Of Grave Concern

As promised here is a picture of the stadium last night. I think that this gives a good impression of how it stands out at night, and the greater atmosphere of a night game. Better still my pessimism was unfounded and there was another critical win for the Boro, albeit in a very scrappy game. It was also very cold, never were the heated seats in the car more welcome.

A complete change of subject I have been dealing with a peculiar piece of British officialdom. This is over the ownership of a grave, not that anything is in dispute, but there are a lot of boxes that I have to tick. I suppose from my six years as a church treasurer I should have known that graves are private property in the same way as any other piece of land is. The grave where my father is buried is in a town cemetery in Sherborne, the closest that my family has to a spiritual home. We had all agreed that we would bury my mother’s ashes there, and have a small family ceremony and get together.

So far so good, should be quite simple – find an undertaker, organise the service, and get the accommodation/lunch sorted. That was the plan, so in my spirit of encouraging local businesses I found the only local undertaker in Sherborne, a very nice man called Daniel telephoned me. There my problems started, it turns out that Daniel has a prolapse and cannot dig the grave and all his staff are on holiday.

Ok this is only a minor setback, onwards to the next undertaker albeit one belonging to a chain. I have a pleasant conversation with a lady called Catherine, then comes the killer question – “Who owns the grave?”, pardon “Who owns the grave?” Well I have no answer to this question. Even that is not issue; I am now referred to another nice lady at the local town council who tells me who is the proud owner of the grave, my maternal grandmother Helena Sheppard. However as my grandmother died in the late sixties and nobody in my family mentioned a grave in their wills we have to establish a chain of ownership.

So I have despatched my mothers will to Sherborne and am hopeful that everything will be settled by next month. Otherwise we will have a lot of lunches to eat and rooms in a boutique hotel to stay in, my main failing was that I organised the accommodation before the ceremony. I conclude that I learn something everyday.