Scott

What a beautiful, sad day. The funeral of Scott, who died last week. A lovely, packed service, with stories from his sisters about him as a young boy, with tributes from friends and colleagues, and with a wonderful piece written by his wife Minttu and read out by the humanist celebrant, who had also known him for years. Apparently when Scott had been diagnosed with cancer (a year ago, though very few people knew - he'd wanted life to continue as normal as far as possible), he sat down to write a list of the things he wanted to do with the time he had left. And he thought, and he thought, but couldn't come up with anything. He already had everything that he wanted. He lived a great, fulfilled life, full of love and hard work and art and books and sunsets on empty Scottish beaches, and he had a zest for it, and an appreciation of the simple things. I think all of us who were there came away wishing with all our hearts we could be as happy and content as he was.

Drinking and talking and more drinking followed, I saw lots of people I hadn't seen for years and it was a really smashing day, even though the reason we were all there was so awful. This was one of the songs Scott chose for the service, one of my favourites too, and now it'll always make me think of him.