We are hosting the funeral tea tomorrow. It will literally be tea, the 3.30 slot apparently being the least popular at the local crematoriums. In preparation I made a Victoria sandwich, realizing as I put it in the oven that it was some time since I'd done one and I couldn't remember whether I needed to put a metal sheet above it to cut down the heat in the bottom oven of the Aga. It rose OK, but things were looking dodgy after the first twenty-five minutes, when I thought trifle might be on the menu later in the week while I had another go at cake making after lunch. Or bought a cake, said the Systems Administrator.
The SA fetched the ladder and the long handled duster and swept down the cobwebs that had been peacefully collecting in the upper reaches of the sitting room for quite some time. I used to keep noticing them after guests had already arrived and were sitting down on the sofa, and by that point leaping up to remove the skein of spider silk from the right hand side of the painting over the fireplace always seemed worse than pretending it wasn't there and trusting everyone else to follow suit.
Then we counted on our fingers trying to work out how many people might eat a pork pie, and whether I had bought enough, and if we should get some chocolate biscuits as well. Tomorrow morning I will make scones. It seems an odd way to mark a life, worrying about sandwiches between wondering exactly what I am going to say at the crematorium, but what else do you do?
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