Beautiful send off

 The funeral service (a full funeral service and the chapel was packed) for my uncle was truly lovely, the live streaming was perfectly clear.  The service was conducted by a celebrant who had made several visits to my cousin and her 2 adult sons, he chatted to them and friends for hours apparently and built up a very comprehensive and personal picture of my uncle.  It was so nice to hear stories and anecdotes that were very familiar and true, rather than a completely impersonal service conducted by some random priest who obviously knew nothing about the deceased (I've been to a few of those and they're awful).  It was lovely to see my brother and sister in law there, along with some cousins I haven't seen for a few years.  I was surprised and pleased to see the flower arrangement I'd chosen had been placed on top of the coffin, along with the family one - I hadn't requested that, it was a happy chance.  I found the whole service surprisingly emotional - I think it struck home quite sharply that my family is shrinking rapidly, along with everyone else's of course.  It also reminded me that, although we're a close family, we're not geographically close - we're all scattered around the country.  And for that reason, I don't often see them nowadays.  Such a pity - when we were children and teenagers, we all lived close to each other, we had regular trips out together (my Granddad loved to take his grandchildren out), meals and parties in each other's homes, and us cousins regularly played together and had sleepovers.  And then we all grew up and moved far and wide.  But that's the way it goes I guess.

We went to town yesterday morning, I wanted to go in a few charity shops to get some toys for Betty - there's no point in buying her brand new expensive things, although she loves playing with them (cuddly toys especially), she doesn't play nicely or cuddle them - she's only interested in 'killing' them (shaking them around vigorously) and then chewing them to bits.  I only allow her one at a time, for 10 mins max, and then have to take them off her before she rips their arms or legs off and pulls all the stuffing out.  She does give them up quite readily if I offer her a treat.  However, I only managed to get two toys - I've come to the conclusion that the charity shops in Minehead are all quite expensive - I'm not paying a fiver for a secondhand teddy that Betty will destroy very quickly.  There's a big charity shop (Cancer Research I think) in Bridgwater that has a large metal cage bin full of cuddly toys, at very cheap prices - incidentally, they also do books at 2 for £1, I've bought loads when we lived there - so the next time we go to Bridgwater we'll go in there and stock up on both cuddly toys and books!  We have in the past bought Betty a couple of those tough supposedly indestructible Kong toys, but that's also a waste of money as she's just not that interested in them....unless they're the ones you can hide treats in, and then she gets fed up and abandons them if she can't get the treats out.

The large chicken I bought for husband's last Sunday roast is still going strong - he and Betty have had some in some form or another for 4 days and there's still quite a lot left - one complete breast and all the bits underneath and off the bones.  I've frozen it now, along with the carcass for stock, as I expected husband and Betty would like a change from chicken!  I did a sort of midweek roast yesterday - sausages for husband along with veggies, a Yorkshire pud and onion sauce, just the veggies, Yorkie and sauce for me.

We had a really hard frost Wednesday night, the car was totally iced up in the morning, took ages to clear it off.  No frost last night though, weak sunshine in the afternoon following a bit of mist in the morning.  Sunny spells again today and tomorrow and 8 degrees.....have you noticed how the days are drawing out a bit now?  Especially in the afternoons, it's now nearing 5 pm before the sun goes down.  Soon be Spring!

Thank you everyone for all your comments, as always.