Recently a friend of mine died suddenly leaving her elderly parents without their only daughter. Denise was a lover of mother earth and all creatures. She fed foxes, badgers and saved hedgehogs.
In recent years, after patiently listening to me droning on about insect decline, she did 'No Mow May'. Sewing some UK native wildflower seeds and really starting to see her garden in different light.
She sacked her hacker, (gardener) she stopped buying bedding plants and began investing in perennials.
Together we planted! Geraniums, Snowdrops and a Fatsia in a dark corner under her bird feeders. She valiantly fought the urge to tidy and allowed her shrubs to grow as they should. She began to really notice an influx of smaller creatures, often WhatsApp'ing me photos and videos of bumblebees, beetles and hoverflies.
On the day of her funeral there was a request by Eddie and Audrey for no flowers, 'Donations to animal charities please'.
She was well known for her love of the colour purple. Each table at the wake had a small glass pate dish with Hydrangea, Stip and Achillea from our garden plus a large vase on the buffet table. Cost to the planet and pocket 'zero' with a smidgen of joy for her parents.
Packets of fresh wildflower seeds where propped up on each table for folk to sow in her memory. They were all taken ...
Here is Denise abseiling down the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth for charity.
She was a generous thoughtful human.
Those who knew her loved her and she remains in our hearts.
She would have been 'chuffed to bits' with this for the sake of the planet and the creatures on it, but she would have ripped me up for being a tight arse.
Funeral flowers, pocket and planet...
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