Catch up with a colleague

Unusually this morning I had an eight thirty phone call from the notaire who contacted me Friday last to say that his client died yesterday. Later on a funeral director from Aigle phoned to arrange a date and time. We then exchanged email addresses, so that he could send me the formal death notice required by the man's commune. I found that I slipped into a telephone conversation in French with ease, which was encouraging. The notaire had spoken to me in excellent English, so there wasn't an opportunity at that stage. We'll have a meeting here tomorrow with two of the staff of the Montreux Care home where he lived for the past five years.

Today's highlight for me was a visit from Adele Kelham, former Chaplain in Lausanne, now retired but continuing to serve as Archdeacon of Switzerland. She came for a St John's Church Council meeting in the evening but arrived early for a catch-up session from her home in Morat, in the Canton of Berne. It was a pleasure to have someone else to cook supper for, and most of the preparation I did beforehand, so we had a good two hours of conversation. It's ten years since we last met at Julia's ordination. I had to consult my pre-retirement blog 'West of the Centre' to check. So much has happened in the years since then.