Sunday 25 March 2012

Funeral trip, which was no Fun.

Recently I attended the funeral for my Uncle who died, of a heart attack it seems, although he was in very good health, he was asymptomatic which means the usual tests that you get when you reach your 60's didn't show that there was anything wrong. As my Grandfather on my Dad's side also died of a heart attack and was asymptomatic, this has my Dad, worrying that there may be something they haven't picked up on.

So we headed off early on Tuesday morning, so we could travel all the way to Cheddar, which would take us around 6 hours, so fully charged phone and tablet to stave off any boredom, my youngest Brother had been on nights so he slept a little on the way down, we all chatted and passed the time, catching up and talking about topical issues. We popped in to see my Auntie so we wouldn't see her on the day of the funeral and to see how she was doing. Though she explained the problems the occur when you don't have a death certificate, when trying to organise your late Husband's affairs and close out accounts or other such functional things.

So we headed back to the youth hostel and got checked in, as we'd missed the evening meal, we popped out for a bite to eat in Cheddar village, a pub called the Bath Arms, which served bad beer, thought the soda and orange was alright and the food was pretty pricey, though I think based on the reason we were down, my parents weren't too bothered. We popped into tesco so they could get a couple of beers for drinking in the room, as the pub was becoming expensive per round, even with me not drinking.

We had an early breakfast, got ourselves ready and headed out to the crematorium, which was quite tricky to get to, with the sat nav being a bit crap. So we ended up finding it and not wanting to wait there for hours, decided to try and see Milton Keynes but found the winding road were using to get there, had a bridge out, so we headed back after a long circular route along country lanes. When it came time, we waited beside the entrance and my parents kept seeing people from my Aunties side of the family, though, my brother and I had no idea who anyone was.

I was taken aback when I saw the stand where they place the coffin, it was like a thump to the chest, it was only when the coffin was brought in that, I had tears in my eyes, trying not to cry out loud, which was quite hard to say the least, the Minister who conducted the remembrance did a very good job, reading out something that had been written by my Cousins and Auntie, which seemed to capture what made my Uncle who he was. After the curtain closed, it brought more tears to my eyes, as I really hate that part of the whole process, we then stood outside whilst everyone chatted before moving onto the wake, held in a lovely bed an breakfast.

After the wake we decided to visit, Cheddar Gorge, which was quite nice and very big, though everything seemed to be closing, we headed back to the hostel to change and head off to the pub again. It seems my brother was needing much more sleep, as he was quite tetchy and argumentative. We had a few drinks and headed back to the hostel for a bite to eat before retiring for the night. We visited my Auntie in the morning, before heading off, which is the most we'd seen her in a while, then drove home, my Brother took over driving duties, about halfway home, though this wasn't such a good idea.

All in all, it was a sad occasion, where I was tired almost the entire time, found out that my Uncle was really well thought of and valued by his company, my Brother seems to be channeling his 15 year old self again and he drives pretty badly.

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