“He was my friend…”

A day like this (but ‘not this day’)

Yesterday, I attended a funeral — a gathering of many in and outside a lovely little old country church, on a winter’s day that was both chill (in the shade) and sunlit, with snow on the Southern Alps which looked very close in the clear air across the plains.

Several very moving eulogies were given in memory of Eileen, who like the year’s summer turned to autumn, has also left us — but the specific words that have stayed with me were those of the friend w...