I thought you might like to see some photos of Mum's funeral. They were taken by Rodney Shrimpton, who is a professional photographer as well as a good friend and Reiki student of Mum's.
We chose an eco-casket for Mum, with the image of a stately tree on it.
The words on the top are from William Blake:
To see a world in a grain of sand,
and a heaven in a wild flower.
The autumn leaves were from Mum's garden.
My sister and I took turns reading the eulogy we had written together - we're smiling in these photos because there were some funny bits ...
It was a lovely funeral, with a lovely feeling in the room. It felt much fuller than it looked afterwards in the photos, I'm sure because of all the love and prayers and thoughts of people who couldn't be there in person.
After the funeral, a friend of my sister's, who was also a student of Mum's at the university here, stayed on for two nights. We went op shopping together (op shop is short for opportunity shop, though no-one ever calls them that - they are secondhand shops run by charities, what are called charity shops in the UK and thrift shops in the US (I think)). Bathurst has several op shops, as well as several other secondhand shops of varying priciness. I found a few nice bits and pieces which I might be able to use in my dolls houses:
Both I and my sister were exhausted after looking after Mum and then preparing for the funeral, and we both got flu afterwards. So I have been taking things very slowly, spending time resting, cuddling Mum's cats, reading, and so on, as well as doing necessary things like organising Mum's tax for the last 3 years and making a list of her investments for the solicitor. Oh, and I have put together another issue of the Dolls Houses Past and Present online magazine, thanks to all the members who sent articles! It was good to have something to focus on that wasn't too demanding (I was a bit less active as editor/researcher this time). So hopefully I'll be back on here a bit more from now on.
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