Another funeral day

The proximity of today's two funerals made it impossible to keep my clinic appointment, but as I had time to spare before the first service at eleven, in St John's church near Riverside surgery, so I popped in to tell the duty nurse I needed to cancel, and re-book for tomorrow. I managed to get a brief word with her in between patients, but pressure of time meant I couldn't restock on medical supplies which ran down over the long weekend, so here's hoping I don't need an extra change overnight. I'm now at the stage of being able to go 18 hours unchanged without discomfort, a measure of improvement, but set-backs and accidents can happen, being prepared (the motto of the Boy Scouts as I was nurtured by that august organisation, growing up), is always essential. "Expect the unexpected", as Ashley is fond of saying.

I reached home from Thornhill Crematorium after the first funeral in time to cook and eat lunch, before being picked up for the second funeral, which was all held there. The majority of funerals I am engaged for are with Pidgeons, our local company based in the Parish, and by now I am well acquainted with most of their work teams. One familiar today was with a Penarth company I hadn't come across before, and the other with with a Rumney company, for whom I have done a handful of funerals since retirement. This means having to be on the alert in case they do anything unfamiliar. A small effort to make, to ensure no awkwardness mars the otherwise smooth procession of events.

In both cases the size of the coffin indicated that the dead men were heavyweights. It's not such an uncommon problem these days, and I feel for the men - and it is nearly all men - whose work it is to handle with respect such hefty bodies from deathbed to grave or incinerator. It seems that American companies are way ahead of British ones in the fitting of lifting technology to hearses and indeed to stretcher trolleys used. I wonder why the Americans call them 'gurneys' Although I suppose stretcher trolley is a pretty odd term too.

The rest of the day I spent watching in bed the last three episodes of 'Vanished by the Lake', making sure to relax and rest after the exertions of the day, which I think I coped with quite well. Listening to French movie dialogue seems to have become much easier to follow when I've been watching box set series this past few months. I wonder if this is a benefit of spending a year revising French using DuoLingo, even though I've stopped French now. It's not so much pronunciation, as turns of phrase that now seem easier to grasp, which at one time seemed a bit obscure to me, even though I spoke and was using French often. One way or another, despite the frustrations of French DuoLingo, it was worth the effort.