Yes it has been too long since I dropped in. Life sorta got in the way

Many, many thanks for all your thoughts and prayers. We're still in a state of absolute shock. It's very surreal because he wasn't due home until the end of April, so in some sense we don't feel anyone missing from the house - yet.
However he will hopefully be home tomorrow night (friday) but he will be 4 miles away, not here. That is when I think reality will kick in. There are all sorts of beaurocratic and legal things to be done, such as translating the death certificate from Russian into English, and hoping that the coroner accepts the translation. Anyway...we are hoping that the funeral will be on 30th March, barring delays.

Ian always said that he wouldn't live to old age...he didn't want to: He wanted to burn out and not fade away. He was a true "work hard, play hard" man, and tried to enjoy himself in whatever he was doing, as often as he could. He ran every Sunday with the Moscow Hash House Harriers, and really entered into the spirit of the "Drinking Club with a Running Habit"!
I have been going through the usual andexpected not sleeping, not eating, bursting into tears etc. My family (including my new son in law, and daughter in law-to-be)are being wonderful, fielding phone calls and visitors. The Ducks popped in to see me yesterday, which was unexpected and lovely.Our Rector, an old friend, (I'm one of his churchwardens)has got the diocesan press office mobilised, which has taken no end of unwelcome pressure off us as we try to get our heads round what has happened.

We are all very aware that we are only one family of many that is going through this. Ian was 1% of the fatalities, and although the bottom has fallen out of our world, so it has for the other 99%. I have also been told that the people of Russia are posting messages of condolence to us on the Ysvestia newspaper. These are to be translated and sent to us, and we are going to reply via the paper ourselves. I am in the fortunate position of having a husband with pension and life insurance. What will these families have? If (and it is a big if) there is a fund for this disaster, we are somehow going to send any monies we receive (hopefully via Ian's company's Moscow office) to it. I also have a friend in our village who has contacts through the newly formed hospice movement in the area, and he is putting feelers out via them. If nothing is forthcoming, we may donate monies to the Red Cross. Ian was a traveller, both in his work and leisure time, and I'm sure that he would approve of help being given, if not to Kemerovo, to an organisation that does such valuable work when tragedy strikes all around the world. I already donate to them, so that can go direct from me. We await any details that can be found.

Once again, so many thanks from us all for your kind thoughts, and I will drop in more often!

Andrea