Who knew that you could enjoy a funeral so much, or that a notoriously nuclear family could find so much to say to each other that we didn’t have enough time?

Nick and I are the oldest of 12 cousins, the next in age coming in at a good eight years younger than us. This has always led us to believe that cousins are small and bratty, and there is no interesting way to spend time with them*. We find ourselves proven immeasurably wrong, and slightly impressed, on suddenly realising that most of the family has finally grown up. Can’t believe they took so long about it, though. [The youngest is still only a year old, but the ones in their twenties more than make up for this in terms of conversational ability and tall besuitedness].

There was also a vast amount of food, because the stepgrandmother is a rotarian, and apparently this means that you have a lot of Lovely Friends, all of whom make sausage rolls for funerals; and the stepuncle makes a mean curry. This compensated for the fact that we were staying in a crummy hotel in the armpit of Wales, where the only eating establishment was a carvery-turned-chinese restaurant with staff who had been to hungarian waiter school.

Stepmonster [there are a lot of steps in this post. We should start a band with it] only got slightly ratarsed at the wake and was only slightly tactless in her usual not remotely endearing way. We came away with everyone’s email addresses and a firm resolution not to wait until the next marriage or death before we all see each other again. In the sober light of day, I have less confidence in our determination to keep in touch.

Even the crematorium bit had its moments, including the part where the canon launched throatily into the wrong verse of Abide With Me, and Dad’s little joke that it was going to be up to the youngest generation to carry on the tradition of having five kids.

Don’t look at me.

*This statement does not refer to Spengy, who is on the other side of the family, and older than all of us.

My grandfather died at the weekend, and I’ve spent time trying to formulate some sort of statement about how I felt about him, but I can only conclude that I barely knew him.

We must have spent time with him as children, but I can only remember a red-faced stranger with a strong northern Irish accent. My grandmother died fifteen years ago, but my memories of her are far more detailed; she ate too many eggs and died of jaundice. The only thing I really know about grandad is that he took the decision to remarry very shortly after grandma’s death, hurting and alienating all five of his children.

It’s frightening to see my dad upset by the death of a man he was virtually estranged from for fifteen years. It’s always hard to know what’s going on in his head, because he doesn’t communicate his feelings; and that makes it very difficult to offer support at a time like this, but I want to. I don’t want to be the third generation who can’t hug members of her family.