May 2021

On the first of the month we had a delightful surprise visit from our friends Ruth and Subash and their children Suresh and Ezhilvizhi to introduce us to their new baby, Rajendra. 

On the fourth I got my second covid jab at the Newark showground, just outside the town.  I can't help feeling a peculiar kind of pride in the way human science has risen to the challenge and developed effective vaccines in just a few short months.  It seems the risk has to be immediate and palpable before we can mobilise our efforts in this way, while we look on in despair at the challenge of climate change or just carry on as if it doesn't exist.

Our daily Poppy walks continue to give us exercise and continuity and a widening circle of friends.  This is Zak, a gentle giant who Poppy seems to adore.

This year has been fairly busy with celebrancy work and May was no exception, including my first funeral where I encountered rival funeral parties.  I met most of the mourners in the crematorium car park, only to have my attention drawn to a rival group assembled on the path to the chapel entrance.  It turned out that the man who'd died had had a son by an earlier marriage, who no one thought to mention to me.  There was clear hostility between the two groups and no way they could have sat together without a punch up.  I introduced myself to the son I'd never met and negotiated with him that although he and his party wouldn't be welcome at the service he could accompany me to the back of the hearse and "pay his respects" to the coffin, before it was unloaded and taken in the chapel.  I felt awkward doing this as funerals are, as far as I'm aware, public events to which one can't bar access, but I did it anyway and it worked, to the extent that following the son saying his goodbyes at the rear of the hearse his party retreated, while the funeral director ushered the other party in and locked the doors behind them.