Thank you all for your kind thoughts chaps.
When he was rushed into hospital with heart and lung issues at the end of November, we didn't think he'd see the month out let alone Christmas. He was then released after a couple of days, I moved the pair of them into a care home close to us, initially the pair of them hated it and despised me. That lasted for about a month, my Dad's health improved and he was the happiest I've ever known him. He was always a worrier, if he didn't have something to worry about, he'd worry about not having anything to worry about.... He then realised that he didn't in fact have anything to worry about anymore, this calmed him down and he could finally relax.
One of my favourite memories from his last couple of weeks was when he was telling me a true story about one of the local characters in the small Derbyshire village where I grew up in the '60's. The local handyman/village idiot was pushing his wheel barrow and talking to his brother as they were walking along. Neither of them was paying much attention to their surroundings when the wheelbarrow pushing brother suddenly vanished followed by a loud bang come scraping sound. He'd managed to navigate the single wheel of the barrow around an uncovered open man hole, he went straight down and landed with just his head sticking out of the hole. It took my Dad a while to tell the story because he was laughing so much, he even had tears running down his cheeks.
He died a week last Tuesday in the afternoon, for lunch he had one of his favourites, chips, egg and beans followed by chocolate sponge pudding with chocolate custard and a cup of tea. My parents had their own conservatory in the care home and they always sat next to each other on the settee, my Dad mentioned he was tired so my Mum told him to go and have a proper lie down. He'd made it into his room, turned round to close the door and passed away.
R.I.P. Geoff.
