Angelic

Bit of a long story but a couple of years ago my aforementioned friend Katie and I paid Brookwood cemetery a visit and, me being me, I took photos of some of the wonderful grave markers there. Then, a few months ago, I entered one of them in a photographic competition on the theme of 'heritage at risk', thinking nothing more of it. Then, in December, I was contacted by the organisers to say that I had won a runner-up prize and that there is going to be a presentation evening and my photograph would be taking part in a touring exhibition of the top eight entries (I can't say any more than that at the moment as I've been sworn to secrecy until the winners are announced in the near future).

Needless to say, this is quite exciting. However, my excitement has been a little tempered by a vague feeling of unease about whether the photograph I took still shows the memorial in its current state or whether it has been repaired since then. So today, while there was still time to find out before any announcements are made, I headed back to Brookwood with Mr DA to find out.

Brookwood is very big. It was once the largest cemetery in the world and is still the largest in Western Europe so there are a LOT of graves and looking for one particular memorial is like looking for a needle in a haystack. There is a map available on the website but it doesn't identify individual burials so we wandered around for a couple of hours, trying to retrace my previous steps without my being able to actually remember them.

We saw all sorts of interesting things but there was no sign of the memorial I was seeking. I was hungry, thirsty, with a worsening cold and needing the loo so was about to give up when I suddenly spotted a very distinctive gravestone I recognised from last time which I had taken a photo of. Then I saw another one I recognised and kept going in that direction until, lo and behold, there it was: the 'prize winning' memorial! And, best of all, it was exactly as it had been when I took the original picture and therefore all is well. I took a few more shots to be on the safe side (the one pictured is completely unconnected).

Now back home and taking it easy as I have a bit of a temperature going on with this cold so it's a quiet night in with the dogs for me.