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It’s lucky I woke up, as the batteries on my Psion were almost dead so instead of it chiming it just clicked half heartedly half way across the lounge; I can usually sleep through anything. I threw some kit in a bag and headed off to the gym so there wouldn’t be three of us fighting over the shower, but I really should have known it could not have been that easy. Somehow they’d buggered up my direct debit when I’d switched banks, and the gates refused to read my card. Damon at the desk was ever so nice about it, and he gave me a new form to fill in and charged my Switch card for the next month’s fees.

I got home springy and clean to find Sal looking decidedly worse for wear. She had woken up with a throbbing sinus, which had been troubling her slightly less before going to bed. I called mum, who called my doctor, and called back to tell us they were ready and waiting to see her right then. We jumped into my car and raced the two miles to the surgery, and they were as good as their word.

They gave her some pain killers, and made her sign a form, then released her back into the sunny morning. Back in my car, we rushed over to Galleywood, via mine to pick up Dan, and in the ten minutes between then and the hearse’s arrival I put on my first tie in two years. It felt strange. I shut the cat in the lounge so it wouldn’t escape as we left.

The journey from Galleywood to the crematorium was a rather more sedate procession, topping out at fifteen miles an hour. The five of us (me, mum, Andrew, Sal and Dan) sat in a rather plush Daimler behind the hearse. Everyone else followed behind, and as a group we arrived five minutes early. The vicar greeted us at the door wearing Dennis the Menace socks.

We walked slowly up the aisle in the small chapel, and it felt like it was taking forever to read the front-row pew, but the short service was pleasant, with just two hymns, one of which my grandfather used to sing every morning as he shaved. The vicar kicked off by telling everyone there was food back at the house, and asked someone to clarify at which end of the road it was exactly. Once he’d finished, he raced back in his Voklswagen, overtaking some of the other cars in our group, then wandered into and out of the dining room until we felt we couldn’t keep him waiting any longer and started a rather early lunch at 11.20.

As morning turned to afternoon and even that wore on, clouds came across the sun and then started to shower the garden. The wind got up and the showers turned into a heavy downpour that bounced drops up off the garden furniture and the roof of the shed. People slowly drifted off until by dinner there was just five of us left, feeling rather stuffed.

I left a message on Paul’s answerphone to see if he could help out with the sausage rolls.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 17th, 2001 at 6:34 pm and is filed under Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.