chunder down under

An old family friend, Bridget, passed away the other week. She was like a pseudo granny to us when we were kids; I'll always remember the Easter Egg hunts we had at her cottage overlooking Brixham Harbour with a view of the replica of the "Golden Hind" (Francis Drake's galleon) below and the omnipresent smell of fish from the markets and the screeching of seagulls. She was 99. If only she could have made it one more year then she would have got a telegram from the Queen which, as an ardent royalist who insisted on standing to attention for every Christmas Day's Queen's speech, would have pleased her. Unfortunately I couldn't make the funeral, being 12000 miles away, but my sisters read out a eulogy to her. I'm not good at funerals, so I was quite glad not to be there.