Elizabeth Tudor

The frame of my mind is accepting, it lets death into the picture. It is not morbid though, as death and life give each other such power. Today is the 15th anniversary of the death of my father, whose resemblance to Henry 8th always made me hope I would grow up to be Elizabeth 1st. I liked her fierce brightness, her big dresses. I didn't want to be Mary, all glum and locked up. My brother is nothing like sickly Edward either, so the Tudor analogy is humorously selective.

Here is a little old diary juxtaposition:

'June 11, 1998

death is too much, too final… one moment and everything changes… You keep going over it: there: gone: there: gone…

June 19, 1998

My Dad eased from life to death: no fitting or terrible pain: gradually his breathing was slower, breaths far apart, then no breathing… It was hard to tell the moment when he stopped breathing.'

The best preparation and comfort for that moment, whether clearly cut or vaguely lingering, comes from the embrace of life. Which is why there was a heap of clothes on the riverbank earlier, and a partly dressed dragon conqueror making waves.

Circa 1992.
Pendennis Castle, Falmouth: with Stepmum, Dad and Girl  

Falmouth Registry Office, December 1997

Tamar River, 2013.
The water is deeper than I thought. Just out of my depth here.

Rather ungainly ascent, and Dog decides it is not her sort of thing.

Look ridiculous: feel radiant. 

Ditto.