Old Uncle Charlie passed away last week, and the funeral was held today down south Up North, in the borders. One of the advantages of having a new bungee manager every few months is that you can bury six grandfathers in five years and nobody bats an eyelid, so I had no trouble getting time off.
We caught the train down last night, even though it meant that I went through blog withdrawl and slept only fitfully, waking abruptly from a nightmare about the Internet being switched off. Brrr!
Anyway, woke up this morning to the sound of sizzling bacon, had some porridge and honey, then T and I went for a walk while the ladies got on with the important business of yakking.
It was largely overcast, with a strong wind blowing off the Cheviot Hills, but nothing unusual there. The fresh air cleared my head while T and I chatted about how, even out here in the country, technology is gradually encroaching, what with GPS-guided tractors and that. T recalled the first time he visited the Big City (Morpeth, I think) when he had seen traffic being stopped and started by magical beams of coloured light1.When we got back, some more relatives had arrived to pay their condolences, then in the afternoon we made our way to Chatton for the service. This was my first Catholic funeral, and I can see now why there is such friction between the Protestants and the Catholics - they missed at least a dozen words off the end of the Lord's Prayer!!! Heathens. And the incense made my eyes water. There was a bit of levity - when the
A familiar dirty laugh from behind made me turn around - yup, Favourite Niece had sneaked in late with Aunty B. That pair will be late for their own funerals, with any luck.
Charlie must have been a good Catholic, what with him being Italian I suppose, since the priest not only knew his proper name but his entire history from his youthful first trip to Northumberland during the War (just a flying visit) to his return after falling in love with the place and his eventual settling down to raise a family. (No, neither of his children had provided him with these details. We checked.)
A brief stop at the cemetery for the burial, then into the local eatery for a very nice hot buffet. We would have stayed longer, but we had a train to catch - or so we thought. When we arrived at the station, we found that British Rail (or whatever the fuck it's called these days) had imposed a 50mph speed limit due to the wrong type of wind and all trains were delayed by up to 2 hours. As luck would have it, the train which we would have missed if it had been on time was also late, so we caught that one and were only an hour late home.
1 Ok, I stole that from Lillian Beckwith.
