Supposed to be a sad day?

That's not how he'd want it!

Grandad Ken's service went beautifully - and, dare I say, the wake was actually a lot of fun - and a great chance for some light-hearted mischief! Auntie Fiona (Auntie Oh-no) has OCD, like much of the family... So... We muddled things up a bit.

Cousin Toir and I swapped pictures and clocks and we all pitched in to swap round ornaments, whip the basket of flowers on top of the drinks cabinet and Auntie Su made the stuffed toys do obscene things. My mother managed to filch the spaghetti and coffee jars from under Auntie Fiona's nose and sneak them into the living room. We rearranged photos, snuck pebbles left, right and centre, switched vases and ornamental plates, tucked the metallic red ceramic pear into an arrangement of roses and my brother got... creative with a candle holder.

My brother came up with this muffins and ceramic apple idea. He also hid another couple of mini-muffins in the BIG basket of round rocks. It was originally on the telly - I swapped it with the red bowl on the hearth stone. It did have ornamental stone eggs perched in each candle holder. I took larger eggs off stands to put the little ones from the candle holder in their place, and hid the larger ones in the now-empty basket of pebbles.

And then my stepdad moved the rocking chair, which meant Mum and I simply had to grab the sofa and switch places with the coffee table (moved by Rich and my brother).Nana even tucked a cheese scone into Rich's suit-jacket pocket - and I got the blame!

Grandad would either be proud, or despairing and trying not to laugh.

(I wonder if Auntie Fiona found the silver pebble yet?  I perched it on top of the big mirror - she'll have helluva job getting it down again, as I'm the tallest of us!)

UPDATE 19:46 01/02/12 - I just flipped over to his obituary notice on the web, and I saw this: "This notice has had 180 visitors!" - If you ask me, that also says a lot about how much EVERYONE loves him. To quote my brother and sister, we'll miss you and your big grin very much and we will always love you and remember you as the inspirational man that you were.