A Viking funeral

The day of the Viking funeral was approaching. I had messages Diana’s sister Jenny about having arrived in Australia on Tuesday. She phoned me on Wednesday when I just arrived at the dentist. The face that I have a car made her suggest that I contact Tara, one of Diana’s friends. She and two other friends were coming as well and they had no transportation. When I returned from the Blue Mountains I called Tara to arrange something.  She was an exuberant person and announced shed just finished an impossibly long day at work. Together we figured out the route I had to take to get to her house and pick her and Dinah and Deborah up. Google is stubborn but we managed to whip it into the right route.
On Friday I got up early. I had a cereal breakfast at the hotel restaurant and left for Tara. Even though we had agreed on me arriving at 10:15AM I left the hotel at 8:50 AM. Getting across the bridge to the south side wasn’t very difficult. But there I ended up in a tunnel and lost my orientation. The tunnel took me too far east and my unfamiliarity with the city layout was not helping me a lot.
After consulting me map I found that the road I had landed on lead me in the right direction and soon I ended up on the Sydney university campus. I found Parramatta road quickly enough, but where to turn off?
After a while I decided to look at my map again, so I turned into Church street and looked for it. Parramatta road was behind me, so I would have no trouble getting back there, but how far, and would I not go too far out of the way. I knew I was close…so I decided to call Tara. 
After some explaining she knew where I was and together we found the exit to Old Canterbury road, from which I was able to find my way back to junction street, the road where her street was connected to.
Finally at her house I met all the girls and we ended up looking at pictures of my house and my dogs.
We left for Bulli, but first we had to get the chocolate mud cake, one of Diana’s favorites, Tara had one made at a local bakery. So we squeezed into the little white car and drove to a square around the corner. Tara got the cake, and another small one she had ordered and happily got back in the car. As she showed us the cake it turned out to have a superfluous n in Diana’s name…much to the dismay of poor Tara.
Off we went, to the beach Diana used to love so much. We arrived around 12:30 PM and met up with Jenny and her friends. Mom and dad still had to arrive, but they quickly did and we went to the lagoon with a big box.
Jenny unpacked the box. A miniature Viking ship came out and it needed some adjustments. The sails were fastened and Diana’s mom had brought her favorite pet horse to burn with the ship. The horse was worn, much of the hair on it was hugged off by young Diana. It barely fit on the rear of the dragon ship which had been filled with Diana’s ashes. Jenny lighted the ship up as we watched silently. There was even some ashes that had not fit in the ship, so Jenny scattered it in the fierce wind that was blowing. 
The ship had trouble burning, but there was enough lighter fuel to keep it burning. It took a bit of maintenance, but finally the ship was hot enough to burn on itself. Diana was going to walhalla.
The location and mostly the windy weather was not fit for the picnic that was planned for after the burning. Therefore we moved the event off to Diana and Jenny’s parents house. 
We had some vegetarian dishes, something Diana would have preferred and we drank some for her. Then we opened the box with the mud cake. Made sure to adjust the name with a big strawberry and all had a piece of birthday cake.
There were some anecdotes and some nice stories to share. The girls also had a pick of some of the pictures Diana had painted, all wonderful to look at.
Until it came to an end. So we bade them all goodbye and headed back to Sydney.