In the West End, from left to right, my cousin Paul, my Dad, and my brother Neil

Well, I made it. And without any more hyperventilation. My flight on Saturday on a cramped Virgin Atlantic Jumbo jet was long, tiring, uncomfortable, but almost completely anxiety-free, apart from a little turbulence in the middle of the night. I'd Xanaxed myself (for the first time) while finishing packing, so when my friend James showed up at 11.30 to take me to the airport, I was so sedated, and clumsy, I could barely pick up my backpack. It was my first time meeting James' bride-to-be, and I can't imagine what her initial impression must have been. Since that morning, then, no more Xanax, and no more breathlessness.

My sister Kirstie and her long-time domestic partner Paul picked me up at Heathrow on a surprisingly warm Sunday lunchtime, and immediately informed me that I just had time to take a shower when we reached home before meeting the rest of the family including my cousin Paul and his wife Diane. No objections to sleepless nights and 9-hour jetlag were to be entertained. An hour later we were all tramping through the March countryside with Kirstie's inexhaustible dog, Kim. Mind, my Dad, at the age of 76, has even more energy than the dog. How much further is it, I kept asking. Just around the corner, he'd reply, lying through his teeth, of course.

Back at Kirstie's place, where even the dog was finally tired, we sat and chatted as if we'd known each other all our lives, which, of course, we have. It's surprising how quickly you can slot back into your family. There has been no mood of darkness at all about my mother's death, since everyone felt the relief that she wouldn't suffer any more, and had died peacefully. We joked about my mother's famous sayings, which all of us have adopted and propagated in our own lives: "Eeeh I wouldn't be a sailor today" (when the weather is bad), and "Eeeh, some people have got no arms and legs, you know" (whenever you complained about something. All her sayings begin with "Eeeh".) It turns out, says my Dad and my mom's cousing (who wrote), that most of my mom's sayings actually came from my grandma. Looking round the room at my siblings, it occurred to me that none of my mom's kids were likely to have any children, so the sayings would stop with us.

We talked about football of course. My team, Newcastle United, are having their best season in years, and, since we're all supporters (except that traitor Kirstie who supports Sunderland), we all discussed their prospects for this season. And we talked about the coming war, which may start in the next day or two, and agreed that it was a toss up between Blair and Bush which was the most crazy.

But I was getting increasingly tired. I kept dropping off, but somebody would always mention my name or nudge me back into wakefulness. So I put my jacket over my head, and just drifted off until everybody got ready to leave (the funeral wasn't for another couple of days).

On my second day, today, still jetlagged, I couldn't think of any good reason not to go to London with Paul and my Dad, so that's what I had to do. I was alert and chipper when we met Neil in his new flat on Harley Street, but boy, were my feet dragging as my Dad led us through his customary haunts; Hyde Park, Green Park, St James' Park. At my Dad's mention of a stroll along the Embankment, I demurred and managed to escape home on an early train back to St Albans, where I collapsed in bed for a few hours.

And tomorrow is the funeral, about which I don't know how I'm feeling. We're not an emotionally expressive family, so I'm wondering how it will feel to see them in grief. I don't know. Perhaps there won't be any. I know, though, that my Dad is feeling it, even if he doesn't show it. He won't attend the service at the funeral home, but will, instead, wait outside. It will surely feel real tomorrow. So far, the only time it's truly felt real for me was when I saw my mother's obituary in the Newcastle Evening Chronicle. Seeing her name in the Deaths columns made it real for me, for a moment.