A week of ceremony and sadness

Andre takes the Oath of Allegiance

 This week we were invited to Bury-St-Edmunds registrar office to witness Andre take the oath of allegiance to the Crown and make a pledge of loyalty to the United Kingdom. Andre had booked a private ceremony so a group of us could attend, including several of his Brazillian friends; if it had been a group event, there are so many present each person can only bring one guest.

The ceremony followed six years of living and working in Britain, completing his "Life in the UK" test, demonstrating English language proficiency, and being considered "of good character". This is all more than most of us can achieve; I certainly couldn't answer many questions from the "Life in the UK" test - such as "When is St David's Day?"; "What percentage of the UK population lives in Northern Ireland - 1, 3, 5 or 7 per cent?"

But Andre did answer them, and has excellent English skills, while his knowledge of our history is much greater than mine. It was a moving ceremony, much more subtle than I had been led to expect, with a little history of Suffolk and British values, and the joys of living in Suffolk. The ceremony welcomed him into the community and celebrated his commitment to upholding British values. We adjourned afterwards to the Angel Hotel, where we had booked a long table and an early meal.

On Thursday, keeping a promise to my sister-im-law, we were in Coventry to meet up and remember Richard. It was a difficult meeting, for Richard's presence is in every room. Even the birds outside reminded us that he would have identified them, while we struggled to think what they were. On the wall, their anniversary clock had stopped, with sharp silence in our pauses, whereas Richard never allowed it to wind down, with a comforting tick and chime to fill the background to conversation.

We met Peter for a meal at Da Vinci's, surely one of the best restaurants for service, cuisine and wonderful cooking, beating many Michelin-starred restaurants for my money.

The smell of leaked fuel oil still permeates the house, even with the kitchen closed off and the windows open. I wrote an email of complaint, and they sent another engineer to deal with it, this time carrying an ozone generator, which he assured us would react with the bad fumes and cleanse the air. On the downside, we had to seal off the kitchen and vacate the house, so we decamped to Edwin and Andre's for the morning. They kindly took us for a mid-morning brunch, then left me to read as Andre took the dogs for a five-mile walk, and Edwin walked Annie to town along the river path and through Abbey Gardens. The smell is certainly reduced, so hopefully will dissipate completely before much longer.