Well, prompted - and shamed - by The Landlady into doing a bit of blogging again I will now record for posterity that today was the day that we instructed the estate agents to sell the house. So is this finally the end of the beginning of the dream?
Since we planned this 4 years and 19 days ago house prices have dropped and interest rates have halved so all my spreadsheets are out of the window. It will be much harder to pay the bills than we imagined but then neither of us have jobs now and are unlikely to work again (don’t really want to anyway) and to stay here will be even more expensive. What we need is a quick sale so we can get some money in the bank to earn interest to supplement our income.
We are now in the hands of the gods. If we can get a quick sale then I shall be on a plane to Stornoway before the ink is dry on the offer to sort out somewhere to rent for the first year or so. So much has changed in the last three months that we now have to try alternate plans. Sandy and I had originally planned to take the camper up to Lewis and live in it for a few weeks until we found somewhere to rent but we can’t do that now as Sandy’s mum couldn’t cope on her own for that sort of time.
Hopefully soon we’ll turn our minds to the logistics of getting two van loads of ’stuff’, plus a car, a camper and an 87 year old lady up to The Western Isles. I’ve had a quick tot up and the total mileage is a few hundred miles more than driving to Venice and back!
Six weeks after my brother-in-law Sean died, with two post-mortems held plus an inquest opened and adjourned we finally got the go ahead for the funeral. It was Tuesday 10th November 2009 when we got to say our final goodbyes.
Sean was always one for a laugh and a drink and the escapades he got up to were legend. We couldn’t have an ordinary funeral could we? There would be no long slow funeral procession, no piles of flowers on the coffin, no wearing of black and - most definitely - no vicar (unless we could find one that got pissed with Sean down the pub every Friday night!). So I did all the words (the eulogy I guess you’d call it) and we had a wake rather than a funeral. I’d bet that the Chapel at Southend Crematorium had never heard so much laughter!
Choosing the right funeral directors was the first step, it had to be someone who would do exactly what we wanted and we struck gold with T. Cribb & Sons of Leigh-on-Sea with the lovely Sandie doing the arranging and Graham Grimm as the Funeral Director (what a great name for an undertaker!). He was a great bloke, smiling and laughing with the rest of us! Sandie knew from the outset what we wanted and Graham said he just does what Sandie tells him! He got it absolutely right. Mention must also go to Brian who was the Attendant at the Crematorium who I ran everything past the day before and he got all the timing spot on (he also got the bottle of Vodka but we’ll come on to that later).
So we all met at the Crematorium and Sean was already there in his box. There were nine of us altogether. Me and Sandy (his big sister), his mum Pauline, his best mate Mel who had known Sean since school and who flew over from Sicily, his most recent drinking buddy Terry who had known him thirty years, Terry’s lady friend, Sean’s first girlfriend Lolli who he had kept in touch with since they were 17, his last girlfriend Linda who he had been in love with since they were at school together but had only got together with (finally!) about five years ago and his cousin Barry who came down from Edinburgh.
As we walked in we had Queen playing ‘Who Wants to Live Forever’ and once we were all seated I gave the nod to Mr Grimm to bring in the coffin. Apparently you normally stand at this point but we wanted to remain seated in case Sean’s 87 year old mum fell over! The coffin was placed on the catafalque and Terry had arranged with the funeral director to have a bottle of Smirnoff and a packet of Hamlets placed on top of the coffin so up those went. Great stuff! The only flowers we had were white roses - one for each of us to place down at the end - but Graham the funeral man asked Sandy if she would like a rose placed on the coffin. We hadn’t thought of that, another great gesture. Queen played on and came to an end and it was time for me to stand up at the front and say the words.
My bits paid tribute to a life lost far too early (the same age as most of us there) and asked everyone to celebrate Sean’s life instead of mourning his death (actually I might post them for posterity). Mine had one or two laughs but it was his mate Mel that brought the house down! He related all the capers they used to get up to and everybody was falling about laughing! Mel has a pregnant donkey back in Sicily and if the baby is a boy he’s going to call him Sean so he can go out back and have a drink with the donkey whenever he misses his old mate Sean! It turned into a wake rather than a funeral which is exactly what me and Sandy wanted and what Sean would have planned for himself.
I said the final goodbyes on behalf of everybody and we played him out with Van Morrison’s ‘Across the Bridge Where Angels Dwell’ - a stunning track with the most beautiful of words perfect for a funeral. The curtains closed on the line ‘Close your eyes in fields of wonder’ and we were done. The perfect funeral.
All of us were around Sean’s age except for his mum who is 87 and I have to admit that she was probably a little trepidatious at what I had planned but I told her ‘Trust me, this is what Sean would have wanted’. Once it was all over she thanked me for ‘the most beautiful funeral that was perfect for Sean’. It worked for everybody and it worked exactly as I knew it would.
Some people might not feel it’s right to have a laugh at a funeral but it was our funeral and it was Sean’s funeral. He would have loved it, we all loved it and I don’t give a toss what anyone else might say.
Now all(!) that’s left is to have an inquest and find out who was responsible for taking away, far, far too early, a great bloke who had a few more laughs left in him and who had finally found the love of his life to settle down with. Linda is now all alone, Sandy has lost her little brother and her mum has lost her son. It was not an ordinary death and someone should know what they have done. We’ll do all we can to see that that happens.
Well I was going to write about a great holiday but events have got in the way.
This planned move to The Outer Hebrides has stumbled through many obstacles. First our son was made redundant, then my wife, Sandy, was made redundant, then I was made redundant and a couple of days before our holiday Sandy was made redundant again! Last Thursday Sandy’s younger brother died, aged 57. No, he didn’t just ‘die’ he was killed by his GP but that’s another story. Sean (Sandy’s brother not our son) lived at home looking after his (and of course Sandy’s) mum who is 87 and partially sighted. She doesn’t want to (and probably couldn’t) spend the rest of her life alone so where does that leave us all? Guess she’ll come to live with us.
She never was enamoured with our moving to ‘the back of beyond’ (her first words when we told her) but I’m sure she’ll love it once she comes to terms with the idea. One thing is certain, we’re moving to The Outer Hebrides, hopefully sooner rather than later.
At the moment I’m 170 miles from home in a house preserved from the 1960’s waiting for the Coroner to call. I’ve had to spend over 300 quid on a Netbook and broadband dongle just to keep sane and keep in touch with the modern world!
I’m toying with idea of blogging while we are on the Grand Tour, but only if it’s going to be relatively easy and cheap - preferably free. I don’t know if my old laptop is up to wifi access but Sean will have a decent laptop that can be used. The biggest problem I can see is getting free wifi access. Macdonalds is supposed to offer free access around the world but do we really want to spend our time in France and Italy sitting in Macdonalds?
This entry is really a test of Blogdesk which I have used before and which seems to be the ideal solution to mobile blogging. I can type up an entry each day and simply save it to upload whenever there is internet access and I don’t have to be online any longer than it takes to upload. It’s a pretty neat piece of software which gives almost as much control and the Wordpress dashboard but doesn’t require you to be online as you type. I’ll just save this now and upload it in a while. If it works I might just be blogging while we are away.
The ‘Grand Tour’ was conceived last year just after we bought the camper and much of the planning was done early on. It seems unreal that it is now less than two weeks before the big adventure. Much work has been done on the camper, particularly to do with the brakes and the upgrading of the front discs to heavy duty cryogenically-treated discs and heavy duty pads. I can well remember way back in 1982 coming down from the Petit St. Bernard pass into Italy with the brakes on our Nissan Bluebird almost smoking! Don’t fancy that in a big motorhome!
There is much more that could be written about the trip but due to reasons outlined in the last post I’ll stick to the itinerary and will, hopefully, write more about it when we get back. Here it is then - The Grand Tour - which starts on Friday 4th September 2009.
Day 1 - From Stafford down to Surbiton where our son Sean lives. He’ll be working that day so we pick up his stuff from his flat before picking him up at Sevenoaks railway station. Then it’s on to the Channel Tunnel for the crossing paid for by Tesco vouchers. Once in Calais it’s about an hour’s drive for a late arrival at the aire at Hondschoote.
Day 2 - Drive to Bruges and spend the day there before driving back into France to an aire at Bavay.
Day 3 - Across into Luxembourg for a lunch time trip on the chairlift at Vianden. A quick nip into Germany and then back into France to stay at the aire at Thann near the Swiss border.
Day 4 - Across Switzerland stopping at Stein am Rhein and Romanshorn and into Austria for a stop at the Stellplatz at Schwaz just past Innsbruck.
Day 5 - Over the Brenner Pass into Italy for a look and Bolzano and then across The Great Dolomite Road to Misurina. Take the lift up to Cinque Torri on the way.
Day 6 - From Misurina down to Punta Sabbioni where we will camp for the next few days to visit Venice. Should arrive about lunch time and will spend the afternoon in Venice.
Days 7 to 9 - Venice. Lots of exploration on the vaporetto’s to the the islands of Burano and Murano and, of course, Venice itself. No driving for three whole days!
Day 10 - Right across Italy to the Aosta valley to a sosta at Cervinia close to The Matterhorn. Stop on the way at Sirmione.
Day 11 - Early morning look at The Matterhorn before reaching Courmeyer and then through the Mont Blanc Tunnel to Chamonix.
Days 12 and 13 - Around Chamonix - various walks planned and trips on the lifts, including the Aig du Midi and, possibly, the cabin lift to Helbronner. Hopefully lots of photographs to be had.
Day 14 - In Chamonix until about 4pm and then up to an aire at La Mercatine midway between Chamonix and Paris.
Day 15 - Travelling to Disneyland Paris to stay overnight in the car park! It’s quite recognised as an overnight stay for motorhomes with the usual facilities.
Day 16 - No driving - just a day of fun in Disneyland. You are never too old!
Day 17 - The going home day. Disneyland to Eurotunnel. Folkstone to Surbiton, Surbiton to Stafford. A long day but with plenty of breaks.
All in all, that seems like a pretty good Grand Tour. There has been plenty of planning and a lot more could be written but that will do for now. I can’t be bothered to blog about the holiday while we’re away but, hopefully, I’ll keep a journal on the laptop and will write more here when we get back.
Tags: afternoon in venice, Austria, brenner pass, Chamonix, channel tunnel, Dolomite Road, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Paris, stellplatz, Switzerland, tesco vouchers, The camper, vaporetto, Venice
