UK

We were met at the airport by our friends Fee & Jeff who drove us back to their place in Sussex. Tenants were now in our house until February 2008 so we could not there of course. It seemed strange to be so close but not be able to visit our house but there you are. Rather than get our car back on the road for just a week Fee offered to loan us her car to go to Liverpool all of which we were very grateful for.

Neither of us were relishing going up there tomorrow but before then we had more pressing matters on our mind like what to wear for the funeral. All of our formal clothes such as suits, shoes, shirts etc were in storage in our house and so out of reach.

Fee & Jeff helped by loaning Sue a black jacket and me a black suit and tie and we went into town and bought a shirt, top and shoes. That night we went to the pub followed by a nice Indian meal then we started to wilt and it was time for bed.

The next day we made the journey up to Liverpool, again it was very surreal driving up the M6 when just a few days before we had been driving in the Kenyan bush. We arrived in Liverpool in the evening and checked into a pub/hotel we know, although we both have siblings who still live there now both our parents were gone it almost felt like we were strangers in our home city.

Mum's funeral was at 11.30am and we were to meet up with the rest of the family at Pauline, my sisters, house at 10.30. We had got Pauline to order flowers for us so we stopped by at the florist first.

The florist is just a hundred yards or so from my parents house, the place where I had grown up and where for the last thirty odd years of travelling I had regularly come back to. While Mum was alive I still thought of it as my home but now it had been sold to a guy who was in the process of ripping it apart, even removing all the trees, grass and plants in the front garden, it was quite a poignant moment to be there again one last time.

When we got to my sisters the rest of the family were already there, having been in Africa for most of the last two years we had hardly seen much of our families and some we had not seen for years, so it was just a pity it was not under happier circumstances.

The funeral ceremony went as well as could be expected, the mass was in the church where I went as a child and had my first communion so it brought back many memories. It had been arranged for Mum to be cremated which I was a bit surprised at as she had always talked to me about being buried, still there was nothing we could do about it now.

It was less than two years since Sue's parents had suddenly passed away and her Mum had also been cremated so going onto the crematorium sadly brought all this back again for Sue, we were just glad when it was all over but also very glad we had come back.

Next day we were up early, we had a lot to do before heading back down to Sussex. First stop was to Mum's GP to drop off the travel insurance forms for signature to hopefully get back the costs for our flights etc, then into the City centre to pick up two death certificates for the same reason. After this it was back into the suburbs to take chocolates to the staff and residents at the care home where Mum had spent her last year.

We had arranged to meet Sue's brother, his wife and her cousin in the early evening, before which I would meet with my brother and sister to discuss Mum's affairs so by the time we got to bed we were physically and emotionally drained.

In the morning we headed back to Sussex, we had just one day left before flying back to Kenya and we needed that for Sue to see our GP, pack the stuff we had brought back with us into the storage unit and get a few things we needed to take back to Africa. The Day after saw us up at 5am heading off to Heathrow for our flight to Nairobi, we had been in the UK for just six days.