Moving on...

On Monday we went to my friend H's funeral in Melrose. It was very sad and somewhat strange. Two of my friends were killed in car accidents when they were 23, which was very awful. One of them was H's sister, and the other was one of my very best friends from when we were 5. Both deaths were huge shocks. I lost another good friend about ten years ago, but since then, no one of my age who was very close to me has died, which I suppose makes me very lucky. But I'll be 75 in the summer, so, facing facts, this is likely to keep happening in the coming years. My mum lost absolutely all of the friends from her youth; that's what tends to happen if you live till you're 90. Mum fortunately made various younger friends in her old age, which was lovely for her. 

H and I hadn't fallen out at all, but she became somewhat reclusive in her latter years, so I hadn't seen her for some considerable time, though we kept in touch. I always thought we might meet up again, but of course I now know that we won't. Her death is nothing like the tragedy of her sister's and my other friend's - 74 isn't a bad age. But we shared a lot of adventures in our youth - for example, we travelled round Canada and the USA on Greyhound buses for a calendar month in 1970 - and now we'll never again have chats and giggles about our journey. 

Anyway, I've done a lot of gardening this week, planting things and digging out bits of plants that had got too big and so on. There's nothing like gardening to make one look forward. The weather's been beautiful too, which always raises the spirits. Here's to life!