September 1st will mark six months without my dad. It doesn’t seem that long at all.

My mum and I have just been looking at photos from the funeral. In retrospect, although it was sad to say goodbye, it was quite silly, too. I said at the time that I thought it was just as he’d have wanted, and looking at the photos, I’m quite sure I was right.

Outside the chapel, the variety of people is amusing: his friends, who really knew him, all standing around with their bikes, wearing bright colours and big smiles on their faces, and his elderly relatives, dressed in black with stony expressions.

My favourite photo, though, is this one. It’s not great quality, but seeing the hearse almost being chased by a bunch of cyclists is kind of amusing, particularly as it brings back a memory from the journey to the crematorium.
It was a hot day and the air conditioning wasn’t working so we had to have the windows open in the hearse. (I rode in the back of the hearse with the funeral director and the coffin.) Other drivers had their windows open too, and much to our amusement, whilst sitting at a set of traffic lights, we overheard people in the lane next to us cursing “bloody cyclists, no respect for the dead!” - completely oblivious to the fact they weren’t actually racing the hearse, but a part of the funeral party, struggling to keep up.

I had such a job stifling my giggles over that one.