Our Queen died last month

Maybe it was the declining state of our Prime Ministers - thinking that things could get no worse after Boris, she then welcomed Ms Truss and decided that enough was enough. Either way we were all sad/reflective and a large heavy coffin was taken from Scotland to Windsor with a few stops on the way, the longest pause was in Westminster Hall, where the Queen lay in state for a week.

We were all mesmerised by that coffin, it was so big and heavy, she was tiny, birdlike - was she really inside? - and what was she wearing ... a crown, her best nightie, slippers..??? From my time in the funeral biz, I've dressed people in all manner of outfits (and none). Also people like to bring in things to be put in in the coffin with their loved ones, these have included toys, letters, dead cats and drugs.

Last Monday I did my most daring swim yet

 it was still summer back then.   

confident that I could make the distance to the next bay and knowing other people who were swimming at the same time, I set off at a leisurely pace on a slack tide, my swimming style is best described as a mishmash and I was enjoying myself switching around some flat out lazy floating with a bit of backstroke, a spot of crawl  and some sideways breaststroke (I've been told this last one is 'old lady swimming', that's because it's fun and it's the best one for admiring the landscape and chatting to a fellow swimmer). 

The last short section involves swimming under a pier, then making a sharp left to land on the beach. The tide had turned and I had underestimated the speed that the current picks up at by the pier, just when I considred myself home and dry, the sea dragged me off in the wrong direction and I had to battle my way to the shore. I made land in an undignified fashion, thoroughly puffed out. There was a warm sun to bask in and I had sequestered a block of fruit cake in my inflated tow float, soon I was good as new. 

The next day it was autumn.

I am still working at the funeral parlour

Sometimes we are amused/bemused by the choice of music that accompanies a coffin as it is lowered to the crematorium furnace, last week someone chose Carmina Burana - other popular choices are My Way, Je ne Regrette Rien and Ring of Fire
 

At the parlour we amuse ourselves by nominating our own 'committal to the flames' music, sometimes it goes in the direction of Screamin' Jay Hawkins other times it's more Simon and Garfunkel

 After my epic last-of-the-summer swim I nominate this

We can't buy flowers for funerals

The emergency regulations put in place due to Covid-19  means that we can no longer get flowers or a professional florist for our funerals. Yesterday we needed to create a funeral for a man who had died from cancer. The only attendees allowed in to this little service were his wife and young children.

We prepared the room, the coffin placed centrally and devoid of decoration was stark. We put a request on social media asking if anyone local had something in their gardens that they could spare. Our neighbours were truly wonderful and contributed whatever they could find,  some bringing just one or two blooms and some fronds of foliage. The effect of that kindness on the four bereft people was beyond what any amount of professionally orchestrated garlands could have achieved.

Coronovirus diary - 3 funerals

Life at a funeral parlour is never 'normal' but this is the month that Covid-19 arrived.

02/03/2020   Funeral 1:

A newly married man suddenly dead. Over the days prior to the funeral, his wife, his mother, his sister and some friends came to see him.  Many more friends and family flew in from his homeland to congregate on the day of the funeral, we held a long vigil in the parlour, everyone brought food and drink and hugged and sobbed, the chapel was crowded and so was the wake

12/03/2020   Funeral 2: 

A burial for a much-loved elderly lady, there were people of all ages at the funeral, but many of her dearest friends were frail and dared not take the risk.

The pastor normally asks the congregation to shake hands or embrace but this time he asked them to simply bow to each other.

22/03/2020   Funeral 3: 

A well respected journalist died peacefully at the the beginning of the month, a large, joyful celebration of his life was planned, throngs of friends, family and ex-colleagues would be there to pay tribute to this lion of a man.

And then it was cancelled.

the service was attended by his three adult children, each spaced out on separate pews

If I mention that I work in a funeral parlour

the responses tend to fall at one or other end of the shock/awe spectrum

with a sprinkling of light confusion in between

This year I started working at a Funeral Parlour

my eight-year-old niece  has heard about this and is fascinated,  when I spoke to her on the phone this week, she asked me what I do in my job, I asked her what she thought I did

Cutting up bodies and mopping blood

she imagines my place of work to be a combination of hairdressing salon and a butchers

lunch with eleven women

in a sun-drenched-wisteria-ridden garden,  a laburnum tree burgeoning with yellow flowers took up most of the air above us, tiny bits of cobalt sky peeped through the blooms. We ate salmon in dill sauce with Jersey Royal potatoes then summer pudding with cream and raspberry cream roulade with extra cream. We were celebrating a scratch-card win.

Our host is an undertaker, four of the guests were either undertakers or 'in the business'. The host didn't want the lunch to become 'too-death-ey' and kept trying to introduce other topics of conversation but death and it's complications are too much fun; one guest had been asked to bury a large man in a wardrobe - there was a problem getting the body into the chapel, another guest was in the process of converting an ex-Carphone Warehouse into a mortuary ...

in other news

French Boy lodger has found his culinary groove - breakfast is fizzy pop and chocolate biscuits. For supper he has found a never-ending supply of reconstituted chicken-in-breadcrumbs, he fries as many nuggets as will fit on a big plate every single evening, I'm hoping he gets home to his mother before scurvy sets in.

at the beginning of March

my hand underwent surgery. The surgeon gave me a sketch of what he did and I've been showing it to all and sundry in the manner of a proud parent-to-be showing a baby scan.

It's still the recovery period (and for another month or so at least), doing lots of flexing and massage to build strength in my thumb joint, to bring the nerve endings back to life and reduce scar tissue - it's sore and I can't drive or put my bra on!

It's been a sad month - a dear friend and beloved member of our neighbourhood died at the end of February.


I am setting up an art project in Surrey, I'm still in the preparatory phase. As I'm not able to drive and I'm unfamiliar with the area I took up the offer to go and look after a long-haired cat near the estate where I'll be working. The hairy tomcat spent his days and nights out and about, getting up to mischief no doubt. He'd slink back to the house with evidence of these adventures on his prodigious coat - bits of hedge and moss stuck all over him, surprising odours hitching a ride too - one morning he came in smelling as though he'd been in the sewers.

Back home on Friday I decided to try swimming in the lake by the ocean with my injured hand, the temperature is still quite icy, as the cold seeped in my thumb joint complained and I had to return to dry land swimming single handedly, the poorly one held above my head as though I was calling for help.

a yoik is a nordic song

 it can involve a strong vocal projection akin to a yodel, the sound is intended to travel long distances so it can irritate the really far away neighbours. On Saturday afternoon I cooked Karelian pies* with Tuuletar, a Finnish band who demonstrated the yoik

The Man is a little hard of hearing - I can't get him to hear me if he's more than a couple of metres away from me - unless I yoik

in other news...

I've been commissioned to make a coffin cover - it's not the traditional sort of coffin and has a very particular shape.  

Today I downloaded the dimensions and started building a dummy coffin so I can construct a well fitted garment