Yesterday was the third anniversary of my sister's death. Ginny was 56 – she'd have been 60 this July. I spent the morning with my brother in law sitting in the little garden we made for her on the hill overlooking the house on Exmoor, where her ashes are buried and her presence is strong. She had poured so much of herself into the land, creating a farm out of the steep moorland hills and building a herd of sought-after Angus cattle, as well as black sheep and gaggles of waterfowl. That was all after she was the first woman to be awarded the Queen's Polar Medal, and the first woman to be allowed into the hallowed portals of the Antarctic Club. She was no slouch, my sister. 800 people crammed into the Royal Geographical Society for her memorial event. Today the weather was meek. I don't remember the weather the day she died, except that the daffodils were out in the hospice garden. The day of her funeral it snowed. Yesterday morning, sitting up there for a couple of hours, it was all too easy for a moment to believe we'd go back down to the house and find her in the kitchen where she'd have a clutch of newly hatched goslings in a box on the Aga. Brutus was one of her hatchlings. A Hawaiian goose, he was an amazing little bird. He was fierce (although he couldn't peck much above your knee) and hated almost everyone, but because my voice is so like Ginny's, he used to follow me around the place, hooting softly like a clarinet; he got to recognise the sound of my car, and ran to the gate calling for me. Dear Brutus. It was enough to make you weep.
