Despite being on my to do list for the past week, Collecting The Ashes wasn't happening.
I didn't want the ashes in my house. Which is odd, because W's body yes, but the ashes...too grim and too final maybe.
So the excuses piled up

• No box to put them in
• No time to collect what with the cherub's orthodontist and other stuff...
• Didn't want to upset the cherub
• Not sure I'd be able to without all the paperwork, whatever that might be
• I didn't want to go back to the crematorium

It took Nurse Linda to suggest that she accompany me. Friends of W were meeting that evening to commemorate him, and it would be better if his ashes had been collected and saved from a possible ignominious loss at the crematorium by then.

We drove back up to the crematorium yesterday. Because we were late, we had to knock on the door and get the cleaner to collect the ashes (there's something wrong about that sentence, I'll worry about later). Anyway we had the standard discussion about who we were, and why we hadn't collected the ashes on the scheduled date, and forms to sign, and then I got given the box.

That's it. It's a box of ashes. They grind them finely after cremation to disguise remaining bones, teeth, oh don't think about it.
It's quite heavy.
And I had such a sense of W when I held it.

And I said, as much to him as to Linda, "Oh Jesus. Who'd have thought ... when I went into the Prince of Wales that night in Aberdeen..."