Quiet Day

I took down some sweeties to the church father used to attend this morning. Did I mention he once turned up drunk to a Bible study meeting and got away with it? He used to take sweeties to the church every Sunday and hand them out to everyone he could get near to. Those who had responsibilities used to beg him in vain to wait until the end when it was easier to pick up the wrappers. He dished them out at the start anyway. So rather than pay for flowers on the alter, I took wrapped chocolates.

My grandmother had a thing about flowers for dead people on anniversaries. She was a Christian Spiritualist, and my mother forbade her to ever mention her beliefs to me, so I don't know much except that the bits I gathered were rather odd. She must have spent a fortune over the years putting flowers on graves. As I have previously mentioned, I am not sure exactly where my mother is buried and I don't feel it is important. Wherever their shell lies, what made them them is elsewhere. Grandmother used to make a real thing of it, sometimes travelling long distances and making a performance of the matter, which I suppose was important to her. I can't imagine father would be that concerned. He would be too busy focusing on what was happening at the moment. Although he would probably know a bit about the gravestones.

That is something that I regret about my trip to Settle. I didn't stop to get a picture of the headstones of the Welsh navvies who worked on the Settle Carlisle Railway and who were allowed to have their headstones engraved in Welsh. I'll get a pic next time. Which reminds me, here are the pictures I took on my day out to Settle. I didn't take any yesterday.

I was wondering where to go next Saturday, so I may aim for a graveyard somewhere, just to remember everything. It won't be where father's ashes were scattererd, as that is very close, and the journey to where uncle is buried (and somewhere nearby, known unto God, so is mother) would take several hours each way if I avoid the motorway, so I may google for interesting localish graveyards that are not in Bradford. There is a historically important graveyard in Bradford, but even the police don't like driving there.

I've had a slow day as bear was poorly in the night and needed me to generally be a mum at 4am. I was almost grateful to be woken, as I was dreaming about book keeping errors, but the poor kid was exhausted, hot, dehydrated and fed up. He's been better today, despite the extra drama in the street. I will be glad when the heat breaks, as it doesn't really suit any of us.

Writing stuff - I poem I posted a long time ago a poem about visiting and tending graves, partly inspired by my grandmother, and it's here, if you are interested.

Hugs to all.