Long Drives, Hailstorms, Sunshine and Flowers

Set off from SWF for Stratford on Avon at around 11ish - slightly later than planned due to tiredness, hair washing and a general inability to get ready in any reasonable amount of time at all! Sam and Sophie opted to stay at home rather than coming with us, so Keith and I headed off together.

After alternating between whizzing and trundling around the M25 we finally ground to a halt and began the arduous crawl onto the M1, which remains plagued by roadworks that appear to have been there since the dawn of time.

Proceedings were livened up somewhat by a heavy hailstorm, thunder and lightening and some fantastically interesting clouds!

Don't knock it - entertainment is hard to come by in a traffic jam!

After a couple of hours we stopped at a dodgy service station for what was meant to be coffee, only for Keith to be informed by text from his Mum that they were heading off for the crematorium by 2.15 - which left only half an hour to get there!

Yeah right! Not even with my racing abilities!

Quick change of route later we decided to head off to the crematorium ourselves and meet everyone there.

It was good to see Keith's Mum again. She reminds me so much of my Nan. Sad to see her under the circumstances though. And I got to meet even more members of Keith's family - although again it was lovely but sad under the circumstances.

The sun finally decided to show itself during the service which was actually quite nice. I sat there listening to extracts from a book describing flowers and beaches while I was holding Keith's hand and watching the sun shining on a large bouquet of flowers through the big windows. It was calm and slightly surreal. Although it was difficult for Keith and his family, the service was peaceful; and for me, who didn't really know his Nan at all other than meeting her briefly at Christmas, it painted a lovely picture of her.

After the service we went back to Keith's Mum's house, where we stayed until about 8pm. We opted to avoid the M1 on the way back and took a somewhat scenic route around the middle of nowhere before finding the road we were meant to be on and heading off back to SWF.

It was almost midnight by the time we got back to the house. Roughly 9 hours of driving today. Was shattered by the time we got back and was fighting to stay awake. In future - we leave Keith's Mum's no later than 7pm - and avoid the touristy bit around the middle of nowhere! Finally fell into bed just after midnight and slept like a log!