Yesterday, as we had anticipated, the crew made their appearance from the NHS Equipment Supplies agency to collect the various large pieces of equipment that has populated our house over the past year. They were a friendly and business-like pair and had a huge white van at their disposal so that it was quite easy for them to stow way the various pieces of equipment. I told them how during the course of Meg's illness, I had found the occupational therapists, physiotherapists, wheelchair specialists and district nurses little short of excellent whereas,in my opinion, the various doctors were as useful as chocolate teapots. What was so interesting was they absolutely agreed and indicated without going into details how they could tell exactly similar stories of their own. I was left with a fairly large bag of NHS supplies, some still in its unopened packaging, which they indicated they could not take away but they did take away one or two things where they indicated they could throw it away for me. I informed them how glad I was to see them and how removing all of the NHS 'gear' would help to restore a sense of normality. After I had breakfasted which is now quite a quick affair I made a phone call to the Occupational Therapy team to see if they would like to collect any of the unused equipment. Very apologetically, they explained how they were unable to accept the return of any of this material citing 'infection control' and it was agreed between us that to throw it away seemed a criminal waste of scarce resources but those are the protocols in place. I followed this up with a call to the care agency that had been looking after Meg and they indicated that they could certainly use some items such as slip sheets so I am retaining these until a care worker calls who can take some of these supplies away. This afternoon, I am due to be paid a visit by the Ukrainian lady with whom I made contact the other day and I am hopeful that a lot of the excess medicines and dressings can wing their way towards the Ukraine where they are desperately needed.
Our Eucharistic minister called around this morning, by arrangement, as we were going to put together the elements of an 'Order of Service' for Meg's funeral, a task for which she is eminently suited having done it for other parishioners and members of her own family. When several years ago, Meg and I had planned out some of the elements of the music that we would like for our funerals and which our daughter-in-law had kept assiduously, we had only specified music tracks which were mainly drawn from Mozart's Requiem and some Handel but had not specified any hymns - I think it is true to say that neither Meg nor I were great hymn aficionados in any case. But we quickly settled on one hymn by John Henry Newman ('Lead, kindly light') as he is practically a local saint. While there is no definitive record of St John Henry Newman's formal visit to Bromsgrove, his life and work were intertwined with the broader region of the West Midlands, where Birmingham and surrounding areas are located. It is therefore possible, though not explicitly documented, that he may have briefly been in Bromsgrove at some point during his ministry and travels. and his connection to the region makes a visit plausible but unconfirmed. As well as this, we chose a processional hymn and two pieces of Bach which are particular favourites of both Meg and myself. So we are probably going to have three particular pieces of music which were actually played at our wedding in September, 1967, so this seems entirely fitting. Our planning was rather attenuated by the arrival of the BHS Equipment Supplies team which had to take my full attention but the Eucharistic minister has most of the essential elements in place. And, as a sort of bonus, I have managed to locate, pay for and download a copy of the 'Lacrimosa' from the Mozart requiem that we will need to play through the Church's sound system. The remainder of the morning was taken up with a series of to-and-fro telephone calls where in order to arrive at a date for Meg's funeral, we have to coordinate the availability of the undertakers themselves, a 'slot' in the crematorium and the availability of both the church and the parish priest. But we now have a date of Wednesday, June 11th at 12.00pm (late in the morning to help those travelling a long distance) and although it is the best part of four weeks away, it is a good to have a date agreed so that we can spread the word far and wide. In fact, I spent most of last night going through the 'Contacts' list on my phone to make sure that anyone would needed to know would have a good prior intimation of the date. Our planning was rather cut short by the arrival of the NHS equipment team but the essential elements are in place and plenty of time for any 'fine tuning'
After a quick lunch, I sallied forth to take a bag full of teddy bears and other soft toys to the Salvation Army store on the High Street, from whence many of them had come in the first place. Whilst in the vicinity of Waitrose, I bumped into a very old Pilates classmate who I do not see regularly now as she now attends a class on a different day of the week. But out mutual Pilates class teacher had informed her of Meg's demise so we agreed to make contact again after she had returned from a cruise upon which she was shortly to embark. In the evening, I had a telephone consultation with my son informing him of the appointments made with the undertakers and also the Bromsgrove registration office where I have a 'slot' on Monday next allocated to formally record Meg's death (some nine days after the event) I received a mild scolding about doing the undertaker's work for them but I am not skilled in such matters as the sequelae of the death of a family member. I paid a brief call to my next door neighbours to inform them that I would be away in Hampshire next Saturday and Sunday and they were not to worry about my absence - in the event, I was glad to have done so because, in the absence of any other information, they would have been worried about me.
© Mike Hart [2025]