Having finally grown old in one settled place, I have in the course of the last thirty years attended more funerals than ANZAC Day Dawn Services, as I try to keep my neighbourly promise, "I'll Come to Your Funeral If You'll Come to Mine".
I attended my first funeral when I flew back to Germany in January 1984 to see off my father, and it's been downhill from there ever since. Back then I had to borrow a black tie for the occasion, and I still have nothing suitably black to wear as I keep thinking that each one will be my last.
It's been all quiet on the funereal front for a while as we inspect each other's expanding waistline - "When is the happy day?" - and exchange congratulations on still being upright but I've added a black tie to my shopping-list - at Vinnies, of course; at my age I don't over-capitalise.
