I write this with a very heavy heart. Paula passed away yesterday, very peacefully, with her family at her bedside in the hospice. She wasn't in there long, and the final stages of her illness were mercifully brief. I had spoken with her son yesterday lunch time and again today, and he stressed that her passing was peaceful and calm, with her spending her last days mostly asleep.

I had visited her in the hospice - she was in a lovely four bedded room with glorious views out over from Penarth right across the Bristol Channel towards Somerset. She was very happy with the care she received in the hospice, and her family were able to come down and spend time with her at the end. My last memory of her is her smiling at some quilt blocks, cushion (the ones in my previous post) and a bag I'd made from fabric she'd given me that I took in to show her - she was interested even at that late stage, still very alert in herself and very cheerful, even though she was by then incredibly frail and clearly weakening.

For her, I am wholeheartedly delighted in one sense that her illness has come to a close. She was fully prepared for her death, didn't fear it and was looking forward to being reunited with those she loved. From a purely selfish point of view, it's been a pretty miserable day, both for me and for Andrew who's up in London today - I've really missed him. He phoned earlier and had decided to cheer us up by booking tickets for us for Tristan und Isolde in 2012 - nothing like a bit of Wagner to soothe the soul.

I recently had a long chat with another friend about Paula's death and she was commenting on the common experience of knowing something rationally (like a terminal diagnosis) but not "getting" it emotionally until a particular trigger or event. I know what she meant, I can remember this happening when my grandmother died and although I understood it, it only really hit me when I saw the coffin on the day of the funeral. In Paula's case though this hasn't happened. Partly because of my own experiences with cancer, I've written before about the curse of being aware of impending mortality. I accepted the reality of Paula's illness almost immediately and it meant that we were able to have very honest conversations about it and that I never put things off. One thing that makes me very happy is that I can look back on a lot of lovely, shared memories and that both of us consciously took the time to do things together. It has been one of the blessings of my now very flexible working patterns that I have been able to do this and has really confirmed for me the value in this which has been priceless. It has also been one of the very few occasions when my having cancer has been of some use or benefit - my own experience meant that going with her to medical appointments, chemo sessions etc held no fears and I was comfortable with the jargon used and crucially, some of the rather strange feelings it throws up. Something that particularly annoyed Paula was when people would treat her almost as though she were already dead - using a special, hushed tone of voice and a strangely simple delivery. It used to drive her potty - "I'm not dead yet and I haven't lost my brain" she'd say, usually laughing at it. In fact, when I look back at the last months I see a lot of happy memories, laughter and enjoyment, rather than long faces and gloom. The hardest parts were when Jim and Baloo died just after Christmas, and for me when she gave me her quilting stash. That day, I came home and howled miserably for about two hours straight. Yet, even for that, I was hugely honoured and very touched, and I am looking forward to incorporating her fabrics into projects for many years yet, giving her another form of legacy.

One of the hardest things will be walking at Tredegar House again - that is where we got to know her and where we'd meet so often. I have no doubt that in the months and years ahead it will be there that I will mourn her and the dogs (with whom she is now reunited) most deeply.