Today is the anniversary of the passing of Teresa’s dad, Clement Samuels, or Clem. He’s buried in Carpenders Park Cemetery, Watford, on the NW outskirts of London. We made a pilgrimage ‘darn sarf’ to pay our respects. This is our first such visit, since the funeral, in 2018. Covid got in the way initially.
It was nice to see and hear Teresa, Andrew and Daniel reminisce about good times with their father. And I think Teresa really needed to make the trip, as she still wells up from time to time, thinking about him. He’s been laid to rest in a nice place.
This was our second Samuels family related excursion of the Easter break, after Oliver’s wedding, on Tuesday. Once again we spent the night in a B&B. This time chosen by me, and literally just around the corner from the graveyard.
The Vauxhall Corsa Daniel very kindly loaned us broke down – the ‘unlucky dip’* gearbox gave out! – leaving us stranded in Watford. So we’ve had to book a taxi to the rail station, and a National Express coach from there back to Cambridge.
* Unlucky dip because it was only selecting reverse!
It worked fine for the first few days, getting us to Oliver’s wedding, and then home again. But it started misbehaving on the trip to Clem’s grave. We’d stop at lights or a roundabout, and it’d refuse to go into any gear other than reverse. Quite stressful at the time!
Danny came out and towed us to a location where he could take a proper look. And then he managed to nurse it back to his, whilst I drove his van. So we got see Dan’s place in Luton. Then after a much needed restorative cuppa, we went to the cemetery in another old jalopy.
After about an hour or so at Clem’s grave, Daniel dropped us at our B&B. I then made travel arrangements to get us to Cambridge (train travel is insanely expensive!). Hannah will collect us from there, and we’ll spend a night over at theirs.
Under normal circ’s this might all be rather tiring. But with what I’ve got going on in the background, I’m totally and utterly exhausted!
I’d normally have set up my teaching for the summer term by now. But instead, nothing but confusion. I don’t even know how to approach my pupils/parents.
I’ve been keeping the real meat of what’s going on out of the public sphere. And I probably ought to stay on that tack. But the desire to get everything out in the open is powerful!
But back to the trip to Londinium. We were supposed to meet with Teresa’s folks – mum, sister, brother (and pooch) – today. But that’s off now. Instead we’ve been ok’d to remain at the B&B till 2.30pm (checkout is officially 11am), when a taxi will convey us to Watford Junction station.
We’ll catch the first of two coaches, Watford to a Heathrow, at 3.15pm, and then a second coach, Heathrow to Cambridge, arriving at Parker’s Piece at 8pm. So, that’s a journey of four hours and forty-five minutes. Sheesh! Ok for students, perhaps, but a bit too epic for old duffers like us.