I spent an hour or so in College yesterday morning working on forward plans, then went into the CBS office in the afternoon and stayed until quite late. Then I had to go back to College to pack up a laptop for a courier to pick up on Monday morning and take ti away for repair - this is James' Sony Vaio, which got dropped, cracking the screen, but as far as I could ascertain by inspection, no other damage. It's taken me months to get around to finding a repair company, and in the end it has meant shipping it out. Having prepared by packing it swaddled in a re-enforced laptop bag, the company told me it had to be sent in a package, and this is what took me back to my College office with spare packaging from Ashley's supply at ten o'clock at night, to make sure it was ready for Monday.
This morning I had the funeral of the man who lived in the Westgate Street flats in my old parish, a veteran survivor of an Indonesian Japanese POW camp, having arrived in Singapore the day before it fell. The funeral was in Pidgeon's chapel and was attended by a Royal British Legion standard bearer, the chairman and secretary of Cardiff & Vale branch, of which I am chaplain. The chairman spoke the Act of Remembrance and the Kohima prayer as part of the service. I was very glad that the branch honoured one of its oldest members in this way. Nobody came to Thornhill Crematorium for the final prayers and committal, so I did these accompanied only by the funeral conductor. They'd have been happy to do it themselves, but I wouldn't consider that, having been engaged for the last rites of an old soldier, I was committed to see it through. No half measures.
Straight from the crem, I drove to Kenilworth to spend the rest of the weekend with Clare, looking after Rhiannon overnight, and looking foreward to a Sunday off-duty tomorrow.
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