Events Of A Day

[poliphilo]

We got the funeral arrangements- from registering the death to booking the refreshments- sorted out in the course of a morning. 

The registry office is in Chadderton Town Hall.  The grand, early 20th century interior has been partitioned up to make lots of pokey little offices. Our registrar had a poster about forced marriage behind her desk.

Registering the death was an education in how completely the State owns and controls us. 

All you have to do to cancel a passport is clip a corner off the front cover. I'll bet there are people out there who are expert in sticking them back together again. 

While we were dealing with the registrar the lights blew. 

The Co-op Funeral Home will be moving its premises in three weeks time. We've watched the new building going up and wondered what it was. Our best guess was a Lidl. 

Undertaking is a job that builds character. I've rarely met an undertaker I didn't like. Contrary to stereotype, they tend to be happy souls. Our undertaker is called Vanessa. She's young and pretty and roly-poly. She looks as if she'd enjoy a knees-up.

A cardboard coffin costs more than a veneered one. A wicker one is even more expensive. You thought the green option would be cheap? Think again. 

It costs over £300 to put a notice of death in The Manchester Evening News. 

In the evening we took a huge bag of unused drugs to the pharmacy to be destroyed. What a waste. While the assistant was sorting through them and putting the controlled drugs in a separate pile an addict came in to have his methadone prescription filled. The pharmacist wouldn't oblige because he was a day late. The addict was very tall and very thin. He told her she was a "fucking halfwit". 

Comments

[ron-broxted.livejournal.com]

Like most police states, Britain is inefficient. Folks go through passport control with Mum, Dad, Husband, Wife's passport and no alarms sound. V sorry to hear of your loss.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

Yes, the system has us in its mitts, but I get the impression those mitts would be fairly easy to evade if one set one's mind to it.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

It's all pretty surreal. The bureaucracy of death is staggering. There's always one more silly form that one hasn't filled out and the State hounds one for it (here in Pennsylvania, too).

We had my mother cremated, and I was bemused to find that it cost $200 to cremate our 100-lb dog and $1500 to cremate my 140-lb mother.

Thoughts and prayers. I hope Ailz and Dot are both bearing up.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It cost us £84 to have a very small rabbit put to sleep and cremated. I was a little taken aback.

Ailz and her mom are doing OK. Ailz is very tired. I'd like her to take a day off.

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

Cardboard costs more than veneer?
Wow.
Will this be a cremation?

The cost of dying is insane.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, it'll be a cremation.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Crazy, innit!

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Isnt it strange that a part of life that ought to be simple, even though it is not easy to deal with, has become so complicated - and expensive? Even with our pets now - no more burials in the back yard...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The funeral industry has us cornered. There's no way we can dispense with their services.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Our recent family tradition has tended toward the do-it-yourself. The crematorium sends a van to pickup the remains at the site of death, and then one of us drives out to the crematorium a few days later to pick up the cremains and pick out the container. We then transport the cremains home and thence to the church, where -- following the funeral service -- they are interred in petite little grave-sites in a memorial garden in the church yard.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

So you have the cremation first and the service afterwards- what an excellent idea!

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Yes. We've had four family services of that type in the same church over the past six years. I'd say we have it down to a science. Instead of having a casket at the funeral we have a wee box covered by a cloth. And we have a solitary ash-bearer, who is usually extremely nervous as the entire burden of Not Dropping the Body/Ashes rests on one person.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm impressed.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

I really like that idea! Right to the no fuss burial.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, they still dig down pretty deeply. I think the little hole is about 4' deep for the first lot, 3' deep for the second lot. (They let you bury two deep at that churcn. Don't know if it's church policy or state policy. I'd think they could just stack the little cremains boxes four or five deep, but what do I know?

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

We do the whole funeral thing, complete with Eucharist. We just don't have a big honking casket in the church with us.