One advantage of being a frequent flier is that I had enough airmiles to fly myself back from Zurich for the funeral, for free, in business class. That meant complementary drinks and the usual toast of absent friends only on this occasion times three:
* Oliver. It was not exactly Kir royale in memory of dead cat. I am not sure it was even champagne, and it had certainly lost some of its sparkle having, I suspect, just done the inbound flight from LHR. But it served the purpose.
* Denise Dorothy Shave. Well she certainly kept the "Dorothy" quiet. This time with an Argentinean Malbec. Ironic to toast a woman who for most of the time I knew her was tee-total. What she must of made of us lot as we got more uproarious as the evenings progressed.
* Bill (William Galashan). Since they offered a digestive I thought it only right to toast the memory of Mary's dad with a single malt, although he preferred Famous Grouse. I cut it with just a splash of water as instructed by Craig on our visit to Elgin.
Like Lord Lundy in his early years I am far too freely moved to tears. What the cabin staff made of this business man with tears gently trickling down his cheeks I do not know but I cannot be doing with this macho, big boys don't cry rubbish. Anyway less like crying more like watering eyes.
When I got to Golders Green Crematorium I visited the spot where Marc Bolan's ashes are scattered and, as I promised I would, said a word for the soul of Gerry's dad (Gerry is a cyber-chum from the Till Dawn mailing list).
The funeral itself I think I shall speak of later but it was fine.
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