In other news

[smokingboot]

The ash scattering went well enough. We did it down by Shakespeare's Globe on the South Bank. The tide was coming in, gulped up the ash and made it clear in no uncertain terms that it would gobble us up too, shoes, bags and all, if we didn't stow it and rush off to higher ground. Then we all adjourned back to the George at Borough, where pub lunches and wine magically appeared, and we talked a long while.

Trouble is that there's a lot of ash. Some was scattered on the Thames and some was divided up into little baggies for people to take away and, I don't know, souvenirs? Saying goodbye in their own special way? I was given one and was going to sprinkle the ashes on my roses, but after a chat with larians will instead take it down to Greenwich or Woolwich and cast it out onto the Thames.Why did I take a bag? It comforted me. But it feels very wrong for it to be anywhere other than where he wished it, on the Thames.

Gareth regained consciousness, but I am not visiting him right now, because he is still in a vulnerable state, and I don't want my vibe to bring him down. He has had two tracheotomies to help him breathe, and will be in hospital for 2/3 weeks. They now say the pneumonia is the only problem, not the liver.

What a peculiar year.

Comments

[sarahfeeney.livejournal.com]

I suspect some of them make take the, to me, slightly mawkish option of having it made into a glass that they can have set in a ring or other piece of jewellery. I'm not sure that I get the sentiment but there you go different strokes and all that!

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

I have been ruined by AD&D with regards to this option. The moment I think of a gem made from ashes and set into a ring, I instantly think 'Phylactory!'

[semyaza.livejournal.com]

For some reason I was surprised to find that Amazon sells mortuary urns including palm-sized keepsake urns. I have no problem with the idea of an urn in the garden but a keepsake urn on the mantelpiece - no.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

The trouble with urns - and coffins come to that - for me is that they feel too enclosed. Same with those columbine (?) things in Highgate cemetary - they feel like drawers in a wall. I would rather be scattered to the winds or on the sea. Or maybe one of those dissolving eco-capsules under a tree... a small bag of Mark's ashes is currently sitting in my handbag. It's just not right.

[semyaza.livejournal.com]

I don't really approve of cremation. Not for religious reasons but because it doesn't feel right to me. I'd go for a willow casket in the garden. Dividing someone up into memento-sized portions is very weird.

They are drawers in a wall.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Right now, I don't feel attached enough to any one place to be buried in it, though giving life to a tree feels like a lovely option. I just don't trust people not to cut it down fifty years hence.

Meanwhile I am wandering round talking to a bag of ashes in my handbag... almost channelling Lilith and her rat from Cheers. Best do something before it gets too weird.