In idle moments, I have wondered how Kevin McCloud from Grand Designs manages not to age.

Kevin McCloud, aged 97
(photo credit: http://www.swindonweb.com)

His bald patch seems to have miraculously maintained the same circumference, and years of raising eyebrows at crackpot projects appear to have had a negligible effect on his forehead.

I realised the other night how he does it. By appearing in repeats.

M used to love Grand Designs, hence why I have studiously avoided it since He died. However, my daughter and I ended up watching it while we waited for The Apprentice to come on. (Go, sultry doctor, go!)

Again I marvelled at McCloud’s age-dodging prowess, until the date of the project was revealed. May 2006.

It was the year M and I married. May would have been around the time I was ready to combust with the pressure of choosing napkins for the tables.

It struck me how much has changed in the seven short years since Tim from Cirencester started his Grand Design, and M and I said ‘I do’. How little was foreseen of life in its current form.

In that time, I gave birth. We moved house four times. M fell ill. I became frightened of the world. M died. I faced off the world. I bought a house and a dog. I started a PhD.

And unlike Kevin, I aged. Not only physically, but mentally. I became well-versed in the workings of the blood pressure monitor, in Warfarin and in cardiac rehabilitation. Then I had to watch Him die, and face the reality of a life without Him. As a single, widowed parent.

Can I hit the stop button and appear in a repeat too?