Compostable Kate

I spent all of 2011 trying to get used to the fact my Dad was no longer around, having died suddenly in November 2010. It’s taken a lot of getting used to, and although I’m not altogether resolved to it, I don’t seem to be constantly reminding myself of his absence.  It’s been a long time since I lost a family member, and I definitely wasn’t prepared for Dad to go, even though he’d been ill for a number of years. He was only 65, after all. Dad and Alex, not long before Dad died. They got on extremely well!  Although I was literally incoherent with grief – after being bizarrely calm while my poor brother Damian was breaking the news to me – my awesome friends, Karen and Steve, came and collected me and my furkids, and looked after me for several days while I processed the news. As Dad lived in the UK, and I am in Australia, I couldn’t be there for my family, and I wasn’t able to attend his funeral. However, I was in constant touch with my siblings, and my Mum (who w...

Dad was witty and warm and very loving. He had a wonderful sense of humour, and a great sense of the ridiculous. Our Dad wasn't a conventional Dad. He was an artist, musician, hippy-type of Dad. This means that he didn't do the archetypal “Dad” stuff with us, but being incredibly inventive and creative, found other ways to influence, nurture and entertain us. Most of our memories of Dad revolve around his creativity and artistry. There was a flour tin which Dad had labelled with a cartoon of a daisy hauling itself up with a block and tackle—a self-raising flower. It might have taken a few of us a while to grasp the concept of puns, but we liked the picture. We always had the best fancy dress costumes, hand-made by Mum and Dad, with Dad coming up with innovative ways of adding minute details, such as olde-fashioned shoe buckles on our sensible lace-up shoes. Our birthday parties always featured make-your-own party hats, where we and our friends would get to cut out our h...