Mad dogs and Englishmen
Jun. 21st, 2023 05:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wiseheart... are not the only ones to go out in the midday sun, as the song would like to make you believe. Alas. For some reason, the biggest cemetery in our beautiful capital always schedules funerals to take place in the midday heat. At least in summer, when it really counts; because why would they bother in the dead of winter, right?
In any case, one of Mum's oldest lady friends died a couple of weeks ago, and the funeral took place, of course, at 11.45am. The cemetery is at the other end of the city (Budapest is a freaking large city, also called the hydrocephalus of the country; some 15% of the total population lives here), and the tram there goes through one of the worst districts. Since Mum's oldest lady friend originally wanted to go, too, it was planned that I'd first go to pick her up - almost the same distance as the cemetery, just in a different direction - and we'd take a taxi to get to the funeral and share the fare between us. Still, it promised to be a rather... exhausting undertaking.
Fortunately, the old lady came to her senses yesterday and decided not to risk going to a midday funeral by 35°C, after all. So, in the evening Mum phoned the daughter of the deceased (who had offered to take her to the funeral by her own car; only that she can't get in and out of cars any longer) and asked her if they would take me instead. Fortunately, she agreed, and so I picked up the bouquet first, then walked down three streets (they live really close to us) and so could go with them. Even so, it was hot and exhausting, but magnitudes better than what had been originally planned.
In any case, it was a rather small funeral. We were about a dozen people altogether, half of them Mum's generation, and with two exceptions I never saw any of them before, as they were family members or the childhood friends of the widower. Still, Mum was relieved that I was there to represent her; she takes such obligations very seriously.
I left the house at 9.15am and got home at 1.35pm or so. It was hot and oppressing and, as we say in Hungarian, I felt like a wrung-out lemon. Which is still better than what my poor (ex-)colleagues went through, who had to sit through completely useless conferences all morning and then had the big term-closing celebration in the afternoon - about half an hour ago, when it's the hottest. Perhaps they're still at it, the poor things. God, am I glad that I'm such an old hag and retired already!
In any case, one of Mum's oldest lady friends died a couple of weeks ago, and the funeral took place, of course, at 11.45am. The cemetery is at the other end of the city (Budapest is a freaking large city, also called the hydrocephalus of the country; some 15% of the total population lives here), and the tram there goes through one of the worst districts. Since Mum's oldest lady friend originally wanted to go, too, it was planned that I'd first go to pick her up - almost the same distance as the cemetery, just in a different direction - and we'd take a taxi to get to the funeral and share the fare between us. Still, it promised to be a rather... exhausting undertaking.
Fortunately, the old lady came to her senses yesterday and decided not to risk going to a midday funeral by 35°C, after all. So, in the evening Mum phoned the daughter of the deceased (who had offered to take her to the funeral by her own car; only that she can't get in and out of cars any longer) and asked her if they would take me instead. Fortunately, she agreed, and so I picked up the bouquet first, then walked down three streets (they live really close to us) and so could go with them. Even so, it was hot and exhausting, but magnitudes better than what had been originally planned.
In any case, it was a rather small funeral. We were about a dozen people altogether, half of them Mum's generation, and with two exceptions I never saw any of them before, as they were family members or the childhood friends of the widower. Still, Mum was relieved that I was there to represent her; she takes such obligations very seriously.
I left the house at 9.15am and got home at 1.35pm or so. It was hot and oppressing and, as we say in Hungarian, I felt like a wrung-out lemon. Which is still better than what my poor (ex-)colleagues went through, who had to sit through completely useless conferences all morning and then had the big term-closing celebration in the afternoon - about half an hour ago, when it's the hottest. Perhaps they're still at it, the poor things. God, am I glad that I'm such an old hag and retired already!
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(no subject)
Date: 2023-06-21 03:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-06-21 04:18 pm (UTC)And I'm not particularly fit, either; I can't take heat really well, which is why I'm glad I was taken there by car and only had to walk a very short stretch to the grave.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-06-21 04:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-06-22 06:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-06-22 08:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-06-22 03:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-06-22 03:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-06-22 03:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-06-23 01:30 am (UTC)Should I be laughing? Tell me to stop.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-06-23 12:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-06-23 07:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-06-24 03:18 am (UTC)Glad you made it through.