Away

Haven't been here for a few weeks, been so busy with family, work, garden and life that only now as the light in the evening fades that I am drawn back to the web world. Strange to think that something so woven into our social fabric at all leveles regardless of who the human user is was only a decade ago the realm of so very few. Technology has become so cheap and reliable that it has shurnk great swathes of human life and compressed it into text size bytes that bounce all over the globe in an instant. Has so much ever changed so fast in such a short time ? Replies on apost card please..postcard. they seem to belong with my grandfather on the Western Front in 1914 - 1918. The modern equivalent would be a jpeg downloaded via mobile to my laptop. What's next I wonder?

Funeral

Drove 350 miles yesterday with some mates to bury our rwoing friend, John. The service was in a tiny tranquil English country chucrh perched on a hillside over looking a lovely valley. There must have been over 150 people of all ages at the service, many from the village, church, school, rugby clubs, university, rowing club. People had flown from the USA, Africa, Japan and NZ. His final resting place is between a great tree and the old wall facing east to west. His was placed in the earth in a wicker coffin, and dozens of people took the opportunity to sprinkle a few grains of English earth over him in a final goodbye. Then we all went back to his family farm home, and sat on hay bails in the barn having a drink and cake, and tea and burgers and mingled with all the others. Some camped in a field by a river between apple orchards and great banks of trees.

Very sad but soaked with fond smiles and memories for a big young man who had squeezed much into his years and certainly touched many a heart.

Rest well fella.

Dead mate

Below is a pic of eight men and one wee women in a rowing boat. That photo was taken in July when we won a competition and gained the rowing honour known as blades. The big man in the middle wearing the white hat, John, died last week very suddenly suffering from a brain tumour.

Big man, big smile, big heart. Big loss.

If you come this way and read my words, and it falls within your spiritual way, say a word for John please.

Thanks.