We started again.

You have no idea what a talking point a hole makes.  The building works to replace the front retaining wall to the right side of our drive have become quite the local attraction!

Mark’s been busy booking hotels this week, enjoying frequent FaceTime sessions with Jane and Allan in Florida, making our plans for our pre-cruise jolly in Macau and Hong Kong next February.  What fun to look forward to – a few days in Macau – new to us, it looks a fascinating mix of old colonial Portugal, the showtime and exuberance of Las Vegas, all shaken up with the spice of the Far East.  Oooh…   It’s been a while since we’ve visited Hong Kong but it’ll be good to return to an old favourite which will surely have undergone rather a lot of changes.  Fun to meet up with more friends there, too.

What other plans?  Well, there are a couple of Raff concerts in the offing, giving us the prime excuse to hop over to Frankfurt in June and Munich in October as well!  We’re looking forward to spending a few days in Germany again, of course.

Before then, we are keeping everything crossed that the dreadfully wet weather we’ve been having of late will pass over and make way for sunshine!  Jane and Allan will visit us before they join Voyager in Southampton for their cruise to Iceland and then not long after that, Mary, Diana and their friend Kim will arrive to spend some days in the village.   We’d really like to enjoy some relaxing days in the sunshine with them all, rather than spend our time under umbrellas!

It’s going to be a fun summer, though, whatever the weather.

Edna – Mummy – would have been 87 today, and going out into the garden first thing, I knew there was something I just had to do.  After her funeral, four years ago, we didn’t linger, but came straight home and left the delightful funeral director, Gary, to take care of the remains of her cremation.  The understanding was that at some point, we’d collect them from his office on Beverley Road and bring them back here, to put in the garden somewhere.  He’d made the thoughtful suggestion of placing Gordon’s remains in with her too, so there was just one single parcel there on his shelf which I needed to deal with at some point.

Well, the months roll by, as they do, and finding myself in Hull last Autumn, I decided to take the next step and bring them home with me.  I called in to see Gary who knew immediately why I was there and who handed over a black carrier bag containing what looked like a plastic sweet jar.  One more last step, I thought, and carefully put them on one side when I arrived home, trying to work out what to do next.  With builders in and around the house, with the dreadful winter weather setting in, I didn’t feel that it was quite the right time to be out there in the garden and so the months rolled by again.  I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to make some kind of ceremony of it all, couldn’t decide how to manage the whole business; this very last step of all.

So I didn’t.

Going into the garden this morning, her birthday, I knew the time had come.  I had bought a couple of white roses last week to plant in the flower bed by the pond.  I hadn’t bought them with anything in mind but to fill the gap left by some plants which hadn’t survived the winter; the gap in the border where we often sit looking over the valley and where I had thought would be the best place to put those remains.  I stood for a while, trying to think of a reason to delay this, the last part of the journey, so to speak.  Of course, I couldn’t. 

So, quietly, with no fuss, I took the black plastic bag out into the garden, undid the screw top and placed the ashes in the hole where I’d planned to plant the roses.  There, in the peace and quiet of a sunny Sunday morning, the task I had been fearing for quite some time had been done.

I had a call from my cousin, Chris, this morning, with the sad news that my Auntie Jean died this morning.  My Mum’s younger sister, Jean had been in hospital for two or three months with heart problems.  Even so, the news came as an awful shock.

Jean has always been there for me, especially in the difficult days following Mummy’s stroke.  She and Chris kept an eye on things in Hull when we were so far away and nothing was ever too much trouble for her.  She was my Mum’s champion and could be relied upon to speak up on her sister’s behalf if anything was not quite how it should be.  On more than one occasion, I was grateful to her for doing exactly that.

Since the call this morning, I’ve found myself doing what we all do at times like this – remembering, wondering, mulling things over.  Realising that it’s down to Chris and I now both “Courtney girls” are gone.

That’s hard. 

A strange coincidence though, as I listened to the radio as I drove to Birmingham yesterday morning and the DJ played The Monkees’  “Daydream Believer” which featured on the very first LP record I owned…bought for me by my Auntie Jean, for passing my 11+.

We’ve been on the most marvellous cruise this last month, from Sydney to Singapore.  Before boarding Voyager we spent time in Tasmania and caught up with Sandy for a few days.  John came over too and it meant our holiday got off to a flying start!  Leaving Sydney as the sun set was quite an emotional experience – you can read all about it on Gillie’s blog as always.

Now we’re home, the building work is almost (but not quite) finished and we expect Ian the decorator to begin work on Monday.  Does this mean that we might be back in shipshape fashion before too long?  We certainly hope so!

Everyone who was at Mark’s birthday party will surely be thrilled to have another opportunity to hear Tra play.  With a new CD about to released and two more to follow, here’s a sample of what’s to come.

Gorgeous!

Well, we do.  But who said that stops us from enjoying “real” books?  Have a guess whose pile is whose…

Pile # 1

Pile #2

Pile #3

Incidentally, the person with the fewest books is the one who also had his membership to the London Library renewed ;-)

Our Christmas dinner was around the kitchen table this year, due to our building work.  We had fun with the Incredibooth App, too and collected enough evidence to embarrass the whole family for several years to come!

Hope your Christmas was as enjoyable as ours!

The One Show last night?

Gill tells the full story on her blog as always.

Where will we put the Christmas Tree this year?

With the builders finally resolving the issue of the leaking roof in the garden room by extending the boxroom above and turning it into a walk-in closet for our bedroom, the whole house feels upside down.  We are soldiering on in good humour and trying our best to rise above it but if anyone utters those words “it’ll be nice when it’s finished”, they risk a slap!

Sad news today when we heard that Mark’s Uncle Tobe, at 98, the oldest member of our family, had died over the weekend in Cheltenham General hospital.  He was taken ill recently and though his death didn’t come as a surprise, it’s nevertheless hard to receive such news.

He wasn’t really called Tobe at all, but Herbert, and when I first met Mark, he was very much in the shadow of his wife, Mark’s jolly Auntie Joan.  Since her death some years ago, he had lived alone, managing quite nicely with the support of family and friends and soldiering on through all kinds of situations.  When we saw him recently, he didn’t seem quite as spirited as he had always been and for the first time, ever so slightly out of it.  Edward in particular, used to enjoy his company, especially when Tobe had enjoyed a rather larger glass of port than he perhaps ought to have done.  This used to result in “interesting” conversations, free and frank (and rather un-PC)opinions on all kinds of issues, many of them requiring a little explanation for Edward from us later!  Of course, having realised the fun that could be had, Edward was pleased to take care of his Great Uncle’s glass and to introduce him to whatever fine bottle of Madeira or Port he could find!

We’ll miss him and feel sorry that, unlike his father in law – Mark’s Grandfather - he didn’t quite make his century.