Ten Years

For someone who is supposedly clever with words, even to the extent of making a living at it, I can’t adequately sum up today’s significant anniversary. I’ve been dreading it to be honest.

What I do want to do is give yet another insight into bereavement.

There comes a time, or times, when the overwhelming feeling is not your own grief or sorrow, but a sadness for all the occurrences and aspects of life that the deceased has not experienced and empathy for them.

I did allude to it here (The Goldilocks principle) and perhaps elsewhere, so it’s not a new feeling but it is the dominant one today.

Here is a highly-esoteric list of events that Juliet never saw:

2011
Release of final Harry Potter film
Fifty Shades of Grey series
Almost half of UK internet users are using mobile phones to do so
First hydrogen fuel filling station opened in Swindon
Shale gas discovered in Lancashire – fracking
Sir Paul McCartney married for the third time

2012
Olympic Games in London
Emergence of activities of Jimmy Savile, Rolf Harris, Gary Glitter and other childhood heroes
The Bond film Skyfall

2013
Legalisation of same-sex marriages
Death of Margaret Thatcher
Retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson from Manchester United
Andy Murray wins Wimbledon for the first time
Birth of George, future king
Crisis in Syria

2014
Rise of Islamic State / Isis
First gay weddings take place in England and Wales
Phone hacking trials of newspaper journalists
Simon runs the London Marathon

2015
End of Top Gear, as greatly enjoyed by our family
Murders of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists in Paris
Hatton Garden safe deposit burglary
Tories win the general election
Hawker Hunter air show crash at Shoreham
Jeremy Corbyn becomes Labour leader
The robin is declared the national bird of the UK
5p charge for plastic carrier bags in shops
Death of Cilla Black
Britain’s last deep coal mine closes

2016
Death of David Bowie
Last Land Rover Defender model built
End of the print versions of The Independent and Independent on Sunday newspapers
Lord Lucan officially declared dead
David Cameron announces referendum on membership of the European Union
Leicester City win the Premier League
Jo Cox MP is murdered in the street
UK votes to leave the European Union
Theresa May becomes Prime Minister, replacing David Cameron
Olympic Games in Brazil, Team GB are second in the medal table
Iceland knock England out of the UEFA Euros

2017
New 12-sided £1 coin
Britain goes a full day without using coal-generated electricity for the first time
Manchester Arena concert bomb
Grenfell Tower fire
Measles is eradicated in the UK

2018
Toys R Us goes into administration
Salisbury poisonings by Russian agents
Death of Stephen Hawking
First scheduled non-stop direct flight from Australia to the UK
Hottest ever London Marathon (I ran it)
Meghan Markle marries Prince Harry
Donald Trump becomes US President
The government announces that it will lower the screening age for bowel cancer in England from 60 to 50, to bring it into line with Scotland. Still too low.
Protest march by 700,000 people (including me) in London against the lies of Brexit
100th anniversary of the end of the First World War
Rise of Extinction Rebellion
Drones cause disruption over Gatwick Airport

2019
UK 5G mobile networks become operational, accompanied by conspiracy theories
Hottest UK day on record, 38.7 C in Cambridge
Theresa May resigns as Prime Minister, later replaced by Boris Johnson
Sainsbury’s stops selling fireworks in its stores
Mothercare goes into administration
The Tories win the general election again

2020
Early reports of coronavirus emanating from Wuhan, China, followed by first UK cases, followed by worldwide pandemic
1917 film
Sir Keir Starmer elected Labour party leader
UK leaves the European Union
HS2 rail link project given the go-ahead
Flybe airline goes into administration
COVID-19 pandemic in UK, with national lockdowns
British Airways retires its fleet of 747 jumbo jets
Sale of new petrol and diesel cars is brought forward to 2030 from 2040

2021
Vaccination of UK adults against coronavirus is rolled out
Death of the Duke of Edinburgh aged 99
Last high-street Debenhams store closes
England are the beaten finalists in the (delayed) 2020 UEFA Euros

Marriage of our eldest daughter

24th August 2002, London

Photos of Juliet from 2006

On what would have been her 58th birthday, just a few photos from fifteen years ago.
Some of which I’ve posted before but some I haven’t.

A hot day at the park

Today Margaret and I visited the park. I took a rose from our garden and put it on the tree. We discussed how nine years seem to have passed very quickly. That said, life with J and the girls seems another lifetime away.

Temperature was in the high 30s, the sky a Mediterranean blue, but we were shaded under the trees. There was a new tree planted nearby. I’m hopeless with tree identification (see previous post) but a sketchy bit of research suggests it might be an ash?

We didn’t stay very long. Just long enough.

Simon and Lucy Oct 1994

Four generations October 1994

Carpe diem in parco

To mark what would have been Juliet’s 57th birthday we took J’s mother & father out to the park, to lunch and to a museum exhibition. Despite the grey winter’s day the park looked lovely, the trees impressive and there were even some early snowdrops in one corner.

January snowdrops

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

As we approached J’s tree, D was the only one who started to blub!

Looks like the Whomping Willow. It’s a Horse Chestnut.

The main branch seemed lower. Either the ground has risen or the tree has subsided; both seem unlikely. It’s amazing how healthy the new tree boughs are, for example the barkless ones on the right of the photo above. The upright trunks in the photo are new growths from the original tree trunk.

The park really is a lovely place. Here’s a tree that I expertly identified first as “a sycamore”, then as “some sort of maple.” Turned out it is a London Plane.

Here’s a map of the park 150 years ago. Headington Hill Hall is Robert Maxwell’s old place, now the administrative centre for Oxford Brookes University. The Dairy is now converted into a nice house with several houses in the outbuildings behind it.

At the Pompeii exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum was this Roman dining room mosaic featuring a grinning skeleton; a reminder to “carpe diem“; seize the day.

I do. I really, really do.

 

Written words remain

A nice photo of J at a secret location… I expect I could find out the date if I look back through old files, but it will be early to mid-1980s. I’m going to guess 1983.

The title of today’s post reflects my new career as a Humanist funerals celebrant. I had casually mentioned that I might be interested in doing this to the celebrant who performed J’s funeral.  I still hadn’t firmly decided on this career even back in November 2015 when I attended some training for pastoral care given by Humanists UK.  But I remember being impressed by the wisdom and calm assurance exhibited by a couple of the attendees who were celebrants. And they had greying hair like me.

I did my training at the end of last year, and by happy coincidence or otherwise, J’s funeral celebrant Jacqui was appointed as my mentor. I think she did a good job… In another strange coincidence, I’d given permission for a trainee celebrant to observe J’s funeral and she went on to become a peer assessor of other celebrants, including Jacqui…. Karma. Not sure if Humanists believe in Karma, but we do believe in the consequences of our actions having happy outcomes, so there you are.

One of my funerals was that of my own father who died in April.

My new work combines several things I was reasonably good at – interviewing clients, writing proposals and delivering them as public presentations! Gives me reason for my habit of collecting quotes, aphorisms, readings and other literary clips that catch my eye. Today’s post title references “‘Litera scripta manet, verba locuta volant” – “Written words remain, spoken words fly away”.

Back to my late wife. Eight years now. The happy memories outweigh the sad recollections these days, I’ve probably said that before. I zoomed in on the photo above to get this portrait of J smiling. That’s a happy smile isn’t it?!

 

 

Juliet’s tree

25th March 2019

J’s tree is nine years old now.  I was in the area, training for my new career, so was able to drive by and take a few pictures at blossom time. Looking good.

Here’s the tree in April 2010, a month after we planted it.

I’ll write about the new career when I get properly started on it. It has a strong connection with other content in this blog.

56 today but remaining forever young

A walk around the village – New Year’s Day 2010

It was thirty years ago today

We had a lot of wedding photos taken on our wedding day, thirty years ago, as you do.
I think this one, while not very traditional, captures the joy of that day.

From left: Keith Lang, myself, Juliet, Toby Musgrave, Jeremy Thorp, Gavin Nelson.
And (almost) seated, Robert Lindsay.

Changes

Margaret and I visited the park today, 7th August. There’s a fence around the tree now.

I wasn’t at work, I’m two days into my retirement and four days away from my first wedding anniversary. Life has changed a lot.

“All great changes are preceded by chaos” – Deepak Chopra.

J in York 29 July 2008

Getting ready to sail again

Juliet died six years ago today.

This is an extract from a book called “Life Lessons: Things I Wished I’d Learned Earlier” by Lesley Garner:

Don’t expect to go from shock and misery to happiness overnight. depending on how deep your relationship went, it could take a year or two. But you can create islands of happiness in your sea of despair. And those islands become stepping stones on to dry land. Dry land is where we look back at the sea of despair and our lost loves like so many boats on the horizon and wonder what we saw in them. Then one day, another boat may come along and, even if we’re not ready for an ocean voyage, we can set off for a trip around the lighthouse. We’re getting ready to sail again.

Well I saw a lot in Juliet and she’ll always have a place in my heart. But in a few days’ time I shall be newly married again. I’m ready for another voyage.

J at the Sydney Opera House 20 Aug 2005