In Other News…

… Gavin’s cremation was today. Really, one of us here, one of his neighbours, should have been there. But, nobody seemed too enthusiastic. Well, Carol was working, Graham is also working; don’t know about the others yet. We did think of going. But it is miles away, at Ayr, and we can’t really afford the fuel; also, neither of us really have clothes that we could wear at a formal funeral. We’re a pair of scruffs who rarely manage the price of new clothes and prefer to slop around in casuals anyway. I only have two pairs of footwar, for instance – a pair of worn-down tan-coloured sandels and a pair of hefty walking boots, in dark green. Neither really go well with the rather faded black dress that I have worn to funerals for donkeys years (and which is probably a size too small for me now). Neither of us even have a decent-looking top coat to wear. And really, we don’t know the family well enough to be sure we won’t be causing offense by looking all scruffy.
But I did have the chance to tell his sister what I thought a good man Gavin had been, when she came round yesterday to do somethings in his flat. Hopefully, that helped a little. And I wasn’t trying to be nice to them – I really do think he was a good, gentle man.

Rest in peace, Gavin.