Home and ready to start 2007!

What a strange beginning to the year! Exhilarating in Brazil on the Hornby School, then sad and miserable but hopeful in the UK at Dad's funeral and then three weeks in Sausalito with a sick brother.

I'll start with the funeral and Leicester in the Winter:

Well the funeral was " lovely" with Mick's Mum celebrating a lived life and refusing to mourn death. We had always called her " Captain Marjorie" and this was the epitome of her captainness. She is almost blind, and walks unsteadily with a caliper and her trolley bag but she could hardly push that thing behind the coffin into the church............. So we supported her, one of us on either side, and she walked with a smile, nodding in her dignifierd manner to the "full to the brim" church. It was all so comforting to her and she sang the hymns as we all tried to do so without our voices breaking through the tears.

It was the first funeral of a close relative our own children had attended and they had many Qs about protocol which we tried our best to answer.

People came from near and far and it was a really warm feeling with the Vicar, David, and his assistant, Lorna, performing a gentle, personal and real ceremony, summing up Dad's life in a
humorously sweet speech at the pulpit.

The cremation was equally dignified and the buffet party with sweet and dry sherry was full of love and admiration for Mum and a recognition of how she had looked after Dad for about 50 years during his various illnesses. Her determination for him to pass away in his own home was realised despite the long battle and Mum felt rewarded for her efforts.

She was so determined to be " cheerful" that she passed this on to us all and we all rejoiced in life rather than death.