A Pastoral Office to perform

As I was cooking supper yesterday evening I had a phone call from Tracey, an English woman who works arranging funerals in and around Coín, requesting my assistance with one this Thursday. I made contact with a friend of the family, and arranged to visit them up at Alhaurin Golf this afternoon. The sky had been cloudy in the morning, but it cleared and the drive up there was most enjoyable. 

Before the meeting I went to Coín, to see if I could find the cemetery chapel where the service is to be held, as it's not a place I've been introduced to so far. I had an idea of which side of the town it was located, and how to reach it. The only snag was that I couldn't identify by name the road I needed to take to get there, due to a lack of signage. So, I drove around the town centre's steep, narrow one way streets trying to spot a municipal sign saying 'Cementario', but without success. I spotted an advertisement for a funeral service company on a lamp post, that was all.

I met the two sons of the woman who had died, and we discussed the funeral ceremony. I was touched when they asked if it might be possible to place an old inherited family bible on her coffin, dating back to the 1850s. The eldest son promised to email me a text about his mother to read during the service, and we arranged that I should arrive at the house tomorrow in good time to follow them to the cemetery. It's a far cry from being collected by a funeral director's car and taken to a service, as is now customary back in Britain. No too places are the same, and that keeps us clergy on our toes.