Celebration

It was Philip's funeral today.  We laid him to rest in our local cemetery and afterwards attended a celebration of his life in the next door village's Village Hall - and what a wonderful celebration it was too ........
 
Philip, our neighbour from over the hedge.  We often spoke as we cut our shared large Holly hedge, Mr HB with his sabre warrior hedge cutting technique and Philip with his trusty secateurs.  You see, Philip was a true gardener and an accomplished botanist, a friend of Kew Gardens, horticulturist, nature lover and a bird whisperer - what he didn't know about gardening was not worth knowing.  As his wonderful garden got too big for him he sold some of it, which adjoins ours, to another neighbour up their road for her to use purely as a flower garden, which she uses for her business as a private florist.  
 
The celebration of Philip's life was a real eye opener and we got to know him better as his family had put together an amazing compilation of his varied and interesting life with slide shows and family, friends and neighbours' memories of him: There was a lot more to him than what I have outlined above. 
 
My blip is of one of the wreaths and was particularly lovely as someone from the family had knitted three birds nesting in the middle – one was a Blackbird, one of Philip’s favourites.  They say they used to come back each year to nest in his garden, were quite tame and would feed from his hand.
 
We shall miss our lovely neighbour and those long and interesting talks over the hedge but are pleased to have shared so many other aspects of his diverse and interesting life with family and other friends.  One of those friends actually Zoomed in from the USA at 7am, his local time.