Falling off the perch

There are lots of downsides to getting old. Not least is the fact that similarly aged people around you are dropping off like flies.  So, one begins to be a connoisseur of ceremonies to mark the event.  Funerals, memorial services, tea parties in houses that one used to visit but will not see again.

I am sure that in times past, these events used to be solemn and lugubrious. No longer or at least not for my friends.  It is rare not to have funny anecdotes being recounted.  Of the dear departed being remembered not just with affection but with laughs.  The latest victim of the grim reaper was remembered in print for the lobster dinners he gave for his friends and we all knew that he had been to Billingsgate that morning to do his shopping. Virtually up to his 90th year. 

 At the gathering after the funeral, we ate really good smoked salmon sandwiches - nothing else would have done - and Luigi himself, of the restaurant he frequented on an almost daily basis, was among the friends who had gathered. Pretty good send-off really!