Quackula was delighted to discover yesterday that he can take a breather from all the training he has been doing and let his feathers down for a while with his friends. The Starr Radio duckrace has been postponed because high water levels in the River Skerne mean that it might not be safe to race this Sunday. Quackula is a little perplexed by this news…surely more water means he will go faster? He is not getting his feathers ruffled over it though…it just means that he has a bit of ‘down time’ with his friends.

He is really getting into the spirit of it though…enjoying himself with his trusty side-quack Renfield and his new friends Colourful Clifford and Little Cliff  the memory Bear and Journey Bear from Colourful Coffins. It looks like Little Cliff might have been getting just a little bit too high spirited!

Quackula is enjoying his favourite tipple and looking forward to when he will be a ‘Famous Duck’ when he wins the Duck Race on Sunday 1st July at the Starr Radio Family Funday in South Park. It looks like he is already taking to fame like a duck to water though, as he was recently mentioned in the Guardian! Wow, it looks like there really is no stopping him.

Good luck, Quackula, from Renfield and all your friends at Saint and Forster Funeral Directors! Cheers!!

He is very excited about the upcomming race and is keen to leave the competition in his wake. You can find him on Starr Radio’s website here; or hear about him on Starr Radio between now and the 18th.

Saint and Forster Funeral Directors is proud to be supporting this important community event.

The SBP was set up to celebrate and promote outstanding practice in all fields of bereavement care. George is a close friend of us here at S&F, and offers superb personal service to the families we serve as a funeral celebrant. Over the months that he has worked with us, George has been so impressed with Keith’s attitude towards the profession and the care and attention that he has shown to the bereaved that he has invited him to become Vice President and to help him to deliver training and raise public awareness of the issues surrounding bereavement care.

Keith is proud and excited to have been asked to take on this important role and is looking forward to working closely with George in the future to ensure that as many people as possible have access to outstanding bereavement care.

At Saint and Forster we understand how hard this time can be. We are all animal lovers and we’ve all been there. When we suffer a human bereavement its important to take time to celebrate and honour the life that has been lost and the same is true for our animal friends. We can offer you help in a number of ways, from simply offering advice or putting you in touch with a bereavement counsellor who specialises in pet bereavement; to overseeing the cremation or burial of your pet to conducting a full scale funeral service with George Callander, an outstanding celebrant who understands how important it is for you to say goodbye properly.

Pets are members of the family too

There are many services we can offer you. Please do check out our Pet Funeral page on our website for more information or just give us a call and ask us anything you want to. We will never charge you for our advice. We are a member of the APPCC which guarentees that we only work with pet crematoria that can guarentee that any cremated reamins you receive back will be only those of your pet. We promise that we will give the same time, care and attention to our animal clients as we do to our human ones.

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if there is anything else you would like to know.

Quackula, Saint and Forster Funeral Director's Great Hope for the Star Radio Duck Race

. Please come and visit us there if you haven’t done so all ready.

Right, must ‘quack’ on…I have ‘bills’ to pay, you know!

Exhibitors had the chance to talk to delegates

Well, it’s been another exciting week for us here at Saint and Forster Funeral Directors Ltd. On Friday 23rd a couple of very dear friends of ours, Judith Pigeon and Brett Walwyn came to stay for the weekend. I first met Judith in about 2004 when I was doing my MA in Lampeter. Judith was also studying for an MA; in her case the late and very much lamented programme on Death and Immortality. We hit it off straight away and have been good friends ever since. Judith is a co-founder of Transitus, a network of professionals concerned with the more spiritual side of death, dying and bereavement. We are big fans of Transitus and if anyone reading this is not familiar with their work I strongly recommend a visit to their website here.
Judith and Brett are considering becomming more involved with the funeral service and wanted to spend some time ‘shadowing’ us and asking questions. Coming from her, this is the highest praise we could have asked for. For someone of Judith’s standing and experience to travel to the other end of the country because she was impressed with our ethos and approach was more than we could have dreamed of. We had a wonderful weekend and I don’t think we stopped laughing once, particularly with Keith and Brett keeping up a rather impressive ‘Grasshopper and Sensei’ act for the whole weekend. They came into the office with us on Monday and as we had a particularly busy day there was lots for them to get involved with.

On Tuesday 27th the four of us headed to the fantastic Funeralmap ‘Funeral and Bereavement Conferrence’ in Edgbaston. The theme of the conferrence was ‘Its All About Choice’ and the message was about empowering people to make decisions about the end of their lives. There were some fantastic speakers including Charles Cowling of the Good Funeral Guide and Rosie Inman-Cook of the Natural Death Centre. It was also very exciting to meet some fellow bloggers from the Good Funeral Guide Blog,particularly Vale…its always good to be able to put a face to a name! All in all it was lovely to spend the day with so many like-minded people, including several funeral directors who share our vision of a better way of doing things. We were amazed at how many people seemed to know who we were! The only sad aspect of the day was that Judith and Brett left us at the end of it to continue on their travels. Keith is still commenting on how much he misses his ‘Sensei’, but we are hoping to visit them soon. It was a long journey home and we left the beaten track near Twycross to see if we could find a nice little country pub for dinner. We drove in circles for about half an hour, much to the annoyance of the satnav. We didn’t seem to be having much luck, but as we drove we talked about interesting pub names we had seen on our travels…places we had said we must visit some day, such as The Rainbow, The Druid and The Ancient Unicorn. I said to Keith that what we really needed was a nice pub called The Unicorn and where was one when you needed one? Well, you can guess how this is going to end…we drove to the top of a hill, and there was a beautiful old counrty pub called…The Unicorn. Well, it would have been rude not to! So we had a lovely meal and arrived home tired but happy around midnight…all ready for work again on Wednesday.

I wonder what this week will bring?

Keith has just pointed out that it might not be entirely clear who I am…so if anyone was wondering (well, you never know!) Hello, I’m Jenny. Keith’s partner, and Office Manager and Co-Direbctor at Saint and Forster Funeral Directors Ltd.

We very nearly didn’t, mind you. My trusty satnav had clearly got us to the right area, but we couldn’t find it anywhere. After driving in ever decreasing circles for around a quarter of an hour we finally conceded defeat, and Keith popped into the local Travel Lodge to ask for directions. They said we had been driving past it. We pulled into a small carpark belonging to a cycle club and set out cross-country towards what I thought was the top of a circus tent and Keith thought was just part of the architecture. Thankfully I was right and we eventually arrived at the back of a tent and must have looked very suspicious creeping round the outside looking for an entrance way and trying to avoid guy ropes. We made it in the end though and we had a marvellous time…there’s just something about the circus! We did consider offering to help out with some of their juggling routines but they seemed to have it under control so we thought we’d let them get on with it! Seriously though, learning to juggle has made me appreciate just how skillful they were in a way that I never would have before. All in all then, a brilliant night out and highly recommended, but perhaps next time the council could be persuaded to put some signs up? Check out Circus Starr for a complete list of tour dates and get along if you can!

There was to be no rest on Tuesday evening as it was off to Durham City Jugglers. After another extremely enjoyable evening it occurred to us that it might be some time before we are up to the standards we saw on Monday! It might also be some time before Keith can walk properly again, as he spent a great deal of time bending over to pick up his balls (so to speak)! We are both definitely making progress though,which is very encouraging. Keith can now juggle one handed quite well and managed four balls for a respectable time once or twice. I have now got the hang of two balls quite well and can manage  three for one revolution (untill I have two balls in my left hand) at which point I hit a mental block and have to start again. I have moved one mental block further on though and I am even hopeful that I might manage three balls once or twice next time. At least I didn’t spend quite so long this time picking up dropped balls and I am quite encouraged that I am making progress.

So, a quiet evening for both of us tonight, I think. It won’t last long though as on Friday some very good friends of mine from down south are arriving for the weekend. They are in the process of setting up a funeral home of their own and are so impressed with our approach and ethos that they are coming up to shadow us and pick our brains for a few days. You can’t get much higher praise than that so we are delighted. Better get some sleep before that, then!

Some of the performers at the fantastic Circus Starr

We will be off to see it all done properly on the 19th when we will be visiting Circus Starr when they are performing in Middlesborough. Circus Starr are our adopted charity and given our rather ecclectic interests it is easy to see why! They are a human only circus who donate their profits to a local charity wherever they perform and when they come to Middlesborough they support the Butterwick Childrens’ Hospice. They also provide free tickets for disabled and disadvantaged children through their local sponsors. We are passionate about the work they do and proud to be among their supporters. We’ll let you know all about the show…I suspect they will be a bit better than us!

In other news, Keith and I attended the SIMHNE (Spirituality in Mental Health North East) forum at Butterwick Hospice. It was fascinating to hear how the nursing and psychiatric professions are addressing the issue of spirituality in mental health. It has long been established that people who belong to a faith community have, on average, better mental health than those that don’t, but we were surprised to hear that this also extends to atheists. No-one is sure why but many think that it may be to do with the support of a community as well as peace of mind.

So, we certainly seem to have a lot of balls in the air as it were!  (Keith wanted more double entendres in here but I have been firm with him!) More next week…unless I’ve managed to break both my arms of course!

At Saint and Forster we want to make this process a little easier and so we have now published our full price lists on our website so that you can have a clear idea of the cost before you even contact us if you wish. Our pricing structure aims to be clear and honest so that you will always understand exactly what you are being charged for.

We believe that as well as offering very low rates, we also offer excellent value for money because a good funeral is about more than keeping costs low, its also about giving the family the opportunity to say goodbye in the most personal and appropriate way possible. That is why we will always give you all the time you need to talk through the options available to you, and help you to cretate a funeral that will be remembered for all the right reasons.

It has been a very busy couple of weeks here, and we have lots of new ideas and projects in the pipeline that will be appearing on this blog very shortly. We are very excited about the future!

While we found out that we were going to be included in the guide in December, we decided to wait until our window stickers arrived before announcing it to the world at large…we do rather like our stickers here!

Oh, and thanks to Maria for telling us to get on with the blogging and tweeting! It was the kick we needed.

Find out more about the Good Funeral guide at www.goodfuneralguide.co.uk