My mother's funeral

My mother's funeral was held yesterday; the Mass was at the Polish church on Windsor Road, Ealing. Almost three weeks after her death, but as it turned out the timing allowed everyone to turn up.

After the Mass, the coffin leaves the church...

...for the journey to Mortlake Crematorium

Final words from Ks. Darek

The wake was held at my parents' house, which I feel is right and fitting; my mother spent 45 years - more than half of her life living here, and we are sure that this is how she'd liked to have had her final send-off with family and friends. She outlived most of her contemporaries - of all the people on her wedding photo, only two are still alive, her husband and her sister.

After the funeral, a man came up to me to offer his condolences. Much older than me, much younger than my parents, I immediately assumed he'd come to the UK in the 1980s. But he said "Your mother taught me, when I was a small boy in Nazareth, during the war". Wow. He must have survived the deportations to Siberia as an infant, and ended up in the Middle East, to have my mother - then a newly qualified primary school teacher, aged just 18 - give him an educational start in life. Wow.

This time last year:
Poland Works! revisited

This time three years ago:
Kraków-Warsaw by train

This time five years ago:
Warsaw Blogmeet

This time six years ago:
My fixie reconfigured

This time eight years ago:
Not In My Back Yard