Bye Pete.

Yesterday was the funeral.
Rye, myself, Vicks and Jenny drove up to Yorkshire Tuesday afternoon and stayed with my nephew overnight.  Odd mixture of road trip, which, Jen, Vicks and I haven't done together for ages, and of course sadness over Peter.  Seeing my nephew gave me a turn too - he looks very much like my other brother who died, Richard.  Very similar mannerism too.  I know Richard would be very proud of him.

Yesterday as a mixture of memory lane, having a drive around my old stomping grounds, quick change into clothes for the funeral to shoot through to Barnsley to the funeral, and getting stuck in traffic and having the horrible feeling I was going to be late for my own brother's funeral.  Thankfully we weren't. 

The service was nice, the minister had obviously taken the time to learn about our family history and make sure he could deliver a fairly personal, er... whatever, what he does is called.  Vicks read out an eulogy from, probably the last person to have communicated with Peter; a lady called Joy from New Zealand.  The minister was also very good about Rye playing in the aisle with a toy car and made a few jokes about joining him afterwards for a play. 

Afterwards, we drove over to Cubley Hall in Penistone, near where Peter lived, and had a drink and chatted, an odd mixture of deep sadness and emotions and joy at seeing family we rarely see, and also school friends, too.  A beautiful sunny warm day.  We visited the bungalow, and that was very hard indeed.  I llived there for a little while with Peter and mum, and it really hadn't changed all that much, the main difference was the lack of pictures and ornaments, personal bits.  Peter had got rid of a lot of things.  Many of my mum's ornaments etc were still there, but just not a lot of Peter.  Although, tears did spring to my eyes when I saw his coat, a coat I remembered him wearing, hanging over the back of a chair, his sandles sat on the hearth and a book he'd obviously been reading, turned over to keep the page.   Ah Pete, you daft sod.

Anyway, I took a few photos, as it's not often our family congregates en masse.

Mum's sisters.  Claris, on the left, is the youngest, and wow, she looks a lot like mum.  Mum and Ethel lost contact with Claris for a very long time, wonderfully, not long before my mum was diagnosed with the cancer, one of Claris's daughters found my mum and a reunion happened.    Sadly, mum not long afterwards was diagnosed died within a few months.

The tree where mum's ashes are scattered and where Kev will scatter Peter's.  Kev will then take cuttings and he and I will have a tree each, he plans to eventually plant his in his local park - I think I might keep mine in pot.  Ethel also took a cutting to take back to Canada.

A sad, heart wrenching day, and yet also a beautiful day - and somehow it feels very right it should be like that.

Peter and our mum.

Shopping Trip.

Today's trip was the most depressing I've had to do for a while.  Purchasing Rye a pair of trousers and collared t'shirt suitable for a funeral, and a pair of shoes for myself.

The funeral is on Wednesday, I'm driving up on Tuesday with a couple of friends and we're staying over at my nephew's home, then come back Wednesday after the funeral.

Very flat since finding out the date - I suppose it's becoming more and more real.  I haven't laid eyes on Peter for years and years, so his death seems a bit unreal, well come Wednesday it will be very real indeed.

Have I mentioned how much I hate funerals?