The Fallen Acorn

Last week a few of us from work trooped off to a colleague's mother's funeral. And can I just say, how lovely it is to work in a place where this is The Done Thing. I have worked in places where they looked at you askance if you so much as accepted a personal phone call giving you the news that your mother had died.

Anyway, one work dude, Wise Man, couldn't go and asked me to give Canned Ham his best wishes and apologies for not being there.

This reminded me of the time my uncle Abacus and I went down to Sydney, from Canberra, for a funeral. The night before Bloody Ern rang me up and upon confirming that I would be in attendance said, "You will be my representative there, won't you, Baby Girl?" Abacus and I covered a lot of miles laughing at the prospect of me showing up and shaking hands with various grieving rellos: "Hazelblackberry, representing Bloody Ern, Western Australian branch."

Grumpy still gets mileage out of it too. I'll be heading out the door to a social function he doesn't want to attend (as usual) and he'll call out, "You will be my representative, won't you, Baby Girl? Baaaaaaaby Giiiiiiiiirl!"

And yet he objects when people say that girls marry men just like their fathers.