The Holiday Was Tinged,

with a couple of days of sadness and reflection,

 

regular readers will know that the second of my 2 lifelong pals Duncan, passed away shortly before our holiday started, 

he was married to Melina, 

together they had 3 children, Holley, Jade and Amber,

here he is with one of them,

and two of them together,

and here they are now, Holly, Jade and Amber, one a fully qualified doctor, the other two at university,

we have known each other since we first meet in the 1960s at the Court School of Ballroom Dancing, and remained good friends ever since, we travelled to Thailand, the Philippines where he meet Melina, Stavanger, Aberdeen and so many other places where the oil industry took him, he was 80 years old, but for the past several years had been bed bound, the sad day was when I joined his funeral over a video link,

the second sad day was for Barry Kenyon, a neighbour when we lived in Thailand, we both had a passion for cats, he wrote various articles and every month or so would invite us to join him in a restaurant he was reviewing our going to review with us, 

he was with the British Embassy in 1995, serving as Honorary Consul in Pattaya and Immigration Liaison Officer until 2010, and indeed he gave advise to Diana and myself with Diana's visa application for the UK

He graduated with First Class Honor's in Latin, Greek, and Ancient History from Liverpool University in 1964, later earning a PhD in Sociology and Criminology in 1970, a great friend who will be missed by many, his death so avoidable, as he was crossing a road the day we arrived a motorcycle went through a red light and hit him, Barry died the next day, 

I attended the funeral in Pattaya,

so many wreaths,

 

and mourners, 

if you are not familiar with funerals in Thailand, 

everyone pays their respects to the deceased,

the coffin is then pulled round the crematorium 3 times,

before the final ceremony, below, 

these 2 photographs from the Pattaya Mail,

there is more about him here, a sad couple of days indeed.