Funeral by funeral, I get closer to the front row: an occasional reminder that one day I will be in the box. My stepdad is the first of the parental generation to shuffle off his mortal coil, which I suppose is lucky and I suppose we shouldn’t count our chickens, it’s not like death has a quota. As mum is the only married parent among my extended family, we are somehow cushioned from having to Deal With Everything. Wills and whathaveyou are relatively straightforward, but next time I’ll have to do the paperwork and clear up the debris.

This seems like a good time to look over my own will and my short set of instructions (which basically says no cellophane please), and have daily panics about whether Pete would remember to pay for Bernard’s school dinners if I were gone. Hm, maybe that’s the source of my recent heartburn.