So, one advantage of the visit to Holland last week for Jan's funeral was seeing the little nieceyplopses. Lily aged 3 – mostly trying to suffocate Daisy, but seen here in brief 'I like my little sister' mode, and Daisy - now 6 months old, sweet.
And watching some lovely playing with Granny… here having her hair done by Lily. Which couldn't really do any worse damage than I already had, deciding to cut Mum's hair 10 minutes before we left to put her on the plane to Holland, and no, it wasn't my finest effort! I'm sure the wave-cut-platform ridge on the back right will grow out soon…..
But at least the funeral went well. Cathy had done some sterling organising, so despite the 5pm dash to the florists the night before when we realised we hadn't ordered any flowers (you'd think the funeral director might actually prompt people to think of that as well as everything else!) it all went smoothly.
Things we discovered during the visit:
1. My grandfather won an OBE for something – possibly engineering services during the war? We found the medal – and lots of others – in Jan's things, never even knew that Opa (grandpa) had one
2. Jan himself had actually founded a church. We just thought he went to one… never had a clue he was an actual founder, and it was nice to see various of the congregation had turned out to see him off
3. Jan had written 40 or so letters to a 40ish woman whose mother he had known in the 60s, when the younger woman was a child. She'd written once to him for some reason aged 10 or so, and he always wrote back… never knew the old boy had it in him, sweet.
4. And I can eat about 15 bitterballen dipped in mustard in one sitting … god those Dutch snacks of lard in a ball with bacon bits are good, especially at funerals.
And got Mum home in one piece so all good there too. Phew!
Sx