An End to All That

There is now a strange finality to our 'old' life in England.

We went back for my mother's funeral, driving in 2 cars (one english and one french). This had a slight problem when, driving through Rouen in the evening rush hour and in a torrential rain storm, we became seperated. Unfortunately I was in the lead and was unaware of the problem. I just thought that Sue and Rene were a couple of cars behind. What didn't help was the fact that, unknown to me, I had no credit left on my mobile phone and so couldn't receive any calls! I don't known what the other passengers thought in the car holding area at Boulogne when Sue was shouting over to me 'I'm your wife, do you remember me?'

We successfully sold the english car to a local car dealer, albeit for the 'book' price, but we were just pleased to be shot of it. This then meant that I could concentrate on the funeral. A short but personal celebration of Mum's life. As with all of these things, we do them for our own consolation, but I wanted to publically express some of my feelings for her.

The only hiccup was the late arrival of mum's only surviving relations: her brother-in-law and her cousin, who raced into the Crematorium car park with 1 minute to spare. Having driven for about 4 hours to get there, they then went off to find something to eat. It was only gradually that I became more and more annoyed to think that they couldn't even spare half an hour passing the normal courtesies before making their leave. That is the joy of relatives!!!

We arrived back in our home in france at a quarter to midnight on Friday night to see evidence of the joy of Friends. Our french neighbours had mown our grass for us.

We can now press on with all of our plans.