Funeral arrangements

After a morning of collating information for the Eulogy and watching Once Upon A Time with Gulliver we set off to meet Ollie the Funeral Director, Max met them at at the gym and took the shots for their website, they are a lovely family so when Mum died we chose them straight away.

I chose an eco coffin, handmade woven basket in a traditional coffin shape, its lavender coloured, Mum's favourite scent. We will have a white flowers with flecks of purple on the top.

We are having Lillo made in white.

We are having the ashes put into scatter tubes decorated with scenes from nature.

We are having the hearse and limo pick us up from the house and Tom and Zeb will help the 4 pall bearers carry the coffin.

He referred to me as the chief mourner....
I decided we will all take our seats and then they would bring in the coffin in rather than walking in with it. Lots of other things.....

I made all decisions in the meeting stopping to call my brother to check he liked the coffin choice and to ask about the flower colour, also to see if he wanted his own tube of ashes which he does (my aunt would like one too).

Then I realised I'd forgotten to take the important paperwork with me which enables Ollie to collect the body etc, he offered to come over later on as he doesn't live far from us, so we decided I should also get the clothes ready she will wear as well.

When we got home I felt shattered. Then Max got the suitcases in with her things in them for me to look through, I had thought to dress her in a nightie and dressing gown but her dressing gown needed washing and the pockets were full of tissues, that really upset me, I couldn't find a nightie she liked so I decided on some nice underwear, a black shaped vest with spaghetti straps, warm socks, leopard print leggings (she often wore leopard print), a black t-shirt with little embroidered elephants on it which I remember her wearing a lot over the years, a warm cream coloured Hoody with pom-poms which I bought her, Leopardprint slippers and Max also thought she should have a hat, so I put in her knitted toffee coloured one I bought her which has a few sequins on it which she wore a lot in the nursing home. I then decided to add her white polar bear from my brother and the embroidered lovely Mum pillow from me. This was all chosen with tears, this was very hard indeed.

Ollie turned up and we completed the paperwork, he stayed for about an hour and listened to records, he is also a rock fan, Max likes a band called Ghost which is my favourite of the bands he likes so we put that on and Ollie really liked it too, they are excellent. It was nice the Ollie came to our house, he's a very nice young man and all the arrangements so far have felt very natural and respectful but not in any way stuffy.

Max made a lovely prawn curry but as we hadn't been to the shops there wasn't enough for us all so Zebedee went to the local curry house for some chicken tikkipa and chicken korma, it was a lovely dinner. An evening of drinking wine and watching About Time ensued. More tears.

Photo by Max Ellis,