Many Thanks

QUITE A FEW things, none of them cheerful, have disrupted life at the Billabong over the past seven weeks, and some readers are no doubt curious as to their nature. Well, there are things  too personal and far too painful to write about, a death in the family being one of them. At some point the rawness of loss may grow less sensitive and it could just be that there will be a post or two about the problems of opening safes whose combinations have gone with their owners to the Great Beyond, what to do with all the plates of cakes that neighbours drop off unbidden by way of comfort and consolation, and even, perhaps, why it is good policy to set a dollar limit on the volume of free drinks distributed at wakes, or at the very least restrict mourners' access to the more expensive varieties of spirits.

But not today, not when the voice of the dead on a telephone answering machine can still bring tears.

Now, back to blogging.

Many thanks, by the way, to the many readers who voiced their condolences. They brought more comfort than correspondents can ever know.

(No comments on this post. There have been quite enough tears.)