Just to refresh, I had a natter with Gwynneth this evening. She is, as can be imagined, knocked sideways by the whole bloody thing, but very grateful for all your kind thoughts. as - I'm sure - are all of his kids.
Anyway, the end, when it came, was as quiet and peaceful as anyone could wish.
He died at home, as was his wish, and as Gwynneth said, the end - some 12 hours after Chris quietly slipped into a coma - was almost an anti-climax, given the larger than life theatricality of his life. "He lay there breathing peacefully as we watched over him and, at six in the morning, he just stopped breathing - and that was it," she said.
Not that 2004 wasn't allowed to end without a typically Gorniak moment, however. As he was being fettled by a pair of nurses yesterday afternoon (both of them quite good looking, muttered Gwynneth through what, I'm sure, were gritted teeth...) Chris turned on the boyish charm and the roguish twinkle, and by the end had even melted the flinty heart of the district nurse on her rounds.
Anyway, everything's on hold for the moment while the various doctors and registrars drift back to work post New-Year and the necessary paperwork and arrangements are drawn up, but the hopes are that the funeral and celebration of Chris's life will take place the week after next in his beloved Suffolk - and hopefully involving two places to which he made a special contribution as an architect.
And, if one can be forgiven for drifting away from his musical life, Chris was a damned fine architect to whom Mid Suffolk owes a large debt of gratitude for the preservation of some of its fine old buildings. Long before I ever become a bore on the subject of lime and green timber in building renovation, Chris was there, and I fondly remember him chiding my greenhorn enthusiasm with the benefit of his huge experience. It's not just our traditional music that's lost a passionate friend but the very fabric of our land.