Back again.

Here I am again! It's been a long eleven days or so. Thank you for all the kind messages...they were greatly appreciated.

We had the funeral on Monday and it went very well. I know there's isn't such a thing as a "good" funeral but it was exactly what my mum would have wanted, with the right songs and flowers and the small group of her surviving relatives there. Because it was such a small funeral (18 of us) the minister made a very personal address, with a lot of people mentioned by name. It was the same chapel we used for my father's funeral, thirty five years ago, and she had the same flowers as in her wedding bouquet. And then we all went back to a local hotel and had tea and buns and sarnies and a good gossip with all the cousins we hadn't seen since the last funeral. Which my mum would have enjoyed hugely, alas. So I think we did her well.

However it's been a fairly exhausting period, with the arrangements to be made and her affairs to be brought into order. I do have an older sister and we shared the tasks but there was still a lot to do. Plus, just to add to the gaiety of the week Lad got a real wallop at rugby practice last week (huge bruise on cheekbone, massive keeker and two skinned and badly bruised knees, Princess went down with the lurgy of the moment and then just in time for the funeral she passed it onto her brother. So he was standing there drugged to the eyeballs with ibuprofen and paracetamol, chalk white with two huge greening bruises on his face, trying not to cough too much. He couldn't even face the buns and sarnies afterwards, so he had to be feeling rough!

He's still off school, come to think of it. And he's given the wretched bug to me now. *koff koff* It has not been a good couple of weeks, really.

Must do a craft update sometime though. I haven't done much knitting (half a sock) but I did get to spinning group a couple of times, just to take my mind off things and destress a little.