Sue Lodge

Polly Veal Mum on the left with her siblings, Richard, Christine, June and Janet.

Polly Veal I love this photo, I have it in a beautiful antique frame that mum gave me. She looks so cool.

Polly Veal

Polly Veal Mum and Giles

Polly Veal I love this photo of me and Giles with mum, possibly around 1976. She has a caterpillar in one hand a some wild flowers and a field guide in the other. I will always remember her childlike excitement that she never lost when seeing a beautiful beetle or a butterfly 🦋 I'm pretty sure Giles is doing a Tommy Cooper bit ('Just like that!') for some reason. Also check out her and Giles' cool matching trainers!

Polly Veal

Polly Veal

Emily Lodge

rosie lodge Eating beneath the grape vines in Italy!

rosie lodge In the mountains in Switzerland

rosie lodge On our travels in Italy, in front of our home.

rosie lodge Hanging out at Polly and Vealer’s wedding

Emily Lodge Mumma and the family at my wedding.

rosie lodge Christmas 2011 😊

rosie lodge Watching a wriggling baby Luan at Christmas time in our flat in London.

rosie lodge Toasting with Mekella on her 72nd birthday

Emily Lodge Opening presents with Ada and Mumma, Christmas 2017

rosie lodge Holding Willow, her 5th grandchild

rosie lodge Opening presents with Luan at Christmas 2018

Elizabeth Arscott

Elizabeth Arscott

Elizabeth Arscott

Elizabeth Arscott

Elizabeth Arscott

Elizabeth Arscott

Elizabeth Arscott

Elizabeth Arscott

Elizabeth Arscott For over 20 years Sue was such a presence in the life of our family. She is one of the most generous people I have ever known. She understood small children and animals, even dogs which she didn’t like. She was creative and inspiring, teaching our children to make pottery guinea pigs, komodo dragons, horses... She did Halloween like no one else. Our children loved being in her house, eating her cakes. She and I spent hours in art galleries together. She singlehandedly inspired our whole family to go camping, starting with a particularly wet weekend in Gloucestershire together. I will not forget her zest for life, her enthusiasm for Italy, food, art, her enjoyment of her shop and love of her family. I miss my friend, Sue.

Elizabeth Arscott

rosie lodge Sue Lodge died on the 29th April 2020. In keeping with her wishes we did not have a funeral. And so her body has been given up to the air with no witnesses. But many bore witness to her life. Her long and full, adventurous life. Her dreams fulfilled, her passions lived. She cooked, she sewed, she made flowers grow. She hammered, she painted, she made beautiful homes, she created a shop and art gallery, she created exhibitions in her living room, she made hundreds of crumbles, and she built a life of art and home and song and love. And she wrote and she travelled and she saw so many places. And we gazed out over the Tuscan hills, and we travelled around mountain roads, and we ate huge meals of pasta in shaded olive groves, and we slept beneath conifer trees and we sat by the shores of volcanic lakes. And she loved the sun. And she loved the sound of a blackbird singing his heart out, and she loved her Abyssinian cat and her pottery and the Botticellis hanging in the Uffizi gallery, and she made glorious dinner parties where the smell of red wine and olives drifted up the stairs on a wave of laughter, and she sang songs in the morning, and she told us that she loved us one hundred thousand times. And I am sorry that she is missing life as it continues. She did not want to die. She should have had more time. We should have had her in our lives for longer. And in her last days, she smiled so deeply when she saw us. Her lover by her side, my dad, devoted love of her life, whom she swore she could never live without, sat close and talked of Italy. Rosie Lodge, 7th June 2020

Emily Lodge Nancy Sue, Mumma's youngest grandchild. She was born seven months after mumma died so Grandma Sue never got to see Baby Sue, but I know how much she would have loved her. I was able to tell her I was pregnant the week before she died, when we went to see her in the hospital. She couldn't say much and we couldn't always tell if she recognised us or understood what we were saying but she understood when I told her I was two months pregnant and she was delighted.

rosie lodge Black eyed Susan: Mumma loved gardens. She sent me money ‘for tulips and cheese (not wine)’ Gone to the shops (signed with a sunshine) Talking to the wood pigeons (George) Leaving eggs for the fox Froggies and wrigglers, blackbirds and daffs (Not worms, yuck! Not slugs) Teasels and thistles, marjoram and sage. And I wanted to show you my garden. All the yellow flowers are coming out on the forsythia bushes. I have forget-me-nots under the lilac tree, look, primroses and violets, gifts from the birds. I’m planting clematis and honeysuckle around the garden table. I’m painting the table pink (yuck!) I know, but it goes with the clematis and it goes with the sky and it goes with the brick and I remember how much you loved to match the washing on the line. The purple and yellow flowers in the garden, and occasional orange. And your hair with the seasons. And I wanted to show you my house, and I’m trying so hard, It’s beautiful now, I’ve got so many colours and big white framed windows. And upstairs to bed. And I’m making cushion covers and I’m potting plants and I’m going to have geraniums on the window sill. Like Italy. Like Tuscany. Like sunshine and good smells. Like love and home. And I’ve planted a cherry tree outside the living room window. And I wish so much that I could bring you here to see it and to sit down with me next to the jasmine and sing you a song. I’m so sorry you’re not here. I want you to be here. I’m so sorry you’re gone. I wish I could have held your hand. I wish I could have looked after you. I wish I could have smiled with you and told you I loved you. I wish I could have saved you, from going. And when you’re gone, you’re gone. As you said. But Luan thinks that you have become the grass and the flowers and maybe even the sky. I wish I knew. So that I could visit you. You are everything and nothing now. You are gone. And I love you. And I miss you. And I am so sorry. Rosie Lodge 15th March 2021

Polly Veal Every year at Christmas mum would give Rosie, Emily and I an Amaryllis bulb in a pot each. The last one she gave me was the Christmas before last and when it had finished flowering I put it in a paper bag in a cupboard and forgot about it. Last spring when clearing out the cupboard I came across the bag and opened it up to discover it had new leaves beginning to grow so I put it on the windowsill. By the time it was in full bloom mum was in hospital. I was able to show her the beautiful flowers on a video call I did with her. The last flower wilted and died the day that mum passed away. I put the amaryllis bulb back in the cupboard in a paper bag and there it stayed until we packed it up and brought it with us when we moved to our new house at the beginning of March. I rediscovered it again whilst unpacking and to my delight upon opening the bag I discovered it had two new shoots so I put it on the kitchen windowsill and gave it some water. So here it is today looking majestic, the first flower in full bloom and a second waiting to emerge. I think of her every time I look at it, not sadly but with joy, her memory lives on in my amaryllis and in every other beautiful thing in my home that has come from her.

Polly Veal I have so many beautiful vintage objects in my home that Mum has given me over the years and thought it would be nice to share them. I love that I have all these treasures to remember her by 🦋

rosie lodge