Loss

My Aunt died yesterday evening, peacefully at home with her sons there.

A fairly swift end only 3 weeks after she'd been taken ill, a shock for the family but she would have hated to have kept living in that state.

As a child I used to look forward to my holidays with her in Brighton. I remember my first trip to France (age 12), I'd gone with another Aunt to stay at a caravan near Antibes. I'd been sent off to explore the site whilst the adults unpacked and to my surprise I found Una and her family staying at the same campsite. Neither of the Aunts had realised we would all be there at the same time!

As I grew older we usually met at the typical family events, christenings, weddings, funerals etc. For her 70th birthday I arranged a day trip to London for her and we had a great time playing tourist, Matt and I tried to see her a couple of times a year - she'd join us at the Brighton Kite Festival; we'd have fish and chips on the beach on a day in August between our birthdays etc

A few years ago I was asked to help start the Relax and Knit stands at the craft shows, the first show that I attended was at Brighton and I very cheekily phoned her and asked for B+B, then I twisted her arm to come and volunteer and we both had great pleasure doing it so it became an annual fixture for us which usually involved long nights spent around the kitchen table consuming red wine and giggling as we looked through the family photo albums.