Taunton May 8th - 11th 2025

Myself & Neil drove down to Taunton in the early morning of the 8th May and headed straight to Taunton Deane Crematorium where we started work on the bench almost immediately.Sander, Paint Stripper and a lot of elbow grease got the bench back to its original colour. We left there at about 6:30pm and checked into our hotel. The next morning we were there as soon as the gates opened and got to work fine sanding the bench down before we started putting the Yacht Varnish on. It brought the bench up to a nice glossy brown colour and it looks so much better than it did each time the Crematorium ruined.....i mean...painted it. I popped down to the offices after we had fitted the bench back and asked them to let the groundsmen know not to touch the bench as i will look after every year from now on and the lady said she will let them know. She printed out and laminated a warning sign to say wet varnish and walked it up to us. On the 10th May Mo arrived and we all went to Cheddar Gorge for the day as the bench was all finished. On May 11th we got to the Bench and covered it with a brand new white sheet ready for the unveiling, Mo arrived first and soon after Diana arrived. We were chatting away about how many people used to come to the flower laying and events compared to now, and i saw out the corner of my eye someone walking across the road and i looked and saw it was Louie who had arrived to surprise us. He came over from France to see family and tied up coming to Taunton at the same time and his friend John saw friends in Taunton whilst he was there. I asked Louie if he would unveil the refurbished bench and he agreed and said some nice words before doing so. So all six of us had lots of pictures taken before moving to Patrick's grave where we all got on with giving it a good clean before laying the flowers which we got from Judith Goss Florists again. More pictures taken and we all did the Lord's Prayer before saying our goodbyes to Patrick. As we got in the car the heavens opened and it rained for about 50 minutes. We went to Rumwells for a carvery before we all said our goodbyes to everyone and made our way home.Thank you to all of those who donated towards the Bench Refurbishment costs and the flowers for this year, without you none of this could be done.