My Uncle Doug's favourite place on earth was his greenhouse.

He loved it with a passion men normally reserve for sex, beer and football. You'd always find him in there, summer or winter, potting, planting and pruning.

So The Mother and myself shouldn't have been surprised to hear that the greenhouse is where he's been happily ensconced for the past couple of months . . . except that Doug has been dead since February.

When he died he left my aunt, The Mother's youngest sister, with a rather weighty problem - several pounds of ashes in a large and heavy urn.

It was my aunt's decision to keep Doug's ashes after he was cremated. She didn't want his remains going into a hole in the ground or in a wall.

She had imagined the undertakers would give them to her in a little box, just enough for her to scatter over the garden and outside the door of the pub where he was a respected member of the dominoes team.

Now Doug was a big man but she hadn't really expected to be given ashes weighing as much as a newborn baby. She brought him home in the boot of her car and when 'they' arrived put him on a worktop in the kitchen.

Thinking that this was possibly a bit disrespectful, she moved him into the living room, placing him on a table beside his old armchair, facing the TV, as always.

During the early hours of that morning she thought how lonely he must be, all by himself in the living room, so carried him into the bedroom and put him on the dressing table, where his aftershave still sat.

The next day, when a neighbour called round, she told her that Doug had been with her in the bedroom all night. The woman suggested my aunt might benefit from a spot of counselling to help her come to terms with her grief. She meant well.

So Doug came back to the living room. Then my aunt's youngest grandson, an imaginative six-year-old, came for tea and was transfixed by the urn.

"If I rub it, will grandpa come out of the top like a genie?" he asked my aunt.

At this point she felt that if he'd had a grave to turn in, my uncle would have been spinning like the proverbial top.

Then she remembered the greenhouse and knew she had found a place where Doug could truly RIP away from the prying eyes of nosy neighbours and grandchildren.

And that's where he is and where he will stay, my aunt told us when she arrived for a short holiday last week.

"It's nice having him around again," she told The Mother. "He loved his greenhouse and I know he's happy to be back.

"I talk to him and ask his advice about the plants and at night the cats sleep in there and keep him company."

Now that the weather is warm and sunny my aunt is even planning an outing for my uncle. She hopes to scatter a few of his ashes over his beloved garden when she returns home.

According to her, there's enough to scatter over several National Trust gardens - and still have plenty to spare.

"I do miss him," she told The Mother as we strolled along the seafront at the weekend.

"Of course you do," said The Mother. "He's only been gone a few months."

"No," said my aunt, "I mean I miss having his ashes around. It's almost as if he's there."

I had a great idea. "Tell you what," I said. "He always liked Brighton. Why don't you bring him with you next time you come down?"