We-ell, it's been kind of a surreal week. My mother's funeral was on Friday the 30th (see photos above) and turned out really well. The Samoans at my church honoured Mum by putting a tapa cloth over the coffin to show their respect for her. One of the nicest things about the funeral as a whole was how at the gravesite, the kids (grandchildren, vague relatives, and other) let off helium balloons into the sky. It was a beautiful gesture. Apparently Mum had loved that at my aunty's funeral a couple of years ago. It was also just really good to see some sort of physical mirroring of what I think death must be like. It made it sink in a bit more, yet not in a bad, or gloomy, way.
Most of my sisters and brothers have gone back to the respective homes now, or on holiday, except for one sister, Felicity, and her husband, Mike, so I'm just having a relaxing time, reading books (in particular, Zorro by Isabel Allende, and Lost in a Good Book, by Jasper Fforde, and I will start Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe soon, in preparation for my eighteenth century novel course at university this year), watching movies (Mrs Caldicot's Cabbage War, Runaway Jury, Whale Rider, Ocean's 11, etc...), going to cafes... I went to Akaroa yesterday with Felicity and Mike and his parents; it's a village quite near Christchurch which is a bit of a holiday destination, being by the sea in a beautiful harbour, having lots of cute wee shops, and milking the French history for all it's worth (on Rue Jolie, even the petrol station is called L'Essence-- puh-lease!). I guess soon I'll have to start sorting out my university details for this year in earnest. Sigh. I feel like being lazy at the moment.
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