Goodbye Neil

This morning we went to Neil’s funeral at Belsay woodland burials. Neil’s daughters, at first school with ours, spoke so well about their dad, despite Jenny being ill with Covid. We last saw him about 35 years ago as he and Marion split up and I only kept up with her. However we wanted to be there today for them and have lovely memories of him when we were young.

We felt the need to get out for a walk this afternoon, ( hopefully blowing any vestiges of Covid away!) so did another nearby trig point. It was only 3 miles return but involved yomping over squelchy bog and perfecting our heather-loup. The wind was cold, from the north.

When we got back I looked out some old photos to send to Neil’s girls as they said they didn’t have many of him when younger so I indulged in a bit of nostalgia.

The top picture is of Neil aged 40 in typical “full flow” intensity, and the bottom is the cardboard coffin going to the burial. It was held up a bit as someone had to run back to fetch his dog’s ashes which were going in the grave with him.