funeral

Day-old lambs were in the fields and the sun was filtering through the stormy clouds as we buried Grandpa.

The humanist ceremony celebrated his life, and words from Grandpa's children; my dad and aunt, added personal memories and fitting words to the farewell.

His burial, in a wood above the Penrith cemetry, overlooking stunning Cumbrian countryside was moving, and we added our own handfuls of earth to the grave and thought our own sad thoughts before moving away.

Funerals can be sentimental and somehow superficial occasions, but this one was honest, fitting. The impressive turnout showed how many lives he'd touched.

Eating sandwiches in the village hall and watching Grandpa's great granddaughter playing on the slide, I was grateful that he'd lived so long, and that when his time had come, he'd gone peacefully.

Don't lay me in some gloomy churchyard shaded by a wall,
Where the dust of ancient bones has spread a dryness over all,
Lay me in some leafy loam where, sheltered from the cold,
Little seeds investigate, and tender leaves unfold
There, kindly and affectionately plant a native tree
To grow resplendent before God and hold some part of me.
The roots will not disturb me as they wend their peaceful way
To build the fine and bountiful from closure and decay
To seek their small requirements so that when their work is done
I'll be tall and standing strongly in the beauty of the sun.

Woodland Burial, by Pam Ayers

Dziadek

A couple of weeks ago I booked a ticket to take me to my family in England. It has been a while since I was last there and I felt a need to go and see how everyone was doing. In the six months since I last saw them Gran has been in hospital with pneumonia, the baby has been developing her feistiness and a fall put Grandpa in hospital too for a few weeks.

I was due to fly in a couple of weeks, via Brussels to hitch a lift with Mum and Dad.

Yesterday evening though, as I was coming to the end of my working day, Grandpa came to the end of his life.


He was a man who awed me when I was young; a natural authority. Grandpa held all the power and expected things to work his way. His tough outer shell fell away more and more as he got elderly though, and the last few times I saw him, he was a mellow, forgetful old man who had moments of brilliant clarity in which he let loose with his cutting wit.

He had been fading for some time, and he lived for 87 years, but the shock is never any less, however much you try to prepare for it.

I'll be in England sooner than I had planned.

Tea. The story of a failed rebellion.

I have spent a lot of my life trying not to become my mother. No, that's not quite right. I have spent some of my time trying to avoid the same paths my mum went down in her life and make my own way. Not because my mum's not a fantastic person you understand, but because once you spend your entire life being told you look the spitting image of someone else, you have to do your bit to carve your own niche (can you tell I studied psychology?).

One episode in my childhood is still vivid in my mind. My mum and I went into a corner shop when we lived in London, and the kindly Indian behind the counter looked at me (aged 8? 9?) and looked at my mum, then back at me. 'Photocopy!' he declared.

In order not to be considered a photocopy for life, I decided a few things early on. First, I would not study languages like mum did at university, after all, who needs languages? (I love learning languages and have learned and needed two other than English since). Right then, now I'll find my own career; I will never be a teacher (I have been roped into teaching countless people from French school-children in Germany to Chechen refugees in Poland). Ok, then I will never be a journalist as she was before (I work at an English language news magazine).

Fine! I will not like tea.

Ok, this may be stretching it (I'm not qualified to work as a psychologist you understand...), but if there's one thing my mum loves, it's tea. And if there's one thing I was never ever bothered about, it was tea.

'Put the kettle on!' was a wail we learned to recognise as kids. She visibly perked, still does, after a cuppa. I, on the other hand, never understood the fuss that surrounded tea. The boiling kettle, the ritual of warming the pot, the spooning in of the tea leaves; it just seemed such a waste of time to me. Give me a glass of juice anytime.

I went to university. No tea. I lived with my parents in Brussels. No tea. I moved to Warsaw. Slowly the tea crept in.

As I was in Poland, it was the standard tea bag plonked into warm water. It tasted ok, especially with a lemon slice, but it wasn't familiar tea. My parents visited and hid their distaste as I served them tea-bag tea. My brother visited and tried to cover his shock at my not having a teapot. I held my head high and downed my lukewarm funny tasting brown water.

This Christmas and New Year I spent an awful lot of time with my family. It was great fun, and a lot of tea was drunk. We made gallons of it, and the whole lot disappeared, cup after cup after cup. We even taught Marek how to warm the pot.

When I got back to Warsaw, I found tea-bag tea was no longer acceptable. They were sneaky, the "proper tea" drinkers. They slid in the need for warmed pots and tea strainers quietly, without me even noticing. I admit it. I have lost the latest battle.

I bought this today:


...and I'm on my fifth cup.