Long and strange day

Having woken up on Saturday morning, hoping to do nothing much and just have a chilled Chiswick day, we got a phone call to say that James' father had died in the night. Though he had cancer, it was pretty unexpected and shocking to say the least. So we decided to head down to the New Forest where family were gathering in the local pub to try and assimilate the news. Turned out that for the most part, 'assimilate' meant 'drink enough to forget', and a few people were pretty trashed by the time we arrived. We stayed for a while, but then James decided that he would like to go to the hospital to see the body. His family were pretty anti the idea, having decided against it themselves, but it turned out to be a really good and helpful thing to do. It wasn't weird at all, and it was really useful, I think, to have that private space and moment in which to say goodbye. Funerals serve a purpose, no doubt, but there are so many different feelings and agendas flying around that I think it's often hard to get what you need, as an individual, out of it.

It was pretty late by the time we were done there and we thought we'd go and get some food. Southampton on a Saturday night turned out to be a very unattractive prospect indeed, so we decided to stop off at Winchester instead. After the first two places we tried were full, we finally found a table at Brasserie Blanc, where we had a really lovely supper and glass of wine (James) / champagne (me) to toast David, life and good food.

We got back to Chiswick just after midnight, exhausted, but actually kind of ok.

Today we've tried to have that calm day - we've been out to pick up coffee and pastries for breakfast, but other than that, we're just hanging out, watching some TV, eating leftovers and being quiet.