I woke up about one am this morning and for some reason checked my emails and found one from Sue only a few minutes old.  She'd just woken up when her hotel room in Kota Kinabalu started moving and things falling over.  I checked the internet and then got another email from Sue confirming there'd been an earthquake under nearby Mount Kinabalu.  Now there is more information that there are some people missing and killed on the mountain, including someone our friend Kerry knows.

I did my ninth funeral yesterday, number ten tomorrow.  I like to arrive at least an hour early, to be on the safe side, so I took a camera with me to Mansfield Crematorium to keep me occupied while I waited.  That's me reflected in the entrance doors to one of the "chapels".  It's an odd coincidence that I'm doing many of my services not far from where dad was brought up in Pleasley.  In fact a couple of weeks ago I did a service for a retired miner who may have been working at Pleasley Colliery in 1940/41, when my dad worked there briefly.  As a result of taking miner's funerals I've learnt more about them and the industry and its record of industrial accidents and diseases. Wandering around the Crematorium grounds, as I often do, I've frequently seen rabbits nibbling at the discarded wreaths and bouquets and yesterday I got a photo of one.  I guess there are worse ways to use so-called "floral tributes" than as food for bunnies. I...

I got a call from the estate agent yesterday saying that my buyers, following their surveyor's report, had a number of "concerns".  Then this morning I got a second call to say they'd withdrawn.  The issues raised were actually not very major and I think the truth is they were in a panic.  This is the second sale their withdrawn from.  I'm trying to be philosophical, but it's frustrating.  Psychologically I need to move on from this little bungalow, surrounded by dad's stuff. It seems amazing that it's only four months since I was in Borneo with Sue.  Right now I could do with some of that heat to warm my bones.

I bit the bullet and put dad's house up for sale last Friday.  An older couple came round on Tuesday and found the place "charming" and within two hours had offered the full asking price.  Sometimes you just don't know how you feel about something 'till it happens and in this case my first feeling was delight. Faced with the prospect of getting out of dad's bungalow I dreamed of going back to Italy and leaving behind my celebrancy work for now.  Later I put things in perspective and began to see my celebrancy work in this area as a kind of apprenticeship to be continued for now, but not indefinitely. Today I felt very sad and disorientated as I looked around the bungalow and thought that in the forseeable future I would be leaving it and with it many memories of my father.  He lived here for over twenty years and for much of that time was actually pretty happy.  The couple who are buying, assuming the sale goes through are at a similar stage of life as ...

It's been a hectic couple of weeks.  Funerals work is now starting to come in and the weekend before last I did a course on baby naming. I've done three funerals in the last two weeks and have another one booked for next week, including my dad that means I've done six so far.  It's hard and stressful work, but also very rewarding and I've had wonderful feedback so far.  There are some frustrations however.  My fellow celebrants are a very mixed bunch, some are really great and some are in it because they like the sound of their own voice and/or to allow their prejudices to have a free rein. I am definitely a humanist, but I'm becoming clearer and clearer that I don't especially want to conduct "humanist" funerals, I would rather conduct a funeral as a humanist, which for me is quite a different thing.  Lots of my colleagues have a hatred, even a fear, of any religious references within a service, thus creating a kind of "humanist space...

Since the early 90s I've been going on an annual St George's Day bash organised by friends that I knew when I lived on boats in London.  These days I make it about one year in four and my relationship with the event is increasingly ambiguous.  It's great to meet up on old Thames barge and see Tower Bridge open for you. I don't even mind the faux patriotism, as they're a mixed bunch from many walks of life and many of them have a pretty balanced view of what patriotism is and its relationship to nationalism.  Actually what I find difficult is the drinking and the fact that since I first started going my life has changed quite radically, whereas most people's hasn't.  I think many of them see me as a much more serious person these days, possibly dangerously thin with an unmentionable disease.  The fact is I can't bear getting sick with booze anymore and I have less need to say things in this group setting.  I no longer have a desire to entertain or...

I bought myself a new gps watch last week.  I find the act of going out running or cycling and recording a track which I can then upload and look at on a map strangely magical.  I started doing this when Sue and I were in Borneo, where there were so few maps or signs that it was actually a good way of getting a picture of where I really had been. I've got a busyish day today so I decided to get a bike ride in this morning.  It was cold and bright as I cycled around the flat surrounding countryside, past bright yellow fields of oilseed rape and along dykes.  At one point a young deer broke cover and bounded along in a field next to me.  Eventually I cycled into the middle of Lincoln down the Foss Dyke and into the Brayford Pool before returning to dad's bungalow. I guess I should stop calling it that, I suppose it's my bungalow now, though it doesn't feel like it.  I feel I'm camping here while I finalise dad's affairs, which is nearly done now.  ...