Tomorrow is the funeral of Adeline's grandmother. Her death wasn't a surprise - she'd recently turned 93 - but it's still a great loss. She was a cheerful, grand lady, and I can still hear her standard response when we asked how she was - "All the better for seeing you, dear!" she'd smile, sitting in the sun on the verandah of the old age home where she stayed.
I'll miss her, particularly because, like me and Adeline, she loved to travel. When she heard we'd been to Venice and loved it there, she gave us a photo that ever since has been hanging in our house.
She and her husband had spent three weeks in 1956 travelling in Europe, and among other, they'd visited wonderful Venice. And, like tourists still do today, they'd taken a gondola ride.
It's a special photo to us. I'm a little sorry that there's no bridge visible in the photo, because that means I would have been able to pinpoint exactly where the photo was taken, and perhaps visit the spot to see how it's changed, and perhaps we could do a reprise photo. Wouldn't that be nice?
Ouma, rest in peace. We'll be sure to continue the family tradition of travelling all over, but especially to Venice.
