Wednesday, August 5, 2009

The purple lady.

I haven't been writing very regularly this month.
The first rule of blogging, I think, is to keep blogging regularly.
It is a "log" after all.
Captain Kirk would be horrified (this is a weak Star Trek in-joke which should probably be edited out).
If I were a newspaper I would be a bi-monthly, not much use to anybody really.
I haven't really felt like blogging because I have been sad. My grandmother died. She was 93 and she was marvelous. Which at 93 is tricky, believe me.
Death is a bit like an airport. It brings you into contact with a whole lot of people you wouldn't normally want to meet.
In my bleak state I drove to Martins Funeral Home. I was greeted by a woman named Annaikie.
She wore purple flowing robes and purple shoes topped off with a multitude of silver chains around her neck. She could have gone straight to a Rocky Horror party after work without even changing. She was ever so sweet, which I needed in my dazed-grieving-exhausted state.
At the end of our exchange, which lasted about 40 minutes, she got up and led me through to the display of coffins in the back room. It's a strange thing this. To take a person experiencing the loss of a loved one and say "well let's go and choose a lovely box for them then".
The people who make coffins are clearly an uninspired bunch. Who can blame them really. Still, one would think they could make a bit more of an effort. How many fake brass rings can a man take ? Needless to say I didn't dally.
As I made my way home through the dark surrounding suburbs, past the panel shops and exhaust clinics and gas refillers, I thought about my gran.
"Bloody awful" she would have said about all of this.
And she would have been right.