A rather hot topic

I HAVE just celebrated a significant birthday. Anything with a zero on the end is significant these days.

So naturally I found myself digging out the funeral plan that I took out several years ago. 

It pays to check, and it made slightly more interesting reading than the English Sunday newspaper I had invested in that morning. 

But it was all quite straight forward: die on Monday, toast on Wednesday and on the mantelpiece by the weekend.

Paid in full.  

But where to have my barbecued remains scattered? 

Sitting in an urn in the front room is macabre and boring, so it needs to be something a lot more adventurous, like chucking them out of a hot air balloon over Downing Street, or getting scattered from a F1 car at the Abu Dhabi Gran Prix.

Then I thought, but do I really want a cremation? I mean, it sounds painful, and to end up looking like the contents of an overflowing ashtray is not a lot to show for a lifetime of experiences.   

The Hindu way sounds okay.  Stick me on top of a wooden frame on the banks of the Holy River Thames, and light a fire underneath. 

A few fireworks to add a bit of spectacle, baked taters in the embers, then bung what’s left on a little raft with a lantern and float me off down to the open sea. 

“Waking up and finding myself in something as cramped as a Ryanair seat with a lid on, is not my idea of fun.

There’s always burial of course, which is not particularly appealing either; I even get claustrophobic in a sweater.

I have read a lot of Edgar Alan Poe, and suddenly waking up and finding myself in something almost as cramped as a Ryanair seat with a lid on, is not my idea of fun. 

So all in all it looks as if the hot option is best and I’ll just have to give a lot more thought about where I would like to be sprinkled.  

I asked the Princess what she thought and she just murmured “get stuffed.”

Now that’s something I hadn’t considered!