Return to happier times

We had a rather serious start to last week with my Mother's funeral taking place on Monday. We were delighted to see so many friends and family at the service at Fleet Methodist Church and we felt a very strong sense of community there: it is easy to see why it was such an important part of Mum's life in Fleet. Overall, we felt it went well and that we had done all we could to give Mum the send-off she deserved.

It was good to get back to happier times at the weekend, though. We went back up to the Fleet area on Friday and had a brief but very pleasant stay with Claire and Darren (good curry, shame about the cards!). On Saturday, we were back at the Brown household in Fleet to help celebrate Irene's 90th birthday with a family barbeque. We spent Saturday night with Jo and Steve before going up to Abingdon for a lunchtime party in Andrew and Emma Coker's beautiful garden. It was great to see everyone again in happy circumstances - the weather was kind to us throughout and Digger had lots of friends to play with (it took him 2 days to recover!). All-in-all, a good time was had by all.

A sad week at Sorley

It has been a rather sad week here at Sorley. I am sorry to have to tell you that my Mother, May, died peacefully in the early hours of Monday 3rd August. Mum had been in Derriford hospital, in Plymouth, for just over a week having treatment for pneunomia. While she was there, they discovered she also had a tumour in her abdomen. Despite this, as far as the hospital was concerned Mum was medically fit for discharge and we were actively looking for a care home that she could move into in order to get the care she needed going forwards. It was not to be. Mum was 97 years old when she died and whilst we miss her enormously, we cannot help but feel that the outcome was probably a good one for her, in the circumstances.


Mum's funeral will take place at Fleet Methodist Church on Monday 17th August. This is bound to be a serious occasion but, as far as we can, we genuinely want to make it a celebration of a good life. We are therefore asking people to wear bright colours rather than black and although there may be a few tears, we hope there will be a few smiles as well. The funeral service will be followed by a cremation and we hope that Mum's final resting place will be close to my Dad's in Westoning Churchyard.