Improvement

Lord knows how Ken and Doris's gravestone got to be the filthiest in that part of the churchyard but it was. It had become like something out of a horror film. And isn't it funny how I recently reviewed a book that was wholly concerned with fungi.

Ken and Doris have no surviving relatives apart from their niece Josephine who lives in Lower Hutt near Wellington in New Zealand. They never had any children of their own and perhaps that is why they were always delighted to see our kids when they were little.

Looking back, I am very proud of the support that I gave to Ken and Doris as they reached the ends of their lives. It was one of the best things that I ever did in my entire life. How they would have navigated those final years without me - and to some extent Shirley too -  remains a mystery I shudder to consider. We were there for them when they needed help.

That help included shopping for them, taking them for rides in the countryside that they loved with real passion, taking them to hospital, arranging their transfer to residential homes when the time was right, visiting them in hospital and in their rest homes, arranging their funerals, arranging the purchase and installation  of the gravestone, clearing their house ready for sale and keeping Josephine au fait with what was happening. 

Doris was a bright woman who was good with words and all her life she had written poetry. Not high brow, esoteric stuff - her poetry tended to be singsong verse but very well-crafted. In fact, the verse inscribed on the headstone was written by Doris herself.

And today I continued with my headstone cleaning mission. The trip to Broomhill went to plan and by one o'clock I was back in the graveyard with my canister of magic spray:

I followed the instructions which meant I had to leave the freshly sprayed tombstone for half an hour before wiping and rinsing it.  That time was spent studying other stones in that section of the churchyard. Each headstone has its own story or stories to tell. I saw the grave of a five year old child, a stillborn baby and a centenarian. Some gravestones were as elegant and simple as can be whereas others were wordy and surrounded by ornamentation - more like shrines than final resting places.

After today's work on Ken and Doris's stone, I was fairly happy with the outcome but as you can see from the picture at the top, it has hardly been returned to its original pristine condition. I am afraid that most of the staining that is left is imbued in the stone - not superficial dirt and fungal growth. I finished the job by putting sprigs of holly and ivy in the flower holder.

Probably, if I had cleaned the gravestone annually, it would now be in a much better state but hey, Doris and Ken were not blood relatives, they were just the nice old couple who lived in the corner house at the top of  our road...

Easter bonnets circa 1990