Dealing with death

Mum, Dad and I left home at 8am this morning to drive down to Kent and meet my uncle. The traffic on the M1 was very heavy and we literally crawled all the way to the M25 junction. We called the hospital from my mobile to try and make an appointment to pick up the death certificate and explained that we were on our way from Northampton.

We were at Nan's flat by 10.30am and our first job was to try and find her birth certificate. Nan kept lots and lots of papers so we certainly had a job on our hands. We searched for about an hour with no luck and then headed off to the hospital to Patient Services. Unfortunately the certificate wasn't ready so we got back in the car and drove to the Co-op Funeral Services in Dartford to arrange her cremation.

It's certainly not cheap to die these days! We kept the funeral simple with only one hearse (I've been in a funeral car and hated it) and a cremation at Eltham Crematorium where all our family have been cremated in the past. We were given a brochure for flowers (I gasped when I saw some of the prices!) and then we were presented with the bill of just over £3000. The woman who did all the arranging with us was very good and told us that everything would be taken care of, but I did balk at the cost of the minister - around £200 for half an hour! How do they justify these prices?

After arranging the funeral for nearly four weeks time I bought a local paper so we could put an announcement in and let friends know. It was then time for a quick lunch, and back to her flat to see the warden about paying any rent that was outstanding and then back to the hospital to pick up the death certificate which was ready.

Again, the woman dealing with this was very helpful and sympathetic and called to make us an appointment to register the death which we can't do until Thursday. We've decided to clear the flat out over Wednesday and Thursday as next week is half term and we really couldn't delay doing it until the week after. Mum, Dad and I will stop overnight in Dartford as there's just no way we can keep driving up and down the motorways.

Back at the flat we had another go at finding her birth certificate and although we came across some lovely old photos and a newspaper from VE Day, we didn't find it. I'm not sure we really need it to register the death but it must be in the flat somewhere as she has a current passport.

We headed back at just after 5pm and surprisingly had a very good run, despite being later than usual. It was bliss to finally get home (I drove both ways) and have a drink with Keith!