got home to see if I was going to feed him, so of course I have. (I'm only home for a couple of days to grab some things but I'll look after Kev's bird friends when I get back). Kev got into identifying them, so I bought him a birdsong cd and some little binoculars for Christmas. I'm not sure he ever got to use them.

Despite his limitations and all the things we had to look at and say "not Kevin friendly" he filled his life with fun, laughter, beauty and music. I've probably still missed a load, but that will be an excuse to come and post again.