Catching Up

Apologies, it's been a few days since I last made an entry in the Journal. Here is a half-arsed attempt to cover the events of the last four days.

Saturday, 12th October, 2024

This was the third early start that week. 

I had arranged to go fishing down at Severnstoke with Bubbles, so I was out of bed at five and on the road before six o'clock that morning.  We had a pleasant few hours on the bank, chatting and catching up with each others' news and this time was untroubled by the presence of barbel, or any other fish species for that matter! We had a few nibble, but neither of us managed to bring anything in towards the bank.

We packed up our tackle early in the afternoon and headed home. I needed a restorative kip before getting myself clean and tidy for a charity fund raising event over at Edgbaston Cricket Ground. It was for the Giles Trust and was themed around the film Grease. We had a great time, including beautiful food, good company and rather too much red wine!

Sunday, 13th October, 2024

Sunday was, shall we say, a rather lazy day after yesterday's activities and alcohol. My most strenuous activity was to dig up the last of the Charlotte potatoes and cut a cabbage from the veg patch.

TP arrived late in the afternoon and would be home until tomorrow afternoon, so 30% "killed the fatted calf" and assembled a huge Sunday dinner for us, including produce from the vegetable garden.

We, obviously, spent the time together catching up with each others' news and plans for the coming days.

Monday, 14th October, 2024

It wasn't the most cheerful* of days, so I decided to have an indoors day. I dug up a celeriac from the garden and spent a good chunk of the morning making celeriac soup for lunch.

30% headed out in the early afternoon to see her Nail Technician and deliver one of our pumpkin crop.** I took another lengthy snooze and spent further time with TP before he headed off home to Cardiff, via a friends in Worcester.

My main activity this evening was to dig out a suit and accompanying apparel suitable for tomorrow's funeral.

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* The day took a turn for the worse when we heard that the Wordle Witch had been taken seriously ill over the weekend and was currently in intensive care with her family around her.  We are both shocked and dismayed that such a vivacious, funny and mischievous friend is so suddenly and so gravely ill. 

** We did very little to our pumpkin plants after getting them established up in the orchard at the end of May and they have done really well. They produced vigorous vines and we ended up with seven good sized fruit. 30% advertised these locally  and all seven have been sold for carving at Halloween.

Tuesday, 15th October, 2024

Today was not one I was looking forward to and any my primary goal was to get to the end of it without throwing a hissy fit or biting anyone's head off.

I did actually manage to achieve these objectives by employing 30% as a human shield. She did a magnificent job of interjecting herself between me and most of my family and made perfect small talk. I could, therefore, avoid exchanging meaningless chatter, in fact avoid any conversation at all.

The service was pretty much as expected, as the Celebrant had lifted most of her eulogy from my Dad's brief memoir. So, no surprises there.*

The wake was held at a local pub and, again, I managed to avoid small talk with my immediate family and, instead, caught up with J** and his mother's partner Ana. We stayed as long as necessary to be polite and, after a brief goodbyes, headed back to our little sanctuary.

I'll see all of them again at Friday's funeral, hopefully that will be no worse than today.

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* My cousin "J" had been at his father's funeral the day before and commented that it was the same Celebrant and she used exactly the same final reflections in both ceremonies.  I had to pity J, he had his father's funeral yesterday, his uncle's today and his mother's will be held on Friday ... his 53rd Birthday! 

He did see a slightly humorous side to this unfortunate week. He had attempted to hire a suit for three funerals from Moss Bros and was told "no mate, you need to buy one"

** I last saw J back in 2000. At the time he was living in Mahahual on the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico and I escorted his mum out there on a visit to track him down. It was quite an adventure and, perhaps, on a quiet day I should add a few tales from that trip.