West Coast Warmth

Up at the crack of dawn today (well perhaps not quite, but whether or not it's mid morning coffee time for the birds in our garden, 5.30 am still seems early to me) to catch the first train south.

I was headed all the way over to the west coast for a memorial service on a journey that involved a train, two cars, a bacon roll at the green welly shop and a late arrival at the wrong church.

Katy was one of my mum's cousins, a kind, generous and welcoming women who was very close to my late gran, her auntie. She was diagnosed unexpectedly with acute terminal cancer just a couple of months ago and died on May 15th. Today the church in that little village, deep in mid-argyll, was standing room only.

My gran and Katy had a shared sense of timekeeping, a trait which I didn't inherit, and neither were late for anything. Katy was happy to drive the almost three hour journey to visit my gran and did so regularly, often arriving just after breakfast. Perhaps then my early start and long journey was appropriate, though it might have been better had we checked which one of the three alternating village churches the service was to be held in!

I'm on the second last leg of the journey home now, away from the warmth of the west coast and back to the cool of the east and to my lovely husband and my two (hopefully) sleeping bairns.