Post-Funeral Friday

Wilf is staying with me once again; he's taking pride of place on the sofa.  We may watch BBC4 later, that's pretty much as exciting as life gets these days.  He is a comfort though.  Especially to a grieving woman.

Post Funeral Musings

We buried Mother on Monday.  That's a very strange sentence to write and it always seems so literal and somewhat formal to me as it sounds as though we actually donned tools and dug down deep.  It was a very small, but tasteful affair, although the arrival of Mother's former fancy man Mr Pritchard (you remember: she left Father for him and they escaped abroad until their mountainside home got flattened by a rock slide) caused a bit of stir with the neighbours, let me tell you.   He turned up at the house ten minutes before we were all due to pile into the two limousines which would be following the hearse, wearing an off-white suit, the trousers of which were pulled up far too high and rendered the bottoms far too short for his long legs.  This was also topped off with a somewhat battered Panama hat.  He was out of breath, sweating and his too-small shirt was riding up his torso - in short, he looked a complete state.  Father gave him a look of disgust, turned on his heel and took his place in the first car.

Luckily my cousin Eleanor was there and able to whisk Mr Pritchard off into the second car and the cortege set off for the cemetery.  We had a short service headed by our local vicar, The Reverend Alan Tompkins and I gave the eulogy, which I've recreated here:

"My Mother was an amazing woman and I feel truly honoured to be her only child.  She was born in November 1938, the eldest daughter of Frederick and Margaret Boggis.  Through sheer hard work and determination she managed to secure a place at the prestigious local girls' grammar school where she learnt to recite the works of Geoffrey Chaucer in the original middle English.  After leaving school at eighteen she worked as a freelance poet and gave readings in such diverse locations such as prisons, factories and abattoirs.  She met her husband, my Father, in 1965 on a London bus, the number eleven to be exact, which of course many of you will know runs from Liverpool Street through to Fulham Broadway.  They married a year and a day later and the birth of their daughter Margaret completed their family in February 1970.

In 1973 they moved to a south-east London suburb and lived happily in a three bedroomed semi-detached house for many years.  Unfortunately this happiness was compromised when my Father caused the house to subside a few years ago due to his excessive tunneling under the structure.   My Mother, tiring of her husband's strange behaviour, had already struck up a friendship with Mr Pritchard from her 'Local Heroes' club and departed abroad with him.  After two years, which she herself described as 'passionate, tumultuous and above all, fun' she returned to the UK and her estranged husband.  It is with great regret that I say goodbye to my late Mother - God rest her soul."

After the burial, which took place in the rain, we were conveyed back to the house where Eleanor and my friend Emma had organised the running buffet.  After nibbling a few dry sandwiches I retired to my old room where I lay on the bed for ages until the wake had ended.  I feel numb.

Pre-Funeral Jitters

Due to the fact that it's January and is therefore a pinch point for deaths, Mother's funeral has been duly delayed until next Monday.  In the meantime I've been shuttling between my flat and my parents' home, which is fairly tiring, especially as I'm also connecting remotely to work to enable me to keep on top of my email workload.  Sometimes I wish that I had a sibling to share the burden, but I haven't and that's that really.  I realise that people often dislike their brothers and sisters, so perhaps I'm lucky to be spared such a thing?

Monday's event is due to be a very low-key event - a short service in the Cemetery Chapel followed by an internment.  Father was rather concerned that his side of the gravestone had been left blank so that he, in turn, can be buried next to her.  Such things always reminds me of Wuthering Heights (the novel, not the Kate Bush song!) where Heathcliff runs up to the moors and exhumes Cathy's body. I'm very much hoping that Father doesn't do that as it's a direct contravention of the council's health and safety procedures and the corpse would begin to smell after a while if kept in the house.

Mother

Firstly, my sincere apologies for not writing before, but you see, my Mother died at the weekend - she was seventy-six, which isn't a huge age in this day and age.  It happened something like this: on Saturday she wanted to purchase a 'stew pack' of vegetables to enable her to prepare a hot dinner for us all to serve prior to the new series of Stars In Their Eyes, Mother wasn't generally a fan of ITV's output, but she'd once shared a strawberry sundae with former host, Leslie Crowther and had become a fan of the show ever since.  She was a tad disappointed back in 1991 when she failed to secure a place on the programme as Tammy Wynette, but she bounced back after the women who took her place was stung to death by an angry swarm of hornets six months after the broadcast.

As ever, I digress; tonight I can blame it on my grief.  Anyway, Mother was leaving the Sainsbury's Local where she spotted that a new tattoo parlour had opened over the road; without looking she stepped into the path of a reversing Vauxall Frontera and was knocked to the ground.  She was conveyed to the nearest hospital by ambulance, but suffered a major heart attack en route and although she was revived in the ICU, died four hours later - at 16:34 to be precise.

I've been filling out paperwork ever since.  Her body is in the care of the local Co-op Funeral Parlour and we haven't been informed of the burial date as yet, so there's no real need for me to start buttering sandwiches as yet.  I just feel numb - Wilf's here with me, which is nice.  He also has nowhere to live as, unbeknownst to me, he was living in his half-brother's garage in West Malden as he'd not earned enough money to cover his living costs and the landlord took action against him in the High Court. Life can be very depressing at times.

Every Day Is Like A (January) Sunday

Wilf's still staying with me; it's nice - we watched Tim Rice: A Life In Song last night and both of us seemed to enjoy it.  Today we went on a Co-Op crawl around the area (well, three stores' worth) which was pretty much a result of thrift and the need for physical exercise.  The air is damp and cold, but it is January I suppose - what else can one expect?  Anyway, I now have enough large potatoes to bake and some defrosted chili con carne to make a suitable meal for tonight. Saying that, I really hate eating baked potatoes after about two minutes of starting them - their sheer stodgy carbohydrate construction makes me want to hurl them out of the window after a while.  I find that I have to serve dinner early enough on Sundays to fully interact and enjoy the fantastic Absolute 80s Forgotten 80s Show; don't ask why I like it so much - I just do.  Quite frankly, the internet and associated social media platforms have really improved my life and stop me feeling so isolated because of the extreme hobbies I seem to exhibit.  I often wonder if I may have Asperger Syndrome, but it's really difficult to diagnose in females.  It would explain an awful lot about my behaviour to be honest.

I'll trawl through the internet and get back to you.  There are loads of good books out there.

New Year's Day 2015

Today I invited Wilf over for lunch as we haven't seen one another for ages now and I miss his Levi's 501 stonewashed jeans, checked shirts and white t-shirts.  It goes without saying that we had sex - I truly believe that I'd 'dry up' (in the words of Mrs Blenkinsop) if I didn't indulge in penetrative intercourse at least every seven months or so.  Wilf's very accomplished 'in the sack' so to speak - he's very digitally dexterous if that's not too profane, plus he has a tongue like a hummingbird.  I've often found that geeky men are somewhat surprisingly good in bed - I think it's all of those years of reading dusty biology textbooks in the corners of libraries whilst their more popular friends fraternised with girls at the bus stop. 

Prior to our afternoon in bed, we ate lunch which consisted of a Co-op steak and potato pie, mashed potatoes, cauliflower and green beans covered in Bisto Onion Gravy; we finished with a Butterscotch Angel Delight, which I wagered wouldn't lie too heavy in Wilf's digestive system.  As we sat up in bed drinking a cup of Mellow Birds each, we talked about Wilf's burgeoning literary career - his book 'My Life With Mavis: The Life and Loves of Owning a Vintage Three Ton Bus' is selling well in the 'Vintage Bus and Tram Memorabilia' section of Amazon and he hopes to net £887 worth of profit this quarter alone.  He stated that he's planning to tour the UK in the aforementioned vehicle and asked whether I'd be interested in accompanying him.  "It'd be romantic Margaret - just think, we could watch the sun come up over the Watford Gap whilst speeding up the M1."  Hmm - I told him that I'd think about it.