I wear it for the sick and lonely old,
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold,
I wear the black in mournin’ for the lives that could have been,
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men.

So yeah, for those of you that weren’t aware, this time yesterday i was in middlesboro, attending a funeral.
Don’t want to go into too many details, as i don’t want to encroach on their privacy, but it was pretty heartbreaking, and im not ashamed to say that i leaked more than a little.
I got to give the mum a hug, and hopefully pass on some comfort, I unno, just be there for them.
I’ve seen many things most people shouldn’t, ive seen corpses, coffins and most of the bits in between, but yesterday i had to watch a coffin that had no right being so small get interred and i dont know which is worse, the memory of that coffin, or the sound of his mum crying through the service. All i know for sure is both things will haunt me a lot longer than anything else ive experienced.
After that was the drive back, through “the worst conditions this country has seen in 20 years.”

It was truely pathetic. Up north daily life continued almost entirely unhindered with around a foot of snow in some places, and the traffic was fine, right up until Birmingham, which many would consider to sit on the UK’s north/south divide. From this point on, the paltry 4 or 5 inches of snow caused all kinds of chaos, and its a funny reminder that the supposedly well to do, grim and determined southerners can be put off by conditions that don’t even cause northerners to blink.

Well i gotta go, im working in the labs today and the students are bound to want something soon. I guess its the bosses trying to be “thoughtful”, by sticking me down here, rather than leaving me on the phones after all that travel and stuff from the past few days, but tbh id rather be upstairs, out of the way, in a place where it doesnt matter so much if yesterday catches up with me.

Take care of yourselves anyways folks.