Mum's memorial service

I took no photos, far too personal for that, sorry.  

It was really nice....sad of course, but several amusing anecdotes to lighten the mood and make us laugh.  One of them, read out by the lovely minister, concerning a cousin of mine who likes to present a hard as nails, tough guy, sweary, ageing football hooligan exterior - he's nothing like that in reality though, a big softy in fact.  The anecdote made him blush and smile with delight, whilst the rest of us laughed.  

A montage of photos playing via memory stick photo app thingy on a big screen at the front, some of which I hadn't seen for years and gave us lots of happy memories (elder brother collated all those).  

The Order of Service had a couple of nice photos on it, along with lots of bird pictures (Mum was an avid bird watcher - before her sight went) and a little cartoon type drawing which meant something to us family members but not necessarily anyone else, unless they knew Mum very well.....it was a little personal touch just for us and was put only on our family Order of Service ones and not the ones for the rest of the guests.  It made us siblings laugh a lot, a very personal memory of Mum.

The Hall was very nearly packed, lots of Mum's fellow congregation members, old friends who we hadn't seen for years, from all around the country and the ones who came over specially from Paris, having moved there a few years ago.  And most of our extended family members came, all travelling quite long distances, it was so nice to see everyone.  I had hugs galore, some from people I didn't even know (Mum's fellow worshippers), which was all very emotional.

There was a big buffet afterwards with absolutely masses of food.  Amazingly, the food and the Order of Service was all organised and paid for by members of Mum's congregation, they wouldn't accept any payment for any of it.  People are so kind.

It was an emotional day but in a mostly nice way.  We did have a few issues with our hotel for the night, which put a damper on things, but I'll leave that for another day.  We're all (Betty included) extremely tired, having got home a couple of hours ago, will be having an early night and not intending to do anything much at all tomorrow.